Analysis: In order to go in, we need a way out
By YAAKOV KATZ
At Sunday’s cabinet meeting, despite a number of requests, Defense Minister Ehud Barak refused to disclose operational details about what he has consistently referred to as the inevitable large-scale ground operation into the Gaza Strip.
Barak was right in doing so, especially when considering the fact that almost everything said in the cabinet room makes its way into the next day’s newspapers.
While little has yet to be publicized about the operation, what can be said at this point is that it will be unprecedented in size and will also be a practical expression of one of the IDF’s primary lessons from the Second Lebanon War – not to over-rely on the Air Force.
This time around, the ground forces will be activated from day one.
There are several reasons why the operation has yet to be launched.
From a tactical point of view, it is wintertime and when there are clouds in the skies it is difficult to get the max out of the IAF’s fighter jets, attack helicopters and reconnaissance drones. Gilad Schalit is another factor for holding off on the operation which, if launched, could postpone his release indefinitely.
The operation into Gaza will have two primary goals: First and foremost to significantly weaken Hamas by destroying its terrorist infrastructure and removing it from governmental power.
The second goal – which has proven more urgent in recent weeks with the collapse of the Gaza-Egypt border wall – calls for reoccupying the Philadelphi Corridor, sealing it off and preventing the smuggling of weapons or terrorists into the Gaza Strip.
The operation will most likely entail the call-up of thousands of reservists, mainly to replace infantry and armored brigades that will be sent to Gaza from routine operations they are conducting in the West Bank and along the northern border.
The Golani Brigade is currently in Gaza and has been behind the deaths of more than 200 gunmen in the past few months.
The operation will include a number of brigades, and troops will be assigned a variety of missions, first and foremost among them being the retaking of the Philadelphi Corridor to seal the border and uncover smuggling tunnels, as well as preventing the launching of Kassam rockets into Sderot and the rest of the western Negev.
The idea will be to slice up the Gaza Strip into several sections and to begin cleansing them of terrorists and terror infrastructure.
This, however, will not be an easy task, since Hamas has had more than two and a half years – since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in 2006 – to build up its military and prepare for D-Day.
Israel will not be able to immediately stop the Kassam rocket fire. While only a handful of rockets have been fired in recent days, it has nothing to do with IDF operations but rather is proof of Hamas’s ability to turn on and off the rocket fire whenever it wants to.
While the operational plans have been drafted – battalion commanders already know where they will be deployed and what their missions will be – from a strategic point of view, the IDF, Foreign Ministry or anyone else for that matter has yet to come up with the operation’s “end strategy.”
As one top officer recently pointed out, “I know how we get in, but I don’t yet know how we get out.”
For this reason, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has been pushing the idea in recent weeks of a multinational force in Gaza, although the chances of this happening are not very realistic.
The other option is to hope that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will come in and fill the vacuum that will be created by the operation.
Considering his weak stature, this option is also highly unlikely.
What is certain is that the IDF has no intention of staying inside Gaza for an undefined period of time.
The Winograd Committee harshly criticized the government and the military for not planning an end strategy when deciding on July 12 to retaliate to Hizbullah’s abduction earlier that day of reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.
Without a clear way out, Israel is not yet running into Gaza.
God is dead – Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead – God
This is my article of faith!
THERE ARE NO ARAB MODERATES.
The Arabs differ in tactics, not goals. Foolish Jews who call for concessions have already
cost us dearly and we will pay terribly for those concessions that were made on the
assumption that Arab “moderates” would seek peace with Israel and be its allies. Similarly, it
is mad delusion to insist that Arab terrorists do not represent the “Palestinians”. Of course
they do, because the “Palestinians”, as a whole, are committed to the destruction of an
Israel they see as a robber state.
The true issue is the refusal of the Arabs to recognize a Jewish state of any size or shape for
any permanent length of time. It Is not an Arab-Israel issue but an Arab-Jewish one and it Is
more than a political dispute; it is a religious war. We should not be surprised that
Christians and Moslems who kill each other join against the Jews or that a Pope meets with
Christians and Moslems, who kill each other, join against the Jews or that a Pope meets with
Moslem terrorists. The very existence of the Jewish state is proof of the truth of Judaism, a
thing that neither Islam nor Christianity can accept. Peace is not possible under the above
circumstances but Jews need not weep or wail. Zionism, from the first, was not created
primarily for peace but for a Jewish state. Hopefully, it was believed, this could be
accomplished by peace. But with or without peace, the primary goal was a Jewish state.
