Israel Determined to Crush Hamas

Tuesday, June 17, 2014 |  Ryan Jones ISRAEL TODAY

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Israel is working hard to find and rescue three abducted Jewish youth, but it is also using the crisis as an opportunity to hopefully deal a debilitating blow to the Hamas terrorist organization.

Israel has determined that Hamas was behind the kidnapping of Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel last Thursday, and that assessment has been largely backed up by the United States, Europe and the Palestinian Authority.

Israel has issued a limited call-up to IDF reservists as it arrests hundreds of Hamas leaders and lays siege to the Judean town of Hebron, a stronghold for the radical Islamist group. On Tuesday, Israel extended the operation to the Samarian town of Nablus (biblical Shechem), where even more Hamas leaders were rounded up.

“As long as our boys remain abducted, Hamas will feel pursued, paralyzed and threatened,” said army spokesman Lt. Peter Lerner. “We are committed to resolving the kidnapping and debilitating Hamas terrorist capacities, its infrastructure and its recruiting institutions.”

Army Radio called the operation as a “root canal” aimed at “uprooting everything green in the West Bank,” referring to Hamas’ official color.

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett was even harsher in his remarks. “We will turn membership in Hamas into an entry ticket to hell,” he told reporters.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, cautioned Israelis to be patient and prepare for an extended ordeal. “We are here in the midst of a complex operation. We need to be prepared for the possibility that it may take time. This is a serious event and there will be serious consequences,” said the Israeli leader.

The Palestinian Authority condemned what it called escalating Israeli aggression, but also took steps to halt implementation of its recently signed reconciliation pact with Hamas. A senior PA official told The Times of Israel that if Hamas truly was behind the abduction, then the Palestinian unity deal of which Israel was so derisive would become null and void.

For its part, Hamas condemned cooperation between Israel and the PA in the search for the missing Jewish youth, and said Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas should instead be declaring jihad against the Jewish state.

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Israeli Ministers Propose Annexing, Abandoning 'West Bank'

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 |  Ryan Jones  ISRAEL TODAY

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With the collapse of the latest round of US-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Israeli ministers seem to be of one accord that the Jewish state needs to take the initiative and formulate its own outline for the future, though they disagree sharply on how to seize this opportunity.

The first to enter the fray was Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the nationalist Jewish Home faction.

Bennett proposed that Israel fully annex the portion of the so-called “West Bank” labeled as “Area C,” which is already today under full Israeli security control, and is where the bulk of the Israeli settlers live.

Under Bennett’s plan, the 70,000 Arabs who live in Area C would be granted Israeli citizenship. Areas A and B would be granted enhanced autonomy and the Palestinians living there would have their own state in all but name.

“We must recognize the truth - the Oslo era is over. After 21 years of trying one way which included unilateral withdrawals, concessions, releasing terrorists, disengagement and a unilateral separation - it’s time to admit that it does not work,” Bennett told an annual security confab in Herzliya.

“It’s time to think creatively how to build a better reality here for the citizens of Israel and for the Arabs residing in Judea and Samaria,” he added. “This plan gives the Palestinians an independent government and economic prosperity while giving us, the State of Israel, sovereignty, stability, security and a maintaining of our homeland.”

Bennett’s proposal was immediately attacked by Finance Minister Yair Lapid, who insisted that if Israel annexed one inch of the West Bank, his centrist Yesh Atid faction would not hesitate to topple the government.

While Bennett and Lapid have allied on many issues, the finance minister was adamant that the way forward is not laying further claim to Judea and Samaria, but rather further abandoning those biblical territories.

Speaking at the same conference in Herzliya, Lapid advocated a return to negotiations despite the recent entry into the Palestinian government of the Hamas terrorist organization, which still calls for Israel’s destruction.

In preparation for those talks, Lapid said Israel should draw the final borders that it would like to see between the Jewish state and a future Palestinian state. Israel would then unilaterally withdraw from those areas where no Jews are today living. As a confidence-building step, Israel would later evacuate isolated Jewish settlements, and in the plan’s final stage, Israel would conduct a land swap with the Palestinian state for areas where large Jewish settlement blocs are located.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called Lapid’s proposal a non-starter that had already been proved a failure in Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

“We saw in Gaza the results of unilateral withdrawal,” said officials in the Prime Minister’s Office. “Anyone with political experience knows that you don’t make concessions without [getting] anything in return, especially with a government partnered with a terror organization that wants to destroy Israel.”

Netanyahu’s aides also pointed out that were Israel to draw an official map of future proposed borders, that map would then forever be the starting point for future negotiations, even if Israel later determined the boundaries were unfavorable.

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