Gaza-region mayors to Olmert: do something about Qassams (with J4JP Comment)

Shmulik Hadad - YNET News - May 20, 2008

Seven southern municipal leaders send harsh letter to Prime Minister Olmert, urge him to take urgent action in face of ongoing rocket attacks; 'we have waited patiently, sustained attacks quietly, but no more,' the letter reads.

No More:

"Until today we showed restraint, waited patiently, bit our lips, sounded warnings, calmed our residents, and sustained attack quietly - no more," the letter reads.

The municipal leaders stressed that they view the government as responsible for the security of residents, and noted that they feel as though they are asked to show restraint and wait that because they live in peripheral areas.

"We have been watching with concern the ongoing process of erosion of residents' social, national, and mental strength; some carry mental traumas and suffer from shock and anxiety, others had their limbs severedand some joined the family of the bereaved."

'Ministers don't deliver on promises'

The municipal leaders, which include the mayors of Sderot, Ashkelon and Netivot, decided to send the letter in a meeting Sunday, where they also agreed to join forces in order to lift the rocket threat faced by southern residents. On Monday, 21 representatives of area kibbutzim also met and decided to coordinate their protest efforts.

The municipal leaders demand that Olmert stop the rocket attacks immediately and say that they will back any operation that would end the attacks.

Haim Yalin, who heads the Eshkol regional council, told Ynet that southern residents have lost their patience.

"I'm quite skeptical and despaired," he said. "I spoke with the prime minister, the defense minister, and with other ministers, and they tell us things and make promises, and later sit around the government table and do the exact opposite. At times I wonder whether we need to bring some kind of outside consultant from overseas to explain to them what's going on here."

J4JP Comment

Excerpted from Esther Pollard's Speech at the Nechama Women of Courage Awards (27 January 2008):

How much longer will we keep our eyes closed to the reality that now threatens the entire nation?

The line of causation which connects the abandonment of Jonathan Pollard to all abandonments which followed and to all of the abandonments now occurring - up to and including the threat to the very integrity of the Holy City of Jerusalem - is so obvious that it is blinding!

When the Jewish people permitted our so-called leadership to abandon Jonathan Pollard, Heaven responded by amplifying the message for us, to try to wake us up. On the heels of Jonathan's abandonment, came the abandonment of our MIAs and captives in the field; followed by the abandonment of the SLA collaborators; and the abandonment of Mudhat Yousef, a soldier who was left to bleed to death at Kever Yosef. Then came the abandonment of the People of Gush Katif and the Northern Shomron (most of whom remain in dire straits today); and then abandonment of the soldiers and the people of the North during the Second Lebanon War (which itself began with the abandonment of the 3 kidnapped soldiers); and of course the long, on-going abandonment of the people of Sderot, who are still taking a daily pounding by rockets and missiles while we go on with our own day to day lives!

How much longer can we keep saying, "What a shame, but what can you do?" How much longer will we try the patience of Heaven? How many more miracles can we expect, without reaping the rewards of our own pitiful response to this life and death situation?

Jonathan is the key to the fundamental moral rectification of which Israel is sorely in need. His abandonment lies at the heart of all of the abandonments that followed and of all of the abandonments which are on-going today. His abandonment is the root cause of all the others, and it is the place where the tikun (rectification) has to start.