Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Israel expands threat of military action to Syria

Damascus in particular, where an exiled Hamas leader has found refuge.

Scotsman - ISRAELI artillery and warships pounded the northern Gaza Strip last night as Israel began transforming an operation to rescue an abducted army corporal into a wider military adventure reverberating as far away as Syria.

[...] Haim Ramon, the Israeli justice minister, said that Khaled Mashaal, the Damascus-based chief of Hamas's political bureau, "as someone overseeing, actually commanding the terror acts is definitely a target".


It's interesting I had just heard that a course of action that was more specifically aimed at Hamas' leadership was viewed as a more effective deterrent than a broad invasion of Gaza by many Israelis. Dennis Prager had a guest this morning (who's name eludes me at the moment) who said that many in Israel felt that a few days after an invasion of Gaza, the mission to rescue Cpl. Shalit would be forgotten and Israel would once again be labelled as the evil occupying opressor by the world, once again blamed for the imaginary slaughter of hundreds if not thousands of innocent Palestinians. On the other hand a precision strike that takes Mashaal out(Mashaal was specifically singled out), could be just as effective as an invasion into Gaza, without the negative publicity.

I can see his point, but I still have to think that negative publicity is going to happen either way, so why not do both? Take out Mashaal, that scares the pants off Syria, and invade Gaza killing any Hamas terrorists in the way.