Gaza Violence Commentary, Part II

When you raise your children to be psychotic killers...

... and consciousless barbarians toward their Jewish neighbors... ... they grow up to be psychotic killers.... ... and consciousless barbarians... ...toward their Arab neighbors too.

It was a cliffhanger of a coupt d'etat, but today the lines broke and Hamas emerged victorious. Fatach team leader President Machmoud Abbas, who in his younger years masterminded the famous Munich Olympic massacre of 1976, seemed to have lost his youthful taste for violence. Towards the end of the day, he finally gave the order for his men to fight back, but it was too late. Having already surrounded the main Fatach compound in Gaza City, Hamas arranged a surrender of the beleaguered Fatach fighters. Hamas then stripped down Fatach prisoners to their underwear, paraded them through the streets, and executed them in front of their wives and children.

A parade of Fatach men being walked to their execution.

One might be tempted to extend a bit of sympathy towards the miserable column of dead men walking. Until, that is, one remembers that these are the same guys who blew up a school bus, paralyzing schoolchildren and killing teachers, back in 2000. What goes around comes around.

Meanwhile, Hamas is broadcasting over the radio lists of Gaza Fatach gangsters to be hunded down and killed, while Fatach is arresting hundreds of known Hamas gangsters throughout Judea and Samaria.

Some guy being dragged away by some gang in Shechem (Nablus.)

While a Jew is forbidden from celebrating in the demise and death of his enemies, there is a smug satisfaction at watching the assorted gangs and tribes, so often seen marching through the streets boasting of their killings of Jews, unsheathe their knives and fall upon one another. It's like watching the Gestapo and the SS go to war. In the long run, there are several possible outcomes, none of them pretty for the Arabs:

1. Different powers back both sides.

This could end up being a repeat of the Lebanon war, where Saudis, Americans, Egyptians, Syrians, and Israelis each rescued their own faction when it seemed to be near defeat. This extended the war to fifteen years. The fighting in Lebanon killed around 200,000, out of a population similar in number to that of the "Palestinian" Arabs. It also resulted in the permanent emigration of around one third of Lebanon's population.

2. Hamas wins in Gaza

It would seem that this has already happened, although Hamas could easily break into various clans and factions which then continue the internal warfare. If Gaza falls to Hamas, and Judea and Samaria, the "West Bank," remain under Fatach, there would be no longer be a unified "Palestinian" entity to which Israel could be pressured to surrender territory.

3. Hamas wins in Gaza and the "West Bank"

"Palestine" would be controlled by an entity hostile not only to Jewish independence but also to any and all democratic states. It would be much harder for an American president, even if she were named Hillary, to come up with a "Road Map to Peace" or some other such dangerous nonsense with Hamas on the other end of the table.

This infighting is resulting in the permanent discrediting of the very concept of "Palestinian Nationalism," a mere 40 years after it was invented. At the same time, the vast numbers fleeing may make enough of a demographic dent to put to bed the idea of a "binational state" that's been floating around in diplomatic circles. This unoriginal idea was that everyone between the river and the sea, Jew and Arab, would be granted one vote in a government which would rule over the entire land of Israel. The Arabs, with their higher birth rate, would then vote Israel into the grave, which is why it was supported only among Israel-haters. Without an Arab majority, this idea loses its teeth.

While the discrediting of these concepts may seem to be positive outcomes, it's important to remember that we are still surrounded by millions of Arabs, and intellectually assaulted by the Jimmy Carters and Jim Bakers of the world, all of whom would like to see the holy land Jewless. If the forty year charade of "Palestinian Nationalism" is put to bed, they will simply adopt a different pretext. Sympathy for "Palestinian Nationalism" was never about loving the Arabs, it was always about hating the Jews.

But in the short term, this is not good news. As the various gangs and warlords vie for control, they have to gain credibility and honor amongst the "Arab Street." The only way to do this is by killing Jews. Whenever the situation heats up in the inter-gang Gazan warfare, the terror gangs compete to fire barrages of terror rockets down on Sderot. A few weeks ago, forty rockets hit the town in one day, killing two and wounding dozens.

The town of 32,000 is now in grave danger of being lost, not by death or destruction, but by the flight of the rocket-weary residents. So it's time to head back to Sderot. Stay tuned...

Gaza Violence Commentary, Part I

Gaza of the Phillistines, the thorn in Israel's eye since the days of Avraham Avinu (Abraham) is bleeding again. Refreshing the news ticker every few minutes is like watching an unraveling sporting match. The Hamas gang started with a major upfield disadvantage, holding Gaza city and Beit Hanoun but seeing the southern two thirds of the strip entirely in Fatach control. In a stunning comeback, Hamas has overcome its poor opening position by moving swiftly downfield, catching Fatach by surprize. By this evening, they had advanced far south, killing dozens of Fatach gangsters and capturing or surrounding their positions. It's been a rough match, with plenty of horrifying plays including tortures, mutilations, tunneling under a Fatach command center to detonate a one-ton bomb, assassinations of clerics, hurling prisoners from high-rise buildings, executions of the wounded in their hospital beds and murdering doctors who treat them, to name a few. It's important to remember that the stories we see on the news are but a sliver, a tiny peek into the Gaza nightmare. When we hear of twenty fatalities in Gaza fighting, think one hundred.

