Irony. They're being accused of violating the truce and they can't even decide to fight back at all. War Is Deceit Update: "Terrorists: Israel Violated Truce; Livni Wants IDF To Act," by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu for Israel National News, June 27 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
(IsraelNN.com) Islamic Jihad terrorist leaders have accused Israel of violating the temporary Gaza ceasefire 15 times since it went into effect eight days ago. The alleged violations include IDF surveillance drones over Gaza skies and the shooting of Arab fishermen and farmers by soldiers.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni declared Thursday that Israel should respond with military force every time terrorists attack Israel with rockets and mortar shells. She told visiting Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, "It doesn't interest me who fired it, we need to respond militarily and immediately to every infraction."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has limited his response to verbal statements that Israel considers the attacks truce violations. In addition, Israel has closed crossings into Gaza that had been opened under the agreement, and they remain shut on Friday, except for the Nahal Oz fuel depot. Terrorist leaders have warned that the closures will be considered as violations of the ceasefire.
The Islamic Jihad organization previously has taken responsibility for breaking the truce and attacking Israel with Kassam rockets and a mortar shell on Tuesday. It explained the bombardment was in retaliation for Israel's killing two terrorists in Shechem, part of Judea and Samaria where Islamic Jihad unilaterally extended the truce.
The Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot reported that United Nations sources claimed Israel has violated the agreement seven times and that Arabs violated it only once. Arab terrorists have fired at least seven rockets on three separate days this week.
Most of the alleged Israeli violations involved IDF soldiers shooting at Arabs who approach the separation barrier, where they often plant bombs to explode when IDF vehicles pass. Hamas has maintained that the Arabs were farmers trying to work their land.IDF spokesmen said they knew of only one incident when soldiers fired warning shots in the air without injuring anyone. Islamic Jihad claimed that the IDF shot and seriously wounded two farmers, ages 67 and 80.
Israel is not alone. We seem to have the same problem. Looks like the ones up there actually know what the solution is, and it terrifies the hell out of them. They will one day arrive at the same conclusions that us JWers did a long time back, and they will wish that they had acted when they had the power to make a difference.
But is is too late. Already.
From the article:
"Most of the alleged Israeli violations involved IDF soldiers shooting at Arabs who approach the separation barrier, where they often plant bombs to explode when IDF vehicles pass. Hamas has maintained that the Arabs were farmers trying to work their land.
"IDF spokesmen said they knew of only one incident when soldiers fired warning shots in the air without injuring anyone. Islamic Jihad claimed that the IDF shot and seriously wounded two farmers, ages 67 and 80."
Even Israel National News does not spell out - as it should - the obvious: that 'farmers' and 'jihadis' are not, logically speaking, mutually exclusive terms. Nor does it follow, from the fact that the two men were '67 and 80', that they were necessarily innocent noncombatants ambling out to plant olive trees, or whatever.
They may simply be the jihadi equivalent of the much-famed 'Dad's Army'. Indeed, old age may mean superior cunning; or, just as children and women are used by the jihadis because the kafir still tend, in their innocence, not to automatically think of such people as combatants, so too, the elderly may be used, for the same reason: in hopes to slip under the kafir guard.
Neither extreme youth nor extreme old age can possibly be assumed by the Israelis to signify innocence, when they are dealing with inhabitants of the jihadi fortress that is Gaza, where Hamas TV teaches even tiny tots the virtue of hating and killing Jews. Old age merely means that the person has been exposed to even more Quranic cursings of Infidels, more hate-filled sermons, radio programs, TV programs and martyr posters, than have been absorbed by someone younger.
After all: not so long ago it was discovered that a well-educated schoolmaster was teaching in a UNRWA school in Gaza by day, and moonlighting as a rocket manufacturer by night.
What's to stop a 67 year old Gazan Arab Muslim farmer from being a keen supporter of the jihad, and from hiding plastic explosives or land mines in his donkey cart, and depositing them under guise of, say, spreading mulch and manure? A surprise in every shovel-ful?
Let us not forget that certain types of fertilizers, and fuel oil, both capable of being 'innocently' acquired in bulk by the bona fide farmer, are also time-honoured raw material for explosives.
My remarks above, about the obvious fact that nothing prevents someone, even a very elderly someone, from wearing two hats, from being BOTH a farmer AND a jihadi, apply also to those "Arab fishermen" that Islamic Jihad is so upset about.
Islamic Jihad has complained about "the shooting of Arab [Muslim] fishermen and farmers by [IDF] soldiers."
I'll bet my bottom dollar that some, at least, among those oh-so-innocent, 'I'm just an honest working-man trying to make a living' Gazan Arab Muslim 'fishermen' are catching, and bringing into Gaza, or taking out of it, much more than fish, and that nets are not the only thing they set. Marine mines, anyone?
Even in Western countries - think, for example, of the notorious coasts of Cornwall - it was not unknown for fishermen to supplement their income with a little quiet piracy or smuggling on the side.
Israel is involved in a "fight to the death war". The only way to win this type of war is to defeat the enemy in such a devasting way that the enemy will tell their children and grandchildren not to fight Israel again. None of the principals in our government can come to terms with this reality and as a result we have what we have.