Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal: Israel Can End the Kassams, But It's Too Moral

The Sderot Mayor spoke to a packed house at Yale University this evening. He made a clear contrast between Israel and Gaza. Actually, that's a gross understatement, since there's absolutely no comparison.

His message was somewhat repetitious, of necessity since the situation is pretty simple: Israel completely withdrew from Gaza, has absolutely no interest in going back, but the terrorists from there insist on pelting the innocent civilians in Sderot with Kassam rockets.

Israel absolutely has the power and the ability to stop the bombardment, but it requires actions which Israel, because of its moral compass, has been unwilling to take.

Moyal is confident that Israel will, ultimately, end the terror attacks on Sderot. He does not view the Palestinian Arabs as responsible; he views the terrorists, including not only Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other Palestinian Arab terror groups, but also outside groups such as Hezbollah and al Qaeda. The problem is not just Israel's but the entire free world's and it will be a disaster for the free world if Israel doesn't prevail.

One person from the audience questioned Moyal on his insistence on not blaming the Palestinian Arabs, repeatedly reminding him they freely voted for Hams. (She did not point out that Fatah is also a terror group and the rocket attacks from Gaza went on for more than half a decade while Fatah was in charge.)

One Israeli in the audience kept asking whether Israel had done absolutely everything possible to bring about peace, as if Israel hadn't completely withdrawn from Gaza and hadn't offered to give the Arabs almost all the disputed territories. Giving the Palestinian Arabs far too much credit, Moyal responded that Israel wasn't perfect, but Israel has clearly tried much harder and done much more to achieve peace than had the Palestinian Arabs.

And one person in the audience, apparently a visitor from another planet, seemed to feel the solution lies with the establishment of small schools on the border in which students will be taught other languages, such as French and English. As Jack Paar would have said, I kid you not.

The first responsibility of a government is the protection of its citizens. No other nation in the world would have allowed its citizens to be attacked by rockets for two weeks, no less seven years.