Israel/Palestine – Page 6

“We should level Gaza neighborhoods”

Published on February 11, 2008

so says the Israeli Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit: “any other country would have already gone in and level the area, which is exactly what I thing the IDF should do – decide on a neighborhood in Gaza and level it.” To be fair, he did suggest that the residents should be warned in advance. “We should let them know ‘you have to leave, this area will be taken down tomorrow’ and just take it down – that will show them we mean business. Sporadic actions are good,” added Sheetrit, “but they’re not good enough.” That makes him marginally less evil than a certain mid-European power sixtyfive years ago, which used to do the same but without warning.

Sheetrit offered this policy suggestion because of the continued Quassam attacks from Gaza. Usually these are represented as wholly irrational acts of terrorism, driven by the Palestinians inexplainable hatred of Israel (or “the Jews”) over here, when there even is an attempt to explain them, as usually we pretend there isn’t anything to explain: Palestinians fire rockets and Israel is sadly forced to respond. In Israel they don’t have the luxury of pretending this however, so you can articles analysing Hamas strategy even in mainstream newspapers. According to Haaretz, it seems like Hamas is actually attempting to use Quassam attacks as deterrence:

For each Israeli operation, especially if it involves a large number of casualties from the ranks of the organization, Hamas responds with a drawn-out rocket barrage of three to four days.

At its completion, Hamas lowers the intensity, until the next round of violence.

The latest example of this occurred last week. On Tuesday, nine members of Hamas were killed in an IDF operation.

Two days later, seven more Palestinians were killed, six gunmen and a civilian. Hamas fired, according to its press release, no less than 135 Qassam rockets and mortars between Tuesday and Saturday night, in addition to shooting from various smaller groups. On Sunday, Hamas stopped shooting.

The message: henceforth, every Israeli operation will result in a similar response. Hamas is hoping that Israel will agree, after repeated bombing of Sderot, to a tahdiye (calm) in the territories, and even believe they can bring about an end to the arrests that the IDF is carrying out in the West Bank.

Behind the Hamas decision lies the assumption that the Israeli leadership is wary of a large-scale ground operation. This is based on the traumatic experience of the Second Lebanon War and Israeli concern that it may suffer heavy casualties. Senior officials inthe Islamic organization believe that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is too concerned with his political future to risk initiating a broad IDF operation in the Strip.

Isn’t it refreshing to read newspaper articles that assume that organisations like Hamas actually have good reasons for their terrorism, rather than pretending that all terrorists are motivated by a crazy hatred of Israel or “our values”, whatever they may be?

So they walked to Egypt

Published on January 24, 20081 Comment

Earlier this week, Israeli prime minister Olmert had no problem with threatening more collective punishment on the residents of Gaza for their continued resistance against Israeli terror

“We will not allow a humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a Kadima Knesset faction meeting Monday. “But we have no intention of making their lives easier… as far as I am concerned, every resident of Gaza can walk because they have no gasoline for their vehicles, because they have a murderous regime that doesn’t let people in southern Israel live in peace,” he warned

Yesterday, Hamas blew a big hole through his plans — and the border wall separating Gaza from Egypt. The end result being that thousands of Gaza residents followed Olmert’s advice and walked —into Egypt:

Palestinians have poured out of Gaza into Egypt for a second day to stock up on supplies after militants destroyed part of a border wall in Rafah.

The area where several border walls stood in the divided town of Rafah has now taken on the feel of a busy bazaar, as crowds take advantage of a rare chance to leave Gaza unhindered.

According to the the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine, at least 700,000 people have flooded out of Gaza since militants set off explosions bringing down stretches of the border walls.

It is thought around 400,000 crossed the border yesterday and at least 300,000 have done so today.

The exodus comes a week after Israel imposed a full-scale blockade on Gaza in response to persistent rocket and mortar fire from the Hamas-ruled territory.

I believe the correct response is HA-ha!

Could They By Chance Be Related?

