JERUSALEM — “‘Let them give us compensation like they gave
Nisanit and Elei Sinai, and we’ll leave,’ one resident said
recently” — thus reports the Israeli daily Haaretz. Nisanit and
Elei Sinai were two of the recently evacuated Gaza communities. The
speaker lives in the small village of Netiv Ha’asara, slightly
north of Gaza in pre-1967 territory.
The problem is that since the Gaza withdrawal, life in Netiv
Ha’asara has become unbearable. Three and a half months ago,
already slightly before the withdrawal, a young woman was killed
there by a mortar shell. Since then the village has been hit
several times, and on Wednesday, as Haaretz describes
it:
Five people were lightly wounded…by mortar shells
fired at [it]….The blasts cut off electricity at Netiv Ha’asara
and at adjacent Kibbutz Yad Mordechai. One shell hit a vehicle,
spraying shrapnel on a young man standing nearby. Another shell
made a direct hit on a home.
The article adds that “more and more members of [the community]
are talking about leaving, but given the current security
situation, it is obviously hard to sell homes.”
As in Netiv Ha’asara, so in the other Israeli communities
surrounding Gaza. Ynetnews, the English website of Israel’s largest
daily Yediot Aharonot, reports: “Ongoing firing of Qassam rockets toward
Israeli towns and kibbutzim surrounding Gaza Strip raises fear that
children may be hit by rockets while in unprotected nursery
schools, kindergartens.” It quotes one parent from Kibbutz Gevin:
“I am very very fearful for my children. It doesn’t matter how much
you guide children and tell them to put their hands over their
head. A hand over the head will not protect them from a Qassam
which will open a hole in the ceiling.”
How did things come to such a pass? It happened because Israel,
which has become less Zionist and more like a typical democracy,
behaved dysfunctionally toward a security situation. Clearly, the
reality before the disengagement, when the Israeli communities
within Gaza were under attack, was difficult. The Gaza settlers,
however, were a hardy, ideological lot few of whom could be goaded
to leave by the bombardments. The Israelis living near Gaza are
more ordinary citizens who do not accept a constant, terrifying
threat to themselves and their children as part of the bargain.
Remaining in Gaza and letting the settlements be shellacked was
also, of course, no solution. The stark reality that faced Israel
was one of terrorist aggression that could only be dealt
with by military defeat, including the reconquering of
Gaza if necessary. Israel conquered Gaza in 1948, 1956, and 1967 —
never out of ideology, always in response to terrorist or military
belligerence. Gaza is a piece of land bordering Israel that is ripe
in every way for terrorist activity and infiltration. The 1967
Joint Chiefs of Staff study on defensible borders for Israel concluded
that Israel needed to retain all of Gaza, and stated:
By occupying the Gaza Strip, Israel would trade
approximately 45 miles of hostile border for eight. Configured as
it is, the strip serves as a salient for introduction of Arab
subversion and terrorism, and its retention would be to Israel’s
military advantage.
Israel has so far responded to the bombardments of the
Gaza-bordering communities with its air force and artillery — in a
manner ludicrously ineffective. A teeming domain of over a million
hostile Arabs in which thousands of religiously motivated
terrorists hide among the civilians and in underground shelters
cannot be defeated or even deterred by a few bombs or shells.
Already two NGOs — a Gazan one and an Israeli one — have teamed
up to petition Israel’s Supreme Court against Israel’s overflights
of Gaza on grounds that the sonic booms are psychologically harming
the residents.
Moreover, ynetnews also reports that “the air force’s activity over the
Strip…is very dangerous” and quotes an air force officer: “While
in the past there were estimates that the terror organizations have
[shoulder-fired anti-aircraft] missiles, today — in light of the
smuggling through the breached southern border — I can say for
certain that they have such missiles.”
And the threat to the border communities is only a small part of
the unfolding security nightmare that Israel brought upon itself by
handing land to the enemy without strategic logic. As most of the
security establishment predicted before the pullout, the theater
has shifted mainly to the West Bank with an intensification of
terror there, which has included a Zarqawi-style kidnapping and
murder of an Israeli citizen, a drive-by attack on a hitchhiking
post that killed three, a suicide bombing in the town of Hadera
that killed five, and many other incidents.
As for the 700 Egyptian border guards emplaced along Gaza’s
border with Egypt, they have proved — as also predicted by cooler
heads — to be a bad joke as terrorists and weaponry stream into
the Strip (as alluded to by the air force officer). Terrorists are
also leaving the Strip, circling through the Sinai, and
infiltrating Israel further south in large numbers. More generally,
the terror organizations, which by late last year had been weakened
by an ongoing Israeli campaign against them, have responded to
their free gift of land by rebounding both psychologically and
operationally.
The denial of danger, the flight from logic and necessity in a
desperate attempt to escape violence, is common to democracies. In
Israel’s case, given its smallness and location, the tendency is
especially worrisome.
