Antony Loewenstein

Via the Guardian:

The owner of a Jewish newspaper in Atlanta has said he deeply regrets writing a column suggesting that Israel consider “a hit” on Barack Obama if he stands in the way of the Jewish state defending itself.

Andrew Adler told the Guardian he wrote the column in the weeklyAtlanta Jewish Times ”to get a reaction” from the paper’s readers.

“The headline for the column was: ‘What would you do?’ That’s what I wanted to see,” he said. “It’s got like a Dr Phil reaction: what were you thinking? I feel really bad it did that.”

The column, first brought to light by Gawker, asks readers to imagine that they are the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, confronting the threat posed by Hezbollah and Iran’s nuclear programme while also under pressure from a US president with an “Alice in Wonderland” belief in diplomacy over force.

Adler lays out what he says are the three options available to Netanyahu: attack Hezbollah and Hamas; defy the US – which is willing to let “Israel take a lethal bullet” – by striking against Iran’s nuclear facilities; or a third option.

“Three, give the go-ahead for US-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice-president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States‘ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies,” Adler wrote in a column that appeared in print by not online.

“Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?”

Adler went on to ask: “How far would you go to save a nation comprised of 7 million lives – Jews, Christians and Arabs alike? You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.”

Adler said he understood why readers might interpret his writing as suggesting that Israel is seriously considering assassinating the US president but that is not what he meant.

“No, no, no. It’s unfathomable, unthinkable,” he said, adding: “I’m definitely pro-Israel to the max.”

Amazing and revealing (via JTA):

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s two greatest enemies are The New York Times and Haaretz, the editor of The Jerusalem Post said in a speech.

Steve Linde, addressing a conference in Tel Aviv of the Women’s International Zionist Organization, said Wednesday that Netanyahu made the remark to him about the newspapers at a private meeting “a couple of weeks ago” at the prime minister’s office in Tel Aviv.

“He said, ‘You know, Steve, we have two main enemies,’ ” Linde said, according to a recording of the WIZO speech provided to JTA. “And I thought he was going to talk about, you know, Iran, maybe Hamas. He said, ‘It’s The New York Times and Haaretz.’ He said, ‘They set the agenda for an anti-Israel campaign all over the world. Journalists read them every morning and base their news stories … on what they read in The New York Times and Haaretz.’ ”

Linde said he and other participants at the meeting asked Netanyahu whether he really thought that the media had that strong a role in shaping world opinion on Israel, and the prime minister replied, “Absolutely.”

The Prime Minister’s Office could not be reached immediately for comment.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg is a little worried that his beloved Jewish state has an apartheid problem:

I think we’re only a few years away, at most, from a total South-Africanization of this issue. And if Israelis believe that the vast majority of American Jews — their most important supporters in the entire world — are going to sit idly by and watch Israel permanently disenfranchise a permanently-occupied minority population, they’re deluding themselves. A non-democratic Israel will not survive in this world. It’s an impossibility. So Israel has a choice — find a way to reverse the settlement process and bring about the conditions necessary to see the birth of a Palestinian state (I’m for unilateral closure of settlements but the military occupation’s end will have to be negotiated with the Palestinians) or simply grant the Palestinians on the West Bank the right to vote in Israeli elections. Gaza is an entirely separate problem, but one not solvable so long as Hamas is in charge, but even without Gaza’s Arabs, Israel would cease to be a Jewish state if West Bank Arabs became citizens.

It will be extremely difficult for any number of reasons for Israel to leave the West Bank, but it will be impossible for Israel to survive over the long-term if it remains an occupier of a group of people who don’t want to be occupied. I understand the security consequences of an Israeli departure from most of the West Bank, but I also understand that there is ultimately no choice. I don’t believe a one-state solution is any sort of solution at all; Israel/Palestine will devolve quickly into civil war. The only solution is a two-state solution.

