On Tuesday, Israeli IDF soldiers took siege to a prison located in the town of Jericho, where Popular Front Secretary General Ahmad Saadat and five other terrorists involved in the murder of former Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi were barricaded. The siege lasted for nearly nine hours and ultimately ended with Saadat handing himself over to IDF soldiers. The interesting thing about the event isn't the operation in itself as much as the timing of the operation. With Israeli elections only two weeks away, the Jericho incident can definitely be seen as an election ploy by Olmert, and the Kadima party, however, this is not the first time in Israeli history prime ministers sought to inflate their stance at the expense of their neighbors.
Operation Opera
On June 7, 1981, a squadron of Israeli F-16A fighter aircraft, with an escort of F-15As, bombed and heavily damaged the Osirak reactor at the request of Menachem Begin. Begin took the anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic threats of Saddam Hussein very seriously and therefore took aim at Iraq. Israel attempted to negotiate with France so as to not provide Iraq with the nuclear reactor at Osiraq, but to no avail. In 1981 Begin ordered the bombing and destruction of Iraq's Tammuz nuclear reactor by the Israeli Air Force in a successful long-range operation called Operation Opera. Soon after, Begin enunciated what came to be known as the Begin doctrine: "On no account shall we permit an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against the people of Israel." Many foreign governments, including the United States, condemned the operation, and the United Nations Security Council passed a unanimous resolution 487 condemning it. The Israeli left-wing opposition criticized it also at the time, but mainly for its timing relative to elections only three weeks later.
Operation Grapes of Wrath
The Israeli Defense Forces code-name for a sixteen-day military conflict against Hezbollah forces, primarily in Southern Lebanon. 639 Hezbollah cross-border rocket attacks targeted northern Israel, particularly the town of Kiryat Shemona.(HRW 1997) Hezbollah forces also participated in numerous engagements with Israeli and South Lebanon Army forces. Israel conducted more than 1100 air raids and extensive shelling (some 25,132 shells), including that of a UN installation (see Qana shelling).(Amnesty 1996)
Israeli officials announced the operation on April 11 as a retaliatory and preventative action for Hezbollah shelling on 9 April, which had injured six Israeli civilians. Hezbollah described that raid as itself retaliatory for the death of 14-year old Lebanese boy (and injury of three others)in the village of Barashit due to a roadside bomb on April 9.(Amnesty 1996)
From the beginning of the operation, Israeli air raids targeted civilian infrastructure and were accompanied by radio broadcasts urging residents to flee the area. Somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 did so. Likewise, Hezbollah announced by radio that Israeli civilians should flee northern Israel, prompting the fleeing of some 30,000 from the border. Some 154 civilians (HRW 1997) to 170 Lebanese (ICRC 1997) were killed in Lebanon. Some 350 civilians were wounded in Lebanon and three Israeli civilians, all women, were injured.(HRW 1997)
Hostilities retreated from their escalated level following the reaching of an Israeli-Lebanese Ceasefire Understanding (informal treaty) barring cross-border attacks on civilians under French and American diplomatic auspices. The understanding was announced 1800 hours, April 26, 1996, and effective 0400 hours on April 27 just before Peres was narrowly defeated by Benjamin Netanyahu in the first direct elections for Prime Minister in Israel's history in 1996.
Sharons Visit to the Temple on the Mount
On September 28,2000, the Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited in the Temple Mount (called Har HaBayit in Hebrew, Al-Haram Al-Sharif in Arabic) in the Old City of Jerusalem, the holiest site for Judaism, the first Qibla of Muslims and the third holiest site in Islam, and a place of special significance to Christianity. The pretext for Sharon's visit was to check complaints by archeologists that Muslim religious authorities had vandalized archeological remains beneath the surface of the mount during the conversion of Solomon's Stables into a mosque.
Sharon's impending visit was officially announced and approved in advance with many Palestinian officials including Arafat himself, though prior to it some people on both sides protested, because of his controversial political stance. He was warned that this could lead to riots but Sharon declared that he went to the site with a message of peace. His visit was condemned by the Palestinians as a provocation and an incursion, as was his over 1,000 strong armed bodyguard that arrived on the scene with him in claims that Palestinian protesters threatened his life.
Ariel Sharon, ran against Ehud Barak from the Labour party and Sharon was elected Israeli prime minister in February, 2001 after inciting chaos by visiting the Temple on the Mount.
Olmert definitely took into account the upcoming election when planning the Jericho operation just as did, Peres and Begin and Sharon, however, will this election ploy help his Kadima party? Olmert definitely took no risk by proceeding with the Jericho operation. It was obvious that he would receive support from both right- and left-wingers, and that building national consensus about the need to arrest Saadat would fall on the backs of Hamas' inability to be seen as nothing more than a terrorist group in the eyes of Israelis.
The bottom line is that Olmert has become the initiator and now has the ability to dictate the issues for debate while also forcing those that disagree with his move to respond.
However, that said Olmert and Kadima are still not a sure thing in regards to the elections. Poll numbers paint a picture that is much more complex, which happen to be pointing to an unusually high number of people who've yet to decide who to vote for.
Cross Posted at: The Middle Eastern Dilemma