I told you so….

Don’t you hate people who say “I told you so”? I do, unless I’m the one saying it. This time, I’m saying it regarding the Israeli troops massed on the Gaza border. But let me back up a bit….

Last night, Mr. Bookworm, who reads only the NY Times, asked me “What the heck are the Israelis doing?” He was not pleased. My response was that the kidnapping served only as an excuse to do what the Israelis intended to do ever since Sharon withdrew the settlers and gave the Palestinians a state: they’re attacking a sovereign state. The “I told you so” in all of this is that, last year, when Sharon began the disengagement, I said (and wrote) that disengagement was a good idea because it gave Israel a sovereign state against which to act. Before, Israel had been waging war on her own territories and the world had castigated her for attacking the victims of her own imperialism. By withdrawing, Israel created a nice, bright line. The Palestinians are now governing themselves and, like any government, must abide by the consequences of their actions.

That Israel was right in the withdrawal (and that she was correct in her assessment that it made military actions easier, not harder) is evidenced, I think, by the surprising fact that the NY Times has actually blamed the Palestinians, not the Israelis, for the looming military action:

The Palestinians who futilely threw up sand berms on Gaza’s main roads to deflect Israeli troop movements were building their defenses in the wrong direction. The responsibility for this latest escalation rests squarely with Hamas, whose military wing tunneled into Israel on Sunday, killed two Israeli soldiers and kidnapped another. This was a follow-up to a declaration earlier this month by Hamas’s political leadership that the group’s 16-month intermittent cease-fire would no longer be observed.  [Emphasis mine.]

As Clarice Feldman, writing at the American Thinker, says, “Maybe Pinch and Keller are both on vacation.”