Barak Nixed Pre-Emptive Attack on Gaza
Ehud Barak last week decided not to authorize a preemptive strike before the terrorist attack on the Egyptian border, a senior official in Jerusalem said. Barak feared that the move would spark a serious conflagration in the Gaza Strip.
The head of the Shin Bet security service, Yoram Cohen, recommended a strike against a terror cell of the Popular Resistance Committees.
The senior official said the recommendation followed precise intelligence on an effort to launch a terror attack out of Sinai; the organization had warned about it for some time.
The same intelligence was used several hours after the attack to kill the gunmen.
According to an Army Radio report, when the operational opportunity arose to strike at the militants, the Shin Bet recommended that action be taken. Nonetheless, senior defense officials and political leaders turned down the request, according to Army Radio.
In response, the IDF Spokesman’s Office said that “the report suffers from substantive factual inaccuracies, and due to operational and intelligence reasons we cannot elaborate on the matter.”
For more, see Haaretz.com
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
