Israeli attacks followed months, even years, of provocation

Israeli attacks followed months, even years, of provocation

Jewish state deserves praise for its restraint not condemnation for its actions

By Gil Troy
The Montreal Gazette
July 15, 2006

Jerusalem - Even after Hezbollah launched hundreds of Katyusha rockets on Thursday, wounding 90 Israelis and killing at least two, Jerusalemites remained calm.

Where you stand regarding Israel's unsought two-front war depends on how quickly you say "Kassam" and "Katyusha" when telling the story. True, Israel's supporters - and civilians -- can take pride in a country which will go to Herculean lengths to save even one kidnap victim and has made the well-being of three soldiers a national obsession.

Still, the kidnappings are a sidelight. The months-long downpour of Kassams, especially on the working-class southern town of Sderot, has shaped Israel's Summer Rains Gaza strategy. And Hezbollah's rocket barrage has made intolerable the six-year status-quo standoff.

No nation can tolerate persistent shelling from a neighbour. The question isn't "How dare Israel attack Gaza and Lebanon?" but "What took so long for Israel to respond effectively"?

On the Lebanese border, the response appeared quick - judging by the time elapsed from the moment Hezbollah ambushed the young soldiers on routine patrol until Israel began hitting central targets in Lebanon.

Yet for six years Israel has shown remarkable restraint in the north. Despite Israel's complete, unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah's Islamist radicals wanted to continue their war against the Jewish state.

Hezbollah then amassed an estimated 10,000 missiles against Israel. Hezbollah provocations, ranging from the attempted kidnapping and murder of three patrolling soldiers in 2000 to occasionally bombing northern Israeli towns, have triggered controlled responses. Israel's strategy has been to try to avoid a multi-front war. The real question, however, is why Hezbollah enjoys attacking the Jewish state so wantonly.

Similarly in the south, Israel's reactions seemed hasty only when linked to the kidnapping two weeks ago. After what they calculate to be 1,500 Kassams in 1,900 days, with eight deaths, the good citizens of Sderot resent their government's inaction. They often seem as angry at Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as at their murderous Palestinian neighbors. "Sharon Wake Up, Olmert is in a Coma," one sign in the town square reads.

The residents have endured this harassment for far too long. Here, too, the questions easily switch from the strategic to the existential. Why is it, so many wonder, that Gaza's Palestinians have devoted their energies in the year since disengagement to trying to destroy Israel, rather than building a peaceful future?

The fact that this two-front war has been launched from areas evacuated by Israel army's has undermined the credibility of Israel's peace camp - as well as Olmert's pro-disengagement government. In Sderot on Sunday, most people blamed the Gaza disengagement for intensifying Palestinian attacks.

Moreover, the Palestinians' deadly shell game of spring and summer highlighted one of the more depressing aspects of the Palestinian-Israeli clash and a lingering source of Israeli insecurity. The widespread Hezbollah-Hamas desire to eliminate Israel, and Palestinians' success in peddling their one-sided narrative to the world remain unnerving.

To Israelis, Eliyahu Asheri was a murdered 18-year-old "teenager"; to most reporters - who carefully call terrorists "militants" and perceive a nonexistent "pragmatism" in Hamas - Asheri was a dehumanized, evil "settler." That this worldwide winning streak continues even with Hamas terrorists heading the Palestinian Authority truly is unfathomable.

A quintessential clash between Israeli facts and Western delusions followed the tragic deaths of the seven Gazan picnickers on the beach in mid-June. Even as forensic experts doubted that an errant Israeli shell was responsible, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called Olmert, angrily demanding an inquiry. Olmert is said to have replied, "Why didn't you phone me after 30 rockets were fired at Israel and say you wanted this investigated?" In his shockingly candid, outrageously unprofessional, depressingly characteristic response, Annan supposedly said he had no idea there had been so many Kassam attacks.

With Hezbollah's Katyushas there will be no such delusions. The hints of optimism some of us detected from Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert just a few weeks ago have disappeared amid the smoke emanating from the guns of Hamas and Hezbollah. The bulk of Israel's citizen will remain safe, clustered near the population centres of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Still, Hezbollah and Hamas have helped destabilize the region, delegitimize Israel's centrist peace camp and militarize the conflict.

As the European and UN leaders issue their ritualistic calls for restraint, as if successful counterattacks against mortal enemies can be mounted politely, while more biased forces chide Israel for "collective punishment," as if the latest polls don't demonstrate widespread Palestinian support for these attacks, it is time for Israel's critics to acknowledge Israel's enemies' brazen brutality.

Hamas and Hezbollah have repeatedly called for Israel's extermination - and acted to realize their twisted ideals. While the appropriate response is debatable, chiding Israel without acknowledging the lethal realities of the challenges facing Israel reveals much about the Western capacity for self-delusion. True statesmanship requires honest evaluations not blind moral equivalence. Especially this month, Israel has been victimized enough.

Outsiders need the same brazen honesty as Israel's enemies, while using those skills to find a new more stable status quo rather than triggering unnecessary and unsought wars.

Gil Troy - currently in Israel - teaches history at McGill University.

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