Thursday, May 17, 2007

"God Saved Us"

Sderot synagogue hit by a qassam. The photograph of R. Ovadia Yosef (right)
and the painting of the youthful Baba Sali [I think] (left) were unharmed (Photo: Ynet)

The photographs and the press reports from Sderot this week are eerily reminiscent of scenes from the north in last summer's war. Of course, the residents of the western Negev have been living with the qassam strikes since before the disengagement from Gaza. But the media spotlight is now back on Sderot, and the pressure on the government is mounting to "do something" about it.

On the airwaves and in the print media, the inhabitants of the Negev town seem unanimous that they have been abandoned by the politicians. I am not sure that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit assuaged their fears - some Sderot residents took this as an opportunity to lash out at Olmert as well as Defense Minister Amir Peretz, whose house in the city is apparently a target for the qassam crews.

Shortly after Olmert finished his tea with Peretz and left the town, a rocket struck a synagogue. This strike could very well have resulted in casualties; shortly before the qassam hit, community members had celebrated the dedication of a new Torah scroll. "God saved us," said one of the people on the scene. Ynet's coverage (Hebrew) gives voice to the anger and fear of Sderot residents. These are the words of Aryeh Cohen, who came to Peretz's house to "talk" to the PM:
ראש הממשלה פחדן, באת כמו גנב בלילה עם כל השומרים שלך. זו לא פרובוקציה מה שאני עושה, אני רוצה לדבר איתו. רק אתמול בלילה עברו מעלי טילים. אני רוצה לשמוע את ראש הממשלה נותן לי תשובות. כל הזמן אנחנו שומעים אותך ואתה לא מאפשר לנו להשמיע את קולנו. נכנס לבית של פרץ, פרץ גם עוד יותר פחדן ממך - גר בבית ממוגן ואנחנו - אין לנו מקלטים

The Prime Minister is a coward, you came like a thief in the night with all your guards. What I am doing is not a provocation, I want to talk to you. Only last night missiles passed over me. I want to hear the Prime Minister give me answers. We hear you all the time and you don't allow us to make our voices heard. He went into Peretz's house, Peretz is even more of a coward than you - he lives in a protected house - we don't have shelters.
The truth is that while the IDF may be able to reduce the rocket strikes to a certain degree with some of its current actions, qassams will continue landing on Sderot without a renewal of some kind of hudnah with Hamas. Even that, however, will only reduce the number of rockets, as the Islamic Jihad and wild Fath crews will continue their activities. As the latest eruption of internecine fighting in Gaza made all too clear, no one has a monopoly on violence in the Strip.

Aluf Benn lists four different alternatives, faulting Israel's leaders for not having learned from Winograd and ignoring "diplomatic" alternatives. The options he lists are:
  • Offering a cease-fire in the West Bank in exchange for a cessation of qassam firing
  • Allowing the U.S. to implement the "Dayton Plan" - i.e., training and arming forces loyal to Abu Mazen to fight the qassam crews and weapons smugglers
  • Engage in direct talks with Hamas and offer to lift the economic embargo against the PA in exchange for a long-term hudnah
  • Meet with Abu Mazen
The last of these is, of course, utterly useless, as Benn acknowledges - we can reject this one out of hand. The second option apparently has a lot of backers in the State Department. There are some who are insisting that Fatah forces are fighting quite well against Hamas. However, even if there is some truth to this (it seems to fly in the face of the evidence), a victory achieved by Israeli-backed units would be meaningless, as it would never have popular legitimacy. Given the political weakness of Abu Mazen, this seems like a waste of time and money.

The first and third options, which involve dealing with Hamas, seem more promising. However, these days it is not at all clear that Hamas can deliver the goods (i.e., no more qassams) any more effectively than Abbas. In any case, both of these scenarios would allow Hamas to build up its forces for a future confrontation; one has to weigh the costs very carefully.

Given that none of the "diplomatic" alternatives above are truly viable, it seems that Israel can only hope to reduce the rocket fire at this point by targeted air force and artillery strikes, and work on reinforcing buildings and bunkers in Sderot. This is pretty much in line with previous escalations in the south. Sooner or later, an errant Israeli artillery shell or air strike will hit a residential building in Gaza, kill a large number of Palestinian civilians, and occasion an international outcry, and put a stop to the operation. Then, things will return to the status quo ante of 10 instead of 30 qassams a day ... until the next round.