Published on July 20, 20061 Comment

Many worldwide are racking their brains for a good reason as to why Israel is acting with such abandoned barbarity towards Lebanon. The usual real politik-al explanations don’t seem to suffice to explain their harshness. Now it’s not just bombardments any more.

2006: Israel hints at a full-scale invasion

What has Israel got to gain in material terms from a full-scale invasion and occupation of the country, other than to cascade terrorism down the generations? It could be something very simple: water. From American University in Beirut’s Notes on the Geology of Lebanon:

The chief natural resource is water. The high mountains gave a high rainfall (widely over a meter a year in Mount Lebanon), and the porous fractured limestone made excellent aquifers which were refilled over summer by slow snow melt. The resulting abundant springs and rivers, unique to the region, gave the country its abundant forests and legendary fertility. However due to the steep slopes and the stony, shallow soils this fertility has proved hard to harness for agriculture and the removal of the forests tended to produce only short lived farming land.

2002: The Wazzani Water Dispute

[…]

The project–carried out by the Council of the South, a government body affiliated with the Shi’i movement Amal–will divert by pipeline as much as 9,000 cubic meters of water daily to dozens of villages. This portion of the project is expected to be complete by the end of the year, after which the Lebanese plan to construct a pumping station and a reservoir from which the water will be channeled. The amount of water that such a project could divert from Israel would be enough to lower the level of the Sea of Galilee by almost an inch. Under normal circumstances, such a unilateral step would likely have passed without incident. Considering the existing tension along the border, however, this seemingly small water dispute could deteriorate into a military confrontation. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has warned that Israel will not accept Lebanon’s project, telling Army Radio that he sees the plan as ” a pretext for war.” Indeed, water is a sensitive topic that has contributed to several Arab-Israeli conflicts, including the 1967 Six Day War, which resulted in part from a Syrian-Lebanese plan to divert the Jordan River’s tributaries.

[…] Israel’s Water Anxiety

For years, Israel’s fresh water supply has been declining in both quality and quantity. The combination of low precipitation, growing population, and over-pumping has created a national water crisis. In recent years, Israel’s water balance has been so negative that the country failed to meet its allocation transfer quotas to Jordan from the shared Jordan and Yarmouk Rivers?transfers mandated by the 1994 peace treaty between the two nations. In order to meet its needs, Israel has been forced to import water from Turkey. Last month, the two countries signed a water accord in which Turkey undertook to export 50 million cubic meters of water to Israel over a 20-year period.

Israel’s water anxiety stems from the fact that all of its three main water sources–the Coastal Aquifer, the Mountain Aquifer, and the Sea of Galilee–are currently under stress. First, the Coastal Aquifer is rapidly deteriorating due to contamination, low rainfall, and the growing population in the coastal plain. Second, the Mountain Aquifer may be threatened by the future establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. Third, the Sea of Galilee depends on an inflow of water, and 50 percent of this inflow originates in Syria and Lebanon, both of which are still in a state of war with Israel. With no diplomatic relations between these neighbors, water division is regulated by a number of unwritten accords and understandings in place since the 1920s, all designed to preserve a certain status quo in the region and minimize disputes. But these understandings are not binding; they are predicated only on the goodwill of Syria and Lebanon.

When Israel controlled southern Lebanon, Beirut had no access to Israel’s water sources. Since Israel’s withdrawal, however, Lebanon has twice attempted to unilaterally change the status quo of water usage in the Hatzbani basin (in March and August 2001). Both times, Lebanon’s actions elicited Israel’s condemnation, but no military action. Israel is concerned that its tolerance of past incidents created a dangerous precedent that prompted the Lebanese government to initiate larger water projects. Failure to act now could lead to more water withdrawals from other sources originating in Lebanon and Syria.

See also this British Israel Communications and Research Centre report and the EU’s end of programme report from its Israel/Wazzani Springs Rapid Response Team for much more detail.