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Cancelled Flights Heap Pressure on Netanyahu
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
July 22, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Canceling flight to Tel Aviv in the wake of the July
17 downing of Malaysian Flight MH17 over Eastern Ukraine killing all 298
passengers and crew, U.S. and Foreign airlines suspended flights to Tel Aviv. When a Hamas missile fired from the
Gaza Strip landed close to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, Delta Airlines
diverted a flight today from New York to Paris, deciding Tel Aviv was too risky. It didn’t take long for all U.S. and
Foreign airlines to follow suit, suspending flights to Tel Aviv, now that
Israel’s in an active war with Hamas.
Air France, Germany’s Lufthanza and U.S. Airways also scrapped flight to
Israel. As U.S., Egyptian and Arab
negotiators find common ground for a ceasefire, Netanyahu’s incursion into Gaza
nears an unsatisfactory end.
Netanyahu hoped he’d have enough time to finish the stated mission of destroying
Hamas’s rockets, launchers and tunnels.
Despite sacrificing Gaza’s civilians and infrastructure, Hamas now has a
face-saving way out of the current crisis, realizing it disrupted Israel’s
economy. Canceling flights into
Israel, at least temporarily, Hamas succeeded as never before, proving David’s
slingshot still can land a devastating blow to Goliath. Federal Aviation Administration
officials announced today suspension of flights to Tel Aviv for at least 24
hours pending resolution of the crisis.
What Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces is the recognition
that Gaza’s dense population puts handcuffs on Israel’s mission to de-fang
Hamas. If Hamas had the same BUK
anti-aircraft missile system that downed Flight MH17, they would have taken down
as many passenger jets flying into Israel as possible. When Palestinians complain about the
discrepancy in casualties with Israelis, it doesn’t mean they’re not trying.
Unable to inflict the same numbers of deaths on Israel, Hamas current
tactic of targeting Tel Aviv’s main airport causes enough disruption to bring
Netanyahu back to the bargaining table.
Hamas rejected an initial Egyptian ceasefire agreement July 14 because it
didn’t force Israel into releasing more prisoners and ending the blockade on
Gaza. Hamas doesn’t talk about
Egypt’s blockade on Egypt, unwilling to allow them to funnel arms to banned
Muslim Brotherhood. When Muslim
Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi took over Egypt June 30, 2012, Hamas had good
friend in Cairo, letting the Gaza based group smuggle in rockets and
war-materiel into Gaza. Morsi
looked the other way while Hamas funneled as much arms as possible. Hamas’s fortunes ended when Gen.
Abdel Fatah el-Sisi deposed Morsi July 3, 2013.
Now they no longer trust Cairo to do their bidding.
Founded by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in 1987 with the expressed purpose of
violently overthrowing Israel, Hamas’s charter incorporates the same
anti-Semitic and racist language as Hitler’s Mein Kampf or, its precursor, the
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, the most racist tome of the 20th
Century that fingers the Jews for every evil on planet earth. While Hamas’s charter doesn’t go
that far, they quote heavily from the Protocols, going beyond their stated
mission of destroying Israel.
Hamas’s rockets and rocket launchers have paid off disrupting flights into
Israel and forcing Netanyahu to end his military operation in Gaza. Most experts knew any military
operation would end in failure, despite degrading Hamas. When Israel launched its war against
Hezbollah in Lebanon July 12-14, 2006, it found out the hard way the impossible
task of rooting out Hezbollah’s rocket stockpiles and mobile launchers.
Fighting in densely populated areas, whether from the sky or on the
ground, creates too much collateral damage to sustain a lengthy campaign.
Two weeks into the current operation,
the collateral damage has given Israel another black eye in world opinion,
though Israel enjoys strong backing the U.S. Palestinian officials reject U.S.
public opinion as brainwashed by the “Jewish lobby” but can’t explain why their
Arab brothers in Egypt also maintain the blockade against Gaza. Egypt knows that Hamas would do just
about anything to arm the Muslim Brotherhood to topple el-Sisi’s secular
government. Before either Israel or
Egypt would agree to Hamas’s demands of opening up the borders, there would have
to be iron clad guarantees that they would stop arms smuggling in Gaza. As long as Hamas continues its war
against Israel, ending the blockade isn’t feasible.
Faced with a new crisis with flights cancelled into Tel Aviv airport,
Netanyahu’s time is running out on his military campaign in Gaza. Hamas would just assume have Israel
massacre its civilian population, than abandon its demands to end the blockade
on Gaza and spring Palestinians prisoners from Israeli jails, especially the big
fish, 56-year-old Marwan Barghouti.
After pro-Russian rebels downed a Malaysian airliner July 17, commercial
airlines have shown more caution.
Canceling flights into Tel Aviv, airline officials know that if Hamas had the
resources, they wouldn’t think twice about downing commercial flights. “It’s really forced every carrier,
every business jet operator to do their own due diligence, do their own
assessment, given the geological situation,” said Aviation consultant Robert
Mann, signaling to Netanyahu that it’s time to redouble efforts to finish the
job..
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