From: David Dolan
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 9:22 AM
Subject: [ISRAELUPDATE] JULY NEWS REVIEWShalom from Jerusalem,
Below is this month’s Israel news and analysis report, written primarily for several CFI branches around the world, and sent to you with their kind permission. So much of tremendous importance is happening every day in this troubled region, making it difficult deciding what to focus on and what to leave out. But the July report naturally zeros in on the historic—and potentially explosive—Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, scheduled to begin exactly three weeks from today. Renewed terror attacks last week in London, Turkey, Egypt (the worst in the country’s modern history) and over the weekend against a well-known Jerusalem couple leaving the Gaza Strip, have made me wonder again if my earlier sense that the evacuations might not take place in the end, due to a sharp international escalation in terror and/or Mideast violence, might not be on course. As I wrote before, time will tell—and very soon.
I will be traveling out of Israel for most of the rest of the year, with details on my planned speaking tour in parts of the US, New Zealand and Australia posted on my web site, www.ddolan.com . I will of course continue to closely monitor the situation here while traveling, and send out my monthly reports at the very least. My new DVD, titled FOR ZION’S SAKE, will be available for shipping very soon. It features my own experiences reporting from and living in Israel since 1980 plus a review of the country’s biblical roots and modern history in light of biblical prophecy, and containing some wonderful pictures of the land taken by my longtime friend and media colleague, Jan Karnis, and also good portions of several Hebrew songs I have recorded with Barry and Batya Segal and others over the years here. If I do say so myself, I believe it would make a great holiday gift, especially for anyone not fully understanding the historical and biblical significance of Israel’s contemporary restoration. Further details will also be posted on my website very soon.
I thank all of you who have prayed for me after I damaged my lower spine in a fall a few weeks ago. I still have some numbness in my left leg and foot, but it has definitely improved quite a bit and I can walk normally again. I have received some excellent treatments here in Jerusalem, and will be getting further medical attention in the States.
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STANDOFF IN THE DESERT
By David Dolan
As the Sharon government made final preparations to evacuate some 9,000 Jews from their homes in the embattled Gaza Strip and northern Samaria in mid-August, physical and verbal clashes sharply escalated between Israeli security forces and opponents of the controversial withdrawals. This came as a majority of Knesset members reaffirmed their commitment to Sharon’s unilateral disengagement plan, but only due to across the board backing from all far left and Arab legislators, and without the support of several key leaders of the ruling Likud party and some Orthodox coalition members.
Meanwhile turmoil increased in and around the quaking Gaza Strip as Palestinian Muslim groups headquartered there launched fresh terror and rocket attacks upon Israeli civilians and military forces. The renewed violence prompted Israeli leaders to warn that a major army incursion into Arab portions of the contested coastal zone could be launched at any time. In the north, Hizbullah militiamen again infiltrated across the international border, resulting in several days of intense clashes.
It was a scene not seen ever before in Israel’s 57 year modern history. An estimated 35,000 civilian citizens of the Jewish State—a majority of them residents of disputed communities in Judea and Samaria—stood arrayed in confrontation mode against some 20,000 Israeli policemen and soldiers surrounding a fenced village located in the northern reaches of the hot Negev desert. For three days and nights in mid-July, a tense standoff ensued as leaders of the anti-pullout movement negotiated with security officials to prevent physical clashes between the two sides. All the while, thousands of demonstrators called out to their fellow uniformed Jews—some of them relatives—to disobey government orders to stop them from marching to the nearby Gaza Strip, where the protestors intended to reinforce Jewish residents slated to be uprooted from their homes beginning the day after the emotional Tisha ba Av fast in mid-August.
In the end, potentially violent clashes between the two sides were narrowly averted when protest leaders realized their followers could not possibly break through the steely security wall without endangering many people, not a few of them children. Still, many said they were tempted to move forward, if only to test how many young Jewish soldiers might join ranks with the them, or at least stand down. This came after at least ten religious soldiers switched sides during violent struggles with Israeli residents of the Gaza Strip one week earlier, two of them going AWOL.
In the end, most of the anti-withdrawal protestors dispersed to their homes throughout the small country on July 21. Still, army leaders admitted that some 700 demonstrators managed to slip though the tight security net, and later past soldiers attempting to seal off the Gaza Strip on government orders. Reports said some soldiers—apparently sympathetic to the protestor’s goals—looked the other way as demonstrators openly walked past them through the Kissufim crossing point. Hundreds of other anti-pullout activists who did not take part in the large desert protest (many because they were forcibly prevented from entering the area by security personnel) also succeeded in infiltrating into the closed coastal zone, taking advantage of the fact that thousands of troops had been diverted to the nearby demonstration scene.
Although they conceded defeat, anti-disengagement leaders predicted they would “win the overall war” to prevent the slated evacuations from taking place. They pledged to launch fresh large-scale attempts in coming weeks to reinforce thousands of Gaza Jewish residents who have vowed to resist the pending forcible uprootings from their homes. In particular, protest leaders revealed plans to flood the northern Negev once again when the pullout actually begins, since most of the security personnel who stood against them in July will be tied up with that complex operation. Government leaders hinted they might declare a full state of war if that takes place, ordering all Israeli civilians to remain off the streets and in their homes. Analysts warned such an unprecedented and drastic action would set off a political firestorm in the tense Jewish State.
STANDOFF IN JERUSALEM
While the riveting drama unfolded in the dry northern Negev—which some said was reminiscent of strife between the ancient Jews of Israel and Judah—steamy political clashes intensified in Jerusalem. Several Knesset members from the ruling Likud party, along with other right-wing and religious legislators who support the protestors, decried what they termed “police-state and dictatorial tactics” sanctioned by the government to thwart the anti-pullout demonstration. This came as several former top security officials said they view the disengagement plan as a dangerous and unnecessary gamble—a view said to be shared by a number of sitting officials who cannot publicly voice their opinions.
PM Sharon received the lion’s share of angry verbal blasts, with many charging he was “sanctioning undemocratic tactics” and bringing the country “to the brink of civil war” in order to appease American and European demands that Jewish settlements be dismantled as part of the Road Map peace plan. This coincided with the publication of an Israeli book claiming that the entire pullout scheme was cooked up by the premier’s controversial son, Omri, in order to divert attention from potential criminal charges over questionable land dealings involving the Sharon clan.
In an unusual move reflecting the complicated tug of war going on in Israel at present, Sharon’s right-wing critics were joined by a number of leftist civil rights groups, politicians and media commentators who support the disengagement plan, but felt security officials had gone too far and violated democratic norms. There was particular concern that police had confiscated keys and driving licenses from dozens of bus drivers around the country, hired to bring protestors to the small Negev religious community of Kfar Maimon, where the three-day demonstration was held. One Knesset member who immigrated to Israel from Russia in 1979 was prevented by police from entering the village, prompting him to retort that, “I feel like I’m back in the Soviet Union.”
As the Negev protest reached its climax, the Knesset voted on there motions to postpone the slated withdrawals. A proposal to freeze the Gaza/Samaria pullouts for three months failed to pass by a margin of 68 to 43. A similar bill to delay the disengagements by six months was defeated 69-40, and a third for a full one year postponement went down by 69 to 41. Despite their defeat, disengagement opponents noted that fresh opinion polls showed a further drop in public support for the scheduled withdrawals, with a substantial majority of Israeli Jews now against the government plan.
THE CAMPAIGN BEGINS
Although he hailed the Knesset outcome as another indication that the people of Israel were solidly behind his hotly contested pullout plan, PM Sharon was dealt another political blow when nearly half of his own Likud party legislators either voted to put off the withdrawal or deliberately absented themselves from the Knesset session. Among those voting against Sharon was the Knesset Speaker, Ruby Rivlin, and Likud government Coalition Chairman Gideon Sa’ar.
More menacing to the portly Premier, his own Finance Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, deliberately stayed away from the Knesset votes. A close political ally of the former prime minister, Education Minister Limor Livnat, was also absent from the Knesset ballots. Her brother, a leader in the anti-disengagement campaign, was arrested in his Gaza Strip home in early July and escorted out of the area.
Netanyahu has made no bones of his intense opposition to Sharon’s unilateral pullout plan, saying it rewards terrorism, unnecessarily endangers Israel’s security and robs the country of one of its most important bargaining chips if peace negotiations ever resume with the Palestinians (this contention was seemingly verified when PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei told reporters that since the unilateral pullback decision “Was not reached through negotiations with us, we refuse to pay any price to it, especially in our demands to get back the entire West Bank”). Still, many withdrawal opponents complained that if Netanyahu was really convinced Sharon’s plan was so hackneyed, he should have resigned from the government long before now and led the parliamentary battle against it.
Political analysts said Netanyahu’s absence was effectively the former Israeli leader’s opening shot in his planned attempt to dethrone Sharon as Likud party chief and then go on to capture his seat as prime minister. Although the sitting Premier had earlier threatened to fire his political nemesis if he stayed away from the votes, Sharon’s senior advisors reportedly lobbied against the move, pointing out it would send his fractured ruling party tumbling over the brink and end all hopes that he could ever recapture the trust of embittered nationalistic and religious supporters.
Deputy Social Affairs Minister Avraham Ravitz and his Knesset coalition colleague also defied the PM and voted to put off the pullout for three months, under orders from Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv who oversees their “Flag of the Torah” Orthodox party. The rabbi ruled that the scheduled August uprootings would likely lead to “the spilling of innocent Jewish blood by fellow Jews,” which he noted is forbidden by Jewish religious law. This echoed a similar ruling one week before from two influential former Chief Rabbis, Avraham Shapira and Mordechai Eliyahu, which forbade observant security forces from obeying Sharon’s order to seal off the Gaza Strip from all non-residents. It came one day after the two widely respected religious leaders participated in a huge Orthodox prayer rally against the withdrawal, held at the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City.
SUICIDE TERROR RETURNSJust minutes after adjourning a special inner security cabinet meeting on July 12 that decided to close the Gaza Strip to prevent anti-pullout protestors from flocking there, Ariel Sharon received the unsettling news that a Palestinian suicide bomber had struck in the coastal city of Netanya. The often-attacked city—scene of the worst terrorist atrocity of the Al Aksa attrition war, the March 2002 Passover massacre that left 29 Jews dead—was once again targeted by Muslim terrorists from the nearby Arab town of Tulkarm, despite the Israeli security fence erected in the area which has successfully thwarted most attempted infiltrations over the past two years.
Three Israeli females were immediately slaughtered, and scores injured, when 18 year old Ahmed Halil detonated his explosive belt outside a crowded commercial mall during the evening rush hour. Two of the victims, Nofar Horowitz and Rachel Ben-Abu—best friends from childhood who were chatting amiably at a road intersection where the terrorist struck—were each just 16 years old. Another severely wounded woman died in hospital the next day, followed by a 21 year old off-duty soldier whose young wife—eight months pregnant—was also hospitalized with less critical wounds.
The young soldier’s death came just hours after British authorities confirmed that Anat Rosenberg, a 31 year old Israeli woman living in London, had perished when a bus there was blown up one week before by a suspected Al Qaida suicide terrorist. Ironically, she had refused her parents repeated requests to return to her native Jerusalem out of fear she might get caught up in a terrorist attack in the holy city. Meanwhile Israeli officials joined the general public in expressing shock and revulsion over the Islamic homicide blasts in London. But they were frankly nearly as revolted one week later when London’s controversial mayor, Ken Livingston, justified scores of similar Palestinian suicide attacks in Israel which have left over 20 times as many civilians dead since November 2000. He termed the mass slaughter of teenage Jewish girls and boys, babies, bus passengers, restaurant patrons (including Arabs), etc, as “understandable” due to Israel’s supposed “indiscriminate slaughter” of Palestinians over the years.
