IRIS Blog

IDF tanks prepare for Gaza invasion

Israeli planes attacked three bridges in central Gaza, the military said Wednesday, and Israeli tanks were on the move after the government approved a limited operation ? a response to a weekend Palestinian attack in which two soldiers were killed and a third captured.

The Israeli military said in a statement that the object of the attacks on the bridges late Tuesday and early Wednesday was "to impair the ability of the terrorists to transfer the kidnapped soldier." Knocking down the bridges would cut Gaza in two, Palestinian security officials said.

Egyptian- and French-led efforts to negotiate for the release of an Israeli soldier abducted by Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip have failed, Israeli television reported on Tuesday.

... A mediator reached by Reuters said it was too early to call it quits. "It will be a few hours yet until we know it is hopeless"

At this writing, Israeli tanks are gathered outside the Gaza fence, poised for a major offensive.

• The immediate challenge goes beyond better fortifying ourselves against attack, whether by missiles or through tunnels. It relates to ending the attacks. Such attacks can only be prevented if the price the Palestinian leadership pays for ordering or acquiescing in them is much higher than any conceivable benefit.



• The price to be exacted must necessarily combine military and non-military actions by Israel, preferably supported and supplemented by sanctions imposed by the international community. But if necessary, Israel must be prepared single-handedly to raise the price of attacking us to prohibitive levels.



• Hamas knows that Israel can deal a serious setback to the terrorist infrastructure that it has been building rather than dismantling, and that Israeli military action will mean that Hamas has delivered the opposite of the improved situation for Palestinians that it promised in the elections that brought it to power.



• Israel cannot become reconciled to a war of attrition with the Palestinians; the Palestinian attacks must end. And this can only be done by substantially raising the price of Palestinian aggression through diplomatic, economic, and military means.

It is painful to watch Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni try to contend with the terrible outcome of the Palestinian terror strike against the IDF on Sunday morning.

They use so many fancy and angry words. They sound so resolute. And yet, they have nothing useful to say. Two soldiers are dead, a third is now the prisoner of jihadist killers, seven are wounded, an IDF border post has been overrun, and a world view and a security doctrine have been blown to smithereens.

Olmert and his associates have four general messages. First, they tell us that Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas is responsible for bringing about Cpl. Gilad Shalit's release. Second, they say Hamas better watch out because they're gonna get it. Third, they say that Hamas won't get it until later. Finally, while stipulating that they will not negotiate with Hamas, Olmert and his associates are negotiating with Hamas.

None of these messages and none of the actions that attend to them have any chance of making Israel safer. They also hold little promise of bringing Cpl. Shalit home. Yet there is next to no possibility that Olmert or his associates will widen their options to include any relevant responses to Sunday's terror offensive. Doing so would involve an admission that what the Kadima and Labor parties have presented to the public as their world view is wrong.

That world view involves a denial of a basic, fundamental truth: When you empower terrorists, terrorists are empowered.

Ahead of Sunday night's security cabinet meeting, Olmert reportedly told IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz not to present any wide-scale military options to the cabinet. This makes sense. Any major operation, just like any real discussion of Israel's security situation or its options for contending with it would show the failure of the government's retreat policy.

OLMERT cannot allow a counter-terror offensive in Gaza because doing so will lead to international condemnation of Israel. It isn't the impact of the condemnation Israel's international standing that concerns him. Olmert cannot be condemned internationally because he promised that after Israel retreated from Gaza, the international community would accept any Israeli counter-terror offensives in Gaza.

Sunday's attack and Cpl. Shalit's kidnapping are watershed events. In the coming days and weeks, it will become self-evident to the Israeli public as a whole just how indefensible Olmert's plan to empower terrorists actually is. Yet public recognition of his plan's failure is not enough.

So to our fervent prayers for Cpt. Shalit's rescue, we should add another prayer. We should pray that whereas the demise of the so-called peace process did not cause the demise of its core policy of empowering terrorists, the demise of Olmert's retreat policy will also cause the burial of the notion that empowering terrorists can do anything other than make terrorists more powerful.

The Israeli government must immediately get back two precious commodities it has lost: Gilad Shalit, and its power of deterrence.

The demand for Shalit's return to his home, his parents and to the IDF must be sharp and explicit. There must be no room left for "interpretation" or compromise.

The abduction of Gilad Shalit, as well as the deaths of two comrades is not an isolated incident. Rather, it is the product of a long process, during which Israel has lost its power of deterrence against the Palestinian enemy. The new government's so-called "policy of restraint" has been interpreted as weakness ? and Israel cannot afford to appear weak.

