Israel is NOT winning, and possibly will not win, and a NATO force will mean the total Hezbollification of Lebanon.In order to win this war against Islamofascism you need to have a revolutionary Government in Israel to lead it. What we have at the moment is very problematic in every sphere, not least in that Olmert is still insisting on giving up valuable strategic Jewish land to the Islamofascist enemy. I am not suggesting that the government be changed in the middle of war but it may be necessary to win the war.
Let’s see…
A week ago I said that there was only ONE way to win this war against Hezbollah and Fatah/Hamas. My proposals were along these lines:
Notify those responsible for Hezbollah’s growth in South Lebanon formally.
These are:
The US GovernmentThe French GovernmentAll Governments in the EUThe EU Bureacracy as a whole, and of course all branches of the UN, including its “aid” branches, but the UN merits a special amplification.
The UN has been the Body which has been inserted into the South of Lebanon to make good on the promises that were given to the naive Israelis in 1996, and in 2000, that the South of Lebanon would not be used as a launching pad for death against innocent Jews in Israel.
Instead of THAT happening the UN has become the accomplice of the Hezbollah Fascists. They have stood by and said nary a word as they watched the Hezbollah create a rocket range and a tunnel warren in the South of Lebanon to equal what the Japanese did in the Second World War.
From Iran Press News I have read the following (This is a website run by Iranian exiles)
“We have known for some four years that Iran’s clerical leadership has, mostly through Syria and with active participation from Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad, been pouring thousands of Zalzal-2 and Fajr rockets and missiles into HizbAllah and Iranian Revolutionary Guard (Pasdaran) units in Lebanon’s Beqa’a Valley, for use against Israel. Now they are being used. And, clearly, this is only the beginning. They are the mass barrages meant to swamp regional defenses so that Iran’s strategic Shahab-3 ballistic missiles and other weapons can deliver WMD against Israel and other targets in the region.”
So this DETAILED knowledge has been common knowledge by all of the above-mentioned agencies, and especially by all branches of the US, British and French Governments. The UN has been their proxy (I almost wrote poxy!) weapon in support of Hezbollah and against the Jewish state. Moreover the UN has allowed their buildings and soldiers to be used as a cover for these deadly armaments which today are raining down onto Jews.
This is why the UN must be told to remove themselves from the Lebanon. In explaining this (patiently) to the American working class people, it must be made clear that it is against the principles of their American Revolution, which created their statutes on Liberty, in THEIR constitution, that there is no place for the UN on THEIR soil. The UN must be given a very short space of time, I would extend it no further than 1 month, for them to remove themselves from American soil. I would suggest to Annan that he presents his mission IN AN ISLAMOFASCIST COUNTRY OF HIS CHOICE. That would be an apt choice because that is where he is right now.
I have reached the conclusion that any country, such as Ireland, to have its young men in places like the South of Lebanon, where the UN is on the side of the enemies of Israel, the Islamofascist Hezbollab, has to be seen as a hostile act by Ireland against Israel. This needs to be explained very clearly to the Irish people because it can reach a point where the UN has to be faced down by arms on the part of Israel. Logically I can see no softer way round this.
So I say to the present Israeli Government and I demand very precisely the following:
Call the ambassadors of these lands (mentioned above) to meet with Minister Livni in Jerusalem (NOT Tel Aviv!) and inform them in writing that they were responsible for evacuating all “innocent” civilians from a definite buffer zone in South Lebanon to correspond with the logistics of the rockets supplied to Hezbollah by Iran through Syria. All UN personnel will be treated the same as the Hezbollah vermin and as if they were Hezbollah vermin.
Israel not to be involved in this evacuation in any way. If it is done it is done. If it is not too bad, it is not Israel’s responsibility. Anybody who remains inside that zone after that date will be treated as an enemy participant in the war.
This will be explained most carefully in every utterance which every Israeli Minister will make to the Media. It will be put in such a way that it is clear that Israel would just hate to kill any innocent Arab, and so the responsibility is with the US, the French, the British etc who created this monster in the Lebanon. Insist on these simple points. The message to the Media needs to be simple and concise and repeated often, at every opportunity, in fact and this is the only way to reach through to the people who count in this, the ordinary people of every country.
This is a demand for propaganda purposes.
I consider there is as much chance of Ms Livni making any stand as there is of me going to the moon. I watched her as she met Condi Rice on her latest reactionary jaunt, and I said to myself, that is one fawning lady. She is totally caught up in the niceties of diplomacy. A career politician no doubt. Our task, really, if we want Jews to survive, is to make her timespan in politics as short as possible, and prepare a nice little cottage for her where she can tend her roses. I really do see her like that! In the meantime if Ms Livni makes any forward move then support her. But be totally on guard!
A special note on the UN personnel. If they are not out by that date they will be arrested and deported to their own country and their buildings will be demolished in any case. This may cause ructions but remember I am saying this in the context of a lot of explaining of the real role of the UN to the ordinary people of their countries.
A major truth-telling propaganda campaign to be mounted on what exactly the above parties, especially the US Government, have been doing during the past 10 years, with some of the material from Francisco Gil White’s articles and from Jared Israel’s many articles, and indeed other writers, on US involvement with Islamofascism being used in this.
A precise date must be set by Israel. There is no negotiation with these people on this date. After such outrages against Israel Ambassadors are not negotiated with on Israeli soil. But since I wrote first at the beginning of the war the date span is perforce lessening, and becoming more precise and more urgent.
After that the area is under total attack by Israel. Anything that moves, especially a tree hiding vermin manning Iranian rocket batteries, will be blown to smidereens. A cordon around this total area will be set up by the IDF, and only the IDF.
The military operation of the most aggressive kind will go hand in hand with a propaganda offensive of an equally aggressive kindBut this latter propaganda offensive, which is really truth-telling, is geared towards the ordinary people (working class especially) of America, religious organizations who care about the plight of Jews, and the ordinary people (NOT GOVERNMENT) of other countries as well.
This propaganda offensive will involve the sacking of almost all of the present Israeli Ambassadorial staff in the world who from all the evidence I have seen could not fight their way through a wet paper bag! They will be replaced by real Jewish fighting and cultured people.
The aim is to stir up immediate and total conflict to the policies of their Governments on the issue of support for Israel, but especially in America.
At every point of this propaganda offensive the link between what these world governments did to the Serbs of Yugoslavia and what they are doing to Israel must be drawn.
In this way the future of Israel is no longer dependent on what these Governments think and do, especially the US Government, and especially the State Department of the US Government, but on the ordinary people. The aim is to sow complete distrust in all of these Governments on the part of the ordinary people, above all on the issue of Israel.
But we must make it clear that we will support any forward step that any government or individual members of a government might take (most unlikely but definitely possible). But we will not sink our programme behind any such governments or individuals as Jews have done up to now to the American Government. We maintain our independence and remain watchful.
All efforts on the contrary are geared towards the mobilising of the working class and other ordinary people on the issue.In Britain Beckett must be immediately forced to resign for questioning arms being sent to Israel.
Blair must be forced from office, as must Bush be impeached, for rewarding the Palestinian Nazi fascists with a Palestinian state for their killing of Jews. This remains the touchstone as far as I personally am concerned.
Note…these are demands in pursuit of new leadership. This must be understood. Please tell me what you think.
Postscript
I know very well that not all of these are possible at this moment in time. In order to continue to exist Israel needs to be led by a revolutionary Government. Its members do not have to be religious Jews at all, but they must be Jews who respect Judaism.
This aspect of the withdrawal from Gaza must be examined closely. Emanuel Winston has stated that Sharon recruited a special “secular” (I dispute the use of that word so I place it in quotations) and Judaism hating police unit to do that dirty work. Now if this is the truth this must be written large in the annals of the Jewish revolutionary movement. If it is the truth those who propose that Sharon was a genius must be frowned upon!
Since Olmert and Livni were involved in this it is necessary to create a new Government in Israel. In the meantime, though, we develop in our work a United Front with Olmert and Livni in order to prosecute the war.
It is certainly possible, for example, to insist that Olmert and co, who are not soldiers, should take the advice of the top Generals, and others who may have been sacked by former traitorous Governments. Olmert should see his job as mobilising the country behind the IDF to win the war against the Fascists.
We should keep a close eye out for examples of this Olmert Cabinet interfering with the wishes and decisions of the running of this war.
I wrote in an earlier article and quoted a General, who was afraid to be identified, (Afraid, in Israel, imagine that, what a scandal!) and who identified Peretz as saying that even as Fascist Hezbollah were launching a rocket the IDF should not fire if there were Arab children in the vicinity. Think that through for a moment. That means, in my simple mind, that the lives of the enemy are more important than Jewish lives. The result of that, we had a commentator here write in to defend Peretz and say I must be mixing him up with Peres. Well, not really, I may be from Ireland but I know my Peretzes when I see them.
Now if Olmert is interfering with the IDF winning this war in any way he and others must be exposed and if necessary removed. On the other hand, any forward move, and there may not be all that many, given his record, then he Olmert, despite what he did over Gaza, must be supported. This is what I mean by the United Front in action.
It requires a revolutionary party to carry it through.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Monday, July 17, 2006
WHITEHOUSE BETRAYAL
URGENT: AN APPEAL TO ACT TO SAVE ISRAEL!!
Serious new information, please read and act.
I have just acquired information of a most alarming nature from the Middle East NewsLine, the most reliable of sources, regarding the situation of the war in the north. Please! spread this information absolutely as widely as possible, especially in the U.S. Send this to everyone you can, put it on your lists and websites. If ever a groundswell of response was necessary, it is now.
The Bush administration is playing a good cop-bad cop routine with Israel. Bush is not taking phone calls from Olmert, but is saying positive things to the press. Sec. of State Rice is the one who is communicating with Israel, and she is putting pressure on Israel not to send in ground forces. The goal is a “ceasefire” in the next 72 hours.
Unfortunately, we are dealing with a novice, confused government that is lacking the courage that will allow it to mount a ground war in the face of Rice’s objections. If we were determined to do so, we damn well could.
What is more, Steve Hadley, Bush’s National Security Advisor, was in Russia two days and made a statement to the effect that the U.S. has no evidence that Iran and Syria are involved in what’s happening here — thereby making it a local Israeli issue. A local Israeli issue is precisely what it is not!!
The facts:
Even though there have been over 1,000 Israeli Air Force sorties into Lebanon, with airport, etc. bombed, the Hezbollah missiles continue to hit us. In fact, it’s getting worse. Eight people were killed in the last attack on Haifa. Hundreds have been wounded. Residents of Tel Aviv are now warned that they may be attacked. Rosh Hanikra and the Golan have been hit. What is happening? Without a ground expedition, it’s impossible to strike accurately and actually take out the missiles. Hezbollah is threating our stategic facilities and this remains a real danger.
There are other sources of major concern: The C-802 rocket that hit the Israeli ship on Friday was a sophisticated radar-guided weapon that comes from Iran via China. Israeli authorities were surprised: they didn’t know Hezbollah had these. This means intelligence is lacking and we don’t know what else they have.
The fact of the Iranian weapon makes even clearer what is well understood: Iran is involved here. Hezbollah is not a rag-tag operation, it is an Iranian expeditionary force. Israel is the canary in the mine, dealing with what the west will deal with in larger terms down the road, if no action is taken. Iran is testing the waters!!
In spite of talk in the last day or two (which I had duly reported) of an IDF goal of putting the Lebanese army on the border, the IDF is opposed to this. Putting the Lebanese army on the border without taking out Hezbollah strength will be counted as a victory by Hezbollah. The Lebanese army is much weaker than Hezbollah; Hezbollah will strengthen its forces behind the lines and then come forward to attack us again. Hezbollah strength must be removed.
Here in Israel, there must be pressure on the government to stay strong, stay the course, do what needs to be done to take out Hezbollah strength. This should be shared with every member of the Knesset.
But even more important is pressure from inside the U.S. on Bush; he is focused on the election later this year and needs to know that American voters are watching him now!!!
Please, call or write to President Bush:
[] Remind him that he promised to defend Israel if it is attacked by Iran.
[] Point out that this is exactly what is happening now.
[] Speak about his readiness to act in places like Afghanistan, and how this is the same thing.
[] Say that the U.S. will face greater difficulty down the road with Iran if it doesn’t show resolve in supporting Israel now, because Iran is testing the western world.
Ask him to communicate directly and unequivocably to the Israeli government that it has the full support of the U.S. in doing what needs to be done to take out Hezbollah strength, including a ground action.
Ask him to acknowledge that our fight in Israel is also the U.S.’s fight.
Ask him to oppose a ceasefire before the job is done.
Phone calls are best, then letters (snail mail or fax), then e-mail. Do as you can.
White House Comment line: 202-456-1111 TTY/TDD Comment line: 202-456-6213.
The White House1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NWWashington DC 20500
Fax: 202-456-2461
Serious new information, please read and act.
I have just acquired information of a most alarming nature from the Middle East NewsLine, the most reliable of sources, regarding the situation of the war in the north. Please! spread this information absolutely as widely as possible, especially in the U.S. Send this to everyone you can, put it on your lists and websites. If ever a groundswell of response was necessary, it is now.
The Bush administration is playing a good cop-bad cop routine with Israel. Bush is not taking phone calls from Olmert, but is saying positive things to the press. Sec. of State Rice is the one who is communicating with Israel, and she is putting pressure on Israel not to send in ground forces. The goal is a “ceasefire” in the next 72 hours.
Unfortunately, we are dealing with a novice, confused government that is lacking the courage that will allow it to mount a ground war in the face of Rice’s objections. If we were determined to do so, we damn well could.
What is more, Steve Hadley, Bush’s National Security Advisor, was in Russia two days and made a statement to the effect that the U.S. has no evidence that Iran and Syria are involved in what’s happening here — thereby making it a local Israeli issue. A local Israeli issue is precisely what it is not!!
The facts:
Even though there have been over 1,000 Israeli Air Force sorties into Lebanon, with airport, etc. bombed, the Hezbollah missiles continue to hit us. In fact, it’s getting worse. Eight people were killed in the last attack on Haifa. Hundreds have been wounded. Residents of Tel Aviv are now warned that they may be attacked. Rosh Hanikra and the Golan have been hit. What is happening? Without a ground expedition, it’s impossible to strike accurately and actually take out the missiles. Hezbollah is threating our stategic facilities and this remains a real danger.
There are other sources of major concern: The C-802 rocket that hit the Israeli ship on Friday was a sophisticated radar-guided weapon that comes from Iran via China. Israeli authorities were surprised: they didn’t know Hezbollah had these. This means intelligence is lacking and we don’t know what else they have.
The fact of the Iranian weapon makes even clearer what is well understood: Iran is involved here. Hezbollah is not a rag-tag operation, it is an Iranian expeditionary force. Israel is the canary in the mine, dealing with what the west will deal with in larger terms down the road, if no action is taken. Iran is testing the waters!!
In spite of talk in the last day or two (which I had duly reported) of an IDF goal of putting the Lebanese army on the border, the IDF is opposed to this. Putting the Lebanese army on the border without taking out Hezbollah strength will be counted as a victory by Hezbollah. The Lebanese army is much weaker than Hezbollah; Hezbollah will strengthen its forces behind the lines and then come forward to attack us again. Hezbollah strength must be removed.
Here in Israel, there must be pressure on the government to stay strong, stay the course, do what needs to be done to take out Hezbollah strength. This should be shared with every member of the Knesset.
But even more important is pressure from inside the U.S. on Bush; he is focused on the election later this year and needs to know that American voters are watching him now!!!
Please, call or write to President Bush:
[] Remind him that he promised to defend Israel if it is attacked by Iran.
[] Point out that this is exactly what is happening now.
[] Speak about his readiness to act in places like Afghanistan, and how this is the same thing.
[] Say that the U.S. will face greater difficulty down the road with Iran if it doesn’t show resolve in supporting Israel now, because Iran is testing the western world.
Ask him to communicate directly and unequivocably to the Israeli government that it has the full support of the U.S. in doing what needs to be done to take out Hezbollah strength, including a ground action.
Ask him to acknowledge that our fight in Israel is also the U.S.’s fight.
Ask him to oppose a ceasefire before the job is done.
