Israel's actions are lawful and commendable

Israel's military actions in Gaza are entirely justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its act of self-defense against international terrorism. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reserves to every nation the right to engage in self-defense against armed attacks. The only limitation international law places on a democracy is that its actions must satisfy the principle of proportionality. Israel's actions certainly satisfy that principles.

When Barack Obama visited the city of Sderot this summer, he saw the same things that I had seen during my visit on March 20 of this year. Over the last four years, Palestinian terrorists - in particular, Hamas and Islamic Jihad - have fired more than two thousand rockets at this civilian area, which is home to mostly poor and working-class people. The rockets are designed exclusively to maximize civilian deaths, and some have barely missed schoolyards, kindergartens, hospitals, and school buses. But others hit their targets, killing more than a dozen civilians since 2001, including in February 2008 a father of four who had been studying at the local university. These anticivilian rockets have also injured and traumatized countless children.

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Democrats diss Jimmy Carter

It has long been traditional for living ex-presidents to be invited to address their party's quadrennial convention during presidential election years. The fact that Jimmy Carter was not invited to give the traditional address was no accident. Nor is it true, as Jimmy Carter has falsely claimed, that it was he who made the decision not to speak to the convention. The Democratic Party, and its leaders, made a deliberate decision not to invite Jimmy Carter precisely because they so fundamentally disagree with the bigotry toward Israel and its Jewish supporters that he displayed both in his mendacious book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and in his subsequent television appearances. They decided that they, as a party, did not want to be associated with Jimmy Carter's despicable views. This took courage, more courage than the Republican Party showed in 1992 when they invited Pat Buchanan, to deliver a prime time speech at their convention. 

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Hamas has declared war on Israel - how should Israel respond?

Article 51 of the United Nations Charter guarantees its members "the inherent right to...individual self defense" against "an armed attack." In January 2006, Hamas was elected to govern the Palestinian Authority. After Israel ended its occupation of Gaza and removed all of its settlers, Hamas threw the Palestinian Authority out of the Gaza and assumed de facto as well as de jure control over the entire Gaza Strip. Its leaders then instructed its military wing to direct rockets at civilian targets in southern Israel. At first these rockets were Kassams with a relatively short range. Now they include Katyushas, which can reach Israel's large cities, including Ashkelon, with its population of 120,000 civilians. Hamas has officially declared that its policy is to develop or smuggle even longer range missiles capable of reaching Israel's largest city Tel Aviv and its lifeblood, Ben Gurion Airport. It has promised to keep aiming its missiles at civilian targets until the Jewish state is finally destroyed.

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