Oh yeah, and a war broke out in Gaza on the morning I arrived.

Being in Israel during the start of the Gaza war was interesting in a lot of ways. For one thing – and this should come as no surprise – the Israeli press and the international media have nothing much in common.

For another thing, the black-and-white, either-you’re-with-us-or-with-the-terrorists dichotomy that’s so common among the Jewish communities in the diaspora isn’t really the picture on the ground in Israel, where three Israelis in a room will have seventeen opinions.

Certainly, the opinions of the people I know and spent time with during that week ran the gamut, from left-wing to right-wing to in-between to “just shut the news off”. Times like those, I feel it’s usually better to listen than to speak. After all, I’m not the one who lives with the situation, fights in the wars to defend the country, or otherwise has to deal with the consequences of any action or inaction. It’s not that I don’t feel like I have a right to my opinion; it’s more that the situation is more complicated than our black-and-white outsider viewpoint, and much more human. So I did a lot of listening.

The blogosphere has certainly been active, of course. On the left, Lisa Goldman has some of the most important, sensible commentary that nobody wants to hear right now. Which is exactly why you should read it, agree or disagree. I know I’ll get flak for this, but I’m posting it anyway. Actually, that’s probably why I feel the need to post it.

For what is probably a more mainstream perspective, Imshin has been a must-read lately.

Meryl Yourish has had daily round-ups on her blog, for those looking for more frequent updates.

The latest PR tactic on Facebook? QassamCount, a “donate your status” app that updates automatically with the count and location of rockets launched into Israel.

Mostly, my thoughts are for the safety and security of the IDF soldiers on the ground, of the people living in Sderot and Ashkelon and Ashdod and all the other places within range of rocket fire, of civilians on all sides of the conflict, and of everyone who lives with the threats and instability.

Olmert expressed his disappointment, but he has other things on his mind.

Israel didn’t achieve any of its continually-revised objectives.

Get back the kidnapped soldiers? Nope.

Destroy or then weaken Hezbollah? The opposite happened – Hezbollah has been strengthened in popularity among a Lebanese population who largely rejected them before. So much for the naive goals at the start of the war that had Israeli leaders actually believing that the Lebanese citizenry would take up common cause with Israel.

Disarm Hezbollah? On paper, yes. In practice? I don’t think anyone is quite that naive. And with Iran and Syria emboldened, this does not bode well for the near future.

Encourage the Lebanese army to implement 1559 and take control of southern Lebanon? On paper, maybe, but in practice, Saniora has become more of a puppet of Hezbollah than ever before.

Install an effective neutral peacekeeping force as a buffer? Instead of NATO, Israel got stuck once again with a crippled UN force that is more likely to be part of the problem than part of the solution.

World opinion? No comment. Things weren’t good, but then, they were never good on that score even beforehand.

Sure, the Israel cabinet is spinning the cease-fire as good news. What else can they do? But there will be a lot of tough questions being asked in the days ahead.

Israel had no choice: it was attacked and had to respond. But it isn’t always enough to be right. You have to be right, and you have to win.

The good news is, hopefully – hopefully – thousands of Israeli soldiers can come home, and thousands of civilians can return to their homes. In the short term, there’s no doubt that everyone wanted to see an end to this crisis – civilians in Israel and Lebanon alike were paying far too heavy a price. But the long term is worrying.

Pessimism when it comes to the middle east is hard to avoid, and I’m not really in the mood to play silver-lining today.

Allison smells a rat, sensing that not all is as it may seem:

I am waiting patiently for a logical explanation of how a building gets bombed between 12 midnight and 1 AM, remains full of people and then 7-8 hours later, collapses the next morning.

Dave asks the same question:

An IDF investigation has so far found that the building in Qana fell approximately eight hours after being hit by the IAF. Some possibilities being examined are:

Hizbullah explosives in the building were behind the explosion that caused the collapse

The rickety building remained standing for a few hours, but eventually collapsed.

And for something a little different, Sarah talks about what it’s like to mingle at a singles event during a war:

Just before the meal started, someone dropped a box with something heavy, such as silverware, and it came down with a crash. Everyone from the north jumped about six feet. Talk about being on edge. I felt so bad for them.

Then, as the meal began . . . well, normally the conversation between singles goes like this:
What’s your name?
Where do you live?
What do you do?

But this time, it was:
What’s your name?
Where do you live?
How many rockets have you been getting?
How many minutes of warning do you get?

Talk about surreal.

Well, Sarah, you know what they say about relationships that begin under tense circumstances…

“Israel deeply regrets, is greatly saddened, by this attack on innocent civilians in Lebanon. Israel takes full responsibility and is going to start an open investigation to find out how this happened,” government spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.

