("rocket science" has become THE "cottage industry" of Gaza)
The price of the Qassams
By Ben Caspit, Maariv, November 11, 2006
Last night, while Col. Yossi Galant, the Southern Command Chief, was being interviewed on Channel 2, a Qassam rocket landed next to the children's quarters in Kibbutz Kfar Gaza (South of Ashkelon). Yesterday morning, Rubhi Rantisi, a Hamas representative, was fuming in an interview on Army Radio: "Do you expect the Arabs to sit idly by?" No, dear Rubhi, we do not expect the Arabs to sit idly by now. We expected the Arabs to sit idly by in the wake of the Gaza pullout. When Israel displaced thousands of its citizens and turned them into refugees, having spent billions and hanging on the brink of civil war in order to perform a complete disengagement from Gaza, behind the international border, and abandoning even the Philadelphi Route. Yes, we were stupid enough to believe that at least now, at least in Gaza, you might sit idly for a while. Instead, we were rewarded with intensified barrages of "improved" Qassams, tons of explosives and Hamas takeover. While another Hamas top man, Ghazi Hamad, was bragging on the radio "Now we have to wipe Israel off the map".
Lovely, good morning, everyone. This was declared in the Hamas charter long before the Beit-Hanoun incident, Mr. Hamid. That is your Bible, that is your belief, that is what you have been trying to do ever since we left Gaza, ever since Ariel Sharon's "pilot", reciprocated by tens of tunnels packed with ammunition and IED (improvised explosive devices). Ghazi Hamad was followed by an Israeli commentator who announced that "Now, following this tragic event, the Israeli-hatred in Gaza is sky-rocketing." Oh, dear!" What exactly was there in Gaza BEFORE this tragic event? Was Gaza overflowing with burning love for Zionists and Jews? These are the people whom we left alone over a year ago, we "got out of their hair", set them free. They could have created a model of rehabilitation, co-existence, peace. If only they had invested one hundredth of their murderous energy into giving the refugee camps a facelift. A tenth of the money they invest in terror could have gone into setting up new residential neighborhoods. They could have shown the whole world – look, Israel is out, has retreated beyond its international border, we have reached a solution and we can live in peace. They could have justifeid our retreat from the West Bank as well.
(rockets found in a private residence in Nablus, West Bank)Instead, they charged us with rabid terror. They are not attacking the 1967 borders, they want the 1948 borders. They do not challenge the occupation; they do not struggle against the oppression. They want to completely uproot us from here; they want to wipe us off the face of the earth. But guess what, we are not that eager to let that happen.
On the eve of the Beit-Hanoun incident I saw Slieman Al-Shafee (the energetic channel 2 correspondent) interviewing an Islamic Jihad activist who was bragging in front of the cameras that they had developed a new rocket, one that was presently going to land in Sderot's commercial center or next to the children's dorm in Kfar Gaza (if not on top of it actually). I hear someone say – "let's talk to them, let's resume negotiations". But then one grasps the horror, the madness, the hatred, and one asks oneself – what is there to talk about? Ending the occupation in Gaza, perhaps? Shall we offer to retreat and allow them to rebuild their lives, let the spirits chill, separate the demons? But then we remember that we've done that already.
(These are rocket-launching sites targeted by the IDF: Beit-Hanoun, Beit-Lahiya, Sheich-Ziyad, Al-Atatrah, Shuhada Cemetery, Giv'at Oranim, Officers Quarters - this last location was built to provide lodgings for Palestinian security officers). 
We're out of Gaza. We've retreated. We've negotiated. But it didn't do any good. They are still firing rockets, they are still snatching soldiers in cross-border (international border) attacks. And they are still hiding behind their women and children. But this equation has to be broken. Just as everybody over in Lebanon knows that whoever piles up rockets in their homes might actually get hit by a missile or a shell, so must every Arab mom in Gaza face the reality that she cannot sleep safely at night anywhere in Gaza if the Sderot children cannot sleep safely at night. Whence rockets are launched, shells will fall. Following the disengagement about one thousand Qassam rockets have been fired at us. Which is why we must brace ourselves and carry on. All they have to do, if they want their peace and quiet, is to stop the rockets. Until then there will be no peace and quiet for them, and such mishaps are bound to recur. Yesterday, someone by the name of Rafi Eitan managed to squeeze in among the radio updates pouring in from Beit-Hanoun, and recounted the story of how he captured Eichmann 46 years ago. It appears that Eichmanns don’t die, they reincarnate and need to be recaptured.
I translated this article from Hebrew for the benefit of my non-Hebrew speaking friends who pop in every now and then, because I think it illustrates perfectly what most Israelis feel and think nowadays. However sorry we may be for the loss of life in Beit-Hanoun (which was accidental, although there are serious allegations of foul-play, no wonder the Arabs themselves call it Qana, and therefore I shall address it separately), we must never forget our own victims, who were targeted on purpose:
This is where little Afik Zahavi-Ohaion (below, with his mother, Ruthie) was killed on his way to his kindergarten.
This beautiful 17-year-old girl, Ella (Ayala Abouksiss), sustained fatal head injuries when she shielded her younger brother, Tamir, featured here below. 
And the latest Palestinian craze is that the Jews have no legal claim to Jerusalem or to the Land of Israel. I wonder where they (and also their supporters in Europe, America and Canada) learnt their history and why they think the Romans, having taken Jerusalem and ransacked Herod's Temple (in the year 70 AD), first called the province Judea Capta and even minted coins with that inscription. The term Palestina was given 65 years later, as token of ultimate humiliation and insult to the Jews who were constantly challenging Roman authority. It couldn't be that the Arabs were calling themselves Israelites, Jews or anything like that back then, and then suddenly, such as e.g. when Islam was invented in the 7th century AD, decided to call themselves something else, such as Arabs, and Palestinians even later, perhaps in the 1960's. And how the world cheers for them...
It has just struck me that the Palestinians claim to be descendants of those ancient Philistines. Perhaps. Interesting to note, though, that those ancient Philistines were not semitic, whereas Jews and Arabs are very much descendants of Noah's sons...
Lebanese flags and an anti-Israeli and anti-U.S. caricature are planted amongst a demolished building in a Hizbollah stronghold whach had been targeted by Israeli air strikes during the taping of a political video clip in south Beirut July 28, 2006. REUTERS/Sharif Karim (LEBANON)
Tel Aviv Opera House
Tel Aviv beaches
Tel Aviv, Habima
The Kibbutz
Hadera cinema
Zohar, Hadera open-air cinema
This is 
