half-nelson jihadists

Israel is up against many insurgencies (to put it mildly). Today, confronting the one that manifests itself as Hamas rockets lobbed across the border from Gaza to Sderot, Topic A in Israel is how to fight back.

Michael Oren explains the problem:

“The Palestinians have us in a half nelson,” says Michael Oren, a fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem research institute. “They can shell us, and we can’t get back at them.”

Here’s the lay of the land:

Advocates of a [military] incursion say Israel must reoccupy a corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border to block smuggling of weapons with longer firing ranges and improved precision.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert cast doubt on the effectiveness of such an operation, pointing out that Defensive Shield by itself didn’t reduce militant bombings. “We have to remember that this war will not be over in one blow,” he said.

Yes—very good point: it’s a Long War. Still, the Israelis have to develop a strategy:

Mr. Oren, a military historian, argues that Israel should be directing its retaliation at Hamas leaders - even those in Damascus - rather than the militants who hide among Palestinian civilians.

“[Israel should] stop bombing and stop sending forces into Gaza. You have to make the people who are responsible for the rocket fire pay the consequences,” he says. Those launching the rockets “want you to invade Gaza, and get into a situation where you’re killing citizens, and then be condemned by the world,” he says. “Then you’re playing their game.”

But other security experts argued that a new equation of deterrence with the Qassam launchers mistakenly assumes that Palestinian militants are acting rationally under a unified command.

Here’s a voice of doom and gloom:

“Most of Israel’s national security doctrine in counterterrorism has been rendered ineffective in Gaza,” says Gidi Grinstein, a former peace negotiator and the head of the Reut Institute in Tel Aviv. “How can you deter a loosely connected network of people who have no central structure of command and control? In such circumstances what is victory, deterrence, and command-and-control?“

That, Mr. Grinstein, is the question of our age.