Weekly Commentary: What will Israel do when the Palestinians renew their
rocket attacks?

Aaron Lerner Date: 18 August 2005

What will Israel do when the Palestinians renew their rocket attacks?

Even an Israel Government Television interview show host ridiculed Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz for proclaiming that Israel would respond with truly
decisive action.

Some critics have claimed that if the IDF put as much thought into defeating
Palestinian rocket launching teams as it did into its plan to expel the Jews
residing in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria that the Sderot border town
would have long ago been rid of the threat of Qassams.

It would be unfair to claim that the IDF hasn't devoted an enormous number
of man hours on the Palestinian challenge.

It has.

But the Israeli planners comes doubly handicapped into the problem: a
tendency to underestimate the ability of the Palestinians to manipulate
situations to their advantage and the ideologically driven belief of the
Israeli Left that essentially all of Israel's problems with the Arabs would
evaporate if the Jewish state would simply withdraw to the '67 line.

The Israeli tendency to underestimate the ability of the Arabs to manipulate
situations to their advantage (human shields, international pressure, etc.)
can readily lead to overly simplistic plans. At the same time, the belief
that retreat to the '67 lines will yield utopian peace serves to relieve the
planners from the pressure to come up with truly viable solutions.

In the absence of serious thinking and planning on Israel's part, the
projected renewal of the Palestinian war of attrition could very well push
Israel into a downward spiral of territorial concessions to the point that
her indefensible borders entice her neighbors to disgorge this "foreign
object" from the Arab sea.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il