Debbie Schlussel: I Told You So: Israel's Attacks on HAMAS Were Failed, Extended Campaign Commercial
I warned you. I told you over and over. A few weeks ago, when Israel began its attacks on HAMAS--allegedly in response to the rocket attacks that have been ongoing for years--I told you, "Don't believe the hype."
Just re-read my column, "Don't Get Too Excited About the Phony Baloney, Temporary Israeli 'War' vs. HAMAS," from the start of the attacks. Everything I said was true and remains so.
As I warned you, Israel would eventually retreat and the status quo would remain. And I was right. They idiotically gave Gaza away to those bent on their distruction, and they're not getting it back. Gilad Shalit, the kidnapped Israeli soldier, remains in capitivity. HAMAS--as I predicted--is still around and very strong, all the stronger because, a la Hezbollah, the mighty Israel didn't defeat it. And HAMAS baby-makers a/k/a most Palestinian women would be fast at the production line to put more replacement buns in the ovens. (It's always "time to make the donuts" in the Palestinian warrior assembly line.)
HAMAS rockets were sent upon Israel even after the faux truce started, and more rockets will come.
And--shocker!--the Palestinian tunnel smugglers in Rafah are back in bid'ness:
The tunnels linking Gaza and Egypt are back in business, despite the hundreds of tons of bombs and missiles that Israeli troops rained down on them. . . .The smuggling is surprisingly overt on the Gaza side. Hundreds of workers were operating Thursday in a mile-long stretch of battered tents and fake greenhouses, each with a tunnel operating or being dug inside. Dozens of other tunnel entrances were open and unhidden. Amid the frantic activity, a fire broke out in a smuggled fuel shipment, although there was no immediate report of injuries.
There's even a makeshift snack shop servicing them, named "The Underground Crossings." Its owner, Mahmoud Baroud, reopened soon after the cease-fire began and expected at least 200 customers for lunch Thursday.
"We even do deliveries if they're too busy," he said, stirring fried onions.
See, I told you so. I hoped I was wrong. But Israel has a predictable track record of of empty gestures and empty, costly half-hearted attacks on terrorists in the last 2-3 decades. They pulled out of Hezbollah's South Lebanon in 2000, they did it again in 2006. Each time, their enemy got stronger, and Israel got weaker. Each time rockets continued to be sent from their northern neighbors to attaack innocent Israeli civilians. And each time, they've not gotten the remains or specific, reliable information on the whearabouts of soldier Ron Arad.
With HAMAS, it's a similar image. Again, still no Gilad Shalit. More rockets. More tunnel smuggling of terrorist weapons and material from Egypt, but ultimately from Iran. And a strengthened enemy. HAMAS' Khaled Meshaal is declaring victory over Israel, and he is correct on this count. Israel lost. HAMAS won.
I'm just waiting for the latest terrorist prisoner release for non-existent "goodwill."
Meanwhile, per usual, HAMAS and Israel's preferred Islamic terrorist group, Fatah--for whom this phony war was also perpetrated--are back at their old game of trying to reconcile. Same old, same old.
Israel is as predictable as a clock. And it's not just me who knows it. HAMAS and Hezbollah and the entire Islamic world know it, too.
And their just biding their time until time on that ever-weakening clock simply runs out.
What's that I hear? Oh, it's the sound of Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni looking at the latest polls to see which of them was more boosted by this costly campaign commercial, for which they paid in Israeli lives, tanks, and ever-weakened reputation.
Just as I predicted. Israel never had any intention of eliminating HAMAS. The proof is in the halal pudding, ever more pungent in Gaza.
To those who told me at the beginning of this failed action against Gaza, that Israel would this time, finally, once-and-for-all, wipe out or nearly destroy HAMAS, I say now what I said in a nicer way then: Dream on , suckers.
Israel and Adam Ant have something in common: Desperate But Not Serious.
Posted by Debbie on January 23, 2009 11:47 AM to Debbie Schlussel