Disambiguation. . .

(Disambiguation. . .)

In this day and age, clarity is important. Let there be no confusion as where people stand. This morning, a week after atrocity was inflected on the Israeli people whose only crime was being Israeli, Hamas militants entered Jewish territory and committed un-speakable acts. These Pages condemn those actions and anybody else who is otherwise is in support of Hamas or finds the murder of children acceptable. So, let there be no mis-understanding. There is nothing heroic about Hamas. There is nothing noble about Hamas. Give any punk a Kalashnikov but he still remains a punk.

A lot of these "punks" will be dead in the coming days. However, the main attack has yet to materialize and there could be several explanations, one of which was the weather. One can hope it is not cold feet. In all previous episodes of the Arab-Israeli conflicts humanitarian concerns have intervened to a point before the mission was completed. Now, it is all the hostages, Israeli and American, that will be caught in the cross-fire, and says nothing of all the innocent Palestinian civilians that Hamas is, for all intents and purposes, using as human shields.

So, in any full scale offensive, significant collateral damage will be incurred. And, this will not be a fast process. This operation, assuming the IDF plan is to push to the Egypt border and attrit Hamas the whole way.  There is a honeycomb of tunnels (like on Iwo Jima) and Gaza is an urbanized environment (like at Stalingrad). Iwo took weeks with Marines rooting Japanese from those tunnels. It took the Soviets two and a half months to induce the Germans at Stalingrad to finally surrender.

But, the question for Jerusalem is how long Israel will have the support of those it needs ? Despite a second carrier deployment into the Eastern Mediterranean a considerable show of force but if there is un-willingness to use that force, and there is at the White House, then a return to port might be in order. Unless one is looking for more decisive action. Israel will need to be re-supplied, mainly expendables. But if there are cold feet somewhere, like President Biden trying to suggest Iran is not involved with all evidence to the contrary, and such support is not forthcoming, then the Jewish State will have to proceed with limited options. And one of those would be a nuclear weapon.

But that point has not yet been reached but Israel is isolated and there are equal numbers of those who would just as easily wish or the country's destruction as its preservation. Israel is the determinant of its destiny and not since the days of the Kingdom has that been more relevant. Israel will either survive or it will not. And no one from Tehran to Washington will change that.

Just to be clear.