Tunnels are harmful...tell the Post

Could the Post be more decisively refuted in such a short time?

Remember the seething editorial Wrong Way in Gaza Tuesday, May 18, 2004?

The Post rants that Israel's Gaza offensive "only make matters worse."

Without a hint of concern for the recent deaths of 13 IDF soldiers killed in ambushes despite noting that "the bodies of some of the soldiers were dismembered by Palestinian attackers" or for the growing threat from the tunnels or the anti-aircraft missiles waiting in Egypt.

They save their concern for the "116 dwellings destroyed over the weekend, leaving more than 1,000 people homeless -- have been carried out without regard for the welfare or possessions of desperately poor Palestinian residents. If the operation continues, thousands more will be made homeless."

What about Israel's welfare? Which is worse, destroying homes or murdering soldiers?

But set aside the editor's inverted moral tone....is the Post's basic premise correct?

Did Israel's recent measures in Gaza make matters worse?

Read the Reuters dispatch from Gaza.

Palestinians turn on tunnel men, June 06, 2004 By Nidal al-Mughrabi

Running guns and contraband through tunnels into Rafah refugee camp from nearby Egypt was once both profitable and patriotic in Palestinian eyes. It put rare cash into a poor economy and fuelled "resistance" to Israeli occupation in Gaza.

But communal support for the smugglers has cooled as Israeli forces have razed more and more parts of Rafah said to be hiding tunnels. With 13,000 people now homeless, many of whom say they concealed nothing, residents are turning on the tunnel men.

"Many people now oppose our work. I know of cases where people have noticed others digging a tunnel and they have assaulted them," said Mustafa, a veteran Rafah tunnel builder who declined to give his family name.

Read on....

Growing community opposition, together with increasing Israeli incursions that have progressively reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble, have slowed down tunnel construction and with it the arrival of fresh arms and ammunition.

Prices are soaring as a result. The cost of a Kalashnikov bullet has doubled recently to 30 shekels (3.50 pounds).

Tunnel builders said they were hearing that Egypt was rounding up cohorts on the other side of the border and meting out long prison terms. Israel has long called for such a crackdown by Egypt, pointing to their 1979 peace treaty.

It's so rare that the Post can be so decisively refuted within a couple of weeks of one of their rants..but there it is.

When even the Gazans ...and surprise, the Egyptians....realize the tunnels are bad, do you think the Post will?

Once again, nah!!!!

Israel's actions in Rafah are hard but not harder than anything the US has not recently done in Iraq and not harder than what other western countries would do facing a terror threat of the same magnitude - think of the British who invented demolishing homes or of the French who committed genocide in Algeria.

What really distinguishes Israel's actions are how effective they are...tell the Post.