Gotcha
Fooling Hamas … how hard could it possibly be? That was “Beat the stuff out of Hamas,” not “eat lots of stuff with hummus.”
OK, OK, killing terrorists is serious business. News and commentary roundup starts with Ha’aretz on the careful planning and critical deception campaign that reportedly preceded the current operation, with the desired effect of catching a lot of them right where they wanted them. No “How many Palestinian terrorists does it take to get blown up by the IDF” jokes please:
Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public - all these stood behind the Israel Defense Forces “Cast Lead” operation against Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, which began Saturday morning.
The disinformation effort, according to defense officials, took Hamas by surprise and served to significantly increase the number of its casualties in the strike.
Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well.
Barak gave orders to carry out a comprehensive intelligence-gathering drive which sought to map out Hamas’ security infrastructure, along with that of other militant organizations operating in the Strip.
This intelligence-gathering effort brought back information about permanent bases, weapon silos, training camps, the homes of senior officials and coordinates for other facilities.
The plan of action that was implemented in Operation Cast Lead remained only a blueprint until a month ago, when tensions soared after the IDF carried out an incursion into Gaza during the ceasefire to take out a tunnel which the army said was intended to facilitate an attack by Palestinian militants on IDF troops.
On November 19, following dozens of Qassam rockets and mortar rounds which exploded on Israeli soil, the plan was brought for Barak’s final approval …
However, they decided to put the mission on hold to see whether Hamas would hold its fire after the expiration of the ceasefire …
Which, of course, it didn’t.
That night, in speaking to the media, sources in the Prime Minister’s Bureau said that “if the shooting from Gaza continues, the showdown with Hamas would be inevitable.” On the weekend, several ministers in Olmert’s cabinet inveighed against him and against Barak for not retaliating for Hamas’ Qassam launches.
“This chatter would have made Entebe or the Six Day War impossible,” Barak said in responding to the accusations. The cabinet was eventually convened on Wednesday, but the Prime Minister’s Bureau misinformed the media in stating the discussion would revolve around global jihad. The ministers learned only that morning that the discussion would actually pertain to the operation in Gaza.
…
While Barak was working out the final details with the officers responsible for the operation, Livni went to Cairo to inform Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, that Israel had decided to strike at Hamas.
In parallel, Israel continued to send out disinformation in announcing it would open the crossings to the Gaza Strip and that Olmert would decide whether to launch the strike following three more deliberations on Sunday - one day after the actual order to launch the operation was issued.
“Hamas evacuated all its headquarter personnel after the cabinet meeting on Wednesday,” one defense official said, “but the organization sent its people back in when they heard that everything was put on hold until Sunday.”
Fascinating tale. The comments read like Israel-hearting warmonger/terrorist-enabling peacenik haiku by the way.
Bradley Burston at Ha’aretz rebuts five arguments of the “selective pacifist left” … “curiously as tired as they are unflagging.” He promises to follow up with rebuttals of five arguments from “recliner Rambos” … “the Alpha-male displays of the Israel-bashing right, the group which constantly berates the government and the IDF for not bombing Gaza into a parking lot, for not shooting and starving and freezing innocent civilians to death.”
JPost analysis:
… the key questions today include those that, it turned out, had not been effectively addressed when the first air assault on Hizbullah was ordered in July 2006: Are the goals clear and realistic? Do they provide for a viable exit strategy? And has the political and military leadership truly prepared for the complications, surprises and failures that surely lie ahead. One key difference: Hamas is plainly far less well equipped than Hizbullah was.
In contrast to 2006, Israel’s leaders are not talking about destroying the enemy as an aim of this confrontation. But the ostensible aims of the “Cast Lead” operation amount to requiring Hamas not to behave like Hamas - not to fire into Israel or target Israeli civilians or soldiers; not to prepare for such attacks; not to store or smuggle in the material for such attacks. And that is not going to be achieved quickly.
