Israel ends policy of restraint against Gaza

David Horovitz:

The Israeli air strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza on Saturday, hugely dramatic in their scope, nonetheless mark only the beginning of an ongoing, potentially lengthy operation aimed at restoring calm to the South, rather than a one-off response to the escalated Kassam rocket fire. The policy of restraint, officials say, is over.

For months, Israel has been refining its intelligence information on the key physical locations that are crucial to the rule of Hamas in the terror state that the Gaza Strip has become since the Islamist group seized power there in June 2007.

And rather than seeking to target the fast-moving offshoots of that terrorist rule - the Kassam crews that set themselves up in residential Gaza neighborhoods, fire into Israeli residential areas and then quickly melt away - Israel has elected to fire into the heart of the terror beast.

Defense Ministry officials, from Ehud Barak on down, were Saturday preparing the Israeli public for what they said was likely to be a difficult period ahead.

Hamas is threatening a further escalation in rocket fire - with missiles reaching to Beersheba - and the mobilization of a new wave of suicide bombers.

The international fallout, even amid the relative inattention of the Christmas-New Year period, began remarkably quickly, with a chorus of calls for Israeli restraint, including predictable fury in the Arab world and a vehement protest from France at Israel's ostensibly disproportionate response.

Amid the military preparations, it will quickly become clear whether Israel has made parallel diplomatic preparations, with articulate officials prepped and ready to highlight to the watching world how untenable has been the situation of Hamastan firing into Israel for eight years, with interim lulls to rearm, and no cessation even after Israel pulled all its civilians and all military infrastructure out of Gaza in 2005.

The word from the defense establishment on Saturday afternoon was that some 60 planes had participated in the strikes at dozens of Hamas military and logistical targets. Preparations were in place for an intensification of military action, with the potential use of ground forces, officials said. No call up of reserves was under way but, again, the preparations were in place should it be deemed necessary.

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On the diplomatic front, the victim offensive by Hamas will resonate in Arab quarters and some places in Europe which is big on proportionate response when it is not being attacked. It does appear that Israel's target selection surprised Hamas somewhat, although its leadership as been in the bunker for a couple of days expecting a response to their provocations.

Israel needs to learn how to deal with the inevitable victim offensive of the Palestinians and Hamas. The best way to do that is to predict it before responding to the Hamas rocket attacks on non combatants.