Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister and finance minister, is now the opposition leader in the Israeli parliament. He took some time to share his views with reporter Nicole Jansezian.
Reporter: Israel recently remembered the 30th anniversary of the rescue mission of Entebbe in which your brother Jonathan [‘Yoni’] was killed. What lessons can we apply from that operation to the situation Israel is facing today?
Netanyahu: Entebbe was a great blow to international terrorism. It showed that free societies, however threatened by barbaric evil, can overcome this evil if they muster their courage and their resolve. I think the fact that this raid was carried out against what were seemingly impossible odds, and succeeded, set the standard for the rest of the free world to stand up and fight terrorism.
Reporter: You were against the pullout from Gaza. Did you ever imagine that Israeli troops would be back there so soon?
Netanyahu: Yes, I said as much. I wasn’t against leaving Gaza in an agreement, but I thought that unilaterally withdrawing would strengthen Hamas, which it did. It would bring the rockets closer to the towns and villages in the southern part of the country. I think we now have to undo this error. We have to restore a balance of deterrence. Hamas believes it can fire 600 rockets into our towns and villages and we will accept it.
Reporter: What can the army do to prevent these rocket attacks?
Netanyahu: You have to make it clear that you cannot fire rockets with impunity at Israel. We will go after the people who do it. We also, in this case, take possession of the rocket sites.
The government had said it would respond massively with the first rocket that was fired. They didn’t respond unfortunately with the first, the tenth or the 100th rocket. And then it escalated to 600 rockets. I think the first rule of deterrence is to nip bad things in the bud. Don’t let it grow because otherwise the response you would have to give becomes a lot more intense than if you had acted early enough. The second good idea is to do what you say you’ll do so it creates credibility.
Reporter: You’ve been a quiet opposition leader so far. Why haven’t you been more vocal about the planned pullout from Judea and Samaria?
Netanyahu: We’ve been very clear about it. And a lot of people now realize that this pullout is really in doubt, when you see what the previous pullout did. Many people are saying, ‘Do we really want to replicate this and create a “Hamastan,” in this case right next to the greater Tel Aviv area?’ The range of the rockets will increase with an independent Hamas state. They’ll import weapons from Iran and elsewhere.
Plus they’re also asking, what is the logic here? Do we get any benefit? We don’t get international recognition. People will recognize or enable Israel to unilaterally make these unbelievable concessions to Hamas, but they don’t say that what you keep they recognize. Not a single government has said that.
And, how are you going to pay for it? The cost is roughly $2 billion for [every] 10,000 people [evacuated]. Olmert’s plan involves at least 70,000 people, possibly 100,000, so we’re talking about $20 billion. There is no budget for these massive displacements.
Reporter: How would you handle the situation in Gaza right now if you were the prime minister?
Netanyahu: In the middle of a crisis, the good thing for us to do is to back the government to do the right thing. They said they would not make deals with the terrorists [for the release of the kidnapped soldier] and I support that. They seem to be taking a more forceful response to the rockets and I support that.
Reporter: Many Christians worldwide are on Israel’s side. How can they support Israel in this situation?
Netanyahu: Israel is under a dual attack: It is under terrorist attacks, rockets, suicide bombers, kidnappings and so on. But it is also under moral attack. We who are the victim of this aggression are being called the aggressors. Christian friends of Israel know the truth and perhaps the most important battle we’ve been fighting is the battle for truth against the lies and vilification that are hurled constantly in Israel’s direction.
We have no better friends than the Christian community and the Christian Zionists around the world who understand that the story of Israel is really a parable. It’s a parable of a people who faced all odds and have really broken the so-called iron laws of history. We’ve been re-gathered in our ancestral homeland and built a model democracy by seeking to build a better future for us and our neighbors and are now, and for some time have been, tormented by the most barbaric and murderous forces on the face of the globe.
This is how Christian friends of Israel can help: by merely explaining this truth. We are fighting evil forces. People who chop heads off, blow up babies, smash into skyscrapers in Manhattan and kill thousands of innocent people are evil people and they should be stopped.
Aug 1, 2006
‘There’s Nowhere to Run’
SDEROT – The loudspeaker crackles to life and an ominous computer-generated voice pipes up: “Shahar adom. Shahar adom (red dawn).” You now have 20 seconds or less to find shelter, if possible, and pray.
Then you hear a whistling rocket that culminates in a crash. If it hasn’t landed near you, you wonder where it has: in an empty field or on the house of someone you know?
This has been the terrorized state of existence for residents of Sderot, a town of 24,000 about 1 kilometer (.6 mile) away from the Gaza Strip. Sderot has been the target of most of the crude homemade Palestinian rockets, Kassams, for more than five years now. The rocket attacks swell and subside in intervals, but since Israel pulled out of Gaza a year ago, they have escalated.
