Surprise, surprise

The surprise was not that Hamas lobbed 50 shells into Jewish settlements in
Gaza yesterday contrary to the ceasefire agreed at Sharm-al-Sheikh, that
could have been predicted. The surprise was that PA Pres. Abbas responded
by firing 25 top officers in the PA security forces, including the top two
Generals in Gaza. Arafat never did that. Abbas' office issued a statement
that he expected his security forces to enforce the ceasefire. Now he has
the opportunity to replace these men with his own loyalists, who hopefully
will obey his orders. Also, today he is going to Gaza to meet with Hamas
and Islamic Jihad to read them the riot act. He said he expected them to
honor the informal agreement he had with them to stop attacks, and hopefully
he will be able to persuade them that he means business.
Clearly this significant and immediate breakdown of the ceasefire was not
mainly aimed at Israel but was aimed at Abbas. They are testing his ability
to command the security forces and to confront them. There was also a
break-in into the main Gaza jail in which a group of gunmen abducted three
inmates awaiting trial, killed two of them and took the third to a Gaza camp
where they executed him in the street and then drove his body around in a
truck for an hour for people to see. This is precisely the kind of
break-down of law and order and thugocracy that Abbas was elected to stop.
Unless he asserts his authority as sole elected leader of the Palestinians,
the PA will continue to be a lawless and ungovernable place, one that noone
could make peace with.
The IDF was ordered not to respond to the attacks, and luckily, although
property damage was done, no one was killed. If someone had been killed that
might have changed the situation. Hamas used as an excuse the fact that a
Palestinian man had been shot near the fence of one of the settlements.
But, they routinely use this excuse by sending a child, a woman (often one
who has been accused of infidelity) or a man (who is "mentally retarded")
directly towards an IDF post in broad daylight. They know the person will
be shot. They also have their rockets and mortars ready to fire. Of
course, the BBC implied that it was Israel that had first broken the
ceasefire.
A few months ago in a similar incident an IDF officer was arrested after two
soldiers accused him of "emptying" his pistol into a 13 year old girl after
she had been shot down while walking directly towards an IDF post. This was
quoted in the media as an example of Israeli inhumanity. It now turns out
that this was a complete fabrication concocted by the two soldiers because
they had a dispute with the officer, who was new and whom they regarded as
being too strict. They tried to get him replaced by complaining about him,
and when that did not work they used this incident where the girl was killed
to fabricate this story. Discrepancies appeared in their stories and
finally one then the other confessed. So don't believe everything you read
that is anti-Israel, even when it comes from Israeli sources. The officer
has been released, reinstated and is once again trying to raise the level of
discipline in his unit.
So for now the ceasefire is considered to be holding, notwithstanding this
major attack. Now the Israeli Government, the IDF and all of us are waiting
to see what transpires from Abbas' meeting with the rejectionists. If they
actually kowtow to him, and respect the ceasefire, that will be a victory
for him. If they still maintain that they are not covered by the ceasefire
then we are still in for further attacks. In the final analysis he could
crack down on them, he does after all have at least 30,000 security forces
at his disposal. Arafat always maintained that he could not crack down on
terrorism because the IDF had destroyed his forces, but miraculously they
have reappeared on the scene. Now Israel has to give Abbas the opportunity
to work this situation out, otherwise it will be up to the IDF again to do
the work of the PA security forces.