Israel still faces ‘axis of evil’: Israeli reporter | Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle

Israel still faces ‘axis of evil’: Israeli reporter

When Jerusalem Post military correspondent Yaakov Katz recently spoke in a U.S. Methodist church, someone in the audience was bothered by his use of the phrase “axis of evil.”

The audience member contended that the phrase was “a Bush term,” and now that President George W. Bush is out and President Barack Obama is in, “we’ve moved beyond that.”

The United States may have moved beyond that phrase that Bush first used in 2002 to characterize terrorism-promoting countries Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

But as Katz, 29, told an estimated 150 people at Carroll University in Waukesha on March 17, Israel sees an “axis of evil” that is “alive and thumping” every day.

Its handiwork is the efforts of Iran and its allies and proxies — Syria and the Muslim terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah — to attack and terrorize Israel’s civilians, said Katz.

And that is the context in which to understand Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s attack on Hamas in Gaza at the end of December 2008 through mid-January 2009, Katz said.

Katz has been military correspondent for five years. He reported on Israel’s removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and Israel’s fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 as well as Operation Cast Lead.

Foiled plans

Katz said Hamas, which won elections in Gaza in 2006 and destroyed the Fatah presence there in 2007, had a “plan with three pillars” when it decided to provoke Israel at the end of 2008.

Its leaders sought: to demonstrate that the funds it had received from Iran were being well used in building ability to defend against Israeli forces with tunnels, bunkers, roadside bombs, etc.; to harass Israelis with rockets; and to build and maintain a “victory image” with the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

However, said Katz, the plan “fell apart.” Hamas couldn’t mount an effective defense, as Israeli forces crossed the Gaza Strip in about five hours.

While Hamas rockets into Israel never ceased completely, their numbers were reduced from 100 to 150 per day to about 40 a day; and Hamas couldn’t uphold a victory image after Israel destroyed some 2,000 targets, using “smart bombs.”

Katz emphasized the contrast between Israel’s “smart bombs” — bombs under enough control to aim at exact targets — with Hamas’ use of “stupid weapons” like its rockets fired in the general direction of civilian populations in the hope of hitting something.

This tactic embodies the different approaches of the two forces — Israel seeking to protect its own and other civilians as much as possible, while Hamas made “cynical use of civilians and human shields” and deliberately used mosques, schools, hospitals and civilian homes as bases for military and terrorist operations, he said.

Even so, Hamas exaggerated the number of civilians that Israel killed in the operation. According to most accounts, some 1,300 Palestinians died in the operation, compared to ten Israeli soldiers.

Hamas claimed that two-thirds of the killed Palestinians were civilians, Katz said. But, he said, the Israel Defense Force established a team that went over the Palestinian casualty count “name-by-name.” The IDF team found that two-thirds of the Palestinians casualties were in fact terrorists.

In response to an audience question about the allegedly “disproportional” Israeli response, Katz also pointed out that Israel and Hamas define “children” differently when they count casualties. To Israel, children are 15 and younger, while Hamas calls fighters 16 and up children.

Moreover, because of the two sides’ different approaches to war — Hamas targeting and hiding behind civilians, Israel trying to protect civilians as much as possible in densely populated areas — “you can’t rely on numbers for the true story,” Katz said.

Katz is a Chicago native who moved to Israel with his family when he was about 15. He did military service and earned a law degree, but decided to go into journalism instead.

The event at Carroll University was sponsored by the Pioneer Israel Public Affairs Committee, the campus Israel advocacy group, and Stand With Us, an international Israel-education organization with a Chicago chapter.

Katz was on a two-week U.S. speaking tour for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and Jewish federations in different cities. In addition to Waukesha, he spoke in New York City, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, New Haven and Highland Park.