With every crash of a Kassam rocket in the Negev, increasingly more voices are calling for a return to Gaza - for different reasons.
Respected journalists from Yediot Acharonot and Haaretz have written that re-occupying Gaza is the only solution - lending an air of "political correctness" to the simultaneous ideological call by settlement leaders and Gush Katif expellees to return to Gush Katif.
The reasons advanced for reoccupation by the various elements are, to be sure, not identical. Military affairs correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai, writing for Yediot Acharonot last week (May 17), explained that it is based solely on security considerations:
"Israel's key problem at this point in time is the violent anarchy reigning in the Palestinian arena," Ben-Yishai wrote. "Even if Israel chooses to undertake drastic measures such as cutting off electricity and water from Gaza residents, while indiscriminately bombing launch sites, there would still be no one on the Palestinian side able to stop the Kassam attacks. The only thing that will happen is that Israel will face condemnation and be isolated in international public opinion."
"Under current circumstances," Ben-Yishai continued, "one consideration must guide the Israeli government: How do we prevent casualties among western Negev residents as a result of Kassam attacks, and how do we thwart the digging of tunnels by the Palestinians and a worse situation in the future as a result of Hamas' rapid strengthening? The most effective and virtually only modus operandi to achieve these objectives is an occupation of wide sections of the Gaza Strip."
"Once the IDF controls most Gaza territory, it will be able, in conjunction with the General Security Service (Shabak), to gather intelligence information and apply it in anti-terror operations while proceeding to destroy terror infrastructures. Meanwhile, the digging of a seawater tunnel would curb the smuggling through Gaza's Philadelphi route."
Ben-Yishai added that limited aerial and ground operations would not curb Kassam rockets, would draw terrorist fire and endanger Israeli troops, and would end with international pressure upon Israel. Instead, "a very large military force [is] required to stay in the Strip for many months... The question is whether the Olmert government will continue to deal with political survival and endless 'assessment sessions,' or whether it will finally start to act practically."
Similarly, on the same day, correspondent Avi Issacharoff penned a piece for Haaretz entitled, "No Other Solution For Gazans But Israeli Occupation." Explaining that Fatah has been left without strong leadership and is headed for a military defeat at the hands of Hamas, "the Gazans are repeating one clear message: only Israeli occupation will save them. There is no other solution on the horizon."
These calls were somewhat encouraging to people like Adi Mintz, a former Director of the Yesha Council [Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza], who was in the midst of publicizing his own call for a return to Gaza.
Mintz, a resident of Dolev in the Binyamin region of the Shomron, wrote in the most recent edition of B'Sheva:
Mintz emphasized the fact that the Jewish towns in Gush Katif and northern Gaza were not built on Arab land, and that the State of Israel's "terrible act of throwing out its sons" can still be rectified:
Respected journalists from Yediot Acharonot and Haaretz have written that re-occupying Gaza is the only solution - lending an air of "political correctness" to the simultaneous ideological call by settlement leaders and Gush Katif expellees to return to Gush Katif.
The reasons advanced for reoccupation by the various elements are, to be sure, not identical. Military affairs correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai, writing for Yediot Acharonot last week (May 17), explained that it is based solely on security considerations:
"Israel's key problem at this point in time is the violent anarchy reigning in the Palestinian arena," Ben-Yishai wrote. "Even if Israel chooses to undertake drastic measures such as cutting off electricity and water from Gaza residents, while indiscriminately bombing launch sites, there would still be no one on the Palestinian side able to stop the Kassam attacks. The only thing that will happen is that Israel will face condemnation and be isolated in international public opinion."
"Under current circumstances," Ben-Yishai continued, "one consideration must guide the Israeli government: How do we prevent casualties among western Negev residents as a result of Kassam attacks, and how do we thwart the digging of tunnels by the Palestinians and a worse situation in the future as a result of Hamas' rapid strengthening? The most effective and virtually only modus operandi to achieve these objectives is an occupation of wide sections of the Gaza Strip."
"Once the IDF controls most Gaza territory, it will be able, in conjunction with the General Security Service (Shabak), to gather intelligence information and apply it in anti-terror operations while proceeding to destroy terror infrastructures. Meanwhile, the digging of a seawater tunnel would curb the smuggling through Gaza's Philadelphi route."
Ben-Yishai added that limited aerial and ground operations would not curb Kassam rockets, would draw terrorist fire and endanger Israeli troops, and would end with international pressure upon Israel. Instead, "a very large military force [is] required to stay in the Strip for many months... The question is whether the Olmert government will continue to deal with political survival and endless 'assessment sessions,' or whether it will finally start to act practically."
Similarly, on the same day, correspondent Avi Issacharoff penned a piece for Haaretz entitled, "No Other Solution For Gazans But Israeli Occupation." Explaining that Fatah has been left without strong leadership and is headed for a military defeat at the hands of Hamas, "the Gazans are repeating one clear message: only Israeli occupation will save them. There is no other solution on the horizon."
These calls were somewhat encouraging to people like Adi Mintz, a former Director of the Yesha Council [Council of Jewish Communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza], who was in the midst of publicizing his own call for a return to Gaza.
Mintz, a resident of Dolev in the Binyamin region of the Shomron, wrote in the most recent edition of B'Sheva:
"...Jacob was unable to be comforted for the loss of his son Joseph, because one cannot be comforted for the loss of someone who is actually alive... We, too, are unable to be comforted over the loss of Gush Katif for two reasons: Because we know that we will return, and also - just like in the case of Jacob and Joseph - because the crime was committed against us by our own brothers.This will show the Arabs, Mintz explained, that "they cannot defeat us, that this is our land, and that only we have the rights to it."
"For 19 years, the survivors of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion [destroyed and captured by the Jordanians in 1948 - ed.] would go up to a hilltop overlooking Gush Etzion, and see the lone oak tree there. That tree became a symbol of the longed-for return... and Kfar Etzion became the first town to be rebuilt by Israel after the liberation of Judea and Samaria during the Six Day War...
"More and more journalists and former IDF generals who supported the Disengagement now regret it, and admit that it was a strategic mistake - the rotten fruits of which we ate in the war in Gaza and in Lebanon. A strategic mistake can be rectified only by another strategic move: Returning to Gush Katif.
"Such a move might seem, at present, detached from reality. However, with the IDF apparently preparing for a major offensive in Gaza, and with the government seemingly waiting only for Kassam deaths before acting, the return to Gush Katif is the only answer."
Mintz emphasized the fact that the Jewish towns in Gush Katif and northern Gaza were not built on Arab land, and that the State of Israel's "terrible act of throwing out its sons" can still be rectified:
"The public is still in the throes of the earthquake of last summer's war, and is open to new conceptions. The call and demand to return to Gush Katif is moral and just, on the one hand, and is a strategic necessity, on the other hand...
"Together with the 'Homesh First' people [who are leading a campaign to return to the Disengagement-destroyed town of Homesh in the Shomron - ed.], we must broaden the scope of the struggle to include also a struggle to win over the public's soul. This is the time to join forces and to wage a campaign that will keep the idea of a return to both Homesh and Gush Katif in the public consciousness. Even if we don't succeed in the short run, this type of struggle has supreme importance for the long run."