by Dr. Reuven Berko
It was a brilliant
intelligence-driven military operation, reminiscent of the 2008
assassination of Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughniyeh. The
assassination of Hamas' military commander Ahmed Jabari with a direct
missile hit to his car, along with the killing of additional key Gaza
terror figures, were a resounding opening shot. In a string of
subsequent strikes from the air and from the sea, additional cars and
stationary targets were eliminated. There is no doubt that Jabari's assassination severely crippled Hamas' military operations and greatly
contributed to Israel's power of deterrence. It is very likely that
Israel's precise intelligence and the intensity of the subsequent attack
have also prompted Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to hide even
further underground in his bunker.
Senior Hamas officials
didn't heed the warnings that Israel was keeping score and continued to
fire rockets into southern Israeli towns — as orchestrated by Jabari. In
this way, the various Gaza terrorist organizations dictated the daily
routines of thousands of Israeli civilians, as well as the fate of their
children. This week, it seems, the idea that Hamas is running a
legitimate regime collapsed as terror organizations under its command
continued to fire more and more rockets. The rhetoric and the threats
aim for "beyond, beyond Tel Aviv" (a reference to a speech by Nasrallah
in 2006, who threatened to strike further south than Haifa, saying
"baada, baada" or beyond, beyond). But reality keeps getting better.
Jabari, born in 1960 to
a Hebron family that immigrated to Gaza, has been a dead man walking
since 1982 when he joined the ranks of Fatah. His life path, paved with
terror attacks against Israelis, led him to an Israeli prison, where he
served a 13-year sentence. During his time in prison he became friends
with top Hamas terrorists, including Salah Shehade, Mohammed Deif (both
of whom served as commanders of Hamas' military wing), Adnan al-Ghoul
(an explosives expert considered to have invented the Qassam) and
Ibrahim al-Makadmeh. Some of these murderers later joined the procession
of shahidim (martyrs) like Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi
and others in heaven.
It was the
assassinations of Yassin and Rantissi that offered Jabari a shortcut to
the top of Hamas' chain of command. In 2004, already with a lot of
Israeli blood on his hands, Jabari evaded an attempt on his life that
killed his son, his brother and an additional person. He managed to
survive, strengthen Hamas and arm it, and star in additional terror
attacks in between. All the while he smuggled weapons into Gaza. Most
importantly, he planned and executed the abduction of Israeli soldier
Gilad Schalit in 2006, held him captive for over five years and
ultimately released him in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian terrorist
prisoners.
His terrorist
activities only served to make Jabari increasingly popular and he
rapidly climbed to the highest echelons of the organization. Meanwhile,
he displayed exceptional organizational skills and managed to
incorporate changes into Hamas' armed forces, transforming the
organization into a multi-branched military like any other, with links
to Iran.
The man was not only
brazen outward; he also waged internal battles against the very
leadership of Hamas, especially against "outsider" politburo chief
Khaled Mashal. In 2007, Jabari, along with key Hamas figure Mahmoud
al-Zahar and others staged a military coup and forced Fatah out of Gaza —
making Hamas the sole ruler of the Strip.
Among other roles
Jabari also served as the so-called Hamas chief of staff — commanding
the group's military wing, the "Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades." In this
capacity, he was responsible for the organization's terrorist attacks
and rocket fire on Israeli civilians. That is, up until the moment his
crushed body parts were successfully launched into the "heavenly
procession of the dead" that he so longed to join.
When these lines were
written the Israel Air Force was still striking Hamas targets with full
force. In the course of these strikes the IAF destroyed, among other
things, stockpiles of long-range Fajr rockets, hidden in camouflaged
pits. These pits were to be used to launch rockets further into Israel
and shed the blood of Israelis living in the center of the country.
These long-range rockets were being saved precisely for times such as
these: the plan was that if Israel were to launch a full blown attack,
the Israeli victim pool would be widened to include central Israel,
rather than just the south. Instead, the Iron Dome missile defense
system is turning out to be a cornerstone of Israeli deterrence, because
it severely undermines Hamas' threat to the Israeli homefront.
