2006-06-21-Gaza rockets debate

By Ira Sharkansky

JERUSALEM—If someone wants to hear stuttering at its most extreme, I can suggest that you tune into http:\\media.iba.org.il. It is not exactly stuttering. The participants are speaking in fluent Hebrew. But they do not know what to say. Perhaps blather is a better term than stuttering.

The context is the continued rain of crude rockets on Sderot and other Israeli locales, and the raging protest from poor residents who shout and cry that they cannot stand any more. The more immediate background is a Israeli helicopter missile attack on a car filled with the bad guys who fire the rockets. A couple of them were lightly wounded, but three children in the street were killed, and a number of other civilians injured.

The deaths of the children headed the news last night and this morning. A usually hard nosed military commentator said that the attack was justified against the people who fire the rockets; it is known that they operate from crowded residential neighborhoods, but that the IDF must take greater care to avoid civilian casualties. Military and political figures expressed their regrets, and someone may actually have apologized.

The blather focuses on what to do about the rockets. The prime minister and defense minister (whose home is in Sderot) have threatened responses of increased severity. They have hinted that senior members of the Hamas government may be on Israel's target list. Activists in Sderot have screamed that they no longer respect the promises of politicians. They tried a hunger strike and blockages to prevent cars from entering or leaving their town. Those did not produce any results, and now they are threatening a march to Jerusalem. In the summer?

Ranking politicians who are retired generals and one retired head of the security services have talked around the same circle:

Israel must respond to the people of Sderot.
Serious force directed at the Palestinian population is out of the question; that would violate international norms and Jewish values; soldiers might not push the buttons against such targets; they do not want to be arrested as war criminals when they take their post-military trips outside of Israel.
A massive invasion of Gaza would not end the rocket threat, and would probably result in many more deaths among Israeli soldiers than the rockets have caused among civilians.
There must be a political deal along with military pressure; but the Palestinians are not capable of enforcing a political arrangement on organizations with access to crude weapons and a commitment to keeping up the fight.
Maybe Egypt and Jordan would help; but neither has been inclined to dirty its hands in the chaos of Palestine, where the fighters justify their actions on the basis of religious values that could threaten the Egyptian and Jordanian regimes.
Some suggest that Israel should target the heads of the Hamas government, while others say that the Hamas prime minister is the most pragmatic and moderate figure that Israel can expect to be heading the Palestinian Authority.

The defense minister has so far put his money on keeping his family in Sderot, speaking tough, saying the IDF is planning something big, but seeing the advantage in a moderate policy and hoping that his warning of big things to come will persuade the Palestinians to stop the rockets.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres ridiculed the folks of Sderot yesterday. He said that the people of Kiriyat Shemona had learned to live with rockets coming from Lebanon. Now the people of Sderot should recognize that the rockets from Gaza are not all that threateniing. Presumably their protests will work against his dream of a New Middle East with economic cooperation between Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, and others. Peres could not convince hysterical families. After a short time he issued a clarification of what he really meant, and has since been silent.

For the Israeli majority that does not live alongside Gaza, it is a time to pity those who do, and wonder what the IDF will produce. Something is likely to happen. The Jewish army is supposed to be smart. It may take it awhile to define the priorities and figure out the benefits and costs of each alternative. If it is not better at this than Palestinian gangs who make and fire crude rockets, then we really are in trouble.

Sharkansky is an emeritus member of the political science department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem