May 18, 2007

Qassams Continue to Land on Sderot, Israel Attempts to find a Strategy to Respond

Sderot has been described tonight as a ghost town.  Whoever can has left, and rockets continue to rain on the city.  Small miracles today kept the attacks from becoming very deadly.  Israeli television showed a clip today from a security camera.  It showed one minute a mother and her three children strolling across the intersection, a moment later a large gas truck goes through the intersection, and than less than a minute later, a Qassam lands.
 
The air force has been given the go ahead to attack any Hamas target in Gaza and it is doing so.  Will it be effective? The actions are unlikely to have a major impact.  The army has made it clear that it does not have a solution to Qassams, short of a very large operation taking and keeping control of the Gaza Strip, something it recommends against. 
 
Today Dan Margalit suggested that if there are going to be Jewish refugees in Israel, there should be Palestinian refugees in Gaza.  I am not sure that is the answer, but at the moment nobody there are not any others. There are four necessary steps to taking a major action in Gaza: 1) a provocation, which Israel has 2) support of the country, something which is not fully there but possible 3) support of the world, again Israel does not have it yet, but can possible get it 4) an exit strategy which will solve what happens the day after Israeli troops take over Gaza.  Number four is quite problematic and is probably the main reason actions have yet to be taken.