From leading Israeli human rights, Gisha:

The mainstream normalisation of anti-Muslim hatred is finding friends in the most predictable of places; Israel. This is something discussed in the new e-book On Utoya.

This piece in Israeli paper Haaretz offers a worrying new development:

Marine Le Pen hit the jackpot. She invited about 100 diplomats to a luncheon last week during a visit to UN Headquarters in New York. Four accepted: There were the envoys from Trinidad and Tobago, Armenia and Uruguay, who obviously are of no concern to her at all. But the entrance of the fourth guest, Israeli UN Ambassador Ron Prosor, made the event a sensation and worth her whole trip.

No official American representative agreed to meet with France’s extreme-right leader. Neither did any leader of the Jewish community. She failed in her attempt to stage a photo op at the Holocaust Museum, and skipped the visit. The French ambassador to the UN sent a sharp message that she is persona non grata in the United Nations building. But the Israeli envoy? He shook her hand and spoke of the importance that must be accorded to a wide variety of opinions.

“We flourish on the diversity of ideas,” Prosor said. “We talked about Europe, about other issues and I enjoyed the conversation very much,” Prosor was quoted as saying. Even before he went into the hall where the luncheon was being held, he told shocked reporters that he was a “free man.”

The Foreign Ministry now claims there was a misunderstanding; the ambassador “thought he was attending an event hosted by the French UN delegation. When he realized his error, he skipped the meal and left.” User comments on leading French news websites over the weekend were derisive, including all the French equivalents of LOL and ROFL in response to the explanation.

No one believes it was a coincidence. Prosor is a proven professional. He would certainly want to forget the fact that he became the first representative of the Jewish state to meet with a leader of the National Front. He would probably be happy to smash the camera that documented the smiling encounter. But his mistake did not happen in a vacuum. It has the odor of a symptom. The odor of a very unholy alliance being formed between members of the Israeli right-wing and a number of the most nationalistic and anti-Semitic figures in Europe. Over the past year, among visitors to Israel were the populist Dutch leader Geert Wilders, the Belgian racist Filip Dewinter and the Austrian successor to Jorg Haider, Heinz-Christian Strache.

These politicians, like Le Pen, have exchanged the Jewish demon-enemy for the criminal-immigrant Muslim. But they have not really discarded their ideological DNA. The Israeli seal of approval they seek to get is intended to bring them closer to power. Le Pen herself has decided to leave behind the anti-Semitic scandals of her father, Jean-Marie. She wants to make the National Front a popular and legitimate party.

She is already popular (19 percent in the polls). Legitimate? In two interviews she gave to Haaretz in the past, she attacked President Jacques Chirac for his historic 1995 declaration in which he took, in the name of France, responsibility for Vichy war crimes. She adamantly refused to denounce French fascist crimes and showed that she cannot really disengage from her father, his heritage and her party’s Vichy and anti-Semitic hard core.

It is easy to guess what would happen to an Israeli ambassador if he found himself at an event hosted by the “disgraced” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – or, perish the thought, at a Hamas or Hezbollah event. The earth would tremble. Even tar and feathers would not be enough under such circumstances. But Le Pen is blonde and she has blue eyes. Oh, and she hates Muslims.

Take some clueless politicians. Show them an Israel that supports colonisation and racism against Arabs as mainstream. Allow them to speak to Israeli-approved Palestinians for a few minutes.

Offer propaganda and receive lashings of lies in return. Mix, conduct such “tours” regularly and guarantee continued pro-Israel sentiment in the Australian parliament:

Five Labor members of Federal Parliament have reported on their recent participation in an AIJAC Rambam Israel Fellowship Program visit to Israel.

Participating were Queensland Senator Mark Furner, Tasmanian Senator Catryna Bilyk, Member for Kingston in South Australia Amanda Rishworth, Member for Wakefield in South Australia Nicholas Champion and Member for Bass in Tasmania Geoffrey Lyons.  Three of the participants Ms Rishworth, Senator Furner and Senator Bilyk shared their impressions at a recent Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) luncheon.
During the visit the Labor politicians met with a wide array of analysts,politicians and community figures,travelling south to Sderot,to the Lebanon border as well as meeting with senior Palestinian figures including in Bethlehem.

