Posted on 08/23/2011 7:42:19 AM PDT by dervish
Something has gone horribly wrong here in Israel.
How did we ever get to a point in this country where the South, including Beersheba, Sderot, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi, Be’er Tuvia, Ofakim, Azrikam, Gan Yavne, Gedera and Ashdod were hit by more than 100 Grad rockets this past weekend? How did we ever get to a point in this country where we put the safety of our citizens at the mercy of international approval – with an Israeli defense official proclaiming on Monday morning that “lack of international support” was a reason that “Israel could not open a larger offensive” against the terrorists in Gaza.
Let me tell you how I think we got here.
We got here by hiding the truth in euphemisms.
Since the last “cease-fire” in 2008, the South has been assaulted by over 800 Kassams, mortars and Grads.
How many times have you heard or read in the media, “No injuries or damage reported,” or “The missile landed in an open area,” or “Rockets disturb relative calm in South”? When did we ever get to a point where “relative calm” meant Israeli men, women and children being hit by over 800 missiles – or that missiles being fired at our citizens is a “disturbance”? Would any other country tolerate even a single missile fired at its citizens? A study as far back as 2008 revealed that “between 75 and 94 percent of Sderot children aged 4-18 exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress.” Each time a missile is fired at Israel, there is emotional or physical injury to our citizens.
We got here by accepting the farcical nonsense that the IDF is doing something to stop the rocket fire.
Sure, the government has ostensibly embarked upon a campaign of tit for tat. Hamas fires a rocket at us, and we drop a bomb on them – except that we really don’t drop a bomb on them. We bomb the smuggling tunnels, rocket-making factories, and any empty building the IAF can find. How successful has that been? By the IDF’s own estimate, Hamas has now smuggled in over 10,000 rockets and missiles.
We got here by the IDF’s coming up with every conceivable rationalization not to act at all. Some of the most absurd rationalizations have been the most recent. On August 3, it was reported that two rockets struck the Lachish area. In response, the IAF hit the requisite empty buildings in Gaza. No sooner had this happened, however, than IDF spokesmen quickly excused the rocket attack by rationalizing that “the increase in rocket fire is Hamas’s way to vent its frustration [over] being left out of the Palestinian Authority’s current plans to unilaterally declare statehood at the United Nations in September.”
Does the IDF really believe that Hamas’s continuing assault on innocent children, women and men is a way for its members to “vent their frustration” with their fellow Palestinians? I thought that Hamas simply wanted to see Jews and Israel wiped off the face of the planet. Next we’ll have the IDF blaming Hamas missile attacks on the price of cottage cheese in Beit Hanun.
We got here by the IDF’s being unprepared to do anything. On Saturday night, after a day of unrestricted rocket fire against Israel, causing death and destruction – with more firing on Sunday morning – the IDF did nothing. Instead, we had an army spokesman coming up with the gem that “deterrence must be established before the situation spirals out of control.”
But the IDF has no idea about how to deter anything.
Are we supposed to feel comforted that Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz held security consultations all day this past Saturday “to draw up potential responses and courses of actions?” Where has the IDF staff been for the last three years? Weren’t the events of the weekend completely predictable by your average first-grader? The IDF suddenly seems paralyzed by indecision and beset with passive and failed leadership among its top officers.
We got here by hiding behind technology and letting the IDF hide behind technology. Whatever wondrous results the Iron Dome produces, it is a form of passive protection. We let Hamas and Hezbollah accumulate and fire missiles at us, and we intercept as many as possible. Are lives saved? Undoubtedly. Is the terror lessened? Not at all – as the sirens blare, we run to hide in our bomb shelters or crouch behind walls.
Technology is no substitute for boots on the ground – or a comprehensive, well-planned aerial attack.
We got here by buying into and perpetuating the idiotic notion that every group except Hamas is responsible for the rocket fire emanating from Gaza. Al- Tawhid wal-Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, Islamic Jihad, and a hundred other groups: Suddenly all of these are “radical,” but Hamas is not. How nauseating it was to read on Sunday that Hamas was now trying to get Islamic Jihad to stop firing missiles at the South. This is classic good cop-bad cop – with Hamas astonishingly being portrayed as the good cop wanting peace. This nonsense has to stop.
We got here by trying to be politically correct and adopting the thinking of human rights organizations that want us to assume responsibility for the “poor” people of Gaza. Late last month, the army stressed its ongoing efforts to help Palestinian farmers export their produce to European markets. So this is how the IDF now spends its time? How proud we are to say that we drop leaflets and make phone calls in advance of our attacks against terrorists. How morally superior that makes us feel. Yet every time we do this, we help the terrorists escape, ultimately at the bloody expense of our own citizens. No matter how many leaflets we drop and how much we help the Palestinians, our attempts to ingratiate ourselves in the arena of world opinion miserably fail.
Finally, we got here by unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza. Whatever else you want to say, the settlements in northern Gaza were a buffer between the rest of Gaza and Israel, and to have left without having any security guarantees in return was a gross demonstration of weakness.
