[Guardian-UK] Carlo Strenger - The Gaza military operation has created a curious phenomenon in Israel. The country was united in a consensus that there was no choice. Even the most liberal among us felt Hamas had put Israel in a situation that no sovereign country could tolerate. This was not just because of the rocket attacks. Hamas' stated long-term goal is a war of attrition with the explicit objective of destroying Israel. Peace is not within Hamas' vocabulary. Israelis are united in the conviction that Hamas' hopes to vanquish Israel must be shattered. Israel must destroy the illusion that it can be wiped off the earth. This was one of the goals of the attack on Gaza. Israel is united by disdain for Hamas because it does not value the lives of its own children enough to avoid sacrificing them for political gain. Hamas has changed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from something that can be solved, to a clash defined by the principle that only one side can survive - critics cannot expect Israel to accept this simply because it is the stronger side. The writer is a professor of psychology at Tel Aviv University.
2009-01-09 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive