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Tuesday, September 12, 2006

One Year Ago Today: IDF closed gates to Gaza.

If you want to understand how Israel and the IDF fought in the Lebanon War last month and declared their cease-fire without meeting a single objective -- all you need to do is analyze what was said a year ago -- to see how Israel and the IDF backpedaled on everything they promised.

IDF Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz:

The day after the withdrawal, the IDF is maintaining high alert, fearing a renewal in fighting. The chief-of-staff guaranteed a “harsh response and zero tolerancein any such event. (Ynetnews)

Defense Minister (then) Shaul Mofaz:

Now that the IDF left the Gaza Strip, Israel will no longer show tolerance to Qassam rocket attacks on Israeli targets, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz says.

Mofaz, who arrived at Gaza’s Karni crossing to bid farewell to the Strip, turned to the Palestinians and called on them to “create a new reality in the Gaza Strip and in Judea and Samaria, in order for us to be able to advance to a reality of peaceful coexistence.”

"We won’t be willing to accept, under any circumstances, any kind of terror coming from the Gaza Strip following the very significant step undertaken by Israel," he said. (Ynetnews)

IDF Southern Command, General Dan Harel:

"One Qassam rocket on the day after [we leave Gaza] will be viewed by us as the Palestinians not fulfilling their obligations. We do not plan on searching after terrorists or [terror] organizations, but demand responsibility from the Palestinian Authority. For every [terror] incident [from Gaza] there will be a retaliatory one. The one responsible will be the Palestinian Authority" (translated from Hebrew article in NRG)

Ask any kid in Sederot what he thinks of a politician's promise these days.

Hundreds of Qassams later, Katyusha rockets in Ashkelon, a kidnapped soldier from Kerem Shalom -- why did it take close to a year for Israel to retaliate?

Had Israel actually kept it's word that it would take security seriously, I doubt we would be in the current mess, or that IDF soldier Gilad Shalit would be in captivity today.

In fact, the whole war in the North would have probably been avoided.

The following video recounts how many times we've left Gaza...and returned.


(hat-tip: BoneCrusher)

We will return.




Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael

6 comments:

  1. Oy, Hashem. We love you so much and we love your precious gift of Eretz Yisrael so much. Help us go back again.

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  2. If you recall, Sharon also said there would be no Expulsion under fire.

    Yet as we both know, heard and saw for ourselves, the Palestinians were freely dropping Kassams on the Settlements at the end (perhaps at the beginning to, but I was too busy getting caught (and arrested) when I snuck in the first few times).

    I think it was rather [can't think of the word here] that the soldiers we met in Gaza were scared when they heard the kassams fall near us, as they had never been under any sort of missile fire before - and wanted to hide inside the house (slated for destruction) for cover.

    Nor did they have an answer when we asked them why the expulsion was still going on if Kassams were falling on us.

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  3. That was an amazing video. Thank you for sharing it.

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  4. They've been on one agenda, and it's not a good one, ever since they signed their coalition pact.
    http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2006/09/its-matter-of-priorities.html

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  5. if it makes you feel any better, is seems that al jazeera is planning to launch an english-language station. see http://dontbomb.blogspot.com/2006/08/aljazeera-english.html

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  6. Great post - I agree 100% - Had we responded as we should have done the day we pulled out we would not be in this sittuation that we are today - unfortunatly 1 year later and the same ppl are controlling our country and we can't even get a Va'adat Chakira going on War in the North Disaster! And instead of going and forcing it on the Govt. most of us are sitting idley doing nothing about it (I admit to being one of them)!

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