Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Now there'll be more rockets
Ha'aretz reports that the Palestinian group that delivered the ugly ambush and execution of pregnant Gush Katif resident Tali Hatuel and her four daughters (pictured), claims it has developed a rocket capable of striking targets 15 kilometers away.
There are no prizes for guessing how and how soon the deadly new toy, which they're calling the "Sajil", will be deployed. Noone should be surprised if Palestinians unashamedly celebrate, on television and in public, "successful" strikes that splatter Israeli school buildings and the children within.
Hundreds of rocket launches from Gaza preceded the recent Israeli withdrawal. Not that there were many headlines about this in the Guardian or on CNN, nor about the Palestinian chants heard as Israeli soldiers wrested fellow Jews from their Gaza homes:
"We will continue with the rest of Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, until we control all of Israel."
MEMRI, but not many mainstream news outlets, did record the chilling comments of Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar (to Asharq Al-Awsat on August 18) regarding the Gaza pull-out:
"The resistance must move to the West Bank. I stress that the resistance was what drove the occupation out of the Gaza Strip....
"We do not and will not recognize a state called Israel. Israel has no right to any inch of Palestinian land....
"This land is the property of all Muslims in all parts of the world....
"Let Israel die...."
The Hamas leader is no political fringe dweller. He is a powerful rival to PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
Thus there is no surprise that the above seems in synch with sickening events post-Gaza: Iranian-built rockets hitting Israel from Lebanon, a Jewish youth stabbed to death on his way home from prayers, professional Jew-killing "engineer" - and Hamas hero - Mohammed Deif releasing a hate-Israel video tape that was eagerly picked up all over the Arabic media.
So much for Palestinian appreciation of Sharon's withdrawal gambit. Not that any was expected, or that bloodthirsty triumphalism was unexpected.
Foreknowledge of Salafist intentions to launch hostility from the West Bank must have influenced the Israeli move to annex Palestinian land around the large Jewish settlement of Ma'ale Adumim.
No doubt other factors impacted upon this decision as well.
Ma'ale Adumim is thought to be one of those "facts on the ground" that US President Bush said might be ceded to Israel within any broad West Bank territorial settlement.
And the angry majority in Israeli PM Sharon's Likud Party, ready as they are to dump a softening octogenarian leader who they accuse of giving away the farm, must have been pushing for a political trade-off on Gaza.
(to be continued)
