Hudna Under Threat?

Update from AIJAC

Hudna Under Threat?

August 14, 2003
Number 04/04 #06

Yesterday's two suicide bombings in Israel have placed some doubt on the continuation of the Hudna (ceasefire), at a time when it was already under stress.

To look at this, we lead with Ha'aretz military correspondent Zeev Schiff, who says that the ceasefire was always partial and "fake" as he puts it. Further Israeli concessions are now very unlikely as long as the Palestinian leadership refuse to carry out their roadmap obligations to do something about terrorist groups, (as the US is now demanding) Schiff writes, HERE.

Some more common misunderstandings concerning the ceasefire are also debunked here, in a piece prepared by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a group of former army officers in the US. Importantly, it takes on the automatic media assumption that the suicide bombings were revenge for earlier Israeli raids on Hamas bomb factories. To read this discussion, CLICK HERE.

Finally, Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post looks at the detailed reality, according to Israeli intelligence, of the much-talked about re-arming by Palestinian groups during the Hudna. She paints a picture of a serious danger, particularly from large-numbers of improved range rockets aimed at Israel's heartland. Everyone who wants to understand why Israel is so insistent on the disarming of the terror groups should read this, so CLICK HERE.

Violating the hudna

By Ze'ev Schiff

Ha'aretz, August 13, 2003

The Palestinians have developed a method for maintaining a fake cease-fire. They, including some Fatah members, continue to kill Israelis, even through suicide attacks; Palestinian Prime Minster Mahmoud Abbas condemns the events but blames Israel; the hudna between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which was meant to prevent terror, is not being kept; the terror infrastructure, including tests of Qassam rockets, continues as it has in the past while Israel is blamed for acting against explosives labs providing explosives belts. That is the false cease-fire. Six Israelis have been murdered since it began.

With this kind of cease-fire, it is clear that the Palestinians would say that Tuesday's two attacks are not considered an end to the hudna, but rather a continuation of what they regard as its natural development. This is despite the fact that the Rosh Ha'ayin attack was conducted by a cell from Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Hamas conducted Tuesday's attack in Ariel, with the PA claiming it was in response to Friday's IDF operation in Nablus that was meant to prevent other suicide operations.

The Israelis, on the other hand, look confused. Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon, who briefed the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for hours Tuesday, did not describe the suicide attacks as a "red line" crossed by the Palestinians.

Tuesday's attacks were the second and third suicide bombings to take place since the cease-fire was announced on June 29: the first took place on July 7 in Kfar Yavitz when an Israeli woman was killed at home by an Islamic Jihad activist.

Israel continues to speak as it has in the past, saying that Abbas and Dahlan are not doing anything against the terror infrastructure. At the same time, it has signaled that its interest in the cease-fire is even greater than that of the Palestinians, and it is adapting to a semi-cease-fire in which attacks continue on a medium flame.

Israel is finding it difficult to explain itself, because it was embarrassed when the settlers "kidnapped" the security fence, turning it into a political fence. The Palestinians are keeping the fence on the international media agenda.

Israel does not want to be charged with violating the cease-fire. It is watching the ongoing construction of tunnels on the Egyptian border intended for smugglers to move weapons and explosives into Gaza, but has yet to act. It is watching the tests of Qassam rockets in Gaza without taking action against what Mohammed Dahlan apparently regards as natural, and something apparently he believes he can live with despite having large numbers of forces in Gaza.

Meanwhile, negotiations have stalled between Israel and the PA over bringing together all wanted men in one Jericho camp, as Israel has suggested.

Nonetheless, some processes taking place are being dictated by the security reality. There is no serious element in the government that would transfer more West Bank cities to the Palestinians at this stage. The cell that wounded a mother and her children near Gilo on August 3 came from Bethlehem, a city that Israel transferred to the PA. The Palestinian Preventive Security Forces and the Shin Bet have not yet found the shooters.

Proposals for more prisoners releases, including administrative detainees, will encounter even more difficulties. Ministers who were open to additional releases while expecting the Palestinians to take more aggressive action against the terror infrastructure will fall silent when the subject comes up again.

