Well, there needs to be some penalty for breaking the truce, so Israel decided to close the borders for a short time, post-rocket launchings into sovereign Israeli territory. Hamas, to their credit, at least seemed to be taking the truce somewhat seriously, posting 1000 militia-men all over Gaza to watch the ‘troublemakers’ in Islamic Jihad and Fatah and make sure no more sunflower seed merchants fired rockets into Israel.

Now of course comes the clincher. Hamas, still tired of actually having to be held responsible as governments usually are, decided they will not be showing up to the Shalit negotiations in Cairo and will pass no more signs of life on unless Israel is ’serious’ and opens up the border. Violations from their side, a measured Israeli response and yet more nonsense from the non-government government of the Gaza Fakestinians. Did the situation even have to reach this point where a human life is being bargained over like a sack of apples?

I was perusing the news as I always do and come across a general article on this particular story. The best parts of these news articles are usually the comments section where people display their knowledge, or lack of it, to everyone. Again, I found the most rational post come from Terry in Eilat (post #9). Hope I’m not stepping on anyones toes reposting it, but its very worth reading. His first comment (#3) was that this truce is BS to save the current government’s ass. A different poster asked what he’d do to obtain Shalit’s release. Here was his reply:

The time to obtain Shalit’s release was immediately after the kidnapping. An immediate harsh response was called for. The border should have been sealed & all traffic stopped. Electricity should have been cut off on the same day. Gaza infrastructure should have been targeted & destroyed. The homes of Hamas leaders should have been bombed.

Our official policy should have been that he must be released unconditionally or we continue the above measures. This was the best chance for his release.

Now, two years have passed. Everything we have done since then has only shown weakness & indecision. The truce without the release of Shalit made our position even weaker. The final straw was the agreement with Hezbollah which only demonstrated to all that our gov’t. will give in to any demand, no matter how unreasonable. Our gov’t. has made it plain that these deals, the truce, etc. is in their interest (even though not in the country’s interest).

All of the media attention, the interviews with the families, etc. has convinced our adversaries that the pressure is on Olmert to deliver – that he has more to lose than they do (which is not necessarily the case in reality).

Of course, today is today & what we should have done no longer matters, except to illustrate the ineptness of our leaders.

What would I do today? This is the part few will like.

I would end the negotiations completely. I would announce that the State of Israel cannot decide national policy based on one captive. No prisoners will be released. Not one.
At the same time, I would announce that no truce is possible without Shalit’s release. Without fanfare or threats or any announcement at all, officially, I would begin moving troops to the Gaza border area.

At the same time, I would begin reducing electricity supplies & fuel by say 5% a week. The border crossings would only be open one day a week for food aid only.

Then, I would wait – with no speeches, no threats, nothing.

If Kassams or morters are fired at us, I would respond by targeting Hamas military installations, offices, & other Hamas assets.

If Kassam fire & other attacks escalate, then our attacks would similarly escalate.
If at the end of say 6 weeks, the Egyptians could not secure the release of Shalit (without our participation), then we should begin targeting every Hamas leader we can locate & begin incursions deep into Gaza to destroy Hamas infrastructure & inflict as many casualties as possible.

Thats my answer.

Terry, Eliat, Israel (07.04.08)

Seriously, we need to get this guy elected Prime Minister of Israel. Or at least Defense Minister. I really wish he would start his own blog, but in the meantime, I will try to spread his wisdom to you here because not everyone reads all the news I do.

Mortars continue to rain down

Yes, they admonished the truce-breakers the other day, but have they done anything to stop it?  Not only are they the elected goverment, of Gaza, but they are supposedly the supreme power there that no one dare cross.  Hell, I thought they deposed Fatah just a year ago, and quite easily if I recall.  Of course this leads to 2 conclusions:

1) They either aren’t as all powerful as they or anyone else thinks, or

2) This is being dont with their tacit approval.

Either way, and panderer or not, Livni is right.  The more Israel ignores these violations, the more they will be tested by more Qassams and mortars in this alleged ‘period of calm’.  If Israeli Hellfire missiles were being launched into ‘open areas’ now, you can be sure Hamas would call an end to this “cease-fire”.  The sealing of the crossings is a good start, despite the whining from Gaza.  More needs to be done, and if Hamas wont do the job, Israel will do it for them while the world simply watches.

And I thought it was going to be a nice Friday.

…the ‘truce’ will be short lived. Someone in Gaza won’t be able to stop themselves from firing a Qassam or a GRAD rocket that will hurt or kill an Israeli or a foreign worker.

OK, no body died yet, but its just a matter of time before damage is done to something other than property.

Now Hamas have turned into whiners, accusing Israel of breaking the cease-fire by closing the Gaza crossings for the last 2 days in response to violations emanating from Gaza. These clowns want it both ways. Islamic Jihad are the ones launching the rockets claiming violations in the ‘West-Bank’ which is NOT covered by this agreement with Hamas. Hamas washes their hands of it saying that they aren’t Israel’s police force. So, Israel closed the crossings instead of launching counter-strikes. No, thats not the call of the muezzin you hear from Gaza. Cue the whining.

I thought the whole point of this cease-fire was that any and all violence out of Gaza would come to a halt and Israel would stop their retaliation in Gaza and open the crossings. Israel lived up to its end, so why can’t Hamas? If Hamas is the elected government in Gaza, should they not hearken to the spirit of the agreement if not the letter? Does anyone think that if Israelis unaffiliated with the IDF starting launching projectiles into Beit Hanoun, that Hamas would accept Israel telling them they aren’t Hamas’ police force? Please! These whiners want a one way cease-fire that can be violated without repercussions.