Of course, this is a unilateral move. And Hezbollah will merely use the respite to re-arm and re-group.

But never mind all that. Never mind that Hezbollah deliberately targets civilians, while Israelis do their best to avoid doing so. Never mind that Hezbollah’s tactics of using civilians as human shields are designed to lead to exactly this kind of disaster.

The point is, it happened. And Israel must hold itself to a higher standard than a terrorist group. The fact that most of the criticism of Israel is unfounded or exaggerated can’t allow us to hide from the fact that no nation is infallible.

The general sentiment in reaction to what happened in Qana is understandably defensive. After all, the Israeli army had dropped leaflets warning civilians to leave. Hezbollah was using the spot as a missile launch site. There is no doubt that there ought to be ample justification. And yet… none of that matters. And the sooner the spin doctors realize that images of dead children will negate all their efforts, the sooner everyone can get past denial and onto reality. Israel is going to take more of a punishment on this one than it deserves… but to claim that it did nothing wrong is to walk around with blinders.

I wish to G-d that this had never happened. But it did. And it frightens me, because when Israel is right, it already pays too heavy a price. But when Israel is wrong, her enemies have long memories. And while my support for Israel is unwavering as ever, I – along with most Israelis – will not try to justify this one. And I am scared that the price Israel will have to pay for this blunder will be wholly “disproportionate” in the true sense of the word.

A group of Israeli journalists on Thursday renounced their membership in the International Federation of Journalists, after the organization’s General Secretary refused to retract his condemnation of the Israel Defense Forces’ bombing of the Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV station in Beirut.

[ . . . ]

The IDF attacked the Hezbollah’s TV station shortly after it began its offensive in Lebanon last week. The IFJ said in a statement last weekend that the strike is “a clear demonstration that Israel has a policy of using violence to silence media it does not agree with.”

Anyone else involved in a war who bombs communications networks is simply following good military strategy. When Israel does it, of course it’s part of the worldwide Jewish media conspiracy to silence opposition voices. Duh.

Oy. No matter what the facts of the matter are, the average headline-level informed Canadian is going to automatically side against Israel now.

I don’t know of any other army in the world where a human rights watchdog whose main priority is critcizing the army gets asked by the army to address its soldiers. There’s constant tension between the groups, but the tension is out in the open and being discussed. There are some problems with this approach, namely that B’Tselem is often unfairly critical to the point of being inflammatory in order to seek publicity, and that soldiers who have to make split-second life-and-death decisions could jeopardize lives if they hesitate too long. But overall, Israel’s commitment to human rights among its military is unsurpassed by any other example that I can think of in the world, and this point only illustrates that further.

Five suicide bombings have been thwarted since the beginning of the month, and 60 since the beginning of the year, security officials said Thursday. They were unable to divulge details, as the suspects are still being questioned by the Shin Bet.

There are two approaches to dealing with terrorism: make the terrorists want to stop, or make them unable to follow through with their plans.

Plan A has been tried over and over again. When the Oslo accords were signed, people thought, well, this is it. The terrorists hate us because they want their own country, the logic went. And now that they’re on the road to getting what they want, they’ll leave us alone. I already quoted Imshin’s perceptive words on the misconception that the entire West seems to have about the true motives of the terrorist groups:

Don’t worry, everyone said, the Palestinian people will soon be having such a ball, they’ll just love their independence and newfound affluence so much, that it will have to work. So I didn’t worry. More fool me.

Because it didn’t work, did it? Those bastards stole all the money and what they didn’t they spent on arms and on teaching hatred. Terrorist organizations flourished. No independence for the Palestinians. No affluence. (And no peace for us). Conned by their leaders. Again. And so were we.

The problem is that this dispute isn’t about land, or territory, or independence or even money. The Palestinians could have had a state a long time ago if that’s what they really wanted. It’s not about all the logical, rational things that Westerners assume must be at the root of every dispute. It’s not about poverty, or suffering, or lack of education; most of the terrorists are middle-class and educated.

No. It’s about hatred. It’s about deep-set, ingrained hatred that would take centuries to eradicate, if at all. With that kind of hatred, traditional negotiation goes nowhere. Every time Israel extends her hand, it gets slapped. Every offer is met with more attacks. Every concession is nothing but a sign of weakness. Hamas doesn’t want a Palestinian state; they merely want no Jewish one. Beyond that, they couldn’t care less. It’s right there in black and white in their charter. And yet nobody wants to believe them.

Plan A is the ultimate goal of course. But it’s too long-term. Too difficult to achieve. Too seemingly impossible.

