Home The Gaza Picture Show
Home The Gaza Picture Show

The Gaza Picture Show

Once again Israeli planes are bombing terrorist targets and IDF troops will make a foray into terrorist held territory-- only to then be swiftly ordered home again.

This type of operation has become a regular feature of the Post-Oslo Israeli military, pointless engagements that lightly wound terrorists, and then leave them to nurse their wounds, while giving the politicians who ordered them a brief boost in their poll ratings.

This particular operation neatly precedes both the Israeli election, and Obama taking office, which means that it is a very expensive ad campaign for Kadima and Labor, combined with a futile attempt to shake a threatening fist at Hamas, before terrorism's good time girl Barack is ensconced in the White House.

The Pre-Oslo Israeli military had as its objective to defeat the enemy and secure strategic territory. Post-Oslo, Israeli continues giving up strategic territory, and occasionally carrying out operations whose objective is never to defeat, but to slightly intimidate the enemy.

Mission accomplished. Israel has been playing this game with Arafat's Fatah on and off for years, bombing empty warehouses, taking out the occasional high ranking terrorist, and cleaning up a cell or two, before returning home. These raids made no long term difference at all, their only purpose was to remind the enemy that Israel had a powerful military capability, even as it reminded them that Israel was not prepared to actually unleash it.

Now Arafat's Fatah has become Abbas' Fatah, propped up by the United States in the West Bank, and desperate to shake loose Hamas' grip on Gaza. Kadima's withdrawal from Gaza turned it over to Hamas. Nor is Livni and company about to go along with a permanent reoccupation of Gaza. Which makes this entire venture particularly useless.

Everyone has their parts to play. Hamas and their Western supporters will be screaming about genocide. The UN will condemn Israel. The US and Egypt, which sees the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas' grandfathers, breathing down their necks, will back Israel, while urging deescalation. The picture show will wind down with Israeli troops leaving Gaza, while Iran resupplies Hamas with weapons and cash, just as they did for Hizbollah after the Second Lebanon War.

In Israel only the right and the far left will point out the general uselessness of the operation. This won't matter because footage of bombs falling on Gaza will do a great deal to reassure the average Israeli that their government has finally woken up and is doing something about the rocket attacks, without asking where the bombs are falling or even noticing that the rocket attacks are still continuing.

Hamas does not particularly care if Israel bombs 90 percent of the Gaza strip down to bare rock. Not so long as the Iranian money and weapons keep coming in. Like Al Queda in Iraq, Hamas is a tentacle of a larger Islamist movement, and its ambitions, like that of the Third Reich which inspired it, are global.

Israel has no doubt killed some Hamas terrorists, at a probable cost of a few million dollars per fighter. It has also reminded Hamas and Iran that it has become a paper tiger which can be counted on to cause some damage, before it retreats back into its lair. Until Israel shows that it is prepared to deny Gaza to Hamas by retaking it, picture shows such as this serve no purpose except to give the international media something to talk about.

Livni and Barak have improved their election prospects, squandered huge amounts of money, and given Hamas the PR boost they wanted. And while top Hamas leaders are no doubt trembling in their bunkers somewhere underneath a children's school, a hospital or a foreign aid office, they will emerge a week from now, deliver press conferences, and vow to continue the resistance.

Israel meant to show Hamas that it can hurt it, but Hamas already knew this. What Israel has failed to show time and time again, is that it can destroy it.

Shooting to Lightly Wound impresses no one. Hamas cares nothing for human life, and it can easily replace the low level fighters who fall. And anyone higher ranking will get a martyrs brigade named after them.

While Obama's team in D.C. grits their teeth, watches their TV's and curses the Bush administration, even while knotting a fresh noose for Israeli's impudence in bombing the very same people Obama's advisers were conducting negotiations with-- Livni and Barak pretend that they're strong leaders, rather than corrupt fools with no long term objective who appear incapable of even thinking strategically on any subject beyond their own careers.

A month from now the fresh infusion of Iranian weapons may well help Hamas finish off Fatah in the West Bank as well. And the only way Fatah can avoid that is to stop the defections of its own men into Fatah's ranks by carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel. Attacks that Israel will be forced to ignore, because Abbas is the "moderate" terrorist godfather whom we're relying on to keep Hamas at bay.

If Livni and Barak succeed in finagling this latest disaster into a new government, the odds will be good that we can look forward to State Department diplomats, courtesy of Hillary and Powers, conducting negotiations between Hamas and Israel for a two state solution, this time with Abbas on the sidelines in a coalition government where Hamas has the upper hand. Assuming Abbas even holds out that long.

