May 23, 2007
News Analysis
Israelis Don’t Want Gaza to Be Their Next Lebanon
By STEVEN ERLANGER NYT
JERUSALEM, May 22 — For the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, badly battered by last summer’s inconclusive war against the Rockets of Hezbollah, launched from Lebanon, the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip seems a similarly intractable problem with no easy, popular response.
While the Hamas militants in Gaza seem to have taken a lesson from that war — how to use rockets against Israeli civilians to eat away at Israeli self-confidence and frustrate the Israeli military — Israel’s own lesson is less clear, because its ground assault on southern Lebanon did not end in a clear victory, let alone destroy its adversary.
The Israeli government is feeling constrained by its own weakness and damaged credibility. If it goes into Gaza too hard, it will be criticized for trying to overcompensate for its failures last summer against Hezbollah. If it acts with too much restraint and caution, it will be criticized for being intimidated by its failures last summer against Hezbollah.
“We don’t want to invade Gaza in a big way,” a senior official said. “But stalemate is impossible. We hope that a political process will prevail because we don’t want to be dragged into what Hamas wants us to be dragged into. But events will dictate. If a Qassam rocket lands on an Israeli kindergarten, all bets are off.”
Israeli helicopters and fighter planes, using their most precise weapons, are hitting Hamas camps, buildings, fighters and teams of militants charged with firing rockets toward Israel. On Tuesday, the Israeli Air Force struck a compound of the Hamas police militia known as the Executive Force in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza. No casualties were reported in the strike, the third against targets in Gaza since a rocket attack on Monday that killed eight.
Israeli politicians are talking of harsher measures, including the assassination of senior Hamas military leaders who order the attacks, and warning that senior Hamas political leaders may also be at risk.
But trying to calibrate the amount of military pressure that might persuade Hamas and the Palestinians to stop the rocket fire and recreate a working cease-fire over Gaza is not an easy calculation.
And there are significant voices inside the Israeli security establishment who warn that, rockets aside, Hamas is organizing a buildup of weapons, reinforced tunnels and explosive matériel in Gaza that resembles Hezbollah’s efforts in southern Lebanon in recent years.
Sooner or later, those voices argue, Israel will have to confront Hamas in a serious way inside Gaza, especially since Fatah is failing to do so.
But with the Palestinian unity government of Hamas and Fatah in tatters after fierce factional infighting, there is no obvious Palestinian address for Israel to apply pressure. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, to whom the Israelis and Americans speak, appears weaker after the infighting.
Even Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas, a popular political figure, is being overshadowed and undermined by the actions and oratory of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades.
In general, Gaza’s gunmen — who come in many different stripes, with affiliations that cut across factional, institutional and family loyalties — appear to be listening less now than before to political leaders.
Hamas in particular appears riven politically, senior Israeli government and security officials say, with important figures like Mahmoud Zahar, the former foreign minister, and Said Siam, the former interior minister, opposed to the group’s participation in the unity government.
The Qassam Brigades have made it clear that they took the lead in the latest round of fighting, attacking the Presidential Guard of Mr. Abbas and the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Force. They continued those attacks even when Mr. Haniya came out in favor of a truce.
Burned, Mr. Haniya took a harder line on Monday in his sermon at the funeral of the family of a Hamas legislator, Khalil al-Hayya, praising the fighters and saying, “We will keep to the same path until we win one of two goals: victory or martyrdom.”
Mr. Olmert is being careful, aides say, to keep on Washington’s good side. The Bush administration has openly supported Israel’s right to defend itself against rockets fired by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups, and has praised what it calls Israel’s restraint. But Mr. Olmert is also conscious that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is committed to pushing Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts forward in her time left in the job, as is President Bush.
A major incursion deep into Gaza would take at least a month, a senior Israeli officer said, and would inevitably cause significant civilian casualties. There would be nothing like a major Israeli ground offensive to unite all Palestinian fighters, and it would do further damage to the more moderate Mr. Abbas and the chances for peace. More than 30 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids in the past week.
Even the leader of the rightist Likud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is riding high in opinion polls, is speaking carefully about the options and suggesting graduated responses.
Last week he proposed “a wide range of actions that we can do to apply pressure.”
