Iran's Buildup in Gaza

By P. David HornikFrontPageMagazine.com March 15, 2007

Gaza is rapidly being built up as a launching pad for jihadist aggression comparable to southern Lebanon. Or as Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shalom Harari of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya puts it, “Iran is building ‘Hamastan’ in Gaza. . . . Iran is involved in supporting both the Islamic factions and Fatah. . . . Today, at least 40 percent of Fatah’s different fighting groups are also paid by Hizbullah and Iran.” Yes, that’s Fatah, the darling of American and Israeli diplomacy for the last two decades, the Ramallah compound of whose current leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has almost become a pilgrimage site for Secretary of State Rice. Gen. Harari continues: . . . With the support of Hizbullah, Syria, and Iran, arms and ammunition are flowing through Rafiah on the Egyptian-Gaza border every day, both above ground and through the tunnels, in order to build “Hamastan.” Hamas is . . . improving its rocket capabilities in order to be able to hit major Israeli cities such as Ashkelon, Ashdod, and others. . . . Hamas is seeking to build anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems that will neutralize Israel’s current ability to easily penetrate Gaza. . . . If Israel again attacks deep into Gaza, Hamas hopes to confront it with something like what was seen in southern Lebanon—reserves of Hizbullah dug in deep under the earth. They have air conditioning experts for the underground tunnels they are constructing. They have concrete experts to build bunkers. They have communications and intelligence experts. They have experts for every field connected to the development of weapons and rockets. In Gaza there are between 80,000 and 100,000 automatic rifles and machine guns. This is the most armed people in the Middle East except for Somalia. In 2006, thirty tons of TNT was brought into Gaza. . . .
The IDF will have to enter Gaza in a very wide-scale operation in the next year, if not in the next six months. . . . The big question is whether to do it now or wait, like Israel did in Lebanon—and look at the results. Since November 26 when it agreed to a “ceasefire” after military operations in Gaza, Israel has been doing—absolutely nothing about this problem. Instead, along with the United States, it has been pursuing the “diplomatic track.” This has meant arranging photo-ops with Abbas and praising him as a great statesman while he becomes an errand boy for Hamas, and, now, lauding the “Saudi plan”—which calls for Israel’s reduction to the “Auschwitz borders” followed by its demographic dissolution—as a great stride toward peace if the Arabs would just agree to introduce a few modifications at their upcoming summit in Mecca. Do not look to the Bush administration to encourage Israel to deal with the Gaza situation before it gets even worse. Granted, Israeli military activity sparks media-fests of Israel-bashing, angry reactions in the Arab world, and diplomatic problems for the U.S. How much better, then, to conduct small-scale, preventive operations than much larger-scale ones against greater odds. The Bush administration was, after all, disappointed with Israel’s performance in Lebanon last summer. Despite the lionization of Hezbollah in the Arab world, the U.S. knew that an Israeli defeat of the Iranian proxy would have strategically benefited the West. But, apart from Israel’s own bungling, a victory would have been much easier if Hezbollah had not been allowed—since the much-lauded Israeli withdrawal in 2000—to spend six years fortifying itself with a dense network of bunkers and vast numbers of rockets and missiles. Now, less than a year later, nothing has been learned. Incredibly, the same scenario of an Iranian-backed buildup is repeating itself while Israel is passive and the U.S. appears not in the least perturbed. And while before summer 2006 Hezbollah rocket attacks and kidnap attempts sometimes drew an Israeli response, the present rocket attacks from Gaza find the Olmert government, crippled by unpopularity and scandals, not lifting a finger. Again, whatever the unnecessary costs arising from Israel having “disengaged” from Gaza and turned it over to Hamas in the first place, a decisive Israeli action in Gaza would score a victory for the West. Again, it would not be possible without some loss of Arab civilian life—and in this case, not just Lebanese, but Palestinians, beloved of the media and darlings of dhimmified Europe (it goes without saying that losses of Israeli life pose no PR problems for anyone). Again, genuine Israeli victory would entail some measure of Israeli “occupation” of the territory—also an ultimate evil in the contemporary ethos, far worse than Iranian buildups. So instead, Jerusalem and Washington prefer to keep their heads in the sand and chase diplomatic phantasms while the arms keep pouring over the border and the bunkers keep getting dug. Tehran, just as it was heartened by the failure in Lebanon, is watching with satisfaction.