And in the meantime, how to stop innocent people from dying? That’s where Plan B comes in. Build a fence around them, cut off their sources of funding, put up roadblocks and security checks and take out their leaders in military strikes and raid and arrest as many terrorists as possible. It’s ugly, but, as Allison says, it seems to be having at least somewhat of an effect.

The terrorists may not hate us any less, but let’s make it as difficult as possible for them to translate their hatred into action. They’ll keep trying but they’ll succeed a lot less, and that can save countless lives.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz approved a set of proposals calling for a new code of conduct for Israeli soldiers manning roadblocks who come into daily conduct with the Palestinian population, Israel Radio reported today.

The proposals, prepared by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Baruch Spiegel, will soon be implemented at seven major roadblocks and afterwards will be introduced at smaller army roadblocks as well, the radio report said. Spiegel said that technological measures would be introduced to ease conditions for the Palestinians, and soldiers stationed at the roadblocks would undergo special training.

[ . . . ]

Some of the improvements at IDF roadblocks will be financed by money confiscated from terror group bank accounts in Ramallah last week, media sources reported.

Sounds like poetic justice to me.

But wait, there’s more:

Infrastructure at the roadblocks will be improved. Roads will be repaved, adequate restroom facilities will be added, and proper lighting will be installed. The proposal calls for the “inspection points” to be manned and open 24 hours a day, in order to relieve the crowded conditions and long lines that have been common at roadblocks until now.

[ . . . ]

Ofir Hacham, spokesman for the IDF’s Coordinator for Operations in the Territories, explained the rationale behind Spiegel’s team and the proposals. “This was a strategic team that was established to check how we can improve conditions for the Palestinian population at roadblocks and gates. This is another step to allowing stable civilian life, for those Palestinians who are not involved in terror,” he said.

Yep, those damned Zionist oppressors are at it again, all right. Shame on them for having compassion!

The main reason I’ve been so reluctant to post is that I’d just be re-stating what virtually everyone else has already said. How it’s a bargain with the devil. How these deals will just lead to more kidnapping of Israelis. How it’s a mistake that Israel will pay for dearly. How Hezbollah is claiming a major victory for this deal. How it will serve as an example to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. And so on. And so forth.

I agree with all of it. And then some. It would take hours to round up the abundance of op-eds, news items, commentaries, and letters decrying this move as nothing short of a catastrophe. Not only will the 400+ terrorists released surely kill again, but they will also serve as inspirational icons for thousands of others who may take up the cause. It bolsters Hezbollah’s position and gives the organization a legitimacy that it should never have. Plus, it firmly establishes the principle that one Israeli life is worth hundreds of Arab terrorists, by agreeing to such a lopsided exchange. In the meantime, the terrorists are learning that suicide bombings work, but kidnappings work too – and maybe even better. In one fell swoop, Israel is introducing a new terror tactic into the mix. And it will probably have to spend the next fifty years trying to undo that move and eradicate the tactic.

That’s easy for me to say, of course. I’m not a parent of one of the murdered IDF soldiers hoping for the chance to bury my son. I’m not a relative of Elhanan Tannenbaum (who, I understand, is being questioned by the Israeli police for possible shady practices… without details I won’t jump to any conclusions on that one). Not only that, but this is hardly the first time Israel has negotiated with terrorists. I’d go so far as to argue that the entire Oslo process was a negotiation with a terrorist organization: the PLO. We all saw how well that turned out, of course. But this Hezbollah swap isn’t setting the precedent that many claim it is.

None of that changes the fact that rewarding terrorism is always a mistake – especially here. I find it hard to believe that the government would be so cavalier about the lives of its citizens. And it pains me to face that things will probably get worse before they get better.

Twenty hours after the IAF helicopter rocket attack on a vehicle containing Hamas terrorists in the Nuseirat refugee camp on Monday night, which was described by the Palestinians as a massacre and by MIK Ranan Cohen as a “blitz”, the air force released footage that clearly shows there were no Palestinian civilians in the street when the two rockets hit the car despite Palestinian reports claiming otherwise.

Not that this will stop the Palestinian people from believing the lies, mind you. They’ll probably accuse the Air Force of fabricating the video, as part of the same usual Zionist conspiracy plot that gets blamed for everything else.

Palestinian sources in Beirut said Israeli warplanes raided a facility belonging to Ahmed Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), injuring one man. In addition to PFLP members, terrorists from Islamic Jihad, Hamas and al Qaeda also utilized the camp for training. Among the buildings hit in the raid was a weapons workshop used by Islamic Jihad.

Military sources said that the base was selected as a target because of the central role that Islamic Jihad played in the Haifa bombing. The decision to carry out the raid was made in response to the bombing 12 hours earlier in Haifa.

