David Kimche: Sticks & Carrots

[richards1052]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178708678556&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">Sticks and carrots
David Kimche, THE JERUSALEM POST May. 25, 2007

Just think of it. Mighty Israel is helpless in the face of a bunch of terrorist thugs spewing out deadly homemade, primitive rockets onto our citizens. If ever there was proof that we cannot solve our problems by the use of force alone, this is the ultimate witness to that fact.

We do, of course, have the capability to launch a massive incursion into Gaza, as our bellicose commander of the Southern front, Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant, has been urging us to do. We may well, eventually, do his bidding.

Yet we have been down that road before, and each time we swore that this time we would smash the Kassam manufacturers and the gangs that fire them into Israel. Yet after each such attack, after the thousands of shells fired, and the hundreds of terrorists - and civilians - killed, after the death and the destruction, the Kassam workshops would spring up again, like poisonous plants after a spring rain, and our citizens in Sderot and in the Negev kibbutzim would yet once more be forced to suffer.

For seven long years we have endured the Kassam scourge. It began long before then-prime minister Ariel Sharon decided to evacuate our settlements in Gaza and to disengage. In those seven years our military has been repeatedly in action in Gaza, all to no avail. The daily barrage of Kassams on Sderot is ample evidence of that.

Yet obviously our government cannot remain passive in the face of the daily onslaught of rockets. Its solution - limited military action - has so far had the sole effect of strengthening Hamas in its fight with Fatah.

Edited for copyright - limited to fair use
Lithos
DU Moderator

[richards1052]

1. Kimche former Mossad intelligence chief turned dovish realist

I posted the above article & here's some commentary from http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/05/27/david-kimche-on-the-gaza-crisis/">my blog:

David Kimche must have undergone something of a conversion during the 1990s after he left the Israeli foreign ministry as its director general. His involvement with the Iran-Contra scandal cost him his most coveted wish–to become Mosad chief. After leaving government service, he's become something of a dove, which is rather remarkable considering his earlier championing of the first Lebanon War and his reputation as one of Israel's pre-eminent spooks.

Tzipi Livni and even Avigdor Lieberman (believe it or not) have advocated a similar international force to police Gaza. This indicates something of Israel's level of desperation about the situation since it historically detests the idea of international forces on its doorstep. But since Ehud Olmert didn't think of it first and Livni is his political rival, you'll never hear him acknowledge the idea as worthy. Meanwhile Gaza, like Rome before it, burns. And a http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/world/middleeast/28mideast.html?ex=1338004800&en=67c1acfe5bae30cb&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">second Israeli was killed by Qassam fire on Sderot. "When will they ever learn?"