While the ceasefire still holds, technically, it’s not going too well.
Gaza border crossings stay closed in light of rocket fire
So, to sum this up:
Israel doesn’t shoot. The Palestinians fire rockets, but it’s not Hamas doing it. So, is that a violation of the ceasefire?
Apparently, not enough of a violation to declare the ceasefire void, but also not enough of a ceasefire to allow opening the border crossings. Looks like there are militant groups within Gaza who disregard the truce, so it’s not Hamas per se doing the shooting, but other groups, namely the Islamic Jihad. From an article from that explains the mess:
The Islamic Jihad militant group on Wednesday threatened to continue its rocket attacks on western Israel, despite a six-day truce agreement in the Gaza Strip.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday ordered the closure of all crossings through which goods enter the Gaza Strip in response to Palestinian Qassam rocket fire on the western Negev a day earlier.
The crossings were to have opened at 8 A.M. local time to allow for imports, increased in scale under the truce, to reach the impoverished strip.
But Israeli military liaison official Peter Lerner said the crossings would stay closed until further notice. “Any reopening will be in accordance with security considerations,” he said.
So, here’s the problem. There is an elected government in Gaza, and Israel expects it to contain the use of arms by all militants in Gaza. After all, a ceasefire is supposed to mean cessation of all fire, right? But the Hamas makes the following statement in the same article -
Hamas said it remains committed to a cease-fire with Israel, but would not act as Israel’s police force in confronting militants who breech the truce.
The comments by Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya came shortly after the militants fired three rockets into southern Israel on Tuesday, lightly wounding two Israelis. It was the first attack since the truce took effect last Thursday.
Hamas said it was exerting pressure on Islamic Jihad, which claimed
responsibility for the attacks, to stop the rocket fire and demanded that
Israel open the crossings. But al-Haya said its forces would not confront
rocket launching squads on the ground.
Things that make you go “Ummm”. How can you hold the stick at both ends? Either you consider yourself the acting government, in which case, yes, you are also the police force in charge of enforcing a political decision of a ceasefire. Not “Israel’s” police force, but the Palestinian’s Police Force. It’s your own interest, not just ours, that the ceasefire be maintained. If you’re not “the police force”, or won’t be that police force, that means you can’t or won’t contain your own violent factions, in which case who are we dealing with when opening the border crossings?
To clarify, in my view, the opening of the crossings isn’t just a matter of punishment – we need to know there’s someone on the other who is capable of maintaining the peace and ensuring the safety of those crossings. If you can’t stop your own people from firing rockets, how are you going to maintain the safety of the crossings?
The one example Israelis keep referring to is how Zionist leader Ben Gurion sunk the Altalena. Read all about it in that link to Wikipedia, but to put it in a nutshell: Ben Gurion used severe measures and brute force, including sinking a ship full of arms that was going to the non-IDF military factions in Israel. Ben Gurion realized that to put a State in operation, the government needs to have a monopoly over the use of force. It’s pretty much the definition of sovereignty. You can’t allow armed factions to do as they will – they have to be disarmed, disbanded, and only the official forces are allowed to exert force. It hurts, yes, big time. To have your fabled warriors disarmed and disbanded after years of them being “heroes” and fighting for the cause, but it has to be done if you’re serious about your future as a country. It’s something the Palestinians MUST do for their own future as a nation, and now is the time, or this ceasefire is going to fail.
