Today's Situation

An apology for a girl's death Tuesday, April 11, 2006

The Israeli shelling of 'open spaces' in Gaza appeared less and less to be an attempt to strike back at Palestinians from almost every group -- except Hamas -- who have been launching the primitive rockets at Israel since 2002 and on almost a daily basis since the beginning of this year. While the rockets usually cause neither damage nor casualties, they are nerve wracking for the residents of the Western Negev and south Ashkelon, who can hear the crash of the incoming but usually have no time to take cover in case it does not land haplessly in a field. On the other hand, during the last several weeks, Israel has lobbed approximately 100 shells into Gaza for each Qassam -- literally thousands of shells, their launch a resounding boom heard for kilometers, their crash no less frightening to the Palestinians as the Qassams are to the Israelis. Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said today during a tour of the artillery lined up against Gaza that the girl's death was 'regrettable … but as we've said, it is the terrorists who are to blame.'

'The Hamas government is not acting against the terrorists,' said Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, on tour with Halutz, 'so Israel will have to do what it must, including escalating if necessary.'

'As long as Israelis can't live in quiet, the Gazans won't,' said Mofaz.

In other words, the shelling is not meant to hit Qassam launchers in action, but is meant to apply pressure on the Palestinian population to apply pressure on the Hamas controlled Palestinian Authority to apply its own pressure on the Qassam launchers. A secondary motivation for the shelling was to let the residents of the kibbutzim and towns around Gaza, which have been hit by Qassams, know that the army wasn't passive and was taking action to halt the Qassams.

Maybe it has worked. As of noon, today, only one Qassam was fired, landing in an empty field, so whether it was the girl's death or a sense of remorse over its own frustration-driven petulance. Maybe the Hamas government was taking quiet action against the Qassam launchers, though there were no direct reports of that in the Israeli media.

On the other hand, some Hamas ministers are said to be beginning to use a phrase coined by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, 'one PA, one law, one gun,' and to talk about 'a resistance coordinated and conducted in unity,' meaning it's up to the PA, not the Islamic Jihad, Popular Front, Fateh's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Tanzim, and the Popular Resistance Committees, to decide on their own when to launch attacks.

Thus, ironically, while Abbas, the head of Fateh and the PLO as well as the president of the PA, repeatedly denounces the terrorist violence, but does nothing to stop it, the Hamas, which praises 'armed resistance' to the occupation as the legitimate right of the Palestinians, has kept its own armed wing in restraints now for more than a year and a half.

The Israelis meanwhile continue to proceed on the assumption that there is 'no partner' on the Palestinian side for any political dialogue, with the underlying assumption nowadays that Israel's only option is for a unilateral withdrawal from parts of the West Bank.

But as the coalition talks proceed apace, it is becoming evident that acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who formally replaced comatose Ariel Sharon today by virtue of a cabinet vote at the end of 100 days since his appointment as temporary premier when Sharon fell ill, has in mind a very partial withdrawal that would leave not three settlement blocs, but seven, as well as hold into the Jordan Valley.

In short, while he tells the western press, such as Time, that his intention is to draw the borders of Israel in a way that leaves the Palestinians a contiguous territory, to bring Shas and Yisrael Beitenu into his government, he'll be promising that the settlers of Hebron, for example, will remain in their enclave, and that Maale Adumim will be linked to Jerusalem, effectively dividing the West Bank in half.

The Labor Party, albeit the second largest party in the government, could yet find itself the minority in the next government, its relatively dovish positions ignored by Olmert, who may have given up his dream of the Greater Land of Israel and is ready to face down 70,000 settlers living on the eastern side of the separation fence, but like Sharon before him, refuses to engage the Palestinians directly.

There is practically no pressure on the Olmert government, whether the one he now heads or the one he is forming, to reconsider its refusal to speak with the Palestinian government -- and he has already dictated a policy to the army to eliminate all contacts with PA officials at any level.

There are commentaries in the media expressing doubts about the policy, but Israel's Left does not seem to have the energy to do more than hold small protest demonstrations and 'solidarity missions' to the territories that are generally ignored by the mainstream press, or regarded as odd curiosities. As of now, the apologies for what the press, echoing the army, called 'the unfortunate images' of children being ferried to hospital, are sounded with rationalizations meant to justify the shelling, which continued today, even though only one Qassam fell in an empty field in Israel.

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