Benny Gantz’s Troubling Assessments

3277243153Originally published by the Jerusalem Post

The outcome of the donor conference for Gaza reconstruction that was held in Cairo on Sunday was not surprising.

Representatives of 50 countries convened to pledge funds to Hamas and the PLO. The Palestinians had hoped to receive $4 billion in pledges. They raised $5.4b.

Most of the money will be transferred to the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas. But at least $1b. will go directly to Hamas, from its primary financier, Qatar.

With its $1b. Hamas will be able to pay its terrorist operatives and rebuild its terrorist forces.

The air force revealed last week that Hamas is rebuilding its rocket arsenal already.

As for the money that will be transferred to Abbas, the billions in funding will give the PLO the money it needs to finance Abbas’s rapidly escalating political war against Israel in the international arena.

At least some of the money will also go to Hamas, Abbas’s partner in the unity government.

The entire nature of the conference was surreal, but again predictable.

Surreal because it was based on a total disregard for reality.

In last summer’s war, Hamas wantonly and deliberately waged an unprovoked, illegal missile campaign against Israel for the third time in five years. It fired 4,500 projectiles at Israeli territory. It also used tunnels it dug into Israeli territory to attack Israel.

Had Hamas not attacked, Israel would not have counterattacked. There would have been no damage to repair in Gaza.

If the US, Europe and the Arab world were interested in actually helping Gaza, rather than organize a conference to fund Hamas and the PLO, they would have enjoined Israel to finish the job two months ago and end Hamas’s criminal, terrorist state in Gaza once and for all.

Yet, they did no such thing. Throughout the war, the US and the EU joined Qatar and Turkey in blaming Israel for Hamas’s illegal war.

And on Sunday, they put their money where their mouths are. They pledged billions to the PLO and its political war against Israel. And they funded Hamas – both directly and indirectly. Moreover, they gave Hamas a political victory by agreeing to fund Abbas, even though he is the head of a PLO-Hamas government.

All of this was predictable because it happens every time Israel is attacked, whether by terrorist armies in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, or in Lebanon.

Every time the Palestinians and Lebanese Hezbollah attack Israel, the US and Europe eventually side with the Arabs and demand that Israel stop defending itself.

The only difference between the most recent war with Hamas and its predecessors is that this time, the US was even more adamantly opposed to Israel’s attempts to defeat Hamas than the Europeans and many Arab governments.

In other words, the only difference between the most recent war and its predecessors is that the level of hostility towards Israel – and conversely support for Hamas – among leading members of the international community was unprecedented.

Israel’s job in contending with this hostile environment should have been similarly unprecedented.

Israel should have been offering to lead an international force in Gaza to overthrow Hamas and arrest its leaders pending war crimes trials. It should have been sticking the international community’s nose in the stench of its hypocrisy and anti-Israel bias.

Operationally, it should have recognized that Israel’s chief achievement in the war was its ability to withstand US pressure and maintain Gaza’s physical isolation by maintaining the borders shut, and so preventing the terrorist regime from resupplying and rearming.

At least on the last count, keeping Gaza sealed was Israel’s unflinching position throughout the war. To prevent the opening of Gaza’s borders, and through it, the rebuilding of Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure and political power, at great diplomatic cost, Israel repeatedly rejected US demands for an open border.

But today, this position is collapsing. True, Israel is insisting officially that stringent controls be placed on all dual use goods brought into Gaza. But officials openly acknowledge that there is no way to enforce the controls once the goods are imported.

Far worse than accepting that its position is difficult to enforce, Israel is actually facilitating the opening of Gaza’s borders. In so doing, Israel is giving Hamas the victory it failed to achieve on the battlefield.

And worst of all, the chief proponent of this policy is not Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, or even Justice Minister Tzipi Livni. Its chief advocate is IDF chief of staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.

Throughout the war, tremors of criticism were heard in governing circles and the media against the IDF leadership in general, and against Gantz, in particular.

