WarSclerotic

The army said it struck three smuggling tunnels on the Egyptian border, a weapons production facility and two tunnels intended for infiltration into Israel to carry out attacks.

Two Palestinians were reportedly wounded in the strikes.

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The Kassam rocket slammed into a greenhouse in the small southern agricultural community of Moshav Netiv Ha’asara on Thursday, ripping through the roof, killing a Thai worker and leaving his coworkers, who came to his aid, traumatized.

The incident marks the first death from Gazan rocket attacks since Operation Cast Lead ended last year.

Senior defense officials had vowed to respond harshly to the attack, but said they would keep its response isolated, to avoid being drawn into a larger-scale conflict with Hamas.

IDF sources said that the rocket was not fired by Hamas, and by Thursday evening the terrorist group was reportedly rounding up suspects behind the attack for interrogations.

“It is currently not in Hamas’s interest to attack Israel,” one senior officer said, noting that while Hamas has attacked IDF border patrols since Operation Cast Lead last year, it has refrained from firing rockets into Israel.

“Hamas’s current policy is to keep the situation quiet so it can continue to build up its military infrastructure ahead of a future conflict with Israel,” the officer said.

The Thai foreign worker, in his 30s, was killed by a Kassam rocket that scored a direct hit on a greenhouse, spraying shrapnel and small potted plants in all directions.

Magen David Adom paramedics tried to resuscitate the man and stem his blood loss, but he succumbed to his wounds shortly afterwards.

Policemen, headed by Sderot station commander Dep.-Cmdr. Shimon Nahmani, and IDF personnel converged on the site.

“This is the third rocket attack that has directly targeted an Israeli community in the past 24 hours,” Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

“The rocket fired was a standard Kassam-type projectile, capable of killing anyone in its radius who did not take cover,” he added. “We are assessing the security situation in the western Negev in light of recent events.”

Yair Farjun, chairman of the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council, said the dead man had worked on the moshav for three years and eight months.

“He drove a tractor. He was always smiling. He learned how to speak Hebrew,” Farjun told The Jerusalem Post.

“These attacks do not target the army, and are not part of a military confrontation. The Palestinians are targeting farmers who work their land, civilians, and children.

“A price tag must be set, so that the Hamas government, supported by Iran and Hizbullah, will not think they can fire on us at will and that we will wait for things to get really bad before responding. We are on the front line here,” Farjun said.

“The international community must wake up. We have left Gaza, so what do the Palestinians want now? They are not building up their own economy and society in Gaza. They have turned it into one big military camp, and a base for terrorism,” he said.

“All of these incidents are happening not because Israel is building in Jerusalem, or because a synagogue was opened in the Old City in Jerusalem, they are happening because the Palestinians want all Jews out of this land and seek the destruction of Israel,” Farjun said. “It’s time for the world to know the truth. Those who want to see reality should come here.”

Thai farm workers “are part of our family and community. We make our living by working the land. If the work becomes untenable, our farming will come to a standstill,” Farjun said.

The rocket was apparently fired from deep within the Gaza Strip, he said, citing the IDF Home Front Command. He added that a long-range attack would explain why almost a full minute passed between the sounding of the Color Red warning siren and the rocket’s impact.

“Usually, rockets land 15 seconds after the siren. This time, nearly a minute separated the siren from the impact. From what I understand, this rocket was fired from central Gaza. The man who was killed today lay on the ground when the siren went off, but stood up after 20 seconds,” Farjun said.

Small bomb shelters have been erected near the greenhouses and were situated close to the work areas, allowing workers to reach them within 15 seconds, he said.

“Some of the workers ran toward the shelters, while others lay on the ground,” he added.

A small Islamist faction calling itself Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for the attack. Fatah’s Aksa Martyrs Brigades later also claimed responsibility.

Speaking from the site of the attack on Thursday evening, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon (Israel Beiteinu) said, “This is one rocket out of 12,000 that the citizens of Israel have endured in recent years. The responsibility for this attack rests with Hamas.”

Ayalon said the attacks were a result of Hamas incitement to violence.

“While Israel continues to extend its hand in peace, the other side not only refuses to come to the negotiating table, but continues to incite recklessly against Israel,” he said. “Israel still seeks peace and calls for negotiations with the Palestinian Authority without preconditions; however, the incitement must end.”

Referring to the UN-sponsored Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead, Ayalon said the document “provides legitimacy and a propulsion for terrorism and is immoral and unprofessional. With or without the report, Israel will continue to defend its citizens. I call on those who voted for the Goldstone Report to come and see the consequences.”

IDF sources said that since Cast Lead, most rocket attacks against Israel have been carried out by hardline groups such as Ansar al-Sunna, affiliated with al-Qaida and global jihad. These groups consist of a few thousand followers and several hundred armed men, many of them former Hamas fighters who left in protest of the ruling movement’s current policy of refraining from attacking Israel.

Israel’s considerations in restraining its response have to do firstly with the government’s desire to restart peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and secondly with the diplomatic crisis with the United States, which would likely not support Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip.

Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom (Likud) warned that the rocket attack would lead to a strong reaction, and said that Hamas was ultimately responsible.

“It is severe escalation,” Shalom said. “Israel will not return to the situation of before Operation Cast Lead. The response will be particularly fierce… I hope Hamas will learn a lesson.”

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna’i (Labor) held a security assessment with officials from the IDF Home Front Command to discuss the level of protection in the area of greenhouses near the Gaza Strip.

“Hamas is in control of Gaza and Israel will hold Hamas responsible for every rocket attack originating in Gaza,” Vilna’i said. “Israel is not interested in a military conflict but will not allow rocket fire against its civilians.”

After the disengagement from Gaza in 2005, Netiv Ha’asara became the closest community in Israel to the Gaza Strip, located 400 meters away from the edge of the Palestinian town of Beit Lahiya. At the southern edge of the moshav, a car park was converted into an IDF base and tanks were deployed. An electric fence was erected to stop infiltrators from Gaza, and three concrete walls were built against Palestinian snipers.

AP contributed to this report.

In fact, the Obama administration had previously publicly praised the Israeli government for making a “major concession” by imposing a settlement freeze which explicitly excluded Jerusalem.

The campaign was personally orchestrated by President Barack Obama. His Vice President Biden accused us of “endangering US lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Despite Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s abject apology, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused him of “insulting” the US. Obama’s chief political adviser David Axelrod even claimed that the Israeli government was deliberately undermining peace talks.

These hostile outbursts must be viewed in the context of the fact that despite strong ongoing support for Israel by the American people, the US-Israel relationship has been on a downward spiral since the election of the new administration. Former Mossad head Ephraim Halevy attributes this to Obama’s determination to rehabilitate Islam’s global tarnished image.

Yet his strategy of “engaging” Islamic rogue states has been disastrous. The effort to prevent the nuclearization of Iran by appeasing the Iranian tyrants backfired with the ayatollahs literally mocking the US. The response of Syrian President Bashar Assad to US groveling and the appointment of an ambassador to Damascus, was to host a summit with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah and ridicule the US demand that he curtail his relationship with Iran. President Obama did not consider this “insulting,” prompting the editor of the Lebanese The Daily Star to say that “the Obama administration these days provokes little confidence in its allies and even less fear in its adversaries.”

The Arab League refuses to modify its hard-line against Israel. It insists that Israel unconditionally accept the Saudi peace plan, a full retreat to the ‘67 borders and the implementation of the Arab right of return which would signal an end to Jewish sovereignty in the region.

THERE ARE now ominous signals that to obviate their failures, White House strategists are cynically distancing themselves from us in order to curry popularity by capitalizing on the anti-Israeli hatred which has engulfed the world.

Despite continuously incanting the mantra that it remains committed to the alliance with Israel, the White House is not behaving in an even-handed manner. Obama does not disguise his animosity and repeatedly humiliates our prime minister. The administration “condemns” us for building homes, not in densely Arab populated areas of Jerusalem but in Jewish suburbs like Gilo and most recently Ramat Shlomo which most of us regard as Israel no less than Tel Aviv.

Instead of condemning the brutal Palestinian murderer of an Israeli civilian in December, the US requested “clarification” after Israel apprehended the killers who the PA extolled as heroes. They failed to block a UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli police for protecting worshippers at the Temple Mount from Arabs hurling stones at them. They even condemned us for authorizing repairs on Jewish heritage sites over the Green Line.

In stark contrast, the US has not publicly reprimanded the PA on a single issue over the past twelve months. It is unconscionable that neither the White House nor the State Department conveyed a word of protest concerning the ongoing incitement and spate of ceremonies sanctifying the memory of the most degenerate suicide killers and mass murderers. Not even when our peace partners President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad personally partook in these ghoulish ceremonies. In fact, during Biden’s visit, the PA announced that they would postpone a ceremony to name a public square in Ramallah to honor Dalal Mughrabi, the female monster responsible for the abominable 1978 massacre in which 37 Israelis including 13 children were butchered. Nevertheless the ceremony took place and the PA TV interviewed Mughrabi’s sister who stated: “This is a day of glory and pride for the Palestinian people. We must unite, and our rifles must unite, against the enemy who steals our land.” The US failed to register a protest.

NETANYAHU HAS extended more concessions than any other Israeli leader. His government immediately agreed to negotiations with the Palestinians. In contrast, Abbas told The Washington Post that being confident that the US would ensure that the Palestinians obtained whatever they sought, he saw no benefit in negotiating with the Israelis. This scenario is now being realized.

Netanyahu also overcame Likud resistance to a two-state solution and acceded to a temporary settlement freeze which no previous Israeli government was willing to consider. He authorized the release of prisoners and reduced checkpoints, even compromising the security of Israeli civilians.

Yet, far from acting as an honest broker, the US effectively endorsed most of the Palestinian positions and is poised to pressure Israel into making further unilateral concessions.

In a recent chilling document, reiterated by Biden in the course of his condemnation of construction in Jerusalem, the US assured the PA that the principal objective of the “indirect” negotiations was not peace, but the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and that parties who adopted negative positions would be dealt with “in order to overcome that obstacle.”

Our relations with the US will now be further tested.

Obama is surely aware that recent statements by his administration will only embolden the Palestinians and Jihadists to be more extreme in their demands, making it inevitable that the talks will almost certainly fail. Some may infer that this is precisely his intention. We will then be blamed for the breakdown and the US, with the backing of the Quartet and others, will then seek to impose a solution upon us.

There are certain red lines which no government of Israel may cross. Netanyahu, on this occasion, must stand firm. The current crisis transcends political or ideological differences between Likud, Labor and Kadima. All mainstream parties should unite and convey to President Obama that Israel is a sovereign state and will not automatically bow to diktats of the US administration. They need to make the US administration and public understand that no government of Israel will agree to freeze construction in Jerusalem, the heart and soul of the Jewish people.

We may not be a superpower but the Obama administration will hesitate to pursue a path which rejects the consensus of the nation. A demonstration of unity against the unprecedented attacks on Israel’s sovereignty by the Obama administration will also encourage the American people and Congress to publicly support and assist us to reaffirm the traditional alliance and bonds of friendship between our two nations.

It will hopefully also encourage the Obama administration to relate to us with at least the same level of courtesy and respect it extends to rogue states.