By Adina Kutnicki

(Aug. 19, ’11) Few events in Israel’s recent history sear the Jewish soul as did the destruction of 25 thriving Jewish communities in Gush Katif and the northern Shomron, as ordered by the Sharon-Olmert government. The sixth anniversary of what is referred to as the ‘disengagement’ of August 2005 now looms over Israel’s collective conscience.

In a move that set Jew against Jew, the IDF was used to engineer the expulsion of more than 8,600 people from their homes. Gush Katif residents watched in horror as the living were dragged from their homes and the burial places of the dead were desecrated. Later, 26 synagogues were burned by Arab mobs.

The destruction itself took place over 10 days, but the physical and mental preparations occupied many months beforehand. Three years later, in August 2008, a report entitledThe Mental Preparation for the Disengagement and its Aftermath in the IDF would shed light on the intense preparations that took place.

The authors call the disengagement “a precise operation” performed with seven levels of security that took 18 months to plan.

“To execute robotic responses [by IDF soldiers] in a precision-like fashion, southern military commander Dan Harel appointed a team of psychologists to ‘transform’ the soldiers’ thought processes,” write authors Ruth Eisikowitch, Dr. Gadi Eshel, Dr Amira Dor, Boaz Haetzni, Attorney Aviad Visoli, Dr. Rachel Tassa and Dr. Moshe Leibler.

The report describes a series of psychological exercises “planned to ‘release’ the soldiers from their conscience by carrying out exercises in emotional disconnect.” The psychologists’ notes on those exercises are detailed in the journal Military Psychology (No. 5, December 2006).

The report is consistent with the recollections of Rachel Saperstein, a former resident of Neve Dekalim. When soldiers arrived the night before the expulsion, she tried to engage them in conversation, she said, only to find that they refused to talk to her or even to look at her. “The IDF turned them into robots,” she said.

Army officials were not the only ones dealing with the disengagement months before it took place. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to take part in hundreds of protests, determined to make their voices heard. Such a volume of public protest was striking, and many would suffer for it. Some 7,000 Jews were arrested for their participation.

Military sources reported that the barrage had consisted of up 100 rockets fired, but one-third fell short and exploded inside the Gaza Strip. Israel hit back overniight Wednesday with 29 air strikes against its positions.

DEBKAfile reported earlier:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned that Jihad and Hamas too, as overlords of the Gaza Strip, would rue the day they harmed Israel. This placed the military initiative in the hands of Jihad Islami and its puppet master, Gen.Soleimani.

So far, Israel and Iran have kept their undeclared war within certain limits.

But the capture of the Iranian missile ship led Iran’s Palestinian proxy, Jihad Islami, end-users of its arms cargo, to even the score. On Tuesday, three Jihad operatives fired mortars from southern Gaza at an Israeli military patrol. They were shot dead as they fled the scene. Jihad had fabricated the pretext for letting loose a continuous volley of Qassam and Grad missiles across a broad front that sent more than half a million Israeli civilians running for shelter.

Iron Dome batteries intercepted no more than three, although property was damaged in downtown Sderot. The day was overcast and rainy, which the Palestinian terrorists judged would obviate Israeli Air Force retaliation. But that night, the Israeli air force pounded 29 Jihad positions up and down the Gaza Strip.

By then, they had emptied out and so no one was hurt. Neither were there casualties from the Palestinian rocket offensive, the most extensive since the Israel’s Pillar of Defense Gaza operation in 2011.

This was because the Palestinians in their first round aimed for the shock effect of surprise rather than precise targeting and so most of the rockets landed outside residential areas. Jihad possesses more accurate weapons with far longer ranges than those used Wednesday, but held them back until Thursday.

Israel and Iran are conducting an unusual kind of war: Israel has struck Iranian and allied military targets in Syria, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea. Tehran has hit back by activating allied Palestinian and Lebanese pro-Hizballah terrorist organizations against Israel. Israeli reprisals were confined to air strikes on empty terrorist buildings.

So both sides appeared to be keeping to certain boundaries.

But the Jihad was ordered – or tempted – to carry on.
The Jewish festival of Purim begins Friday, March 14, with children parading in costume and carnivals in Israeli towns, presenting an attractive target for provoking violence that would spread to additional sectors in southern Israel, or even Sinai and northern Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon.

The first three rockets fired from the Gaza Strip Thursday morning appeared to have come from Salafist groups linked to al Qaeda. They also demonstrated the tinderbox quality of the atmosphere around Israel’s borders and provided Jihad with a surrogate of its own for blasting Israel untouchably from Egyptian Sinai.

To be sure, there is a world of difference between “preventative” measures and that of defensive ones, absolutely MANDATED when ones citizens are used for target practice! Assuredly, smoke and mirrors, ala targeting EMPTY buildings, doesn’t fool anyone.

In other words, for the most part, Israel’s decision makers are more comfortable (but who gives a damn about their comfort levels, certainly not the citizens being fired upon), to a certain extent, to allow its long-arm forces to preemptively strike at shipments of heavy weaponry.

Yet, even within this sphere, their actions leave much to be desired. How so? Well, their eyes in the sky, for the most part, know where this and that is located. Therefore, how come they have allowed MASSIVE build ups of missiles and rockets , that which are currently raining down on Israel’s citizens from the southern borders via Gaza? And, what about the 60,00 plus missiles aimed at the heart of Israel from its northern borders, whenever Hezbollah terror leaders receive the go ahead from their masters in Iran? Is this any way to lead a nation?

A + B…cause and effect.

Thus, if a case has to made, re GRAVE dereliction of duty, rest assured, the onus lies atop Israel’s top political echelon. In the main, their absolute fear of cleaning/clearing out terror nests – north and south – is inextricably tied into the leadership’s fear of international outcries, thus, endangering Israel’s civilians!

While it is their sworn obligation to protect Israeli citizens, they hue to international dictates: don’t dare harm the enemy populations, albeit unintentionally, knowing full well that the IDF drops leaflets, warning civilians in advance which areas are going to be targeted:clear out for your own safety!! Is there any other army – anywhere in the world, even in the deluded west – which warns the enemy population to get out of the line of fire?? Name one. You can’t.

Tragically, the following is just a smidgen of the craven fruits of appeasement, under PM Netanyahu’s two-term stewardship:

For instance, regarding the release of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, Netanyahu proclaimed resolutely in July 2010: “I understand the campaigns to free Schalit, but not at the price of the children, elderly and others who will die if the terrorists freed return to commit terror attacks.” But barely a year later, he did precisely that, releasing almost 1,030 Palestinian prisoners, including 280 sentenced to life imprisonment for terror attacks, and collectively responsible for the deaths of 569 Israelis.

Then came the Turkish debacle.

Cavalcade (cont.) 

In an news item headlined “PM: No compensation to Turkey” (July 2, 2010), The Jerusalem Post reported: “Netanyahu rejected the notion that Israel would pay any form of compensation… to Turkey for the nine Turkish citizens who were killed in the boarding of the Mavi Marmara as it sought to break the IDF blockade on Gaza.” In early September 2011, numerous media sources quoted Netanyahu’s defiant declaration: “We don’t have to apologize [to Turkey] for acting to defend our civilians, our children and our communities.”

Yet, on March 22, 2013, apparently in response to pressure from Obama on his visit to Israel, Netanyahu again gave way – not only apologizing to the abusive anti-Israel Turkish premier Recep Erdogan for IDF naval commandos defending themselves against disembowelment by frenzied Islamists, but engaging in negotiations for payment of generous compensation to the “victims” of their defensive actions.

The most heinous act of surrender was yet to come: The decision to bow to pressure from Secretary of State, John Kerry, and release scores of murderers convicted for brutal acts of terror, in return for no more than the doubtful privilege of coaxing the Palestinians to enter into reluctant negotiations, aimed at achieving what they purport to aspire to: statehood.

In light of this dismal record of spineless climb-downs, it is difficult to see how anyone – ally or adversary – could take any Israeli position seriously.

Cost of unbounded malleability 

The manifest lack of Israeli resolve and seemingly boundless malleability has cost the country dear, gravely undermining vital national interests on both the Palestinian issue and the Iranian nuclear program.

Regarding the former, it is increasingly clear that by bowing to each implausible demand, Netanyahu has made the next implausible demand inevitable – like, for example, Obama’s wildly implausible demand, conveyed via his blatantly biased interview with Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg this month.

NOW, the above does NOT even touch upon his inability to give the final order to the military:smash Iran’s genocidal project! As a result, the following was asked and answered:where has PM Netanyahu’s “red line” gone:Where Has Netanyahu’s “Red Line” Gone…Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s ‘Promises’ Too? 

Is it any wonder that Iran is, for all intents and purposes, a NUCLEAR state, as PM Netanyahu hitched Israel’s fate to Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s “promises”: ISRAEL’S FORMER AMAN CHIEF CONCURS WITH FORMER CIA HEAD. BOTH INDICT RESPECTIVE LEADERSHIP’S ABDICATION!

Most tellingly, the CONTINUOUS raining down of missiles on Israel’s southern cities lead straight back to the unlearned lessons from the bitter fruits of “disengagement”. NO amount of jive-talk will change this outrageous fact: PM Netanyahu’s delusional, unfathomable appeasement is to blame.

As a result, can anyone seriously argue that PM Netanyahu is applying the requisite lessons learned from past failures, as opposed to repeating the same “policies” of appeasement? And, why should anyone expect Israel’s leaders to place the citizens before their own personal agendas – whatever they may be – as they cow tow to foreign demands, whatever the national costs?

Craven.

Don’t dare feel sorry for the burdens Israel’s leaders carry. They climb over anyone – even the dead – to reach their political power. That’s the damnable truth.