“And the actions begin with a general closure of Gaza,” he said, “through a controlled stoppage of services such as electricity and water, up to targeted killings and actions from the area on infrastructure targets, or limited ground incursion to the radius of the Qassam range or a larger ground incursion.”
Asked if he favored a large-scale infantry incursion, Mr. Netanyahu said: “I think the problem here is to return to the balance of deterrence that was so very eroded in the last year. As a result of the last war, Gaza has turned into Lebanon Two with bunkers.”
For now, the Israelis are barely using tank fire in Gaza and are not firing artillery, which is less accurate and has hit Palestinian houses and families in the past. Instead, they are relying on the most precise airborne weaponry they have, trying to send a message to militant leaders, especially of Hamas, that every rocket will entail a painful price.
Those around Mr. Olmert say that they, too, are concerned about how Israel and its will to defend its people are perceived — not just by the militants of Gaza, but by the Syria of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrians are training defensively, “but it’s easy to move from defense to offense,” a senior Israeli official said. “We’ve made it clear to him through credible channels that Israel has no offensive intentions. But we’re very worried about miscalculation.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This report is a bit old - it came from earlier this week, when Olmert and Peretz were giving interviews about how hard it is to restrain themselves from using force in Gaza.
The statement I emphasized above really stood out to me as something spectacular. One can make many arguments about pre-emptive striking. You can say that it is unfair to those being attacked; that like in the feuds over America's role in Iraq are saying now, the opponent may actually be in a neutral zone, not infringing on any laws or treaties. You can say that it is starting a war, unnecessarily. You can say that it is used as an excuse to go and execute innocent people - or warlords/terrorists - or to reoccupy Gaza. The true value of pre-emptive attacks lies in the success of their successions, but that's besides the point.
What amazes me is that Israel - not a nation notorious for paying too much mind to these arguments - is now playing with the press, trying to appease it with statements like the one above.
There are so many things wrong with it, I don't even know where to start.
First: Qassam rockets have been falling on the south of Israel without end for the past year. Thousands upon thousands of rockets have fallen upon Sderot in particular. This has caused dozens of deaths, injuries, destruction of land and property, and perhaps worst of all the feeling that at any moment a rocket may fall upon any person and any place; a feeling that is psychologically dismantling. The people of Sderot have been crying for a long time for their government to save them.
All this goes to say that there is nothing pre-emptive in a strike against Gaza. Despite UN mandates and internal treaties, rockets have kept flying onto Israeli soil, and they still continue to do so. In fact, just yesterday, a 36 year old man from Hod Hasharon was killed in his car when a Qassam hit him in Sderot (he was there on business). He left behind a 2 year old daughter and a pregnant wife.
There has been an incessantly continued war against Israel, and there is nothing pre-emptive about a strike in return.
Second: Pretending that keeping quiet will prevent anything from happening is not only ludicrous, but is the very Ostrich-in-sand approach that Israel has prided herself on avoiding - since doing otherwise could easily result in destruction.
Third: The very idea of the words - when an Israeli kindergarten - a place full of little Israeli children, guilty only of living in the country that their forefathers built to protect them (not at all comparable to children who provoke violence by throwing rocks and the like) - could get bombed under the watch of the Israeli government is stunning beyond words. How much are we willing to take before our the government will move its finger? It has to get to our children being murdered? That's what this man is saying.
He's saying let's wait till the kids die, and then we'll do something - granted that it will not be a question amongst the officials whether or not to move then (the public would be so loud by then that it wouldn't really be left up to them to decide, but hey, he can always say that he intended to before the riots).
A government's initial and most imperative role is to protect its citizens. This is the most fundamental of governmental facets, and it has been around since the most primitive societal structures. When it admittedly puts its citizens in empirical danger, it is not just a sign of total failure and corruption, but a sign of utter disarray.
There are arguments on the reverse, of course. It could be said that Israeli policy has abetted the continuation of this never-ending cycle: violence, meeting violence, meeting more violence, and so on.
It could be said that a strike in return would do nothing but provoke more anger and bloodshed.
However, diplomacy isn't doing anything, and we cannot leave our citizens out to die.
