Thursday, May 5, 2016
Hamas Builds Terror Tunnels into Israel while Accusing Israel of "Escalation"
While Israel remembered the Holocaust on Thursday, Israeli media reported the recent arrest of a Hamas operative after he breached a border fence carrying two knives. Mahmoud Atawa was arrested by two Israeli soldiers, who turned him over to Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service, which says he provided information about Hamas tunnels, techniques used in digging the tunnels, digging sites and tunnel shafts serving "Nakba" operatives, Hamas' special forces trained for fighting within Israeli territory. The Haaretz newspaper says Atawa's case is unusual. Since the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas and its allies in Gaza, several hundred people are thought to have been arrested crossing the border. Most are unarmed and are questioned and returned to Gaza or tried on charges of infiltration. But, Haaretz says during Atawa's interrogation, his Hamas affiliation was uncovered. He was reportedly recruited in 2006 and received military training in the use of rocket-propelled grenades. As a Hamas operative, he conducted armed patrols along the border to warn of any IDF attacks on the Gaza Strip. Between 2007 and 2010, he was involved in digging tunnels. His indictment charges include conspiracy to commit a crime, weapons offenses, infiltration and other security-related crimes. The arrest and interrogation of Atawa has potential importance because of the IDF search for and destruction of tunnels used by Hamas terrorists to infiltrate Israel to kidnap and kill soldiers and civilians. ~~~~~ In a related report, five mortar shells were fired at IDF units near the southern Gaza border on Thursday, hours after Israel discovered a second tunnel from Gaza to Israel. Israel responded with tank fire and then aerial strikes into Hamas Gaza Strip training camps. Israel and Hamas said on Thursday that Egypt is mediating to restore the 2014 truce after two days of cross-border violence that is in danger of escalating. ~~~~~ The Jerusalem Post reports that Hamas is under pressure as Israel continues to destroy its system of tunnels into Israel. The Hamas military wing, faced with losing its major terrorist access to Israel, is for the first time since the August 2014 cease-fire, launching cross-border mortar attacks. Hamas targets IDF units engaged in hi-tech tunnel detection work on the border with northern Gaza. The Hamas military wing is alarmed by the multiplying Israeli breakthroughs in tunnel detection. During the two-month conflict in 2014, those tunnels were used to terrorize civilians in southern Israel. Hamas fighters would pop up from 'nowhere' to attack and kidnap soldiers and other Israelis. The April discovery of a tunnel from southern Gaza into Israel, and progress in detection in other areas, means Israel now has what it lacked : the ability to know precisely where Hamas underground tunnels are. Hamas rockets are much less deadly because of the greater effectiveness of the Iron Dome air defense batteries, which have grown in number and capability since the 2014 conflict. Israel has also invested NIS 600 million in tunnel detection technology, which is now bearing fruit. ~~~~~ Dear readers, the daily Hamas attempts to breach the Israeli border with rockets and tunnel terrorism is an attack on Israel sovereignty, yet it seldom appears in European or American news. But, occasionally, Hamas makes a comment, lapped up by the UN, that would be called chutzpah in New York City. This week, Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas leader, said : "The Israeli escalation is a new development and the Palestinian resistance is conducting consultations to decide how to react to it." He called Israel's actions "escalation," saying the parties supervising the Israeli-Hamas truce are responsible for "the violations of the Zionist enemy," emphasizing that "the enemy should not try Hamas's patience." The outburst came after the IDF shelled Hamas positions in response to four mortar attacks on IDF soldiers near the border. Did I miss something? It's Hamas that's digging tunnels into Israel. Orwellian Newspeak has reached a distressing new height.
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The green light has been given to Hamas and all other comers by the lack of immediate and most forceful response by the Obama Administration ..."Israel stands alone"
ReplyDeleteNow cetauinly Obama didn't say this outright in those exact words, but action sometimes is stronger than words. And on the issue of the defense of Israel by the United States under Obama's tenure there is no doubt in anyone's understanding that the Obama policy is "HANDS OFF"
What lies behind a visible absence of a constructive Israeli national security agenda, however, is neither illogic nor confusion but rather a belief that there are currently no solutions to the challenges the country faces and that seeking quick fixes to intractable problems is dangerously naive. Kicking problems down the road until some indefinite future point at which they can be tackled more successfully therefore does not reflect a lack of Israeli strategy; rather, it defines Israeli strategy. This strategy is at times wrong, but it is not absurd.
ReplyDeleteIsrael’s strategic conservatism—the notion that it can be better to bide one’s time and manage conflicts rather than rush to try to solve them before the conditions are ripe—is not inherently bad and has in fact served Israel well in some cases.
At his core, Netanyahu is not so much hawkish as conservative: determined to avoid revolutions, wary of the unintended consequences of grand policy designs, and resolved to stand firm in the face of adversity. He is deeply pessimistic about change and believes that Israel, a small country in a volatile region, has a minuscule margin for error. Despite what many progressive Europeans think, such a worldview does not constitute warmongering. Nor, as some Obama administration officials have suggested, does it constitute weakness or cowardice, even though Netanyahu’s rhetoric relies heavily on fear. Instead, at its best, it is a view of leadership, as stewardship rather than transformation, one in which potential losses loom far larger than potential gains.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders are unlikely to take serious interim steps toward peace in the near term. Yet the conflict has had many ups and downs over the years, and there may be opportunities for creative policy before long. And because a full resolution is not likely anytime soon, it is all the more important in the meantime that Israel and the United States devise coherent policies that are at once realistic about the immediate future and consistently committed to longer-term objectives. This seems to be off the table as far as Obama is concerned.
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