Commentary on Gaza from Amira Hass, from Haaretz

HOW WE LIKE OUR LEADERS

By Amira Hass, Israeli journalist
www.haaretz.com

Who is Amira Hass?

For those quick to label criticism of Israeli military offensives
"anti-Semitic," with little recognition of the Jews' special
suffering during World War II, consider this: Hass is not only an
Israeli but both of her parents are Holocaust camp survivors. Yet
she has gone on to become the most prominent Israeli journalist to
make it her mission to report as often as possible from Gaza and
the West Bank - breaking bans and earning the wrath of both Israeli
and Palestinian officials. She earned headlines in this regard just
in the past month.

Hass was born in Jerusalem, and studied the history of Nazism at
Hebrew University. She joined Haaretz in 1989 and began living
nearly fulltime in Gaza or Ramallah starting in 1993. She earned
the Press Freedom Hero award from the International Press Institute
in 2000, among other international journalism prizes. She now lives
in Ramallah.

Earlier this year, now a regular Haaretz columnist, Hass traveled
to Gaza by boat to demonstrate her opposition to the Israeli
blockade. On December 1, she was ordered to leave by Hamas, and
arrested by Israeli police on her return to Israel."


HOW WE LIKE OUR LEADERS

This isn't the time to speak of ethics, but of precise
intelligence. Whoever gave the instructions to send 100 of our
planes, piloted by the best of our boys, to bomb and strafe enemy
targets in Gaza is familiar with the many schools adjacent to those
targets - especially police stations. He also knew that at exactly
11:30 A.M. on Saturday, during the surprise assault on the enemy,
all the children of the Strip would be in the streets - half just
having finished the morning shift at school, the others en route to
the afternoon shift.

This is not the time to speak of proportional responses, not even
of the polls that promise a greater share of Knesset seats to the
mission's architects. This is, however, the time to speak of the
voters' belief the operation will succeed, that the strikes are
precise and the targets justified.

Take, for example, Imad Aqel Mosque in Jabalya refugee camp, bombed
and strafed shortly before midnight on Sunday. These are the names
of the glorious military victory we achieved there - Jawaher, age
4; Dina, age 8; Sahar, age 12; Ikram, age 14; and Tahrir, age 17,
all sisters of the Ba'lousha family, all killed in a "precise"
strike on the mosque. Another three sisters, a 2-year-old brother
and their parents were injured. Twenty-four neighbors were wounded
and five homes and three stores destroyed. This part of the
military victory did not open our television or radio news
broadcasts yesterday morning, nor did they appear on many Israeli
news Web sites.

This is the time to speak about the detailed maps in the hands of
IDF commanders, and about the Shin Bet advisers who know the exact
distance between the mosque and nearby homes. This is the time to
discuss the drone planes and the hot air balloons fitted with
advanced cameras floating over the Strip day and night, filming
everything.

This is the time to rely on legal advisers studying the operation
to find the right phrasing to justify "collateral damage." Time to
praise Foreign Ministry spokespeople who in their polished
language, with their elegant South African or charmant Parisien
accents, say it is the fault of Hamas, which uses neighborhood
mosques for its own purposes.

Talk of double standards has always been moot. Maybe there was a
huge weapons store in the mosque. Maybe Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades
militants met there every night and from there planned to launch
their upgraded fighter jets.

Where does the IDF Chief of Staff sit when he draws up war plans?
Not in the Sahara, or even in the Negev. What would happen if
someone blew themselves up at the entrance to Tel Aviv's
Cinematheque movie theater, and those who sent him said sorry, but
he was headed for the Defense Ministry down the street?

This is not the time to recall long-forgotten history lessons to
say this is not the way to topple a government. Nor is it the time
to make rational recommendations for balanced statesmanship. The
time for such things has passed, along with the New Order we once
arrogantly tried to establish in Lebanon, which only brought us
Hezbollah. Along with the Orientalists' plans to reduce the
popularity of the PLO, which only paved the way for the emergence
of a militant Islamic nationalist movement.

The time of such recommendations has passed, along with the grab of
Palestinian lands and hyperactive construction of settlements in
the Oslo era, which only laid the cornerstone for the second
intifada and the fall of Fatah.

The era of reason and judgment died long ago, even before the
targeted assassinations of Fatah activists in the West Bank, which
soon turned into shooting attacks on soldiers and the emergence of
another few thousand young people taking up arms, not to mention
the phenomenon of suicide bombers.

It is never the right time to say "we told you so," because once it
is possible to say those words, they are already invalid. We cannot
revive the dead, nor repair the damage caused by arrogance and
megalomania.

This is the time to speak of our own satisfaction and enjoyment.
Satisfaction from tanks once again raising and lowering their
barrels in preparation for a ground attack, satisfaction from our
leaders' threatening finger-waving at the enemy. That's how we like
our leaders - calling up reservists, sending pilots to bomb our
enemies and manifesting national unity, from Baruch Marzel to Tzipi
Livni, Netanyahu to Barak to Lieberman.