“There’s nowhere to run,” resident Yaffa Rassad said.
Residents say the attacks occur almost every day, at any hour, and often several times a day. There is no pattern, only the traumatizing chance that anything can happen at any time.
“At first the warning system gave you 20 seconds, but now many times the rockets have fallen before I’m even looking for where to go hide,” said municipality worker Dvora Elbaz. “I think of this every moment. I drive home and I think, ‘God, where is it going to be next?’ I sit in my house on the sofa with my arms crossed, ready. I sleep in a training suit because at any moment it could happen. Every night is like this.”
Under this sort of threat, many residents are experiencing emotional and psychological problems and have sought professional help to deal with the trauma.
At least 13 people have been killed in these attacks. This year, property has been damaged and people have been treated for shock, but no one has been killed. But many fear it is only a matter of time before the rockets become more accurate. One has reached as far as the center of Ashkelon, a port city seven miles (12 kilometers) north of Gaza.
Ironically, residents describe Sderot as safe enough to leave your doors unlocked. Most residents have families and jobs in the city and cannot imagine living in anywhere else in Israel. Sderot is a middle class city built in the southern Negev desert. There is a large population of immigrants from the Caucasus and former Soviet Union.
The army says that since Kassam attacks began in 2002, some 1,200 rockets have been fired at Israel. Lately, most have landed in or near Sderot and residents had accused the government and army of doing too little to stop it. A protest tent was set up outside City Hall, manned 24 hours a day by residents who demanded action to stop the rain of rockets.
“We are putting pressure on the government by being here,” said Arye Cohen. “I believe that in the end the government will wake up.”
Several protests have been staged at the Sderot home of Defense Minister Amir Peretz. Residents feel abandoned by the politician whom they used to consider one of their own.
The government finally did act against the Kassams in conjunction with its military offensive into southern Gaza to try to recover kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. The army has pounded launching pads in northern Gaza, but rockets continue to fall on Sderot and nearby towns.
PAGE 7:
Arye Cohen, 48
A Kassam fell 2 meters from my brother’s house. His car was damaged, his house was damaged. He was treated for heart issues.
Almost every neighborhood of Sderot has been affected. People have also gone crazy. The injured are taken to the hospital, get treated, then they pay their own bill. That’s it.
I have five kids. It’s impossible to raise kids normally here. My son is 10—he doesn’t know any other way. This is the New Orleans of Israel.
Sveta Tritanko, 13
Everyday you wake up wondering if Kassams will fall. It’s very hard to live here. Our parents are scared to let us go out. Sometimes we don’t even go to school. We are tense all the time. The government needs to help us. We don’t want to evacuate the city.
We thought we could live with them [the Palestinians], make peace with them, but they obviously don’t want to. We gave them Gush Katif [the Gaza settlements], now they want more. We don’t want a life like this, we want a normal life. They are people who love to kill.
We pray more, we ask that the Kassams stop.
Dvora Elbaz, Sderot municipality worker
Everyone wants help we cannot give. We put a smile on our faces at work, but on the inside, we feel so bad.
Now, who is thinking of work? Who is looking for money? We just want quiet. I know a lot of people who are living with pills because there is not other way. In another 10 years, the kids from here will be showing emotional and mental issues.
Every time a rocket falls and no one dies, we thank God.
Shlomi Montoriano, 37
I have two daughters, four and eight years old. At 9 p.m. I woke them up to get to the security room. Then we had to do that again at 11:30 p.m. Our life is not normal and we don’t act normal. It’s surreal.
I’m left-wing, but they [the Palestinians] are influencing me little by little against them. They don’t think of my side. I’d give them a state, but they are not going in that direction. We haven’t been hurt yet, but they want that to happen. They don’t want us here, they don’t want us in Netanya, they don’t want us in Jerusalem, they don’t want us in Tel Aviv.
This is not a suicide bomber that picks his target. Kassams fall where they may. We have to find a solution. They’re right and I’m right. I’m ready to give them a state, but they aren’t ready to let me have mine.
One night I told my daughters to not go to school the next day. That day, a Kassam fell at their school. We call these miracles.
Yaffa Rassad
I’m not leaving. I’ve lived here 50 years. I grew up here, married here, raised my kids and grandchildren. I buried my parents here.
You’re sitting there and you hear the alert, and you have no idea where it’s going to fall.
I pray all the time that God will do something. We have a lot of miracles here because no one has been killed. That’s what we say anyway.
Not everyone in Sderot has a bomb shelter in their apartment. There’s nowhere to run.
Then you hear a whistling rocket that culminates in a crash. If it hasn’t landed near you, you wonder where it has: in an empty field or on the house of someone you know?