The political situation in Gaza right now is past deterioration, and on to full on chaos. There is periodic factional violence, where more palestinians die than in the Israeli operations for weeks to come (I didn't check the numbers, but comparing reports, this is often true. Dozens die in Hamas/Fatah clashes within two or three days, and then maybe one or two people - generally militants, and sometimes a standbyer - die in an attack by the IDF at some point later on in the week). The ceasefire that had been reached after the second Lebanon War has proven useless, as rockets haven't ceased (journalists discussing this generally say 'rockets have stopped for the most part...' If the rockets stopped, we wouldn't have this conflict. If there are rockets flying, then they haven't stopped. 'Most part', therefore means as much as not at all).
Hamas, who is in power right now, denies Israel's existence, and avidly supports 'resistance' against it - meaning terrorism.
---
What is being done, and what should be done:
Luckily, not everyone in the Israeli government is willing to wait for Isreali children to be killed in order to act. Operations in Gaza have been stepped up.
Which in particular, it remains uncertain, but something at least. It is my hope that there is some military strategy behind this, rather than just bloodshed and chaos.
Like some ynet articles have said: Despite it all, Gaza is in smoke as of now.
The IDF arrested a Khaled Shawis, a 'terror mastermind' responsible for dozens of Isreali deaths today: good.
The IDF attacked a Hamas training base today: good.
The problems will come when the dealings get to civilians, but it is often difficult to distinguish who is innocent and who isn't.
If a 14 year old boy is throwing rocks at an 18 year old soldier, he is not justified, nor guaranteed safety. He is no innocent civilian. What Israel needs to do is forget the press for a while. It is true that Israel is in desperate need of PR work, and even that a campaign has been launched for this, but PR is not the most important thing; least of all now.
What Israel needs is to extract a real war from this. Only real wars can be won.
An Economist article (two actually) from this week argued that Israel's 6-Day War in 1967 was futile all in all, since it only ended in increased problems for Israel (and further chaos for the Palestinians - though really, it made things much clearer and easier for them in terms of struggle, and the Economist acknowledges this). Sever Plocker of Ynet argued back today, and they both have good points, but a main point to be extracted has a lot less to do with the effect of the war, and a lot more to do with the war itself.
The Economist noted that since 1973, Israel has not faced a 'real' war. This is true, and it is key.
There was no winner in Lebanon - not the first time, and not last summer. There was no winner in any of the Intifadas, or whatever it is that people call the terrorism in between. There was no winner as there was in 1948, as there was in 1967, as there was in 1973. And because there was no winner, there was no real conclusion, and no real result; just further chaos and propensity for the next conflict (though really it's just the same one, perpetually). Nothing is resolved and nothing is alleviated. The reason for this is simple enough: there are no concessions - something that is vital to post-war negotiations (for example, Pollack rightly points out that it is thanks to the 6-Day War and its occupations that Israel was able to forge peace with Egypt over Sinai, and almost peace with Syria over the Golan Heights). There are no concessions because there is no war.
There is no high-ground, and no way to lead the type of complete, and cohesive operatives that Israel needs to have some sort of effect to these attacks while it is within the realms of 'guerrilla warfare'; while it is in the midst of civilians, and while everyone is turning their heads to listen to the cries of liberals around the world who are too preoccupied with their infatuation with anything that proves their point about calling Israel names to pay attention to what is going on. Israel needs full-on soldier-on-soldier warfare in which there are no inhibitions and no strategy other than to win and to secure the nation (clearly random infiltrations of Gaza don't provide security. This doesn't mean that physical force isn't the answer - diplomacy has proven just as impotent - it just means that both physical force and diplomacy have to be tried in a different way)
But we can't get real war right now, what can we do?
A Ynet article posted yesterday caught my eye. I'm not one to lean too much with those who favor keeping isolated villages with some 40 people being protected meticulously by 100 soldiers in the midst of Arab land. However, this article had a good point. The article (Right-wing campaign: Returning to Homesh is answer to Qassams) speaks of the extreme-right religious group: Homesh First, who launched a campaign to resettle the settlements ordered out by Sharon last year. It sounds like nothing but stubbornness, but if you listen to their innate argument, you see they are right in one thing in particular.
If you follow the track of recent events you will see that Hamas has all the reason in the world to be encouraged to continue what it is doing. It is, in essence, winning.
