On Thursday, after a Qassam rocket was fired at Israel from Gaza, Israel
announced it was closing the crossings into Gaza. The Qassam was the sixth
(along with four mortars) fired since the "ceasefire" began on June 19.
Israel's announcement of a closing of the crossings was its seventh since
that time.
On Friday, Hamas claimed the closing was a breach of the ceasefire
agreement
by Israel and announced that in reprisal it was suspending the talks on a
deal for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas two years
ago.
On Sunday, Israel announced it was reopening the crossings.
As usual, Israel's response to Thursday's Qassam turned out to be
short-lived playacting and Hamas retained the upper hand. Hamas claims
it's
not behind, in fact opposes, the Qassam and mortar firings since the
ceasefire, and it may even be true. Hamas is benefiting from the current
situation and is capable of enough strategic thought to see that calling
off
the bombardment for a while could be to its advantage.
Just how much to its advantage was detailed in a piece called "Fortress
Gaza" by Israeli analyst Jonathan Spyer. Hamas, Spyer notes, has been
extensively recruiting, "feverishly training," and acquiring weapons "far
superior in quality" to those it had previously. The new armaments are
thought to include, particularly, antitank weapons and bombs, the idea
being
to exact such high military and civilian casualties from Israel should it
eventually invade Gaza that Israel will back down.
The Israeli defense establishment, usually (though not reliably) more
reality-attuned than the political leader****p, re****tedly sent out a
do***ent last week calling for military responses to the rocket firings
and
stressing that the present situation serves Hamas's interests. It hasn't
taken long, then, for the latest "ceasefire" to turn into the usual
one-sided farce as Israel-complying with the terms-has stopped its
military
operations in Gaza while Hamas-not complying with them-is at least not
stopping the rocket fire and certainly not the weapons im****tation.
How dire the situation has gotten under the Olmert government has now
prompted a guilt-ridden salvo from Yehezkel Dror, a veteran Israeli policy
analyst and member of the five-person Winograd Commission that was set up
to
investigate the failures of the 2006 war in Lebanon.
Dror already created a stir last February after the commission's final
re****t was published. That do***ent, while indeed scathingly critical of
the
government's performance during the war, seemed strangely mum about
mentioning Olmert by name.
Asked by the Israeli daily Maariv why the re****t didn't call for Olmert's
resignation, Dror replied that "If we think that the prime minister will
advance the peace process, it is a serious consideration.. What do you
prefer, a government with Olmert and Barak, or new elections that will put
Netanyahu in power?"
But in an article that came out Wednesday in the American Jewish liberal
weekly Forward, Dror said he now thinks he "erred in trusting the
political
system and the public to do what was obviously required in light of our
harsh findings, namely to remove the prime minister from office.. I regret
that I did not insist on making an explicit institutional recommendation
that, because of his grand failures, the prime minister should not
continue
to serve."
Olmert, says Dror, "stands accused of unseemly personal behavior. He is
preoccupied with political survival and is distrusted by the vast majority
of the public." He rebuked Olmert for "showing a serious lack of strategic
thinking" and repeated the charges in an interview to Israel Radio on
Saturday.
After the Winograd Commission's cu****oning of the Olmert government in its
final re****t earlier this year, Dror's words come bitterly too
late-particularly since, in the latest "ceasefire" farce, Hamas is showing
that very capability for "strategic thinking" that Israel's prime minister
lacks. The price for the failures of Olmert and his government, and of
Dror
and his commission, continues to be paid by Gilad Shalit, the Israeli
people
as a whole, Middle Eastern stability, and any hope for a real peace based
on
Israeli deterrence and resolve.
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