Just as the people of the United States were electing Barack Hussein Obama as their next president, Hamas was putting the finishing touches on a plot to abduct Israeli soldiers and break the relative cease-fire which has prevailed for the past five months.
Obama waves after giving his victory speech at Grant Park in Chicago.
Photo: AP
Its engineers constructed a 250-meter tunnel from Gaza into Israel. IDF
intelligence assessed that the preparations posed an immediate danger and special forces were sent in to conduct a pinpoint operation to demolish the tunnel. Six Palestinian Arab gunmen were killed; six of our soldiers were wounded.
Hamas responded to Israel's preemptive strike by launching dozens of mortars and rockets into southern Israel hitting, among other targets, downtown Ashkelon.
Prior to the clash, and out of the blue, Mohammed Deif, Hamas's chief bombmaker "emeritus" had warned of a strike against the "Zionist enemy."
Even as Hamas-controlled Gaza, fueled by religious fanaticism and mired in the culture of victimization, pursued its predictable violent trajectory - 6,000 miles away, the splendor of peaceful change, representative democracy and political civility was on display for all to see.
FORTY YEARS after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, the United States of America elected a black man as president. For many of his supporters, the biracial Obama embodies an 21st century ideal: post-racial, post ideological and post-cynical.
John McCain's loss was not hard to foresee. Hampered by having to campaign as the standard-bearer of a GOP whose incumbent president remains profoundly unpopular, his campaign was just picking up steam when the global financial meltdown struck. It was also his bad luck to face an extraordinarily appealing opponent whose personal story and charisma proved insurmountable.
Israelis can learn from how Obama and McCain reacted to the election results. In a gracious concession speech, McCain remarked that, "A century ago, president Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters... America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time."
He continued: "Senator Obama and I have had, and argued, our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain. These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face."
Earlier, Obama received a friendly congratulatory phone call from President George W. Bush.
Such classy behavior stands in sharp contrast to the deportment of many an Israeli politician who, confronted by defeat, goes off and sulks. Granted, Israel's proportional system does not foster absolute winners. Still, where is it written that competing politicians should treat each other with unrelenting disdain?
OBAMA garnered roughly 52% of the popular vote (with a projected 338 electoral college votes) against McCain's tally of 47% (and 161 in the electoral college). Obama also helped propel his party to victory in the House of Representatives where, with some races still outstanding, Democrats picked up 18 seats giving them at least a 252-173 majority.
With most senate races decided, Democrats have captured five places and appear to hold a 56-seat majority.
Exit polls show that Obama garnered 43% of the Caucasian vote, plus a majority of African American (95%), Asian (62%) and Hispanic (66%) voters. He lost Protestants (45%), but carried Catholics (53%) and Jews overwhelmingly (77%).
In claiming victory before tens of thousands of supporters, some of them teary-eyed, Obama praised McCain's devotion to America and took cognizance of the challenges the country faces: Two wars, a planet in environmental peril, the global economic crisis, terrorists - whom he pledged to defeat - and frayed alliances.
Then he called for sacrifice and patriotism, concluding: "And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too."
THOSE in our part of the world dedicated to rejectionism, violence and terror will soon discover anew that the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem is above partisanship. And the members of the new administration will see with their own eyes that no one wants peace more than Israel. No one.
Congratulations President-elect Obama on a historic victory. Godspeed.
