15 Rockets and Counting...

A cease-fire may have gone into effect in Gaza last week, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the Palestinians from continuing to attack Israeli towns and cities.

Just this morning, Palestinian terrorists fired yet another Qassam rocket into southern Israel. The projectile hit an open field next to a kibbutz, but thank G-d no one was injured in the attack.

This is the 15th rocket that the Palestinians have launched at Israel since the start of the cease-fire, and yet the government continues to refrain from going into Gaza to halt the assaults.

Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting this morning, Defense Minister Amir Peretz said that the Palestinians are "partially keeping" the cease-fire - I guess he means the "fire" part, because they have certainly been ignoring the "cease".

In any event, the ongoing rocket attacks demonstrate once again the futility of relying on wishful thinking in the formulation of Israeli defense policy.

Hoping that the Palestinians will stick to the cease-fire, despite their track record of violating every previous one, was both fool-hardy and dangerous, and it has now left Israel with its hands tied diplomatically behind its back.

Indeed, how many more rockets will it take for our leadership to realize that the only way to stem the violence is to hunt down its perpetrators, rather than negotiate with them?

The Al-Qaeda Threat to Israel

The writing is on the wall – only Israel’s government refuses to read it.

In yet the latest bit of evidence to indicate that Al-Qaeda is setting the stage for possible future attacks against the Jewish state, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas admitted to a London-based Arabic newspaper earlier this week that, "We have signs of an al Qaeda presence in the West Bank and Gaza."

Abbas’ statement confirms what the head of Israel’s Military Intelligence said last September, when he noted that Al-Qaeda had moved in to Gaza and set up shop there right after Israel’s retreat from the area.

Thus, for several months now, Osama Bin-Laden’s network has been busy establishing a base of operations along Israel’s borders, yet Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has failed to take any steps to stem this growing threat.

If we know that Al-Qaeda has a presence in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, then why the heck isn’t Israel going in now to uproot the terrorist infrastructure?

Must we wait, G-d forbid, for a major Al-Qaeda attack in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem before taking action?

In early January, Iraqi terrorist chieftain Abu Musab al-Zarqawi posted an audio tape on an Islamist website in which he claimed that 4 Katyusha rockets fired from southern Lebanon into northern Israel on December 27 had been the work of Al-Qaeda and came at the instructions of none other than bin Laden himself.

“The rocket firing at the ancestors of monkeys and pigs from the south of Lebanon was only the start of a blessed in-depth strike against the Zionist enemy”, al-Zarqawi said, adding that “All that was on the instructions of the sheikh of the mujahedeen, Osama bin Laden”.

It’s time for Mr. Olmert to start taking this danger seriously, and for Israel to take prompt action, before it is too late.

Getting Used to Terror?

Once again, a Palestinian rocket has struck an Israeli city, and once again an assault on innocent Israeli civilians has been met with no reaction from the Government.

Palestinian terrorists operating in Hamas-controlled Gaza on Thursday fired a Kassam rocket at Ashkelon, hitting the city’s southern industrial zone. Workers in the area heard a loud explosion, and many were forced to go sit in bomb shelters or secured rooms until police and firemen signaled they could emerge.

One workman told a reporter: “We sat in the security rooms for about 20 minutes until they allowed us to come out,” he said. “They asked us to be a bit more alert today. To our regret, we're starting to get used to this reality of Kassam attacks in this area.”

If you’re looking for one of the greatest dangers facing Israel today, it can be found in that workman’s simple statement of hopelessness and despair – “we’re starting to get used to this reality of Kassam attacks”.

When a society begins to “get used to” being a punching bag for its foes, and when it stops demanding that its own government stand up and defend the country – that is a sure sign that things will only be getting worse before they get better.

We must never accept terrorism as a routine part of life, like waiting in line at the bank or paying taxes. And we must never allow our government to overlook or ignore the threat that is brewing along our borders.