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By Bruce S. Ticker
May 24, 2004
Maybe the politicized assault over Israel's operation in Rafiah reminds you of another event: Jenin.
More than two years ago, Israeli troops converged on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, setting off some of the fiercest fighting since the current war broke out in September 2000. One would think World War III had started.
Critics castigated Israel, claiming that the soldiers had massacred up to 1,000 people. Initially, the Israeli government mysteriously precluded reporters and other outsiders from visiting the area in the immediate aftermath.
When reporters did visit, they found absolutely no evidence of a massacre. Roughly 50 Arabs had been killed, not 1,000.
What's more, the Israeli government discovered an elaborate armed camp right under the noses of a United Nations agency which operates the camp. It was a staging area for many of the genocide bombings that took Israeli lives in Israel proper.
Even a harsh but reasonable critic of Ariel Sharon's administration - and I am in that camp - would have to admit that that trip was necessary.
Now virtually the same people are decrying the extensive house demolitions at the Rafiah refugee camp.
Until the smoke clears, it will be difficult for outside observers to determine if the operations were necessary, but so far that's the way it sounds.
While Israel has made serious mistakes, one thing is clear: Israel must do whatever it must to protect its citizens.
The news media reports that the Rafiah refugee camp has been used as an arms supply line where deep tunnels have been built to funnel arms from Egypt into Gaza.
It is insane for Israel to allow this. No country would permit this to persist.
It is an action that has nothing to do with settlements. Whether the settlements existed or not, the Arabs are able to build all these tunnels - a system as extensive as the armed camp at Jenin.
Naturally, the arms smuggled through these tunnels are being used to kill Israelis - whether in the settlements, against the military or for any current or future incursions into Israel proper. According to the New York Times, the Israeli Army said it has found 90 smuggling tunnels in Rafiah since September 2000.
This has to be stopped, but the question is whether the Israeli is responding to this in the most appropriate way possible.
The naysayers are already out in force. Peter Hansen, commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, was quoted thus in the Times: "With these disproportionate military operations, Israel is in grave breach of international law."
It is Hansen's agency, UNRWA, that runs these camps. Earlier, UNRWA did not report to the UN the presence of terrorists at Jenin, which violated UN rules. The construction of those tunnels is likewise probably a violation.
Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser to U.S. President Bush, chided: "Some of their actions don't create the best atmosphere."
Maybe so, but humiliating prisoners in Iraq also fails to "create the best atmosphere."
The fact that any tunnels could be built at Rafiah begs some critical questions: Where was the Egyptian government in all this? Is this what giving away the Sinai meant?
Also, where has the United Nations been? How did they let it get this far?
Most of all, when is someone else going to pose these questions publicly?
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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