Last Sunday I visited Sderot, an Israeli city well within the Green Line. In the 10 months since disengagement, Sderot and other Negev towns have suffered approximately 600 Qassam Rocket attacks. I met mothers who send their children to nursery schools and kindergartens with fear in their hearts, who harbor only one prayer for the rest of the day: "Please, let them come home safely."

The power of deterrence is a vital asset for Israel as we are engaged in a battle for our existence. Defense Minister Peretz, himself a resident of Sderot, promised there less than a week ago that "within 10 hours there will be a substantial improvement in the security situation."

The deadline passed ? but nothing.

We expect the government to "drop the (figurative) gloves", and to allow IDF officers and fighters to work to restore Israel's power of deterrence. This is the only way the government can start to begin to correct the mistakes of the past, and can prevent them in the future.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's disturbingly simplistic mantra that nothing will stop him from retreating may appeal to his household, but it hardly serves as a replacement for a well-reasoned and coherent policy.

Mr. Olmert's team's struggle to sell retreat to the world has become so desperate that they have gone so far as to try to package it as implementation of the Road Map, stripped of the Road Map's requirements of Palestinian compliance.

That's right.

The same Olmert who keeps saying that he won't negotiate with the Palestinians unless they first fulfill their security obligations is the Olmert whose team says it is now planning to retreat from most of the West Bank, and allow for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state in the evacuated areas, if the Palestinians don't fulfill their security obligations.

That's a sovereign Palestinian state with access to the outside world via gateways not controlled by Israel.

Either the Olmert team has been so busy working on the retreat that they haven't had a chance to keep up with the news, or they simply don't care that the Rafiach Crossing has been a security failure in the absence of Israeli control.

That's a sovereign Palestinian state turning the most populous areas of Israel into one big Sderot, while Mr. Olmert is incapable or unwilling to protect the original Sderot from the consequences of the Gaza retreat.

Our right to exist as an independent Jewish state is still in dispute.

The acceptance of the State of Israel as an independent Jewish state on the part of our neighbors requires a long-term perspective on two fronts. On the one hand, Israeli society must remain steadfast over what will necessarily be a period of conflict spanning many years; on the other hand, we must always keep our eye on societal and moral changes that have to take place among our enemies before reconciliation can ever really occur.

Anti-terror warfare is important, but it addresses only the ability to commit terrorist acts rather than the roots of terrorism.

The Palestinian education system continues to deny Israel's right to exist as an independent Jewish state; labels the entire historic land of Israel "from the River to the Sea" as "occupied"; and denies any connection between the Jewish people and their ancestral homeland.

An education system of this kind is not preparing Palestinians for reconciliation, but for war.

THE ENLIGHTENED world, with the Unites States taking the lead, must continue to make financial assistance to Arab states - and especially the Palestinian Authority - conditional on fundamental educational reform. The first step should be a ban on incitement to hatred in government-controlled mosques and media, followed by significant changes in school textbooks.

• Why should Sderot have to play the role of a second Massada? Is it a military post or something? Is it an illegal settlement outpost? Is it in occupied territory?



• The moment the Israel Defense Forces evacuated Gaza and its Jewish settlements, in which a third generation of settlers lived, and handed the territory over to the Palestinians, the firing of Kassams should have stopped immediately.



• The expectations that the Palestinians would rapidly construct multi-story buildings in the evacuated territories to house refugees and create an atmosphere of progress were disappointed. Instead, the liberated territories turned into a firing base. The increased bombardment of Israeli territory is the last thing that Israeli peace-seekers expected.



• There is no political logic to the Kassam fire; it has one sole aim: to kill Israeli civilians because they are Israelis. Only a miracle from heaven and technical flaws in the rockets have prevented mass slaughter in Sderot.



• The very fact that a town in sovereign Israeli territory lives in fear every day is intolerable. It is the government's obligation to protect its citizens.

If the July 26 Palestinian referendum actually does take place, Palestinians will answer "yes" or "no" to just one question: "Do you agree to the national conciliation document: 'Prisoners Document'?" The Prisoners Document does not explicitly call for recognition of Israel; and it presses for the "right of return," widely understood as a way to destroy the Jewish state via demographic means. The document calls for "clinging to the option of resistance" - a term regularly used by Palestinians to describe terror attacks against Israelis. Yet, many media organizations are incorrectly touting this document as a "peace plan."