In a series of media interviews on the eve of Yom Kippur, Gantz showed that not only was the criticism warranted – it was far too mild.

For years, it has been rightly said that Israel suffers from a chronic shortage of strong leaders. But what Gantz showed in his interviews is that even if Israel was blessed with the strongest leaders in Jewish history, it is far from clear that they would have the capacity to act on their convictions.

In Israel, as in all countries, for a government to get things done political leaders require the assistance of professional echelons who develop tactical options for achieving strategic goals and implement government policies.

The chief criticism of Gantz during the war was that he failed to present the government with options for defeating Hamas or that when he did present them, he did so in ways that made it impossible for the government to adopt options he opposed.

It was also said that he failed to respect the government’s sovereign authority to determine policy, and interjected his position on issues that were well beyond the professional authority of the IDF.

In his interview with Maariv, Gantz said that the only way to guarantee that the cease-fire will hold is by paying off Hamas. That is, he made clear that he sides with the US and the rest of the international community against the government.

In his words, “At the end of the day, 1.8 million Palestinians live there, and the quiet is also dependent on the trend of creating economic hope there.”

Gantz placed the blame for their supposed hopelessness on Israel, and its measures to contain Hamas’s threat to Gaza. In his words, “The people there need to live, and they are caught between Egypt on one side, us on another side and the sea with a six mile fishing zone on the other side.”

Later in the interview, Gantz insisted that Israel’s interest is in enabling the international community to fund Hamas, arguing that terrorism is simply the result of economic privation.

As he put it, “The Palestinians also do not want to see terrorism operating from within them.

Hamas absorbed a mighty blow and sustained great damage. It needs to see economic recovery, and this need, for economic growth is an opportunity for us.”

The question of whether or not Gaza should be enriched is not a military one. But that doesn’t bother Gantz. After dictating what the government’s position must be, he then coyly winked, “I leave this for the elected leadership.”

Throughout the war, Israel’s elected leadership insisted that Gaza remain sealed.

The Left has followed Gantz’s lead and attacked the government for not opening Gaza’s borders and even participating in the Cairo conference.

But again, reality tells a different tale.

Israel has nothing to gain from participating in a Hamas funding drive.

It does however have an interest in influencing the international agenda. To do so, the most basic requirement for the government is to reject the lie that Israel is to blame for Hamas’s aggression. Israel’s leaders – elected and appointed – need to internalize the fact that the war this summer, like all previous acts of Hamas aggression against Israel stemmed not from privation and hopelessness, but from empowerment and hopefulness.

Hamas doesn’t attack Israel because it needs money. It attacks Israel because doing so empowers it and weakens Israel – as we saw in Cairo on Sunday.

Unfortunately, for as long as our unelected professional class is led by men who have internalized our enemies’ narratives, there is no way that Israel can act on these basic strategic truths regardless of whom voters elect. And as a result, we shall continue to witness our soldiers’ hard won victories being squandered by our leaders – in and out of uniform.

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  • steelraptor from Saturn

    The head of the IDF is a self-hating Jew. It’s that simple. As such, how can Israel survive? When self-hating Jews worm their ways into positions of power and influence, from the IDF to the Supreme Court to the media and government, the end for us is in sight. I do not see how we can survive. Short of a drastic revolution in Israel, we can’t and we won’t.

    • tickletik

      He’s probably been paid off. A lot of these corrupt bastards are given a villa here, stock options there. Etc.

    • Hank Rearden

      It is an phenomenon of bureaucrats that they think they are doing something useful when they stay in office after they lose faith in the mission. If the Chief of the IDF is so conflicted, don’t agonize in public…RESIGN! Find another line of work. And don’t let the door hit you in the rear on the way out!

  • David

    “The Palestinians had hoped to receive $4 billion in pledges. They raised $5.4b.”

    In all fairness, a lot of that money is not actually going to arrive. Most
    of the money pledged by the Arab countries won’t actually arrive
    because the Arab countries don’t see the need to shovel that much money
    into the furnace like the West does. They’ll make their nice sounding
    pledges and then pretty much forget about it.