This has been the terrorized state of existence for residents of Sderot, a town of 24,000 about 1 kilometer (.6 mile) away from the Gaza Strip. Sderot has been the target of most of the crude homemade Palestinian rockets, Kassams, for more than five years now. The rocket attacks swell and subside in intervals, but since Israel pulled out of Gaza a year ago, they have escalated.
“There’s nowhere to run,” resident Yaffa Rassad said.
Residents say the attacks occur almost every day, at any hour, and often several times a day. There is no pattern, only the traumatizing chance that anything can happen at any time.
“At first the warning system gave you 20 seconds, but now many times the rockets have fallen before I’m even looking for where to go hide,” said municipality worker Dvora Elbaz. “I think of this every moment. I drive home and I think, ‘God, where is it going to be next?’ I sit in my house on the sofa with my arms crossed, ready. I sleep in a training suit because at any moment it could happen. Every night is like this.”
Under this sort of threat, many residents are experiencing emotional and psychological problems and have sought professional help to deal with the trauma.
At least 13 people have been killed in these attacks. This year, property has been damaged and people have been treated for shock, but no one has been killed. But many fear it is only a matter of time before the rockets become more accurate. One has reached as far as the center of Ashkelon, a port city seven miles (12 kilometers) north of Gaza.
Ironically, residents describe Sderot as safe enough to leave your doors unlocked. Most residents have families and jobs in the city and cannot imagine living in anywhere else in Israel. Sderot is a middle class city built in the southern Negev desert. There is a large population of immigrants from the Caucasus and former Soviet Union.
The army says that since Kassam attacks began in 2002, some 1,200 rockets have been fired at Israel. Lately, most have landed in or near Sderot and residents had accused the government and army of doing too little to stop it. A protest tent was set up outside City Hall, manned 24 hours a day by residents who demanded action to stop the rain of rockets.
“We are putting pressure on the government by being here,” said Arye Cohen. “I believe that in the end the government will wake up.”
Several protests have been staged at the Sderot home of Defense Minister Amir Peretz. Residents feel abandoned by the politician whom they used to consider one of their own.
The government finally did act against the Kassams in conjunction with its military offensive into southern Gaza to try to recover kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. The army has pounded launching pads in northern Gaza, but rockets continue to fall on Sderot and nearby towns.
PAGE 7:
Arye Cohen, 48
A Kassam fell 2 meters from my brother’s house. His car was damaged, his house was damaged. He was treated for heart issues.
Almost every neighborhood of Sderot has been affected. People have also gone crazy. The injured are taken to the hospital, get treated, then they pay their own bill. That’s it.
I have five kids. It’s impossible to raise kids normally here. My son is 10—he doesn’t know any other way. This is the New Orleans of Israel.
Sveta Tritanko, 13
Everyday you wake up wondering if Kassams will fall. It’s very hard to live here. Our parents are scared to let us go out. Sometimes we don’t even go to school. We are tense all the time. The government needs to help us. We don’t want to evacuate the city.
We thought we could live with them [the Palestinians], make peace with them, but they obviously don’t want to. We gave them Gush Katif [the Gaza settlements], now they want more. We don’t want a life like this, we want a normal life. They are people who love to kill.
We pray more, we ask that the Kassams stop.
Dvora Elbaz, Sderot municipality worker
Everyone wants help we cannot give. We put a smile on our faces at work, but on the inside, we feel so bad.
Now, who is thinking of work? Who is looking for money? We just want quiet. I know a lot of people who are living with pills because there is not other way. In another 10 years, the kids from here will be showing emotional and mental issues.
Every time a rocket falls and no one dies, we thank God.
Shlomi Montoriano, 37
I have two daughters, four and eight years old. At 9 p.m. I woke them up to get to the security room. Then we had to do that again at 11:30 p.m. Our life is not normal and we don’t act normal. It’s surreal.
I’m left-wing, but they [the Palestinians] are influencing me little by little against them. They don’t think of my side. I’d give them a state, but they are not going in that direction. We haven’t been hurt yet, but they want that to happen. They don’t want us here, they don’t want us in Netanya, they don’t want us in Jerusalem, they don’t want us in Tel Aviv.
This is not a suicide bomber that picks his target. Kassams fall where they may. We have to find a solution. They’re right and I’m right. I’m ready to give them a state, but they aren’t ready to let me have mine.
One night I told my daughters to not go to school the next day. That day, a Kassam fell at their school. We call these miracles.
Yaffa Rassad
I’m not leaving. I’ve lived here 50 years. I grew up here, married here, raised my kids and grandchildren. I buried my parents here.
You’re sitting there and you hear the alert, and you have no idea where it’s going to fall.
I pray all the time that God will do something. We have a lot of miracles here because no one has been killed. That’s what we say anyway.
Not everyone in Sderot has a bomb shelter in their apartment. There’s nowhere to run.
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