Since the IDF commenced its ground operations in Gaza on Saturday night, I have been hungrily eyeing my hat.

On Friday I argued that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government is following the same defeatist strategy in Gaza today that the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government followed in Lebanon two and a half years ago. In 2006, the government supported a cease-fire that empowered outside actors - in that case the UN and Europe - to enforce an arms embargo against Hizbullah and to act as Israel's surrogate in preventing Hizbullah from reasserting control over South Lebanon.

In the event, as government critics like myself warned at the time, these outside actors have done nothing of the sort. The European commanded UNIFIL force in Lebanon has instead acted as a shield defending Hizbullah from Israel. Under UNIFIL's blind eye, Iran and Syria have tripled the size of Hizbullah's missile arsenal. And Hizbullah has taken full control over some 130 villages along the border.

In a similar fashion, today the government is insisting on the establishment of an international monitoring force, comprised perhaps of Egyptian, Israeli, Fatah-affiliated Palestinian, American and European officials that will monitor Gaza's border with Egypt and somehow prevent weapons smuggling. Like the cease-fire deal in Lebanon, this plan does not foresee the toppling of the Hamas regime in Gaza or the destruction of its military capacity. It ignores the fact that similar, already existing, theoretically friendly monitoring forces - like the US-commanded Multi-National Force Observers in the Sinai - have done nothing to prevent or even keep tabs on weapons transfers to Hamas.

STILL, IN spite of the government's continued diplomatic incompetence, there are reasons to think that Israel may emerge the perceived victor in the current campaign against Hamas (and I will be forced to eat my hat). The first is that Gaza is relatively easier to control as a battle space than Lebanon. Unlike the situation in Lebanon, IDF forces in Gaza have the ability to isolate Hamas from all outside assistance. The IDF's current siege of Gaza City, its control over northern Gaza, its naval quarantine of the coast and its bombardment and isolation of the border zone with Egypt could cause Hamas to sue for a cease-fire on less than victorious terms.

Indeed, this may already be happening. Hamas's leaders are reportedly hiding in hospitals - cynically using the sick as human shields. And on Monday morning, Hamas's leadership in Damascus sent representatives to their new arch-enemy Egypt to begin discussing cease-fire terms. Taken together, these moves could indicate that Hamas is collapsing. But they could also indicate that Hamas is opting to fight another day while assuming that Israel will agree to let it do so.

THE SECOND reason that it is possible that Hamas may be defeated is because much to everyone's surprise, Iran may have decided to let Hamas lose.

Here it is important to note that the war today, like the war in 2006, is a war between Israel and Iran. Like Hizbullah, Hamas is an Iranian proxy. And just as was the case in 2006, Iran was instrumental in inciting the current war.

Iran prepared Hamas for this war. It used Hamas's six-month cease-fire with Israel to double both the range and the size of Hamas's missile arsenal. It trained Hamas's 20,000-man army for this war. And as the six months drew to a close, Iran incited Hamas to attack.

So too, in 2006, Iran incited Hamas to attack Israel. That war, now known as the Second Lebanon War, was actually a two-front war that began in Gaza. Ordered by Iran, it was Hamas that started the war when its forces (together with allied forces in Fatah), attacked the IDF position at Kerem Shalom on June 25, 2006 and kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Schalit. Israel fought a limited war against Iran's Palestinian proxies in Gaza for 17 days before the country's attention moved to the North after Hizbullah attacked an IDF position along the border and abducted Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

Israel's leaders today warn against a possible Hizbullah attack. In the North, municipalities are readying bomb shelters and air raid sirens ahead of such a possibility. Most of the IDF reservists called up over the weekend are being sent to the North ahead of a possible Hizbullah attack.

But in contrast to the situation in 2006, today Iran seems to have little interest in expanding the war and so saving Hamas from military defeat and humiliation. Speaking on Hizbullah's Al Manar television network on Sunday, Saeed Jalili, the head of Iran's National Security Council, its chief nuclear negotiator and a close advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, essentially told Hamas that it is on its own.

In his words, "We believe that the great popular solidarity with the Palestinian people as expressed all over the world should reflect on the will of the Arab and Islamic countries and other countries that have an independent will so that these will move in a concerted, cooperative, and cohesive manner to draft a collective initiative that can achieve two main things as an inevitable first step. These are putting an immediate end to aggression and second breaking the siege and quickly securing humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza."

In other words, Iran's response to its great enemy's the war against its proxy is to suggest forming a commission.

There are many possible explanations for Iran's actions. First there is the fact that war is an expensive proposition and Iran today is in trouble on that score. In the summer of 2006, oil cost nearly $80 a barrel. Today it is being traded at $46 a barrel. Iran revised its 2009 budget downward on Monday based on the assumption that oil will average $37 a barrel in 2009.

Over the past several months, Iran has been begging OPEC to cut back supply quotas to jack up the price of oil. But, perhaps in the interest of weakening Iran, Saudi Arabia has consistently refused Iran's requests. To date, OPEC's cutbacks in supply have been far too small to offset the decrease in demand. And the loss of billions in oil revenues may simply have priced Iran out of running a two-front terror war.

Then too, Washington-based Iran expert Michael Ledeen from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies argued on Monday in his blog at Pajamas Media website that Iran's apparent decision to sit this war out may well be the result of the regime's weakness. Its recent crackdown on dissidents - with the execution of nine people on Christmas Day - and the unleashing of regime supporters in riots against the Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Turkish and French embassies as well as the home of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi lends to the conclusion that the regime is worried about its own survival. As Ledeen notes Teheran may view another expensive terror war as a spark which could incite a popular revolution or simply destabilize the country ahead of June's scheduled presidential elections.

THERE IS also the possibility that Iran simply miscalculated. It believed that ahead of Israel's February 10 elections, the lame-duck Olmert-Livni-Barak government, which was already traumatized by the 2006 war, would opt not to fight. This would have been a reasonable assumption.

After all, in spite of Israel's sure knowledge last summer that Hamas and Iran would use a cease-fire with Israel to increase the size of Hamas's missile arsenal and expand the range of its projectiles while building up its forces, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government agreed to the cease-fire. And then, when Hamas announced that it would not extend the cease-fire past its December 19 deadline, Defense Minister Ehud Barak sent emissaries to Egypt to conduct "indirect" negotiations with Hamas in which Israel essentially begged the terror group to reconsider.

But then Israel responded with great force and Iran was left to make a decision. And for the moment at least, it appears that Iran has decided to let Hamas go down. As far as Iran is concerned, even a Hamas defeat is not a terrible option. This view is likely encouraged by Israel's current suggested cease-fire. After all, international monitors stationed along Gaza's borders will not serve as an impediment to future Iranian moves to rebuild Hamas.

ALAS, THERE is another possible explanation for Iran's apparent decision to abandon a vassal it incited to open a war. On Sunday, Iranian analyst Amir Taheri reported the conclusions of a bipartisan French parliamentary report on the status of Iran's nuclear program in Asharq Alawsat. The report which was submitted to French President Nicolas Sarkozy late last month concluded that unless something changes, Iran will have passed the nuclear threshold by the end of 2009 and will become a nuclear power no later than 2011. The report is notable because it is based entirely on open-sourced material whose accuracy has been acknowledged by the Iranian regime.

The report asserts that this year will be the world's final opportunity to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And, as Taheri hints strongly, the only way of doing that effectively is by attacking Iran's nuclear installations.

In light of this new report, which contradicts earlier US intelligence assessments that claimed it would be years before Iran is able to build nuclear weapons, it is possible that Iran ordered the current war in Gaza for the same reason it launched its war in 2006: to divert international attention away from its nuclear program.

It is possible that Iran prefers to run down US President George W. Bush's last two weeks in office with the White House and the rest of the world focused on Gaza, than risk the chance that during these two weeks, the White House (or Israel) might read the French parliament's report and decide to do something about it.

So too, its apparent decision not to have Hizbullah join in this round of fighting might have more to do with Iran's desire to preserve its Lebanese delivery systems for any nuclear devices than its desire to save pennies in a tight economy.

And if this is the case, then even if Israel beats Hamas (and I eat my hat), we could still lose the larger war by again having allowed Iran to get us to take our eyes away from the prize.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Posted on January 5, 2009 at 11:39 PM Permalink | Comments (7) | Email | De.icio.us | Digg This | Print

By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Caroline Glick is no stranger to the Corner crowd. She’s senior contributing editor of the Jerusalem Post and the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy. She’s also author of Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad.  
 
I asked Caroline a few questions this morning about the current Mideast violence. Here’s the conversation.  
 
Q: What exactly started this latest flare-up? 
 
A: The fighting in Gaza today started about three weeks ago when Hamas renewed its rocket, mortar, and missile assault against Israel. Last June, Israel foolishly agreed to a six-month ceasefire with Hamas. Hamas used the time to have Iran double the size of its missile arsenal and double the range of its missiles, and to build up its Iranian-trained, armed, and financed Hezbollah-style army of 20,000 men. Hamas called its renewed offensive “Operation Oil Stain.” On December 17, Hamas attacked Israel with more than 80 missiles, rockets and mortars.  
 
It took Israel ten days to finally respond to Hamas’s assault, which for the first time put Israeli major cities like Ashdod, Yavne, Beersheva, and Gedera under assault.  
 
What is interesting about this latest round of fighting is that the world paid little attention to what was going on when it was only Hamas attacking Israel. People only started paying attention when Israel’s government said enough is enough and started defending its territory and citizens.  

 
Q: Is the media here in the U.S. or internationally remotely fair? 

A: When the media are only interested in what is going on when Israel defends itself, the answer is no, they aren’t fair. They don’t pay any attention when hundreds of thousands of Israelis are relegated to bomb shelters for weeks and months on end. They don’t care that Israeli children can’t go to school or day care because Hamas is targeting schools and day-care centers. They only cover the story when Israel finally decides to put an end to this crazy situation where our children are growing up underground. And this is appalling.  
 
From CNN’s coverage of events here, for instance, you could easily come away from the news thinking that Israel is attacking Gaza for no reason. The European media, and much of the U.S. media dismiss the significance of Hamas’s missile, rocket, and mortar campaign against Israel by noting that these projectiles are relatively primitive and have no guidance systems. But this misses and indeed distorts the entire point. Hamas doesn’t need advanced weapons. Its goal is not to attack specific military targets. Its goal is to attack Israeli society as a whole and terrorize our citizens. That’s what makes it such an outlaw.  
 
In fact, this random bombing of civilian targets is the very definition of war crimes. Due to their random nature, every projectile launched against Israel by Hamas is a separate war crime. And that’s the real story. But again, outside of publications like National Review and the like, the Western media have ignored this basic truth and worse, they have turned the criminal nature of Hamas’s campaign into a justification for it. 

Q: What does the fighting mean for the future of Hamas-led Gaza?

A: There are four possible outcomes for Israel’s current campaign —  two would be positive and two would be negative. The best outcome would be for Israel to overthrow Hamas’s regime and destroy its capacity to wage war against Israel or threaten Israel in any significant way. To achieve this goal, Israel would have to reassert control over Gaza. Since the Israeli government has already stated that Israel will not reassert control over Gaza, and since reasserting control would be extremely embarrassing for the current leadership, which led Israel out of Gaza with promises of peace three and a half years ago, it is fairly clear that this outcome will not be forthcoming. 
 
The next best outcome would be something analogous to the end of the 1991 Gulf War. Although the U.S. left Saddam Hussein in power after that war, it asserted control over the no-fly zones and set up a clear sanctions regime that by and large prevented Iraq from rearming and apparently prevented Iraq from reconstituting its weapons of mass destruction programs.  
 
Here too, chances that this outcome will prevail are not great because the Israeli government has already stated that it is unwilling to reassert control over Gaza’s border with Egypt which is where most of Hamas’s weapons are imported from. 
 
The third possible outcome, which is already not a good one, would be for Israel to end its current campaign and just walk away with Hamas still in charge. In due course, Hamas would reconstitute its military forces and missile arsenals and reinstate its campaign against Israel. The positive aspect of such a future is simply that, subject to domestic political constraints, Israel would be able to go in and bomb Hamas anytime it felt that threatened. Israel would be under no international obligation to avoid defending itself, beyond the regular anti-Israel pressure. 
 
The fourth, and worst possible outcome is that Israel reaches some sort of internationally sponsored ceasefire agreement whereby foreign powers the EU, the U.S., Egypt, Turkey, or whomever agree to form some sort of international monitoring mechanism to oversee Gaza’s borders with Israel and Egypt. The reason this would be the worst outcome is that Israel’s experience with such forces in Lebanon and in Gaza itself has been wholly negative. These international forces will never fight Israel’s battles for it. Instead they inevitably shield terrorists from Israeli attack while ignoring the terrorists’ moves to rearm, reassert political control over their populations and reinstate their assaults against Israel. Moreover, because these international forces fear the terrorists they shield, they tend to side with them against Israel and blame Israel for any violence that takes place. 
 
Unfortunately, this is the outcome that the Israeli government is now pushing for in its diplomatic contacts relating to the war in Gaza.

 
Q: A lot of critics say that Israel is just going too far in its attacks. What do you make of the charge? 
 
A: The interesting aspect of this claim is what it tells us about the success of anti-Israel propaganda. For instance, Richard Falk, the Jewish anti-Semite who the U.N.’s Human Rights Council appointed to act as its rapporteur against Israel began accusing Israel of committing war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza the moment Israel began its campaign. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch systematically fabricate international “law” backed by “eyewitness” reports from Hamas supporters in order to accuse Israel of breaking it every single time it takes any steps to defend itself, no matter how restrained. 
 
Israel has done nothing in its campaign against Hamas that could be considered going “too far.” It has done nothing in its campaign that could be considered “disproportionate.” It has targeted military targets and terror operatives.  
 
The fact of the matter is that Israel is held to standards that are discriminatory while its enemy — an illegal, openly genocidal terrorist organization — is defended and shielded from attack by the media, by self-proclaimed human-rights activists and by hostile foreign leaders like British Foreign Minister David Miliband and Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan. Luckily, with some one million Israelis now under assault, Israel has decided that we just aren’t going to pay attention to their obscene attacks on our right to self-defense this time around.  
 

Q: Would you caution Israel at all? 
 
A: Absolutely. I think it would be a grave error for the government to agree to any sort of international monitoring mechanism of Hamas. If the government doesn’t want to see this war through to a complete rout of Hamas, and doesn’t want to retake Gaza’s border with Egypt, then it would be best for us to just weaken the group as much as possible while we have troops on the ground and then walk away to fight another day. We cannot trust the kindness of foreigners to do for us what we will not do for ourselves.   
 
 
Q: What does the future hold for the Palestinians in Gaza? 
 
A: Their future right now doesn’t look too attractive. These are people who overwhelmingly supported Hamas in the 2006 elections. They supported Hamas when it expelled Fatah from Gaza in 2007. And they supported Hamas when it began shelling Israel’s main port city Ashdod and big cities like Beersheva with missiles. By throwing their lot in with a genocidal terrorist group, Gazans, and indeed Palestinians as a whole, have made clear that they prefer the ravages of war to the blessings of peace. Until they change their minds, it is hard to see how they can expect to prosper morally, politically or economically.  
 
 
Q: What does the fight in Gaza tell us about the prospects for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? 
 
A: It tells us that such a process is both irrelevant and counter-productive. It is irrelevant because even in the event that there is a faction in Palestinian society that is willing to make peace with Israel, that faction will never bring about a broader rapprochement or even remain in power for long. What Hamas’s current war against Israel, its alliance with Iran and its popularity in Palestinian society tell us is that as a society, the Palestinians are not interested in peaceful coexistence with Israel regardless of what Israel’s borders are. They prefer to remain at war with Israel and to be led by terrorists. So even if the current Fatah leadership is really ready to finally lay down its arms, prosecute terrorists and reconcile to Israel, it cannot lead Palestinian society or the larger Arab world to the same conclusion. 
 
Gaza also shows us that pushing a peace process is counter-productive. In the context of such a process, Israel is expected to hand over land to Fatah. In the history of Israeli land giveaways to Fatah since 1994, there has never been a case where these transfers led to a moderation of Palestinian behavior or feelings towards Israel. To the contrary, such Israeli moves have only radicalized Palestinian society that has come to see every Israeli concession as proof that Israel is collapsing. 
 
Three and a half years ago, Israel gave its greatest concession to date when it removed all its military personnel and forcibly expelled ten thousand of its citizens from their homes and farms in Gaza and transferred the area to Fatah. Rather than moderate the Palestinians, this massive Israeli concession was seen as proof that Israel would soon disappear. Convinced that Israel’s destruction was at hand, the Palestinians elected Hamas the group most identified with the cause of Israel’s destruction to lead them.  
 
So even though Israel may make concessions to people who claim to be “moderate,” the fact is those concessions only strengthen “extremists” and so weaken Israel while strengthening jihadist groups dedicated to its destruction. Obviously, this is not something that engenders peace and stability. Rather, such “peace processes” engender only war and instability.  
 
 
Q: What should the U.S. response to the fighting be? 
 
A: Just as the U.S. supports all its allies -- from Pakistan to India to Britain to the Philippines -- in their fights against terrorist groups, so the U.S. should be supporting Israel without qualification in its fight against its terrorist foes. And indeed, just as the U.S. tells its allies not to go wobbly in their fights against terrorists, so the U.S. should be encouraging Israel to stay firm and not try to cut a deal with its terrorist foes.  
 
 
Q: Any advice to Obama? 
 
A: The thing that concerns me about President-elect Obama’s views of Israel and the Middle East is that they are heavily influenced by his advisers, many of whom are Clinton-administration veterans. And these advisers — people like Richard Haass, Aaron Miller, Dan Kurtzer, and Martin Indyk, to name just a few — have built their careers championing the failed and dangerous peace process.  
 
If Obama fails to recognize the folly of these advisers and replace them with men and women who use reality as their guide for policymaking, not only will he strengthen terrorist enemies of the U.S. like Hamas and Iran, he will weaken and endanger U.S. allies like Israel. So my advice to the incoming president would be to dump his Middle East team and replace it with advisers who have a clue.  
 
To paraphrase someone you might have heard of once or twice, I’d rather have U.S. policy on the Middle East determined by the first 100 names in the Boston phone book than by this team whose policies have brought about the death of thousands in their pursuit of a fantasy of peace.

Originally published in National Review Online. 

Posted on January 5, 2009 at 9:26 PM Permalink | Comments (2) | Email | De.icio.us | Digg This | Print

George Orwell once quipped, "The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it."

Since Tuesday it has become clear that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has decided to end the war with Iran's Hamas proxy army in Gaza as quickly as possible. That is, the government has decided to lose the war.

Most Israelis are unaware of this state of affairs. In an obvious attempt to bolster the popularity of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak ahead of the February 10 general elections, the local media have spent the six days since the government launched Operation Cast Lead praising the government's competence and wisdom, and declaring victory over Hamas after every IAF sortie in Gaza.

What the media have declined to notice is that the outcome of the war will not be determined by the number of Hamas buildings the IAF destroys. The outcome of this war - like the outcome of all wars - will be determined by one factor only: Which side will achieve the goals it set out for itself at the outset of the conflict and which side will concede its goals?

Depressingly, the current machinations of the Olmert-Livni-Barak government demonstrate that when the fighting is over, Hamas and not Israel will be able to declare that it accomplished its goals.

Hamas reinstated its attacks against southern Israel on December 19. It did so after a six-month hiatus that it used to restock its arsenals and strengthen its military forces. As it resumed its terror offensive against Israeli cities, Hamas announced that it will continue its current round of terror war until it wins full control over Gaza's land and sea borders.

Israel, for its part, has been less clear in stating its operational goals. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Livni and Barak have said that the goal of Operation Cast Lead is to compel Hamas to end its attacks against Israel, but they haven't said how they intend to affect that outcome. They have rejected Hamas's demand for control over Gaza's land and sea borders and in turn demanded that Hamas end its weapons smuggling operations across the Egyptian border.

Somewhat disconnectedly, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has demanded that in the event it reaches some sort of mediated accord with Hamas, an international monitoring force must be deployed to Gaza to enforce its terms. Since Wednesday, this appears to have become Israel's main demand in relation to any mediated cease-fire talks with Hamas.

As for cease-fire talks, as the IAF finds fewer and fewer targets to hit, those hypothetical talks have become the government's new focus. On Monday and Tuesday, Turkey, Egypt and the EU all began offering various truce arrangements between Israel and Hamas. On Tuesday, Israel opted to pursue the European track. On Thursday, Livni travelled to Paris to discuss it with French President Nicolas Sarkozy ahead of his trip to the region on Monday.

Apparently the government's decision to go with Europe is based on aesthetics. The Europeans have been more polite to Israel than Turkey or Egypt have. But the fact is that there is little substantive difference between any of the cease-fire offers now being bandied about.

Hamas, for its part, has accepted all of the proposals on the table, and this makes sense. The Europeans, the Egyptians and the Turks have all adopted Hamas's demand for control of its land and sea borders as a starting point. None has included any demands for Hamas to disarm, end its weapons trafficking or commit itself to a permanent cease-fire.

In an apparent bow to Israel, the EU's draft that Livni is now negotiating also speaks of the EU's willingness to deploy monitoring forces to Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt, and presumably to its coast. The EU foresees the deployment of monitors following the model developed by the EU monitors who were deployed at the Rafah terminal two months after Israel withdrew from the zone in September 2005, and who fled in June 2007 after Hamas took over Gaza.

According to its draft cease-fire proposal, the EU has agreed to return European monitors to Rafah, and is "willing to examine the possibility of extending its assistance to other crossing points."

BEFORE THE Olmert-Livni-Barak government accepts the EU cease-fire, it is worth noting three strategic problems with what they are doing. Taken together and separately, all three will lead Israel to defeat in this confrontation with Hamas.

The first problem with the EU proposal is that it takes for granted that all of Hamas's demands must be met in full. That is, Israel is beginning these negotiations from a point of weakness whereby it has already effectively accepted Hamas's demands and conceded its own.

The second problem with the decision to accept EU mediation is that by doing so, the government is compelled to ignore and indeed justify the EU's underlying and deep-seated hostility toward Israel. The very fact that the EU accepted Hamas's demands from the outset demonstrates clearly that the EU cannot be an honest broker between the warring factions.

Here it is important to recall just what Hamas is. Hamas is an illegal terrorist organization and an Iranian proxy that is conducting an illegal terror war against Israel. The EU is arguably committing a war crime by accepting Hamas as a legitimate side to a dispute. In turn, by accepting the EU as a legitimate interlocutor, Israel itself gives credence to the view that Hamas is a legitimate actor.

On a practical level, by accepting the EU's authority to mediate under these conditions, Israel has effectively foregone from the outset any chance of achieving its own cease-fire demands. After all, to reach a cease-fire with Hamas that includes Israel's demands that Hamas end its weapons smuggling operations, forgo control over international borders and end its missile offensive against Israel, the EU would have to throw out the draft it just voted to accept. And it would have to reverse its political direction and abandon Hamas in favor of Israel. The chance that this will happen is quite close to zero.

The third strategic failure inherent in Israel's decision to negotiate a truce is Israel's demand for an international monitoring force to verify compliance with the cease-fire agreement. This demand is self-defeating because such a force will only harm Israel's national interests. This is the clear lesson of both the EU's past monitoring mission at the Rafah terminal and of UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon.

In the case of the EU monitors at Rafah, as The Jerusalem Post recalled in an editorial on Wednesday, during the period when they were deployed at the terminal, the EU monitors turned a blind eye to the very terror traffic they were supposed to be preventing. At the same time, they condemned Israel for taking any action to defend itself and downplayed the threat Hamas constitutes for Israel. In short, the EU monitors sided with Hamas against Israel at every turn.

The situation is much the same with UNIFIL forces in Lebanon. UNIFIL routinely condemns the IAF for carrying out reconnaissance flights over Lebanon aimed at keeping tabs on Hizbullah arms smuggling operations that UNIFIL does nothing to prevent. They also demand that Israel surrender the town of Ghajar to Lebanon despite the fact that it is part of sovereign Israel. Beyond that, UNIFIL forces have sat back and allowed Hizbullah to rearm and reassert control over some 130 villages along the Israeli border. Far from enforcing the UN-mediated cease-fire, UNIFIL acts as a shield behind which Hizbullah prepares for its next round of war against Israel.

IN LIGHT of all of this, it is apparent that today the Olmert-Livni-Barak government is conducting cease-fire negotiations from a position of great weakness. It has accepted the mediation of a hostile interlocutor. And its primary demand in those negotiations is antithetical to the national interest.

The fact of the matter is that negotiating with Hamas is a fool's game. There are only two ways for a state to impact its enemy's behavior. It can take away its desire to attack, or it can deny its enemy the ability to attack it.

In the case at hand, Livni, Barak and Olmert claim that the IAF strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza have been so successful that the Islamist group is now compelled to reassess its desire to attack Israel, and that this is why it makes sense to negotiate a cease-fire today. But the facts on the ground do not back this assertion.

By maintaining its demand for control over the borders, Hamas has made clear that it has not changed its calculations of its interests. And this makes sense. Israel's air attacks have not degraded Hamas's ability to maintain control over Gaza in any significant way. IAF attacks have only destroyed between five and 10 percent of Hamas's smuggling tunnels, and so Hamas can still restock its arsenals. The IAF has caused no significant damage to Hamas's 20,000-man army, which went to ground before the operation began. Hamas's military and political leaders are also all safely in hiding.

Moreover, Israel's willingness to begin negotiations based on a draft that favors Hamas shows Hamas that far from losing this war, it is winning. So why would it reconsider its desire to attack Israel?

In truth, given Hamas's commitment to Israel's destruction at all costs and its indifference to the lives of its Palestinian subjects, there is only one way for Israel to secure its territory from Hamas attack. It must destroy Hamas's ability to wage war. The only way Israel can achieve its aim is by conquering Gaza, overthrowing Hamas's regime and destroying its military forces. Since the Olmert-Livni-Barak government has already stated that it will not launch such an attack, it is obvious that Hamas will end this war with its ability to attack Israel more or less intact.

All of this leads us to a very nasty conclusion. The Olmert-Livni-Barak government now leading Israel in its war against Hamas is no different from the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government that led Israel in the 2006 war against Hizbullah. Our leaders have learned nothing from their prior failure. Indeed they are reenacting it in Gaza today.

The only thing the public can hope for, and indeed demand at this stage, is for Olmert, Livni and Barak to forego any ground operation in Gaza. There is no reason for our soldiers to place their lives in jeopardy in a campaign that the government that has already decided to lose.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Posted on January 2, 2009 at 3:13 PM Permalink | Comments (24) | Email | De.icio.us | Digg This | Print

Two years ago, the North was a war zone. Fields and forests, homes and hospitals were set ablaze by Hizbullah missiles. But on Sunday afternoon, as a tireless patriot was laid to rest in the Jezreel Valley, the ground was not burning with missile fire, it was exploding with fecundity. It filled the air with the aroma of its promise of spring harvests.

