It looks like the IDF is going to go into Gaza, as has been discussed for months. The 60th birthday celebrations are over, George W. Bush’s visit is done, Olmert has been to the U.S., and Hamas refuses to stop firing rockets and mortars into Israel. One Israeli has been killed and ten wounded in the last few days, and the death and injury count is way up over the last several months, while smuggling is not down. And then there’s the fact that Olmert put a real soldier in charge of the IDF after dumping Peretz the Putz.
“Israel is close to launching an operation in Gaza,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters moments before lifting off the tarmac in Washington en route back to Israel on Thursday evening.
Olmert said he sees eye to eye with Defense Minister Ehud Barak on the latter’s assessment of the probable necessity at hand to launch a wide-scale counterterrorism operation in the Gaza Strip.
“We’re nearing a crossroads in Gaza, both in terms of setting a timetable and the exacerbation of the problem,” said the prime minister. During a tour of the kibbutz factory hit by a Hamas mortar barrage earlier in the day, Barak said such a military operation would likely precede any ceasefire agreement with Palestinian terror groups.
Of course, the best way to tell how close the operation is to happening is to gauge the disappearance of the Hamas leadership in Gaza. They’re like groundhogs. If they see the IDF’s shadow, they head back into their holes until spring, or until the operation is over—whichever comes first. Say, groundhogs are rodents, aren’t they? Totally fits the Hamas subhuman leadership, if you ask me. Of course, it’s an insult to groundhogs the world over.
As for Hamas, well, they’re promising to keep on killing.
Hamas warned on Thursday afternoon that it would continue to launch attacks against Israeli communities near the Gaza border so long as there was no ceasefire in effect.
“We have no intentions of holding back our fire,” said a senior Hamas official said after the group’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for the shelling of the factory.
My question in all of this: How many rockets will Hamas launch if there is a major Gaza ground operation? How much have they modeled themselves on Hezbollah? And will Hezbollah use this as an opportunity to strike Israel from the other direction? (I think not. They’ve got too much to lose right now.)
Watch for the AP, Reuters, and the mainstream media to start having the vapours over the prospect of an IDF operation in Gaza. I’m sure they’re warming up their civilian body count programs already.
I offer a prediction, thanks to my mystical powers: when the Israeli action is launched the media will at best speak sadly about “yet another cycle of violence that besets the strife-torn land.”
Any bets?
I worry that Olmert will only engage in a little wrist slapping. What Hamas needs to get right with Allah is a devastating beating, a total war. I suspect thousands of Gaza residents would welcome their departure from the hood, in a similar fashion to the fall of AQ and the Mahdi Army in Irag, but Israel would have to stay and provide security to make such an operation a lasting success. Not a chance under present leadership The tragedy is that more IDF soldiers will die in another of Olmert’s PR stunts. Maybe if Obama would offer himself as a human shield against Hamas rocket attacks? PS, I’m sure Israelis welcome these expert opinions from so far away. Or maybe not.
Hamas warned on Thursday afternoon that it would continue to launch attacks against Israeli communities near the Gaza border so long as there was no ceasefire in effect.
Why bother with a ceasefire agreement? Israel is just putting its border city residents in danger, and what percentage of ceasefire agreements have ever been honored by Hamas? This is just a guess, but I’d have to say…ah…zero percent.
The fact that a military operation would precede a ceasefire is an indication that there is no chance for it to succeed.
I’ll make a prediction. After the “supposed” ceasefire takes effect, Hamas will fire rockets into an Israel border city, killing innocent citizens. Israel retaliates, and kills innocent citizens in proximity to terrorists. Lesson learned, I don’t think so!
But Rob, those rockets will be fired by splinter groups that Hamas, despite its best efforts, cannot control. The media and western governments will agree, will decide that Hamas is doing its best despite the uninterrupted rain of rockets, and then pressure Israel into concessions.