By Dr. Steve Carol
Monday, January 8, 2007
During the past seven years, Israel has taken a series of steps -- a series of miscalculations -- would be better phraseology, that in retrospect has emboldened its enemies. The unilateral Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000 did not bring peace with that nation. To the contrary, it brought a terrorist organization, the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah, to Israel's northern border committed to Israel's destruction.
In September 2005, Israel again unilaterally withdrew from territory, this time from the Gaza Strip. That move too, did not bring peace, or the establishment of a second Palestinian state. Instead it facilitated turning Gaza into a Middle East "terror central" and paved the way for the election of Hamas, another terrorist organization whose charter vows to eliminate Israel.
To make matters worse, Israel turned control of the Philadelphi corridor -- the Egypt-Gaza border -- over to Egyptian control with European "observers" looking on. Their mission was to monitor and control persons and material entering the Gaza Strip as a step towards promoting peace between the Palestinians and Israel. Something quite different occurred. Far from stopping or curbing the flow of weapons, munitions, money, and foreign fighters into Gaza, the Egyptians have facilitated such entry. They turned a blind eye to this movement and to the numerous underground tunnels under the frontier that enable even more terrorists to enter to continue their jihad against the Jewish State.
These steps without any real Israeli reaction other than verbal protests have emboldened Israel's enemies to press their attack further. Rocket fire from Gaza commenced, with rockets of ever-increasing range and effectiveness striking Israeli cities, towns and villages. The Israeli response was token artillery shelling of empty fields. The enemy pressed further. The kidnapping of an Israeli businessman was "rewarded" by the release of 400 terrorists from Israeli prisons. An earlier (Oct. 2000) attack on Israeli soldiers, who were subsequently murdered by Hezbollah, elicited no Israeli response. Their murdered bodies were finally recovered in Oct. 2004 but only in exchange for over 400 live terrorists. Israel's willingness to release large numbers of terrorist prisoners with blood on their hands sends the unmistakeable message that killing Jews no longer even guarantees imprisonment for any length of time.
No doubt that act encouraged last summer's twin terrorist attacks on Israeli soldiers both along the Gaza frontier and along Israel's northern border with Lebanon. Along the Gaza frontier the terrorists killed two Israeli soldiers, seriously wounded a third, and took alive, a fourth. In the north, terrorists killed eight Israeli soldiers and seized two others. The three Israelis taken are still in captivity and presumed alive, though no evidence has been produced. Haggling continues as to how many terrorists should be exchanged for the Israeli soldiers, with numbers being estimated from 900 to over 1,400.
Israel's poor performance in the Iranian-encouraged and sponsored war that erupted as a result of these attacks has empowered Islamofascist jihadists across the Middle East. They sense the Jewish state is faltering, being increasingly isolated, becoming marginalized by the U.S. State Department and threatened by the Iraq Study Group Report. The latter calls for Israeli unilateral territorial concessions to continue in Judea-Samaria including Jerusalem (that the Arabs call the "West Bank"), and the Golan Heights. Such appeasement does nothing more than further encourage Israel's foes. Israel's previous deterrent capabilities seem rapidly to be disappearing.
Now, even Israel's Arab population has come forth calling for Israel to become a bi-national state, to even change its flag and national anthem. Israeli Arab Members of Knesset have openly visited an enemy capital, Damascus, Syria, and endorsed the activities of Hezbollah. They encourage Israeli Arabs -- most of whom consider themselves Palestinian first and Israeli last -- to emulate the tactics of Hezbollah and Hamas. On Jan. 5, 2007, another Israeli Arab MK, Mohammad Barakeh urged the Palestinians to cease their internal feuding in Gaza, and unite against Israel.
Even a nation formally at peace with Israel -- Egypt -- has shown its true colors. The situation between the two nations has been described by many as a "cold peace." "Cold War" would be a more apt description. The Egyptian media and their educational system continue to turn out vehement anti-Semitic propaganda directed at the Jewish State. The Egyptian armed forces, largely equipped with U.S.-made weaponry (thanks to the largess of US aid) trains for a war against the named "enemy" -- Israel. Now encouraged by Israeli unilateral territorial concessions, Egypt has joined those threatening Israel's sovereignty. In the last week of December 2006, members of the Egyptian Parliament openly debated and called for the Israeli return of Umm Rashrash to Arab control. Since 1948, Umm Rashrash, then an isolated police post -- has been known as the city of Eilat, Israel's southern port on the Gulf of Eilat, what the Arabs call the Gulf of Aqaba. The debate, revolved not about whether Eilat is Israeli or Egyptian, but rather whether the site is Egyptian or Palestinian!
Sensing Israel's national malaise, its apparent lack of national will to take the long-overdue necessary basic steps to ensure its survival, the sharks -- Israel's enemies foreign and domestic -- smell the blood in the water. They are circling ever closer, prepared to move in for the final kill -- when they sense and choose the moment. The scene is eerily reminiscent of the dark days of late May 1967 as the Arab world mobilized for the final onslaught against Israel. In October 1973, Israel saw a similar set of circumstances. In the earlier case, Israel pre-emptively struck to save itself. In the latter case, Israel waited and nearly lost everything when the Arab attack was launched. Israel now, must return to the tactics of the past that worked so successfully in June 1967. It must regain a deterrent capability; it must demonstrate its will, its strength and its ability to survive.
Dr. Steven Carol
Prof. of History (retired)
Official historian on The Middle East Radio Forum www.middleeastradioforum.org
Senior Fellow: Center for Advanced Middle East Studies www.camesinfo.com
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