Weekly Commentary: Addressing the Gaza challenge now

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
24 March '11

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=51531

It is a basically flat strip of land between 5 and 12 kilometers wide and 45 kilometers long.

Israeli forces are deployed to the north, west and east of the strip while Egypt sits on its 13 kilometer wide southeastern border.

Israel has complete control over the strip’s airspace.

Simply put: elite forces can reach literally any place in this 365 square kilometer (142 square mile) in a matter of minutes.

A few years ago when we retreated from the Gaza Strip Israel’s leadership adopted the bizarre stand that the terrorists in Gaza could do pretty much anything they want to in order to prepare to attack the Jewish State – as long as they didn’t shoot. Yet.

It was “silence for silence”.

Followed by a “tit for tat” approach according to which Israeli intelligence dutifully updated a constantly growing target bank from which commanders could pick from for Israel’s “tat” for the Gazan’s “tit”.

And when the situation was no longer politically tolerable the IDF was sent in.

There we were with the massive military resources of the State of Israel facing an enemy in a basically flat strip of land between 5 and 12 kilometers wide and 45 kilometers long.

But the orders were not to take over the Strip. The orders were not to topple the Hamas regime by detaining or dispatching to Paradise the Hamas leadership in this basically flat strip of land between 5 and 12 kilometers wide and 45 kilometers long.

Thanks to this policy, we now find ourselves facing an enemy in Gaza bolstered by Iranian training and equipped with rockets that now threaten Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport and pretty much everything in the most heavily populated area of Israel.

That would be bad enough without the developments in Egypt that leave us clueless as to how Egypt will interact with the Gaza Strip in the future on security related matters.

What is the answer to this challenge?

Is it spending many billions of dollars on bomb shelters and anti-missile systems?

An anti-missile system that might be budgeted to bring down “X” rockets when there is nothing stopping the Gazans from deploying so many rockets that 10X, 50X or even 100X rockets actually strike their targets.

Again.

Today the massive military resources of the State of Israel face an enemy in a basically flat strip of land between 5 and 12 kilometers wide and 45 kilometers long.

And today Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons that it can threaten to punish the Jewish State with.

So is this really the time to hunker down and give the Gazans even more time to train their troops, build their bunkers and enhance their ability to shower Israel with rockets?

Or is this, instead, the time to take our destiny in our hands and decimate an enemy before the possibility of a nuclear retaliation enters the equation? And do it quickly enough that the world can’t stop us?

Exit strategy?

Back to the Philadelphi Corridor with a workable width instead of 100 meters.

Gaza Strip one big prison?

It is better for Israeli officials to break their heads coming up with ways to streamline the movement of people and goods via Israel than to risk finding ourselves in conflict with Egypt should a new regime opt to “support the struggle” by abusing the border it now shares with Gaza.

Restoring the Philadelphi Corridor is the best way to avoid this conflict.

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