Weekly Commentary: DM Barak wrong – security situation not unavoidable

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 14 April 2011

If DM Ehud Barak wants to imply that the Israelis living near Gaza are a
bunch of crybabies, as he seemed to say in his interview on Israel Radio
this week, that’s his business.

But he has no right to claim that the situation is almost an unavoidable
norm.

Barak argued that there were rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza even before
Israel retreated with the clear implication that some level of terror was
inevitable.

Let’s not even get into a numbers game comparing pre and post retreat data
(though the situation has worsened).

Ehud Barak might have had some kind of point if the IDF had been truly
deployed to control the Gaza Strip before the retreat. But that was hardly
the case.

A simple illustration: Probably the most common response of the IDF to a
significant security incident in the years before the retreat was to
temporarily set up inspection points at key places on the roads passing from
the Sinai border area up to Gaza City. For a few days weapons, ammunition,
explosives and other contraband smuggled in from Egypt could not make it
very far into the Gaza Strip thanks to the inspections. But then, almost as
quickly as the security incident was forgotten, the security measures were
lifted and the terror highway bounced back into operation.

No.

The security situation was anything but inevitable.

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
Website: http://www.imra.org.il