The coming year

On Friday morning (erev Yom Kippur) a young woman, Tifferet Trattner, 24,
was killed in her home in the settlement of Neve Dekalim in the Gaza Strip.
One of many mortar shells fired from Khan Yunis penetrated her house and
exploded in her living room, killing her and injuring another woman. In
response the IDF last night went into Khan Yunis and destroyed 35 houses,
most of them uninhabited, along a strip from where the mortars were fired.
This kind of exchange is expected to heat up as the terrorist groups try to
claim that they forced the IDF to leave, while the IDF seeks to show that
they are leaving voluntarily.
An Israeli women's group that is in favor of Disengagement from Gaza calls
it the "Death Strip" and issued a statement that this death shows that the
removal of Israeli settlers from Gaza is urgent. And indeed there is very
little defense against these short range weapons that can be fired from
anywhere. It is very likely that in the coming year Sharon's Disengagement
Plan will be implemented, and the 18 or so settlements in Gaza will
gradually be abandoned. However, the inhabitants of the Strip have repeated
their intention of resisting the withdrawal. So we can predict that the
coming year will be a difficult one for Israel with the disengagement going
ahead against a background of civil unrest.
Perhaps the most dangerous situation for Israel is the continuing
development by Iran of enriched uranium, of a kind that is really only
appropriate for nuclear weapons. This week the Iranian FM repeated that Iran
has the right to develop enriched uranium and will continue do so, but only
for peaceful purposes. Hands up those who believe him (not many hands go
up). In his speech at the UN FM Silvan Shalom spent a lot of time pointing
out the danger of Iran developing atomic weapons, and the US has also
acknowledged this publicly. A news item that the US is selling Israel a
batch of heavy advanced bombs, including so-called bunker busters that can
hit concrete bunkers buried up to 20 feet below ground, was obviously meant
to give the Iranians a message. They have responded by saying that any
attack from Israel would be met with a strong military reaction. Can the EU
or UN help to head off this potential conflict? I think not. So you have
the makings of a major possible conflict within about 4-6 months. Let us
hope that our armed forces are able and prepared to meet this challenge.
In the coming year as in the past our enemies unfortunately will not stop
until they have the means and capability to destroy us.
A lot will depend on the outcome of the US election. If Bush is elected the
US may well tacitly support Israel in its attempts to take out the Iranian
nuclear sites. With US forces on both sides of Iran (in Afghanistan and
Iraq) the Iranians might well be restrained from taking offensive action.
So the presence of US forces in Iraq (although spread out) also has a
strategic reason. But, if Kerry is elected, basically on an anti-war
ticket, he is unlikely to have any intention of tackling Iran, a far tougher
nut than Iraq. So the coming year may be a dangerous time for us all.