Sderot

Sderot, a town of 20,000 people in the Negev, has become infamous as the
nearest Israeli town to Gaza that is within range of the Kassam rockets.
Today there will be a strike and a day of mourning in the town for the many
casualties they have taken in the past year or so of the continuing violent
intifada. There will also be a march by townspeople to the Gaza border to
protest the continuing onslaught of rockets. There is even talk of
evacuating Sderot, a major undertaking.
Yesterday the terrorists upped the ante by shooting dozens of mortars into
the Gaza settlements and rockets into Sderot. In Sderot, where they were
burying two inhabitants who were murdered in the attack on the Karni
crossing, Dror Gezri (31) and Ofer Tiri (23), two children were badly
injured, a brother and sister. In the settlement of Netzarim a child lost
his hand, and is clinging to life.
The terrorists want to maintain their attacks to provoke an Israeli
reaction, thus preventing Abbas from effectively calling for a ceasefire
while the Palestinians are under attack. But, Israel cannot afford to sit
by while the terrorists are given a free hand. Abbas has plenty of forces
under his control to stop the mortar/rocket attacks but chooses not to do
so, and if he leaves it to Israel to do that, then the IDF must act.
The TV (CNN, BBC) are playing the story with their usual pro-Palestinian
slant. Abbas wants peace and the big bad Israelis are preventing that. On
CNN they showed a dramatic film of a Palestinian child injured in the
cross-fire (he probably was throwing stones at an IDF position) while
mentioning that three Israelis were injured today. However, they did not
mention that all three of them were also children. It seems that only
Palestinian children merit media sympathy. Several Palestinians were also
killed in the IDF firing on the gunmen who tried to attack an IDF position
in Gaza near the border with Egypt.
Apparently general feeling in Gaza is building against the terrorists,
because without access through the border crossings Gaza is cut off.
Palestinians cannot go either way, workers are cut off from their jobs in
Israel and therefore from their income, all medicines, food supplies and
everything else is stopped. Palestinians in Egypt cannot return home. The
population suffers, but the terrorist groups don't care as long as they can
score political points against Abbas and military points against Israel,
both at the same time.
One of the main reasons why Sharon wants to evacuate the settlements in Gaza
is because they are untenable from a security pov. Even with a great number
of IDF troops protecting them, with a hostile population surrounding them
and the ability of the terrorists to lob a mortar in whenever they want to
and then just melt away, there is no way that the IDF can effectively
protect the settlers there. It requires a force to patrol the areas close
enough to the settlements from where mortars can be fired, but the IDF
doesn't want to station a permanent force there to do this, and until now
Abbas (who has been in charge of the PA for 2 months) has done nothing to
stop them.
The only solution is to take the settlements out and to free the IDF to
carry out its usual role of defending Israel. At the present time it is
estimated that Hizbollah has been supporting (with training and weapons)
about 70% of the terrorist attacks against Israel. Hizbollah in turn is
supported by Syria and Iran. It is clear that they are trying to
"Lebanonize" the conflict in Gaza and eventually in the West Bank. If they
manage to get enough mortars and rocket launchers into the West Bank the
Israeli situation could change drastically. That is why it is necessary for
the IDF to deal a significant blow to the terrorist organizations before the
withdrawal from Gaza. Either that or a ceasefire must be implemented, but
until now there is no sign of that from Mahmoud Abbas.
Today the PLO once again called for a halt of attacks on Israel (for those
who think it is the "occupation" that causes the violence you might want to
consider why the PLO would say this). But, as the Sharon Government said,
words are not enough, they have been talking about a ceasefire for months
with no effect. It is rumored that Sharon, while giving the IDF a free
hand, is nevertheless holding back a full scale invasion of southern Gaza in
order to give Abbas another chance. But, there is little hope, when the
Egyptians announce that they are in favor of an immediate ceasefire, but
without the use of force against the terrorist organizations. This is a
recipe for failure as before. We will see if Abbas is a new man or is
indeed just Arafat "with a suit and a shave."