Meanwhile Israel awaits a government that can finish the terrorists, instead of conducting bombing raids as picture shows. A government that will put boots on the ground, reclaim Gaza, and dig out the terrorist nests there. Until that government comes along, such operations will be nothing more than picture shows, conducted by an increasingly under equipped military, devoid of any real strategic doctrine or plan, beyond putting some big explosions on television in the deluded hope that will will intimidate the terrorists into leaving us alone.

The hour grows late, and the picture show continues.

Comments

  1. Sadly, I think you're right. I definitely got the impression that the attack on Gaza was just another short-term measure just in time for the elections.

    Livni and Barak were on Fox News Sunday this morning and when they asked her if Israel's goal was to destroy Hamas she started hemming and hawing.

    It was a simple question that should have had a simple answer--yes, we are.

    And I feel foolish. I had a childlike belief that perhaps Livni and Barak were visited by the ghosts of Chanukahs past and decided to change their thinking and this is why they launched the attack now.

    I'm not being sarcastic. I really thought that for a brief time. Not that they were visited by ghosts as Scrooge was in A Christmas Carol but that something about Chanukah influenced them.

    I really pray that no Israeli soldiers or airmen die in vain.

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  2. Another "war" without teeth or real determined purpose.

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  3. Anonymous29/12/08

    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    Bomb the shit out the the Gaza savages!
    Let's have some smell of napalm in the morning over Rafiach.
    Avenge Sderot!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    Die die die Hamas dogs!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    Zion gonna win!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    Killing the Jihad bastards is the answer!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    End the illegal Hamas occupation of Jewish land in Gaza!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!
    In Blood and Spirit We will Redeem Thee Oh Sderot!!!

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  4. I was trying to be optomistic about the politics, but you may be right to that point. Having said that, do you believe Bibi would have attacked and/or would handle the war differently?

    Likud began to lose position in the polls after the Feiglin incident. He looked like same old Bibi.

    Kadima was already rising too prior to the attack. I would think the nationalist camp might stand to gain the most in the end.

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  5. I think Bibi could have been moved to a position where he might have done something useful, Labor and Kadima can't

    and that's the key difference

    Bibi is very much watered down, but there is still some Zionism there. There isn't any on the left.

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  6. I too believe you are correct, but it's a very sad state of affairs. I pray Israel sticks to it and this is not just about elections.

    Debbie Hamilton
    Right Truth

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  7. Evn with Fox News interviewing Livni and Barak they seemed to be supporting Bibi in this situation. He has a lot of support in the US. A soft-spoken Conservative with name and face recognition.

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  8. just referenced you here.

    Livni, Bibi and Barak are on the same page. The offensive is until Hamas cries uncle. So what is it? War until Hamas is destroyed or until the rockets stop falling? there seems to be some confusion in Israel as to what the goal is.

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  9. Anonymous29/12/08

    Israel has been like a rudderless ship for a very long time now.
    The only people with any vision that I can see are in a Religious Zionist camp, but for reasons I don't understand, they lack broad support in Israel.

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  10. "Shooting to Lightly Wound impresses no one"

    This is exactly how I feel about the entire hullabaloo in Gaza. As long as we "hem and haw", instead of actually setting out to destroy Hamas (otherwise, what's the point??? Wasting money? Boosting polls? I should have guessed...), no one will take us seriously.

    As long as we sympathetically interview doctors from Gaza about how there's no beds in their hospitals (as if we have a surplus of beds!), we will be mocked.

    As long as leftists march out in Tel Aviv in defence of the "innocent Palestinians" (someone should take them to live in Sderot for a couple of weeks), we will be despised.

    "The only people with any vision that I can see are in a Religious Zionist camp, but for reasons I don't understand, they lack broad support in Israel."

    The majority of Israeli population, sadly, isn't religious.

    And a large part of the religious population isn't Zionist.

    Besides, with all the mud-slinging that goes in the direction of religious zionists from the media, us being called right-wing extremists, or insane people who put themselves in danger by living "out there", can you really wonder??

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  11. Anonymous4/1/09

    Bibi may be a different flavor then Barak and Livni but he has the same dream, to like the other nations. So basically he is the same.

    The Religious Zionist camp has not ideology or clue of how to lead israel.

    The ONLY one with Jewish vision is Manhigut Yehudit Moshe Feiglin, may he take over soon B"H

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