  • Bamaguje

    “The Palestinians had hoped to receive $4 billion in pledges. They raised $5.4b” – Caroline Glick.

    Wow!! Why won’t Palestinians start another war, when they know the international community will reward them with more money than they asked for… rewarding bad behaviour.

    “Israel should have been offering to lead an international force in Gaza to overthrow Hamas and arrest its leaders pending war crimes trials” – Caroline Glick.

    International force? Which nation’s military will shoot at ‘innocent’ Palestinians on Israel’s behalf? How is the international UN force working out in Southern Lebanon where Hezbollah has rearmed and established armouries right under their noses.
    Yes Israel should have invaded and reannexed Gaza, but that’s something she must do alone… not as part of any “international force” that would hamstring the Israeli military.

    “In his interview with Maariv, Gantz said that the only way to guarantee that the cease-fire will hold is by paying off Hamas” – Caroline Glick.

    Really? Bribing Hamas to hold ceasefire?

    “Gantz placed the blame for their (Palestinian) supposed hopelessness on Israel, and its measures to contain Hamas’s threat to Gaza… arguing that
    terrorism is simply the result of economic privation” – Glick.

    How did this clueless mor0n become leader of one of the greatest fighting forces on the planet?

    “The Palestinians also do not want to see terrorism operating from within them” – Gantz

    If he really believes those who strap bombs on their children and glorify children killers do want terrorism, he must immediately resign.

    “The Left has… attacked the government for not opening Gaza’s
    borders and even participating in the Cairo conference… Israel has nothing to gain from participating in a Hamas funding drive” – Caroline Glick.

    Really? They expect Israel to fund Hamas tyranny in Gaza? These leftist traitors should face a firing squad.

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  • Vinegar Hill

    The first part of the article deals with the IDF brutal attack on Gaza but the amateurish analysis is beyond belief…..full of mind boggling Glick simplicity……”Had Hamas not attacked, Israel would not have counterattacked. There would have been no damage to repair in Gaza.”! The author refuses to see the issue as a long standing war over territory. I continued reading but to my dismay Glick simplicity continues. She writes “…the most basic requirement for the government is to reject the lie that Israel is to blame for Hamas’s aggression.”
    Glick, rather than blaming Gantz, needs to honest with herself and her readership by admitting that from the very start of the Israeli Palestinian conflict the issue is about territory….but the cuckoo is still in the nest.
    If honesty were to dominate then we would see the beginning of the end of the conflict.

    • Gee

      No the issue is about survival. The Arabs state their goal is our genocide.

      • Vinegar Hill

        Why do you say survival? You are failing to understand the real issue just like Glick. The conflict started in earnest when the state of Israel was established….demonstrate otherwise. I feel that you have been reading too many articles by Glick and have fallen under her influence!
        Why do you say Arabs when the conflict is the Israeli Palestinian struggle? Glick again?!

        • tickletik

          Right. Gee and Glick don’t “understand” the “real issues” but you clearly do.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre

          See the date on that? It says “1929″. The state of Israel was created on May 1948. That’s a full 19 years before it’s creation. And your beloved Muslim scum were still attacking us even then.

          So the conflict started “in earnest” way before the state of Israel was established.

          • Vinegar Hill

            I don’t care about the date, if you want it can be 1929. I argued in my original comment that the issue is over territory and you and Glick can’t see that, The Palestinians were well on the road to establishing their state according to the British Mandate and this had been legalised by the Treaty of Lausanne. The rest is history but the issue remains the same. As I said earlier there is a cuckoo in the nest.

          • tickletik

            If I want it can be 1929?! It doesn’t matter what “I want” you two faced deceiving little turd, The attack happened in 1929. You aren’t being “gracious” when you concede an ESTABLISHED FACT that everyone knows.

            ” I argued in my original comment” I don’t care what you argued in your original comment you lying sack of s***, do you think I have nothing better to do with my life than go through your comment history to parse whatever sick little nuance you put in your BS?

