1-19-2014 How Israel's Politics vs. Security Rift Aids Jihadis J.J. Goldberg Jewish Daily Forward

http://blogs.forward.com/jj-goldberg/191212/how-israels-politics-vs-security-rift-aids-jihadis/#ixzz2r9DqPTNg

 

Here's the gist: Israel is alarmed at the unraveling of the November 2012 Pillar of Defense cease-fire "understandings" and the increasing rocket fire from Gaza — 17 rockets fired in January alone as of Friday (and more since then). It wants Egypt, which acts as mediator between Israel and Hamas, to pressure Hamas to stop the rocket fire. But Egypt has lost influence over Hamas since the military deposed the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi last July. The military government's approach is not to work with Hamas as Morsi did but to crack down on it.

Hamas, in turn, complains that the Egyptian crackdown — particularly the mass destruction of smuggling tunnels, which squeezes the Gaza economy — weakens Hamas rule and reduces its ability to control the jihadi organizations that are doing the firing. And both Cairo and Hamas complain that Israel has been making the situation worse by Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon's insistence on responding to every single rocket launching, no matter how ineffectual, with aerial bombardment.

Since Friday's Maariv report, Haaretz has published a report on the latest Israel-Hamas exchange, including a stepped-up Hamas crackdown on the rebel organizations following the last Wednesday's multi-missile attack on Ashkelon and the Israeli air raid that followed.


Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

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