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Earlier this week I wrote a long article explaining why dealing with Gaza is such a difficult task, and describing a solution in general terms (short answer: a massive blow to force Hamas to disarm, followed by a “light” military occupation).
I thought that this time – after all, for once we have an American administration in our corner – it would be different, this time the IDF would follow through, and do more than just “mow the grass.” Bibi was talking tough, armored forces were poised at the border, and, after all we had just absorbed some 690 rockets, $14 million in damage, and four dead Israelis.
But I was wrong. We barely trimmed the weeds, with the IDF ordered to end the fighting before the Memorial Day and Independence Day celebrations this week, and the Eurovision song contest which will begin next Tuesday in Tel Aviv. In particular it is being reported that the IDF was forced to “give up on striking Hamas’ long range missile storage facilities,” which seems to me remarkably counter-productive if one wants to prevent disruption of events in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Some kind of ceasefire deal was reached, which probably means that Israel must facilitate the transfer of millions of dollars to Hamas from Qatar, and who knows what other concessions.
Government officials insisted that nothing was less important to their decisions than Eurovision. But of course, nothing was more important.
Bibi and the others are absolutely aching to present Israel as an advanced European or North American style country, a country where (perhaps unlike the Europe or America of today) the chance of terrorism or war is minuscule, and where we put on massively excessive spectacles like Eurovision as a matter of course.
This isn’t true. We are a small country that has been at war since 1948, where successive negligent governments have allowed dangerous terrorist proxies of our enemies to flourish on our borders, and where terrorism and flare-ups of violence happen on a regular basis. We are not quite the first-world country we aspire to be, either (you can see this in the poorer neighborhoods of our cites or the so-called “periphery”).
Do you get the feeling I think we have our priorities wrong? You’re right.
Hamas and the Islamic Jihad organization understand the reasons for our reluctance to engage with them: because we fear a wider multi-front war, because we don’t appear to have a satisfactory plan for Gaza if Hamas collapses, and because we don’t want to be embarrassed by terrorism during – or even aimed at – Eurovision. So they made their demands and we gave in. Call it extortion or call it jizya, but they got what they wanted.
The residents of Sderot and other communities near Gaza have been remarkably patient as this happens over and over. It has been going on for decades: the first rockets were launched at Sderot in 2001, and the attacks increased in frequency after Israel abandoned the Strip in 2005, and still more after the Hamas coup in 2007. Every few months the residents’ lives are massively disrupted. Their children – who have been insecure since birth – are suffering from PTSD. It’s remarkable that so few families have fled. How long can we expect them to be patient? Of course it is hard to get a fair price for a home in the region, so maybe many of them not only feel anxious, they feel trapped.
And the zone of conflict is growing as Hamas and Islamic Jihad improve their rockets and increase their range. It used to be only Sderot and the local kibbutzim and moshavim, and now it is as often Ashkelon, where two of the four deaths – murders – occurred this week. They have rockets that can reach Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, although there are fewer of them. Today.
The government tells us that yes, it’s terrible, especially for those who have lost family members, but it’s not existential. And look at how many people are killed every year in traffic accidents. Meanwhile there are so many reasons that nothing can be done now; but we have a plan and it will be implemented real soon.
No. Enough. The most basic obligation of a government under the social contract is to protect its citizens, and they aren’t doing it. Don’t tell me that it is impossible. Why are the barbarians of Hamas and Islamic Jihad able to outthink us, to put us in a trap that we can’t escape? Do we have the wrong generals? The wrong government? Are all the smart people in high-tech? Is the problem, as some say, that every commander must have a lawyer by his side? We are stronger, we have an air force that is qualitatively the best in the world, we have a fleet of drones, tanks, the best weapons in the world. Why can’t we fix this?
Well, here is one possible reason. It’s illustrated by this recent news item.
Tuesday night will begin Israel’s Memorial Day for 23,741 fallen soldiers and terror victims with a ceremony in Jerusalem. This is a deeply moving event for Israelis, since there are few families that have not lost a friend or family member to war or terrorism.
