Israel Matzav

Olmert sold out is selling out the country

Earlier this week, there was a powerful article from YNet that I meant to blog for you. I'm going to open this post with an excerpt of it, but I urge you all to read the whole thing. I'm ignoring the part about Lebanon, because this post is about Gaza and the 'Palestinians.' The article was written by Ehud Yatom (not to be confused with former Israeli ambassador to the US Danny Yatom), who served in several positions in the Shin Bet (usually known here as the Shabak - Sheirut Bitachon Klali or General Security Services - kind of like the FBI and the Secret Service in the US rolled into one) and as a Likud Knesset member.

The ceasefire in the south marks yet another dangerous deterioration in the slippery, contagious slope of weakness and limpness, and also constitutes an irreversible blow to our power of deterrence.

The Palestinians realize today more than ever that we have no operational solutions for terrorism launched from their territories, and for them the victory is unequivocal. They realize that in the south as well we prefer a temporary, false and intoxicating quiet, which allows them to boost their forces, equip them, and recruit new fighters for the Hamas army in order to prepare them for the next rounds.

And so, we left Gaza without achieving even one mission objective. Departing from the territory before we took over the entire Strip – from the ruins of Elei Sinai, Dugit and Nissanit and all the way to the Philadelphi Route – and without banishing and defeating terror elements, will make it clear to the Palestinians that they will gain what they want and continue to be granted land in exchange for nothing only through terror and war.

The abandonment of the Philadelphi Route to the mercy of the Egyptians, again, will lead to the continuation of arms smuggling. Until when will we continue to be hit without hitting back? Until when will we escape and show restraint?

At Sdeh Boker, where late Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, our first leader and the man who built this country is buried, Ehud Olmert sold the illusion of peace and quiet between us and the Palestinians.

He sold it cheaply and without getting anything in exchange. He again made it clear that in the absence of leadership, he sacrificed the State of Israel's territory and security on the altar of illusion of a truce whose one and only goal is to provide those who seek to exterminate us with a timeout and oxygen.

The timing of the prime minister's speech, in the wake of two wars we failed to win, conveys leadership weakness and an aspiration for a false, dangerous quiet that will see our enemies rise against us at the timing that is good for them.

While I write these lines, two Qassam missiles landed in the Negev. This is clearly the Palestinian answer to the speech delivered by Olmert, the deluded seller of illusions. Instead of pledging to hand over land and release terrorist murders in exchange for a mirage, we should have launched an all-out military campaign in the Strip to regain our leadership and power of deterrence.

I wanted you to see this, because Ehud Yatom is known as a security expert and because I want to update you about what is going on between Israel and the 'Palestinians' today. It's not pretty.

As I noted this morning, two more Kassams landed in the south today, one near Sderot and one near Shaar HaNegev. The Kassams - it goes without saying - were shot by 'Palestinians' from the Gaza Strip. Would you like to be spending the Sabbath in Sderot under these circumstances? I wouldn't....

US President Bush yesterday dutifully stated - after his meeting with Iraqi President al-Maliki and Jordanian King Abduallh in Amman - that Abu Mazen "deserves world support because he wants a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. We support reasonable people and reject extremists." It's not clear to me why Bush is going through the motions on this, given that he is a lame duck anyway, but he is. I also fail to see why he thinks Abu Mazen is 'reasonable' and not an 'extremist.' Abu Mazen is a holocaust denier. He denies any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount. Abu Mazen (at least Bush calls him by his nom de guerre rather than calling him Mahmoud Abbas - as the Israeli media does - and maintaining the illusion that he is about anything other than murdering Jews) differs from Hamas only in means. His end game is exactly the same as theirs.

Army Radio reported today that despite the cease fire hudna, arms smuggling is continuing in the Rafah area and along the Philadelphi corridor. I reported the same thing last night and earlier in the week. In fact, the 'cease fire' has become such a farce that even the Jerusalem Post's staff is referring to it as the "supposed cease fire." But instead of declaring it over, or at least waiting to see what happens, Israel's Insecurity Cabinet will meet on Sunday to discuss extending the hudna to Judea and Samaria. This despite the fact that the government is well aware that the 'Palestinians' have missiles in Judea and Samaria that could be fired at us at any time, and that the terror and weapons factories are continuing to operate there, without the impediment of an enclosing fence that exists in Gaza (no, it's not finished yet, and topographically, it can never be as effective as the Gaza one is). Haaretz is reporting that the IDF will advise against extending the hudna, but quotes foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev as saying that Olmert is in favor of it. For those who think all is quiet in Judea and Samaria, here is a roundup of last night's activity:

[V]iolent clashes continued Thursday evening and overnight between IDF forces and Palestinians. An IDF soldier was lightly wounded and an armed Palestinian killed overnight Thursday near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

An armed Palestinian threw a Molotov cocktail at soldiers on duty near the cave, wounding one, and continued to approach the troops after he was ordered to stop. The soldiers opened fire and killed him.

A Magen David Adom ambulance evacuated the wounded soldier to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.

Overnight, IDF soldiers arrested 29 Palestinian fugitives throughout the West Bank. All the suspects were detained for interrogation.