It's being called a "coup," and a "civil war," neither of which are accurate because they imply that there exists a "Palestinian" people, a unified nation, which is struggling over its future direction and purpose. In reality, this is just clans and gangs in a subnational, largely illiterate society, fighting over money. The savage killing is a result of the policies of misguided, wealthy western states, a consequence of fifty years of broad-minded political correctness run wild.

The basic principle of Jeffersonian democracy, encoded in the United States constitution and later to spread throughout the western world, is that all people are created equal. While this idea originated with the concept of equal protection from government encroachment, this idea was later extended, with Communism and its baby brother Socialism, to the idea that all people have the right to equal income and privileges, regardless of how much ability they show or hard work they invest. Extending equality even further, multiculturalism posits the concept that all cultures and religions are created equal. One can not judge the merits or values of a culture without being "judgmental." Words like "good" and "bad," "civilized" and "barbarian," label the user as a chauvinist and a bigot.

Multiculturalism leads to projection. Since all cultures are created equal, all cultures must be similar. If a Los Angelino can feel a stronger sense of national brotherhood with a New Yorker three thousand miles away then he can with a Mexican three hundred miles away, then the "Palestinians," or for that matter the "Iraqis," must share similar national bonds.

Because all men and all cultures are created equal, all that's necessary for solving the world's problems is empathy and dialog. If the "Palestinians" are blowing up buses, if Egyptians and Saudis are flying airliners into buildings, then they must have a real grievance. After all, I wouldn't do such a thing if I didn't have a real grievance, so the same must apply to them. Once all grievances are appeased, then the "root cause" of the violence will be gone. All horrors and atrocities committed may therefore be excused as being unavoidable consequences of some initial injustice.

Since the "Palestinians" are not responsible for their own circumstances, it is therefore the duty of the rest of humanity to shield them from the consequences of their actions. Since day one, the United Nations has poured money into Judea, Samaria, and Gaza (Yesha) to provide food and education to the hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Arabs' failed attempt to strangle Israel in the cradle in 1948. This welfare proved a magnet for anyone in Araby who wanted to live on the dole. As a result, hundreds of thousands came flocking to Yesha to get a piece of the loot. Rather than get the refugees back on their feet, this unearned wealth taught them that violence is much more lucrative than productive work. Today, Gaza is hugely overpopulated, with no chance of supporting it's 1.4 million residents (number subject to downward revision over the next several months.) Today, even with the international aid embargo intact, the Palestinian Authority still receives $1.2 billion per year from other sources.

Naturally, the international community has learned nothing from the past 60 years of failures. Convinced by Hamas claims that the fighting has been caused by the international aid embargo, Norway, and soon other European nations, have decided to violate their earlier pledges and begin flooding the strip with money. This will likely have the opposite effect. After all, the fighting in Gaza started over who gets which cabinet position, since these positions give the authority to distribute the massive quantities of cash flowing into the strip. By dumping more money into the pot, the Europeans merely sweeten the prize of whoever wins.

Migron

Migron has the feeling of an outpost on its way to becoming a town. Home to a few dozen families, most of whom still live in trailers, the town is festooned with makeshift electrical and lighting poles, fabricated from wooden posts with their bases either squeezed between the boulders in the soil or loaded into discarded rusty oil barrels weighted with field stones.

Migron houses, with the established settlement of Adam in the background, and my own town of Pisgat Ze'ev even further back.

Welcome to Migron

The Preschool

But Migron is also an outpost in the crosshairs. In order for an outpost to become a settlement it must pass through ten stages of approval. The first stage, authorization from the local municipality, is easy enough. With the Arab world dumping money into the Palestinian Authority, and funding roving tribes of nomadic Bedouin immigrants to settle permanently, competition in the open hilltops surrounding Jerusalem becomes intense. Every Jewish settlement needs to build as many outposts as possible in order to hold its territory before it is encroached upon by rapidly expanding Arab settlements in the vicinity, and therefore approves as many outposts as possible. The next stages of building involve water hookup, electricity, etc., each of which require their own approval. At the end of the day, after all the previous steps have been accomplished, the defense minister signs his final approval and an official, legal Jewish community is born.

