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Friday, May 21, 2021

What a waste

This was the fourth major conflict between Israel and Gaza terror groups since 2008.

Of the three previous ones, Guardian of  the Walls most resembles 2012's Pillar of Defense - massive bombing campaign, many Hamas rockets, Iron Dome intercepting most of them, many rockets that fell short in Gaza killing the innocent but Israel being blamed, no ground invasion.

From everything we can see, there is something else in common with Pillar of Defense: Nothing was really accomplished.

Some residents of Israel’s south slam the government over the ceasefire with Hamas, saying the operation in Gaza should have gone on.

“We feel like we’ve gone through it all for nothing,” a man tells Channel 12 news in an interview. “We had achievements thanks to the army, but there is no strategy. What kind of ceasefire is this?”

The mayor of rocket-stricken Sderot, Alon Davidi, joins widespread attacks on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government by officials in Gaza border communities over the ceasefire with Hamas.

“I don’t understand why we’re having a ceasefire, there is no reason for a ceasefire,” Davidi tells Radio 103FM. “The prime minister and the government had our backing, there were achievements but this is not something that changes the balance of power.

Ashkelon Mayor Tomer Glam, whose city was bombarded almost non-stop with rockets from Gaza over the 11 days of fighting, voices disappointment at the ceasefire, telling the Kan public broadcaster: “We would have wanted Hamas to be eliminated but we know that won’t happen.”
More enraging is that Israel didn't even seem to demand the return of the two mentally ill Israelis being held in Gaza,  Avera Mengistu and Hisham Al-Sayed, as well as the remains of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul.

Of the three previous conflagrations, Pillar of Defense resulted in the least amount of calm - less than 18 months before Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.

Hamas is pretending that this was a military victory. Obviously it wasn't. But it was a huge political victory for them - they are now recognized as the real leaders of the Palestinians, and the Palestinian Authority has supported them to the hilt the entire time. 

Also, sad to say, Israel's PR efforts during the fighting was even worse than in previous wars. A belated website set up by the Foreign Ministry was worse than useless, with posters being cropped for no apparent reason and no hyperlinks to dig into the statistics they gave.  At times over the years it has looked like Israel started to understand the importance of good PR, and that all fell apart here. There needs to be a rapid response team for every single incident before they gain traction and Israel haters take control of the narrative. Sometimes, it is worth giving up some intelligence information to stop the narrative from becoming "Israel is targeting children/journalists."

In the US, we are seeing that large parts of the Democratic Party essentially aligned themselves with a terror group, taking at face value that Sheikh Jarrah is a reasonable excuse for thousands of missiles.

Palestinian activists in the US are proving themselves to be antisemitic as they incite violence - one needs only to look at  videos of any of the many demonstrations, even the "largely peaceful" ones, to see this - yet the media is reluctant to call out the antisemitism that has suddenly become the norm on the streets of New York and Los Angeles. Jew-haters are emboldened to attack Jews in broad daylight. 
I don't see anything to be optimistic about.






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