And lifting more checkpoints will encounter difficulties on a day-to-day level. The Shin Bet, which is primarily interested in preventing attacks, will be more aggressive against removing further checkpoints.

Bombing and Revenge

August 12, 2003

JINSA Report #350

Today a reporter came and asked whether the homicide bombings in Israel would "derail the Road Map" or whether "the process would continue." He wanted to know how JINSA viewed the Palestinian claim that the bombings were "revenge" for the death of "Hamas bomb makers" in Nablus, and whether the bombings proved Israel's concept of a "security wall" a failure. It's not altogether his fault; he was just repeating what he heard. Secretary Powell did say today, "We will continue to move forward on the road map ... We will not be stopped by this kind of violence."

But two Israelis have been stopped, permanently, so the fallacies here require exposition.

1) The so-called "cease fire" has led to some diminution in the level of violence against Jews--from 50 or more security "incidents" a day to somewhere around 18-20, according to IDF sources. That includes people being stabbed, blown up and shot. In real terms though, this cease-fire exists because the IDF has been largely successful in stopping terrorists, not because terrorists have stopped trying.

2) The Road Map sets out a variety of requirements for the Palestinians, including not only security control and disarmament of terrorists, but also democratic reform. The summary execution in the street of yet another Palestinian accused of "collaborating" with Israel is one sign that a process cannot continue that has not yet begun.

3) And what about the "wall"? The security fence is not a violation of the Road Map; it isn't mentioned. The fence is a reaction to Israeli citizens demanding that their government protect them from terrorists. If Abu Mazen would meet the security requirements of the Road Map, if he would dismantle the terrorist organizations, there would be no wall. This is not chickens and eggs--more than 800 Israelis had already died before the fence became an issue.

4) The "revenge theory" is just disgusting; who calls a 42-year-old father doing his grocery shopping a legitimate target? And here, anyhow, is the rest of that story. Last week, Israel sent soldiers to Nablus to arrest a wanted man. Met with shots coming from the building, the IDF returned fire--but the building housed a bomb factory, which blew up killing four Palestinians.

But don't discount the utility of revenge; it may yet save the "process."

Two Israelis were killed today, but so were two underage Palestinian boys--pushed by their elders into murder and death. Yusra Qteishat demands revenge. According to the news, the mother of bomber Islam Qteishat rejected those who came to call her son a "martyr" and screamed, "I'll kill whoever dispatched my son." To the extent that Palestinian mothers and fathers reject the abduction and brainwashing of their children; to the extent that they make the perpetrators of death pay; to the extent that they turn their anger on Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and Arafat, hope lives.

Rockets galore

By Caroline B. Glick

Jerusalem Post, Aug. 7, 2003

Aside from suicide bombers, the weapon most emblematic of the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel that began three years ago in September, is the Kassam rocket.

The Kassam, a crude rocket that contains between 10-15 kilograms of explosives, made its debut in Gaza during the first months of the war. Ever since, Kassam rockets have been fired extensively, if sporadically, at the town of Sderot, as well as at smaller Israeli towns abutting the Gaza Strip that fall within its 6-8 kilometer range.

As an imprecise weapon, the Kassam rocket has no military value. It cannot target tanks or aircraft. It is an indiscriminate weapon of terror aimed against civilians for the purpose of killing and hitting random targets.

During Operation Defensive Shield, IDF forces uncovered workshops with lathes for Kassam rocket production in Jenin and Nablus. These were shut down and to date, the Palestinians have not deployed Kassam rockets in Judea and Samaria.

This may soon change.

Testifying before the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, a senior IDF intelligence officer explained last Monday that Hamas is now assembling Kassams in Nablus, and receiving assistance from Hizbullah in developing the rocket.

Moreover, Hamas members in Gaza are now working intensively to increase the range of the Kassam to 15-17 kilometers. Over the past few weeks, several rockets with extended ranges have been test-fired into the Mediterranean. This would bring Ashkelon within rocket range.

According to former IAF commander Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eitan Ben-Eliyahu, "Increasing the range of the Kassam from 6-8 kilometers to 15-20 does not present a great technical challenge. The problem is that the longer the range is extended, the less precise the rocket becomes."

