Sharon's Plan

It seems that Ariel Sharon has had enough and is (finally) willing to go all the way in terms of stopping the daily rocket attacks on Israelis.

Sharon demanded that the IDF deploy artillery to shell targets in the Gaza Strip, including in towns and villages, as long as Hamas continued to launch Qassam rockets or mortars at Israeli communities. He adopted a blatant eye-for-an-eye approach - to pay the Palestinians in kind, but with much more and much deadlier force. He also spoke of the need to move large forces into the northern Strip.

I hope that this is Sharon's real intention, and not just a press release put out to mollify the residents of Sderot and the Jewish communities in Gaza. As I have said before, there will not be peace until the Palestinians are, and understand that they are, fully defeated. The inability and unwillingness of Israel to admit that the Palestinians have been waging a war, and to respond accordingly has dragged out the situation much longer than it should have ever gone on.