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Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak speaks with David Einhorm, father of Jonathan Einhorn who was killed during the second Lebanon war on Monday January 07, 2007 at a Labor Party Meeting at the Knesset, Israeli parliament. Will more young men be sacrificed for an ill-conceived and externally-constrained operation in Gaza? (Photo by Kobi Gideon / Flash90)
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| By Israel Insider staff January 12, 2008 |
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| Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi (right) meet with troops last week. (Flash) |
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The IDF carried out an aerial attack against a Hamas terrorist organization post in the southern Gaza Strip Saturday evening. The attack was carried out following the continuous firing of mortar shells at Israeli communities in the western Negev. Since January 1st, Palestinians have fired approximately 215 rockets and mortar shells into Israel. The now-routine action came as reports appeared of American dictation of strict terms for a long-delayed military operation in Gaza, effectively crippling its chances of success and sacrificing Israeli soldiers to prop up the Palestinian Authority, without solving the Gaza problem.
Before he ended his visit to the country, President George W. Bush gave Israel his approval for a military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but said the purpose for any such action should not be to stamp out Palestinian rockets attacks, arms smuggling and stockpiling. Rather, IDF troops are to be put in harm's way so that Gaza can be handed on a silver platter to Mahmoud Abbas, rolling back his ouster, DEBKAfile sources report.
The report says that Israeli forces must limit their incursion to two or three narrow strips abutting the Gaza-Israeli border. Those sources identify those strips as the northern pocket of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and the outskirts of the Jebalya camp; areas east of Khan Younis up to the Sufa and Kerem Shalom crossings; and sections of the Philadelphi border strip with Egypt, excluding the Mediterranean coast.
In practice, this means the Israeli army may push back the Qassam rocket launching sites from the border, but may not destroy terrorist arms and missile caches and their means of production. The IDF will be permitted to operate only in sparsely-populated areas and desist from actions that may cause extensive Palestinian civilian casualties. The IDF will not enter or capture the main cities. After clearing captured areas of Hamas, Islam Jihad and other terrorists, Israeli forces must withdraw and hand over the partially-cleansed territory to West Bank chieftain Mahmoud Abbas. Supposedly it is Abbas' securityforces that will then recapture Gaza from the "softened" Hamas.
Defense minister Ehud Barak is reportedly personal responsible for leading and charting the Gaza operation, determining its timeline and being responsible to Washington for the IDF not stepping out of the predefined boundaries. It will also be up to Barak to decide whether to pursue the objective in phased offensives or all at once.
Other Israeli media also reported the American wink and nod to a Gaza operation. There have been suggestions that the offensive would be launched just before the scheduled release of the Winograd report so that pressure on Olmert to resign would be reduced because Israel was once again "in wartime." The same factor would free Barak from his previous solemn commitment to resign from the government after a harsh Winograd report. The irony would be, of course, that Olmert would once again be entering a conflict for political considerations, sacrificing Israeli lives to serve American interests, not Israeli ones.
DEBKAfile's military sources report that the Olmert government's acceptance of this half-baked plan has stirred outrage in the IDF high command, general staff, southern command and security establishment as a whole.
"For the first time in its 60 years of independence," Debkafile asserts, "Israel's national army is being pressed into service to capture a territory on behalf of a foreign entity. They [the military] ask by what authority did the prime minister and defense minister sign off on a plan which is an immoral distortion of the IDF's longstanding mission. The notion that members of Israel's people's army, duty bound to defend the state, may be ordered to fight and lay down their lives in the service of the Palestinian Authority, presents every serviceman with an irreconcilable dilemma." While the 1956 Suez conflict might also arguably constitute a precedent for the use of the IDF in service to foreign powers, the prohibition on Israel from taking decisive steps guarantees that any successes will be short-lived, just as Hezbullah has restored its strength and returned to the northern border in Lebanon.
In effect, the IDF would be fighting for Mahmoud Abbas, spilling blood to reverse Fatah's ignominious defeat in its internecine war with Hamas. The use of the Israeli Army in Abbas' service would also validate the Hamas argument that the Fatah-led government is merely a collaborator with Israel and the Americans. But if the half-baked campaign, with its inherent prohibition on decisive victory, does not -- as is highly likely given the constraints on Israeli force --- eliminate Hamas and its terrorist allies, Abbas is likely to join them, not fight them, seeking a coalition and Palestinian unity against the Israeli aggressor.
The plan would almost surely put an end to hopes for releasing captured corporal Gilad Shalit.
At the dinner Olmert hosted in honor of the US president Thursday night, Debkafile reported, several ministers pointed out these facts to Bush and told him bluntly that he is unwisely gambling all his hopes for peace on a non-existent entity called the Palestinian Authority.
The US president answered: "I agree. That really is a problem."
Now it will be primarily the problem of the soldiers who will risk and lose their lives fighting for Abbas and his corrupt, incompetent regime.
But Olmert can buy time and wait another year and a half for the next commission on his folly in Gaza. |
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