Sinaistan

Terrorist attacks in the South:

the government got it all wrong
. 

The Muslim terrorists who killed eight Jews and wounded dozens more in coordinated attacks were able to cross from Sinai to Israel for a single reason: the government procrastinated in building a wall to stop the African infiltrators who flock along the same route.

The government knew about planned attacks a few days in advance, but failed to warn its citizens or beef up security along the major roads. Indeed, it was obvious that terrorists would attack Israeli soft targets in response to the Egyptian crackdown on them. Despite warnings, Israeli security was so lax that armed, camouflaged terrorists drove along the highway undetected.

Hours after the attacks, IAF killed a number of PRC leaders. Wait, if we can kill them so easily, what had we been waiting for? They had committed scores of previous attacks against Israelis and were legitimate targets. For political reasons, the government left them alive, and so allowed them to carry out these most recent attacks. What’s more, the attackers did not come from the PRC, but Israel has yet to bomb their Sinai strongholds for fear of diplomatic fallout with Egypt.

Even as it becomes clear that the Egyptians don’t control the Gaza-Sinai border, the Israeli government refuses to re-occupy Rafah to block Gaza, which is the only way to provide security in Sinai. Because of the short-sighted Camp David accords, Israel cannot enforce order in Sinai, and Egypt after Mubarak won’t enforce any order there.
Nothing is said about the cowardice of the soldiers on the bus: when the terrorists began shooting at them, they sped away instead of stepping out to fight the infiltrators—allowing the Arabs to carry out more attacks.

Note how well trained the Arabs were: they crossed during the daytime instead of at night as they normally do, engaged Israeli forces in signifigant firefights, staged coordinated attacks, moved between targets, and tried to down IAF helicopters with RPGs, a tactics recently perfected by the Taliban.

The problem is that the face of terrorism in Israel is changing. We used to deal with organized terrorism by well-established groups, which could be easily targeted for retaliation, thus establishing mid-term accommodation. Not so with Iraqi- and Afghani-type terrorism, whose leaders are perpetually in hiding in Iraq or enjoying safe havens in Waziristan and in the Sinai mountains. Israel lies wide open to Al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorists originating from Sinai.