Bad, mad and sad move by the US

THE EDITOR, Madam:

On October 13, a drone fired by Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon exploded in an Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) base situated between Haifa and Tel Aviv. Several members of IDF’s elite Golani Brigade were killed or injured, only one day after they celebrated Yom Kippur, the Jewish holiest day of the year. It was on this religious Day of Atonement that the IDF sent messages in Arabic to residents of northern Gaza – referred to as area ‘D5’ on their grid map – advising the 400,000 Palestinians still living there that they have 10 days to leave.

The message shows a safe escape route taking them south of Wadi Gaza, the stream that runs east to west across the enclave, and which the IDF uses as a dividing line. Their final destination will be an already-overcrowded agricultural area near the southernmost city of Rafah. Palestinians were notified that after 10 days, no more food, water, medicines or any other necessities of life would be allowed into area D5 – where the IDF promised to be “operating with great force against terrorist organisations for a long time”. To many observers, this looked like an implementation of the ‘Generals’ Plan’. A group of IDF top brass had drawn up their plan to completely clear northern Gaza of Hamas terrorists and all other Palestinians; at the same time as ultra-nationalists in Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet have been planning to eventually build Jewish settlements in northern Gaza.

Immediately after the attack on the IDF base, the White House and the Pentagon announced that they will supply Israel with a Terminal High Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) battery, the very latest anti-ballistic missile defence system, with 100 US Army personnel to set it up, and then train IDF to operate it. Politicians from around the world, especially those involved in the imminent US elections, who are still talking in terms of ‘peace in Gaza’ and a ‘two-state solution’ for Israelis and Palestinians, must surely remove their rose-coloured glasses to realise that they are dreaming in technicolour.

Maybe a better idea would be to remember that President John F. Kennedy had sent US military advisers and Special Forces to Saigon shortly after his inauguration in 1961, to join personnel sent by his predecessor, President Dwight Eisenhower. Those moves eventually escalated into the Vietnam War, where over 58,000 US soldiers were killed and many more maimed; along with estimates of between one and three million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed, as were many thousands of Cambodians and Laotians. Supplying this missile defence system and military personnel to Israel has an eerie echo of 1961; it may be named THAAD, but could turn out to be bad, mad and sad.

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada