Our World: How I Spent My Summer Vacation, By Caroline Glick
Excerpts;
As I drove along the empty, beautiful, mountain road and gazed at the rocket smoke buffeting upwards from Mt. Meron, Safed, and Rosh Pinna below me, commentators on the radio kept asking, “Why is Hizbullah attacking Israel now?” Former generals spoke of the need for Israel to restore our deterrence against Hizbullah.
FOR SIX years, since Ehud Barak surrendered to the demands of the radical, EU-funded Israeli Left and withdrew IDF forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Israel stood by and did nothing as Hizbullah built up its massive arsenal of rockets and missiles. The IDF did nothing as Iran effectively set up shop along the border.
For six years Israel was deterred by Hizbullah. The knowledge that the Iranian proxy has missiles capable of hitting Haifa and Hadera sufficed to convince three successive governments to ignore or appease repeated Hizbullah provocations while praying that Hizbullah would wait for the next government to start its war.
Now that Hizbullah has started the war, can it be deterred from continuing to attack Israel? What can Israel do now, as more than one million Israelis live in areas that have already come under attack?
Hizbullah struck last week because Iran ordered it to attack. Immediately after the Iranian delegation rejected the European-American offer of all manner of goodies in exchange for a suspension of its uranium enrichment activities, they flew to Damascus and gave Hizbullah its marching orders.
Hizbullah is always ready to attack Israel. That is what it exists to do. As its leader Hassan Nasrallah makes clear every day, Hizbullah sees the destruction of Israel as a central battle in the global jihad. And jihad is all that matters to Hizbullah.
In this, Hizbullah is no different from Hamas. Hamas (and Fatah for that matter), defines itself by its goal of destroying Israel and conquering Jerusalem in the name of jihad.
Because these groups exist only to destroy Israel and advance the cause of global jihad, they cannot be deterred. They have no interest other than war and there is nothing they are not willing to sacrifice in order to win. The only thing that Israel can do is destroy their ability to fight by demolishing their military capabilities.
There are parties in the current conflict that can be deterred. Specifically, Israeli officials have rightly pointed their fingers at the Lebanese and Syrian governments as central enablers of Hizbullah.
By targeting Hamas in Syria, Israel would be making clear that national borders are not sacred for states that sponsor terrorism. If attacking Hamas in Damascus is not enough to make Assad recalibrate his national interests, then Israel should attack the headquarters of the regime’s secret police as well as Syria’s Scud missile bases and its chemical and biological weapons arsenals.
By destroying Hizbullah and peeling away its client states, Israel would be striking a serious blow at Iran which is directing all the violence in Lebanon and Gaza as well as in Judea and Samaria and Iraq.
But is the Olmert government capable of achieving its stated objectives?
Disturbingly, several indicators lead to the conclusion that to the contrary, the government does not have the will to accomplish its declared goals. First, by Sunday evening, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was signaling that he was ready to start negotiating a cease-fire through UN or EU intermediaries.
Since both the UN and the EU are organizations dedicated to ensuring the survival of organizations like Hizbullah and Hamas, Olmert’s willingness to use these groups as intermediaries exposes his willingness to stop far short of destroying Hizbullah.
Second, Olmert’s strategy in the south against Hamas and Fatah in Gaza shows that he does not understand that Israel’s terrorist adversaries are by their nature undeterrable.
Israel’s continued support for Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas in spite of his group’s intense collaboration with Hamas both in the guerrilla raid that led to Cpl. Gilad Shalit’s capture, and in the rocket offensive against the Western Negev is a clear indication that Israel is not serious about destroying its terrorist enemies.
Third, the Olmert government’s continued insistence on going forward with its plan to retreat from Judea and Samaria and partition of Jerusalem indicates that the premier has not accepted the now obvious fact that Israeli withdrawals strengthen our enemies.
FINALLY, THE fact that the government indicates that it is not willing to take the necessary actions to secure the country from Iranian-Hizbullah attacks.
Hizbullah is not open to persuasion and so must be destroyed utterly. This can only be accomplished with ground forces.
As my interrupted vacation proved, by retreating from Lebanon and Gaza, Israel effectively surrendered the initiative for waging war to its enemies. Israelis no longer control when war comes to us.
- It is imperative that the Olmert government understand that retreat is not an option. Otherwise, whether at work or at play, at home or on the town, we will all be sitting ducks.
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