Israel Matzav

Former Gaza commander: Reconquer the Gaza Strip

It turns out I turned off my radio in disgust a bit too soon this morning.

This morning, I mentioned that I had heard interviews with the Bobsey Twins, which I had planned to blog, had the Kassam attacks on Sderot not intervened. It turns out that the next interview was with former Gaza division commander Moti Yogev, and Yogev let leftist minister Meir Sheetrit have it:

Yogev spoke shortly after Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) said that a military offensive must go together with diplomatic negotiations - a position also expressed this week by Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh and other government officials.

Asked what he thinks of this stance, Yogev responded sharply. "It's true that in general military activity must be accompanied by negotiations," he said, "but in this case, the Kassam rockets are a direct result not only of the terrorists who fire them, but of the wantonness, lack of professionalism and irresponsibility of this government and its ministers. This includes Minister Sheetrit, who is talking nonsense... The government is not implementing the most basic effective measures to fulfill its basic responsibility to protect the citizens of Sderot and the western Negev."

Yogev then went on to lay out what he thinks should be done:

Asked what can be done militarily that has not already been tried, Yogev said, "The various offensives recently carried out by the IDF are limited and ineffective. They hit from afar, they cause things like what happened in Beit Hanoun [20 civilians killed by an errant artillery shell - ed.], and they de-legitimize our ability to act. There is no way to stop these rockets and the terrorists' mad dash to arm themselves other than to do these two things: Take over the Philadelphi Route [on the Egypt-southern Gaza border] for years to come as a permanent policy, and to capture all of northern Gaza, as we did in Shechem four years ago in Operation Defensive Shield. It will be a difficult mission, but the government owes it to the residents of the Negev and Sderot and Ashkelon - and to others, who live in areas that the rockets may soon be able to reach."

Yogev was asked, "What about hitting those, such as Khaled Meshaal in Damascus, who give the orders to fire the rockets?"

His response: "To prevent Gaza from turning into a massive terrorist base against Israel, there is no substitute other than to conquer the place from which the Kassams are being fired - and this means from the northern Gaza border, where Elei Sinai and Nitzanit used to stand, all the way down to [the former Jewish community of] Netzarim, including Gaza City, Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, Jebalya and the like. Let it not be said that we will just be repeating the situation of two years ago; since we left Gaza in 1994 under the Oslo Accords, we have never had control of these areas, except for a few days at a time in totally ineffective operations. They were ineffective even as they were happening; when we were in Beit Hanoun, they shot from another town, and when we left, they came back to Beit Hanoun and shot from there again. Our presence in Judea and Samaria prevents over 90% of the attacks there. This is the only way, and whoever thought otherwise was mistaken and must admit this now."

But Ehud K. Olmert remains in Los Angeles and continues to fiddle along with Tzipi Livni. And Defense Minister Amir Comrade Peretz continues to fiddle here in Israel as Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and leftist ministers like Meir Sheetrit and Ephraim Sneh look on lovingly, as Israel continues to burn.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:51 PM