“The Islamic Jihad, like other terror organisations … enjoys the support and backing of countries in the region – foremost Iran and Syria,” the army statement said.

Syria is screaming of course, and issued a statement denying that the target was a terrorist camp, calling it a “civilian target” – which is a bit hard to swallow, considering the video footage released by the IDF showing a tour of the camp . . . and the fact that the Palestinians also claim it’s a training camp. Considering terror-sponsoring Syria is on the UN Security Council, we can probably expect another resolution in short order, condemning Israel without making any mention of the terrorist attack that killed 20 innocent Israelis.

30 years ago today was the start of the Yom Kippur war. But it seems unlikely that Syria will attack militarily. 2003 is not 1973 and even the Syrians aren’t that dumb.

This may have been a risky move for Israel . . . but it’s probably a necessary one, to expose to the world that the so-called “underdog” is really backed and sponsored by some of the world’s strongest countries.

But now, say Israeli officials, things had taken a major shift for the worse. Their inquiries showed that the two suicide bombers involved in the Mike’s Place attack, both British nationals, had actually been hosted by ISM. “For us,” says the Foreign Ministry’s Information Chief Gideon Meir, “that was the turning point.” Defying army bulldozers was one thing; providing cover for suicide bombers to slip into the country quite another.

[ . . . ]

We have nothing against the internationals,” says a senior IDF officer. “But, as far as we are concerned, ISM is not an international organization or a peace organization. It’s a pro-Palestinian organization, set up by Palestinians, funded by Palestinians and linked to Palestinian terror.”

[ . . . ]

“There is no other country in the world that would have allowed these people so much scope, and in the end Israel gets blamed,” complains a senior IDF officer who has been closely observing the ISM. He says the activists are divided up into three categories: human shields, witnesses and spokespeople. “It’s almost like a paramilitary organization,” he charges. “The human shields obstruct IDF work, while the witnesses and spokespeople give a deliberately distorted picture of what is going on.”

The officer also accuses the ISM of deliberately protecting Palestinian terrorists. In late March, he says, an American ISM activist, Susan Barclay, 26, tried to prevent soldiers from entering the organization’s Jenin offices where a wanted Islamic Jihad terrorist, Shadi Sukia, had sought refuge.

The Prime Minister’s Office has come out with a report directly linking the ISM to terrorism in the case of the bombing at Mike’s Place, and accusing the international activists of using elaborate cover stories that are coordinated in advance to get into the country.

I understand Israel’s frustration with these very un-useful idiots. And I also have no doubt that they’re right about the ISM’s support and facilitation of terrorism. But, like the Jerusalem Report article states, this could turn into a giant PR disaster for Israel, since to the rest of the world, it’s all too easy for ISM to put on that innocent, “non-violent activist” face and claim to be persecuted. As usual, Israel is making serious blunders in the media war that have already been far too costly.

Yehuda Ben-Yosef, 22, of Ma’aleh Adumim, and Sec.-Lt. Yoav Doron, 23, from Jerusalem who was on demobilization leave were hired by the regional council to guard an isolated outpost a kilometer northwest of Pnei Hever.

The IDF Spokesman expressed regret for the incident, calling it “a tragic mistake,” and said there will be investigation.

This was a very sad mistake of the sort that do happen in times of war. Compared to many wars, which have high levels of what the Israelis would call “balagan”, these incidents are – thankfully – rare in Israel. That doesn’t bring the two security guards back to life, of course.

It is worth noting that the Israeli army of course took responsibility right away and issued an apology for the mistake. Had this been the opposite, a case of innocent Palestinians killed by friendly fire, two years later they’d still be trying to pin their deaths on Israel, as in the case of Mohammed Al-Dura.

The US attack on Iraq could be launched “any day” after the beginning of next week if the Turkish parliament gives the go-ahead for American troops to operate via its territory, the head of IDF intelligence told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

[ . . . ]

On the Iraq issue, Ze’evi said that if the Turks are not persuaded to let the US use their bases as a launching pad, a US attack could be delayed “for some time.”

But Ze’evi said the weather would not present an obstacle for a military operation through the end of April or May.

This is pretty much the same as most people are speculating. But Israeli intelligence is usually fairly accurate. A lot will come down to this week’s events.

Interestingly enough, the army says that he wasn’t even the original target – the army was after his son, Ayman, who seems to have links to Hamas’s chief bomb maker. The army captured three of his other sons in the raid.

The part I find the most telling is that today’s Gazette contained a large photo of Taha – probably one of the worst terrorists and murderers of Israeli civilians anywhere – being tended to on a stretcher and taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment.