Lynn-B and Yael have must-read posts (here, here, and here) about the daily rocket attacks against Sderot, which accelerated once
It is apparent that Israel has no effective response to what was predictable — and was in fact predicted by Israelis on the right, left and center, including Yossi Alpher, Yossi Klein Halevi, Naomi Blumenthal, Benjamin Netanyahu, Danny Rubenstein, among others.
It has played out exactly as predicted by Maj.-Gen. Yaakov Amidror (former commander of
Now, in the wake of the Palestinians’ first organized attack into Israel from Gaza, using smuggled-in automatic weapons, grenades and anti-tank missiles, with tunnels built with “motorized excavation tools and young children to provide cheap labor,” emerging behind Israeli military positions — and as the Aksa Martyrs’ Brigades announce they have chemical and biological weapons to be used against Israel — it is worth reading, one more time, what Ehud Olmert predicted in his “Peace in Our Time” address on June 9, 2005:
What the government of Ariel Sharon is doing is a dramatic change that will have an enormous impact on everything that will happen thereafter, in the State of
Israel and in the Middle East. . . . It will bring more security, greater safety, much more prosperity, and a lot of joy for all the people that live in the Middle East.
And we all desperately need it. We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies . . . .
I’ll tell you, the disengagement is so important, is so crucial, and is so sensitive, that at this time what we have to do is first and foremost make sure that it will be carried out as planned . . . . If this will be carried out as planned, and I believe that it will be carried out as planned because we will not allow anything to interfere with our plans, and with our commitment to carry it out. If this will be done, than everything will be changed. . . . a new morning of great hope will emerge in our part of the world.
He then led
Several years ago, Ruth Wisse wrote about
Olmert is currently planning to do it a third time. What is the name of the stage that comes after tragedy and farce?