There is a man named Yoni Tidi who has a blog called YoniTheBlogger.com.  He was born and raised in America, but moved to Israel as a young adult.  He served in the IDF for twenty years and has fought in Gaza.  He was interviewed on the Hugh Hewitt show on Tuesday, January 6.  The link to the podcast is Hugh Hewitt podcasts.  It’s the second hour of the show and I am not sure how long the link will be active.  Anyway, his perspective on the war in Gaza is different than anything I have heard so far, and I wanted to share it.

Yoni opposes warning terrorists ahead of time that you are going to bomb them.  There have been polls taken within the Palestinian territories by Palestinians showing the 67 to 80 per cent of the residents support the firing of rockets into Israel.  Why do you show mercy to a society that is that warped?  He also states that the victory of Israel is the only way to peace–that is, the only way Hamas will stop firing rockets into Israel.  He points out that he does not feel that the mission of Israel is well defined–what is their actual goal? 

There were two other facts he mentioned that I have not heard.  The first was that there is war going on between Hamas and Fatah (both terrorist groups).  In Gaza, Hamas is murdering Fatah, and in the West Bank, Fatah is murdering Hamas.  Neither group is interested in peaceful co-existence either with Israel or each other.  The second fact was the reporting of an incident at the Gaza-Egypt border last week.  Some Palestinians blew a hole in the border wall, and as they came through, the Egyptian border guards machine gunned them down.  Where was the reporting of that incident?  Evidently it’s ok for Arabs to kill Arabs and its ok for Arabs to kill Jews, but it’s not ok for Jews to kill Arabs.  Go figure.

Anyway, a cease fire is not the answer unless it permanently stops the firing of rockets into Israel.  Otherwise it isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.  Remember that part of the Oslo Accord was that Israel would give up land in exchange for peace.  Israel gave up the land, where is the peace?