by Zvika Fogel
Why do we need world
support to justify a just war? Does a 13-year-old boy from a community
near Gaza, born into a routine of warning sirens and "15 seconds to get
to the nearest bomb shelter," need to celebrate his bar mitzvah in a
fortified hall or look for a place beyond the range of the rocket fire
to celebrate the occasion?
Who determined that terror can't be defeated with force?
There is no dissension,
no political division regarding the rights of one million southern
residents to live a normal life. The consensus exists in the
understanding, as well as in the internalization that Hamas and the
other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip don't recognize our
right to continue living in the State of Israel and to continue building
it.
In contrast with the
deterrence we built against Egypt, Syria and Jordan through the Six-Day
War and the Yom Kippur War, it seems quite clear we haven't learned how
to create continuing deterrence against the terrorist organizations in
Gaza.
Over the past decade we
tried every possible way to talk with the various terrorist groups:
through Egyptian and Saudi mediators, through flattery and even European
donations. We've tried opening border crossings for the hundreds of
trucks that bring goods into Gaza daily. We've tried military operations
that have always ended too soon due to "rising oil prices" in the West
or because of our own politicians' desire to notch any sort of
achievement, just as long as no mistakes are made that can be held
against them later.
We must admit it: We've
failed. We haven't managed to stop the terrorist attacks along the Gaza
and Sinai border fences, and we haven't been able to prevent rocket and
mortar fire at Israel. As opposed to the successful campaign to recruit
the world against Iran's nuclear program, we've failed to consolidate a
worldview against Palestinian terror.
The West, which has
never found much interest in the Palestinians or the Arab world, which
doesn't want to take any interest in them, have left this hornets’ nest
for us to deal with, along with a plethora of advice about what we are
not allowed to do. We don't have many options left. We can, of course,
continue fortifying ourselves to death under layer upon layer of
concrete and arming ourselves with more Iron Dome batteries, but this
would be a type of admission that we are continuing to rely on luck.
The time has come to
deal with the shooters, not run for shelter. The new Middle East, with
all its revolutions and vicissitudes, creates the possibility for a
power vacuum allowing refugees, minorities and terrorist organizations
to forge a plot of land for themselves. Hamas and the other terrorist
groups have already understood this and have settled the Sinai Peninsula
and opened another front against Israel. If today we don't stop Hamas
from growing in strength in Gaza and prevent it from becoming a vast
terrorist army, then in the future we will need to pay a heavier price
of war in Gaza, Sinai and maybe even in Judea and Samaria.
The Israeli homefront
will continue to be strong, but only on the condition that it knows
there is someone willing to subdue the enemy. Those who have forgotten
the way the north was abandoned before Operation Accountability (July
25-31, 1993) or the "exodus" from Gush Dan during the Persian Gulf War
in 1991 could one day soon find Israel's southern residents sleeping in
public parks in Tel Aviv or tent camps built by tycoons like Arkady
Gaydamak.
Zvika Fogel is an IDF brigadier-general (res.) and former chief of staff GOC Southern Commnand.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2862
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment