IN GAZA PALESTINIANS ARE STILL SHOOTING

Tuesday -- Gaza cease-fire talk


The pressure is on for another Egyptian-brokered Gaza cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas. A bad arrangement would further consolidate Hamas's control over the Strip, leave Gilad Schalit in captivity, throw open the crossing points, and allow for the continued smuggling of ever-more lethal armaments under the Philadelphi Corridor. On the plus side, it would deliver southern Israel from enemy bombardment - give or take the occasional "unauthorized" barrage - for about a year.

While Israel has been funneling tens of thousands of tons of humanitarian goods into Gaza - earmarked for UNRWA, the World Food Program, the World Health Organization and others; along with truckloads of diesel fuel and cooking gas - the Palestinians have "supplied" Israel with deadly cross-border ambushes and fusillades of rockets and mortars. Hamas explains that in the absence of a formal cease-fire, it will do nothing to hinder other "resistance groups."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insists that Israel "will not go back to the rules of the game" which prevailed prior to Operation Cast Lead. But it sure does look that way: Aggression from Gaza is met with Israeli airstrikes, tit-for-tat. Citizens in the south are again having to calculate whether it is safe to walk their children 30 meters to kindergarten, or more prudent to drive.

Our leaders - eight days from national elections - are talking tough, though at cross-purposes. Hamas is taking no chances; its key operatives are back in hiding.

The debate over whether the war ended "too soon" is being answered in the affirmative every time an insolent Hamas violates the interim cease-fire.

Arab media reports say that a tahadiyeh, or temporary truce, could kick in as early as Thursday if, in Hamas's words, Israel stops "torpedoing" Egyptian efforts.

WHAT kind of cease-fire would benefit Israel's interests? A one-year hiatus in Kassam and mortar attacks in return for lifting the "siege" is a bad idea. Been there, done that.

A good deal would give Israel a buffer zone between it and the Strip. It would provide for tight control over the crossing points from Egypt, and from Israel, into Gaza. Our security is dependent on effective monitoring by reliable parties of who comes in and goes out, and what material is brought into the Strip.

An effective deal would have Egypt genuinely securing its side of the border; and we may be starting to see this happening. Lately, Egyptian authorities have exploded several tunnels on their side; and with outside support (under international pressure), they've installed security cameras and sensors. Cairo is taking advice from US engineers on how to interdict the tunnels, and they've deployed better-motivated, better-trained personnel.

While the main responsibility for security along the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah crossing necessarily falls on Cairo - it must ensure that terrorists and money for terror do not routinely flow into the Strip - Western-trained Palestinian Authority personnel, accompanied by EU monitors, should be on the Gaza side.

Under no circumstances should the crossings be opened, beyond humanitarian aid, until Hamas frees Gilad Schalit in an exchange Israeli security officials can live with. So far, Hamas has not budged from its demand that Israel release 1,000 handpicked inmates involved in some of the most monstrous bloodbaths of the second intifada. This must not happen.

For a viable cease-fire, it's clear the Palestinians need to put their house in order. But the PA and Hamas remain in violent confrontation.

The reconstruction of Gaza is also dependent on Palestinian reconciliation. Donors should insist that the Palestinians drop their opposition to a genuine rebuilding of the territory that does away with the refugee camps and squalid townships. But for the Palestinian predilection to wallow in victimization, Gaza could today be a Singapore on the Mediterranean.

ISRAEL'S outgoing cabinet must not allow itself to be stampeded into a bad cease-fire deal. The harsh reality may be that once a new government is formed, it will find it necessary to order the IDF to retake and hold the Philadelphi Corridor, along with parts of northern Gaza.

If the Arab world and the international community don't want that to happen, now is the time for them to lean on Hamas.
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“Allah Akbar” in London UPDATE

I've removed the link that Tom Gross sent out in good faith and which I posted here which showed Muslim extremists rioting in central London.

The footage was real as best as I can tell. But the link delivered my browsers to the site of the British National Party. Oi vey. Apologies for any offense.

Turkey & Israel after Operation Cast Lead

Monday -- Turkey: The longer view


In considering the Israel-Turkey relationship, Israelis have reason to feel let down by the behavior of the Turkish government and people. From the start of Operation Cast Lead on December 27, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been on a diplomatic rampage. His words - coupled with the unbalanced media coverage prevalent worldwide - incited the Turkish masses into an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish frenzy. Turkish leaders declared that Israel was committing atrocities against Gaza and would be punished by Allah.

Israel's Ankara embassy has been in a virtual security lock-down. Turkish basketball fans chanted "Death to the Jews" during a recent match against Bnei Hasharon. Signs in Anatolia declare: "No Armenians or Jews. Dogs OK."

In the latest outrage, Erdogan stormed off the stage in Davos after shouting, "You are killing people" at President Shimon Peres; he was welcomed home as "The Conqueror of Davos."

No wonder Israeli tourists - over 500,000 in 2008 - are staying away.

The 25,000-member Turkish Jewish community doesn't have that luxury.

Anti-Jewish prejudice is endemic. The Izmir synagogue has been vandalized; anti-Jewish posters in Istanbul urge patrons to boycott Jewish shops. Jewish schoolchildren felt compelled to stand during a nationwide moment of silence for the Palestinian dead in Gaza.

SO Israelis have good reason to think Turkey has chosen Hamas over Israel, and Iran over the West. But it may not be quite that simple. Turkey, a nation of 71 million people, a quarter under age 25, is too multifaceted to pigeonhole. While its masses are unsophisticated and easily manipulated by demagoguery, key segments among the elite oppose Erdogan's policies.

In the old days the army might have intervened; the generals saw themselves as Turkey's "constitution," charged with defending Kemal Attaturk's legacy in the face of tyranny, governmental incompetence or threats to civil liberties. Paradoxically, as Turkey has moved closer to EU membership - a prospect now on hold - the army's overt role as the system's final arbiter has diminished.

Nowadays the army has pro-Iranian elements, and the Islamist government is suspected of trying to discredit pro-Western generals. The state of play is truly Byzantine.

Erdogan's tirades against Israel have not been uniformly popular, notably in the Western-oriented press. Many in the elite care deeply about Turkey's relationship with Israel. They argue that only 7 percent of Turks are hardcore extremists, but the complicated political system gives them disproportionate influence. They claim the number of anti-Israel demonstrators has been exaggerated and is small in ratio to the population. They point, further, to $6 billion a year in bilateral trade (factoring in military sales); Turkey will take delivery of Israeli-manufactured armed drones next month. The IAF has used Turkish airspace to train, according to foreign press reports.

As for Iran, our friends in the elite explain that Persians and Turks have a long history of animosity, but Turkey needs to import oil and gas from its neighbor.

Beyond all this, the Turkish premier's outbursts are attributable, those friends emphasize, to his strong sense of personal betrayal by Ehud Olmert.

During the prime minister's farewell visit to his Turkish counterpart, Erdogan invested his energies in ironing out a deal for direct talks between Israel and Syria. With Olmert in an adjacent room, he spent hours on the phone with Bashar Assad teasing out a statement that would have led to face-to-face talks. We don't know what price Israel would have been expected to pay for such contact. Nevertheless, before departing for Jerusalem on the eve of the war, Olmert told Erdogan to keep at it.

So when Israel launched its operation mere hours after Olmert's departure, Erdogan was accused by members of his Islamist coalition of "conspiring with the Zionists to betray the Palestinians." If he knew the Gaza operation was imminent, the pro-Israel Turks say, Olmert should have stayed away. With critically important regional elections set for March 29, Erdogan switched tracks - from being tirelessly helpful on Syria to verbally bludgeoning Israel.

CAN the relationship survive Erdogan's term, which expires in 2011? Ankara may well have forfeited its role as honest broker for a long time to come. Still, those who care about the bond between Turkey and Israel want to see relations back on an even keel.

Israel Elections

Friday - Kadima slips

Want to know why the latest polls show Kadima running a solid second behind Likud? It's not because centrist Israelis have suddenly become more hawkish - they've simply lost faith in Kadima as a coherent third way party. Middle Israel no longer trusts it to oversee negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority.

Our prime minister and foreign minister, respectively, have been negotiating with Abbas and Ahmed Qurei since the November 2007 Annapolis conference. By holding continuous bilateral negotiations aimed at concluding a deal by the end of 2008, Annapolis sought to supplant the moribund April 2003 road map.

The road map was a reciprocal arrangement: Israel would freeze all settlements, including "natural growth"; the Palestinians would end violence. But Palestinian terrorism continued unabated, so Israeli leaders had no incentive to freeze settlements. Annapolis was an attempt to leapfrog over the messy problem of noncompliance by going directly to a final status agreement.

Sure enough, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni negotiated energetically with Abbas and Qurei. Thanks to an interview Olmert gave Yediot Aharonot on Rosh Hashana eve (September 29, 2008), and a series of shameless leaks from his office to that tabloid - including one just yesterday - we pretty much know what Kadima has offered the Palestinians: Just about total withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice Lines, the boundaries from which the 1967 war broke out; including east Jerusalem. A settlement freeze has become a moot issue now that Olmert has offered the Palestinians much, much more.

Kadima is reportedly planning to uproot 70,000 Israelis (out of roughly 250,000) living beyond the Green Line. Large settlement blocs like Ma'aleh Adumim, which abuts the capital on the east, would be annexed to Israel. In return, the Palestinians would take possession of an equal amount of land in southern Israel.

Kadima plans to transfer to Palestinian sovereignty Arab neighborhoods which encircle Jerusalem on the east, north and south. Holy places, presumably including the Western Wall and Temple Mount, would be placed in the custody of an international body. A tunnel or bridge would connect the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to provide "Palestine" with territorial contiguity.

Except for refusing to absorb millions of Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendents within the Green Line - thereby having Israel commit national suicide - Olmert has given Abbas just about everything he could hope for.

Livni has criticized Olmert only for breaking his Annapolis oath to negotiate in secrecy.

WHAT fascinates is that Olmert, without addressing in tandem security, has publicized the most far-reaching concessions of any Israeli leader since the territories came into Israeli hands.

This revelation, unaccompanied by explicit assurances that Olmert and Livni have answers to the security dilemmas posed by their momentous territorial withdrawals, will cause many middle-of-the-road Israelis to lose sleep. Those who live or study in areas of Jerusalem slated to become frontline outposts abutting "Palestine" - places such as East Talpiot, Gilo and Mount Scopus - will want to know what this means for them. Those living in Kfar Saba, Hadera, Afula and Arad will also become frontline communities. Similarly, and equally worryingly, Israel's main airport will fall within range of rudimentary, shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles.

It gives us no comfort to hear Livni say "the Palestinians' military capability is not a threat." Perhaps, but it has made life in southern Israel wretched and can make life along the coastal plain and Jerusalem equally miserable.

Given that Israel has found no effective answer to Hamas's aggression from Gaza, does Kadima have a contingency plan, should all of "Palestine" fall to Hamas?

Meanwhile, we find it mind-boggling that Abbas, rather than taking Olmert's concessions to his people, has rejected them out of hand, telling US officials that he is uncompromising on his demand for a total Israeli pullback to the 1949 lines. He also refuses to renounce the "right of return."

Kadima's leaders have reacted to Abbas's intransigence and historic shortsightedness with more blather about the need for Israeli concessions; but not a word of criticism of Abbas.

The 700,000 voters who supported Kadima in the last election still think a deal with the Palestinians is an Israeli interest. They're just not sure Kadima is sufficiently responsible to bring it to fruition.

Iraq's elections. Good Islamists & Bad Ones, And...

Thursday - Obama's Islamist challenge


This Saturday, about 15 million Iraqis will be voting in council races across most of the country's provinces. A nationwide election will follow at the end of 2009. These, together, could determine whether Iraq evolves into the Arab world's first representative democracy, where the majority respects the rights of the minority.

The price for establishing a stable, safe and free Iraq, assuming one eventually emerges, has been staggering. For Americans, maybe $3 trillion; 4,000 soldiers killed and 30,000 wounded. Some 100,000 Iraqis have died - "only" 8,000 in 2008, compared to around 20,000 in 2007. Perhaps two million Iraqis became refugees.

The war was launched in 2003 because of Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction." None were found. Had Saddam been a pro-American autocrat, there is little likelihood he would have been deposed just to promote democracy. Nor has anyone established that Saddam was connected to 9/11, though some Osama bin Laden operatives may have had ties with Iraqi intelligence.

Saddam was a champion of Palestinian extremism, so no one in Israel regrets his exit.

The unintended consequences of Saddam's departure include the chaos and radicalism unleashed in the wake of his downfall, and the regional ascendancy of Iran - Saddam's natural enemy. The war monopolized, even exhausted, American resources, lessening the prospect of US military intervention to stop Teheran from building a nuclear weapon.

During the campaign, candidate Barack Obama promised that within 16 months of taking office he'd redeploy most US troops from Iraq to the Afghan-Pakistan border to do battle with al-Qaida and the resurgent Taliban. In the interim, the Bush administration signed an accord with Iraq to withdraw US troops from population centers by June 2009, and entirely by the end of 2011. Baghdad - incapable of taking full security control of the country and needing US logistical and intelligence support - would not want to phase down any faster, despite ordinary Iraqis' view of the US presence as an "occupation."

The war overthrew Saddam's Sunni ruling clique of Ba'athists, replacing it with a violently fragmented Shi'ite majority. (Shi'ite Arabs comprise about 60 percent of the country, Sunni Arabs between 15-20%, and the remainder are non-Arab - Sunni - Kurds.) With ethnic bloodletting comparatively in check, Saturday's voting, along ethnic lines, will pit various Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish parties against each other. In 2005, the Sunnis boycotted balloting; now even those with one foot in the extremist camp are participating.

IF CONDITIONS in Iraq permit, the Obama administration can focus singlemindedly on the Taliban and the real al-Qaida. The hub of global jihad isn't in Iraq - it is along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Obama clearly appreciates that Muslim extremism flourishes in a toxic environment of deep-seated social, demographic and economic dislocation, where masses who feel disenfranchised are receptive to religious demagogues inciting against the "infidels."

Can the new president undermine global jihad by reaching out directly to Muslim believers? It's worth a try, so we applaud his decision to give his first interview as president, on January 26, to the Al-Arabiya TV station. He told his audience that America's battle was not with ordinary Muslims - indeed, some members of his own family are of the faith - but with "organizations like al-Qaida that espouse violence, espouse terror, and act on it." He said, America is going to hunt down those who "would kill innocent civilians."

Regrettably, in Muslim civilization the leadership choice is not between authentic secularists and religious fanatics, but between violent and non-violent Islamists. So the best Obama can hope to do is help unlink Islam from brutality and drive a wedge between the two Islamist camps. Both, lamentably, favor Shari'a law as a way of life. But "good" Islamists, for instance in Turkey, Iraq, Morocco and Egypt, operate peacefully. Their "fundamentalism lite" is something the West can, at least theoretically, abide.

Yet for such an "unlinking" approach to work, Obama must stick to his principles and show zero tolerance for organizations that "kill innocent civilians."

He might permit talks with Iran; he might allow discreet inquiries into Hamas's policies. But ultimately, as he determines that they, together with Hizbullah, are incorrigible, he must inevitably conclude that Iran, Hamas and Hizbullah - like al-Qaida - need to be defeated.

Gaza wants to go another round

Wednesday - This is the test

While the outside world focuses on "Gaza relief," fretting about Israel's "disproportionate" response to years of Hamas aggression, and treating the inflated civilian casualty figures disseminated by Palestinian authorities as fact, Hamas itself has just signaled it wants to go another round.

Tuesday morning enemy forces crossed our border, detonated a powerful roadside bomb and attacked an IDF patrol near Kissufim. One soldier was killed, another was badly wounded, and several were more lightly hurt.

This is a test. Israel can either respond powerfully, or be satisfied with the kind of tit-for-tat retaliations that preceded Operation Cast Lead. It all depends on whether we consider our border inviolate.

We are tested at an inopportune moment. Elections are upon us and President Barack Obama's envoy is here.

After Israel announced the cease-fire, unknown terrorists shot an Israeli motorist near Ramallah; a mortar barrage struck the Negev; Iranian arms ships kept steaming this way; arms smuggling via tunnels below the Philadelphi Corridor resumed. Hamas continues to loot humanitarian aid, and the Islamists refuse to negotiate sensibly on Gilad Schalit.

What Hamas must do is: stop rearming; stop violating the border and make Israel a reasonable prisoner exchange offer. If Hamas does this, and if a suitable monitoring mechanism can be implemented, the Gaza crossings can be reopened.

But first Hamas must get its second round. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged that if Hamas persisted in violating the border, the IDF would respond.

Now Israel must do what needs to be done. Not because we want to see Palestinians suffer, but because we want normalcy to return to southern Israel.

Hizbullah is watching. The world is watching. For the sake of quiet, Israel must act and shake the ground in Gaza.