[AGL] Israel prepares for assault into Gaza

[Michael Eisenstadt]

The following article is from the Jerusalem Post today. In recent days,
there have been almost a hundred rockets attacks from Gaza. The rockets now
include smuggled Grad rockets from Iran which reach further than the
home-made Kassam rockets fired from Gaza. There is soon going to be a major
Israeli operation into Gaza. It has been planned for months now and will
take place if/when a rocket hits a crowded bus or similar and causes
multiple deaths. You will note from the article that Israel is informing
diplomats of all the governments which need to know of what she plans to do.

Israel will do this no matter what effect it may have on the domestic
American political scene. So be the first one on your block to know that
this is as surely coming down the tube as the 500,000 American troops moved
to Kuwait by Bush while he pretended that he had not decided on war with
Saddam. You will remember the excitement of war and watching the same clips
over and over again on TV until you realize that that's what you have been
doing and it is 3:30 in the AM.

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As Hamas drew Ashkelon into the circle of communities coming under heavy
rocket attacks, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the Foreign Ministry on
Thursday began preparing both Israeli and world opinion for the possibility
of a large-scale incursion into Gaza.

Barak, during a series of meetings at the Defense Ministry, said, "We should
be prepared for an upswing in hostilities in Gaza. The big ground operation
is a reality and it is tangible. We are not eager to embark upon such an
operation, but we are not put off by it either."
According to defense sources, the goals of such an operation - reportedly in
the planning stages for weeks if not months - would not "merely" be to
reduce the threat of rocket fire and rocket manufacturing in the Gaza Strip,
but would also likely entail paralyzing the Hamas government's ability to
operate, and even include "regime change."

Barak spoke with Quartet envoy Tony Blair and Egyptian intelligence head
Omar Suleiman and said Israel could not tolerate the current level of rocket
fire in the South without offering a wider response.

Barak also offered hints as to his plans, telling local community leaders
gathered at Sapir Academic College outside Sderot that "the solution to
Kassams will be a lot quicker than many people think."
And the Foreign Ministry, in talking points sent to its representatives
abroad, instructed them to say that when Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005
it did so without the intention of ever returning, but that the continuation
of terrorist attacks was likely to place the country in a position where it
may have no other choice.

The ministry also instructed its representatives to reveal that the Grad
missiles that were fired at Ashkelon on Thursday were smuggled through Sinai
from Iran.
According to one diplomatic source, stressing the Iranian origin of the
missiles showed the importance of aggressive action to stop the smuggling
and isolate Hamas from Syria and Iran, which "directs the organization's
terrorist actions."

"We have warned for a while about the arming of Hamas, and what is happening
now is proof of this," the official said.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni also seemed to be preparing the world for
stepped up Israeli action, telling visiting Lithuanian Foreign Minister
Petras Vaitiekunas that the international community should "respect" all
actions that Israel takes to protects its citizens.

Livni said Israel rejected condemnations and arguments that there were
casualties on both sides of the fence, saying "there is no moral equivalence
between terrorists and those fighting them, even if during those actions
innocent civilians are accidentally killed. In these cases the world should
not come to us - there is only one address for the Palestinian situation in
Gaza and for what is likely to happen there in the future - and it is
Hamas."

Foreign Minister director-general Aaron Abramovich traveled to Cairo on
Thursday for talks with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit about the
situation on the Egyptian-Gaza border.

Government officials said that while Abramovich wanted to concentrate on how
to combat the arms smuggling across and under the Philadelphi Corridor,
Gheit was more interested in talking about how to get the Rafah crossing
re-opened. The talks came in preparation for a high level discussion on the
situation on the border excepted early next week with the arrival on Tuesday
of both US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Suleiman.

In light of the recent tension with Egypt over the situation on the border,
the Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying the Israeli delegation
"stressed the strategic importance of the relationship between Israel and
Egypt, in enhancing and addressing challenges to peace in the region and
promoting peaceful coexistence."

In a related development, government officials said Israel was not getting
"too excited" over an interview Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud
Abbas gave to a Jordanian newspaper that appeared Thursday saying he did not
rule out returning to the path of armed "resistance" against Israel.

The official said these comments were aimed at Abbas's domestic audience and
that Abbas should be judged by his deeds - a willingness to negotiate
peace - rather than by statements "meant for internal consumption.

In an interview with Al-Dustur, Abbas also took pride that he had been the
first to fire a bullet on Israel in 1965 and that his organization, Fatah,
had trained Hizbullah. "At this present juncture, I am opposed to armed
struggle because we cannot succeed in it, but maybe in the future things
will be different," he said.