What Shall We Call the Next Gazan Operation?

Michael L.

Whatever semi-non-ceasefires that may have briefly been in place are now concluded.

From Y-Net we learn:

At least four people were killed, while at least six others were wounded, some critically, by mortar fire on Eshkol near the Gaza border early Monday evening.

At 12:40 pm on Monday the unofficial ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was broken when Code Red sirens blared in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council as four rockets were fired from Gaza. It was reported that the rockets fell within the Gaza Strip.

Why do I get the feeling that "Operation Protective Edge" is not going quite as planned?  In the mean time, the Obama administration, the European Union, the United Nations, and my neighbor's dog, Harvey, are demanding an immediate ceasefire out of the humanitarian necessity of allowing Hamas to recover and rearm.

I have little faith that Netanyahu has the strength to do what is necessary... if by "what is necessary" we mean the elimination of Hamas as a functioning organization in the Gaza Strip.  It is vital and necessary to destroy the rocket infrastructure embedded in Gazan daily life and it is vital and necessary to destroy those insidious terror tunnels and I could not be happier to see the Netanyahu government engaged in those tasks.

But it is also vital and necessary to eliminate Hamas.

I understand that people might say, "Hey man, you're sitting there in your safe and comfortable perch in the Oakland foothills.  You have no actual skin in the game so, perhaps, you should STFU and leave it to the Israelis."

That's fair enough and if I thought for one second that I had even the merest breath of influence over anything that Israel does, the argument would have considerably more weight.  As it is, however, I do not.

Nonetheless, even if I am wrong to publicly call for the elimination of Hamas as a functioning organization in the Gaza Strip - because I will not have to bare the consequences of such an operation - does it not remain true that Hamas' continuity will result, yet again, in a repeat of the conflict in the not too distant future?

In 2008 there was the weirdly translated Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

In 2012 there was Operation Pillar of Defense in the Gaza Strip.

In 2014 we have the even more weirdly translated Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip.

I say that we start up a contest to see who will come closest to naming the next Gazan operation in, say, 2016 or 2017.

Heck, we can do this all century if people insist upon it.

{I recommend against, however.}