Senator Furner said that he was shocked by the number of rocket attacks into Southern Israel from Gaza and the extensive network of bomb shelters that were required including in children’s playgrounds.  He noted that there had been over 5000 rockets fired into Israel between 2005 and 2009, and that he could not “imagine what sort of stress, what sort of anxiety those residents of Sderot would be going through on a daily basis.”
Amanda Rishworth  was struck by the diversity in Israel and its “vibrant democracy” as illustrated by the peaceful social protest movement, which she witnessed during her time there said the trip was an “amazing experience”.

She emphasised the importance of visiting Israel to understand its complexities.  She was surprised by how small Israel is and how close it was to Lebanon, Hezbollah and Gaza. Her trip enabled her to now understand the vulnerability of Sderot and that “Israel is in a tough neighbourhood”.

Regarding peace efforts, Rishworth expressed that from her perspective peace is only possible through bilateral negotiations and that the Palestinians now needed to come to those negotiations. Senator Furner said that as a former negotiator he believes what is needed in negotiating is “genuine commitment that must be reciprocated by all the parties involved”, and said that he knew that the Israelis were genuine but he had doubts about the commitment on the part of the Palestinians.

Following a meeting with Palestinian Media Watch, Senator Bilyk said that as a mother, a politician and an early childhood educator she was deeply concerned by the brainwashing of Palestinian children by the Palestinian media and the tendency to treat Israelis as dispensable and disposable.  Senator Bilyk said that the concept of brainwashing children from the cradle “planted seeds of war” and was “child abuse”.

They all said that they had a profound educational and moving experience visiting the Israeli Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem.  Rishworth saidvisiting the museum “provided dimensions that I had no idea of…being in a place where its all brought together gives you a real emotional perspective rather than just a knowledgeable perspective on the suffering that occurred.”

The trip also emphasised the close relationship between Australia and Israel that crosses a broad spectrum of activities, Rishworth noting that the connection “runs deep between our two countries”.

The politicians said the study visit had provided them with a profound experience and a crash course in  Middle East political realities.

Jamie Hyams, Senior Policy Analyst at AIJAC accompanied the Rambam group in Israel and said, “the variety of the program allows participants to experience a broad range of perspectives about Israel and the challenges it faces.”

Dr Colin Rubenstein, Executive Director of AIJAC said, “the perceptive comments made by the politicians indicated that their understanding of Middle East realities had been greatly enhanced by the visit as had their appreciation of the  obstacles on the path towards a viable peace process.”

Noam Chomsky made the following comments earlier this week at Barnard College in New York City:

Israeli Jews are people. Palestinians are unpeople. And a lot follows from that as clear illustrations constantly. So, here’s a clipping, if I remembered to bring it, from the New York Times. Front-page story, Wednesday, October 12th, the lead story is “Deal with Hamas Will Free Israeli Held Since 2006.” That’s Gilad Shalit. And right next to it is a—running right across the top of the front page is a picture of four women kind of agonized over the fate of Gilad Shalit. “Friends and supporters of the family of Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit received word of the deal at the family’s protest tent in Jerusalem.” Well, that’s understandable, actually. I think he should have been released a long time ago. But there’s something missing from this whole story. So, like, there’s no pictures of Palestinian women, and no discussion, in fact, in the story of—what about the Palestinian prisoners being released? Where do they come from?

And there’s a lot to say about that. So, for example, we don’t know — at least I don’t read it in the Times — whether the release includes the Palestinian—the elected Palestinian officials who were kidnapped and imprisoned by Israel in 2007 when the United States, the European Union and Israel decided to dissolve the only freely elected legislature in the Arab world. That’s called “democracy promotion,” technically, in case you’re not familiar with the term. So I don’t know what happened to them. There are also other people who have been in prison exactly as long as Gilad Shalit—in fact, one day longer. The day before Gilad Shalit was captured at the border, Israeli troops entered Gaza, kidnapped two brothers, the Muamar brothers, spirited them across the border, in violation of the Geneva Conventions, of course. And they’ve disappeared into Israel’s prison system. I haven’t a clue what happened to them; I’ve never seen a word about it. And as far as I know, nobody cares, which makes sense. After all, unpeople. Whatever you think about capturing the soldier, a soldier from an attacking army, plainly kidnapping civilians is a far more severe crime. But that’s only if they’re people. This case really doesn’t matter. It’s not that it’s unknown, so if you look back at the press the day after the Muamar brothers were captured, there’s a couple lines here and there. But it’s just insignificant, of course—which makes some sense, because there are lots of others in prison, thousands of them, many without charges.

The Islamist political party is struggling to maintain power and influence in the blockaded Strip, according to Time magazine. In so many ways, the Arab Spring needs to arrive in Palestine:

When the islamist movement known as Hamas first took control of Gaza in 2006, the family of Ahmed Ayyash, a third-year engineering student at the Hamas-controlled Islamic University, gave the party their full backing. Like a solid plurality of Palestinian voters, they thought the Islamists would provide clean government, in contrast to the corruption-riddled Fatah that had ruled for years. Then Ayyash’s mother applied for a teaching job. She was offered it immediately: to the Hamas official who interviewed her, all that mattered was that her husband knew people in the new government. A principled woman, Ayyash’s mother turned down the job because, he says, “it was through wasta.” That’s Arabic for connections, and in Gaza it symbolized everything that was wrong with the old administration, everything Hamas claimed to oppose. “This was their slogan at election time, to end the wasta,” Ayyash recalls.

Ayyash lost faith in the Islamists early, and in the six years since, he’s been joined by many other Gazans who complain that Hamas’ patronage politics favors the few while the majority suffer. “Some homes have four or five family members working, and some have none. That’s not fair,” says Safaa Abu Elaish, 23, an engineer who has been unable to find a job since getting a degree at Islamic University this year. Those who have jobs have other complaints. Ansaf-Bash Bash, 66, a receptionist at the same university, says she’s spent eight years on the waiting list for a government-sponsored pilgrimage flight to Mecca. “Some people go almost every year,” she says. “If you know someone strong, they forward your name.” (See pictures of life under Hamas in Gaza.)

Such complaints, damaging to any political party, are potentially fatal to the Islamists. Besieged by Israel and the West, which regards it as a terrorist group, and cut off from the Palestinian majority in the West Bank, Hamas has little to offer beyond its jihadist credentials — and the promise of clean government. So it’s hardly surprising that the party has been rapidly losing ground in its stronghold. Recent surveys by leading pollsters conclude that if elections were held in Gaza today, Hamas, an acronym in Arabic for the Islamic Resistance Movement, would not be returned to power. A June poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that Hamas would get just 28% of the vote, a steep decline from the 44% plurality it won in 2006.

Especially alarming for the Islamists is a precipitous drop in support for the party among Gaza’s youth: two-thirds of the population is under 25. In a March survey taken in the afterglow of the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square that led to the ouster of Egypt’s dictator, Hosni Mubarak, more than 60% of Gazans age 18 to 27 said they too would support public demonstrations demanding regime change.

…

Even party stalwarts agree that they’ve lost the street. “The majority of people want a change, yes,” says Ahmed Yusuf, a former deputy foreign minister for Hamas who now runs a think tank called House of Wisdom. “They are not happy with the way Hamas is governing Gaza. Wherever you look is miserable life.” Forty percent of Gazans live in poverty. The rate of unemployment is approaching 50%, among the highest in the world, and is likely to worsen as the population of 1.6 million doubles in the next 20 years. “Because they believe in God, they don’t think a lot about the future,” says Gaza economist Omar Shaban, who heads the Pal-Think think tank. “You won’t find someone in Hamas who is thinking about 2045. They say, ‘Oh, God will provide.’”

Or Iran will. Gaza relies so heavily on handouts from sympathetic outsiders, including Iran and Syria, that a recent tax hike was attributed to an interruption of the monthly stipend the government is said to get from Tehran. No one knows for sure: the Hamas government doesn’t publish a budget.

It seems I’ve upset a man who rather likes Zionist occupation and dislikes my recent ABC piece on the UN Palestine bid and BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] against Israel.

In this week’s conservative Spectator magazine, a column by Rowan Dean, headlined, “Three words you’ll never hear from Loewenstein and his BDS pals”, rehashes every Israeli Foreign Ministry talking point of the last 20 years. Terrorism! Hamas! Terrorism! Hizbollah! Iran! Ahmadinejad! Terrorism!

It’s comical to read such pieces, such is their distance from reality. Israel can continue hanging onto the illegally occupied territories, but it will cease to be a Jewish majority state. Soon. Something people who truly believe in democracy should welcome.

Here’s Dean’s piece:

This ain’t pretty. As the BDS movement grows in Australia – the hysteria in the corporate media and political elites suggest panic stations – it’s important to understand what those opposed to full Palestinian rights are arguing. Sydney journalist Kate Auburn attended a rally last weekend in Sydney and documented the following. Note the paranoia, mis-information, Nazi comparisons and inability to even accept that Palestine exists:

The first person I approached was the man I’d spoken with before the rally. He had been pulling down BDS rally posters near the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre and a passerby asked him what he was doing, he was soon yelling at the passerby and BDS rally goers who had gathered. He wasn’t so keen to explain why he was counter-protesting however, simply telling me, “There are a lot of people who could say it more clearly than I would.”

I did have luck elsewhere however.

Person in plain clothes: I’m a Holocaust survivor, I was raised in Poland, I was born in Poland before the war. In Poland my parents were exposed to a lot of anti-Semitism and they were forced out of their village in Poland. Fortunately, we emigrated to Australia. Australia is my home. I love it. And these demonstrators, what they are chanting, for me, is offensive, they are chanting things like there is blood in my chocolate. Blood in my chocolate refers to, it’s um, it’s a blood libel that the Nazis used to justify the massacre of 6 million Jews. Blood in my chocolate refers to Christian children’s blood that the Nazis said the Jews used to make their food, which is really abhorrent to me, and it’s vile. What they want is for Israel not to exist. They are chanting the Hamas mantra. The Hamas mantra is that Israel would no longer be a Jewish state, which means that the Jews that live in Israel would be subject to another genocide. My people have already been subject to a genocide. And Max Brenner has nothing to do with it, they have a very tenuous relationship with the Strauss Group in Israel. It’s so tenuous you can compare it to McDonalds and America. I think they are a bunch of anarchists and trouble-rousers.

Now into the thick of the Australian Protection Party front-line:

Woman in Australian flag bandana: I’m here to support Max Brenner. I’m here with my friend today, I’m not a member of the APP (Australian Protectionist Party). Max Brenner supplies the Israel Defense Army [sic] with chocolate and stuff …
Me: So that would be a good thing?
Woman in Australian flag bandana: Yeah. It is. There’s no such thing as Palestine.
Woman’s APP friend [pointing at BDS rally]: It’s very ignorant. Uneducated. This business is paying Australian taxes. He’s employing Australian people, paying his taxes, doing the right thing.

And over to the “I love Max Brenner” crew stood beside the APP:

Me: Do you want to tell me why you’re here today?
Man in “I love Max Brenner” tshirt: Yeah. Because hate towards Israel is growing right across the Western world, not only the Middle East, ok? And if you let it grow like that, without standing up against that trend you’re going to have a repeat of history. I believe if you talk to these people over the other side of the road here individually you’ll find they are grossly ignorant of the facts. They don’t know Middle Eastern history, they don’t even know the history of the West. They’re over there because somebody has told them things that they haven’t examined themselves and uh, they think maybe they are doing the right thing in what they are doing but it’s going to… all it’s going to produce is what we’ve had in the past.
Me: What should happen to Palestine?
Him: Well. They’re yelling out over there ‘Free Palestine’, well, ok, free it from Hamas. You know, read the Hamas charter, the Hamas charter is a foundational document for the Palestinian people at the moment. They voted Hamas in. Have you read the Hamas charter? I’ve read it. And when I read… within there I see a hatred and something that will feed hatred against a people called the Jews and a state called Israel. And it’s obvious to see if you look in the Middle East, what is the free country in the Middle East? What country has freedom of speech, freedom of association?

[few seconds of indecipherable comments due to loud chanting]

I think this. If someone is firing rockets at me, almost daily, and if someone has a charter that says the Israelis must be obliterated, literally, that’s what it says, it quotes Hasan al-Banna in the Hamas Charter, and it says that Israel must be obliterated, not we want our own separate state -

Me: So is the current situation the best way to resolve that?

Him: I don’t understand your question.

Me: Settlement expansion in the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza.

Second man, interjecting: How old are you?

Me: 25.

Second man: I’m a bit older. I’m coming close to 60. That land wasn’t Palestine before. It was Jordan, Jordan, they never claimed to get freedom for Jordan, they never claimed to get freedom for them, but when its the Israelis they say ‘yes it’s my land’ [a couple of seconds indecipherable] it’s all bullshit, it’s never been occupied, it’s been occupied by Jordan [indecipherable] it’s all propaganda, I was born there, I’ve been in two wars.

Me: Where were you born?

Second man: I was born in Israel, my dear, I’ve been in two wars. It was occupied by Jordan, they have Jordanians, not Palestinians. It’s been disputed over the last century.

Me: Ok so are you guys going to keep coming back to these protests?

Second man: This is a free country, they can’t come and do this, this is ridiculous. I don’t know why they do this, they’re idiots.

And back to the plain clothed folk. This young woman approached me asking if she could explain why she was there:

Young woman in plain clothes: This situation is a mess, it’s a real mess.

Me: What situation, the rallies, Israel-Palestine?

Young woman: The rallies, the Middle East. We’re not going to solve problems by fighting and screaming at each other across the street. We need to build bridges and stop fighting. I think both sides have a just claim to the land and both sides need to make concessions. I think the Israelis should share Jerusalem, because the Palestinians have a claim to that land. The Palestinians need to let go of the right of return. And I think that can happen. But basically, both sides are being stubborn and they are both digging their heels in and preventing peace. So yeah, we just need to not hate each other so much, and here in Australia there is no reason to hate.

Me: Did you come on purpose today or were you just walking by?

Young woman: No, I came on purpose.

Me: To, which one?

Young woman: Uh. I believe, I, well. Well I’m a Jew. I believe Israel has the right to exist where it is, I believe that there should be a two-state solution. I believe that Israel should withdraw from the settlements that in the two-state solution won’t fall into Israel, because I mean, the place is going to get divided. Some of the settlements will become Palestinian territory and some will become Israeli. I think they should stop building for the moment while they are trying to make peace.

Amira Hass in Haaretz explains:

How embarrassing. While solidarity activists are planning new protests against the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the Hamas government is adding to limitations on Palestinians’ freedom of movement. One might justifiably ask: What are a few high school students Hamas refuses to allow to travel to the United States to study as opposed to 1.5 million Palestinians imprisoned by Israel in Gaza?

Who cares about a few Fatah activists who have been banned from leaving the Gaza Strip? They have become a “price tag” – Hamas’ revenge for the persecution of its supporters (not linked to the use of arms) in the West Bank by the Abbas-Fayyad government. And who even pays attention to a few hundred people who might be traveling to participate in NGO projects in the West Bank and abroad? What does it matter that they are required to give at least two weeks notice and provide the authorities in Gaza with an abundance of details about the project?

The truth is, these strikes against freedom of movement can be explained away by political circumstances. The explanations would even suit Hamas’ respectable image abroad as a resistance government (as opposed to the PLO government’s image as collaborators). It’s almost certain that any rare Palestinian who Israel allows to leave Gaza via the Erez checkpoint is being shown some sort of favoritism by the Israeli authorities. This person can be close to the Palestinian Authority or a PA official himself, a favorite of the Americans or other Western entities, or of a well-connected Israeli organization.

By its very essence, freedom of movement for the few constitutes privilege, and privilege is a mutilated right, because rights are meant for everyone. Such mutilated rights foster envy and encourage the estrangement of the privileged from the rest of the public. That has been the basis for Israel’s 20-year closure policy.

…

Last Thursday, the Hamas authorities once again prevented six high school students, scholarship recipients, from leaving for their studies in the United States. A number of them had wanted to leave two weeks ago and were prevented from doing so on the orders of the Hamas education minister. This summer, children were prohibited from participating in a summer camp (! ) in the West Bank. The Gaza security forces interrogated a number of activists who had gone abroad; they were part of the movement against the separation of the West Bank from Gaza. Two had their laptops and cellphones confiscated, one was arrested for two days.

The prohibitions and Hamas’ deterrent tactics must not be taken lightly just because the number of people affected is small. The nature of prohibitions is that they increase in volume as they roll down the slope called “rule.” Hamas believes it has the right to intervene in parents’ choices for their children’s educational future. It believes it has the right to limit national and societal activity that is not based on its religious axioms.

These prohibitions are woven tightly into the Hamas regime’s logic. Hamas, which is not threatened by elections, builds its own separate political-religious entity. The closer the government in Ramallah gets to the UN vote on accepting “Palestine” as a member, the more Hamas stresses the independence of the Gaza Strip under its rule.

In this way the Hamas government provides an alibi for Israel to mendaciously claim that it is no longer an occupier. Hamas needs a blockade to regulate from within so that the subjects of “independent Gaza” will be exposed as little as possible to different realities and will not question its policies. Hamas needs the blockade and needs Gaza to be cut off from the rest of Palestinian society to ensure the continuation of its regime.

Israel’s biggest newspaper has the story. And what will be the global reaction to this? Silence, because after all, if Israel would have attacked Gaza it would have been seen as “defensive” even if white phosphorus was used, like during Operation Cast Lead. This is the Holocaust excuse, used time and time again, and yet many citizens globally simply no longer accept Israeli violence:

When Defense Minister Ehud Barak arrived at the Defense Ministry Headquarters’ meeting room last Saturday, a thick war book titled “Operation South” was already awaiting his approval on his desk. In those hours, Israel was on the verge of embarking on war in the Gaza Strip.

The book did not pertain to a limited operation. The selected targets would have certainly prompted a major flare-up, including difficult regional implications. Just like in Operation Cast Lead, the political leadership granted immunity to no one in the Strip, regardless of his position or stature.

The detailed plans – the targets, scope, power and timing – would have left Hamas no breathing space and time to debate its response. It would have gone for the jackpot, right away. Indeed, Israel’s war plan included preparations for massive rocket fire from Gaza, including long-range missiles aimed at central Israel in general, and at Tel Aviv in particular.

Last weekend, the General Staff Headquarters looked like on the eve of war. Officials were working around the clock and sleeping in their offices. While formulating the plans, top officials recalled the curse of arrogance of the Second Lebanon War. Back then, the decision to launch a war was taken without sufficient preparation. The military and political leadership decided to deliver a blow, immediately, without taking into account the implications, the enemy’s response, the home front’s condition and the ability to counter rocket barrages. This time around, a full, detailed plan was drafted; it also included the IDF Home Front Command’s deployment. Only then was the scheme presented to the political echelon.

Another lesson learned from the miserable confrontation vis-à-vis Hezbollah is to start such assaults with great fire power, in order to minimize as much as is possible the home front’s suffering. This lesson was already implemented in Operation Cast Lead; in other words, the power utilized during Cast Lead was to constitute the starting point of the next operation.

Most of Israel’s regular army was to be enlisted, at one point or another, for the operation. Hence, last Saturday all regular army units were placed on alert. Air Force squadrons undertook their final preparations. The time given to the army for preparations also gave international parties – namely the United States and Egypt– time to examine alternatives to the war.

Thursday afternoon, a few hours after the terror offensive on the road leading to Eilat, officials started to formulate the operational doctrine. At that point, the targets were only Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC.) Hamas was not yet a clear target, with the exception of several symbolic hits meant to signal to the group that it holds the responsibility to prevent attacks from the Strip.

A short while after the PRC’s top brass was eliminated by the IDF in a surgical strike, Hamas’ entire leadership, both military and political, disappeared to various hideouts. They quickly realized where Israel’s response was headed to; hence, junior spokesmen were sent to address the cameras.

The next phase of Israel’s operation included the extension of the assault to Hamas as well. The assumption was that Hamas’ chiefs must have been aware of the PRC terror cell that headed to the Sinai to carry out attacks from there. A week before the Eilat offensive, PRC terrorists fired Grad Missiles at Kiryat Gat, and Hamas proceeded to detain the shooters, further demonstrating that it is deeply familiar with what goes on among “rogue groups” in Gaza.

In retrospect it turned out that not everything works by the book: To the great amazement of Israel’s experts, Hamas was truly surprised by the Eilat-area attacks.

Zero hour for the large, comprehensive facet of the operation was set. The countdown began. The manpower numbers at some units were complemented with reservists. Less than 24 hours remained before a war broke out. Yet then, Saturday night, a diplomatic opportunity to end the escalation emerged. Hamas initiated a ceasefire.

Officials quickly discovered that Hamas was embarrassed and confused by the fact that someone in the organization assumed responsibility for ending the lull and firing rockets at Ofakim and Beersheba that caused casualties. As it turned out, Hamas did not fire the rockets, and even sent police officers in an attempt to curb the shooters. Hamas heads directly approached the Americans and Egyptians and sought a ceasefire. Israel was aware of these inquiries virtually in real time.

Hamas chiefs did not plan or want this confrontation; not now. They were concerned about being blamed that they are pulling the rug from under Mahmoud Abbas ahead of the September independence bid. Moreover, the economic situation in Gaza is worsening. The government is having trouble paying salaries, with the amount of money pouring into the Strip at this time being a fraction of past fund transfers.

At this time, officials in the Strip need calm and support from Cairo in the contacts on the Gilad Shalitswap. Hamas also fears that Egypt would close the Rafah Crossing. Furthermore, Hamas leaders in Gaza realized that what Israel characterized as a “disproportional response” to the rocket fire was merely the groundwork for a large-scale operation.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh dared leave his hideout only on Tuesday, some 24 hours after the ceasefire. Top Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders are still huddled in bomb shelters, for good reason apparently. On Wednesday, an Islamic Jihad member was killed. Another one was assassinated early Thursday. This pattern will continue. The message in the wake of the Eilat-area offensive is unequivocal: Pinpoint eliminations are back, even if the price of each surgical strike is a night of mortar shells and Grad rockets aimed at southern Israel.

As September approaches, the IDF is being stretched beyond its means, and there will apparently be no escaping the need to call up reservists. Our leadership is navigating through a minefield. Just like we were on the verge of war Saturday night, with most of the public being completely oblivious to the unfolding drama, it can happen again tomorrow morning. The war book is ready.