Following 3 rocket launches from Gaza on Tuesday evening, the Israel Air Force struck back at targets within Gaza.

This was the first time that Israel has responded with an air assault to the Gaza rocket launches since the Pillars of Defense cease fire. No one was reported injured in the IAF strike.

The Gazan rockets hit in the Eshkol region.

There was also a mortar launched earlier in the day that fell short and landed within the Gaza Strip.

The IDF Spokesperson said,

“The IDF will not accept any attempt to attack Israeli citizens or IDF soldiers, and the IDF has no intention of allowing the return to the situation as it was before Operation Pillars of Defense.
The IDF views the attacks on Israel as very serious, and holds Hamas responsible.”

Earlier in the day police also found the remains of the Palestinian rocket that targeted Israel during President Obama’s visit on March 21.

The Gaza rocket had hit a kindergarten in Sderot. The school was closed and empty at the time for the extended Passover vacation.

Like Europeans, Israelis are mad for their soccer.  For some, soccer is the true religion of the Middle East,  one shared by Muslims and Jews alike.

But just as in Europe, not all soccer fans follow the normal rules of civility, and the behavior of some fans of one Israeli soccer team in particular, Jerusalem Beitar, has been reprehensible.  Beitar was the last of the 30 Israeli soccer teams without any Muslim players. The anti-Muslim racism of its fans has led to Beitar being banned from some soccer matches and being fined, as well as having demonstrations by Israelis denouncing their behavior.

When Beitar management last week brought in two Muslims from Chechnya to join the team, the response by the haters was ugly, if not unexpected.  Despite official efforts to celebrate the inclusion of Muslims into the Beitar family as an important Israeli value, some fans responded at a game over the weekend with shameful calls for “Beitar purity,” and unfurled a vicious banner: “Beitar, pure forever.”

But today’s New York Times story about the incident is shocking in its narrow focus and excessive reliance on Israel haters to suggest that the racism of the worst Beitar fans accurately reflects Israeli society.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told The Jewish Press by telephone from Berlin, “You want to know what “mirrors” Israeli society?  Walk in the Mamilla Mall on a Saturday night,  Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews, all strolling, eating and shopping together – that’s the mirror of Israeli society.”

The official response to the boorishness was swift and unequivocal: the team was fined 50,000 NIS ($ 13,400) and 50 of the worst offenders were banned from an upcoming match.

Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon slammed the ugly behavior, saying “I was shocked by the racism displayed in the Beitar Jerusalem stands yesterday against having Muslim or Arab players on the team.”

“We cannot ignore these displays of racism which not long ago were directed – and are still being directed – towards the Jewish people,” he wrote on Twitter.

And in a show of solidarity, Jerusalem’s Mayor Nir Barkat attended the Tuesday press conference welcoming the Muslim Chechen players, Zaur Sadayev and Gabriel Kadiev, who had previously played on the premier Russian team Terek Grozny.

Barkat said, “I want to tell viewers around the world that we will not put up with racism or violence.  This is an ethical statement that goes out from Jerusalem to the world.”

And Beitar’s team captain Amit Ben-Shushan said at the press conference welcoming the new players, “We do not engage in politics.  As far as we’re concerned, we will do our best to welcome the players in the best possible fashion.”

The Russian-born billionaire owner of Beitar, Arkady Gaydamak, rejected the nasty response to the new players, telling Israeli Army Radio last week that the “small group of so-called supporters of the team do not represent the general opinion of the Israeli public, and they should not be allowed to win.”

No one suggests there is no racism in Israel or amongst Israeli sports fans – far from it.  A horrible incident received a lot of attention last spring when Beitar fans, chanting “death to the Arabs” after a game in Jerusalem’s Teddy Stadium poured into the nearby Malha Mall, where Arab workers were allegedly assaulted by some participants.

But the only “experts” quoted in the NYT article are ones whose professional livelihood is built and dependent upon denouncing Israel as a racist society.

