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Originally published Wednesday, December 31, 2008 at 3:55 PM

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Editorial

Rockets from Gaza have exhausted Israel's patience

Israel is ready to invade the Gaza Strip after losing patience with Palestinian rockets. If Arab neighbors and the rest of the world is shocked, they have done nothing to intercede or broker peace.

TWO key Israeli figures, hardly knee-jerk hawks, have lost all patience with the Palestinian rockets falling on Israeli cities.

Consider the words of Israeli President Shimon Peres, respected and scorned as the enduring symbol of peace-seeking liberals:

"It is the first time in the history of Israel that we, the Israelis, cannot understand the motives or the purposes of the ones who are shooting at us. It is the most unreasonable war, done by the most unreasonable warriors."

Israel Defense Forces are massed along the border of the Gaza Strip, ready to plunge into territory the Israelis annexed in 1967, held for decades and then abandoned and uprooted settlements at great financial and political costs in Israel.

The current Israeli defense minister is Ehud Barak, a former general and prime minister who was on the cusp of signing a peace agreement in 2000 with the Palestinians, until the late Yasser Arafat lost his nerve.

Hamas, both a ruling political party and resistance movement, is the primary irritant to the festering wound that is Gaza.

Reviled by political rivals in the Palestinian parliament and despised by neighboring Egypt, Hamas is an open surrogate for Iran.

In response to the rockets, Israel imposed a harsh economic blockade, and Hamas still attacked rather than relent for the welfare of its own.

As the rest of the world has averted its eyes and been mute, Israel chose to act, and not as the bully.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

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Comments
squirl033, "What would you do, if say, the Tulalip Indians started lobbing rockets into your neighborhood from locations on the...  Posted on January 1, 2009 at 10:18 AM by iatoluso. Jump to comment
What would you have chosen, live like caged animals or fight?  Posted on January 1, 2009 at 4:23 PM by ktula. Jump to comment
The former US ambassador to Jordan, Richard N. Veit, stated recently that the US is complicit in the Israeli oppression of Gaza. Let us keep in...  Posted on January 1, 2009 at 10:56 AM by Garvagh. Jump to comment

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