Stop the Kassams Now (Jerusalem Post Editorial)
Excerpts;
Hamas has once again proven that it is a terrorist organization and proud of it, talks of a Palestinian “unity government” notwithstanding. The question is how Israel will effectively respond to this reality.
After yesterday’s deadly attack on Sderot, Peretz claimed that “terror organizations will pay a heavy price.” Indeed, the IDF has been exacting a heavy price from these organizations in operations of varying scope over the last few months. Yet it is also inescapably true, as Sderot residents have been saying for some time, that if missiles were falling on Tel Aviv or Jerusalem with such frequency, Israel would be acting differently.
In practice, Israel has been tolerating these attacks so long as they do not produce casualties. This situation is untenable for obvious reasons. First, as we saw yesterday, Kassams do produce casualties. How can we wait for more of our citizens to die before taking effective action?
Second, even when there are “no casualties,” allowing such a large section of the country to remain under fire week after week is also unacceptable. Thousands of children, not to mention adults, are being traumatized by the constant sirens and rocket salvoes. In a particularly cruel twist, the small trauma center in Sderot treating these children itself has no bomb shelter, so when the sirens go off the children are told to stand near the walls. Many schools are also unprotected.
But turning the targeted areas into a giant bomb shelter is not the solution either: the attacks must be stopped.
Israel must act not only directly against lower-level terrorists, but through its actions demonstrate that the Hamas leadership will be held accountable as well. Hamas is not just harboring a terrorist organization, it is a terrorist organization.
Hizbullah is already rearming, which means that Lebanon and Syria are already rendering UN Security Council Resolution 1701 – an achievement for which many Israeli soldiers died – into a dead letter.
Our military and civilian leadership needs to prove that it has learned the most glaring lesson of the recent Lebanon war: The longer we bury our heads in the sand while terrorist enemies build massive arsenals on our borders, the more likely war becomes and the more costly it will be.
Recent resignations and demands for more within the IDF are not driven by spite or a public vendetta. The issue is not punishment for the last war, but whether our current leadership is capable of preventing and, if all else fails, fighting, the next war.
Commentary;
“Peretz claimed that ‘terror organizations will pay a heavy price.'”
Stop the boasts and empty, non-credible threats and ACT, if you have any backbone, manhood, self-image or self-respect left in you. If not, you don’t belong remaining defense minister for another second! Someone once said;
“To talk the talk, you’ve gotta walk the walk.” MB