Of course, Israel may choose to settle for less. But for now, it is adamant that long-term calm is the goal, no matter how prolonged or bitter the conflict that ultimately yields it.
… rather than seeking to target the nimblest offshoots of that terrorist rule - the Kassam crews that set themselves up in residential Gaza neighborhoods, fire into Israeli residential areas and then quickly melt away - Israel has elected to shoot into the belly of the beast.
The first wave of Saturday’s air strikes targeted Hamas training bases, military facilities, weapons stores and other locations used by the Hamas security apparatus; Hamas has some 15,000 armed men in the Strip, defense officials estimate.
In the second wave, targets included underground rocket-launch sites - where Hamas had readied rockets for remote-control fire. Other such sites, as well as weapons stores and factories, located near schools or on the lower floors of apartment blocks, were not touched. At this stage.
Defense Ministry officials, from Ehud Barak on down, were preparing the Israeli public Saturday for what they said was likely to be a difficult and lengthy period of confrontation ahead …
Hamas itself is threatening a further escalation in rocket fire - with missiles reaching to Beersheba - and the mobilization of a new wave of suicide bombers.
JPost analysis continues with more discussion of international reaction, which was immediate as it is every time Israel attempts to defend itself from terrorist missile barrage, and how that might play out.
Here’s a good one from the Washington Post:
Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza yesterday, in retaliation for a nonstop barrage of rocket attacks from Hamas fighters, raised the prospect of an escalation of violence that could scuttle any hopes the incoming Obama administration harbored of forging an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
What kind of peace is possible with an avowed terrorist organization that has continued to attack amid international isolation? Someone tell WPost that “Middle East peace” is an end-of-term legacy project. Obama has other problems more pressing than trying to save the Palestinians from themselves. Though, there is in fact a toehold for Mideast peace that was carefully dug out by the Bush adminsitration that WPost seems strangely unaware of. More on that below. WPost’s lead off quote suggests aggressive cluelessness:
“If the casualty reports are accurate, Hamas is going to respond. And this isn’t a two- or three-day deal in which the genie is put back in the bottle,” said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and author of “The Much Too Promised Land.” “This takes the already slim chance of an early, active and successful Obama engagement on Israel-Palestinian peace and lowers it to about zero.”
Which is pretty much where it was, at zero, “already slim” being wildly optimistic … unless Obama plans to build on the Bush plan. Failure to discuss that raises the question of why they even bothered to write this article. Do they feel like Obama needs cover for what he wasn’t going to do, anyway? Curious choices of words, ”respond” and “genie back in the bottle,” by the way.
Israel has been warning for weeks that it would not tolerate regular rocket attacks launched from Hamas-controlled territory in the Gaza Strip, and it has been laying the groundwork for a new offensive with the collapse this month of a shaky six-month cease-fire. Still, the ferocity and scope of yesterday’s Israeli attacks, which killed at least 225, appeared to stun Western governments and analysts. Arab countries condemned Israel, and Saudi Arabia urged the United States to intervene to stop the attacks.
But in official statements, the Bush administration blamed Hamas, which it classifies as a terrorist group, and cautioned Israel only to avoid hurting innocent civilians.
Speaking of Obama:
President-elect Barack Obama has voiced sympathy for Israel’s predicament. During his visit to Israel last summer, he held a news conference in Sderot, the southern town that has borne the brunt of the Gaza rocket attacks, saying he does not “think any country would find it acceptable to have missiles raining down on the heads of their citizens.”
“If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that,” Obama said at the time. “And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”
Yesterday, Obama’s transition team was more cautious, adhering to its policy of not commenting on foreign developments because there should be “one president at a time.” Brooke Anderson, Obama’s national security spokeswoman, said only that Obama “is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza.”
…
There is little doubt, however, that if the situation escalates, it could hand yet another crisis to Obama, who will already be inheriting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an unstable situation in Pakistan. If the past is any guidance, the United States will probably come under great pressure to restrain Israel if the tit-for-tat violence grows.