For example, Professor Moshe Zimmerman, chair of Hebrew University’s German Studies Department, is quoted as expressing strong support for the article’s headline, that the racist Beitar fans reflect Israeli society.

It might have been useful for readers of the NYT article to know that Zimmerman was chastised by the relatively restrained Anti-Defamation League as far back as 2005, for repeatedly comparing the Israeli Defense Forces and authorities to Nazis.

Yet the NYT writer places Zimmerman as the first expert in the article.  “People in Israel usually try to locate Beitar Jerusalem as some kind of the more extreme fringe; this is a way to overcome the embarrassment,” and Zimmerman continues, “the fact is that the Israeli society on the whole is getting more racist, or at least more ethnocentric, and this is an expression.”

As Israel’s border with Gaza heats up, Israeli officials from the highest echelons – even some who are known for their anti-war philosophies – have declared that the State will defend Israeli citizens and restore order in the south.

On Sunday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that he would support a ground incursion into Gaza in the name of Israeli security. “If we are forced to reenter Gaza in order to deal Hamas a blow and restore security for all of Israel’s citizens, then we will not hesitate to do it,” he said.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Sunday for their 80^th anniversary supplement, President Shimon Peres called rocket attacks from Gaza “idiotic”, questioning the goals of the terrorists and adding that “if they shoot, we have to respond fully and immediately.  There is no room for any consideration.”  Yet Israel should continue to try to “achieve peace” even while it defends itself, he said.

Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon said he supports the targeted killing of terror chiefs, which he said were very effective at maintaining quiet when he was IDF Chief of Staff in 2003-2004, prior to his resignation due to his refusal to participate in the forced expulsion of Jews from the Gush Katif communities of Gaza under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.  Ya’alon said the possibility of re-enacting this policy, and of sending Israeli troops into Gaza, was “being weighed”.

Internal Defense Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich recommended that the IDF act in a way which is “painful” to Hamas in order to bring an end to the “intolerable” situation of Israelis in the south.  He did not advocate Israel retaking the land.

Home Front Defense Minister Avi Dichter said the “terror state” in Gaza should be treated to a “totally different deterrence situation”, and told Israel’s Army Radio on Sunday that the government would do the right thing for Israel’s security, without regard to how it might affect upcoming prime ministerial elections.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israel had no choice but to respond to the rockets, which would otherwise just begin reaching farther into Israel.

Beersheva mayor Rubik Danilovich called on the government on Sunday to end the “war of attrition” between Israel and terrorists in Gaza, and will meet on Monday with Prime Minister Netanyahu, where he is expected to urge the prime minister to do whatever it takes to bring an end to the attacks.

The loudest voice against taking military measures to protect Israeli citizens belongs to Labor Party head Shelly Yechimovich, who told Army Radio that army activity would get in the way of the approaching election season. “We are on the eve of elections, and operations more than air strikes or targeted attacks require stability and national consensus.”

“It could be that such an operation is needed, but not now,” she said.

At the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said terrorists would be “hit hard” in response to attacks on Israeli soldiers on civilians over the weekend.  “The world needs to understand that Israel won’t just sit by… we’re ready to heighten our response,” Netanyahu said.  “The IDF is acting, and will act, with force in Gaza.”

In an interview with Army Radio on Sunday, Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya’alon said “There’s no doubt that in the past two weeks we’ve been witnessing an intensification, which Hamas is responsible for,” Ya’alon said. “We are not going to let this stand… if need be, the IDF will know, with the instruction of the government, of course, what to do to keep exacting such a price that these provocations won’t pay off for them.”

Ya’alon recalled that targeted killings of terror leaders had been known to secure periods of quiet at the border.

When asked about entering Gaza in the style of the successful mission Operation Cast Lead, Ya’alon replied that  “everything is being weighed and will be weighed.”

On Sunday morning, Palestinian terrorists at least nine rockets into southern Israel, a total of over 40 since Saturday.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak also promised to respond to Hamas’s latest wave of aggression. “We will not let these incidents at the border go unanswered,” said Barak.