The situation that Israel has permitted itself to be drawn into is unparalleled in history. I challenge anybody to give me an example from any period of human history in which a militarily superior force facing a patch of land inhabited by its enemy, and from which rockets are launched at its civilian population, permitted such a situation to go on for more than a year. Not only would this not be tolerated by any country in today's world

We have Islamic Jihad proud and boasting about their intention to kill school children.

(imagine the US tolerating rockets launched from Cuba falling on Key West or launched from Mexico falling on San Diego), but there is no historical precedent to it ever having happened.


What is more, the side which is being attacked continues to provide the people who launch the rockets with electricity and water. But this is not some Monty Python parody - it is the reality of Israel in 2007.


How could this have happened? At the beginning of the school year, Islamic Jihad launched nine rockets at Sderot, one of which landed near a toddlers' daycare center. Islamic Jihad declared that the Kassam rockets were meant as a "gift" for the new school year. Here we have Islamic Jihad proud and boasting about their intention to kill school children. What comment can anyone make about this except to say that the ethics and beliefs of the rocket launchers must be coming from some silicon-based life-forms from another galaxy. On the other hand, why go so far? The name of the organization says it all: Islamic Jihad. They have Islamic jihadi ethics.


We are in this situation because one side is driven by jihadi ethics, which permits killing of school children since they are infidels, while the other side, Israel, is not adequately defending itself out of concern about hurting the enemy's civilian population. Israel worries more about the well-being of the enemy's civilian population than it does about its own. Steps to cut off water and electricity to Gaza are deemed "collective punishment."


The Palestinian count on and exploit the humanity of the Israelis. It is taken into account by them, although not understood. The consequence of the juxtaposition of such conflicting ethics can perhaps best be illustrated by what happened to Buddhists in India, the country where Buddhism was born, in the 6th century BCE. Following Muslim invasions (of Sindh in 712 CE and of Bihar in 1193 CE), by 1200 CE, there were no Buddhists left in India.


All electricity and water has to be cut off from Gaza.



If we do not want the same to happen here, we have to amend our ethical position. We need to worry about ourselves a little more, or else we will become extinct. All electricity and water has to be cut off from Gaza - to be resumed when Hamas guarantees that there will be no more Kassam attacks.


Anyone who considers this measure inappropriate needs to put things in perspective and remember how the United Kingdom responded to the V1 and V2 bombing of its cities at the end of World War II, and what happened to the city of Dresden.


As Moshe Ya'alon wrote in a recent opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times and the Jerusalem Post, "The Mideast conflict is not territorial, but ideological. And ideology cannot be defeated by concessions."