What has happened? First, Sharon pulled out settlements from Arab territory. Now, under extreme pressure from Qassams, Israelis from Sderot are seeking refuge, and aided by rich Jews, are leaving- whether on vacation or to tenement camps around the country. What is happening, is that Hamas puts pressure on Israel, and Israelis leave land. This is the exact stimulating green light that they are seeking to continue.
It doesn't even matter so much that there is smoke and ash in Gaza, or that some Palestinians may be being attacked. This is of little consequence to Hamas, who has shown little to no remorse as to the sacrifice of its own people (whereas the Western media has shown great deals more).
What is most important is that strategically it seems to be working.
In this sense, it is exactly correct to seek a reprisal on terms that Hamas will understand; land.
It is precisely the point to go and overtake more Arab land. This has shown to be the only leverage of negotiation that they have really responded to in the past, firstly, and secondly, it is a direct signal that they are not going to acheive their ambitions by attacking Israel - something that is not being shown now.
When the Palestinians see that the consequence of their attacks is not Israelis fleeing, but Israelis coming to take more of their land, they will have a different conception of what they are doing, despite personal inhibitions against this. They will have no choice.
There are a lot of problems with this plan.
Firstly, planning to keep more settlements brings about numerous questions, to which the answer 'no' is most commonly to be found in terms of reason. Sharon had good reason to remove the settlements last year, despite the consequences amongst the masses, and these reasons of finance and logic, more than politics, stand.
Secondly, if these settlements are to be built as pawns, what about the people who are willing to risk their lives to go build them - they are not about to do this as a temporary project of political stategy. They intend to reclaim the land and live there.
If Homesh First (Rishon?) is going to go and inhabit more settlements, I say, let them. It is their choice, and they are aware that the government can remove them. The risks, pros and cons must be carefully evaluated by Israeli leadership. They must figure out the most beneficial approach to this - both short term and long term. They must sit down, with a clear head, and think, because hot-headedness won't get us anywhere. We need to get out of this endless era of perpetual guerrilla warfare and into some sort of new stage. A stage that can be resolved and concluded one way or another. For this we need to think.
For now, we need to protect the citizens of Sderot and the rest of Israel.
Hopefully there are enough smart people in Israel to be able to do both at the same time.
News Analysis
Israelis Don’t Want Gaza to Be Their Next Lebanon
By STEVEN ERLANGER NYT
JERUSALEM, May 22 — For the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, badly battered by last summer’s inconclusive war against the Rockets of Hezbollah, launched from Lebanon, the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip seems a similarly intractable problem with no easy, popular response.
While the Hamas militants in Gaza seem to have taken a lesson from that war — how to use rockets against Israeli civilians to eat away at Israeli self-confidence and frustrate the Israeli military — Israel’s own lesson is less clear, because its ground assault on southern Lebanon did not end in a clear victory, let alone destroy its adversary.
The Israeli government is feeling constrained by its own weakness and damaged credibility. If it goes into Gaza too hard, it will be criticized for trying to overcompensate for its failures last summer against Hezbollah. If it acts with too much restraint and caution, it will be criticized for being intimidated by its failures last summer against Hezbollah.
“We don’t want to invade Gaza in a big way,” a senior official said. “But stalemate is impossible. We hope that a political process will prevail because we don’t want to be dragged into what Hamas wants us to be dragged into. But events will dictate. If a Qassam rocket lands on an Israeli kindergarten, all bets are off.”
Israeli helicopters and fighter planes, using their most precise weapons, are hitting Hamas camps, buildings, fighters and teams of militants charged with firing rockets toward Israel. On Tuesday, the Israeli Air Force struck a compound of the Hamas police militia known as the Executive Force in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza. No casualties were reported in the strike, the third against targets in Gaza since a rocket attack on Monday that killed eight.
Israeli politicians are talking of harsher measures, including the assassination of senior Hamas military leaders who order the attacks, and warning that senior Hamas political leaders may also be at risk.
But trying to calibrate the amount of military pressure that might persuade Hamas and the Palestinians to stop the rocket fire and recreate a working cease-fire over Gaza is not an easy calculation.
And there are significant voices inside the Israeli security establishment who warn that, rockets aside, Hamas is organizing a buildup of weapons, reinforced tunnels and explosive matériel in Gaza that resembles Hezbollah’s efforts in southern Lebanon in recent years.
