Gettin' right with the jihad at a Hamas mosque...The bitter fruits of Israel's retreat from Gaza have now become all too apparent.
It's become exactly the sort of terrorist enclave that the Sharon government assured the Israeli population it would never become, and all of the painstaking `security arrangements' brokered by Secretary of State Condi Rice between Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Egypt with American guarantees turned out, as many of us predicted to be so much waste paper....to be polite about it.
The missile assault against southern Israel continues, with another 20 missiles coming over today and hitting another school. Three Israelis were injured, and even Israeli Chief of Staff General Gaby Ashkenazi had to end up running for cover from a missile assault on Sderot.
The Palestinians have fired over 120 missiles at Southern Israel in four days, and over 4,500 civilians have left or been evacuated. And the Israeli port of Ashkelon is gearing up for expected attacks.
The Israelis have retaliated with a fairly limited response thus far,mainly concentrating on the odd Hamas missile launching site or compound. They've taken out 11 Hamas fighters thus far in air raids on Gaza.
Needless to say, this band-aid approach is doing absolutely nothing to end the attacks on Israel.
Even worse, the Israelis are being pressured by the US to get involved in the Palestinian gang war with their military to save the American's preferred terrorists, Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah!
In Gaza itself, in spite of the Israelis allowing 500 American equipped Fatah gunmen to cross into Gaza, Hamas has been steadily winning almost every street battle against Fatah and confiscating all those American arms they were given, courtesy of the Bush Administration.
Part of the problem is that Abbas' security forces have been thoroughly infiltrated by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and there's no telling who's bought out who at this point.
Because of that, and because he's resisting plunging the Palestinians into a full scale civil war that he'd likely lose,at least in Gaza,Abbas has been refusing to send more of his Force 17 thugs over to fight Hamas on its home turf. Abbas was even forced to cancel a meeting with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh when he found out that he most likely would not have gotten back out of Gaza without being assassinated.
So the Israelis are faced with a major dilemma: if they go into a full scale war with Hamas and make a major incursion back into Gaza, they'd be using the Israeli military in a bloody campaign to consolidate Abbas' rule - something that will generate more outrage from the UN and the Palestinian groupies in the West.
I can just see the pictures in the AP and al-Reuters now.
Plus, that strategy will likely backfire over time anyway, as Abbas is hardly anything remotely resembling a `peace partner', has no real constituency in Gaza anyway and would become even less popular as `an ally of the Jews.'
But if the Israelis hold back, they are stuck with a war of attrition and terrorism that will gradually turn southern Israel into a no-man's land.
The real solution, of course, would be for the Israelis to admit that leaving Gaza was a horrible mistake, reoccupy the entire strip, destroy the Hamas military infrastructure, annex the Gaza Strip to Israel and remove the Palestinian population either to the Palestinian areas in Judea and Samaria or insist that the UN relocate them to Egypt or another Arab country.
The odds on the Olmert government doing that, especially with George W.Bush in the White House are slim...if for no other reason than because Olmert and his partners in crime would then have to admit to a long string of errors.
But, horrible as it would be, that's the only real permanent solution to decades of failed policy, starting with Oslo.
Imagine..instead of a terrorist enclave and slum that destabilizes the entire region and is a threat to the West, there would be a peaceful, prosperous region replete with agriculture, tourism and high tech.
But that would mean that Israel would own it, and most of the population would be Jews...and we can't have that now, can we?
You write: "Imagine..instead of a terrorist enclave and slum that destabilizes the entire region and is a threat to the West, there would be a peaceful, prosperous region replete with agriculture, tourism, and hiigh tech.
ReplyDeleteBut that would mean Israel would own it, and most of the populatopm would be Jews...and we can't have that now can we?" According to some people, apparently not. Never mind the fact that this terrorist enclave is a serious threat to the West and to the regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. Apparently some people hate Jews more than they like their own lives.
It is long past time for Israel to implement the "real solution" as you call it. Israel needs to say "no" to pressure from the US or any one else.
It is truly a sad situation that the US would be supporing Fatah!! If you are going to support Fatah, there is no way you can say that you are serious about fighting a "War on Terror."