An organization called “Combatants for Peace” (CFP) organized an “Alternative Memorial Day” event in which both Israelis and Palestinians from the territories who lost relatives in the conflict will mourn them together. CFP is funded almost entirely by foreign contributions, from the American New Israel Fund, and German and Swiss groups.
The implication is that there’s no moral difference. Someone who is shot to death trying to stab a random Jew in the street is a victim of the conflict, just like the Jew he stabs. The Palestinian who is killed when he plows into people waiting at a bus stop deserves the same respect as the ones he murders.
Unsurprisingly, many Israelis find it obscene to equate fallen soldiers, police officers, and terror victims with the Palestinian terrorists that murdered them. PM Netanyahu rejected a request for entry permits to allow Palestinians to enter the country for the ceremony. He cited security reasons, but I suspect that he felt that national self-respect required it.
The Supreme Court, in response to a petition from CFP, overruled the PM and ordered the government to grant 100 permits.
The members of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad want to win. They want to kill Jews and eliminate the Jewish state. They want this with all their hearts.
Do we want to survive as much as they want to destroy us?
@ YESHAYAHU HOLLANDER:
Very good point..Interesting. Hadn’t thought or heard of that before.
Possible reasons for the present strategy: Don’t take Hamas out until after the Palestine Authority is finished – one of the possible results of the Trump “deal”. After that – take over Judea and Samaria, which are much more important than Gaza. IF Israel takes control of Gaza, what should we do with the Jew-Hating people? Allow them to “join their families” in Judea and Samaria? NO! But help them in many ways to emigrate to anywhere else.
Vic’s overall analysis of the flaws in Israel’s current policy is right on target. But his earlier article, which he references here, still proposes a very moderate and restrained response to Hamas aggression, similar to th Netanyahu’s policies. I think Israel needs to get much tougher with Hamas, although it will run some risk in doing this and may take heavy casualties. But if Israel waits until Hamas launches a full-scale attack, possibly coordinated with Iran, Hizbollah and even Syria, her casualties will be much higher, and she may suffer an outright defeat.
I don’t think Vic is being realistic when he proposes a “light” occupation of Gaza. There is no way of conducting a light occupation of a territory crawling with terrorists, and filled with arms caches, arms manufacuring plants, hidden tunnels, etc. It would require engaging the many thousands of terrorists in heavy combat, destroying numerous factories, searching for all the tunnels and blowing them up, etc. All that would take time, and Israel’s casualties would be heavy. Also, there would inevitably be heavy “collateral damage” (civilian casualties), and a consequent international outcry against Israel. Still, Israel has no choice but to do this.
Deut. 20:
[16] But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
[17] But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:
[18] That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God.
[19] When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) to employ them in the siege:
[20] Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued.
That looks pretty straightforward to me.
I’m not generally prone towards speaking this way, but until you throw out the garbage (by first admitting that it is), the house will always stink. They have no intention of cleaning up their act. It’s perverse not to kill any deadly disease -unless you believe cancer has rights, too.
Brilliant and incisive analysis by Vic Rosenthal.
My feelings and response can be read at Vic’s site. I’m too enraged to write them again here.
@David E. Chase: I fully agree with the article and your comments.
Maybe the Palis will do us all a favor and fire a rocket towards the ESC while it is in progress. That might trigger a reaction. Of course, the UNSC would condemn Israel for provoking the Palis to do so…
I think the reason for not just overrunning Gaza like Israel has said it would now do that taking Hamas out would lead to some unification of Palestinian/Gaza’s leadership and, therefore, create an alleged opportunity for continuing negotiating a Two-State idea is now a moot restriction. Just do it, and eliminate Hamas once and for all. At this point, even without Trump in office (which helps for sure), Israel is in a much stronger position vis-a-vis public acceptance of the idea that the Two-State Solution is not just not possible but unfeasible and existentially suicidal. So, why maintain Hamas in power any more if those political considerations/concerns no longer exist?