What can be done about Sderot? Is there any solution for the Kassams?


It seems that the range of proposed solutions runs the gamut from peace talks with Hamas based on total surrender to terrorism to the erasure of entire Arab towns in Gaza. Are any of these viable?


Ostensibly not. To talk with an enemy who wants to destroy you, as if he might suddenly change his mind and allow you to exist, is, as Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal said, "an insult to my intelligence." It is even immoral, in that providing elbow room to one's lethal enemy leads to his increased ability to murder your compatriots, neighbors

The middle road also does not appear to be working.

and family members.


On the other hand, responding to Kassam rockets by wiping out entire neighborhoods is, at this point in time, questionable both ethically and practically. It is self-evident that whatever sympathies for Israel the world might be able to muster up following a mass-casualty Kassam attack, these will be quickly overridden and forgotten following a "disproportionate" Israeli response.


Yes, we are a "nation that lives alone," and what do we care what the world says, etc. Many of us sincerely believe that, but the question is whether our present government believes it. In actuality, the government, and possibly much of the country, very much cares what the world says, and will therefore allow itself to be cowed - leading to its consent to even more dangerous concessions. Thus, such a response under current conditions is not tenable.


The middle road also does not appear to be working. Aerial attacks here and there, minor electricity reductions, the closing of Gaza crossings - all these are continually being implemented, and we see the results: more and more Kassams.


Yet, there is one approach that has not been tried - something not in the realm of this or that action. A simple announcement will do the trick.


The government must simply resolve and declare officially (as many of its members have already said unofficially), that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was a mistake, that it will do everything it can to rectify the consequences of this error, and that in any event it has no intention of repeating this blunder in Judea and Samaria.


Such a declaration will have the effect of neutralizing the "supportive wind to terrorism" - in the words of former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon prior to the expulsion - that the Disengagement provided. It will place the terrorists on notice that their actions, far from being the prelude to yet another Israeli withdrawal, and far from bringing closer to fruition their dream of erasing Israel, are actually futile. Their rocket-launching squads will no longer be able to assume the heroic air they now take on, and the prospect of being killed in the process of firing rockets at Israel

Everyone likes to be on the winning team.

will no longer be as attractive or valiant.


In short, everyone likes to be on the winning team. Once Israel puts Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Palestinian society in general on notice that the momentum is no longer theirs, and that Israel has no intention of running away from any more of its homeland, their sails will droop from lack of wind. The momentum and high morale will be ours.


The war is not only one of rockets, nor even of words. It is rather a war of intentions, a war of commitment, a war of ideals. When Israel once again shows that it knows where it's going - and even more importantly, where it's no longer going - half the battle will have been won.


"Let it be clear," Ehud Olmert will say, "we were mistaken when we quit Gaza. We will not make that mistake again." May this happen soon.