A multitude of mourners from all over the country crowded into Moshav Moledet's small cemetery to pay their final respects to 53-year-old Tzafrir Ronen, who died of a heart attack on Friday night. The man they mourned had dedicated his life to defending the country. In recent years, Tzafrir spent nearly every waking moment fighting for its soul. He sought to educate his fellow Israelis about the threats facing the country generally, and specifically about the existential danger to its viability presented by the Left's defeatist and post-Zionist narrative.

For this son of the Jezreel Valley, who grew up with the land, that narrative - which argues that Israel has neither the ability nor the right to defeat its enemies and to settle its land - was the single greatest threat to the long-term well-being of the country. Over the years, as Tzafrir's frustration at the direction the country was taking grew, his message became angrier and more urgent. As each of his successive warnings - about the fraudulent Oslo peace process, the withdrawal from southern Lebanon, the criminalization of Jewish building in Judea and Samaria, the refusal to enforce laws in the Israeli Arab sector, the expulsion of the Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria and the establishment of the Hamas terror state in Gaza - were ignored by successive governments, by the media and, inevitably, by voters, Tzafrir, like so many others in his position felt he was shouting into the wind.

MARGINALIZING AND silencing voices like Tzafrir's is one of the Israeli Left's greatest achievements. By consistently ignoring or demonizing voices like Tzafrir's - who have been correct about every major strategic issue facing the country - while steadfastly legitimizing and lionizing men and women like Amos Oz, Shulamit Aloni, Yossi Beilin and Haim Ramon - who not only have been wrong about every major issue in the past generation, but have also often taken leading roles in our enemies' propaganda campaigns - the Left has managed to remove our most vibrant thinkers and bravest builders and fighters from the national debate.

But the hundreds who crowded into the cemetery on Sunday are proof that the Left's success has been far from complete. The mourners at his funeral included Israelis from all walks of life -- religious, secular, farmers, city dwellers, Jews, non-Jews, new olim and sabras. The fact that people from such diverse backgrounds and traditions have found the way to work with one another shows that in spite of the demonization of the Right, people are still interested in defending and building the country. They are still are drawn to voices in the wilderness, like Tzafrir's, which say that we must fight, and win, and that we deserve to win and should feel privileged to fight for what is right.

On the face of it, Tzafrir, his colleagues and friends could feel vindicated by the Olmert-Livni-Barak government's decision to launch Operation Cast Lead against Hamas's regime in Gaza. Since Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni first began advocating the surrender of Gaza in late 2003, Tzafrir and his colleagues were at the forefront of the protest movement against the giveaway. Not only did they argue that the forcible expulsion and destruction of communities in Gaza was a moral outrage, they warned that a withdrawal would transform Gaza into the jihadist hub it has become.

AND OF course, they were right. Far from bringing peace and stability, as they warned the likes of Olmert and Livni, withdrawal from Gaza started the countdown to the war we are now fighting. And as they warned would happen, withdrawal from Gaza allowed Hamas to become an Iranian proxy and build the Iranian-supplied army that now assaults the South with missiles and rockets.

Moreover, the international outcry which has greeted the IDF operation, and the tepid US support it has enjoyed, shows clearly that by "ending the occupation" of Gaza, (which actually ended with the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994), Israel weakened rather than strengthened its international supporters. Today Israel is being condemned more harshly than it was in 2004 when the IDF nearly destroyed Hamas in Gaza by decapitating its leadership.

On the face of it, Tzafrir and his colleagues could pat themselves on the backs and say that by waging Operation Cast Lead, Livni and Olmert and the architect of unilateral surrenders of land to terrorists himself - Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who handed South Lebanon to Hizbullah in 2000 - have finally seen the light. They understand that terrorists have to be defeated and that the country is better off controlling hostile territories than allowing its enemies to control them.

BUT THIS is not the case. Olmert, Livni and Barak have made clear that they haven't changed their defeatist and post-Zionist view of Israel's prospects at all. Their current operation in Gaza is not aimed at defeating Hamas. They have uttered no call for victory. To the contrary, as Olmert made clear in his speech on Saturday evening, the goal of the current campaign is simply to "change the situation" in the South. The question is what "change" they have in mind.

For her part, Livni has called for installing the Fatah terror group in Gaza instead of Hamas. But Fatah has been rejected not only by Gazans, but by the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria as well. Bringing Fatah into Gaza would do nothing to stabilize the situation. It would simply be an invitation for Fatah to conduct war against Israel and seek an accommodation with Hamas and Iran.

