After a cabinet meeting during which the ministers' frustrations at the country's inability to stop Kassam fire on Israel surfaced, Defense Minister Amir Peretz told Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas that Israel will not tolerate a continuation of the rocket fire. The Peretz-Abbas telephone conversation came in advance of a security cabinet meeting on Wednesday where operative decisions on how to deal with the continuous fire are expected to be made. Peretz urged Abbas to use his presidential authority and do everything to stop the Kassam attacks. Earlier in the day, at the cabinet meeting, Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin characterized Abbas as "a general without soldiers."
While Prime Minster Ehud Olmert and Vice Premier Shimon Peres have warned that there was no "quick fix" to the Kassam problem, Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter sparked a maelstrom in the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday by suggesting that the IDF could stop the attacks if simply given the green light by the political echelon. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz told Dichter that if he knew of such a plan, he should bring it to the cabinet for approval. "If you are in favor of occupying all of Gaza, say so," Mofaz said. Dichter did not reply.
Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz said that if the army had any such magic solutions, it would not wait for a directive from the political echelon but already have put them to use. Peretz urged the ministers not to create an impression that there were magic solutions that the IDF was not willing to implement.
Peres, meanwhile, urged proportion and perspective in dealing with the Kassams. "Until now thousands of mortars and rockets have fallen, and since disengagement only 15 people have been killed. We are cabinet ministers, and not rabble-rousers in the square - our job is to give operational suggestions," Peres said.