            Here are YOUR words to the comment I replied to:

            “The conflict started in earnest when the state of Israel was established….demonstrate otherwise

            The state of Israel was created in 1948. The murderous Arab filth attacked us in Hebron in 1929. That’s a full 19 years before any state was created, before a PLO, before Hamas, before whatever garbage “reason” you want to give as an excuse for their vicious sick murderous rampages. The attack and the date of the attack, a full 19 years before the creation of the state, are a clear demonstration of “otherwise”.

            That is what YOU asked everyone to do. That was YOUR challenge, after YOU wrote that anyone who agrees with Caroline Glick is “failing to understand the real issue” (you couldn’t even say “Mrs. Glick” because even there you are a failure as a human being).

            YOU claimed that the everything was about the “state”, my quote of an ESTABLISHED FACT shows it was NEVER about the State.

            (and even there you are disgusting, pretending you are graciously giving me that date because it is what “I want” – F*** you.)

            If you want to bring up the Treaty of Luasane, then make your point directly, because as far as I can tell what you are actually referring to is the British “Mandate for Palestine” which was specifically about allowing JEWS to settle in this region AND NOT ABOUT ARABS. Because I’ve already established you as a liar, I expect you to directly quote the relevant passages and make your arguments explicit instead of relying on your stupid innuendo and lazy bullsh***

          • Vinegar Hill

            I still do not care about your starting point of 1929. The Palestinians were well on their way to statehood by 1929 under the auspicies of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Treaty of Lausanne had transformed the de facto status of Palestinian nationality into de jure existence from an international law perspective. What happened in 1929 was one of several attempts by the Zionists to disrupt the process that was in motion to establish the state of Palestine. The conflict as a result is over territory which had been designated to the Palestinian people but hijacked by the Zionists.
            The primary concern of the Mandate was to prepare the indigenous peoples of the land, the Palestinians, for self rule. Jews, Crristians and people of other religious denominations could settle in the region but were to eventually live uner the control of a Palestinian state. The issue is about territory, not survival as stated by another commentator.
            What would you do without the asterisk??!!

          • tickletik

            You are openly lying now. There was no reference to Arabs as Palestinians during that time period. Any reference to “Palestinians” was to Jews.

            read the following page:
            http://www.mythsandfacts.org/replyonlineedition/chapter-2.html

            Consequently, it is not surprising that a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, stated in his testimony in 1937 before the Peel Commission:

            “There is no such country [as Palestine]! Palestine is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries, part of Syria.”21

            The term ‘Palestinian’ in its present connotation had only been invented in the 1960s to paint Jews – who had adopted the term ‘Israelis’ after the establishment of the State of Israel – as invaders now residing on Arab turf.

            In fact I recommend anyone who sees this comment to go look at that site.

          • Vinegar Hill

            When Britain took up the mandate they introduced measures to indicate the nationality of the Palestinians. For example, they issued provisional certificates of Palestinian nationality.
            These certificates of Palestinian nationality were recognised by foreign countries.
            A system of Palestinian passports and travel documents was set up in August 1920. Any foreigner wishing to enter Palestine had to obtain a visa either from the Government of Palestine or from a British consulate.
            In Palestine the following terms and titles were common usage: Palestinian officials, Palestinian magistrates, Palestinian Public Prosecutor, young Palestinians, British and Palestinian.
            You need to research the topic as what you argue is dated and proved to be incorrect.

          • tickletik

            You mindless idiot. The term “Palestinian” as applied by the British mandate referred to EVERYONE LIVING IN THE REGION UNDER BRITISH RULE. It had NOTHING to do with ethnicity.

            But I’ve already demonstrated that, and you ignore it, just like you ignored my answer to your stupid challenge to prove that Arab hostility had nothing to do with the State.

            You need to research the topic as what you argue is dated and proved to be incorrect.

            And you need to shove a garden hose up your a$$ and turn it on.

