By Dr. Aaron Lerner
June 22, 2007
 Bookmark to del.icio.us
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert should come to the upcoming summit next week in Egypt with a raft of demands and proposals, not concessions.
The Hamas takeover of Gaza is the latest wake-up call warning Israeli policymakers that there is ultimately a day of reckoning for its complacent and cavalier attitude towards security.
One would have hoped that policymakers learned their lesson from the Second Lebanon War fiasco, but while the IDF has certainly made efforts to address the weaknesses and problems that war exposed, the ruling leadership focused on their personal political survival rather than on the ramifications of the experience.
As a result, instead of a proactive response to the preparations Hamas made as it grew in strength, the Olmert-Livni team frittered away more than a year without any clear policy or plan of action.
And, unfortunately, it appears that nothing has changed.
Again: first and foremost, the significance of the Hamas operation is that it demonstrates that there are very dangerous enemies literally inside Israel's security envelope that are executing a carefully planned and generously financed program to ultimately destroy the Jewish State.
These are not loose groupings of local gangs with makeshift weapons -- we are talking of military forces enjoying foreign support in the form of finance, weapons, military advisors and an integrated training program that includes courses overseas as well as on site.
That's not to say that these forces are superhuman. Nor that the IDF is unable to roundly defeat them. But suffice it to say that it does not require much of an imagination to speculate what damage a large, well equipped, trained and coordinated ground force -- particularly one that is not subject to any moral restrictions -- could do.
There is a great danger that the outcome of the summit in Egypt will be amorphous talk about security concerns combined with concrete Israeli security concessions (this despite consistent Palestinian polls indicating that Israeli security measures are anything but a top concern) and the start of a dash towards creating a sovereign Palestinian state with the fulfillment of Palestinian security obligations permanently postponed.
But it doesn't have to be this way.
Prime Minister Olmert should come to the meeting explaining that the "platform that may lead into a new beginning between us and the Palestinians" is a platform that rests on a foundation of Palestinian security compliance and that all the participants in the summit need to contribute to the building of that foundation.
Instead of vague remarks about the need for Egypt to redouble its efforts to stop the smuggling across its border, or talk about arcane projects that, if even workable, would take years to implement, Olmert should present a list of activities Egypt can readily execute in its sovereign territory to stop the smuggling. Actions such as turning the area adjacent to the border into a closed security area to prevent contraband from coming near the border and then following up by bulldozing a sterile area to radically reduce tunneling operations.
PM Olmert should also make it clear that Israel considers the very existence of Hamas control of the Gaza Strip to be a causus beli and reserves the right to respond accordingly.
By the same token, Olmert should note that Israel maintains that the security measures it currently carries out in the West Bank serve a vital role in preventing the situation there from deteriorating. As such, these measures ultimately serve Palestinian as well as Israeli interests.
There is no place in the "platform" for armed gangs in the West Bank regardless of their political affiliation. The elimination of these groups should be a top priority. In the spirit of Secretary Rice's "benchmark" idea, Mr. Olmert could propose a series of increasingly difficult weapons confiscation operations for PA security forces to carry out.
Yes, Israel has things to offer at the summit. It can free up funds and make further investments to streamline various interfaces with the Palestinian population. But it cannot afford to undermine security.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