The worst thing Israel could do is to embark on a full-scale invasion of Gaza now. It will bring only marginal gains over air strikes, in terms of preventing qassam launches. Let's face it. There is no real solution to the problem of the rockets - at least not one that Israel by itself could achieve.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

God saved you this time. He won't next time. Get out of Palestine.

Aardvark EF-111B said...

I can't help in this, myself is buzzled just like you

however, one suggestion may be useful, don't repeat 90th mistakes, divide and conquer may be intimidating approach, but it proven futile without a bragmatic palestinian leader, which is very unlikely......

till then the (Balance of Horror) is the best alternative.

Jeha said...

This is the result of a "Bitkhonist" approach.

Look at it this way; as long as you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting. So, if you do not like the result, you need to change the approach.

In this particular case, as long as Israel does not have the foresight to implement more subtle strategies, it will get worse, not better. I am not suggesting that Hamas could be co-opted; it cannot, and its opposition runs far deeper than mere geography. But the Palestinians could be co-opted.

However, the longer it takes for "decision makers" to get their heads our of their asses, the harder it will be to change course, if ever.

Security, above all, is political.

Rebecca said...

People are so brave when they comment anonymously, aren't they? Who are you? Hamas? Fatah? Hizbollah?

Anonymous said...

Is Jeha going to run in the next Israeli Election? You see, Israel, or any other state for that matter, does not have foresight. People do, and in general one elect people with foresight and called them "leaders". It used to be that in the land of the blind one eyed person was the one with foresight=leader. From what is going nowadays seemingly there are not even many of these. Can Leb. spare Is. one eye? I am not sure.
To the anon. who gets G-d in this business. Well, if and when the Jews will leave Israel this time they will realy slam the door. If I was you I would not stay in the same city or even state, but knowing your kind I bet you are alreay at least 1000 mile away.

Anonymous said...

Dear Rebeka,
Sorry to bother you about such a slight matter, but is the exact affiliation realy that important?

Nobody said...

gaza would collapse anyway with peace or not .. it's insanely overpopulated and they failed to implement any effective family planning there ... they are reaching the demographic breaking point fast .... the plaestinians probably still did not figure out that they cannot allow south lebanon in gaza as igaza won't survive it ... anyway i would not expect so much from them as they are plainly not that smart ...

co-opting the palestinians in gaza is pointless as it does not take into account their long term hopelessness there ... anti missile technologies may provide a partial answer for places like ashkelon ... or maybe egypt would be interested to occupy gaza .. and the egyptians do have an incentive to do it .. hamas apparently is fraternizing with their muslim brothers to the point it started seriously worrying mubarak

my bet is that gaza will soon become another somalia while we will have to evacuate some places too close to it

Anonymous said...

Well, it was I who talked about Isr. slamming the door and the resulting effects. If Gaza collapses, as nobody said, the effect may be rather similar. The people of Ga. first and then the people of south Is. next to Ga. will pay expensively. It seems that some people with forsight, in Israel and the Arab world, have realised it. From personal knowledge many (most ? ) Palestinians have realised it long ago. However some people in Gaza and too many people abroad are pulling very hard for such explosion. It was once said that such explosion will unite the Arab and finally finish Israel. This is not the situation now, no such union on the horizon. So it will just be another bloody calamity, most of it will befall on the Pal. people. This is unaceptable, at least to me & perhaps to 10 more people in the whole world. But still, even 10 is some thing. The Europeans have realized (remember Gavrilo Princip ?)that such an explosion in the once called Balkans can make life unpleasant in Paris, Berlin and Viena, even Petersburg. So they sent a shooting peace force. UN force under chapter 7 in Gaza may help. In any case it will not make things worse.

Jeha said...

This mess did not take much hindsight; it was bound to happen as nature abhors a vacuum.

Any vacuum created in Gaza was bound to be filled by Hamas. Unilateralism does not work for a country like Israel, now that its existence has been secured, it needs to coordinate with all its neighbours, good, bad, or ugly...

Nobody said...

Jeha said...