Sooner or later, those voices argue, Israel will have to confront Hamas in a serious way inside Gaza, especially since Fatah is failing to do so.
But with the Palestinian unity government of Hamas and Fatah in tatters after fierce factional infighting, there is no obvious Palestinian address for Israel to apply pressure. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, to whom the Israelis and Americans speak, appears weaker after the infighting.
Even Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas, a popular political figure, is being overshadowed and undermined by the actions and oratory of Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades.
In general, Gaza’s gunmen — who come in many different stripes, with affiliations that cut across factional, institutional and family loyalties — appear to be listening less now than before to political leaders.
Hamas in particular appears riven politically, senior Israeli government and security officials say, with important figures like Mahmoud Zahar, the former foreign minister, and Said Siam, the former interior minister, opposed to the group’s participation in the unity government.
The Qassam Brigades have made it clear that they took the lead in the latest round of fighting, attacking the Presidential Guard of Mr. Abbas and the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Force. They continued those attacks even when Mr. Haniya came out in favor of a truce.
Burned, Mr. Haniya took a harder line on Monday in his sermon at the funeral of the family of a Hamas legislator, Khalil al-Hayya, praising the fighters and saying, “We will keep to the same path until we win one of two goals: victory or martyrdom.”
Mr. Olmert is being careful, aides say, to keep on Washington’s good side. The Bush administration has openly supported Israel’s right to defend itself against rockets fired by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups, and has praised what it calls Israel’s restraint. But Mr. Olmert is also conscious that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is committed to pushing Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts forward in her time left in the job, as is President Bush.
A major incursion deep into Gaza would take at least a month, a senior Israeli officer said, and would inevitably cause significant civilian casualties. There would be nothing like a major Israeli ground offensive to unite all Palestinian fighters, and it would do further damage to the more moderate Mr. Abbas and the chances for peace. More than 30 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids in the past week.
Even the leader of the rightist Likud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is riding high in opinion polls, is speaking carefully about the options and suggesting graduated responses.
Last week he proposed “a wide range of actions that we can do to apply pressure.”
“And the actions begin with a general closure of Gaza,” he said, “through a controlled stoppage of services such as electricity and water, up to targeted killings and actions from the area on infrastructure targets, or limited ground incursion to the radius of the Qassam range or a larger ground incursion.”
Asked if he favored a large-scale infantry incursion, Mr. Netanyahu said: “I think the problem here is to return to the balance of deterrence that was so very eroded in the last year. As a result of the last war, Gaza has turned into Lebanon Two with bunkers.”
For now, the Israelis are barely using tank fire in Gaza and are not firing artillery, which is less accurate and has hit Palestinian houses and families in the past. Instead, they are relying on the most precise airborne weaponry they have, trying to send a message to militant leaders, especially of Hamas, that every rocket will entail a painful price.
Those around Mr. Olmert say that they, too, are concerned about how Israel and its will to defend its people are perceived — not just by the militants of Gaza, but by the Syria of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrians are training defensively, “but it’s easy to move from defense to offense,” a senior Israeli official said. “We’ve made it clear to him through credible channels that Israel has no offensive intentions. But we’re very worried about miscalculation.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This report is a bit old - it came from earlier this week, when Olmert and Peretz were giving interviews about how hard it is to restrain themselves from using force in Gaza.
The statement I emphasized above really stood out to me as something spectacular. One can make many arguments about pre-emptive striking. You can say that it is unfair to those being attacked; that like in the feuds over America's role in Iraq are saying now, the opponent may actually be in a neutral zone, not infringing on any laws or treaties. You can say that it is starting a war, unnecessarily. You can say that it is used as an excuse to go and execute innocent people - or warlords/terrorists - or to reoccupy Gaza. The true value of pre-emptive attacks lies in the success of their successions, but that's besides the point.
What amazes me is that Israel - not a nation notorious for paying too much mind to these arguments - is now playing with the press, trying to appease it with statements like the one above.
There are so many things wrong with it, I don't even know where to start.
First: Qassam rockets have been falling on the south of Israel without end for the past year. Thousands upon thousands of rockets have fallen upon Sderot in particular. This has caused dozens of deaths, injuries, destruction of land and property, and perhaps worst of all the feeling that at any moment a rocket may fall upon any person and any place; a feeling that is psychologically dismantling. The people of Sderot have been crying for a long time for their government to save them.
