Achlama Peretz, a Sederot resident and the wife of Amir Peretz, said that Sederot needed more employment and education, before security. That's what I said when I lived in Kiryat Shmona.
The best defense that Israel can provide is to make peace. The Disengagement plan is not making peace, and my humble opinion is that whoever expected the fire to stop, doesn't understand the situation. If the Palestinians stopped the fire, then there was no reason to give them anything else. We in the left would be willing to give them, but we are not the majority and certainly this evil government (like all governments preceding it) isn't going to do anything without pressure.
Now if you think that I am justifying the firing of Kassam rockets on Sederot, then I must say this: I think that there's a difference between justifying, and realizing that an immoral measure, such as Kassam or suicide bombing, is effective, and maybe even the ONLY way for the Palestinians to achieve their goal; as for their goal, I think that it is a just one.
One can say, that in that sense, the Kassams are just like the bombing of Israel on Gaza. Because you can regard the Israeli bombing as either:
(1) A necessary evil, one that we cannot live without, therefore it is morally OK (I believe that this is the opinion of most Israelis, which I respect as a legitimate opinion).
(2) Immoral, but one that may be the only way to achieve some security to Israelis.
(3) Immoral, because there are other ways.
Suppose that I sided with opinion no. (2). Then I would say that we are no different from them. Here is why:
Imagine the following situation: A man is constantly harassed and intimidated by a gang of criminals. They beat him, steal from him, and the police is doing nothing to stop it. In his despair, he takes a gun and kills one of the gang. The harassment stops immediately. Was the killing justified? No!! Was there another way to do justice? Who knows. Would we do the same if we were in the same situation? I cannot swear that I wouldn't. Ehud Barak, in a rare moment of honesty for a politician, said (in an interview with Gideon Levy), that if he was a Palestinian he would become a terrorist. If one has the assertive character of Barak, and one is on this side, then he is brought up to be the opposite of the Jew of the Galut (Diaspora), he doesn't want to be a sucker, he becomes a super-hero and a brilliant General. But, if you are on the other side and you don't want to be a sucker, you become a terrorist.
The best defense that Israel can provide is to make peace. The Disengagement plan is not making peace, and my humble opinion is that whoever expected the fire to stop, doesn't understand the situation. If the Palestinians stopped the fire, then there was no reason to give them anything else. We in the left would be willing to give them, but we are not the majority and certainly this evil government (like all governments preceding it) isn't going to do anything without pressure.
Now if you think that I am justifying the firing of Kassam rockets on Sederot, then I must say this: I think that there's a difference between justifying, and realizing that an immoral measure, such as Kassam or suicide bombing, is effective, and maybe even the ONLY way for the Palestinians to achieve their goal; as for their goal, I think that it is a just one.
One can say, that in that sense, the Kassams are just like the bombing of Israel on Gaza. Because you can regard the Israeli bombing as either:
(1) A necessary evil, one that we cannot live without, therefore it is morally OK (I believe that this is the opinion of most Israelis, which I respect as a legitimate opinion).
(2) Immoral, but one that may be the only way to achieve some security to Israelis.
(3) Immoral, because there are other ways.
Suppose that I sided with opinion no. (2). Then I would say that we are no different from them. Here is why:
Imagine the following situation: A man is constantly harassed and intimidated by a gang of criminals. They beat him, steal from him, and the police is doing nothing to stop it. In his despair, he takes a gun and kills one of the gang. The harassment stops immediately. Was the killing justified? No!! Was there another way to do justice? Who knows. Would we do the same if we were in the same situation? I cannot swear that I wouldn't. Ehud Barak, in a rare moment of honesty for a politician, said (in an interview with Gideon Levy), that if he was a Palestinian he would become a terrorist. If one has the assertive character of Barak, and one is on this side, then he is brought up to be the opposite of the Jew of the Galut (Diaspora), he doesn't want to be a sucker, he becomes a super-hero and a brilliant General. But, if you are on the other side and you don't want to be a sucker, you become a terrorist.
Take Nasrallah (of Hezbollah) for instance. He is ordering to kill civilians, and so does Lieutenant General Halutz (IDF Commander-in-Chief). He wants to destroy Israel, and so do most of our politicians, to the Palestinians. So I think that there is no difference. We are not fighting now for our security, because this fighting will not bring us any security in the long run. We may kill Nasrallah, just like we killed Abas El-Musaui (his predecessor), but another one will come instead. We can't kill them all. Therefore we are only fighting for our stupid "honor", but in the meantime we are only being humiliated by a primitive guerrilla movement. I don't see an end to that until we really make peace with them. They are teaching us an important lesson, and that is: we cannot do everything by force. Therefore it's not a shame to say to them: "all right, you win, we were arrogant to think that we could solve all of our problems with force, now we realize that it can't be done. Let's give you your independent state and live in peace."
But of course this will not happen, because we will not learn this lesson. Because out "Dignity" is more important to us than the lives of young soldiers and a few hundreds of Israeli and Palestinians and Lebanese civilians. And because a guy like Nasrallah will not agree to that, and they will use our arrogance to keep fighting. I believe that most Arabs are willing to live in peace with us, but of course we wont be fooled by them... So the fighting will continue until your sons and mine and their sons will go to the military, and fight too until we will all say: enough.
