Too Many Carrots

Haaretz has a piece ("Updating the Threat") about how Israel, like the US, is refusing to get tied down to a war of attrition and instead is escalating its tactics to 'the threat of escalation,' utilizing "bombs and the targeted assassinations in Gaza, together with the large-scale arrests of Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists in the West Bank."

A key part of this escalation has resulted from a change in command:

Sources in the General Staff and in Southern Command say that a significant change between the period of the former chief of staff, Moshe Ya'alon, and his successor, Dan Halutz, is the breathing space that Halutz gives the air and ground forces to complete an operation instead of stopping it on the brink of success.

Sure enough, Arutz7 reports today on a result of Israel's policy:

A top Islamic Jihad leader was cornered and killed by IDF undercover troops late Sunday afternoon on the road south of Jenin. IDF officials said 27-year-old Nihad Abu Ghanem, the top Islamic Jihad terrorist in Burkin, a town near Jenin, was shot after he opened fire on IDF special forces.

Abu Ghanem was the first Islamic Jihad terrorist to be killed since an air strike in the Gaza Strip last month in which two top leaders were killed following a rocket attack on Sderot, near the border of Gush Katif.

So far, so good. But a common criticism of Israeli policy in dealing with terrorist attacks is lack of follow-through. And in this case there is no exception. Arutz7 reports on the murder of 3 Israelis in Gush Etzion:

The Al Aksa Brigades, a terror group associated with the Fatah PLO faction claimed responsibility for the attack. PA chief Mahmoud Abbas is a member of the Fatah party that controls the Palestinian Authority.

The end of the article points out that Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the same person who is noted for giving "breathing space" to IDF forces, apparently gave breathing space to Al Aksa instead:

In another gesture recently approved to improve relations with the Palestinian Authority, IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.Gen. Dan Halutz, ordered the IDF to halt targeting members of the Al Aksa Brigades. Halutz recently told a French newspaper that Israel had halted that attacks because the Brigades had linked up with official PA forces and were no longer targeting Israelis.

If that was true before, it certainly is not true now:

A terrorist group aligned with the Palestinian Authority, the Al Aksa Brigades has vowed to continue the armed struggle against Israel until it liberates “Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Galilee."

The declaration was made in response to an interview given by IDF Chief-of-Staff, Lt.Gen. Dan Halutz, to a French newspaper. Halutz told the paper that the IDF was no longer targeting members of that terror group because it had joined up with the PA’s armed forces and was no longer involved in attacks against Israel.

Calling the Galilee, “occupied territory,” a spokesman for the Brigades said the organization would continue the armed struggle to liberate it.

Don't the arms of the IDF get tired from dangling all those carrots?

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