...

On Thursday night, a Palestinian youth was killed and two others wounded by IDF fire in the West Bank village of Kfar Bita, near Nablus, Palestinian sources reported.

The youth who was killed was identified as Shadi Nayif, 15, who had been throwing rocks at the troops. According to the report, the IDF was still operating in the village.

Meanwhile EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is arriving today to meet with Olmert, Livni and Abu Mazen to try to set up a meeting between Olmert and Abu Mazen.

A source close to Solana told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that the policy chief "would like to see a meeting between Abu Mazen (Abbas) and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. We would like to see confidence-building measures on both sides and a return to the Road Map."

The European Union wants to help move matters forward on the release of the Palestinians held in Israeli jails and Cpl. Gilad Shalit who was kidnapped by Hamas on the Gaza border in late June, the source said. [Note that the European priority is releasing 'Palestinian' terrorists, not getting back the kidnapped IDF soldier. CiJ]

Keeping the cease-fire in Gaza, which was declared this week, is an integral step toward the progress of peace, so Solana has called on the Quartet to provide diplomatic oversight for that cease-fire, the source said. The source added that this should not be interpreted to mean that Solana favored an international monitoring force in the area similar to the one that is now stationed in southern Lebanon.

But the amazing part of this article is just how little the Europeans seem to understand of what is going on under their noses. Read this and tell me why anyone would want them patrolling anywhere.

Israeli officials have complained about security problems with the Rafah crossing and have charged that weapons are being smuggled across it.

The EU official denied the charges. "I know of no significant smuggling of weapons through the Rafah crossing," he said. [Incredible! CiJ] But, he added, Palestinians were bringing cash into Gaza, a move which is allowed to them under Palestinian law. [But of course. 'Palestinian foreign minister' Mahmoud Zahar brought in another $20 million this week all by himself. For those of you wondering how there could be a 'humanitarian crisis' in Gaza with all that money coming in, keep in mind that it goes for weapons. CiJ] Many other countries would not allow large sums of money to go over its border in that way, he said, but the Palestinians are still working on their legal system.

The EU official argued that there was no point in confiscating the cash, which would then have to be given to the Finance Ministry which was under Hamas control. The benefit, he said, is that the Europeans can know how much money is going into Gaza, he added.

Here comes what may be the most incredible part of all. No, not that the UN is slamming us again for not committing suicide fast enough. But the idea that Olmert thinks that the hudna is a success so long as the 'Palestinians' don't get lucky and kill someone with their rockets amazes me. Does he work at playing dumb or was he born that way?

On Thursday the United Nations issued a report on the crossings into Gaza and showed how many of the agreements Israel had made regarding the crossings had not been kept.

Since the Agreement on Movement and Access was signed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in November 2005, the report charged, Palestinian access to the outside world is limited and the flow of goods in and out of Gaza is "negligible."

In the first six months after the agreement was signed, Rafah was open nine-and-a-half hours a day, but since June it had been closed 86 percent of the time, the UN report said. It added that since April, the Karni Crossing through which goods flow had been closed 54 percent of the time.

A EU official said that Olmert planned to improve access in and out of Gaza should the cease-fire hold. But he said Olmert had warned that the cease-fire would collapse if there was a serious violation, such as a rocket attack with fatalities.

I know that this post has gotten far too long, but here's the bottom line. If you live here long enough, you begin to believe in conspiracy theories. Here's one that someone sent me this morning that you can all chew on for a while. I've removed anything that might identify the writer. I haven't decided whether I believe it myself, but too much of it is plausible. For those who need a little help, "Dossim" is a derogatory term for Haredim, or ultra-Orthodox Jews. Haredim average close to six children per family in Israel (bli ayin hara) if I am correctly recalling my statistics....

The demographic threat that exercises the powers that be is not the demography of the Arabs. It's the demography of the Dossim. The Labor "Zionists" who control all the institutions of power in this country, the media, the universities, the banks and stock market, the Histadrut and, through them, the government, the ones who came to Eretz Yisrael to bury the Jewish people and the Jewish religion --- what they termed creating the "New Jew" (by which they mean the unJew) --- figured out in the late '70's or early '80's that they were about to lose control of the country demographically to the Arabs on one side and the Dossim on the other. Given the choice of relinquishing power to the Dossim or the Arabs, in their estimation, it is a hundred times preferable to give the country to the Arabs. They made a deal with nice, secular, "democratic", "moderate" Arabs. They would turn the country over to the PLO and the PLO will put down the Dossim and agree to autonomy for a Jewish autonomy in the coastal strip, centered on North Tel-Aviv, controlled by the unJews. Do you wonder why they got hysterical when Hamas won when there is no rationally discernable difference between Hamas and the PLO? The difference is that they think they can make a deal with the 'secular' folks in the PLO that will leave the unJews in control of a reduced "Israel." Hamas, on the other hand, is made up of religious people, real frummer goyim... there is no talking to Hamas about unJews being in control of anything.

Now, go back and re-read the situation I've presented above. Do you have a better explanation?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:41 PM