Over a year after Operation Cast Lead and following wide-ranging
criticism and countless international condemnations, the vindication of
the IDF has finally begun.
The 500-page report revealed Monday by
The Jerusalem Post
and authored by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is
the first real, aggressive Israeli response to the Goldstone Report,
taking it apart piece-by-piece and explaining the true nature of the
conflict against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
There are chapters on Hamas’s use of mosques, hospitals, ambulances and
schools. There is an entire section dedicated to unmasking the
Palestinian police force in the Gaza Strip, which the Goldstone Report
claimed was a civilian force, saying Israel’s attacks against policemen
were unjustified.
There is another section dedicated to explaining the events that led
Israel to launch Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, a period of time
almost completely ignored by judge Richard Goldstone and an issue
illustrated most recently by the interview Col. Desmond Travers, the
Irish officer who sat on the panel, gave in which he claimed only two
rockets were fired into Israel in the month preceding the operation. In
reality, there were close to 200.
What is interesting about the Malam report is that it does not focus on
the IDF and the way it operated inside the Gaza Strip. Instead it
focuses strictly on Hamas, its tactics and the way it cynically uses
civilians as well as civilian infrastructure to hide behind and launch
attacks from within against Israel.
The results are astounding.
While Hamas’s use of mosques was known, the Malam report shows that it
was extensive and was a pillar of Hamas’s overall military doctrine
(almost 100 mosques were used to store weapons and launch Kassams).
While everyone has heard the story about how Hamas terror chiefs hid in
the basement of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the Malam report reveals
maps of other hospitals which were surrounded by mines, Hamas military
posts and tunnels.
While Malam and its head, Col. (res.) Reuven Erlich, should be
applauded for their work, the question that needs to be asked is why a
non-profit organization run by former Military Intelligence officers is
doing what the Foreign Ministry, IDF Spokesman’s Office and Prime
Minister’s Office should have been doing immediately after the air
force launched its first missile into downtown Gaza City on the first
day of the operation.
The radio waves are full these days of commercials from Public
Diplomacy Minister Yuli Edelstein’s new campaign to get regular
Israelis, during their travels abroad, to explain that they don’t ride
camels or eat only barbecued foods. Instead of wasting taxpayer’s
money, Edelstein’s budget should go to establishing an official
response team that will be responsible for writing such reports and
disseminating them to the media, not a year after the operation but
rather as the fighting is still going on.
Until this happens, Israel has only itself to blame for the level of criticism it faces after every war and operation.
And if not for Erlich and his team of expert researchers, Israel
wouldn’t even have the report that Malam released on Monday. Instead we
would be focused on camels and barbecues.