Any vacuum created in Gaza was bound to be filled by Hamas. Unilateralism does not work for a country like Israel, now that its existence has been secured, it needs to coordinate with all its neighbours, good, bad, or ugly...


i bet you wanted to say - it needs to coordinate with all its neighbours, bad and ugly...

Anonymous said...

Hazbani
It is sad to be in a world, state, city, street, house, apartment, room, closet, bed, in which you do not have a good neighbour. Once it was used to be that a good neighbour was better then a far brother. When your brother is so far and no good neighbour near by, will this or another blog take their a place? A nice ( good? )world we are preparing for the next generations.

Jeha said...

Nobody,

Nor quite; while the "or" is inclusive, it does not apply to all neighbouring governments.

In any case, even if that were the case, Israel would have no choice but to check the "and" at the door. All Arabs, good, bad, or ugly, feel they can make a common cause with Israel on a nuclear Iran. Israel should take that opportunity before it is too late, not only for its own sake, but for all our sakes; the Arabs have other options, like Pakistan...

Amos said...

Jeha et al.,
I agree with you that we need foresight, and that the military response now is a band-aid solution, if that.
However, I am really not sure how a foreign state can go about providing a monopoly on violence to a particular faction inside a neighboring territory. We know all too well how easy it is for foreign states to disrupt another state's ability to monopolize violence inside its borders; I really don't know of many successful models of restoring such a monopoly - unless the people in the said territory happen to believe that they are of the same (or a sufficiently similar) ethno-religious/national group as a conquering state.
I think Hazbani is generally right - states do not have a great deal of foresight; this is especially true for democratic states.
I don't see the Egyptians having any interest in getting involved in a serious way; I don't blame them, as they have nothing to gain.
Would Hamas be able to impose a peace if given the tools and tacit support from outside?
Looking forward to hearing more from you guys. It seems pretty hopeless to me still, bitkhonist approach or not.

Nobody said...

Looking forward to hearing more from you guys. It seems pretty hopeless to me still, bitkhonist approach or not.

it is hopeless ... i think you put it right .. it's more about damage control ... the idea that fatah is much better than hamas is also an illusion in my view ... israel can commit more mistakes now by rushing into pan arab peace initiatives than just sitting and waiting ...

by the way , jeha .. read your comments elsehwere about the new camp war ... was genuinely disappointed to discover that you are such a bitkhonist when it comes to dealing with your own palestinians ... not that i suggest that fatah islam can be co-opted, but the camp's palis certainly can ... if you don't like the results you got until now, you d better start thinking about changing your approach ... because as long as you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting.

:D :D

Jeha said...

Amos,

You raise important points, and I agree with it, essentially. The key is foresight, as you state.

I do not think anyone can have foresight; all they can do is leverage against the unexpected. But there are obvious things to avoid; our procrastinations and allowing the Palestinians to have and keep guns, in addition from our forbidding them to work, both combined to create this particular instance in Lebanon today.

That being said, Fath Al-Islam would have found another way; the Syrian regime, for all its nastiness, was merely a facilitator.

Amos said...

Speaking of "the unexpected," I have been following the references to "Black Swans" on your blog with great interest. I first heard the author on NPR, perhaps a month ago, and I knew immediately that he was Lebanese, though this never came up in the interview.

Nobody said...

Jeha said...

Amos,

You raise important points, and I agree with it, essentially. The key is foresight, as you state.


i think there are two important principles to the notion of foresight ..

1) one should know that the fact that the situation is very bad does not mean that it cannot be made worse by one's efforts to improve it

2) the foresight should take into account at least next five years ... the next five or ten years may well mean that syria will be no longer around ...

for this region the crucial issue of the next five and ten years is global warming and the biofuels revolution developing right now across the world .. second generation biofuel technologies may hit the market within next few years triggering almost immediately collapse of OPEC and oil markets ..

this means that much of what the middle east is based on today won't exist for too long .. saudi arabia for example may be such a case ... most of the region will eventually go the way of iraq ... in fact even right now the fate of the region depends squarely on the state of the biofuel technology in the west ... from the moment an equivalent of $30-35 per barrel becomes available analysts can safely proceed to erasing iraq, iran, saudi arabia and others from the map of the region ...

the arabs can play pakistan's option instead of the saudi peace initiative .. israel should have enough foresight to not have knee jerk reactions because of this ...

Anonymous said...
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