Barak has claimed that we can no more negotiate a settlement with Hamas than the US can negotiate a settlement with al-Qaida. And this is true in principle. Just as al-Qaida will never live at peace with America, so Hamas will never accept peaceful coexistence with Israel. But Barak has never been one to abide by principles.

He didn't adhere to that principle six months ago when he convinced Livni and Olmert to accept a cease-fire that enabled Hamas to build its army and its missile arsenal without fear of IDF attack. And Barak did not adhere to this principle when as late as last Tuesday he was calling for a renewal of the failed, one-sided cease-fire.

THE FACT of the matter is that the change that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government seeks today has more to do with the public's perception of its competence than with any interest in changing the situation in Gaza in any fundamental way. During the Second Lebanon War, the government showed that it could not be trusted with the defense of the country and with the proper deployment of IDF soldiers. And in the aftermath of that war, the government lost its moral right to send its forces into battle.

Now it uses its campaign in Gaza as a means of winning back its moral authority. But the problem is that despite its protestations of cunning competence, the government's aims today are the same as they were in 2006. As was the case with Hizbullah, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government is signaling that it seeks a new negotiated settlement with Hamas. The hoped-for settlement, which has been telegraphed to the public through the pro-government media, will leave Hamas in power in Gaza. Although the government claims that the postwar Hamas will be more peaceful than the prewar Hamas, there is no reason to believe this will be the case.

Just as has been the case with Hizbullah since the government failed to destroy the terror army in 2006, so if Hamas remains in control of Gaza after the current war, no matter what its condition, it will be perceived as the winner.

HERE IT is important to make a sharp distinction between the IDF's clear military successes in Gaza and the political leadership's problematic management of this campaign. In the former case, it is inarguable that by destroying Hamas's military installations, killing its military commanders and incapacitating its weapons smuggling infrastructure, the IDF is weakening Hamas as a military organization. And this is a great and long-awaited achievement.

In contrast, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government's refusal to reconsider its defeatist political philosophy makes it apparent that in the longer term, any strategic advantage enjoyed from the IDF's success will be marginal. Like Hizbullah, Hamas - which enjoys Iranian and Syrian state sponsorship and authentic popularity throughout the Islamic world - does not have to defeat Israel to be perceived as the victor. It merely needs to survive. That is the great difference between jihadist organizations and Western democracies. And by surviving, it will expand its international cachet.

JUST AS the Bush administration seeks to accommodate Hizbullah by selling advanced weapons to the Lebanese government it dominates, so too, in the aftermath of the current campaign, Hamas will be accepted by the West.

Tzafrir Ronen, and his colleagues whose strategic wisdom caused them to be banished from the public square, can always depend on hapless, defeatist governments like that of Olmert, Livni, and Barak to remember them in times of crisis. Like a Swiss clock, whenever leaders who preach nothing but defeat and retreat to their countrymen find themselves in a position of having to fight our enemies, they know they can count on men like Tzafrir to fight for them. And to date, men like Tzafrir, who served in the IDF's elite combat units, and whose sons and daughters continue to bear the greatest burdens in our defense, have answered their calls without hesitation.

Looking at the faces of the mourners on Sunday afternoon and listening to the many eulogies of Tzafrir that repeatedly praised his Zionism, there was no room for doubt that again today these people will answer the call. But how long will this state of affairs continue? How long can failed and strategically blind politicians continue to expect the men and women they demonize to save the country after they fail, and then hand it back to them to endanger again?

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

Posted on December 29, 2008 at 11:35 PM Permalink | Comments (20) | Email | De.icio.us | Digg This | Print

This morning I knew the strike against Gaza was beginning when the thunderous roar of jet fighters en route to their mission shook my home. I was immediately overwhelmned by a profound sense of hope and relief.

Finally, after months of passivity, incompetence and empty threats that simply eroded Israel's credibility in the eyes of our enemies and friends alike still further, the IDF has been ordered to defend the country. Finally after the anger and defiance of residents of Ashkelon, Sderot and the kibbutzim and moshavim around Gaza had long been transformed into pleas of desperation, the government seems finally to be fulfilling its most important duty -- protecting the citizens of the State of Israel. 

I have my doubts about the goals of this mission and about the competence of this government to secure the country. And I will address these issues in due course. But today, all I can do is pray -- for the safety of all Israelis in the line of fire and for the success and safety of our brave pilots and soldiers. I pray that God will grant wisdom to our commanders and our leaders so that we will defeat our enemies and remove the threat of rockets, mortars and missiles from our southern cities. 

God bless the State of Israel. God bless the people of Israel. God bless the IDF.

Posted on December 27, 2008 at 9:39 PM Permalink | Comments (34) | Email | De.icio.us | Digg This | Print