(Ha'aretz) Zeev Schiff - It would be a mistake to think the IDF operation in Gaza ended because of diplomatic pressure on Israel. It ended because the IDF thought that it had exhausted its usefulness. The IDF withdrawal is expected to prompt a renewed Palestinian debate over the logic of firing rockets at Israel and whether the price, in Palestinian lives and property, is not too high. According to IDF statistics, 138 Palestinians were killed during the operation, of whom about 80 were armed men involved in the fighting. Of these, about 50 belonged to Hamas. The message to the Palestinians was that there are some things, like rockets being fired at its towns, that a state cannot tolerate. On this issue, there were no arguments from either Cairo or Washington. But since deterrence is unlikely to provide a complete solution in Gaza, the IDF will continue surgical operations to destroy both the infrastructure for making Kassam rockets and the cells that launch them. If this infrastructure is not destroyed, the launches will resume - and eventually spread to the West Bank.
2004-10-18 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive