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January 9, 2009
Speaking up for Israel
Former ambassador explains Gaza mission.
RON FRIEDMAN
"When we left [Gaza], the Palestinians really had a choice. They could make Gaza into a living place, a place where they could look after their children, where they could improve their quality of life and the standard of living, or they could turn it into a launching pad for missiles and a terror base." Unfortunately, said Dan Gillerman, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, "they chose the latter."
Gillerman spoke on behalf of Israel in a telephone conference with 500 reporters, organized by the Israel Project, on the 10th day of Israel's Cast Lead operation.
"Israel has shown incredible restraint. I don't think that there is another country in the world that would have taken missiles fired on its cities and villages for eight consecutive years," said Gillerman, who occupied the New York position for more than five years before being replaced this summer by Gabriella Shalev. "Israel finally decided that enough is enough and went out in order to put an end to it."
Gillerman spoke about the relative success of the air campaign and the tough decisions that moved Israel into launching the ground offensive into the same place it withdrew from three years ago. "Believe me, this was done with great trepidation and with great misgivings," he said. "We did not want to go back to Gaza. We left Gaza with no intention of ever coming back, but we were forced to do it because we had to prove to Hamas, and to the rest of the world, that we will not stand for it and we will not cease before there is an end to it."
Gillerman said Israel would only leave Gaza once it knows that it has created a new reality in the southern part of Israel: "When our children can go to sleep without the fear of sirens. When mothers can send their kids to school and kindergarten without worrying that they'll never see them again.
"Our aims are to dramatically change the security situation in the south, to put an end to rocket firing, to put an end to terror, to put an end to smuggling and to put an end to the re-arming of Hamas. Once these objectives are achieved and followed by very credible international guarantees, we will leave Gaza," said Gillerman.
"We are also very concerned about the well-being and welfare of the people of Gaza who are not Hamas supporters or Hamas fighters.... Israel has taken enormous care to try and minimize civilian casualties," Gillerman stressed. "I can tell you that the Israeli air force has embarked on work that is unprecedented in any air force in the world, where 80 per cent of its time is devoted to making sure innocents are not being hurt. The technology, the sophistication, the compassion and care which the air force has put into that is unparallelled," he said, pointing out that while Israel couldn't completely eliminate collateral damage, its precision is much higher than that of NATO and other forces. He even suggested that the Americans and British might want to send officers to observe and learn from Israel's surgical and humane techniques.
Still on the subject of Palestinian casualties, Gillerman spoke about Israel's regular practice of dropping of leaflets warning the residents of imminent attacks and a database of nearly 80,000 telephone numbers, which they use to call and warn Palestinian civilians.
Gillerman said that Israel can be pleased with the international support it has received so far. "Not only in the United States where we expect it, or in Europe, which is not a given, but even in the Arab world, the Muslim world. We have heard unprecedented statements by President Mubarak, by the foreign minister of Egypt, even by Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] saying: 'Hamas asked for it and they got it.' "
When asked about Iran's involvement in the conflict, Gillerman said, "Iran is the source of much of the evil we are witnessing. It is a perpetrator and a harborer and a financer of terror and supports both the Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas in Gaza. We can only shudder at the thought of that militant, terrorist, fundamental, radical, extreme country gaining nuclear weapons.... A world with a nuclear Iran is a world none of us want to live in."
He said Iran was already involved in the conflict because of its role in supplying long-range missiles to Hamas and helping train their troops. "I'm sure Iran would hate to see Hamas defeated but, at the same time, I doubt whether they want to get involved."
While Gillerman said it was still too early to know exactly how things would end up, he conveyed the belief that a resolution with the support of a new American president will be positive for Israel and the Palestinian Authority and that Fatah would ideally regain control of Gaza.
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