Will The Real Terrorists Please Crouch Down Behind Their Wives and Children?

“Israel Is the Real Terrorist” reads the gigantic banner draped from the large jewelry discounter on the corner of Schaefer and Michigan in Dearborn.

That’s one opinion. Obviously, the store owner is sincere. The message is logical, I suppose, depending on how you define “terrorism.”

If you define terrorism as possessing a first-class military armed with state-of-the-art weapons, that are deployed so carefully, only in self-defense and after years and years of provocation --and even with timeouts to ship humanitarian supplies into enemy territory--so carefully that after two weeks civilian deaths have not even reached 500--and that’s in spite of every effort by the enemy fighters to use the population as shields and bloody lambs sacrificed to the deities at CNN--then yes, Israel is the real terrorist.

Israel’s actions are not how I define terrorism, so I’m not persuaded.

Pat Buchanan recently said Israel was waging a “Blitzkrieg” on Gaza, a preposterous comparison with the Third Reich’s invasion of Poland in 1939. It's the worst understatement to say there's no comparison, even as a military operation.

In the 28 days of the German Blitzkrieg invasion, Polish forces suffered 68,000 dead, and hundreds of thousands captured or wounded. Civilian deaths reached 26,000. The Nazis literally were trying to destroy Poland as part of their war aim, and in their racial insanity they despised Poles as subhuman, and consequently regarded Polish lives as having no value. The German invaders held nothing back because they didn’t care who they killed. There were no timeouts to send in humanitarian aid. There were no talks of a cease-fire. And the Polish defenders were not deliberately increasing casualties by using their wives and children as shields, nor firing their weapons from populated areas to draw down German fire on their civilian population.

Considering Israel has the most powerful land, sea, and air forces in the Middle East, and nuclear weapons, I’d say this is a piss poor Blitzkrieg. Does anyone, anyone, anywhere, seriously believe that if Israel set it's mind to destroying Palestinians there would be only 850 dead after two weeks?!!!

Anyway, I'm not convinced.

Now, if you define terrorism as holding a million and a half people hostage so you can pursue your implacable religious mission to attack your neighbor’s civilian population until you and your countrymen, wives, and children are suffering a thousand times the casualties that you can ever hope to inflict--and you don't give a goddamn and hope for more deaths, not fewer, because it serves your strategic purpose--then I would say Hamas are the terrorists.

If you define terrorism as being sworn to the existential elimination of an entire people (Jews) because your insane god can’t stand the idea of giving back territory he has stolen, or sharing it with anyone of another religion, then I would say Hamas are the terrorists.

If you define terrorism as deliberately waging war on a civilian population without regard for life in order to achieve your political aims by any means necessary, then I would say Hamas are the terrorists.

But that’s one opinion. It’s all in how you define it.