Letters from Rungholt

Wie soll man den Rückzug aus Gaza vor zwei Jahren beurteilen? War es ein Fehler, auf liebgewordenen Illusionen beruhend, sich störrisch der Realität verweigernd, wie Moshe Arens es uns attestiert?

A straight line connects Arafat’s corrupt rule and his support for acts of terror against Israel’s civilian population to the Hamas takeover in Gaza. Just connect the dots. They start with the Oslo Accords and pass through Ehud Barak’s decision in 2000 to abandon Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon and betray Israel’s long-time allies in the South Lebanon Army. It was not only Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah who then saw Israel as no more than a spider web, incapable of putting up resistance to terror. That brought on the Al Aqsa Intifada, orchestrated by Fatah and Hamas, with its terrible toll of civilian deaths.

And just as the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service were about to hand the terrorists a decisive defeat, along came the Sharon government with the nonsensical idea of forcibly uprooting Israeli settlements and retreating to the Israeli-Egyptian armistice line of 1947, an idea marketed under the false slogan that „we were getting out of Gaza.“

That was all the encouragement that Hamas needed to claim victory over Israel and win the Palestinian elections against the corrupt Fatah party.

As should have been expected, Israel’s unilateral retreat was followed by a continuous barrage of Qassam rockets against Israeli towns and villages.

Oder war es richtig und in unserem Interesse, trotz allem, wie Larry Derfner es sieht?

The IDF Spokesman’s Office says about 1,550 Kassams have landed on Sderot and its environs since the disengagement in mid-September 2005. But the Kassams started landing on Sderot four years earlier, when the IDF was dug in the Strip and Israeli settlers were living in Gush Katif. In those last four years before disengagement, Palestinians in Gaza fired some 4,600 Kassam rockets on Sderot.

So nothing’s changed on that score. There are no more rockets hitting Sderot now than there were in the „good old days.“ However, the number of Israelis killed by Gaza Palestinians has changed dramatically since disengagement – for the better. Since the last IDF soldier left the Strip until now, eight Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in Gaza – four civilians in Sderot, and four soldiers, according to the Foreign Ministry’s Web site. Another soldier, Gilad Shalit, has been kidnapped.

By comparison, in the five years from the start of the second intifada until disengagement, 148 Israelis were killed by Gaza Palestinians – 91 soldiers and 57 civilians. In addition, 11 foreign civilians were killed by Gazans in that time.

So in terms of bloodshed, there’s nothing to discuss – Gaza was many, many times more deadly for Israelis before the disengagement than it’s been since.

Ich tendiere zu Derfners Ansicht, aber ich respektiere Arens sehr – einer der kühlen Likudpolitiker mit leiser Stimme und, soweit ich mich entsinnen kann, Integrität. Übrigens spricht es für die Qualität der zitierten Zeitungen, wenn in der liberalen Haaretz Arens schreibt, in der eher rechten JPost dagegen Derfner.

Ich lese solche Artikel gern back to back. Und wenn nur um der Erkenntnis willen, daß man dasselbe Ereignis aus mehreren Perspektiven betrachten muß, um es besser zu verstehen. Wir arm wären unsere Meinungen, würden wir sie aus Quellen nähren, mit denen wir ohnehin übereinstimmen… Ich glaube übrigens, es ist noch zu früh, um zu sagen, ob Arens oder Derfner letztendlich Recht behalten werden.

Vielleicht ändert sich ja noch was in der Welt.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined Western nations on Wednesday in criticizing the world body’s own Human Rights Council for picking on Israel as part of an agreement on its working rules.

The European Union, Canada and the United States had already attacked the singling-out of Israel’s role in the Palestinian territories for continued special investigation, under the deal reached in Geneva on Monday.

A UN statement said, „The Secretary-General is disappointed at the council’s decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world.“

Ban Ki Moon. „Den Namen wird man sich merken müssen“.

Ägypten hat zuerst geblinzelt.

Israel on Wednesday evacuated to Egypt scores of Palestinian Gaza residents fleeing Hamas, who had spent days at a Gaza border terminal, witnesses and military officials said.

A witness reported that buses provided by the army transported some 100 Palestinians from Erez crossing southward to the Israeli-Egyptian border.

An Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman said the passengers would cross into Egypt under a deal struck with Cairo.

Und ebenfalls:

A regional summit is scheduled to take place next week at the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, with the participation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The summit is to be hosted by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and will be attended by Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Das sind gute Nachrichten. Je stärker eine Achse Israel-Ägypten-Jordanien ist, desto besser für unsere Region.  Man könnte fast hoffnungsvoll werden!