It has been a surreal holiday weekend in the Middle East.  While former president Jimmy Carter was hugging and kissing Hamas leaders in Damascus on Saturday morning, Hamas was preparing a proper Passover gift to Israel in Gaza.  Armored vehicles, given to Fatah during the heady days of the Oslo Peace Process and since acquired by Hamas, were packed with explosives and sent to attack the IDF positions at Kerem Shalom Crossing.  Kerem Shalom is one of the terminals through which supplies are transferred to the Palestinian population in Gaza, so the attack was not only against Israeli soldiers, but was meant to increase the suffering of the Palestinians as well.  Fortunately, the IDF troops, Bedouin soldiers of the Desert Reconnaissance unit (Sunni Muslims, incidentally), responded quickly and professionally, and with a little help from a tank, destroyed the terrorists’ vehicles and drove off the attack.  The result, 13 Israeli soldiers wounded and a number of terrorists dead.  Just another day along the Gaza-Israel border.

Nowadays Israeli society finds itself splitting on lines other than the usual ethnic, religious and political varieties.   Lately we have spoken of the widening gap between rich and poor while bewailing the loss of the founding ideologies whether it be those of the Labor movement, the Likud (Revisionism) or the National Religious.  More than ever the country is “splitting” in two as the commercial center of Tel Aviv and its suburbs form a First World hub of technology, mass transit, full employment, a strong tax base to enable municipalities to serve their residents, a secular cultural center and a magnet for the younger generation seeking financial security.  What is referred to as the State of Tel Aviv offers a pragmatic lifestyle not only in terms of work, but in that of leisure time.

According to military sources, Wednesday’s attack on the Nahal Oz fuel depot on the Gaza border where two Israeli workers of the Dor Alon fuel company were killed by Palestinian terrorists was destined to be a larger operation. From Nahal Oz fuel is shipped into Gaza. Apparently, the intent was to abduct Israeli soldiers into the Strip as a further Hamas bargaining chip (in addition to Gilad Shalit) in its demand for a prisoner exchange whereby hundreds of Palestinian terrorists with blood on their hands would be freed. The four Palestinian terrorists involved in the operation were killed.