For Israeli leaders as well as for military planners and commanders, the advent of a Kassam threat in Judea and Samaria can easily change the calculus of the war. Ben-Eliyahu explains, "When the Palestinians are limited to fielding Kassams in Gaza only, the question of precision is important. Sderot is the only relatively large target they can reach. In Judea and Samaria on the other hand, if you make a 20-kilometer circle around a Kassam, you see that Kfar Saba, Ra'anana, Netanya, Petah Tikva and Jerusalem, as well as Ben-Gurion Airport, are all in range. The concentration of populated areas is much, much higher and so the probability that an imprecise weapon like a Kassam rocket will hit something is much greater."

Former head of Military Intelligence and commander of the War Colleges, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ya'acov Amidror views the extension of the Kassam range and its development in Judea and Samaria as symbolic of the trap that Israel has fallen into by accepting the hudna.

"Today, by accepting the hudna, the government has enabled three processes to take place in the PA that could not have taken place beforehand," he says.

"First, it has enabled the Palestinians to acquire and develop new and more sophisticated weapons systems. Before the hudna and the IDF's curtailment of counter-terrorist operations, we would destroy the weapons smuggling tunnels and the weapons workshops. Today, we are not doing this, and of course the PA under Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is doing nothing against these activities.

"Second, they are rebuilding their terrorist cadres. Because of the limitations we have placed on our operations - like the cessation of targeted killings - we have no ability to thwart their mobilization. The recruitment and training of new cadres is taking place intensively everywhere that the IDF is not deployed. Again, the PA is doing nothing to stop this.

"Third, both Islamic Jihad and Hamas are using the respite from IDF operations to revamp and strengthen their political leadership and influence over the PA areas and Palestinian society. The fact that both the EU and the Egyptians met officially with Hamas leaders in the talks that preceded the hudna has transformed Hamas into a partner of equal weight with the PLO in the Palestinian leadership."

In sum, Amidror notes, "in accepting the hudna, Israel has not only taken away its ability to act against the terrorist infrastructure, it has transferred the initiative of when the fighting will restart to the Palestinian terror organizations. And all the new weaponry they will be able to field will be a direct consequence of the hudna."

AS FOR the Kassam, both Amidror and MK Dr. Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, define the threat of Kassam rockets in Judea and Samaria as a "strategic threat" to the state.

Steinitz explains, "With the Kassam rockets in Judea and Samaria, the Palestinians will be able to attack strategic targets at will. Everything from the Knesset to major highways to Ben-Gurion Airport will be within range."

Amidror adds, "Can you see British Airways continuing its flights to Israel after the first Kassam falls on a runway at the airport?" Then too, "Because the Kassam is a weapon of terror, the Palestinians don't even need to fire off that many to completely change the fabric of life in the country. It will be enough for them to fire one rocket every two weeks into Ra'anana or Kfar Saba and one rocket every few weeks into Jerusalem to make life unbearable for all Israelis."

Amidror points out that in using the hudna to rebuild and improve their terror capabilities, the Palestinians are simply following the same strategy they have used since the PA was formed in 1994.

"Consider the fact that in the Palestinian uprising in 1987-1993, the most deadly weapon Israel deployed against the Palestinians was a jeep. We never used tanks or aircraft to fight them. Our resort to those weapons in the current war is simply an indication of how much deadlier their abilities have become over the last decade.

"Since the PA's establishment, they have worked steadily to build a deterrent against Israel to force Israel to erase any red lines it has in negotiations. In this they are following the exact strategy used by Hizbullah to such great effect in Lebanon. They believe that through terror they will be able to get Israel to leave without an agreement. With the Kassam they are telling us that they can commit terror attacks against us without actually having to deploy terrorists to our cities to carry them out."

From Israel's perspective Steinitz says, "The next two or three weeks will be critical for the country. If over the next few weeks Abbas continues to take no action against the Kassam rockets and the rest of the weapons build-up in the PA, we will have to end the cease-fire. No country can accept a rocket or artillery threat that can target 70 percent of its population. That is what the Kassam involves. Non-action is not an option."