I wish I had some aeroplanes

So that I could use them to drop some bombs on edgrimly's apartment and not be a terrorist. I was reading today in the NYT that Israel has bombed the house of a Hamas leader and killed him along with 6 of his family members, 4 of them children.

The Israeli air force on Thursday afternoon bombed the house of Nizar Rayyan, a senior Hamas leader, killing him along with two of his wives and four children, Palestinian hospital officials said. Mr. Rayyan was the first high ranking Hamas figure killed so far in the Israeli campaign.

Of course, this shouldn't be misunderstood as bombing of civilian areas, since he was a high ranking member of Hamas and a very bad man, as the next paragraph explains.

The Israeli military confirmed the strike and described Mr. Rayyan, who was 46 and lived in Jabaliya, north of Gaza City, as an extremist who had helped plan suicide bombings and had sent his own son on a suicide mission in 2001.

As you can see, it is clear that this was a military target, as evidenced by use of the words extremist and suicide mission. After all, only an extremist would order suicide bombings that kill innocent civilians. We know that Israel is to civilized a country to do anything resembling what those extremist barbarians do.

In Gaza, medical officials said the number of Palestinians killed in the Israeli bombardment had reached 400. While many of the dead were Hamas security personnel, the United Nations said a quarter of those killed were civilians. Israeli officials have put the number of Palestinian civilians killed at closer to one in ten.

I guess the ratio is in dispute somewhat, the only specific numbers given here are for the attack that killed the Hamas leader, and it had a ratio of civilians killed at about 6 out of 7. But again since it killed such a bad man it was probably justified and I am sure that the others had ratios skewed much higher in the other direction. Just to remind you again how bad he was,

In Gaza, Mr. Rayyan was known as an influential figure in the military wing of Hamas, particularly in the north of Gaza, and as someone who extolled and championed the idea of martyrdom.

What further proof do you need that this was a savage that needed to be taken out? He championed martyrdom. Everyone knows that civilized people use more sophisticated and expensive weaponry to make it less likely that they themselves die when they are killing others.

Civilized people do not do things like launch small rockets indiscriminately at whatever is within range. As George W Bush knows, and changed his final (i would hope, with less than a month left) vacation to a 'working vacation' by making a phone call to Ehud Olmert from Crawford to tell him so, these rockets really are the dealbreaker. They are the whole reason this whole thing is going on, similar to his take on the Israel-Lebanon conflict a few years ago. These terrorists are launching rockets at Israeli civilians, and that has to stop before the bombing and blockade will let up. Listen to how horrible these rockets are making daily life for Israelis trying to go about their business:

For its part, Hamas continued to fire rockets into southern Israel, hitting an eight-story apartment building in the port city of Ashdod at noon on Thursday, causing extensive damage but no serious injuries.

Compare that to the civilized and humanitarian conscientious actions of the Israeli govt. in the aforementioned air campaign or in their trade and travel blockade:

Israel on Wednesday rejected a proposal by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France for a 48-hour lull in fighting for humanitarian purposes. An Israeli official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the French proposal, called it “unrealistic,” “hasty” and bordering on “offensive,” saying that Israel was already allowing humanitarian supplies into Gaza every day.

The sentiment was echoed by Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, who recently did an interview on Meet the Press. Only wackos like Jimmy Carter disagree. If people like him would just give Israel some time and stop harping on about war crimes and humanitarian crises, it will all be worth it in the end, when victory is achieved and there is a ticker-tape parade:

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday in Sderot, an Israeli town near the border with Gaza that has been targeted by Palestinian rocket attacks for years, Ms. Livni appealed to the international community to give their support to Israel and to give Israel time, “so that at the end of this military operation, the outcome will be victory for those who believe in our values.”

It is all about shared values coming out on top in the end. Values that the international community shares withi Israel. Those without those values, those who would do things like firing rockets into the town I am in now, need to be defeated. The barbarity of the rocket attacks is evident:

Israel’s stated goal for its military operation is to halt the rocket fire from Gaza and to create a new security equation in southern Israel, where three civilians and a soldier have been killed in rocket attacks in the last six days.

Those with those values need to be given some short leeway, so that they can be victorious where those values can flourish once and for all time. Those with those values are clearly more civilized and who would only relectantly and temporarily bomb Gaza killing 400 Palestinians or blockade food shipments and travel.

Israel stepped up its diplomatic activity on Thursday, possibly to try to gain more time for its rolling military offensive against Hamas in Gaza while keeping up airstrikes against the radical Islamic group’s infrastructure for a sixth day.

How much time should be given and how temporary will it be?

But as she left for Paris on Thursday, Ms. Livni told Israel Radio that Israel would not agree to a cease-fire at this point and would continue with its military operation, the radio said. The radio cited Ms. Livni as saying “This is not a short battle and it is not a single battle, and we have long-range goals.”


Update: The article had some revisions made to it after I wrote this so some of the quotes will be a little bit different.