To those who say the image of a swastika flying near the Gaza Strip's border with Israel is a victory for Israel, I say: So what? Those who have refused to see Hamas' genocidal Islamo-Nazi ideology for what it is up until now are not about to change their views. Will the image of a swastika flying alongside the Palestinian flag help prevent the U.N. Security Council from voting unanimously against Israel and in favor of the Palestinian war? Will it prevent Haaretz from publishing editorials aimed at assisting the Palestinians in their struggle by issuing threats against the Israel Defense Forces?
The swastika flag is a minor detail in the IDF's success in this campaign, the second round of which we witnessed on Friday. Alongside the IDF's determined handling of this new Palestinian warfare, two aspects worth noting are the performance of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and the regional circumstances that led to Hamas' attack on the border fence.
Ever since he was put in charge of the Defense Ministry nearly two years ago, Lieberman has changed the way in which the IDF responds to attempts to stoke tensions in Israel's south and attack the border fence: Under Lieberman, the IDF has been far more aggressive in its approach, eliminating the terror tunnels in a move that risked sparking a flare-up but instead created deterrence. But the recent rounds of the border intifada that began ahead of the Passover holiday constitute a new type of military campaign, and the first serious IDF campaign Lieberman has led as defense minister.
You have to give Lieberman credit: He, along with the senior commanders of the IDF, passed the wwww. I don't want to contemplate how the two previous defense ministers would have handled this type of warfare, whose goal, of course, is mass infiltration into our territory or the killing of civilians.
The Palestinians under Hamas have thrown their support behind Iran and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's "axis of evil." Hamas' leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar is working for Iran, which has invested a fortune in the terrorist organization. It is no coincidence, then, that the border intifada broke out at this time. Whoever follows international media reports understands what local media outlets have been trying to conceal: The alliance between Israel and the Sunni states, and Saudi Arabia and Egypt in particular, is reaching new heights in what some U.S. media outlets have referred to as a "thaw" in Israel-Arab relations. The only ones ostensibly missing from the picture are the Palestinians, who might have fit into this process and moved forward on a path toward peace with Israel. But Hamas, of course, has turned the Palestinians into Iranian cannon fodder to be used against the Israeli-Sunni alliance. The only trouble is that Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan couldn't care less about the smoke-filled Palestinian performance. In their struggle to prevent Iran's takeover of the region, they need Israel. The question is: What are the Israeli Left, the New Israel Fund and Haaretz doing behind the Shiite barricades?
