by Isi Leibler
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As of now, most Israelis,
including his long-standing opponents, endorse Prime Minister
Netanyahu’s leadership during Operation Protective Edge. From the outset
he displayed determination but avoided demagoguery or generating
unrealistic expectations. He refused to be pressured into a full
invasion of Gaza, which in addition to even greater casualties would
probably have culminated in global sanctions, forcing us to withdraw and
thus providing Hamas with “victory”. But the jury is still out and
should Hamas continue launching missiles, Israel will not engage in a
war of attrition and may still be forced to launch a full invasion of
Gaza.
The IDF inflicted enormous
damage on Hamas, demolishing the major attack tunnels and destroying two
thirds of its missile infrastructure. Indications are that the vast
majority of Gaza inhabitants blame Hamas for the terrible devastation
and casualties they endured. Alas, yet again Israel has been pulverized
in the battle for public opinion. Despite a clear cut case and highly
articulate spokesmen, logic and reason were subsumed with the emotional
impact of the global media sympathetic to Hamas by depicting - out of
context and sometimes even totally fabricated - footage of heartbreaking
and devastating war casualties and loss of innocent lives. The media
mostly failed to point out that Hamas deliberately employed children as
human shields and located their command posts and missile launching
sites inside or adjacent to schools, mosques and UN centers. Israel was
endlessly condemned for responding disproportionately to Hamas
aggression, unleashing an outflow of hatred and a tsunami of global
anti-Semitism reminiscent of the Middle Ages when Jews were demonized as
the source for all the natural disasters facing mankind.
Any objective assessment of the
IDF behavior would confirm that there has never been a military conflict
in which such extraordinary efforts were taken to minimize civilian
casualties. It would be a salutary exercise to compare Israel’s efforts
to avoid collateral damage amongst innocent civilians to those of the US
whilst it bombed ISIS in Iraq.
There are already murmurings
from hostile anti-Israeli human rights and left wing groups to extend
the demonization to demands that Israeli leaders be tried for war
crimes. Many cowardly Western governments are likely to endorse or, at
best, abstain from such a manifestly immoral initiative.
The initial Egyptian proposals,
requiring a cessation of hostilities without preconditions, remain the
only sane option currently available to Hamas and the ultimate outcome
of the conflict will be determined by negotiations.
The curtailment of Hamas
aggression could only be achieved if the US and Western countries -
backed by the Egyptians who revile Hamas as an extension of the Moslem
Brotherhood - steadfastly supported the initial European demand for the
disarmament of Hamas and monitoring of its future imports and funding to
prevent the creation of new tunnels or replenishment of the missile
stockpiles.
Indeed, if implemented, we could
even visualize a major tilt in the political landscape in which the
traditional hostility and hatred of Israel in significant sectors of the
Arab world is superseded by alliances to confront the common threat of
the radical Islamic movements.
But we should not hold our
breath that this scenario will eventuate. It is already being undermined
by the repeated calls from the US and the Europeans to give control of
Gaza to the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas, and encourage
him to create a Palestinian state as soon as possible.
This places Israel in an
impossible position. Despite the conflict, Abbas has failed to dismantle
the PA merger with the genocidal Hamas. It would be catastrophic for
Israel to ignore the principal lesson of this conflict by failing to
appreciate the perils that we would confront were we to withdraw the IDF
and accept a Palestinian state based on the indefensible 1949 armistice
lines. The dire consequences could include terrorists operating from
within our heartland, closure of Ben Gurion airport and extension of
tunnels even into Tel Aviv.
The majority of Israelis has no
wish to rule over Palestinians and yearn to disengage from them. But for
a country which faces existential threats and cannot afford to lose a
single war, Israel’s security needs are paramount. The Israeli
government cannot, as of now, gamble on a Palestinian state without
total demilitarization and defensible borders.
Of course we prefer Mahmoud
Abbas who makes soothing remarks about peace rather than Khaled Mashaal
or Mohammed Dief who openly exhort their followers to murder us.
But we should not delude
ourselves. Aside from a few statements, Abbas has never been a partner
for peace. As a matter of strategy he has temporarily set aside “armed
conflict” and substituted it with diplomacy, for which he has benefited
considerably in the global arena. His tactic is to make no concessions
whilst demanding unilateral concessions - in order to dismantle Israel
in stages.
His end goal parallels that of
Hamas. But instead of calling for our destruction he concentrates on the
“non-negotiable” right of return to Israel of descendants of Arab
refugees, which would spell an end to Jewish sovereignty.
Incitement against Israel
saturates the PA controlled media, the mosques and schools where
children from an early age are brainwashed with the culture of death in
which martyrdom is sanctified as the greatest spiritual objective. This
is reflected in state-sponsored salaries to terrorists in jail with
generous pensions to families; city squares, institutions and even
football clubs are named after killers of women and children; mass
murderers released from Israel received as heroes with many proudly
describing their monstrous acts on TV.
This toxic culture, initially
inculcated amongst the people by Arafat and maintained by Abbas, has
created such a climate of hatred that any Palestinian leader seeking an
accommodation with Israel would be in danger of assassination.
Moreover, despite initially
opposing the inclusion of the pro-Hamas Qatar and Turkey as mediators,
Abbas soon joined the chorus defending Hamas and adopted all its demands
against Israel. He failed to denounce Hamas for breaching the
ceasefires and launching rockets against Israel. During the conflict,
Abbas met with Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal in Qatar and issued a joint
statement, calling for an end to Israeli “aggression”. The PA accused
Israel of initiating the war, engaging in genocide and provided notice
of its intention to initiate war crimes indictments against Israeli
leadership at the International Court of Justice and the UN Human Rights
Commission.
Under such circumstances, Israel
is caught between a rock and a hard place. Netanyahu has effectively
agreed to ease Gaza border restrictions on condition that
demilitarization and genuine supervision of border posts is introduced.
But the solution cannot be based on handing over control of Gaza to the
PA - a partner to Hamas.
The Egyptians, US and Europeans
must supervise this procedure. After the abysmal failure of the UN to
restrict Hezbollah in Lebanon, it would be inconceivable for Israel to
accept the proposal for a UN peacekeeping force to take responsibility
for monitoring imports and preventing the rearming of Hamas.
On the other hand, it would
represent the harbinger of a new era if we could be convinced that a PA
takeover would be paralleled by a scheme similar to the Syrian process
of removing chemical weapons in which Egypt and a reliable international
monitoring body ensured that imports to Gaza are monitored and that
Hamas is ultimately demilitarized.
Only under such conditions,
Israel could achieve a genuine long term “quiet” which could also extend
to a positive relationship with Egypt and the moderate Arab states.
But, as of now, Israel faces
concerted pressure from the US and the Europeans to make massive
concessions to Abbas - without any meaningful provisions for security
and compliance. There is a failure to recognize that Abbas and the PA
represent a problem rather than the solution and that were it not for
the corruption and incompetence of the PA, in the absence of an IDF
presence Hamas or extremists within Fatah would by now have taken
control of the region.
Regrettably, the Obama
administration - which could influence Western countries to pressure
Hamas - repeatedly condemns its ally for the “indefensible” and “totally
unacceptable manner” in which it was defending itself. In contrast,
President Obama merely referred to Hamas launching thousands of rockets
against Israeli civilians as “extraordinarily irresponsible”. He
continues urging Netanyahu to have faith in Abbas despite his union with
Hamas and support for their objectives. This week he told New York
Times columnist Tom Friedman that he considered Netanyahu’s popularity
and strength, which he contrasted to Abbas who is weak and held in low
esteem by his people, as a principal factor inhibiting peace.
Hopefully, the ongoing favorable
support from the American public and a bipartisan Congress may stem or
even reverse this negative approach. It is now urgent for AIPAC to
accelerate action and publicly vent its concerns about the US
government’s policies and launch a campaign, in conjunction with other
supporters of Israel, to ensure that the US now demonstrates its
repeated undertakings that “it has Israel’s back”.
This could be a crucial turning
point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. If not defanged, Hamas could still
snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and oblige Israel to gird itself
for the next round – and at a time to be determined by the barbarians at
their gates.
This column was originally published in the Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom
Isi Leibler’s website can be viewed at www.wordfromjerusalem.com. He may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com.
Source: http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=5189
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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