This was a bad deal in the first place and it’s only delaying the inevitable foray into Gaza to put an end to this nonsense. About the only good thing to come out of the cease-fire was the residents of Sderot catching a few days rest from the falling rockets, but that appears over, sadly.

There is an apparent push by the IDF Chief Rabbi to declare the soldiers missing in action and dead. Why this comes up right now seems to be a mystery as there has been plenty of time to do so beforehand. My guess? Israel didn’t want to prejudice the negotiations with Hizbullah and set the bar too low in terms of what Nasrallah would ask as his price for their return. At least if they gave Nasrallah hope, Israel might have hope to regain their stolen sons.

But, in the entire time since the kidnapping and the war, there has been ZERO sign of life from Regev or Goldwasser. Not a peep. No letters. No videotapes. No Red Cross visits. Nothing. Unless everyone is keeping their lips glued for the sake of this ‘deal’, there is no reason to believe they are alive. They were mortally injured upon their capture, so there is no reason to assume they got medical care immediately. Hamas may be similar scum, but at least they occasionally pass some signs of life regarding Shalit so there is reason to think about giving them what they want. This latest musing about declaring them dead is a pressure tactic to get Hizbullah to show something of value or get less in return. Why give Kuntar back for a box of bones?

With all due respect to the Goldwasser and Regev family, soldiers get lost in war. War is never fair and never without pain. But the asking price for their likely dead sons is too high and Israel should not pay such steep prices so as to encourage further kidnappings. There is a law of diminishing returns here and Israel has to look out for the rest of it’s soldiers and citizens who haven’t been kidnapped and not make deals that encourage future snatchings. Not leaving a solider on the field is a noble sentiment, but in practice it’s unrealistic. All soldiers go into battle knowing they may not come back alive. Some don’t come back at all. It’s just the way of things. Maybe someday when there is actual peace (in the year 9000) everyone can trade back everyones remains. Today isn’t that day.

If the soldiers are alive, I will be among those celebrating their return, even for a scumbag like Kuntar. But whoever is pulling this tactic to pressure Hizullah is smart. Nasrallah needs Kuntar back for PR reasons, so Israel twisting his arm a little bit is smart. Get him to pony up live soldiers or risk having the deal fail and Kuntar still rotting in jail. I’m OK with that.

“Israel offers full peace talks with Lebanon” (rejected) With Syria. A cease-fire with Hamas (we’ll see how long it lasts). Talks with Abbas to return the ‘West Bank’ to ‘Palestinian’ rule, whenever that was (hint: never). With all these overtures to loose itself of territory obtained through defensive wars, you’d think Olmert thought the country was on fire and he was just trying to put it out.

The media pushed this down everyones throat as the ONLY solution to piece…I mean peace. This article, by Yair Lapid, is particularly annoying, representative of the defeatist sentiment that seems to pervade the “peace-seeking” reporters in Israel. ‘Israel wants everything but doesn’t want to give up anything.’ ‘Our enemies are right, we are wrong.’ He basically accuses anyone who disagrees with him of “magical thinking”, and the only way to remedy this is to basically give up. THEN there will be peace.

Why bring this up? I just wanted to post a quote from a commentator on YNET from Israel who always answers articles like this with intelligence, debunking this type of surrender thinking.

“The Wishful-Thinkers Brigade of unrealistic, delusional, utopians who think that just by wanting peace, it will happen. Of course, they are willing to make any concession, cede any territory, damage our security – pay any price, in effect, while continuing to forget all the many failures of the past, while ignoring the very nature of our adversaries, while living in denial that our country could cease to exist because of their unrealistic beliefs. Talk about child-like thinking ….

And on the subject of paying a price, why are we the only ones asked to pay a price? In case no one remembers, WE won the various wars after being attacked. We are not the ones to pay any price – in the real world, defeated enemies pay the price. We must be the only country in the world who wins wars but acts as if we lost.

And I’ll offer a further comment – much of the seeming confusion in the polls is caused by the relentless propaganda in the left-oriented media, by the idiotic speeches of many of our politicians, by the poor quality of education, & by the apathy & complacency of an Israeli public rapidly finding the superficial joys of consumerism.

You’ll pardon my lack of political correctness, but logic tells me that we must make our enemies pay a price, over & over, if necessary & that this is the only realistic strategy for achieving an eventual better future.”

Terry , Eilat, Israel (06.20.08)

Nuff said. Your thoughts?

Ah, sweet surrender. No, not to love or to the beautiful weather we’ve been having. This is what Hamas must be thinking today now that the Defense Minister Ehud Barak seems to have caved on pretty much everything Hamas demanded. Israel basically asked them to “pretty please” not smuggle in arms, and agreed to hand back most of the 450 prisoners Hamas has been demanding, many with blood on their hands. Israel will also have to stop monitoring the Rafah crossing. Egypt will. I’m sure they’ll do as good a job at that as they have preventing smuggling.

Quiet is supposed to come first and if the truce holds, I can’t imagine Gilad Shalit won’t come back for those 450 scumbags. To be fair, since we are all not a fly on the wall to all the security discussions, perhaps after almost 2 years of deliberation, this is the ONLY way to get Shalit back safely.

Yes, I’m sure that those 450 prisoners will return to their bombing ways. But, the ‘truce’ will be short lived. Someone in Gaza won’t be able to stop themselves from firing a Qassam or a GRAD rocket that will hurt or kill an Israeli or a foreign worker. I can’t image at least some of the murderers won’t meet their end in a ‘work accident’ or in a fireball sent to them courtesy of the IDF. They wont be returning to Gaza to become Rhodes scholars, that’s for sure.

Like I said yesterday, this is a tough corner of the earth, and some of these deals turn your stomach, but I guess you do what you have to do to gain the release of your soldiers. It really is like watching a horror movie sometimes.