On Monday evening, Yasser Arafat's forces lobbed five mortar shells into the Israeli city of Sderot. Within a few hours, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon began what many hoped would be a real response to increasing Palestinian aggression against Israel. The IDF entered the Gaza Strip, cutting it into four sections and preventing any travel between them. Armour and sea forces as well as air force helicopters attacked various strategic locations, and Israel finally had a government that was willing to respond to unprovoked acts of war committed against its citizenry and territory.
Brigadier General Yair Naveh, commander of forces in the Gaza area, went on radio and television proclaiming that the IDF would stay in Gaza "as long as it takes" for the attacks to stop, and the whole country (except for Yossi Beilin) cheered him on. Within hours, US Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that Israel's move was "out of all proportion", and Yasser Arafat called it an unforgivable crime.
What apparently no one has bothered to ask either Powell or Arafat is whether gravely injuring a 15-month-old baby by firing a missile into his playground is within proportion, or whether that is not an unforgivable crime. Neither did anyone ask Bush what he would do if someone lobbed mortar shells at an American town, or how the world would react if Israel had launched such an unprovoked attack against the Arabs.
But pay no heed to logic. For the rules of the game in Israel have not actually changed all that dramatically. Within hours of entering the Gaza strip "for as long as it takes", the IDF pulled back out last night. And lest anyone be misled into believing that it only took a few hours to end the attacks, this morning there were more mortar attacks launched from the very areas that had been held by the IDF only hours before.
So, Sharon sent the IDF back into Gaza late this morning - and then pulled them out again.
It now seems that Ariel Sharon has indeed injected a new element into Israel's response to the current wave of Arab violence against Israel. No more is Sharon prepared to just talk and issue warnings about knowing how to respond as Ehud Barak did. No more will the IDF sit idly by and watch as the Jewish death toll mounts from this Palestinian barbarism.
Now, instead of following in Barak's footsteps, Ariel Sharon has chosen to actually use the IDF - as a yo-yo. Send them in, pull them out. It reminds me of an old episode of the television series MASH. The one where Frank Burns orders the entire unit to tear down their camp, move across the road and rebuild it, only to tear it down and return to the original site, all just to prove that the unit really was mobile as the first letter of its name indicated. After months of government-dictated inactivity, Sharon for some reason needed to prove that the IDF actually still possessed mobility.
But all sarcasm aside (although that is most definitely what is called for here), if Sharon hopes to retain the trust of the people who elected him to the biggest landslide in Israeli history, he must actually act to end the violence that is currently plaguing his country - the very violence that caused his predecessor's downfall. For if Sharon proves to be more concerned about the opinions of Arafat and Bush than he is about actually defending his citizens, he will meet the same political demise as did Ehud Barak.
That would be a shame, because Sharon is a man with very high potential in the areas where it is most needed. He has built a stable government that is not afraid to tackle heavy issues and deal with them as necessary. Already his ministers of education, internal security, finance, justice, and national infrastructure have made serious moves to correct festering problems that had arisen due to the inept management and total apathy of previous governments.
I hold high hopes that Sharon can effect similar changes in the defense posture of this country after previous administrations proved to care not a whit for the safety and security of Israel's citizenry. But if Sharon continues to use the IDF as a plaything, he will soon convince many that he too is nothing but a political yo-yo. I sincerely hope that he has other, more serious plans in mind.
Copyright 2001. Yehuda Poch is a writer living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
