COS Halutz: Classroom of kids almost murdered by rocket doesn't matter since
no deaths?

[IMRA: A week ago a classroom full of kids in Sderot were not killed when a
rocket made a direct hit on the classroom because the kid's morning prayers,
held in another room, ran a minute late.

If the terrorists had waited another 90 seconds Halutz would not have been
able to proclaim that "The main parameter is that there have not been any
Israelis killed since we left Gaza" because there would have been a score
dead.

Again: the reason "there have not been any Israelis killed since we left
Gaza" isn't because the IDF succeeded in stopping the rockets. It doesn't
reflect some logic in the retreat. It only reflects the simply fact that
morning prayers ran a minute longer than usual at a Sderot school that day.

Dan Halutz used to be in the Air Force. In the IAF a near miss is treated
with the same severity as the real thing. A pilot who recklessly almost
hits another jet can find himself facing the same investigation and
consequences as a pilot who crashes.

But now Halutz is part of the regular IDF (and in many respects a vocal
politician) and near misses are just another soon to be forgotten blip on
the newswire.]

Security and Defense: Halutz says Islamists are rising
David Horovitz and Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 1, 2006
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1148482085834&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
....
Q: Did our withdrawal from Gaza strengthen Hamas?

Chief of staff, Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz: We need to decide which parameters to
check that question against. Hamas would have won even if we had not left
Gaza. The main parameter is that there have not been any Israelis killed
since we left Gaza. This is not [necessarily] the main consideration but
this is a fact. Since we left there have only been two Bedouin kids killed
after picking up a mortar shell.

Before we left Gaza there were some 30 civilians and soldiers killed a year.
Now there are more Kassams fired than when we were in Gaza - less now than
in the beginning, but more than when we there. We do not have responsibility
over Gaza and our freedom of operation there has increased and we know how
to use more resources for a longer time against the Palestinians. We also
have wider international tolerance. One example of our freedom of operation
is artillery fire, which was not used when we were in the Gaza Strip. We
also did not allow sonic booms since this would have affected the [civilian]
Israelis and soldiers there.