        • iluvisrael

          palestinian is a made up term by the dead, cairo born homosexual arafat.

        • Bamaguje

          Why was your earlier comment deleted?
          Frontpagemag is well advised to cease and desist from undue censorship. It is against the conservative principles which this website stands for.
          First amendment please!!

        • Hank Rearden

          You’ve got it exactly right. Clausewitz said it. The aggressor doesn’t start the war. He would be happy to take over your country without firing a shot. It is the defender who starts the war. The Arabs would have been happy to kill all the Jews. The Jews started the war by shooting back.

  • DontMessWithAmerica

    General McArthur also had his own ideas as many a military man does but Harry Truman reminded the service who is boss and sacked McArthur. Netanyahu and Israel really blew it. Knowing the mindset of the Muslim, Obama, and the anti-Semites of Europe Israel needed to quickly finish the job of eliminating Hamas once and for all and do it quickly even if the IAF turned Gaza into a parking lot. At this point, if Israel were an IPO I would sell it short. Very sad. My guess is that this situation will lead to an increase in Israelis emigrating.

    • Shel Zahav

      This is the leftist version of history, a lie that was fed to you. McArthur was trying to save his country from Soviet infiltration.

  • http://littlenotesfromparis.blogspot.fr/ Rita

    Perhaps this head of the IDF has personal ambitions for a seat in the UN or a Nobel Prize for Peace, just like his soul brother, Obama…

    • carpe diem 36

      and just like his soul brother he is ignorant of the real issues and promoted the welfare of Hamas.

      • http://littlenotesfromparis.blogspot.fr/ Rita

        Call me a cynic, but I dont give the benefit of doubt any longer to Obama. As someone said:

        ““When the consequences of naivitey are the same as the consequences of malice, it is wiser and safer to assume malice.”

        • Sara

          And it is malice without a doubt.

    • Shel Zahav

      He wants the Knesset.

      • http://littlenotesfromparis.blogspot.fr/ Rita

        I am not Israeli nor Jewish but am fully in support of Israel, the Jewish people and the brave soldiers of the IDF, so my question is not rhetorical: Aren’t there already enough anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, pro-Arab members in the Knesset? I genuinely dont understand how that woman (forget her name – the aunt of this brave young Arab who spoke out during the murder by Hamas of the 3 young Jewish teens) is allowed to agitate virulently against Israel while in the Knesset. What next? A Hamas member in the Knesset?

  • Gee

    Netanyahu has to go. Israel needs a pro-ISRAELI leader. Hasn’t had one yet, but maybe the election will do it

  • SoCalMike

    These 50 countries all incentivize murder.
    They think if they call it help it isn’t murder they are paying for.
    Each and every one of them has the blood of war on their hands now.
    Not just Jewish blood. By rewarding HAMAS and the PLO they ensure the children of Gaza remain chained to the pedophiles of HAMAS.
    The charity is criminal and evil.

  • carpe diem 36

    “the US was even more adamantly opposed to Israel’s attempts to defeat Hamas”. The american president obviously wants Israel eliminated, and he is helping Hamas do this not only diplomatically, not only by trying to humiliate Netanyahu every chance he gets but in actually helping Hamas with weapons. This is unprecedented, and most Jews who voted for this POS President do not care.

  • Vinegar Hill

    I argued that the issue is over territory and as I stated in my original comment (which some mental midget has flagged for deleation) and you and Glick can’t see that, The Palestinians were well on the road to establishing their state according to the British Mandate and this had been legalised by the treaty of Lausanne. The rest is history but the issue remains the same. As I said earlier there is a cuckoo in the nest.

    • iluvisrael

      It’s never been about land. It’s about bloodthirsty islam and Jew hatred. The arabs have been on the warpath since before 67 and 48 – get your facts straight haji.

  • Vinegar Hill

    No, the conflict is over territory. Give the West Bank and end the illegal occupation of it and, leave Gaza totally free so that the Palestinians can set up their own country and then you will have peace. Territory is the problem, remove the problem and you won’t have any more issues with the Palestinians or vice versa.

