(Bloomberg) Jeffrey Goldberg - Much of the world suffers from a kind of Hamas-specific amnesia, in which the group's past deeds (hundreds of murdered Israelis) and extreme goals are forgotten as soon as they are learned. The tunnels give me real pause. It's hard enough to imagine a situation in which your neighbors are quite intentionally trying to blow up your house and kill your children with rockets. But Hamas' well-developed kidnapping strategy with handcuffs and tranquilizers at the ready represents a whole other category of depravity. The core depravity of Hamas is its longstanding policy of treating every Jew as a target for elimination. What would you want your government to do if your enemy was digging tunnels under your village, in order to pop out at night to kill or kidnap you? Could you imagine taking the risk that members of your family might be seized, dragged underground, handcuffed and tranquilized, and then held in the dark, perhaps for years? Hamas terrorists have recently emerged from these tunnels inside Israel multiple times. This is not a theoretical threat. This is why Israelis appear adamant that any cease-fire must eradicate the threat of these kidnapping tunnels, at a minimum. Israel must ensure that its citizens aren't kidnapped and murdered by a group that seeks not an equitable two-state solution but the annihilation of their country.
2014-07-28 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive