That is what the Times Online is reporting (via Power Line)
ISRAEL’s new defence minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there.
According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas’s military capability in days.
The raid would be triggered by Hamas rocket attacks against Israel or a resumption of suicide bombings.
This could very well be a report designed to attempt to warm Hamas off, judging by the third paragraph, which is almost contradictory to the first. Of course, as the story points out, an attack by Hamas is almost unavoidable.
John at Power Line writes
Left unsaid is what Israel might do with Gaza if it is able to quell Hamas there. Re-occupy the strip? Turn it over to Fatah once again? The options don’t seem attractive.
While I agree, I think a bigger question is being missed: what will all the Israel hating leftists around the world do with this information? Give a few weeks, they can muster plenty of anti-Israel sentiment, culminating with petitions and protests, similar to their "stop war with Iran NOW" campaign.
While peace is certainly preferred, giving in, and giving up, to people who do not share our values, who find human life to be worthless (at least other people’s lives), who are stuck in a 14th century barbarism, is ill advised. Refusing to acknowledge a threat, and take action when necessary, led to World War II, the Cold War, 50+ years of two Korea’s, and a China who, as Chinese are want to do, taking the long view in world domination. They should have been smacked, and smacked hard, when they sent 600K troops across the borders of North Korea.
Ask Chamberlain how his appeasement worked out. Or 6 million Jews. Millions of Christians, Gypsy’s, Hungarians, Russians, Americans, and so on, how a simple appeasement worked.