All this goes to say that there is nothing pre-emptive in a strike against Gaza. Despite UN mandates and internal treaties, rockets have kept flying onto Israeli soil, and they still continue to do so. In fact, just yesterday, a 36 year old man from Hod Hasharon was killed in his car when a Qassam hit him in Sderot (he was there on business). He left behind a 2 year old daughter and a pregnant wife.
There has been an incessantly continued war against Israel, and there is nothing pre-emptive about a strike in return.
Second: Pretending that keeping quiet will prevent anything from happening is not only ludicrous, but is the very Ostrich-in-sand approach that Israel has prided herself on avoiding - since doing otherwise could easily result in destruction.
Third: The very idea of the words - when an Israeli kindergarten - a place full of little Israeli children, guilty only of living in the country that their forefathers built to protect them (not at all comparable to children who provoke violence by throwing rocks and the like) - could get bombed under the watch of the Israeli government is stunning beyond words. How much are we willing to take before our the government will move its finger? It has to get to our children being murdered? That's what this man is saying.
He's saying let's wait till the kids die, and then we'll do something - granted that it will not be a question amongst the officials whether or not to move then (the public would be so loud by then that it wouldn't really be left up to them to decide, but hey, he can always say that he intended to before the riots).
A government's initial and most imperative role is to protect its citizens. This is the most fundamental of governmental facets, and it has been around since the most primitive societal structures. When it admittedly puts its citizens in empirical danger, it is not just a sign of total failure and corruption, but a sign of utter disarray.
There are arguments on the reverse, of course. It could be said that Israeli policy has abetted the continuation of this never-ending cycle: violence, meeting violence, meeting more violence, and so on.
It could be said that a strike in return would do nothing but provoke more anger and bloodshed.
However, diplomacy isn't doing anything, and we cannot leave our citizens out to die.
The political situation in Gaza right now is past deterioration, and on to full on chaos. There is periodic factional violence, where more palestinians die than in the Israeli operations for weeks to come (I didn't check the numbers, but comparing reports, this is often true. Dozens die in Hamas/Fatah clashes within two or three days, and then maybe one or two people - generally militants, and sometimes a standbyer - die in an attack by the IDF at some point later on in the week). The ceasefire that had been reached after the second Lebanon War has proven useless, as rockets haven't ceased (journalists discussing this generally say 'rockets have stopped for the most part...' If the rockets stopped, we wouldn't have this conflict. If there are rockets flying, then they haven't stopped. 'Most part', therefore means as much as not at all).
Hamas, who is in power right now, denies Israel's existence, and avidly supports 'resistance' against it - meaning terrorism.
---
What is being done, and what should be done:
Luckily, not everyone in the Israeli government is willing to wait for Isreali children to be killed in order to act. Operations in Gaza have been stepped up.
Which in particular, it remains uncertain, but something at least. It is my hope that there is some military strategy behind this, rather than just bloodshed and chaos.
Like some ynet articles have said: Despite it all, Gaza is in smoke as of now.
The IDF arrested a Khaled Shawis, a 'terror mastermind' responsible for dozens of Isreali deaths today: good.
The IDF attacked a Hamas training base today: good.
The problems will come when the dealings get to civilians, but it is often difficult to distinguish who is innocent and who isn't.
If a 14 year old boy is throwing rocks at an 18 year old soldier, he is not justified, nor guaranteed safety. He is no innocent civilian. What Israel needs to do is forget the press for a while. It is true that Israel is in desperate need of PR work, and even that a campaign has been launched for this, but PR is not the most important thing; least of all now.
What Israel needs is to extract a real war from this. Only real wars can be won.
An Economist article (two actually) from this week argued that Israel's 6-Day War in 1967 was futile all in all, since it only ended in increased problems for Israel (and further chaos for the Palestinians - though really, it made things much clearer and easier for them in terms of struggle, and the Economist acknowledges this). Sever Plocker of Ynet argued back today, and they both have good points, but a main point to be extracted has a lot less to do with the effect of the war, and a lot more to do with the war itself.
The Economist noted that since 1973, Israel has not faced a 'real' war. This is true, and it is key.
