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Jewish World Review March 3, 2009 / 7 Adar 5769 Change has come By Caroline B. Glick
Ever since the outgoing Kadima government ended Operation Cast Lead in Gaza
on January 20, the Palestinians have steadily stepped-up their missile war
against Israel. Over the weekend the IDF acknowledged that six weeks later,
daily Palestinian missile barrages against Israel have returned to
pre-Operation Cast Lead levels. Moreover, the IDF warned that over the past
six weeks, Hamas and its sister terror groups have rebuilt their missile
arsenals both through imports of Iranian arms from Egypt and through local
production lines. They have also brought in fairly advanced anti-aircraft
missiles capable of shooting down IAF helicopters.
The proximate cause for the decision to close down schools was the weekend
missile strike against a high school in Ashkelon. The direct hit caused
massive damage both to the school and to surrounding apartments. IDF
inspectors assessed that the Grad missile the Palestinians used in the
attack had been locally upgraded. Its warhead was two and a half times
bigger than usual.
As Ashkelon's children settled into their living rooms instead of their
classrooms on Monday morning, a few hundred kilometers to the south
representatives from 80 countries and international organizations convened
in Sharm el-Sheikh to pledge billions of dollars in aid to Hamas-controlled
Gaza. The US, represented by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pledged
$900 million in assistance.
Also on Monday, The Jerusalem Post reported that the US is curtailing its
military aid to Israel. Under new Pentagon guidelines, the Ministry of
Defense must give a detailed accounting of how it uses every item it
purchases with US aid money. As a consequence, the Defense Ministry issued
new instructions to the IDF that from now Israel's purchases from the US
will be limited to defensive armaments and systems aimed at preserving its
"qualitative edge" against its enemies.
TO UNDERSTAND HOW it came to pass that six weeks after Operation Cast Lead,
the US has joined the nations of the world in funding Hamas and is
curtailing its military assistance to Israel, it is necessary to understand
Israel's domestic politics. Specifically, since as Israel's leaders during
Operation Cast Lead Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi
Livni are responsible for Israel's current predicament, it is necessary to
understand their Kadima party's operating rationale.
The main rule of politics that has guided Kadima since its founding in
November 2005 is never be perceived as failing. For the past three years,
with the active collusion of the local media, Kadima has managed to control
the flow of information to the public and so successfully covered up the
abject failures of its strategic policies. Its success in last month's
elections is testament to its extraordinary capacity to spin and obfuscate
information.
THIS KADIMA PRACTICE was first implemented in the lead-up to the 2006
elections. At the time, the media worked with Kadima to suppress information
about the strategic significance of Hamas's electoral victory in the January
2006 Palestinian Authority elections. They also blocked reportage and public
discussion of the massive build-up of Iranian-supplied arms in Gaza
following Israel's withdrawal from the area in September 2005, and the
transformation of Gaza's disparate terror cells into Hizbullah-trained and
styled paramilitary brigades.
The need for the cover-up was obvious: An open discussion of post-withdrawal
developments in Gaza would have demonstrated to the public that Kadima's
signature policy of unconditionally surrendering land to the Palestinians
was, to put it mildly, insane.
Both the Palestinian cross-border operation in June 2006 that led to the
kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Schalit to Gaza, and Hizbullah's similar raid in
July 2006 that fomented the summer war in Lebanon demonstrated the dire
consequences of Israeli land giveaways. Neither the onslaught from Gaza nor
the war from Lebanon would have happened if Israel hadn't left Gaza in 2005
and Lebanon in 2000.
For Kadima it was clear that to survive the events of the summer of 2006, it
needed to develop a story line to hide the truth. In Lebanon, hiding the
truth meant choosing defeat over victory.
For anyone with even a vague notion about strategy, it was clear at the time
that the only way to protect northern Israel from Hizbullah was to deny
Hizbullah the use of southern Lebanon as a base of operations. To do that,
Israel needed to conquer and maintain control over southern Lebanon. Nothing
else could end the Iranian proxy's ability to rain its missiles down on
Israel. And given the jihadist nature and foreign command of Hizbullah,
Israel has no capacity to deter the paramilitary force.
For Kadima's leaders however, a reconquest of south Lebanon would involve
recognizing that their land surrender strategy was wrong. Their governing
rationale would be discredited.
So instead they opted for defeat. Rather than fight Hizbullah to victory,
they attacked their domestic political opponents by claiming that only
warmongers would support a reconquest of south Lebanon. In so doing, they
discredited the only viable strategy for victory while sending IDF forces to
Lebanon to fight battles whose sole purpose was to run down the clock until
the US stepped in and negotiated a truce with the terror army.
The US-mediated ceasefire, which legitimized Hizbullah as a political force
and paved the way for its rearmament and takeover of the Lebanese
government, was a disaster for Israel. But for Kadima it was a great
success. Livni spun the ceasefire as a massive diplomatic accomplishment for
herself and Kadima. The willing media went along with the fiction.
