Our World: Calling Israel's bluff
Caroline Glick , THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 1, 2008

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Hamas and its international collaborators have a new plan. To forcibly end
Israel's embargo of Gaza's seacoast, they intend to operate a "ferry"
service that will sail from Cyprus to Gaza every couple of weeks. The plan
was announced on Friday by American Hamas collaborator Paul Larudee. Larudee
and 32 other Hamas collaborators from North America and Europe disguised
themselves as "peace activists" last week as they ran the gauntlet of
Israel's naval blockade in a bid to facilitate Hamas's unfettered access to
the high seas.

Israel is fully cognizant of what these Hamas collaborators are up to. It
knows they are trying to force the country to concede its vital interest in
maintaining the blockade to prevent massive quantities of heavy weaponry
from being brought into Iran's Hamas-controlled enclave. Israel understands
what is at stake. But it has absolutely no idea how to contend with this new
challenge. Speaking to The Jerusalem Post over the weekend, defense
officials said that they have no policy for contending with additional ships
in international waters that set sail for Gaza with the declared aim of
ending Israel's blockade of the coastline.

The Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government claims that its handling of last
week's blockade runners was successful. By allowing the ships to sail to
Gaza and then return to Cyprus, the government argues that it averted a
public relations trap that Hamas and its collaborators set for it. Had
Israel interdicted the ships, they argue, Hamas and its allies on board
would have been able to demonize Israel by accusing it of preventing
humanitarian aid from getting through to suffering Hamas supporters and
regime officials in Gaza.

While Israel's decision to capitulate rather than defend its interests did
in fact avert bad headlines, that success should be a comfort to no one. For
Israel's decision to permit the ships to sail to and from Gaza exposed two
of the government's most egregious and devastating strategic failings.

IN STANDING down in the face of Hamas's high seas challenge, Israel
demonstrated yet again that it prefers to capitulate rather than pay a price
to defend its vital interests. And Israel's readiness to surrender came as
no surprise to either Hamas or its European and North American agents. They
have watched for three years as Israel has taken no action to end Hamas's
use of Gaza's border with Egypt to smuggle sufficient quantities of advanced
weaponry into the area to transform Gaza from a tactical nuisance into a
strategic threat to southern Israel. Through its refusal to launch a
military operation to retake control over Gaza's international border,
Israel has daily demonstrated its unwillingness to fight to secure its vital
interests of ending Iranian encroachment on its borders, and weakening with
the intent of overthrowing the Hamas regime in Gaza. Knowing this, Hamas and
its international collaborators rightly assumed that Israel would similarly
take no action to prevent their access to the high seas.

The blockade runners were also quick to capitalize on was Israel's other
major failing: Its consistent refusal to recognize and contend with the role
of international collaborators in advancing the Palestinian war effort
against it. Hamas's international allies knew that Israel would take no
action against the ships because they have watched for years as Israel has
capitulated to their colleagues who challenge the IDF in support of
Palestinian terrorists in Judea and Samaria. They saw for instance in the
weeks leading up to their decision to set sail to Gaza that the
Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government has preferred to humiliate and court
martial IDF commanders operating against terror collaborators in Ni'ilin
rather than formulate a coherent information and law enforcement strategy
against them.

Since 2001, international groups posing as peace activists and human rights
champions have enjoyed generous funding of European governments as they have
violently challenged IDF counter-terror operations in Judea, Samaria and
Gaza. Operating under the aegis of groups like the International Solidarity
Movement, the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions, Anarchists Against
the Wall, Rabbis for Human Rights and other EU-funded anti-Israel groups,
these terror collaborators have actively engaged in criminal behavior to
thwart lawful IDF actions.

They have illegally entered closed military zones. They have illegally
interfered with IDF operations. They have worked openly with Palestinian
terror masters including Marwan Barghouti and Ismail Haniyeh. In so doing,
these groups have been fully integrated into the Palestinian information war
against Israel which itself is a vital component of the overall Palestinian
war effort against Israel.

Far from acting to expose these criminals as terror collaborators, and then
targeting their European governmental financiers, outlawing them, and
arresting, imprisoning or deporting their members, Israel has not even tried
to challenge their false self-identification as "peace activists." In
surrendering the war of words to its adversaries, Israel has facilitated
their war efforts against it. In legitimizing Hamas's international allies,
Israel has ensured that as they have promised, they will expand their use of
blockade running ships to enable Hamas's free access to the high seas.

