A “Peace Process” means that the process should bring peace. That is the universal, proverbial thought, but not when it comes to Israel.
When one talks about the peace process that Israel hoped for, when, in 1993, it signed the Oslo Accords, in the back of one’s head was the hope that signing the Accords would invoke that peace and it would soon arrive.
Yet, when Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords with then Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, he did not mean peace. Arafat’s signature’ ink on the Accords was not yet dry and the first Jew was murdered in Israel to be called the “first victim of the Peace Process.” And there were more such victims to come. And there is no end in sight, even as this article is written.
Since 1993 some 2000 Jews were murdered and many other were maimed in the ‘peace process’ charade because the Arabs who adopted the nickname ‘Palestinians’ never really wanted to live in peace with Israel. Their true peace is spelled, ‘piece.’ They either want to see Israel torn into pieces by their constant onslaught or they want the piece [of land] named Israel all to themselves.
Yet, there is no peace in sight. rather, constant war and terror, which Israel so very much attempts to prevent with its security forces but the ‘peace process’ keeps on yielding victims right up to today.
History reminder
Then Israel sought a new direction for the sake of hopeful peace. It started giving up a piece of its own land for the sake of that peace.
In August 2005, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) carried out the Israeli Cabinet’s decision to forcibly removed 8,600 residents of Gush Katif from their homes and leave that area to be totally Arab populated.
Gush Katif, meaning, the Harvest Bloc, was a bloc of 17 Israel communities in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Their communities were demolished to the last house, loved ones’ graves were dug out and relocated, all as part of Israel’s decision to unilaterally disengage from the hostile Arab population. The beginning was the Gaza disengagement.
The disengagement from Gaza did not bring the peace Israel was so hoping to gain. The country’s western-southern region has been suffering the rockets’ onslaught consequences, now even reaching the country’s center.
Soon after the Israeli disengagement, the Arab factions, the PLO and Hamas, in the Gaza Strip started to squabble.
In the January 2006 Arab-parliamentary elections, Hamas won a plurality in the Palestinian Authority (PA) Parliament, defeating the PLO-affiliated Fatah party. Following the elections, the United States, Russia, United Nations, and European Union (known as the Quartet) committed to future foreign assistance to the PA, which they conditioned upon the future government’s commitment to non-violence, recognition of the state of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements. Hamas rejected those demands, which led to the Quartet suspending its foreign assistance program and Israel imposing economic sanctions on the Hamas-led administration. In March 2007, a national unity government, headed by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a member of Hamas, was briefly formed, but failed to gain the trust of the international community and thus restart receiving the international financial assistance.
Tensions over the control of the Palestinian security forces soon erupted in the Gaza Strip, turning into a brethren bloodshed and resulting in Hamas taking control of the Gaza Strip, while its officials were ousted from the PA government positions.
Hamas which means Islamic Resistance Movement, is an Arab Sunni-Islamic-Jihadist fundamentalist militant organization that has been the de facto governing authority of the Gaza Strip since its takeover of that area in 2007.
Hamas, co-founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a Muslim Brotherhood branch, was founded soon after the first Intifada, the uprising against Israel, broke out that lasted from December 1987 until the Madrid Conference in 1991.
The Hamas Charter, affirmed in 1988, declared that Hamas was founded to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation and to establish an Islamic state in the area that is now the state of Israel, to include Judea and Samaria, AKA West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
Although clarifying that this does not mean recognition of Israel or the end of the conflict and knowing that many of its conditions for the truce with Israel could never be met, the group has stated that it may accept a 10-year truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 ceasefire lines and allows Arab refugees from the 1948 war, including all their descendants, to return to what is now Israel.
Ever since, Hamas has been a thorn in Israel’s back the Jewish state simply cannot find a way to remove.
Since 2007 Hamas, regarded a terror organization, has been at war with Israel. Rockets fired at Israel from Gaza, at Hamas’s will, are Israel’s daily security worry.
To add to this terror mix came the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, known in the West as simply Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). It is a terrorist organization, formed in 1981. Its objective is to destroy the State of Israel and establish a sovereign, Islamic Palestinian state. Financially backed by Iran, the PIJ’s power has been steadily increasing. Th Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of PIJ, has carried out suicide bombing, attacks on Israeli civilians, as well as firing rockets into Israel. Both the PIJ and Hamas, groups that were formed as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, have much in common, fighting against the existence of the State of Israel and receiving funding from Iran, and thus acting as its proxies.
Current events
In November 12, 2019, after Israel assassinated Bahaa Abu el-Atta and his wife in a precision airstrike, the Islamic Jihad in Gaza once again lost its composure and begun another indiscriminate rockets’ attack rounds on Israel’s civilian population.
Bahaa Abu el-Atta, age 42, was a senior commander of the Islamic Jihad Movement in ‘Palestine’. Israel described Abu el-Atta as a “ticking bomb” for Israel’s security. In short few hours after the assassination, the Islamic Jihad responded with a barrage of rockets into Israel, escalating the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict.
Over a million of Israelis had to find cover in special protected spaces, a sanctuary type space built inside the structure of a building in which its occupants are intended to find shelter when the rockets from Gaza are coming at them. At the same time, Iron Dome batteries were rebuffing the rockets and the economy came to a temporary halt.
Following the Gulf War, when Scud Missiles from Iraq were indiscriminately fired at Israel and Israeli civilians had nowhere to hide from them, Israel decided to build such protected spaces in every new building in the country.
Getting Rid of Arch-Terrorists
In October 2019 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of the Islamic State (ISI), died in an assassinated operation carried out by United States special forces. He was discovered in a compound in Barisha in the Idlib province of northern Syria a few miles from the Turkish border. The USA special forces team blew off the side the building in which Baghdadi had been staying, apparently for some time. The US claims he killed himself by detonating an explosive vest. The soldiers brought back pieces of the corpse and confirmed it was him with biometric tests. No retaliatory rockets were fired at any USA civilians or territory.
Who was Bahaa Abu al-Atta?
Al-Atta, the terrorist Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his nation was considered “a ticking time bomb” and was planning an imminent attack on Israeli civilians was a jihadist, the major force in trying to disrupt the cease-fire between Israel and Gaza. In recent years the mastermind of terror has been very active directly ordering attacks on Israeli civilians, and IDF soldiers, including rocket attacks, mortar bombs, sniper attacks, and other means and have instigated most of the terrorist attacks from the Gaza Strip this year, 2019.
According to Israel’s intelligence, Abu al-Atta was planning imminent attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers at the time of his targeted assassination that took place at his home. These planned attacks included preparing squads for infiltration into Israel, sniper attacks, sending booby-trapped drones into Israel and rockets firing at various ranges and at his will. As such and just as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was, he had become a “ticking bomb” and was thus a legitimate target.
During the three day mini-war, while approximately 400 rockets were fired at Israel, targeting the civilian population, some 24 jihadist-terrorists were eliminated by Israeli strikes.
During the night of November 13, 2019, a ceasefire was achieved. The Islamic Jihad however, broke it several times with short rocket barrages that keep the Israeli civilian population in the Gaza rockets’ vicinity in their shelters and safe spaces, and the economy in that region is still in paralysis.
In the past 72 hours, the skies of southern Israel were a display of fire and smoke.
Hundreds of rockets were fired by the Gazan Islamic Jihad at Israeli homes who were forced to seek shelter. Hamas kept at bay and let the Islamic Jihad do their bidding against Israel.
If it were any other country, the Gaza strip would have turned to be a parking lot a long time ago. But Israel is the target of scrutiny of the entire international community and is held to different standards. Therefore, the Jewish state must apply different warfare methods which no other country would agree to operate on.
As of November 11, 2019, onward, Israel’s security cabinet has taken upon itself to protect its citizenry along deterrence approach and means: if any terrorist attacks Israel during the day, Israel’s military forces do not guarantee he will be alive that very evening.
There will be no mercy for the cancerous jihadists who live for killing Jews and destroying Israel.
Israel vows it will not let the Gazan Hamas nor Islamic Jihad to attack it at their will.