THE COMMANDMENT TO LIVE IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL BRINGS WITH IT THE THREAT
OF MASS TRAGEDY FOR THOSE JEWS WHO REFUSE TO LEAVE THE EXILE. The Jewish state
is the sanctification of G-d and to remain in the Exile, the embodiment of desecration, at a
time when it is possible to return home, is to consciously choose to reinforce the
desecration. The Al-Mighty will never allow it and the Exile is being ended whether the Jew
agrees to it or not. The signs are already plentiful as Jew-hatred and world political
conditions combine to shake the ground under the feet of the Jew in continent after
continent. The Exile will end, either in glory through mass, voluntary Jewish coming to
Israel, or through terrible tragedy, G-d forbid. There simply cannot be coexistence between
sanctification and desecration.
The Jews of the Exile, including those of the United States, face a horrible growth of Jew hatred
that will be triggered by economic and social upheaval in the world. Before it is too
late, they must leave the graveyard and return to Israel. It is the obligation of Zionist
leaders in the Exile to take the lead by emigrating to Israel.
TIME RUNS OUT. Since the State of Israel arose, not because of Jewish merit, let it be
clear that this beginning of the final redemption is merely the start of a process whose end
will be determined by Jewish actions. If the Jew returns to G-d, that final redemption will
come instantly and gloriously. If Jews, however, continue to be blind to Jewish reality, it
will come only after terrible and needless suffering, G-d forbid. The choice is in Jewish
hands.
God is dead – Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead – God
Fear of God vs fear of Arabs
By Obadiah Shoher
In Hebrew, rasha means profane, ungodly, and hamas refers to violence and destruction.
The peace process must put even die-hard atheists to shame. Nothing short of a miracle explains that every time Israel is ready to cede Judea and Jerusalem, Palestinians preclude the Jewish defeat. Arafat turned off Barak’s offer which included just everything the “moderate” Palestinians demanded. Now Hamas undermines Fatah’s efforts at chipping the Palestinian state out of Israel. Unless the wildest conspiracy theories are true and Israel’s security services manipulate the Palestinians away from statehood, there is no other explanation: God doesn’t want Jews to give the Promised Land away.
This chance is our last. The Almighty created the situation where the options are crystal-clear and Jews need no crystal ball to see them. The entire Jewry outside of Israel is annihilated: European Jews perished in Holocaust, American Jews are lost to assimilation, and Arab Jews were uprooted and resettled into Israel. God tells us in the most straightforward manner that now we must decide: would the Jews live or die out. Zechariah’s prophecy is fulfilled: the two-thirds are lost, and it’s up to the Jews whether the last third would be refined as silver or burn out.
Jews, of course, have free will and can rebel against the divine injunction. Israel received every sign she could hold on to the Sinai: four wars with Egypt won, and the Yom Kippur war even extended Israel’s foothold. Jews, nevertheless, abandoned the Sinai; now we’re tourists there, Egyptians – the owners. Similarly, Jews can transfer Judea to Arabs rather than Arabs out of Judea. Such act, however, would be equal to conversion. There is no practical difference between Jews’ converting to Christianity and consciously rejecting the commandments. Once the commandments are rejected, Jews can become anything.
Jews don’t live in the Land of Israel because of some stupid historical rights. If Jews can return after 1,900 years, all the more Arabs can return after sixty years. Jews were sovereign on this land for perhaps four centuries; the rest was a protectorate. Muslims governed this land for much longer. Jewish national right to statehood? What nonsense! Ask Chechens, Basques, Uighurs, or Bretons, and listen carefully to their reply: there is no such right. There is a single basis for Jews to conquer and settle this land: God have told us so.
Zecharia 12 and 13 this is the prophesy!!!!
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2312.htm
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2313.htm
The most disastrous exit strategy from Gaza is to set goals for changing things on the ground, for setting up institutions, for resettling the population as desirable as that might be, for handing power to someone else. This is a military operation designed to weaken or destroy the forces responsible for suffering of the Israeli south. IDF should run through a slice of the strip, clear it and leave it. Should intelligence indicate a resurgence in that slice, the IDF should do it again, only this time it will be easier and less expensive in terms of casualties and supplies. Only the IDF must retain the option of returning to clear the area repeatedly and over short periods of time, not years.
They will remove Hamas and reinstall Abbas whose people will continue with terror.
This way there will be the same government in the WB and Gaza, so they can create a state.
Too bad Jews will have to die for our “moderate negotiating partners”.
Getting out of Gaza is not a major problem unless some international forces makes it so. By taking control of Gaza, destroying the Hamas organization, offering incentives to civilians to emigrate from Gaza to other parts of the Arab world, cleaning up communities and setting up a new government among the remaining Gazans.
While this would require considerable time, the IDF will eventually just roll out.
That could be the case so long as other countries don’t interfere.