I could be somewhat obsessed about this, but here it goes again:
“We have decided to make Sderot a ghost town,” said a spokesman for Hamas who gave his name as Abu Ubeideh. “We are not going to stop launching our rockets until they leave.”
Today was not different from many other days in Sderot:
The Sderot Parents Association decided Monday evening to boycott the town’s schools until further notice, after a Qassam rocket struck near a day car center earlier in the day. Twelve children suffered from shock after the strike on the southern town, and were evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon for treatment.
The parents of Sderot demand that the children be evacuated as soon as possible. Which, as it should be clear to everyone, means that the Gazan rocket scientists are as close as possible to their goal – to empty Sderot of its population.
While Olmert continues to issue empty threats, Hamas is already countering the “threats” in its usual hypocritical fashion:
Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu called for the international community to prevent Israel from carrying out harsh reprisals. “We are taking this new threat by Olmert seriously,” he said. “We are warning of coming massacres against the people in Gaza.”
Which statement, when translated into simple words means that Olmert, even in his ineffectual way, should not interfere with the unalienable right of Gazans to lob rockets on Zionist Entity’s towns and villages.
Meanwhile Islamic Jihad, who did not learn yet the art of hypocrisy, shows its ugly face quite boldly:
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks, calling them “a gift for the opening of the school year.”
This refreshing directness of IJ shows its real face, but it does not register elsewhere. So far the Haaretz article linked above is the only one (aside of the radio) that caught up with this monstrosity.
I do not claim to have a solution. I suspect that nobody has one, and I wouldn’t like to be in Olmert’s shoes now (or ever, for that matter). Unleashing even a small part of IDF’s might on Gaza will cause a bloodbath, but letting terrorists launching Qassams at will is hardly an alternative. And there is no middle way. Not while Hamas sees it as politically expedient to continue the attacks.
While Israel indeed holds the key to many lifelines of Gaza, like water, electricity and other vital supplies, any attempt to interrupt the flow will cause uncounted suffering to all Gazans (probably the least of all to the terror gangs, who will take their wont by force from the defenseless anyway).
So what is left? You tell me…
Cross-posted on SimplyJews.
P.S. And read Treppenwitz’ “rant“, which I totally agree with.
If every rocket attack on Sderot was responded to by, say, a Battery 6, how much longer do you think the rocket attacks would continue?
A government that cannot protect its citizenry needs to be replaced.
Oh, come on, you know those were not “children” in a “day care center”, they were actually “Zionist Oppressors” in a “Training Camp”.
Sadly, I just can’t see a good solution to this. I can honestly answer Joel’s question with “Until Gaza is bombed into a parking lot”. The citizens of Israel may have to consider themselves a permanently embattled population.
Joel, the chances of hitting the rocket scientists using Battery 6 are very low. The only people suffering will be civilians, and the terrorists will continue with their tasks.
The only military way to deal with the Qassams is to go in and catch or kill (whatever comes first) the whole Jihad Islami gang. And to do this without a bloodbath is impossible.
And the dreckes know and use this dilemma exceedingly well…
I’d suggest that Israel unilaterally retreat to the ’67 boundaries, which would include relinquishing East Jerusalem. (Sad, but necessary.) This would eliminate the main motivation for the attacks, for what else could the Palestinians reasonably expect to get from Israel? Any further missile attacks should be dealt with by air strikes on the lauch sites, and, if necessary, temporary military incursions to capture and destroy rockets, as in Lebanon last summer. In pure military terms, last year’s war was a modest success for Israel, and should serve as a model for dealing with any harassment from post-Occupation Palestine.
Also, unlike Snoopy, I have no problem with Israel cutting off any electrical power or water that flows into Gaza from Israel. I don’t relish punishing the civilian population of Gaza but it’s pointless for Israel to treat Gaza as anything but a hostile state.
Lefty, Islamic Jihad is quite clear in what it wants: All of “Palestine,” not just the 1949 Armistice lines. So does Hamas.
Giving Palestinians what they want has only resulted in more terrorism. The jihadis are firing their rockets from areas that were former Israeli settlements.
Unilateral retreat has been followed by war in every single case. It doesn’t work. Only strength works. But the world rises up unanimously to stop Israel when she defends herself.
Snoopy, you’re implicitly accepting the notion that the terrorists can be allowed to hide behind civilians with impunity for both the terrorists and the civilian population that supports them. If Gaza simply won’t be other than either a launching pad or a parking lot, whose problem should that be, and why should the Palestinians be expected to do anything more than decide how to allocate the parking spaces and paint the lines?
As to the notion that Israel can solve the Palestinians’ problem for them by giving them lebensraum, I think we’re well past the time (say, 1967) when that was other than a sick joke.