Let me conclude by telling you what many of us here in the South think should happen, beginning with what we think should never happen. Any thought that Israel should ever retake Gaza is absurd in the extreme. Nevertheless, the situation here in the South cannot stay the same or go back to the way it was before Thursday. Either Israel has to go in on the ground and root out the leaders of Hamas, or Israel must discard its notions of political correctness and relentlessly attack Gazan terrorists from the air and sea. No matter what course we take, the European Union, Arab League and United Nations – and their friends – will condemn Israel for defending Israeli citizens. But it is time for this country to broaden its perspective beyond Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and rally to the defense of its people here in the South.
The writer is a retired faculty member of the University of California-Davis who divides his time between Ashdod and Davis. He blogs at www.israelstreet.org.
Why isn’t Bibi going after these guys? Kind of disappointed in him so far.
Maybe they do need to take it back and deport all the “Palestinians” to Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The author is right, though, in that Israel just has to ignore what the “international community”—including our own alleged President—has to say, and take responsibility for its own security. The “international community” will NEVER approve anything Israel does short of committing national suicide, and most of them would celebrate the day the last Jew in “Palestine” was murdered. Screw them, Israel, do what you must.
}:-)4
political correctness inhibits bibi.
FK international approval.
1. Find the largest non-nuclear bomb in your arsenal.
2. Drop the mfr ON GAZA.
3. Repeat as necessary.
Right !
But it’s up to the israelian people(let alone the hardcore leftists and arab israelians....).
You need some fresh air and sane blood in your political landscape...
Your other problem is Obama and the “arab spring”...
Support (arms, defense guarantees, etc.) from the United States is at stake. Without US assistance, there would be no Israel in the Middle East. Obama sets the beat and calls the tune.
The vaunted IDF is only as good as it’s leadership. Currently, they suck.
bump.
War was declared by Ishmael many, many years ago.
He feels confident now to kill the Son of Promise without risking the anger of Father Abraham.
THIS is the history many never knew and the remaining few have forgotten.
Our anti-God president desires the annihalation of Israel.
By “international support” read "the Obama administration suppoer". I have no doubt Hillary has threatened them if they do.
Nah. The problem is this is a war of attrition.
The IDF does best when the gloves are off.
This piddly “proportionate response” stuff favors the side with no infrastructure that is getting help from third parties (e.g., Iran).
A real attack needs to be made, so we can turn them into dust.
as if to prove the point...Tense Calm Returns as Rocket Offensive Quiets Down
If you read the Jewish Press, Bibi has been known for being big mouth but his actions have always been timid and confused.
That should be step one. With all the Arab land in the ME, why not start 'talks' about Arabs donating land for their 'beloved Palestinians'? None of those people have any business being in Israel. The endless guilt trip being played on the Israelis is tiresome. Israel is a modern culture surrounded by 7th century reprobates. There can't be compromise - just high walls and a strong willingness to fight back.
126 people were indicted in the United States for being terrorists in the last two years. Every one of them was Muslim.
Israel has a very poor friend in Hussein. The worst American ally Israel has had since her modern inception in 1948.
Bibi, I think, knows this. His decisions are tempered by the fact that Hussein will throw Israel under the bus faster than he did Jeremiah Wright, Hosni Mubarak, or his typical white person grandmother.
In a way, Hussein IS slowly throwing Israel under the bus...Hussein granted $900 Million to HAMAS right after he seized power in January of 2009. Hussein encouraged the overthrown of Mubarak, with whom Israel had a cold but lasting peace. Hussein worked with rebels allied with Al Qaeda to overthrow Qaddafi—who, though no friend of Israel, was not an immediate threat. Hussein has shrugged off the nuclear threat of Iran.
So Israel must see these actions of the Hussein regime as a problem, and they watch carefully how forcefully they react.
Bibi and Israel must hang on until January 2013, when the socialist Hussein will be replaced by someone who cares about our alliance with Israel.
I think it’s a shame there is not a rogue outfit somewhere in Israel that always (ALWAYS!) returns rocket-fire launched into Israel with, say, a two-to-one rocket-fire response launched into Gaza.
Since this reply to incoming rocket-fire would NOT come from the IDF, there would be no need for Israel’s elected officials to express regret for the fact of that return fire and no need for those officials to discuss Israel’s “dis-proportionate response”.
From time to time, Israeli police might round up “suspects”, who might be linked to that rogue group. But there would never be enough evidence to charge anyone with anything...
Remember the good old days when the Israeli Left wouldn’t put up with Arab/moslem terror and when American liberals claimed a monopoly on opposition to the PLO? Now they’ve all switched sides and all they can do when conservatives (some belatedly) move in to fill the breach they left deserted is to accuse them of “anti-Semitism!”
....and it was Ishmael who forgave Isaac, not the other way around.
The descendants of Ishmael were the Midianites, not the Arabs.
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