The Ceasefire That Never Was

Sderot After an Attack

Nadene Goldfoot
On June 25, 2006, Gilad Shalit was kidnapped, and Israel has been hoping to get him back ever since. He was a soldier near the Gaza border that was stationed there, and was probably kidnapped from the terrorists who had been building tunnels nearby.

Six months ago the Palestinians and Israelis signed a ceasefire agreement that has not been upheld by the Palestinians at all. Sderot and the surrounding areas have been constantly shelled, including Ashkelon, Portland, Oregon's sister city which lies north of Sderot and contains the only hospital that serves both Israelis and Palestinians in the area.

This constant shelling has caused Israel to at least close the Gaza crossings in order to punish the Palestinians for their constant shelling bombardment. They in turn blame the closings for their reason to constantly shell Israel. The ceasefire has only tied Israel's hands in trying to get to the actual terrorists who are shelling them because they are trying to uphold the agreement. Israel said they would open the crossings if the attackers could go for 24 hours without shelling Israel with rockets. On Thursday of this week 11 rockets and 5 mortar shells were fired at Israel. Three Israelis were wounded. The IDF were able to destroy their rocket factory, though.

The ceasefire was finished on Friday, though shellings were going on against Israel all this week. The new attack included sniper fire which came an hour after the usual Kassam rockets. Farmers in Israel were attacked at Kibbutz Ner Oz for the first time and had to be rescued by the IDF. Their vehicle was hit but the people were unharmed.

Hamas is in control in the Gaza territory and make little sense to me other than their main goal is to attack and destroy Israel, and they do not care what happens to the citizens there under their control. Hamas knows that Israel closes the coastal strip because of the shelling, but they cry that Israel is creating a life-threatening siege on its people.

Hamas also declared in the Oregonian that Israel is striking Palestinian militants in the West Bank (Judea/Samaria), and they also use that as an excuse for shelling Israel. How can they wonder about striking militants who are trying to kill civilians in Israel?   People who attack Israel must be stopped. This situation puts Israel in the middle between two Palestinian terrorist groups; one on the east and one on the west. Israel must be alert all the time.

Reference: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128931

Oregonian Newspaper page A17: Israelis fear renewal of rockets while blockade shackles Gazans

Gaza Dilemma Worsens

On June 19, 2008, Israel had a truce with the Hamas terrorists, and rocket shelling into Israel was stopped for a while. On November 4th it started in again. The punishment was that Israel blockaded the entrance into Gaza so that supplies could not go in. The terrorists had broken the truce and this was the result. If they want to create death, fear, and panic upon Southern Israel, at least their supplies will not reach their destination.

The latest lob of rockets was at a nearby Israeli army base, and it seriously injured one soldier and wounded 6 other soldiers. Not only do they continue this shelling, but then they demonstrated in Nazareth on Saturday against the blockade. Actually, Israel has allowed trucks with supplies in three times since November 4th when the shelling apparently let up, but then once they receive their aid, they start in again.

The Palestinians know that this blockade is taking place because of the shelling from the terrorists. They could bring about a truce and receive their supplies if only they'd stop making war on Israel. This latest bout might bring about more of a punishment than holding back trucks. Israelis are fed up being shelled. It's pretty hard to have a normal day under such conditions when you have to spend all your time in bomb shelters. People have about a minute warning before a bomb blasts into their neighborhood. You never know if it will hit your house or not.

By hitting an army base this time, it is as if they are daring the IDF to come and fight them. They know that this will cause bad press for Israel. Then they'll cry, "Look, they're fighting us." They count on readers and TV viewers to know very little about the situation, and side with them, the so-viewed oppressed.

The question is, how long can the population put up with this constant attack which is causing so many such stress and closeness to death without reacting with stronger measures, hoping to stop this constant assault?

Resource: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081129/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgaza_081129230611

United Nations Pressure on Israel, No Others

Nadene Goldfoot

Monday Israel allowed trucks into Gaza to bring in necessary items. The United Nations continues to pressure Israel to keep the gates open, saying that hundreds of thousands are without food and fuel.

They know that the gates are closed because the Gazan terrorists, Hamas, have continued to shell Israel with rockets. I haven't noticed them telling the terrorists to stop shelling Israel. They never blame the terrists, but turn the problem around. Karen AbuZayd of the UN simply said that Israel should open the gates because the warehouse's food is gone. Navi Pillay aid the blockade breached international and humanitarian law.

It is certainly against the law to fire rockets into Israel. That is not humane. This fact is ignored. The bullies hurt a country, then call foul because they have been punished. I can't believe the logic.

The Oregonian is implying that the terrorists are increasing their attacks on Israel because this is the end of a negotiated truce made 5 months ago that certainly has ended, what with shelling Israel for two weeks daily. Barak is keeping the crossings closed because of continuing rocket fire. How else can the terrorists see that their attacks are unwelcome? Are they trying to get the whole Israeli army into Gaza? They are instigating a fight by attacking, and all we have done is close the gate that would open if the shelling stops.

 Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva was as exasperated as I feel. ..."Hamas, which invests all of its resources in arms and terrorism instead of providing for civilians that it brutally controls," said Aharon Leshno-Yaar. He contradicted the UN comments in that water and electricity were still flowing and 33 trucks loaded with supplies were in Gaza on Monday. More are waiting to enter once the attacks of rockets stop.

Israeli tanks went into Gaza Tuesday and were hit with mortar fire. They were followed by a bulldozer and military jeep. They were there to clear the land along the border, a routine operation to find explosive devices. The tanks, though fired upon, did not return fire. There were no casualties.

Israel has said that if the rocket firing persists, they will hit back hard.

Continue reading the next blogs to find further information on the Gaza situation.

Resource: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97187460&ft=1&f=1004

Oregonion November 19th page A8 Israelis make brief sweep into Gaza.

The Gaza Strip and Israel

Israel was created in 1948, and immediately attacked by all the Arabs. Some Arabs, not many, were living in Palestine at the time. Some heeded their leaders’ advice and fled the area, only to become refugees. Those that stayed became Israeli citizens and make up 20% of the population of Israel. The Gaza Strip stretches for about 22 miles and is only 8 miles wide. The Egyptians attacked Israel in 1948 and went into the Negev and by December Israel had driven them out, except for the Strip. That's how it came to be.

After the war Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip and its more than 200,000 inhabitants but refused to let them into Egypt. Not only that, but Egypt wouldn’t allow them to move to any other country.

In June of 1949, Israel offered to accept the refugees if Egypt agreed to give up Gaza, but Cairo refused. Egypt’s handling of the Palestinians was so bad that Saudi Arabian radio said that Nasser’s regime in Gaza was like Hitler’s rule in occupied Europe in WWII.

In 1952 UNWRA was set up with a fund of $200 million dollars to provide homes and jobs for these refugees, but it wasn’t used at all.

In 1956, Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran and Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. Nasser was fighting against Israel. He said his hatred of Israel was very strong and that there was no sense in talking about peace with Israel. 17 maritime powers said at the UN that Israel had a right to transit the Strait. The closure of the Strait of Tiran was the casus belli in 1967.

We had a war that started June 5, 1967 with Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, and poised and ready to also attack were the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. Israel came into control of the Gaza Strip by winning the war in six miraculous days. The Gaza Strip was originally in Egypt’s hands . At the end of this 1967 Six-Day War, it fell to Israel because Egyptian forces were ready to launch attacks from Gaza into Israel. We kept sovereignty over the area because the Arab leaders rejected Israel’s offers to return conquered territories in exchange for peace. Every Arab state had rejected UN resolutions 242 and 338. They had called for peace negotiations and the establishment of recognized borders for all states in the region.

The 1967 census found 352,000 people living in the Gaza Strip of whom 172,520 were Arab refugees.

Ralph Garroway, former director of UNRWA, said in 1958 that the Arabs don’t want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it like an open sore like a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.

