.
Commentary;
This author doesn’t owe his parnossa to the leftist, politically correct media, and thus has no qualms about telling like it is.
Firstly, the majority of Israels polled who support, such as what Evelyn Gordon describes in the article below, “an extensive ground operation in Gaza,” lack the fervor necessary regarding this or any issue.
Ehud Olmert, who is easily the most disliked, disapproved of prime minister in Israel’s modern history, remains in office because Israelis lack the backbone, willpower and gumption to act, based on the Ukrainian model, to force him and his utterly and completly corrupt cronies from office and bring to power an upright, honest non-corruptible leadership which will deal forthrightly with the nation’s important issues, partcularly security.
Ms Gordon makes a lot of valid points in her article, even given that it comes from a media bastion of political correctness, of prepetuation of the false axiom of “Israel, a nation among nations” which actually means Israeli leaders dying to please the nations and offering up Jewish korbonot in the process.
Why even bother with machinations of international agencies, foreign diplomats, foreign government heads of state, ministers, cabinet secretaries, etc.?
Gordon claims;
Any of them could, if they took five minutes to examine the data, realize that Israel’s military measures in the West Bank have dramatically reduced Israeli fatalities, especially inside Israel…
But why should Israel ever appeal to and perceive herself as dependent upon the nations when they should be devoting their energies to appealing to a higher authority, as stated in our daily tefillos? Why should Israel jump at the beck and call of the nations whose feigned ignorance is culpable, who are more than willing to declare Israel and Jews expendble and thus demand Auschwitz borders of us?
Further, there is sufficient reason to believe that the nations are not making such demands, or if they were making such demands, they are parroting Israel’s leftist, politically correct, secular government initiatives designed to seperate Israelis from their Jewish heritage and connection.
Hashem annuls the counsel of nations, He balks the designs of people. Many designs are in man’s heart, but the counsel of Hashem — only it will prevail. The counsel of Hashem will endure forever, the designs of His heart throughout the generations.
But then again, that’s why the secular, non-spiritually connected Olmerts, Baraks, Ramons, Netanyahu’s and more need to driven from governance and be replaced with leaders who know well why they are here, why we are here in Eretz Yisrael. MB
Debunking a Persistent Canard, by Evelyn Gordon (Jerusalem Post)
Full Text;
The mantra “there is no military solution to terrorism” is so rarely challenged these days that it was shocking to see the following commentary last Wednesday on the front page of Haaretz, a leading bastion of the “no military solution” theory.
“It’s common to claim it is impossible to defeat terrorism,” the analysis stated. But in the seven years since the intifada began, “the IDF and Shin Bet have come as close as possible to achieving victory. Since the beginning of the year, two soldiers (one each in the West Bank and Gaza) and six civilians (three in a suicide bombing in Eilat, two from Kassam rockets in Sderot and one who was stabbed to death in Gush Etzion) have been killed by terrorism. This is a very small number, considering the number of attempted attacks, and also compared to the high point of the intifada, when 450 Israelis were killed in 2002. The last suicide bombing in central Israel occurred 18 months ago, in April 2006.
“The formula that produced this achievement is known,” it continued: aggressive intelligence gathering, the security fence and “the IDF’s complete freedom of action in West Bank cities.”
If this is not victory, it is a close enough approximation that most Israelis would happily settle for it. That is why the June Peace Index poll found Jewish Israelis overwhelmingly opposed to security concessions to the Palestinian Authority, with 79 percent against arming the PA, 71 percent against removing checkpoints and 54 percent against releasing prisoners: Few Israelis want to scrap measures that have reduced Israeli fatalities from 450 to eight over the last five years.
It also helps explain the stunning reversal in Israeli attitudes toward Sderot revealed by August’s Peace Index poll. According to that poll, fully 69 percent of Jewish Israelis now support an extensive ground operation in Gaza to stop the Kassam fire at southern Israel – whereas last December, 57 percent opposed such an operation. Moreover, this support crossed party lines: Even among people who voted for the leftist Labor and Meretz parties, 64 and 67 percent, respectively, favored a major military operation in Gaza.
CLEARLY, THIS reversal occurred partly because in the interim, all other options had been exhausted. The December poll came a month after Hamas declared a cease-fire in Gaza, and while the truce had not fully taken hold, many still hoped that it would. By August, those hopes had died: Not only were rockets fired at Sderot almost daily during the “cease-fire,” but in May, Hamas trumpeted its contempt for the truce by claiming credit for over 100 Kassam launches in a single week. Additionally, in December, Mahmoud Abbas was nominally in control of Gaza, and many still hoped that he would take action to stop the rocket fire. By August, Hamas was in full control.
The fact that Israel first sought nonmilitary solutions in Gaza resembles its behavior during the first 18 months of the intifada: It signed cease-fires (which instantly collapsed), declined to respond even to major suicide bombings inside Israel (Dolphinarium and Sbarro), and generally sought to get the Palestinian security services to reassert control. But as the casualty toll, especially inside Israel, mounted, it became clear that salvation would not come from the PA. So in March 2002, Israel reconquered the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield – and Israeli fatalities dropped dramatically, that year and every year thereafter.
HOWEVER, there is one crucial difference between the intifada’s early years and the recent Israeli quest for a nonmilitary solution in Gaza: While Israelis would always prefer to avoid risking soldiers’ lives, they now know, as they did not in 2002, that the military option works. After all, not a single Kassam has been fired at Israel from the West Bank. Hence Israelis are not awaiting leadership from above; they are backing military action even as the politicians still vehemently reject it.
Given this growing recognition among the Israeli public, it is bizarre to hear senior politicians and military officers still parroting the “no military solution to terror” mantra. But at least these officials understand that in practice, Israel’s defensive measures in the West Bank work, and therefore, ending them would be a bad idea (not to mention unpopular with the voters).
International agencies and diplomats, in contrast, have not even gotten that far. Any of them could, if they took five minutes to examine the data, realize that Israel’s military measures in the West Bank have dramatically reduced Israeli fatalities, especially inside Israel, since 2002; yet they persist in declaring that these measures are unnecessary and must be scrapped. Thus Condoleezza Rice uses her every visit to pressure Israel on this issue, while the World Bank once again demanded last week that Israel remove West Bank checkpoints, open its border with Gaza and restore freedom of movement between Gaza and the West Bank.
Or perhaps this is feigned ignorance, meant to cover a willingness to sacrifice Israeli lives in order to demonstrate “progress” in the peace process. The World Bank report, for instance, coyly stated that “the costs are subjective to each side and are beyond the scope of this report” – thereby sparing it the need to acknowledge that the likely cost is Israeli lives – but “all parties will need to expend more resources and assume more risks than they have done in the past.”
Is it really unaware of what those carefully unstated risks are? Either way, however, this willful blindness perpetuates the conflict by ensuring that a key obstacle to resolving it – Palestinian terror – remains unaddressed. In 1993, many Israelis hoped that a peace agreement would end terror. Fourteen years later, after having suffered more fatalities from Palestinian terror post-Oslo than during the entire preceding 45 years, most Israelis have concluded that the allegedly nonexistent military solution does a much better job of protecting their lives. And until there is concrete evidence of Palestinian willingness and ability to do the job as well or better, there will be no Israeli majority for any deal with the PA.
The West Bank Operation / A Reminder of a Forgotten War, by Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff (Haaretz)
‘7-MW-Hour Penalty for Each Kassam’, by Yaakov Katz and Herb Keinon (Jerusalem Post)
Clinton: IAF ‘Attack in Syria’ Justified, by Hilary Leila Krieger (Jerusalem Post)