GAZA: A TRAGEDY, NOT A MASSACRE


Once again an Israeli offensive into a densely-packed refugee camp has led to howls of world outrage. Even the U.S., battered by the images of Abu Ghraib, partially joined in, abstaining in one more biased U.N. resolution and scolding the latest IDF action as "worsening the Palestinian humanitarian situation without improving Israeli security." That criticism is tame compared to the strident Arab and European cries of massacre and genocide. Lost amidst the rhapsodic Israel-bashing in the reason why the IDF was sent into Rafah in the first place - the vast matrix of tunnels used to smuggle increasingly more deadly arms into Gaza from Egypt. Those that would respond in muted shock to Palestinian missles shooting down an Israeli civilian airliner (and that is where such missles would be aimed) are the same that react with horror at Israel's efforts to prevent such an intentional massacre.


The picture on the front of all the world's papers today is that of a grieving father holding his dead child in his arms - it is of course powerful to move all but the most inhuman viewer. But what the picture does not show is anything close to the context leading up to the child's death - the countless deliberate massacres of Israeli children by Palestinian terrorists, the deliberate Palestinian tactic of using their own civilians as human shields, the decision to pepper the demonstration with just enough armed men to draw Israeli fire, with the hope of producing an image just like the picture, the creation of arms-smuggling tunnels using civilian homes as camaflouge, and of course the ongoing Egyptian violation of its signed peace accord with Israel, by failing to police its border with Gaza.


It is almost mind-numbing to have to counter the Palestinian propaganda that results from an event like this. The charges of course, are not that Israel was reckless, but that it genocidal. What happened in Rafah was a tragedy, not a massacre. But unlike Palestinian society, those Israelis that are in anyway responsible for Palestinian civilian deaths will be reprimanded - and not hailed as heros. This is fundamental difference between a moral lapse in a moral society and the acts of the an immoral society. The inability to tell the difference a critical moral failing that leads to much of the moral perversion that passes for enlightened world opinion.


If Israel is to be criticized for any part of the Rafah operation, it is the handling of the destruction of the homes covering the tunnels. This is a problem that Israel has known about for a long time, and a solution that could have accomodated those residents could have been found, had the offensive not been launched as much in anger, albeit understandable, in the wake of the butchering of Israeli soliders and defilement of their corpses. Even worse are th current noises from Sharon that he plans to raze the settlements upon exit, rather than arrange for them to help ease the Palestinian housing crunch. Smallness should not be cofused with firmness in the struggle against terror.


Parallels are being aptly drawn to the abortive 1996 "Grapes of Wrath" offensive in Lebanon against Hezbullah, launched by Peres as much as anything to distract from Hamas's concurrent terror offensive. That operation ended in disaster when an errant strike destroyed a packed building of civilians. So, too, does the Rafah offensive appear to be very much part of a political cover ploy by Sharon. But there is another parallel to be drawn with Lebanon, and that is the Barak-led unilateral withdrawal, a morally and strategically sound move that was misread by radical Arabs instead as weakness. Israel (and the Palestinians for that matter) can ill-afford for a Gaza withdrawal to result in a similar strengthening of radical Palestinians. The Rafah offensive, therefore, can not be the last crack-down in Gaza before Israel exits. It is essential, however, that the next one do a better job at limiting the collateral loss of civillian life.