There was no winner in Lebanon - not the first time, and not last summer. There was no winner in any of the Intifadas, or whatever it is that people call the terrorism in between. There was no winner as there was in 1948, as there was in 1967, as there was in 1973. And because there was no winner, there was no real conclusion, and no real result; just further chaos and propensity for the next conflict (though really it's just the same one, perpetually). Nothing is resolved and nothing is alleviated. The reason for this is simple enough: there are no concessions - something that is vital to post-war negotiations (for example, Pollack rightly points out that it is thanks to the 6-Day War and its occupations that Israel was able to forge peace with Egypt over Sinai, and almost peace with Syria over the Golan Heights). There are no concessions because there is no war.
There is no high-ground, and no way to lead the type of complete, and cohesive operatives that Israel needs to have some sort of effect to these attacks while it is within the realms of 'guerrilla warfare'; while it is in the midst of civilians, and while everyone is turning their heads to listen to the cries of liberals around the world who are too preoccupied with their infatuation with anything that proves their point about calling Israel names to pay attention to what is going on. Israel needs full-on soldier-on-soldier warfare in which there are no inhibitions and no strategy other than to win and to secure the nation (clearly random infiltrations of Gaza don't provide security. This doesn't mean that physical force isn't the answer - diplomacy has proven just as impotent - it just means that both physical force and diplomacy have to be tried in a different way)
But we can't get real war right now, what can we do?
A Ynet article posted yesterday caught my eye. I'm not one to lean too much with those who favor keeping isolated villages with some 40 people being protected meticulously by 100 soldiers in the midst of Arab land. However, this article had a good point. The article (Right-wing campaign: Returning to Homesh is answer to Qassams) speaks of the extreme-right religious group: Homesh First, who launched a campaign to resettle the settlements ordered out by Sharon last year. It sounds like nothing but stubbornness, but if you listen to their innate argument, you see they are right in one thing in particular.
If you follow the track of recent events you will see that Hamas has all the reason in the world to be encouraged to continue what it is doing. It is, in essence, winning.
What has happened? First, Sharon pulled out settlements from Arab territory. Now, under extreme pressure from Qassams, Israelis from Sderot are seeking refuge, and aided by rich Jews, are leaving- whether on vacation or to tenement camps around the country. What is happening, is that Hamas puts pressure on Israel, and Israelis leave land. This is the exact stimulating green light that they are seeking to continue.
It doesn't even matter so much that there is smoke and ash in Gaza, or that some Palestinians may be being attacked. This is of little consequence to Hamas, who has shown little to no remorse as to the sacrifice of its own people (whereas the Western media has shown great deals more).
What is most important is that strategically it seems to be working.
In this sense, it is exactly correct to seek a reprisal on terms that Hamas will understand; land.
It is precisely the point to go and overtake more Arab land. This has shown to be the only leverage of negotiation that they have really responded to in the past, firstly, and secondly, it is a direct signal that they are not going to acheive their ambitions by attacking Israel - something that is not being shown now.
When the Palestinians see that the consequence of their attacks is not Israelis fleeing, but Israelis coming to take more of their land, they will have a different conception of what they are doing, despite personal inhibitions against this. They will have no choice.
There are a lot of problems with this plan.
Firstly, planning to keep more settlements brings about numerous questions, to which the answer 'no' is most commonly to be found in terms of reason. Sharon had good reason to remove the settlements last year, despite the consequences amongst the masses, and these reasons of finance and logic, more than politics, stand.
Secondly, if these settlements are to be built as pawns, what about the people who are willing to risk their lives to go build them - they are not about to do this as a temporary project of political stategy. They intend to reclaim the land and live there.
If Homesh First (Rishon?) is going to go and inhabit more settlements, I say, let them. It is their choice, and they are aware that the government can remove them. The risks, pros and cons must be carefully evaluated by Israeli leadership. They must figure out the most beneficial approach to this - both short term and long term. They must sit down, with a clear head, and think, because hot-headedness won't get us anywhere. We need to get out of this endless era of perpetual guerrilla warfare and into some sort of new stage. A stage that can be resolved and concluded one way or another. For this we need to think.
For now, we need to protect the citizens of Sderot and the rest of Israel.
Hopefully there are enough smart people in Israel to be able to do both at the same time.
