This can’t be true. Please tell me that this isn’t really true. The IDF is evacuating a base near Gaza because they’re afraid soldiers will be kidnapped? Whatever happened to the idea that soldiers, you know, protect and defend?
For the first time since the disengagement plan, soldiers are being evacuated from a base near the Gaza Strip due to the security situation in the area, Ynet has learned.
Major-General Yosef Mishlav, the coordinator of the government’s activities in the territories, has instructed the army to temporarily relocate the soldiers serving in the Coordination and Liaison Authority near the Erez crossing to the Julis base, located about 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) away from the Strip.
This unprecedented decision sparked a great deal of criticism in the IDF. “(The decision to evacuate the base) is an admission of our failure to protect the lives of our citizens and soldiers,” an army official said.
“The army and members of the security establishment should be at the front and serve as a buffer between the enemy and our civilian population. It is wrong to evacuate them because of a threat. What will the residents of Netiv Ha’asara, who live near the base, say? They will justifiably demand that the State evacuate them as well.”
The decision to evacuate the base was reached prior to last week’s attempt to launch an attack at the Erez crossing with the use of a truck bomb.
Oh, well that’s good then. It won’t look like they’re doing it because they’re afraid or anything discouraging like that.
Countdown to Hamas and Iranian bragging in five, four, three, two….
I remember Julis base. Several years ago I did three weeks of Sar-El service there.
I would strongly urge those who want to visit Israel and see yet another aspect of life there to consider Sar-El.
The Sar-El Volunteers for Israel Site contains information about the program.
http://www.sar-el.org/
For Canadians
http://www.serve.com/CVI/
Speechless….
Dam.
The civilian government of Israel refuses to stand by the IDF’s captured soldiers. Why should the IDF stand by the civilians of Israel?
No, it hasn’t come to the point where the IDF closes up shop and leaves their fellow Israelis to the tender mercies of the Palestinians. This was a warning that it could, though. If Olmert doesn’t step aside (or, preferably, step down) and let the IDF do what needs to be done to bring its kidnapped soldiers home, the IDF’s declining morale will continue to lead to reactions like this.
Any evidence that Cpl. Shalit, or any of the others, are sitll alive? Frankly, I doubt it.
The Arabs and Persians scent weakness, and are moving in for the kill. The longer Israel waits before striking at Hamas and then at Hezbollah the bigger, bloodier and more intensive the war is likely to be. Maybe after Hamas is cleared out of Gaza Abbas, his consiglieri, and all those Palestinian Arabs so hot for war with Israel finally will be motivated to actually consider and accept the “two-state solution”.
The soldiers captured by Hezbollah in 2006 are certainly dead. Shalit may be alive, but only as long as the media keeps praising Hamas for its “humane” treatment of him. Still, it was Olmert’s decision to write them off when they could have been rescued, and until the Israeli people tosses him out of office, who can blame the IDF for protecting their men the only way Olmert will allow them?