    • tickletik

      And is that why the Iraqis threw the Jews out in 1956? Is that why the Syrians tormented the Halabi Jews until the last of them escaped the country 20 years ago? Is that why the Iranian Jews have been desperate to leave the country ever since the Shah was deposed? Is that why there are no Jews anymore in Lebanon, in Sudan, in Yemen, in Libya. Because of territory on the West Bank?

      Let me be explicit. You are claiming all of this is for the sake of some rabble of Arabs that even the other Arabs despise and can’t stand. All of this over territory which THEY NEVER OWNED, and which was won in a war effectively started by the Jordanian king who ruled it at the time. It is obvious that you are speaking nothing but lies.

      You never at heart really believed this was about legitimate territorial claims. What this is really about is granting legitimacy to a fake state and a fake ethnicity for the sole purpose of delegitimizing us and creating a hostile entity in the middle of our country so we would be weakened by endless warfare. And the warfare would be endless as the “Palestinian Authority” has done everything it could for the past 20 years to turn it’s captive citizenry into psychologically insane jihadis.

      You social justice scum. You think no one sees through your filthy little lies and deceptions. You came to the wrong place to peddle that garbage.

    • cree

      No, the conflict is that you and Palestinians expect Israelis and its supporters to believe that giving the West Bank and leave Gaza totally free will solve the problem and there will be no more issues.

      If Israel had any basis to believe that they would have done it a long time ago. Leaving Gaza proves the point. And you don’t either really have any basis that the problem would be solved and there will be no more issues because it’s a lie. You persistently lie which means you are a pathological nut case.

    • iluvisrael

      gaza was turned over to the arabs in 2005 – they immediately turned it into a cesspool from which to lob rockets at Jews.

  • Shel Zahav

    Gantz is another leftist sell-out, worried more about his career than his country. He reads Haaretz. Need I say more?

  • Shel Zahav

    Benny Gantz is another leftist coward.

  • Reuven

    I completely agree with Caroline. Unfortunately, Benny Gantz needs to be replaced with a Chief of Staff that has not adopted the enemy’s narrative. I wish Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner was back in the IDF and was Chief of staff. We need him, or someone like him to be in command. Another Gaza war is coming and the funds pouring into Gaza will hasten its arrival. This time we need to abandon the self-defeating concept of “Purity of Arms” and fight it to totally eliminate Hamas and the other terrorist organizations embedded in Gaza. We can do that, but we must change our goals, tactics, and military leadership.

  • Bandido

    Once a leadership internalizes the enemy critique, it is finished. Gantz is done, and the IDF, while still physically strong, has a broken morale due to Leftist, Pierre Laval-like defeatism. It is the same in the U.S. Obama and his Leftist enablers in the culture and the media have broken the Army’s elan vital.

  • http://www.media-quest.com Phil Lipofsky

    Like Nazis and Nazism (which together with Islam, its followers and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who all worked together so diligently to murder our people), Islam itself along with its followers must eventually be eradicated.

    To this point, Glick is as clueless as Gantz. Neither understands the nature of
    Islam and its followers.

    Just because there are 1.8 billion of these people does not make this task less
    plausible but rather makes the necessity all the more pressing.

    The first and most important task is for people to study and understand Islam,
    its history, its diktats and the nature of its followers darwinianly perfected
    over the centuries. Once this is understood, then the roll-back of Islam itself
    will begin to move forward.

    But through lack of knowledge or understanding, or the balls to speak the
    truth, Glick only propagates the problem with her writings.

  • Jeff Traube

    Oh, I don’t know, the Romans sent the Jews packing and they didn’t forget it for over 2000 years and came back. The Germans may not forget about their Eastern Provinces, and any new expulsion of Arabs may not reconcile them any more than those expelled in ’48 and ’67. The American approach was better, either you kill off the people or have so much more power that they accept living on reservations.