Krauthammer on Gaza, the Palestinians and Israel

In an article carried in yesterday's Irish Times (Washington Post version: here), Charles Krauthammer wrote about the deaths of the Palestinian civilians on Gaza beach last Friday week. Media reports - and the Palestinian leadership - blamed an Israeli shell for the explosion. An Israeli military investigation found it was not its fault. But Krauthammer asks a broader question: Why on earth are the Israelis firing rockets into Gaza at all? Remember what Israel did just last August:

"It completely evacuated Gaza, dismantled all its military nstallations, removed its soldiers, destroyed all Israeli settlements and expelled all 7,000 Israeli settlers. Israel then declared the line that separates Israel from Gaza to be an international frontier. Gaza became the first independent Palestinian territory ever."

And now, writes Krauthammer, rockets are being fired into (pre-1967) Israel from Gaza, at a rate of perhaps a thousand since the start of this year. What happened to land for peace? And these rockets are often fired at Israeli civilian targets by persons - whether under the control of Fatah or Hamas or neither - who hide among civilian populations. Israel must respond; it must defend itself. If those who seek to attack its civilian population hide among civilians, incidents like last Friday week's are made all the more likely, if that incident was indeed Israel's fault.