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      Fundamentally Freund
      by Michael Freund
      An alternative approach to Israeli political commentary.
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      Michael Freund is Founder and Chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), which reaches out and assists "lost Jews" seeking to return to the Jewish people. He writes a syndicated column and feature stories for the Jerusalem Post. Previously, he served as Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning in the Israeli Prime Minister´s Office under former premier Benjamin Netanyahu. A native of New York, he holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia University and a BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He has lived in Israel for the past decade.

      Sivan 1, 5767, 5/18/2007

      Israel left Gaza - now Gaza attacks Israel



      at last, it seems, there might be a slight flicker of recognition among senior Israeli officials that the withdrawal itself was a grave mistake and that Israel has no choice but to go back in to Gaza and clean house
      A synagogue, a school and a person's home. These are among the structures in Sderot that have all been hit in the past 24 hours by Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza.

      Hundreds of Israelis have been evacuated from the city in the wake of this latest terrorist assault, as Hamas and Islamic Jihad continue to act with virtual impunity.

      And so, less than two years after Israel pulled out of Gaza, Gaza is now once again attacking Israel.

      Of course, these rocket attacks have been going on nearly continuously since Israeli troops left the area, though you wouldn't know it from the mainstream media, which has downplayed and under-reported the attacks since the very start.

      But at last, it seems, there might be a slight flicker of recognition among senior Israeli officials that the withdrawal itself was a grave mistake and that Israel has no choice but to go back in to Gaza and clean house.

      In an interview yesterday on Israel Army Radio, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said that in the wake of the latest Palestinian rocket attacks, "sooner or later the IDF will have to reenter the territory of the Gaza Strip."

      And in an implicit admission of the failure of the withdrawal from Gaza to bring Israel greater security, Sneh acknowledged that, "a place that you left without an agreement or an arrangement is a place that you will have to return to in the end."

      Of course, we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that the Government has truly woken up to the need to uproot the terrorist infrastructure and topple the Palestinian Authority - that far they have yet to come. But maybe, just maybe, this latest round of Palestinian rocket fire has planted the seeds, and brought our leadership one step closer to confronting the cold, hard truth that pulling out of Gaza and turning it over to our enemies was an act of remarkable folly.