Islamic Jihad gunmen practice launching Qassams
Photo: AFP
We can’t go on like this
In absence of truce deal, attacks from Gaza must prompt strategic military response
Gaza-region residents looked up to the sky with fear this week. The rains needed to water the potato and carrot fields are late in coming; yet the rain of Qassam rockets that announced the end of the lull is intensifying.
While a few rockets landed at the beginning of the week, by Thursday 25 Qassams were fired from Gaza. Had central Israel been hit with 25 missiles one morning, we’d see a new world order. Yet when it happens in the fields of Nir Oz or in a Sderot shopping center, Israel makes do with making some noise.
When Olmert characterized the first bombing of Ashkelon as “escalation,” Gaza-region residents chuckled. Why is that? They wondered. Are Ashkelon residents worth more than us? Later it turned out that missiles fired at Ashkelon do not really stir the government.
This is an unbearable reality. Area residents are frustrated, despaired, and bitter. They direct their anger via letters to newspapers and talkbacks. What else do they have left? They are mad at the “people who sit at coffee shops in Tel Aviv,” yet the real address for their fury should be policy makers, or more accurately, non-policy makers in Jerusalem.
The Israeli government firmly refuses to recognize Hamas’ Gaza regime. This might be the right decision, or not. As result, Israel does not engage in direct negotiations with senior figures in the Strip. The attempt to reach understandings with the enemy is summed up with missions embarked on by defense official Amos Gilad vis-à-vis the mediators in Cairo and in Moscow.
However, at the same time, Israel refrains from committing itself to a military solution that would put an end to the bombings. A well-known idiom says that you can’t eat the cake and have it too. Yet in the Gaza Strip Israel is trying to pull off the opposite trick – not eating the cake, while still taking small bites. It doesn’t work that way.
Meanwhile, Gaza-region residents are abandoned. In terms of numbers, the region’s population is worth less than two Knesset seats. Yet in essence, this abandonment undermines the pillars of a modern nation-state. A state that allows its citizens to live under a daily threat of missiles, mortar shells, and gunfire for years has no moral right to exist. We often talk about deterrent power around here; it is doubtful whether there is something that erodes it more than what’s going on in Gaza.
For the time being, Israel is being portrayed as an absurd state, where the lives of soldiers are much more precious than the lives of civilians. When two soldiers were kidnapped while patrolling the border, we embarked on an all-out war in Lebanon; yet when it comes to years of Qassam and mortar fire directed at civilians, we do nothing.
On Thursday, Hamas officially declared that the truce is over. This is not a joyful announcement, and it may not mark the lull’s end. In any case, this is a golden opportunity to reformulate the rules, even if terribly late.
The preferable solution, also when it comes to most area residents, is a comprehensive and binding truce agreement, with an option for diplomatic and economic progress. Yet in the absence of such agreement, the ongoing attacks on Israeli communities require a strategic military response. We can’t go on like this.