Migron had passed through the first nine stages of approval, to the point that banks were confident enough in its eventual success to loan homeowners the money they needed to build permanent structures. But politics being what they are, the international community registered its shock and outrage at Jewish growth with then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who ordered the Mirgron's destruction to placate them. The army showed up with hundreds of soldiers, but the settlers showed up with thousands of activists, so the army threw up its hands and went home. Leaders come and go, but Migron seems to pop up again from time to time. Whenever the current defense minister is challenged from the left within his own party, he rallies his base by ordering a meeting to discuss a plan of action for calling an assembly of officers to draft a game plan to destroy Migron. Nothing has come of it all yet.

Migron's first two permanent structures.

Migron still has the pastoral, open feeling of an unfenced town. Security consists not of fences and patrols, but a ferocious guard dog.

Benji scans the perimeter.

The coast is clear. No milk biscuits or fire engines.

Looking north towards Rimmonim.

The mikveh (purity bath) for immersing dishes and cooking utensils.

Foreground; migron. Background: Kochav Ya'akov.

Yours truly in Migron

Looking back at the mother settlement of Kochav Ya'akov from the outpost of Migron. A small garbage fire burns in the midground.

Outside Kochav Ya'akov's Fence

In response to this problem, the young, passionate, and idealogical move specifically outside the fence's protection. One man started his catering business outside the fence, "Davka!" as they would say in Hebrew, specifically to make the point.

Catering trailers outside the fence.

The Jews aren't the only ones playing the settlement game. Since 1967, the Arab states have invested billions in building as much as possible to hold territory and block the expansion of Jewish communities. East of Kochav Ya'akov stands a fingerlet of mansions and apartment complexes. No cars, no carpets draped over the balconies, no children in the street, only silence. The entire complex stands starkly empty, built only as a place-holder.

Bottom left: Kochav Ya'akov Catering. Top right: The empty mansions of Al Amari.

Rabbi pulls me aside. "Look at that ridge line out there with the Arab housing." About three miles distant, random slapshod buildings arranged in no particular order, empty a mosque minaret.

"Yeah, I see it. That's Jaba," built on the ruins of the ancient Jewish city of Geva, fortified by King Solomon about 3,000 years ago.

"Look below slightly, and you'll see a little bit of Kochav Ya'akov."

Sure enough, a small trailer with a couple of olive trees rests in Jaba's shadow.

"He's a gardener, living with his sons. He's planted an olive orchard but it doesn't produce yet. You can make a good living with olive oil."



Trailers (bottom right) in the shadow of Jaba (above.)

Looking east, we spot Migron, about four miles distant, built by the next generation of settlers, the children of the original pioneers of the established communities.

Foreground: Kochav Ya'akov's rooftops. Background: Migron

And Migron will be our next stop.

Kochav Ya'akov's Fence

Arriving in Kochav Ya'akov, we meet Rabbi Feld (from my previous trip here.) Kochav Ya'akov is surrounded by a fence of a different sort. Unlike the massive concrete panels of the federal government-sponsored wall surrounding Pisgat Ze'ev (and the rest of Israel,) this fence was built with approval from the settlement in cooperation with the army.

A local settlement fence with motion sensors. Behind the fence lies the sprawling Arab village of Deir Dibwan.

Every fence that Israel erects comes with philosophical and emotional baggage. For most Israelis, the construction of the massive wall is strictly a life-saving security consideration. But as a religious settlement, with inhabitants from every Jewish group from the National Religious to the Hareidi (ultra orthodox,) the residents of Kochav Ya'akov have to weigh the Jewish arguments of fence building as well. On the one hand, it is a basic point of Torah that one must protect one's own life at most (but not all) costs. Motion sensors and barbed wire certainly delay the potential infiltrator, possibly long enough to get a security team on the scene to finish him off. Of course, even during the intifada, there was not a single attempted infiltration here, but that's not to say that it couldn't happen.


But what about the biblical injunction to settle the land of Israel? While the municipal jurisdiction of Kochav Ya'akov extends for miles, a fence surrounding the entire land area would break the army's budget. Therefore, the fence had to be built short and tight, surrounding only the existing houses, with most of Kochav Ya'akov's land outside. This sends the psychological message to the neighboring Arabs that the Jews have given up. Building and land ownership laws throughout Israel, and especially in Judea and Samaria, are only enforced against Jews. Government fears of "making a scene" for CNN with demolition of illegal structures, a left-wing infantilizing pity towards the Arabs powerful enough to pardon all crimes, and a general post-Zionist apathy amongst middle-of-the-road Israelis has infected the nation's decision-makers. With a fence marking the new, truncated limits of the settlements, no law enforcement, a legal shield and publicity from Peace Now and other advocacy groups, the surrounding villagers are free to take as much land as they please.

Empty, ownerless lands beyond the fence in danger of being consumed by Deir Dibwan.

This is not to mention the psychological victory fence-building grants Israel's adversaries. True that a fence may stop a terrorist, but it also sends a signal of victory. A fence broadcasts fear to the potential killers, and the sadistic infliction of fear and pain is the life-blood of terrorism. Building fences may actually inspire more attacks than the they thwarts.

Next: moving beyond the fence.