Israel Hayom..
01 April '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/a-demonstration-of-power-and-restraint/
The IDF worked effectively this weekend and smashed the wave of rioting that Hamas directed toward Israel's Gaza adjacent communities. This is the major story this Passover. The IDF and the Israeli government are obliged, above all, to secure the border communities. All the Palestinians managed to achieve was 17 dead, which serve as the raw material with which to shape international opinion and keep media and diplomatic attention focused on the Palestinian issue. The U.N., the EU, and Arab governments will all make a diplomatic fuss. You could say that the incipient headache of the next few weeks is the price Israel has to pay for the IDF's success.
The IDF and the rest of the security forces have effectively shut down any option of effective terrorist warfare the Palestinians had. Hamas and the rest of the jihadist organizations no longer have any interest in rocket warfare, other than as a nuisance. They stand to gain nothing from it. This past year, the IDF destroyed the terror tunnels, closing off that option, leaving the terrorists without any serious answer. In addition, in the days leading up to violent demonstrations on the Gaza border on Passover eve, the IDF demonstrated that it was willing to tolerate Palestinian infiltrators if they weren't blatantly carrying weapons. But when it spots a terrorist attack by armed terrorists, it shoots to kill. There is room for debate about the approach, but it cannot be argued that the IDF responded gently. So there is no doubt that the organizers of the protests at the border fence are directly responsible for all the casualties from Friday.
The declarations by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his colleagues also leave no room for doubt about the jihadist intentions of the rioting.
The Palestinians are trying to bring their struggle to the international arena, particularly the U.N., which serves as their foreign ministry. Anyone who reads reports from international news agencies could get the impression that they are reporting directly from jihad press statements.
These events are called "protests," "protests for return," and characterized as a march toward a land that used to be theirs and is now "called Israel." And the U.N. Secretary General wants to address the political event the Palestinians organized through an "independent investigation."
Israel, of course, will try to delay any such move and the Palestinians may not have it as easy in the diplomatic-U.N. round as they did in the past. Instead of the Obama administration's Samantha Power, Nikki Haley is now representing the U.S. in the U.N. Germany, too, in its lukewarm response to Friday's events, is sending signals that it does not intend to operate according to the Palestinian script.
What is more important is that this time, Hamas is leading things, PA President Mahmoud Abbas is forced to fall in line with it, and the U.N. is in thrall to Hamas. The person who should be punished is Abbas, whose recent policy has been to push Hamas into a conflict with Israel.
Abbas is once against seeking to prove that the words of the poet Eytan Eytan are correct: "The way to the liberation of Palestine is paved with corpses, but Palestine will not be liberated. Because there is no Palestine."
Amnon Lord, is an Israeli journalist with the daily newspaper Makor Rishon. Lord's articles and essays about media, film, and politics have been published in The Jerusalem Post, Mida, Azure, Nativ, and Achshav.
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blog
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