Israel kept control of the Gaza Strip and ceded all of the Sinai peninsula in its peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 because Anwar es-Sadat didn’t want to rule over more than one million Palestinians in the Strip anymore.

Israel provided economic assistance. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were moved from camps to new homes. This caused protests from Egypt, who had done nothing for the refugees when it controlled the area. Arabs were given freedom of movement. They were allowed to travel to and from Jordan. Israel was treating them humanely. That was bad for aspiring terrorists who were not willing to accept Israel’s presence.

By 1994, Yassir Arafat rose to power after the Oslo Accords. The Gaza Strip was the center for terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. In 1995 Israel built a fence around the whole Strip, with guarded crossing-points. This stopped terror attacks.

Arafat died in 2004 which gave rise to Hamas’s leadership in the Strip. Rocket attacks against Israel rained from Gaza, sometimes 80 per day, hitting civilian sites in Israeli communities in and near the Strip, like S’derot. This is still happening.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon saw the the Palestinian leaders were not enforcing peace that Arafat had signed for at Oslo. Sharon wanted to show the world that he was all for peace, so had Israeli citizens move out of Gaza Strip in August of 2005, and also had several Jewish communities in the northern part of the West Bank move out also.

It was most costly to move 9,000 Israelis out of the Gaza Strip who had been in their homes for 35 years. Israel felt that they had to move because of the Arab’s hatred of Jews is so great that it would be hard to protect them. However, more than one million Arabs are settled peacefully in Israel without need for protection. Israelis felt that putting the Gaza Strip under Palestinian control would be starting the peace process. We haven’t had peace. Shelling of rockets continues, even now because in January 2006, Palestinians in Gaza voted for the Hamas terrorist group, who won on the stand of destruction of Israel and establishing an Islamic state from the river to the sea.

Israel had voted for peace while the Palestinians voted for terrorism. It appears that everyone is now trying to get Israel to return to the armistice lines of 1949, thinking that will bring peace.

The Arabs were threatening, planning and trying to destroy Israel at that time. They attacked us on three sides. This war cost Israel in 6 days twice as many dead in proportion to her total population as the USA lost in 8 years of fighting in Vietnam. For 18 years the Arabs had done hostile acts against Israel, had broken every relevant paragraph in the Armistice Agreements of 1949 which everyone had signed. It meant nothing to the Arabs.

Reference: Myths and Facts by Mitchell G. Bard and Joel Himelfarb

Big Lies: demolishing the myths of the propaganda war against Israel by David Meir-Levi

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia by Dr. Geoffrey Wigoder, D. Phil,

Battleground, Fact and Fantasy in Palestine bySamuel Katz

O'Leary's Cow Does it Again

How Things Escalate

Cpl. Gilad Schalit hopefully is still alive, but no one in Israel knows. He was an IDF soldier captured two years ago on June 6, 1986 by Hamas terrorists. The Palestinians have done nothing to let us know what has happened to him since his kidnapping despite Israel's inquiries and offers.

On Sunday, some Israeli protesters were demonstrating his kidnapping at the Kerem Shalom border crossing at the Gaza border. They were stopping trucks with shipments for the Gazans and setting tires on fire. They had decided to take matters in their own hands.

After reading John McCain's book, "Faith of my Fathers", about his experience in a prison camp in Viet Nam for five and one half years, I shudder. He experienced torture for the whole time. No doubt Shalit's family and friends are imagining the torture he is enduring if he is still a prisoner.

The terrorists responded on Tuesday, breaking six weeks of peace by firing a Kassam rocket into Southern Israel, most likely into a Sderot field. Four months ago a cease fire was declared, but occasionally the terrorists have broken it.

According to the cease-fire arrangement, Israel would lift a blockade that was started two years ago. Now, when they break the peace with rocket fire, Israel closes the commercial border crossings. The closure is brief, but makes a point. Undoubtedly, it creates a crimp in the Gazans' schedules.

Reference: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/ Yahoo news

Jerusalem Post Newspaper

Faith of my Fathers: John McCain with Mark Salter

Wikopedia: Cpl. Gilad Shalit