AJC Mideast Briefing

A Tragedy on the Beach: Those who Died Were Innocent. Those who Hastened to Condemn the IDF Were Not. A Weekly Briefing on Israeli and Middle Eastern Affairs June 15, 2006 Dr. Eran Lerman Director Israel/Middle East Office The terrible toll among innocent Palestinian civilians—and innocent they were—in recent days must be seen against the sad landscape of deliberate Palestinian provocation. For weeks on end, areas of Israel proper, including the town of S'derot, the villages of the northwestern Negev, and even the sensitive industrial area south of Ashkelon, with its strategic facilities—a power station, a water desalinization plant, and behind them, a thriving city, now within range of Grad rockets (Katyushas)—have been regularly shelled by Palestinian terror groups. True, Hamas nominally kept out in most cases, until recently (but has now, in "retaliation" for Israel's actions, targeted the S'derot home of Defense Minister Amir Peretz). But they did nothing to stop Palestinian Islamic Jihad or the Popular Resistance Committees from putting Israeli civilians at risk, day in and day out. Above and beyond the threat to the lives, limbs, and livelihoods of citizens in a significant part of Israel, less than an hour's ride from Tel Aviv, this constant barrage: Challenges the basic contract between any state and its citizens—namely, the responsibility to keep them alive and shelter them from harm; Erodes the basic structure of Israeli deterrence, which for so many years has been the key to "conflict management" and the prevention of war in the region; Puts into question—as many prominent critics were quick to point out—the logic behind Disengagement, which, they argued, promised safer conditions, but "harvested" Hamas in power and an escalation of violence. It is not easy for the Orange camp (those who vehemently objected to the "uprooting" of Jews from their homes in Gaza) to resist the temptation to say, "We told you so." It is safe to assume that no country—and no government—would have put up with such circumstances for long. The terrorists were presuming upon Israeli moral and legal restraints, but even these are perishable goods. As pressures grew, the IDF could not remain idle; yet, much to the frustration of many S'derot residents, the chosen response device—regular bursts of artillery fire—was meticulously directed at empty areas, more a symbolic act than an active and effective countermeasure. As specific intelligence reports began to come in, however (and reliable reporting is never something created overnight), the IDF was able to shift tactics and target the launcher teams piecemeal. By doing so, rather than reconquering Gaza or flattening the town of Beit Hanoun—as some have suggested—the IDF was trying (again) to reflect the overall moral and political directive: Focus on the terrorists, not on the people at large among whom they operate. This, sadly, is easier said than done. In two tragic cases, the new mode of action did end up claiming the lives of innocents: About a week ago, a special forces unit of the IDF penetrated the northern Gaza Strip, ambushed a Qassam launching squad, and killed them in battle. To counter this new type of threat to their operations, the terror groups (and perhaps the Hamas militia itself) apparently improvised a minefield on the beach—secretly, so as to entrap Israeli raiders, and without a word or hint to the local Palestinians who might picnic there. The tragedy that claimed the lives of seven members of the Ghaliya family was thus NOT a cold-blooded or even accidental "massacre" by Israelis (which did not, of course, prevent a full cascade of accusations from pouring over Israel's head). On Tuesday, a van that was known (again with remarkable precision) to be carrying Grad rockets (with a range up to 20 km.) was tracked in the streets of Gaza and struck, but not much damaged. Therefore, a second salvo was launched, and the rockets were destroyed—tragically, as were the medics and bystanders who rushed to the scene. In one sense these are two very different stories. The Palestinians lied (and cleaned up the evidence) in the first case, and it became important for the IDF to prove that they did so. It takes a minute to concoct an accusation; it is a slower process in a democratic country to put together a reliable counterargument supported by evidence (in this case, literally a "shred" of evidence, namely, a piece of shrapnel extracted from one of the wounded). In the second case, there was no point in trying to deny that innocents died by Israel's hand. At a deeper level, however, what happened in both cases was that many—far too many in Israel and in the West—rushed to judgment. Israeli forces were once again depicted as bloodthirsty, indiscriminate hunters. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here were two cases in which rocket squads were caught in mid-action. Had they been allowed to do their work, there is no telling what would have happened on the Israeli side. No Israeli officer with such operators in his sights could have allowed them to proceed. Responsibility firmly lies with those who allow the Qassam barrage to continue, but Mahmoud Abbas is now very busy with his confrontation with Hamas and concerned about the need to find a common front with the terror groups. He is unlikely to take the necessary measures to put an end to the present confrontation, and the prospects are that Israel might need once again to deal with this challenge on its own.

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