One senior Bush administration official said he thinks the Israelis acted in Gaza “because they want it to be over before the next administration comes in.” Although Bush has largely been supportive of almost any Israeli action taken in the name of self-defense, the official pointed out: “They can’t predict how the next administration will handle it. And this is not the way they want to start with the new administration.”
How about pressure on Iran and the Arab world to restrain Hamas for a change? Hang on, the Bush admin already thought of that, though you wouldn’t know it from this aritcle.
Bush has focused on helping build up the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, but it is unclear how any peace deal would address the situation in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas.
The Post must have missed the part about Bush and the unprecedented gathering of Arab states with Israel and other world powers, united in their revulsion of Hamas.
Gateway with a positive further development in that direction today: Egypt criticizes Hamas. As Reynolds notes, “You don’t see this every day.”
Hot Air will see your Egyptians and raise you some Palestinians: Backfire for Hamas.
It’s a build. George Bush actually made significant progress in that area, facilitating the isolation of Hamas in the Arab world. With a major assist from Hamas itself, of course, as the savagery of this terrorist group became apparent. That could be another promising area of foreign policy for Obama to lift wholesale from the Bush admin. The suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza can be laid directly at the door of Hamas and its murderous policies, with a nod to clandestine support from Iran. Israel, by surgically targeting the leadership and military infratsructure of Hamas, is trying to releave the Palestinian people of this burden.
Separate, related: I’d like to know whether anyone is going to pressure Obama to solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as the answer to violence in Iraq … OK, never mind that, turns out killing terrorists and getting the locals to recognize their own interests did the job. But how about Israeli-Palestinian peace as the answer to terror-supporting, nuke-lusting, Israel erasure-enthused Iranian mullahs? Hey, maybe killing terrorists, destroying terror-supporting infrastructure and getting the Iranian people to act in their own interest … just a thought. Meanwhile, the Palestinian problem clearly is at the root of the sticky problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Speaking of Iran, no show without punch. Ynet, Iran urges Muslims to defend Palestinians:
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious decree to Muslims around the world on Sunday, ordering them to defend Palestinians against Israel’s attacks on Gaza, state television said.
“All Palestinian combatants and all the Islamic world’s pious people are obliged to defend the defenseless women, children and people in Gaza in any way possible. Whoever is killed in this legitimate defense is considered a martyr … “
Israel Matzav with the news that Nasrallah vows to open a second front.
Topics: Israel, Palestinians
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:51 am on Sunday, December 28, 2008
8 Responses to “Gotcha”
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December 28th, 2008 at 11:15 am
[...] so, they began planning for a deadly retaliation. One that appears to have worked very well. I give it two thumbs up! Long-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception [...]
December 28th, 2008 at 11:25 am
“All Palestinian combatants and all the Islamic world’s pious people are obliged to defend the defenseless women, children and people in Gaza in any way possible. Whoever is killed in this legitimate defense is considered a martyr … “
With this indoctrination and training this Whoever is killed in this legitimate defense is considered a martyr … “ makes Khamenei is a modern day Edgar Cayce.
Did Khamenei mention the Burka Bombers? Didn’t think so.
December 28th, 2008 at 11:56 am
[...] Crittenden also sees the hand of Bush in the Hamas’ lack of support in the Arab world and notes that the Washington Post [...]
December 28th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Sometimes, the only way to get a stubborn mule’s attention is to gently walk up to it and hit it squarely between the eyes with a two by four. Apparently the same holds true for Hamas.
December 28th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well.
Hey, Hamas a$$holes, hudna* works both ways.
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*: Scroll down, there isn’t a direct link.
December 28th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden [...]
December 29th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
[...] Crittenden shared Gotcha. Nasrallah is threatening to open a second front. For more on this check out Israel [...]
January 8th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
[...] Instapundit: Jules Crittenden has thoughts. “It’s a build. George Bush actually made significant progress in that area, [...]