The terror-enabling ships' successful challenge of the government
demonstrated once again that under the Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government,
Israel's deterrent capacity has utterly collapsed. In international affairs,
deterrence is the only truly effective way to prevent war. Deterrence is
predicated on a state's ability and willingness to credibly threaten its
adversaries' vital interests if its own are endangered. Under the
Olmert-Livni-Barak-Yishai government, Israel's deterrence has collapsed
because the government freely dispenses threats that it has no intention of
carrying through. Rather than frighten its enemies and so convince them to
relent in their attacks against the country, Israel's reckless recourse to
empty threats under the current government has emboldened them and so placed
the country in ever greater jeopardy.

THIS ABYSMAL and dangerous state of affairs was fully in evidence with the
government's decision last week to tell the local media that it had just
"reached a strategic decision" not to permit Iran to acquire nuclear
weapons. Showing again its contempt for Israel's empty sloganeering, Iran
announced it has finished installing 4,000 uranium enriching centrifuges at
its Natanz nuclear facility, that it is preparing an additional 3,000
centrifuges for use, and that it has armed Hizbullah with long range
missiles.

In light of our enemies' open contempt for the government's continued use of
empty threats it is clear that far from preventing war, the government's
continued utilization of threats actually increases the likelihood of war.
The question that necessarily arises then is why is the government still
making threats that its enemies do not believe?

THE ANSWER to that central question was provided on Sunday morning at the
government's weekly meeting. That meeting was dominated by statements by
Kadima ministers who are running to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in
this month's party leadership race. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni,
Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, and Internal Security Minister Avi
Dichter all outdid one another in their criticisms of Olmert's last ditch
bid to conclude and accord with Palestinian Authority figurehead Mahmoud
Abbas that will commit Israel to surrender Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to
the Hamas-dominated PA before he leaves office.

Their criticisms of Olmert were shocking for what they say about the
fundamental cynicism of Kadima's would-be leaders. After all, in his
feverish attempts to strike his deal with Abbas, Olmert is simply
discharging the policies that all of them have repeatedly signed off on.
Indeed, Livni has chaired Israel's negotiating team, and Mofaz and Dichter,
like Shas leader Eli Yishai have repeatedly supported Olmert's and Livni's
efforts in the face of outspoken criticism from Likud.

The cynicism of Kadima's would-be leaders exposes the actual target audience
of the government's wholly discredited threats against Israel's enemies.
That audience is not Israel's enemies, but the Israeli people. The
government knows full well that none of Israel's enemies take its threats
seriously. Between Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas, Fatah and their international
collaborators, not a day goes by when Israel's bluff isn't called. The
government makes those threats not because it actually intends to defend the
country, but because it wants us all to believe that it will defend the
country despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

BUT BEYOND that, the criticisms that Olmert's own Kadima colleagues launched
Sunday against the policies he is advancing with their full support and
participation tells us two fundamental truths about the nature of the
Israeli public.

First, it shows us that Kadima's leaders understand that in advancing the
cause of capitulation to the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem,
they are acting against the wishes not only of the general public, but of
their own party members. Livni, Mofaz and Dichter are vying for the support
of some 70,000 Kadima members who alone have the right to vote in their
primaries. By attacking Olmert for carrying out capitulationist policies
they themselves have supported, they are signaling that they understand that
those policies are opposed not only by their political opponents, but by
their political supporters.

The second fundamental fact that their condemnations of Olmert exposes is a
troubling one. While Livni, Mofaz and Dichter - like Yishai - understand
that Israel's enemies are unmoved by their protestations of readiness to
protect the country - they all believe that Kadima members and the Israeli
public as a whole are willing to believe their cynical lies. And the polls
seem to back them up. Despite the Kadima-Labor-Shas government's systematic
destruction of Israel's deterrent capacity, public opinion polls show that
one in five Israelis still intend to vote for Kadima in the next elections.
Shas's support has not been significantly degraded since the last elections.
As for the Labor party, its recent fall in the polls is due to the exposure
of a new corruption scandal surrounding Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his
wife, not to Barak's facilitation of Hamas's entrenchment in Gaza. Although
Likud still leads Kadima in the polls, the Right's projected parliamentary
majority is a narrow one.

The Kadima ministers' cynical manipulation of public opinion so prominently
on display on Sunday morning together with the utter collapse of Israel's
deterrent capacity makes clear the Right's central political challenge
today. Likud Chairman Binyamin Netanyahu and his allies must convince the
public to call the government's bluff, just as Israel's enemies have. Until
the public stops its habit of believing wholly discredited threats and
declarations on the part of the government, the incompetent politicians
scuttling Israel's national security will continue their failed policies.
Moreover, they will stand a chance of winning the public's trust to continue
on this disastrous course for years to come.