Although all the spinning in the world couldn't convince the public to
support Kadima's planned unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria,
Kadima was able to salvage the gist of its defeatist strategy. By pretending
that Israel hadn't failed in Lebanon, and defending the view that victory
isn't an option, Kadima deftly replaced its unilateral surrender strategy
with as strategy of surrendering land in the framework of a "peace process"
with the pro-terror, corrupt, unpopular, and anti-Israel Fatah-led PA in
Ramallah. That "peace process" in turn kept the land surrender policy on the
table by asserting that the main obstacle to peace is Israel's unwillingness
to give its land to the Palestinians.
A SIMILAR PATTERN unfolded with Kadima's handling of Operation Cast Lead.
Here too it was clear to any semi-sentient observer that the only way to
defend southern Israel is to reconquer Gaza. For as long as Hamas controls
territory it will use it to fight Israel. And given Hamas's subservience to
Iran, its jihadist ideology and its Syrian-based leadership's distance from
the front, it is obvious that Israel has no capacity to deter Hamas.
But for Kadima, which owes its existence to its leaders' execution of
Israel's 2005 pullout from Gaza, acknowledging that Israel has no option
other than reasserting control over Gaza was not an option. Then too, a
reconquest of Gaza would discredit Kadima's new-old signature issue of
giving away Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
And so, rather than fight to win, Kadima again fought for US intervention.
Livni and Olmert claimed again that only warmongering extremists supported
reconquering Gaza, and announced that Israel's goal was to deter Hamas. For
its part, the media blocked all discussion of whether or not it is possible
for Israel to deter Hamas and cooperated in demonizing anyone with the
temerity to note that the only way to secure southern Israel is to control
Gaza.
Then, as elections approached, Kadima declared that deterrence had been
achieved and pulled IDF forces from Gaza. They told us that the continued
Palestinian missile offensive against the south was nothing more than the
last gasps of a defeated foe. And the media went along with them.
In the lead-up to the elections, the international diplomatic backlash
against Israel was underplayed and the strategic meaning of Hamas's
continued missile war was widely ignored by both Kadima and the media.
NOW, AS THE LIKUD-LED rightist bloc is forming the next government,
information about Israel's actual situation is finally being reported. Not
only did Israel not deter Hamas, the inconclusive end of the campaign has
paved the way for a massive diplomatic onslaught against Israel and a
diplomatic campaign to legitimize Hamas.
Today Israel is being blamed for Hamas's war against it.
Kadima's favorite Palestinian "peace" partners in Fatah are leading an
international campaign to indict IDF commanders as war criminals.
While last weekend's bombing of yet another Israeli school was met with
international indifference, international leaders lined up to have their
photographs taken outside the UNRWA school in Gaza that the IDF attacked in
January after Hamas combatants used the building as a missile launching pad
against Israeli civilians.
Then there is the US-backed international campaign to force Israel to
surrender control over its borders with Gaza to Hamas. Last week Clinton
joined her European counterparts in demanding that Israel permit cement,
aluminum tubes and other missile components to enter Gaza in order to
alleviate the "humanitarian suffering" of the poor Gazans. Furthermore, like
Europe, the Obama administration supports the establishment of a Hamas-Fatah
government.
IN THE MEANTIME, Kadima pretends that there is nothing to worry about. As The
Jerusalem Post reported on Friday, both Livni and Olmert refuse to actively
oppose the international campaign to criminalize IDF commanders because
doing so would involve criticizing Fatah leaders with whom they claim to
have such wonderful ties. Similarly, the Obama administration cannot be
criticized because that would mean that Kadima has failed to maintain US
support for Israel.
And that's the point. With its policy of never acknowledging failure,
Kadima's strategy for dealing with the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead has
been on the one hand to ignore what has happened, and on the other hand, to
blame Likud for what is transpiring.
Rather than attack Hamas and Fatah in international forums and so defend
Ashkelon's schoolchildren at least diplomatically, Livni devotes herself to
attacking Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu for refusing to back
Palestinian statehood.
Netanyahu's view is clear. Surrendering control over Judea, Samaria and
Jerusalem to the Palestinians will endanger Israel. For as long as that
remains the case, it is impossible to support Palestinian statehood.
Likud's position is indisputable. But it is also a denunciation of Kadima's
governing strategy. So Livni denies the truth to advance her party's
interests and condemns Likud for recognizing reality.
In so doing, she has paved the way for an international boycott of the
Likud-led government. The Palestinians and their allies throughout the world
are already arguing that there is no difference between Likud and Hamas
since both of them reject the so-called "two-state solution." Clinton is
expected to demand that Netanyahu publically endorse Palestinian statehood
during her visit here.
As we absorb the spectacle of world leaders lining up to give their money to
Gaza while Israeli schoolchildren are forced to stay home from school, we
must understand how we got here. We are here because Kadima has placed its
political success above Israel's security.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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