Is there method behind Israel's madness?

JERUSALEM -- The vicious fighting in Gaza this week between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian resistance has caused more casualties than at any time since the current intifada began three-and-a-half years ago.

Palestinians are outraged, but even Israelis are asking themselves whether Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's onslaught, with its widespread loss of life and its massive demolition of Palestinian communities, is entirely motivated by security concerns. They are asking whether Mr. Sharon also has a political agenda.

Certainly, the Israeli Prime Minister does not want anyone to view his promised withdrawal from Gaza as a kind of retreat in the face of terrorism, or view him as reluctant to use the iron fist to protect Israel's interests. He definitely would like to draw attention away from his own possible indictment on corruption charges in one of Israel's worst domestic political scandals. The current violence serves both purposes.

<snip>

Of course, for his hard-line supporters, he will have to assert that the Gaza retreat is not a harbinger of things to come in the West Bank. He will have to maintain that any withdrawal there will be much more limited, done only after the fullest possible consultation. He will assert that by getting out of Gaza, he will postpone by 30 years the day that Arab and Jew will reach population parity within the territory ruled by Israel. Such parity would severely challenge the Jewish, or democratic, nature of the Israeli state.

Ariel Sharon's real views, however, may be undergoing a greater metamorphosis. Some close to him say he wants to deal with the Palestinian demographic challenge once and for all, by getting out of far larger chunks of the West Bank than he had ever envisaged before. He would thereby establish Palestinian sovereignty on much of the Palestinian territory, as well as over the vast majority of its population.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040521/COBELL21/TPComment/TopStories

1. Land. Plain and simple. This is taking eminent domain to its extreme. The government wants your land, doesn't want to compensate you, doesn't want to re-locate you, and wants you to leave - period.

2. War. Israel and its toady, the * Administration know that these actions will inflame the passions of even the most passive and moderate Palestinians, their financial backers, and their allies in the Arab and Persian countries. What benefit do they reap? An excuse. An excuse to invade Syria. Israel and the * Administration predict a definite response against Israel in the near future because of Rafah. Then the U.S. military will have its "justification" of defense, or maybe Israel alone, to cross the border and take care of Syria once and for all. Not because Syria took an affirmative military action of war. Because they will charge that Syria is "supporting" Hamas, etc. with financial backing, safe sites where they can plan their attacks, and/or political encouragement.
Israel and the * Administration have not hidden their "dismay" and intention to eventually hold Syria in account for its actions, past and present. More to the point, Syria has an army that needs to be "neutralized" in order for Israel to go unchallenged in the future.

How ridiculous.
This is plainly about making Israeli citizens more secure in their homes.

It seems very close to my own reading of the situation.

Sharon, from his own point of view, must do two things to successfully pull out of Gaza. First, he must convince both the Israeli right and the Arab Palestinian militant factions that the action is not one he was driven to, but purely voluntary, and no sign of weakness. Second, he must do catastrophic damage to the Arab Palestinian militant factions in Gaza, to make it difficult for them to become the political leadership of the area once he has withdrawn. It is questionable whether either of these goals, particularly the latter, can actually be achieved, but it is possible they may appear temporarily to have been achieved, and that will be sufficient to his purpose.

In the Jordan valley, it seems to me Sharon envisions as his long range objective abandoning everything beyond the current security barrier, with the exception of a military zone maintained on the river against the border of Jordan. This will be unacceptable, though for different reasons, to certain elements of both the Israeli and the Arab Palestinian polities. To push it through, the retirement from Gaza must appear a success.

Although I don't expect it will have much success. But
perhaps, as you say, enough of a fig-leaf to buy some time.

There appear to be a range of possible unintended consequences
as well. OTOH, Mr. Sharon has little room to maneuver and has
predictable propensities towards the sort of tactics we see
being employed now.

Let us hope for something better when he is gone.

Whatever small good is to be gained in Rafah, is already having drastic costs both in Palestinian lives and in the world press. Ariel, what are you doing?

To what a reviewer once (erroneously) said of Katherine Hepburn's acting..

His capability runs the gamut from A to B - because of the group he needs to play to, and because of his own very limited world view, there are only a few things you can expect from Sharon.

This fits in with his bulldozer treatment of Gaza back in the '60's, again in Lebanon back in the 80's and continuously throughout his administration.

By over playing his strength here, he is showing just how weak of a position he is in and how incapable he is of doing anything else.

L-

Stick around.
:hi:

I get the feeling that any unilateral withdrawal from Gaza will be done so that withdrawal from even an inch of the West Bank will be seen as something that doesn't have to be considered for generations to come. Sharon will get to say that he gives and gives and gives and gets nothing but criticism in return...

I think I'm reasonably moderate in my views on the conflict, and I see Sharon's long range objective of abandoning everything beyond the current barrier as totally unacceptable. I wish I knew the name of the documentary, or the name of the village it had a bit on, but the barrier has to either go totally or be moved along the Green Line. There was one village on the documentary where an Israeli settlement had been built next to it, and instead of being placed between the village and the settlement, the barrier was placed between the village and one of the homes on the outskirts of the village, so that the home was isolated from the village by the barrier. To make things worse, the home was totally enclosed on the other three sides by large wire fences and no-one was allowed past those barriers. And the reason why the barrier couldn't have been built so that it divided the village and the settlement rather than making an entire family prisoners in their own home? The settlers didn't want the barrier right up against the settlement as that would lower their property prices...

Violet...

Fortress Israel. It was clear that that was where this was
leading when "Operation Defensive Shield" failed. Israel needs
a well defined inside and outside.

or so says the IDF, that bastion of honesty... :eyes:

That's news to me. Last I heard they hadn't found anything.

On Edit: I saw your post with the news announcement.

L-

for what it's worth.

Yeah, Saddam tunneled his WMD's into Rafah. Kill two birds with 100 tanks.

If Gaza were to be made independent of Israeli control, that destroys the need for the tunnels as any arms could easily be brought across the border above ground. It also means that the 200m security zone is not necessary either.

Or if they are planning on keeping the border as a military zone such as what's been proposed for the Jordanian border, then go ahead and establish the military zone and relocate the civilians away. At that point they can put all of the sensitive geologic listening devices they want there and destroy the tunnels in that zone. Everything else is militarily unnecessary.

One was found on the fourth day of the operation, and one was found today. (Israel Radio)

have more koolaid, it's very refreshing ...

Fresh juice is healthier. I never liked koolaid.

Do not embed graphics or photographs of any kind into your messages. Maps or statistical graphs are okay.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x21970

Beyond that, so what if some IDF goons dug a hole in the ground and have another goon snap a photo...it's not like the IDF can be depended on for truth-telling...

someone once told me that Israel has an awful lot of weapons too, missiles and helicopters and shit, I think he was just a rabid anti-semite though :eyes:

In an abandoned building located 600 meters from the border with Egypt in the Brazil neighborhood, soldiers uncovered an eight meter-deep tunnel and a 40 kilogram bomb nearby it. The tunnel opening was covered over with a thin layer of cement.
Last week soldiers uncovered a tunnel opening large enough to smuggle through RPG rocket grenades.

Speaking to reporters about the latest tunnel found by troops, Col. Pinki Zuaretz, the southern Gaza district commander, said: "Throughout the operation heavy exchanges of gunfire erupted between soldiers and armed Palestinian gunmen.
The armed Palestinians realize that the rules of the game have changed," he said.

<snip>

Since the beginning of the year, IDF units have uncovered 12 tunnels on the border near Egypt.
"We have spoken and speak with the Egyptians through the district coordinating office, but their actions are far from satisfactory, this obvious by the fact that there are RPGs and other weapons" said Chief of Staff Lt-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon.

"The Palestinian Authority has done nothing in Rafah to prevent the tunnels and in some instances Palestinian officials were involved themselves in smuggling," he said.

JPost Sun morning

what could that kill??

2 or 300 innocent israels??

Like anyone cares....







eosarcasm

Smuggling prices

The following prices vary according to location and item.

• Person: $1,000
• AK-47 assault rifle from Egypt to Gaza: 2,000 Egyptian liras
• AK-47 assault rifle within Gaza: $1,000
• AK-47 bullet from Egypt to Gaza: 0.5 Egyptian Liras.
• AK-47 bullet within Gaza: $3


http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Terror+Groups/Weapon+Smuggling+Tunnels+in+Rafah+May+2004.htm

than the military aid to Israel, and an AK-47 kinda pales into insignificance next a missile - whoops, my "anti-semitism" or should that be self hatred is showing again - must be all that "liberal" media I consume

of any tunnels found (eg. from a source other than the IDF)?