Text 5387, 104 rader
Skriven 2007-11-21 16:37:06 av Alan Hess
Ärende: Palestinian peace
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E7F78999-BA57-42CF-8EEE-C1
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http://tinyurl.com/2sh6fy

The Scar in Sderot

By Noam Bedein
FrontPageMagazine.com | 11/21/2007

SDEROT, Israel -- Conventional wisdom holds that next week's much-publicized
peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland, will have no impact on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Jewish communities in the western Negev,
including the besieged city of Sderot, would beg to differ.

Since November 1, this part of Israel has been under constant attack. According
to an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman, some 110 Kassam rockets and
mortars have been launched from Gaza towards Sderot. More than 180,000 Israelis
-- including the residents of Ashkelon, Sderot, Netivot, and over 20 kibbutzim
and moshavim -- now live under daily bombardment. Egypt meanwhile has
facilitated the flow of hundreds of thousands of weapons and ammunition into
Gaza since Israel's disengagement from the territory in August 2005. Left to
its own devices, Hamas has been able to build a well-trained, organized army
which numbers 13,000 fighters, most of whom have had special training in Iran.
Thousands more Katyusha rockets are ready to be launched towards Israel in the
near future.

Meanwhile, recent video footage shows that Gaza terror cells launch mortar
shells from school yards in UNRWA schools, knowing Israel's sensitivity about
killing civilians. A senior IDF intelligence officer observes that "Palestinian
terror organizations continue to abuse the civilian population in Gaza by
launching attacks against Israel from their midst?They don't think twice about
firing Kassam rockets near crowded public areas, even though they're fully
aware that they're endangering innocent civilians." Due to the IDF trying to
avoid civilian casualties, a senior Israel Air Force Commander has confirmed
that the IDF has only been able to hit three percent of the rocket launchers.
In addition, the IDF is not even trying to kill or to capture the Gaza leaders
who give the orders to shell and terrorize Israel.

What does all this have to do with the Annapolis conference? The answer,
according to a senior IDF officer, is everything. So long as Israel is
conducting negotiations with the Palestinians, the IDF will not enter Gaza --
not even to kill terror leaders. This non-response policy represents a
continuation of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's directive to Israel,
exactly one year ago, not to retaliate into Gaza. It also marks a sharp break
with past counter-terrorism policy. In the Spring 2004, for instance, the IDF
targeted and killed Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdul Aziz Rantissi. Today,
its hands are tied.

The grim irony that Israel cannot retaliate even when attacks from Gaza are
that their most protracted is not lost on the residents of Sderot and the
Western Negev. They note the further irony that the Annapolis summit is slated
for the 26th and 27th of November, the date of the American-brokered cease fire
between Gaza and Israel. That so-called ceasefire lasted until May 15, during
which time more than 300 Gaza missiles were launched against Israel.

The American ambassador to Israel nonetheless praised that ceasefire, noting
that no Israelis were killed during that period, as if that were sufficient
proof that the Palestinians were honoring their obligations. Jewish residents
saw things differently. "Physical damage you are able to see. The scar in the
heart -- that's what you cannot see," Osnat Ben Haiem, a Jewish resident of
Sderot, told me on the day that her house was struck by a direct hit from a
Kassam missile. Only two minutes before the missile hit, her six-year-old son
was having a sandwich in the kitchen. The American ambassador must have been
pleased to know that her boy was not killed, even if he has been traumatized.

To be sure, Israeli political leaders seem just as determined to ignore the
suffering of the Negev's residents as their American counterparts. When Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert recently drove through the Negev to mark the 34th
anniversary of the death of David ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister and
pioneer of the Negev, he didn't even think to drop by the five communities that
had been shelled the night before.

Despite this official indifference, life here goes on, with certain necessary
adjustments. Townspeople have gotten used to the routine of waking up with a
collective alarm clock of sirens. A Kassem can land with no sound -- sometimes
during the morning, or on the way to college, the bank, or the market --
forcing people always to be on the lookout for a nearby shelter. Because Kassam
rocket have in the past knocked out the town's electricity, allowing the
missiles to strike without any alarm whatsoever, shelters are now scattered all
over Sderot -- in public areas and at bus stops, market places, libraries,
soccer fields, schools, kindergartens, and playgrounds.

Everyone is affected. In the past few weeks, I have witnessed a rocket strike
landing by a school for disabled children, with many small children in daycare.
I have seen a rocket land in an elderly man's backyard. The old man is a cancer
patient. I watched as he was evacuated while mumbling and sobbing. I've
witnessed a rocket slam into a neighborhood of people from the Caucasian
mountains, poor immigrants that have no sheltered room to run to. I watched as
a rocket exploded in front of a woman who felt hopeless and cried out, "This is
not a life!"

In the near future, in all likelihood after Annapolis, the Israeli Army will
again enter Gaza. The international media will film the bodies of dead Arab
mothers and children who were used as human shields by Arab terrorists, while
Condoleezza Rice and Ehud Olmert's wife shed crocodile tears for the
humanitarian crisis in Gaza, even as the real humanitarian crisis spreads among
the Jews of the Negev region of Israel proper. Physical damage you are able to
see. The scar in the heart -- that's what you cannot see in Sderot.
Noam Bedein works for the Sderot Media Information Center for the Western Negev
region of Israel.

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