Commentators have
remarked with awe in recent days that the hum of drones, which had
become a fixture in the auditory Gaza experience, has now ceased.
According to these sources, Israel is now using a new type of weapon
that guides missiles directly toward the target from a great distance,
silently, while exploiting the element of surprise.
Jabari's assassination
also prompted some of them to admit bitterly that Palestinian society
was coming apart, and that Palestinians working with Israeli
intelligence were providing information about Hamas targets.
Confusion and Accusations
Hamas spokesman Sami
Abu Zuhri self-righteously argued after the assassination that Hamas was
actually preparing for a hudna — a sort of temporary ceasefire — with
the "Zionist enemy." He made sure to stress, however, that even a hudna
would include, as it has in the past, "incessant reminders" in the form
of sporadic rocket salvos, which would continue, presumably, until
Palestine is liberated.
The spectrum of
indignant responses to Jabari's assassination was accompanied by
self-righteousness and surprise at the Israeli response. After all, they
keep insisting, the rockets fired from Gaza into Israeli towns haven't
killed that many civilians. Therefore, they ask innocently, what is
Israel so upset about? The Palestinians' spokespeople — including
Israeli-Arab MK Taleb a-Sana — try to portray Hamas and the plethora of
other Gaza terrorist groups as innocent parties; their only sin is that
they have been turned into tools in the hands of Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman as part of the former's "bloody elections campaign."
These spokespeople
claim that the Israeli operation in Gaza was intended to divert the
Israeli public's attention away from internal economic and social ills,
and to win votes with a populist invasion. One after another, these
Hamas spokespeople can't seem to understand what could possibly be wrong
with firing rockets at Israelis.
Meanwhile, there is
also an extensive diplomatic effort underway. In the initial stages
Hamas is mainly looking toward Egypt as well as the Arab League and
other Arab countries that are veterans of the Islamic Arab Spring
revolutions. According to Hamas' spokespeople, Israel underhandedly
tricked Egypt. They say that Israel's response to Egypt's reconciliation
efforts suggested that they were going to delay the planned Gaza
offensive for the time being. That is how Israel deceived Egypt, put
Hamas to sleep, and with "betrayal and deception" managed to surprise
its operatives and exact revenge on Jabari for the prisoner exchange
deal they were forced to make to secure Schalit's release in 2011,
crippling Hamas in the process.
Hamas, therefore, is
expecting Egypt to take action against Israel. From their perspective,
Cairo must now prove that it is no longer Mubarak's Egypt, and fight for
its Muslim honor. They must renounce the Israeli deception, freeze
relations with Israel, deport the Israeli ambassador and recall the
Egyptian ambassador from Israel. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and
Justice Party in Egypt passionately and defiantly voiced even tougher
demands.
Senior Palestinian
Authority officials also condemned Israel's actions, but in their case
it sounded more like lip service, in light of the blows being dealt to
the organization that has as much hostility toward the PA as it does
toward Israel.
In the meantime, as
Egypt begins a slow rehabilitation process while dealing with internal
divisions and upheaval alongside a crippling economic dependence on the
West, Cairo has displayed solidarity with Hamas and has warned Israel
that escalation in Gaza would invite repercussions. Egypt even convened a
meeting of Arab League foreign ministers and approached the United
Nations Security Council demanding an emergency meeting on Israeli
aggression. The Israeli ambassador has indeed left Egypt, and the
Egyptian ambassador has been recalled until further notice.
In the background there
is an essential contradiction between the extreme Islamist identity of
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's anti-Semitic regime and the
country's existential interests. Egypt's survival depends, for the time
being, on a positive relationship with the West. That is why Egypt,
which hosted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas this week,
will continue to mediate between Israel and Hamas, under American
supervision, despite the crisis with Israel it has deliberately created
to appease Hamas.
Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas' associates accused Israel's government of
adopting an opportunistic approach in deciding the timing of the Gaza
offensive. This, they say, is motivated by the upcoming Israeli
elections. These associates argue that the basis for the offensive was
actually a move to foil Abbas' initiative to upgrade the PA's status at
the U.N.
Both Hamas and Abbas'
PLO have voiced the need to join forces in the face of the "malicious"
Israeli hostility. But unfortunately, even the tone of these voices gave
away the fact that these were empty words, and that there is no chance,
not even under the current circumstances, for reconciliation between
these two rival Palestinian factions.
The Palestinian
obsession, especially on behalf of Hamas, with Israel's upcoming
elections as a motive for Israeli actions actually raises suspicion that
Hamas itself had timed the digging of a terror tunnel (which failed),
meant to attack an IDF border patrol unit, and its escalation of rocket
fire on Israel's south, to coincide with the Israeli elections
campaigns. They did this fully aware of the political deliberations
within Israel and the opportunity to pit Israeli politicians against one
another with mutual accusations. Hamas may have assumed that this
infighting would tie the Israeli government's hands, preventing Israel
from retaliating for the attacks coming out of Gaza for fear of damaging
accusations from the left-wing opposition. Because a retaliation is
something that is inextricably linked with the elections process, in
their minds. Therefore, Hamas' most recent onslaught was launched with
the impression that Israel's hands would be politically tied and they
would not respond.
Israel's response was their second surprise.
The agitated
spokespeople for both Hamas and for the PLO called upon their groups to
join forces against the Zionist enemy. They appealed to Arab nations, to
the leaders of the Arab Spring revolutions and to the nations of the
free world to take action to prevent Israel's aggression. The only thing
missing was someone to remind us that the Arab countries are currently
looking the other way while masses are being massacred daily in Syria.
These countries won't do anything for Hamas but make declarations. From
the perspective of most of the regimes in the Arab world, Hamas is an
extension of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which poses a threat to
their leaderships.
But Arab news
commentators had to admit that the Palestinians, and Hamas in
particular, are currently not the center of the world's focus, and
Israel can take advantage of that to advance its own ends. They even
pointed out Israel's successful public diplomacy campaign.
Hamas' conduct before
and after Jabari's assassination demonstrated that in essence there is
no difference between the organization's military wing and its so-called
political (diplomatic) leadership. This was evident in the remarks made
by Hamas' spokespeople, who called for targeted revenge attacks against
the Israeli homefront (more of the "beyond, beyond Tel Aviv" rhetoric).
At the same time, the same spokespeople were whining about the
counterstrike launched by Israel on Gaza, which, contrary to an attack
on the homefront, was characterized by a surgical focus only on
terror-related targets.
The problem is that
Hamas' spokespeople actually believe their own arguments. After all,
even according to Jabari himself, every Jew in "Palestine" is as good as
dead. This rhetoric again accentuated the inherent contradiction in the
Hamas leaders' declarations, who claim to have a "lust" for death but
still vow revenge when their operatives are sent to heaven.
A military solution
Hamas and the other
terrorist organizations in Gaza view the ongoing confrontation with
Israel as a years-long war of attrition. Their leaders are listening and
can quote certain Israeli circles as remarking that "there is no
military solution" — which serves to boost their motivation.
But Hamas actually only
believe in a military solution, one that will continue until the
Israelis get tired and go away. Even the hudna, as they see it, includes
periodic but consistent rocket attacks (as a reminder), and not a
permanent truce. Peace is not even a possibility for the Islamic
movement, which sees recognition of Israel as heresy.
Operation Pillar of
Defense, named after the biblical cloud pillar that guided the
Israelites in the desert, is now guiding a new approach to handling
terror: key figures and infrastructure. Taking the initiative back into
Israel's hands and dealing a premeditated, painful and methodical blow
to Hamas' key figures and its infrastructure. This is the best way to
tire Hamas out and convince its leaders that the price of terror is
intolerable.
Dr. Reuven Berko
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2885
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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