What makes it so obvious that europe is dying?

'Israel's Supposed Victory Is Really a Defeat'

Israel and Hamas individually called truces over the weekend, bringing a fragile cease-fire to the Gaza Strip. German commentators ask what Israel actually achieved with its three-week offensive.

Hamas for its part claimed that Israel had failed to achieve its war aims. "God has granted us a great victory, not for one faction, or party, or area, but for our entire people," said the top Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, in a televised speech. "Do whatever you want. Manufacturing the holy weapons is our mission and we know how to acquire weapons," Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, told a news conference Monday.

Commentators writing in Germany's main papers Monday were split over what Israel had achieved during the offensive and how to move forward.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"What has Israel's offensive actually achieved, apart from more than 1,300 people dead, more than 5,300 wounded, and some relatively unproductive crisis diplomacy?
"Hamas has survived the war. It exists, and it is here to stay. Therefore, it is essential that an easing of the Western boycott against the Islamists is considered. A gradual process should be sought, with the participation of the moderate Palestinian leadership, with the aim of creating normalcy for the people in Gaza."

Hurray! We Lost!

By Henryk M. Broder

Israel's war in Gaza is a military victory. But with 1,300 dead and thousands wounded, it is also moral defeat. The painful lesson: Israel can only defeat itself. Hamas leader Ismail Haniya only had to hide to emerge as the winner.

By waging a war that has killed 1,300 Palestinians and wounded several thousand, Israel has not only succeeded in turning global public opinion against itself; it has also invited sanctions that will be much heavier than a few negative editorials in the New York Times or the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Let's forget about Hamas' charter, which would like to see not only the territories occupied since 1967, but also all of Palestine liberated from Zionist occupation. Let's forget the stupid chatter of experts like Michael Lüders and Peter Scholl-Latour, who are calling on Israel to meet with Hamas at the negotiation table.

Thirteen hundred dead: That screams to the heavens. That is not an issue of "proportionality," which is impossible in any asymmetrical war. A pile of corpses like that is a nightmare, a catastrophe.

And let's forget for a moment Hamas' heroic propaganda machine, which even recruits children who would love nothing more than to die a martyr's death. Thirteen hundred dead in three weeks: That is a down payment on the Apocalypse -- no matter who started it, who bears responsibility and who ultimately settles the score.

European intellectuals are under the impression that freedoms, homes and families can be protected without reference to force in this world.

How encouraging to those to whom force is one tool of an untrammeled conscience in the path of allah

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