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By Micah D. Halpern
September 28, 2004
It happened in Gaza. Using the cover of night, three Palestinians silently and without notice maneuvered themselves into an Israeli settlement that housed an army encampment. They laid in wait inside the greenhouses of the settlement until just after the regularly scheduled army school patrol left to check the road to make certain that the children of that settlement could travel safely to school.
Then the Palestinians ran into the army camp.
Three Israeli soldiers were killed. Two of the Palestinian infiltrators were killed as they withdrew in the direction from which they had entered the compound. The third, safe for the while, had the time and opportunity to plant a large explosive device that was set off hours later. It detonated during a press briefing called on the occasion of the first attack.
The third Palestinian was finally discovered and he was killed in a firefight with the army. An Israeli journalist was shot in the leg during the shootout.
The attacks were devastating. The results were tragic. The episode is a blight on the Israeli Defense Forces. Without a doubt, it will evolve into a military scandal.
How could the enemy just walk into any area, let alone one as sensitive as Gaza? How could it happen that the enemy walks -- if not quite nonchalantly then certainly unnoticed, into an army base in Gaza and kills three soldiers?
For the Palestinians this was a tremendous success. For the terrorist cause throughout the Muslim world this was a notch in their belt, a feather in their cap, a coveted trophy.
In the eyes of Palestinians, of Muslims worldwide, this was not simply an attack on an army base. It wasn?t just that three Palestinians were able to infiltrate and kill three Israeli soldiers including, by the way, a captain/commander, on their own base. It was much, much more. It was that these Palestinians were able to damage, to literally blow away, the long-held image that the great Israeli army is undefeatable.
Do not underestimate how important that is. And it is not important only for these particular perpetrators. It's important, very important for all terrorists and all terrorist planners and terrorist supporters and organizers and for all the people they represent, everyone for whom they perpetrate their acts of terror, every person with anti-Western inclinations.
This attack re-enforced the argument that the best approach to combating Western forces is by having a well-researched plan with well-trained personnel who are willing to give their lives for and in the operation.
These Palestinians and the planners who dispatched them had methodically and painstakingly gathered intelligence. They found and exploited the weaknesses of the Israeli army on this base in Gaza. The results are far more damaging than the events of that day. The ripple effect of this success will embolden Palestinian youth and other potential terrorist attackers worldwide.
And now, the biggest issue of all. These Palestinians were dispatched by terrorist organizations. But they successfully attacked an army base. The target was military, not civilian. That makes all the difference. Had they chosen to attack the settlers living in the settlement and not the soldiers living there, the act would have been a terror attack. But it wasn't.
Terror is defined as an attack against civilian, not military, targets. The perpetrators were terrorists, the sponsors were terrorist organizations, those who revel in the success of the attack are supporters of terror. But the act that killed three soldiers was not an act of terror. It was a legitimate act of war.
These same people could have elected to shoot up a city square in Tel Aviv as has happened in the past. But they did not. The world would be a different place if all attacks were military.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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