Barak's 'Crush Hamas' Becomes 'We'll Wean them Off Our Electricity'

June 18: Defense Minister Ehud Barak vowed a full-scale invasion of Gaza to "crush Hamas"

September 12: Ehud Barak: "We'll announce that every Kassam is an hour of blackout. That way, whoever launches the Kassam knows he's cutting the power."

October 26: Israel does not plan to cut the power supply in response to each rocket fired at Israel, but will gradually reduce Gaza's dependency on Israel for electricity. Gaza's population uses about 200 megawatts of electricity, of which 120 are provided directly from Israel, 17 are from Egypt, and 65 are produced locally....The first sanctions will be implemented in the coming days, with electricity supply being disrupted during the evening hours for periods between 15 minutes to an hour each time.

Of course, on June 18, IRIS was nearly alone in analyzing that Ehud Barak's bluster was simply "talk tough to appease the locals" (New Defense Minister Barak Dusts off 'Really Really Hard' Doctrine). All that will occur is the gradual increase of local and Egyptian-supplied power, plus many millions of Western taxpayer dollars for electricity projects that will be stolen in Palestinian graft.