On November 29 of 1947, more than sixty years ago, the United Nations passed a resolution to partition Palestine between its Arab and Jewish populations. The division was to be among population lines. Two states would be created side by side. Jerusalem would be under international control.
This coming May, Israel will celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of its existence. Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish state. Israel’s territory is considerably larger than had been envisioned by the partition plan, due to military victories. It has suffered six wars and is currently in what seems to have become another one.
This war was declared on Wednesday by Dr. Abu Osama Abd al-Moti, the representative of Chamas in Iran. How appropriate! He represents Israel’s enemy in the country whose head has promised to wipe Israel off the earth.
This new war began on Monday, when Chamas bombed the Israeli southern town of Dimona, where its rockets, reportedly sent in a suicide attack, fell on a shopping mall, killing a woman. The rockets this time came not from the Gaza Strip, the usual launching pad, but from the West Bank.
On Tuesday, Chamas fired rockets from the Gaza Strip into the rocket-scarred southern town of Shderot, wounding six civilians and knocking out power in parts of its target.
On Wednesday, Shderot was hit again, sending several residents into shock. On the same day, a Kassam rocket struck a playground in Kibbutz (communal settlement) Be’eri, wounding a two girls, a tike not yet three years old, and a 12-year-old. At the end of the day, Chamas announced it had fired 31 rockets into Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“For more than a year, we stopped (attacks) but the Zionist enemy continued in its aggression and degraded the cease fire on part of the resistance,” Abd al-Moti declared. “The message of the operation in Dimona is that Izz al-Din al-Qassam (Chamas’ military wing) declared the renewal of suicide operations, and the enemy should expect additional operations.”
I wonder what cease fire the man in Iran was referring to. Rockets, many supplied by the country from which he spoke - far and away from where the action is - have been falling almost daily on Shderot and other southern communities, as well as further north of the Strip, on the city of Ashkelon, for many months.
At Kibbutz Be’eri, the father of the teenager, “heard a very loud boom. It was clear to us that this time the Kassam landed in the middle of the kibbutz.” He didn’t know where it had fallen, but “immediately the phones began to ring. Then, my daughter’s teacher called to tell me my child had been injured, she is being treated and I should come. I came and there was my daughter, I saw her with a shrapnel of rocket in her arm.”
Both children were subsequently hospitalized. In a house near where the rocket fell lay an 82-year-old woman in her bed, covered with shards of glass from the windows of her house, which exploded. Miraculously she was not injured.
One of the rockets that fell on Shderot struck a house occupied by a mother and her three children. The four ran to a “safety room” as soon as the alarm went off. Moments later the rocket hit a wall of the house. The family was offered shelter in a hotel in Ashkelon, but they refused to leave their home.
Machmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, chided Chamas on Wednesday. “These rockets that are being fired at Israel must stop. It’s pointless,” he said. At the same time he also told Israel “not to use these rockets as a pretext for collective punishment on Palestinians in Gaza. Israel must allow humanitarian supplies and other needs to be provided to Gaza.”
Considering that the barrage of rockets that started the latest series of attacks came from the West Bank, which is Abbas’ domain, it is clear once again that he cannot be Israel’s “partner for peace.” He simply is not in control.
Will Israel and the Palestinians ever live side-by-side in peace? Naomi Chazan, a former member of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, put it this way in a recent column:
“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has come full circle. The successful completion of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations following Annapolis may, finally, complete the process that began with the adoption of the Partition Plan 60 years ago. Truth be told, no better alternative exists.”
Is anybody listening?
