Jerusalem News (19 November, 2012. 5 Kislev, 5773)
Contents:
1. WESTERN FRONT: A Moment of Truth in Israel
What are Israel's options - what are the realities that it faces in
this proxy war?
From Daniel Greenfield
2. Israeli Soldiers Praise the Almighty (But picture Censored?).
3. Countries that Expressed Support for Israel Over the Gaza Action.
1. WESTERN FRONT: A Moment of Truth in Israel
What are Israel's options - what are the realities that it faces in
this proxy war?
From Daniel Greenfield
Extracts:
Seven years ago the Israeli government decided to forcibly evict the
8000 Jewish residents of Gaza and withdraw all bases and forces from
the area. The experts, some with the government and some with the
media, assured everyone that it would be for the best and that
withdrawal would actually improve the security situation in the
country.
It was put about that resources and lives were being wasted protecting
Israelis living in Gaza, while those Israelis insisted that their
presence in Gaza was protecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The experts
laughed at them. Now the experts are keeping an ear open for air raid
sirens because as it turned out, those farmers and teachers, those men
and women growing lettuce in greenhouses and building homes on
hilltops, from which rockets are being launched, were the ones
protecting Tel Aviv.
"They are now being asked to relinquish these accomplishments for the
greater good," the government press release said of their houses and
farms, of their synagogues and greenhouses. And the greater good was
served. The greenhouses were turned into Hamas training camps and the
synagogues were burnt to the ground. Rockets fly into the air from the
ruins of broken houses.
No longer will your sons have to die in Gaza, the experts said. A
month later rockets were falling on Sderot. A year later Gilad Shalit
had been kidnapped and Israeli soldiers were back again, dying in a
Gaza that was now run by Hamas.
Among the bundle of promises from the Sharon government, was that the
Gaza withdrawal was part of an oral agreement with the United States
limiting further withdrawals and concessions. That agreement lasted
for another few years until Obama took office and no one in his
administration could ever remember such an agreement or accept its
validity.
Hamas' objectives have always been straightforward. Its commanders and
suicide bombers, its militia members, bomb experts, smugglers,
launchers and embezzlers know what they are fighting for.
"Our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave,"
the Hamas charter says. "Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of
having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims." It has the
simplicity that you would expect from the Muslim Brotherhood, a
fascist organization that drew equal inspiration from the Koran and
Nazism.
While Israel slept, the makeup of the region changed. Hamas had
formerly been strongly backed by Syria and Iran, with some support
from more distant Islamist Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Egypt and Jordan were both wary of Hamas because their governments
were concerned about being overthrown by the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Arab Spring put Islamists into power in Egypt. Suddenly the Muslim
Brotherhood was running things on both sides of the Rafah Crossing.
Hamas switched its allegiance from the shaky Shiite axis of Iran,
Syria and Iraq over to the rising Sunni Islamist axis of Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. The Islamist terrorist group was no longer an
isolated arm of Iranian foreign policy, it could count on the backing
of Turkey, Qatar and Egypt.
Under Iran or Egypt, Hamas is not fighting for Palestinian
nationalism, which was already a fiction manufactured by Soviet
propagandists looking up to prop up a Greater Syria, but to support
the aims of Iranian and Egyptian domestic policy. And suddenly those
aims were uncomfortably close.
Terrorist militias serve an ideology, but function as a business. Al
Qaeda, Hamas, Fatah or any other of the many groups blanketing the
region, need money and weapons to be viable. They need state sponsors
and the states that sponsor them want something in return. Terrorist
groups find sponsors the way that Renaissance artists found patrons,
they show off their skills and wait for someone to come calling with
money and guns. And then they perform for their patrons.
Israel's terrorist problem is unsolvable through any form of peace
negotiations because there will always be sponsors.
Peace is useless and hopeless under these conditions. Fatah claimed
that it could not control Hamas. Hamas claims it cannot control the
men shooting rockets out of Gaza. The people shooting rockets out of
Gaza will claim that they cannot control their fingers on the trigger.
It's plausible deniability all the way down when it's convenient, but
the real control is in the hands of regional regimes who feed coins
into the slot and get out terrorism.
So what then is Israel fighting for? Peace with security. Which means
slapping down Hamas hard enough that it will have to wait another 3-4
years before trying the same thing again, this time with bigger and
better rockets. That was the policy six years ago and it's the policy
today.
Israel will bomb Hamas targets, kill some of its senior leaders and
destroy some of its weapons stockpiles. Its soldiers will enter Gaza,
arrest some more senior leaders, walk into traps that will kill some
of its best and brightest, and then withdraw again while Hamas
celebrates its victory in the Battle of XX or YY where five or six
Israeli soldiers were killed, along with ten or fifteen Hamas
terrorists. And then the Battle of XX will become the Massacre of XX
and lead to a documentary that will be doing an extended tour of
American and Canadian campuses during the next Israeli Apartheid Week.
The only way to end the threat of Hamas in Gaza is by retaking Gaza,
but no such policy is on the table.
Its neighbors know what they are fighting for. They are fighting
Israel for the same reason that Shiites fight Sunnis and that Sunnis
persecute Christians. They are fighting Israel because "by virtue of
its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population" it is different
and must be crushed for the national and religious aims of any proper
Islamist country.
But what is Israel fighting for? Like so many modern countries it is
fighting so as not to fight. It is fighting for peace. It is fighting
to escape from fighting. And so like many modern countries it cannot
bring itself to fight hard enough to break the cycle. Instead it
fights just hard enough to defer the fight by another few years and
the cycle continues.
Israel can retake Gaza once. Or it can retake Gaza every few years. It
can have soldiers patrol Gaza or it can have rockets falling on Tel
Aviv and Jerusalem. The options are as unfortunate as they are clear.
The only hope for peace lies in driving out the terrorist militias who
have turned Gaza and the West Bank into their own Somalia and
Afghanistan and reclaiming the territory. Because after this fight is
through, the next generation of rockets will go on being built and
smuggled. And they will not fall in empty fields.
There can be farms and greenhouses on the hilltops of Gaza. Or there
can be rockets.
2. Israeli Soldiers Praise the Almighty (But picture Censored?).
From: imra@netvision.net.il
Subject: Video Golani soldiers in the South - dancing and singing
http://www.facebook.com/bamahane#!/photo.php?v=10151533218434638&
Video Golani soldiers in the South - dancing and singing "We are believers
the sons of the believers and we have no one to rely on except for our
Father in Heaven" (credit: Bamachaneh)
--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il
3. Countries that Expressed Support for Israel Over the Gaza Action.
The USA, UK, Canada all in effect justified the actions of Israel as self-defence against extreme provocation.
Australia expressed understanding but called for Restraint.
Other nations, as far as we know at present, either remained neutral or condemned Israel.