HAMAS TAKEOVER GIVES IDF EASIER TARGETS

Hamas Takeover in Gaza Makes Defining Targets Easier for IDF - Yaakov Katz
Some Israeli defense officials said there was reason to be thankful for Hamas' takeover of Gaza. Prior to this, Israel had to distinguish between Fatah and Hamas gunmen in Gaza and make sure that Abbas loyalists were not targeted. Now, all gunmen are Hamas and therefore fair game. "The bank of targets has grown tremendously with Hamas' takeover," explained one official involved in planning policy in Gaza. "Hamas is a clear and defined enemy, and that means that when we decide to respond it will be easier than before, since all their buildings are now targets, as is anyone walking around with a weapon."

Hamas operatives man roadblocks throughout Gaza with laptops that contain lists of Fatah officials, supporters and families. Anyone found on the list is either executed or severely beaten. Hamas' brutality was demonstrated on Wednesday when it raided Shati in central Gaza and rounded up female members of the Baker clan, known Fatah supporters. Hamas gunmen executed three of them, aged 13, 19 and 75.

Regarding proposals to send a multinational force into Gaza, the assumption in Israel's defense establishment is that no European country would be willing to send troops unless Hamas supported the idea. (Jerusalem Post)

The bad (and good) news from Gaza By Jonathan Kay (Political Mavens)
There are three pieces of good news to come out of Hamas’ victory in Gaza’s quasi-civil war.

First, now that one side has prevailed, perhaps the bloodshed will stop, and people in the densely populated Palestinian territory can return to some kind of regular civic life. The violence in recent days has reached sickening proportions — with men being thrown off buildings, and machine-gunned in front of their loved ones. Even by Palestinian standards, this is appalling stuff. (If the Israelis were even half as brutal in their counter-terrorist operations in the West Bank and Gaza, one can only imagine how the world would react.)

Second, the strategic situation now has been clarified. With Hamas definitively in charge, there will be nothing to prevent Israel from striking back vigorously against unprovoked rocket and terrorist attacks launched from Gaza. In recent months, the military value of such attacks had to be weighed against the possibility of tipping the scales of Palestinian public opinion toward Hamas and away from Fatah. Now, the dynamic is simple: If Hamas continues to attack Israel, its fighters will be targeted and killed by commandos and armed drones. By seizing complete power in Gaza, Hamas has simultaneously made itself more powerful and more vulnerable: Having your own state means having a return address for incoming fire.

Third, the total domination of Gaza by an Islamist terrorist group that endorses terror, refuses to recognize Israel, and embraces all of those charmingly Medieval Taliban-like views on women and homosexuals will put an end to calls from Europe — and perhaps even from the Arab world — for Israel to immediately remove its troops from the larger and more strategically important West Bank. The examples of Gaza, Iraq and Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon show what the West Bank would look like without the Israeli Defense Forces keeping a lid on violence. A terrorist-run WestBankistan would be a threat to not only Israel, but also Jordan and perhaps even Syria as well.

And now the bad news: Hamas is formally dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Its leaders are mostly hotheads who lack the cynical (but useful) realism of embattled Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas has smuggled heavy weapons into Gaza through Egypt, and is hoping to draw the Jewish state into the sort of bloody, inconclusive warfare that broke out in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah. Till now, Hamas’ fighters have been kept busy fighting Fatah. Now, they will have no one to fight but the Israelis.