Eight days after Operation Pillar of Defense began, southern residents received the news of a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza groups with great disappointment.Overnight, sirens still sounded in the region, as at least 13 more rockets were fired, and I won't be surprised if many of these people won't vote for Likud in the upcoming election.
"This wasn't the conclusion we prayed for," said Ashdod Mayor Yehiel Lasri, whose city continued to come under fire after 9 pm Wednesday, when the truce went into effect. "I am afraid this lull will last for only a short while, and hope that at least we have garnered international support for a harsh response that will become necessary when the fire is renewed."
Sderot Mayor David Buskila echoed the sentiment, saying he opposes the way the hostilities were put to an end. Dozens of residents of the city rallied on Wednesday night against the truce agreement and called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign.
"The fighting should have been concluded with an accord indicating Israel's clear supremacy and with the Israeli deterrence being restored to its former level," he said. "I hope the decision turns out to have been the right one. Only time will tell.
"In any case, I feel no pride," he added.
Update: Daniel Greenfield says it right:
There is no ceasefire, despite declarations from the international community to the contrary, just as there has been no peace for the past twenty years despite peace accords being signed.Exactly. And if Netanyahu's election campaign fails because of this, he will have to recognize and come to terms with his guilt in this whole affair.
In the language of diplomacy, ceasefire does not mean that the rockets will stop falling and peace does not mean an end to the violence. They mean only that Israel is not allowed to fight back when the rockets fall and the bombs go off. Peace does not mean an absence of killing; what it means is that the terrorists are the only ones allowed to kill.
The ceasefire means that diplomacy has succeeded and the goal of diplomacy in the Middle East is not to make it possible for Israeli children to sleep safely at night, but to pull back Israel from finishing a war.
Netanyahu put politics before the lives and security of the citizens of Israel.
ReplyDeleteHe seems to be a changed man since his father died. I used to be a staunch supporter of Netanyahu.
But now that he's pulled a Sharon (I see his unilateral withdrawal from Gaza as no different than what Netanyahu is doing right now) I don't know if I have the same amount of respect for him as I did before.
He has basically given Hamas a chance to rebuild, promote new leaders and continue on this rocket launching spree while obtaining more longer range rockets from Iran, Syria and Egypt.
The enemy will not see Israel and IDF as spineless. While that would be a complete misunderstanding of what the IDF is capable of, that misunderstanding might end up costing more innocent lives in Israel.