The radical Islamic Jihad terror group claimed responsibility for the heinous Netanya murders. Israeli officials said the small group—funded and directed by the extremist Iranian regime via operatives in Damascus and southern Lebanon—was apparently attempting to scuttle the Palestinian Authority’s “tahdiya,” or temporary period of calm, agreed upon by most Palestinian groups apart from Islamic Jihad at the Sinai resort of Sharm e-Sheikh last February. They noted that the fundamentalist group had launched a similar terrorist atrocity outside a Tel Aviv nightclub just days after that accord was arrived at.
Ariel Sharon ordered IDF forces into action to prevent further Islamic Jihad attacks. Soldiers apprehended dozens of suspects in the following days, stepping up a campaign that began after the Tel Aviv attack. Internationally-condemned “targeted killings” of known terrorist leaders were resumed, having been suspended at the request of new Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas after he hammered out his internal “timeout” with Hamas and other Arab groups.
FALLING DOWN ASHES
Apparently realizing that Islamic Jihad was picking up popular support via its renewed terror campaign, Hamas launched a barrage of rocket and mortar attacks upon Israeli communities and army outposts inside the Gaza Strip just hours after the Netanya atrocity; and later at civilian Jewish centers surrounding the tense zone. A 22 year old Israeli woman sitting on her porch in a Jewish farming community just north of the Gaza Strip was instantly killed when a Palestinian rocket landed next to her. Over ten other people were wounded in the week-long barrage of around 150 rockets and mortar shells, and several homes and cars were destroyed.
The blitz prompted Israeli leaders to order military forces to prepare for a possible large-scale ground incursion into the heavily-populated northern Gaza Strip. However the cabinet put the operation on hold after Abbas—responding to intense international pressure—sent his armed PA security forces into action to suppress the firings, resulting in the worst inter-Palestinian clashes in many months.While commending his action, Israeli leaders said it still fell far short of the PA’s written commitment to disarm and disband all illegal terror groups as part of the Road Map. Many analysts said the internal Palestinian violence—and rocket attacks—are probably just a small foretaste of what to expect after IDF forces leave the Gaza Strip in August. Meanwhile PA leaders announced plans to celebrate the scheduled Israeli evacuations, which PM Qurei called a “great Arab achievement.” Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they would also hold “parades and other victory celebrations” in deserted Israeli communities and military bases.
In an apparent effort to bolster their contention that Palestinian terrorism is what drove the Likud-led Israeli government to abandon over two dozen contested communities, Islamic Jihad and the Fatah Al Aksa Martyr’s Brigades took joint responsibility for ambushing an Israeli civilian car leaving the Gaza Strip on July 23, killing a well-known Jerusalem couple (the husband, Dov Kol, was press spokesman for the National Insurance Institute, and his wife Rachel a popular nurse at Hadassah hospital). PA-controlled radio reports hailed the Arab attackers, who were later shot dead by IDF forces, as “holy martyrs.”
The Gaza assault came just hours after suspected Al Qaida terrorists massacred over 80 people—most of them Egyptian Muslims—in Sharm e-Sheikh. An Al Qaida-linked web site said the blasts were meant to avenge the fact that Egypt allows Israeli tourists into its Sinai resorts. That same night, army forces south of Tel Aviv intercepted a Gaza Strip man belonging to the PLO-linked Al Aksa Martyr’s Brigades terror group. Wearing an explosive belt, he admitted he had been ordered to perpetrate a mass slaughter in the Israeli metropolis.
With every day bringing more distressing news of violence and terror in this troubled region and throughout the world, and with the Israeli public dangerously divided over issues that are crucial to the small country’s future survival, it is surely a critical time to be stationed along Zion’s ancient walls, giving the Lord “no rest until He makes Jerusalem a praise in all the earth.”
DAVID DOLAN
Jerusalem
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DAVID DOLAN is a Jerusalem-based author and journalist who has lived in Israel since 1980. His new DVD, titled “FOR ZIONS’S SAKE—REPORTING FROM THE LAND OF THE BIBLE,” will be released soon on both PAL and NTCS versions. Details will be posted at his web site, www.ddolan.com