Today's Situation

TV truths Monday, June 12, 2006

Both images raise questions ranging from the nature of truth on TV, through the ability of Amir Peretz, an avowed dove, to rein in the generals, to questions about morality in wartime. In the absence of cooperation from the Palestinian Authority, the IDF’s investigation of the Gaza beach explosion that killed the young girl’s father and six of her siblings (her mother and sister survived), has led to murkiness rather than clarity. There is an unaccounted for Israeli artillery shell, fired about 20 minutes before the explosion and there is some evidence that Hamas and Islamic Jihad militiamen mined the beach area, to try to prevent sea-born commandoes from ambushing them as they used the beach to fire Qassam rockets. IDF sources keep saying that they can’t be sure what caused the explosion, but they are leaning toward belief that it was either a dud shell that went off when someone tried to move it, or a landmine. They have pretty much ruled out an errant Qassam rocket, which doesn’t pack enough explosive power to cause so many casualties in an open area.

But given the emotions involved, nothing will convince Palestinians that ‘the Jews’ were not aiming at the Gazans picnicking on the beach on Friday afternoon. Thus, the Hamas movement, already under pressure because of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ announcement this weekend that he was going ahead with his referendum initiative, found itself divided between those who favor a resumption of full-scale attacks on Israelis and those who decided that the beach incident, coming hours after the killing of Jama Abu Samhadana, justified Hamas resumption of Qassam fire into Israel. Israeli sources were telling the media that the division, as usual, is between the more militant Damascus based Hamas ‘politburo’ and the Gazan politicians. Indeed, there was at least one report that said the Damascus-based Hamas gave the order for the resumption of Qassam fire. PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves, but he carefully was not specifying how they would do so, letting others do the dirty work.

Israeli politicians were also saying Israel has the right to defend itself from the Qassams. Tzachi Hanegbi, banned by the attorney general from a ministerial position, now heads the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and has Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s ear. He told Army Radio this morning that ‘Yassin and Rantisi are waiting for you, Haniye,’ if the Hamas prime minister takes the same position of killing Jews, indiscriminate shooting, and suicide terror attacks aimed at paralyzing Israeli society.’

Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who took office last month amid indications he would try a different approach toward the Palestinians, meanwhile found himself approving ever escalating IDF operations even while he was approving more and more work permits for Palestinians to work in Israel. The Friday incident, however, is a watershed moment. Peretz ordered a halt to all shelling of the Qassam launching zones, which was known to include that beach area, raising questions why the Palestinian police allowed any civilians into the area. But he also asked the army for a plan to put an end to the Qassam rocket fire. Typically, the army proposed ever more forceful measures, which Peretz put on hold. But he did order the army to include Hamas ‘political leaders’ as potential targets for assassination, which has become what the army believes to be one of its most effective measures against Palestinian terror.

For the Palestinians, there is no doubt that the tragic images of Hadil Ghalia’s terror will be as iconic as the images of young Mohammad Dura, cowering with his hapless father in a crossfire between Israeli forces and Palestinian gunmen early in the intifada, shot to death in front of the TV cameras. For Israelis, images of Sderot children cowering with their parents as a Qassam rocket lands with a bang are no less iconic. But while the Palestinians have a politically charged society, and are rhetorically in a struggle against oppressive occupiers, so they have tremendous social solidarity because of the dire economic straits caused by the international economic siege of the Hamas government, Israeli society has been atomized under decades of ‘privatization’ and huge growing gaps between rich and poor, those who live in the city centers and those who live in the small, sleepy towns like Sderot in the Negev. The beach incident, irrespective of what caused the explosion, has likely given a boost to Hamas militancy compared to Abbas’ moderation. The rocket attacks on Sderot are not resulting in mass demonstrations in Jerusalem against the government policy. Education Minister Yuli Tamir was in Sderot today, promising that school buildings will be given protective armor against the rockets, and saying, quite bravely, that ‘there are no magical solutions.’

The truth is that in the absence of a political horizon, whether in the shape of direct, ongoing talks between Olmert and Abbas and Haniyeh, or just Abbas, the army also does not have a real solution to the Qassams -- or terror per se. Former general Amiram Levine, a much admired ex-commando who served for a while as deputy chief of the Mossad, was on the radio yesterday morning and TV last night, saying that Israel should be in direct talks with the Palestinian government, about a peace agreement based on ‘the framework we all know, back to the ’67 lines with corrections, no right of return, a division of Jerusalem.’ With such talks underway -- sincere talks, he emphasized -- it becomes possible to give the army instructions for firm action against the Qassams. But making the army provide a military solution to a political problem will only lead to trouble. ‘You can’t defeat a people fighting against oppression with more oppression,’ says the ex-general. But once the politicians take responsibility for finding a political solution, the Palestinians could be told that any Qassam rockets landing in Israel would lead to the demolition -- by bulldozer, not shelling -- of 10 to-15 houses, 12 hours after the rocket fell in Israel. If the rocket causes casualties, more than one block would be demolished. It’s a plan and could even be implemented -- but it depends on Israel doing what it has refused to do since the intifada began, talking with the Palestinians, and it depends on the Palestinians doing what they have refused to do since the intifada began: cracking down on the armed irregular militia, whether they Qassam launchers or gunmen, plotters of suicide bombings or the bombers themselves.

Olmert, by the way was in London today to meet with Tony Blair and tomorrow will go to France to see Jacques Chirac. He’s still trying to sell his unilateral convergence plan, while the international community keeps telling him that before he tries it, he should try talking with Abbas. They are presumably supposed to meet at the end of this month. But Olmert is making it obvious he will be going into that meeting certain it will lead nowhere. And that’s no way to begin negotiations, if one wants them to succeed.

And just after noon, a rail crash south of Haifa caused dozens of casualties, and took over all the news programming.

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