Israel Applies the Kerry Doctrine to Rocket Attacks

Here is a sample of today's news regarding Israel's long-running daily rocket barrage:

Palestinian Rocket Hits Israeli Kibbutz

IDF Finds Kassam in West Bank (Maariv-Hebrew):

Based on intelligence information from the Shin Bet, Israel Defense Forces troops uncovered a tunnel concealing a 40 kg. Kassam rocket near Kabatiya, close in Jenin in the West Bank.

Yaalon: "We've Gotten Use to Palestinian Rockets As If It Was Rain" (Maariv-Hebrew):

[Ex-Chief of Staff] Yaalon suggested that Israel take steps to cause the other side to face the dilemma of deciding whether or not it is worthwhile to continue firing rockets at Israel. He added, "The paradigm that there is a solution involving two states for two peoples is no longer relevant."

Israel is taking John Kerry's approach to terror, as expressed in the last election. This is not accidental--Israel's leadership also comes from the ideological left. As in many areas, Israel is not significantly different from the rest of the world, just ahead of the curve in terms of timing because of our location on the front lines of the Global Jihad. Most obviously, the aggressive Muslim intifada now sweeping the world is precisely what we have been fighting.

1. Try to keep it at the "annoyance level."
Currently the missiles are considered "annoyances." They rarely cause serious injury to people or buildings, and appear to be only slowly making their way toward the population center of the country. People in the outlying areas where rockets are a nightly nightmare have the option of moving out if the pressure becomes too much to bear, and most do not. The lesson here is that terror can become managed and even routinized like any constant danger and that former outrages can regularly pass without comment by the political leadership. Psychologically, people largely adapt by living in a state of denial, thinking that the rockets won't ever reach "me" or that the constant incitement to genocide is "just bluster" or that if they ever attack beyond the "annoyance" level, we will devastate them with our "superior" military might.

This incrementalism has been a long-term strategy of the Global Jihad, with the operant metaphor being the frog that passively accepts being boiled because the heat in its water was continuously raised slowly. According to the commonly told story, if the water was heated suddenly the frog would take action and jump out.

Israel has been relatively successfully keeping the rocket attacks at an "annoyance" level by playing a pretty good game of defense--rooting out bomb factories and missiles, harrassing missile crews, etc. It does not change the fact, however, that we are under daily attack with the widespread support of Muslims and their leaders and that any non-leftist leadership would consider this an obvious act of war. It reminds me of the Steven Wright joke about the "acceptable number of rat hairs" quality standard that the US government allegedly imposes on food. He quips that his personal standard is zero.

2. Treat it as law-enforcement, not war.
The media has been focused on the issue of whether Israel would cut off payments to the PA now that the terror mask is so undeniably off. To be technically accurate, it is undeniable to anyone to the right of Jimmy Carter. This attention has obscured the fact that Israel recognized that the PA was really a Terror Authority long ago. Prime Minister Sharon himself said the "Palestinian leadership continues to support, fund, and initiate terror."

Israel has been treating the problem of rocket attacks and terror attacks as specific incidents of law enforcement, by trying to stop the attackers, slow them down by destroying their "infrastructure," target them in the act, and always to try to arrest them if feasible. This is defense. Never has offense against the PA in general been seriously pursued. Never has the simple act of stopping providing them money been tried, including now (despite the disinformation to that effect).