Attack And Repent

"Our resolute policy against terrorism may be summed up in a single principle: Whoever attacks us or plans to attack us will bear the consequences."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"Precision munitions combined with advanced intelligence enables us to strike terrorist like Kharti while they attempt to use Hamas' Gaza as a haven for their hostilities."
Lt.Col. Peter Lerner, spokesman, IDF

The motorcyle being driven by terrorist Abdallah Kharti when Israel launched an air strike on him. Photo by AP

One provocation too many. A number of failed rocket attacks across the border from Gaza into Israel. One of the latest was caught by Israel's Iron Dome defence system. There will be more. So far this year Gaza has been the source of 33 rockets, signalling an uptick on such attacks. In comparison throughout all of 2013 when 60 rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel.

Such manifestations of high regard for a neighbour are not appreciated by the State of Israel.

And so, reciprocation. A failed assassination attempt matching a succession of rockets, none of which accomplished much in the way of damage unless we add into the equation, the diminishing of peoples' quality of life, leaving children terror-stricken and adults quavering each time an alarm is sounded when all residents of towns like Sderot, must rush toward their shelters for survival.

Just in case, as has happened, one of those rockets does connect.

The last time Israel got really fed up to the point of deciding to launch a retaliatory response into Gaza when years of rockets being fired into Israel culminated in sufficient outrage, the then-president of Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, who along with the Muslim Brotherhood, recognize Hamas as a kid brother in need of protection from the big bad bully in the neighbourhood, organized a cease-fire.

Israel and Hamas signed an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire.


Large groups like Hamas like to try for the kill when they feel they are adequately prepared, with sufficient arms in their possession. They don't normally commit to self-destruction by provoking the larger military with its more sophisticated war weapons, unless hard pressed to do so. Israel never presses in the sense that it sees nothing to be gained by warring for war's sake.

Peace, live-and-let-live is their byword. But the will to protect itself and to strike back in a demonstration that is not comfortable with rockets being fired at its citizens, obviously requires refreshing its words with actions from time to time.

But then, this is an attitude and a philosophy unknown to a mass mentality with a pathogenic attraction to revenge, victimhood, hatred, and slaughter.

While Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon; Sunni-Shia counterparts in jihadi terrorism; prefers to attack when it decides that all the factors favour it, smaller terror groups chafe for action, and spend their time in the manufacture of crude bombs and plans to murder as many Israelis as may be possible. Using the civilian population in which they immerse themselves as cover.

The Sunday morning airstrike was meant to precision-target a senior member of the Popular Resistance Committee. Abdallah Kharti got lucky; he survived to live another day and plan other attacks against the Israeli presence in the land of Israel. Moshe Yaalon, minister of defence for Israel, explained that Kharti had involved himself in firing rockets from the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula into the Israeli resort city of Eilat, as well as his involvement in firing rockets from Gaza.

The new Egyptian government is very well aware of its need to cooperate with Israel in a sometimes joint effort to defend from the presence of al-Qaeda linked militias, Hamas terrorists, Islamic Jihad and Salafist Bedouin, in the Sinai, all of whom are invested in their crusade against both the Egyptian government that removed the Brotherhood from power, and the Zionist entity that applauded the change.

Under the ceasefire, Hamas had been diligently guarding the border, to ensure that not too many rockets were fired into Israel at the present time. Hamas claims it is unable to stop all violent activities aimed at Israel; there are simply too many brain-addled jihadi groups roaming the territory. In a protest against Israeli retributive airstrikes for rockets being fired into Israel, Hamas had recently withdrawn its border area forces.

Now, it appears, that decision has been reversed. Islam Shahwan, a Hamas Interior Ministry Gaza spokesman has assured that his ministry has redeployed its forces along Gaza's borders with Israel in an effort to sustain the ceasefire agreement. Seems it just needed that extra nudge to remind them, with the reintroduction of "targeted killing" responding to attacks against its nemesis Israel.