The conversation about tunnels from Gaza is very important on many levels: The nature of the threat, what it says about Hamas that they diverted materials that were coming in to Gaza for humanitarian support and used this cement for a war effort... One aspect of the whole conversation is inside Israel: Was the IDF aware of the vast nature of the threat? Could more have been done to detect this vast network of board infiltration points? J.J. Goldberg explores some of this in his latest post including links to hebrew language sources and some translations for the rest of us. Given the poor quality of American media coverage of this issue, his last paragraph is a key point on this matter and worth sharing in full: As for English-language reporting on the issue, nothing captures the insipid quality more vividly than an exchange yesterday on the revered PBS News Hour. Anchor Gwen Ifill started it off with a question to a Washington pundit, opening with the observation that Israel regards the tunnels as a strategic threat while Hamas considers them an economic lifeline. She’s talking about two entirely distinct and dissimilar sets of tunnels. The ones leading south into the Sinai city of Rafah were the economic lifeline. They’ve been demolished by Egypt, which was able to locate them on its side of the border because the openings were cargo loading and unloading zones. The ones leading east into Israel are entirely useless as economic channels, leading only to empty fields near Israeli villages and IDF installations. They’re entirely military in nature. Israel can’t easily find them on its side of the fence because they’re not opened until an attack is mounted. Hence the technology dilemma.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 12:08:22 +0000
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