Phone calls are best, then letters (snail mail or fax), then e-mail. Do as you can.
White House Comment line: 202-456-1111 TTY/TDD Comment line: 202-456-6213.
The White House1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NWWashington DC 20500
Fax: 202-456-2461
GOI IS CAVING
This article is correct. This IS a con-job and the Israeli leadership is getting ready to sell out on the IDF. This is going to end in the deaths of many IDF soldiers and Jewish people in Israel, and maybe also outside Israel.
It is a con job by the US and EU, no doubt.
The analysis below is correct. Hizbollah and Hamas will NOT disarm, will not be forced to. They will emerge stronger in the eyes of the Jew hating masses of the Arab states.
As I said to survive the Israeli Army has got to go back to its revolutionary and fighting origins.
It is trying to do so but my, what opposition it meets.
The biggest enemy is its biggest “friend”, the US Government, and especially Bush.
As you face the enemy your biggest problem is your so-called friend, who says, I am behind you, but GO EASY.
That is Bush.
It fills me full of hatred. For these international enemies of Israel.
GOI is caving. READ CAREFULLY. THIS IS A CON JOB
Livni: Israel, world leaders agree that extremists sparked crisisBy Aluf Benn, Haaretz
Correspondent and News Agencies
(NO BLAME IS BEING PUT ON SYRIA OR IRAN.)
Israel welcomed a statement on Sunday by Group of Eight leaders on the upsurge in Middle East violence, saying it backed its call for Hezbollah to free two Israeli soldiers and halt its rocket fire.
“Israel concurs with the position of the international community, which places responsibility for the conflict on extremist elements,” said Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. “Israel and the international community share a common problem - the presence of extremist terrorists.” (WHAT HAPPENNED TO SYRIA AND IRAN)
“[Israel] sees, along with the international community, that the path to a solution through the release of the abducted soldiers, a cessation of rocket fire on Israel, and full implementation of [UN] resolution 1559.” (This is a con job. Hezbollah will not disarm)
World leaders meeting in Russia agreed Sunday to deliver a “strong message” on the crisis in the Middle East, adopting a joint statement with four conditions they said were needed to halt the escalating violence. They blamed “extremists” for an upsurge in violence and called on Israel to be restrained in responding to attack.
“It is a strong message with a clear political content,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after negotiations at the summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
The leaders expressed their “deepening concern about the situation in the Middle East, in particular the rising civilian casualties on all sides and the damage to infrastructure,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi telephoned Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani on Sunday to urge Tehran to take an “active role” in diplomatic moves to end the crisis in the Middle East. (How horrible . Asking the fox to guard the henhouse.)
An Italian government source said the Iranian had not given an immediate response but would respond “in the coming days.”
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Sunday said she was considering to come to the Middle East to help mediate the crisis.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana headed to Beirut in a British military helicopter on Sunday to meet with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and other high-ranking Lebanese officials. UN envoy Terje Roed-Larson also arrived in Beirut Sunday, in an effort to help mediate the escalating crisis.
In their statement, the G-8 leaders called for the Israel Defense Forces soldiers abducted in Gaza and Lebanon to be released unharmed; the shelling of Israeli territory to end; IDF military operations to cease and forces to withdraw from Gaza; and for arrested Palestinian ministers and legislators to be released. (Missing is the destruction of Hezbollah)
“We do not want to let terrorist forces and those who support them have the opportunity to create chaos in the Middle East,” Merkel told reporters. “Therefore we place value on clearly identifying the cause and effect of events.”
“We are convinced that the government of Lebanon must be given all support and that the relevant UN resolutions regarding the south of Lebanon must also be implemented,” Merkel said.
“We also demand that in addition to the UN activities, another observation and security mission is established. That must be worked out through the UN,” she said.
The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1559 in September 2004, calling for disarming all militias and strict respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence under Lebanese government authority.
The Lebanese Shiite Muslim guerrilla group Hezbollah, which controls the southern border, has refused to disarm as demanded by the resolution, saying it is a resistance movement.
The conflict has dominated this year’s G-8 summit, which Russian President Vladimir Putin, the host, had hoped would focus on energy, education and fighting infectious diseases.
The statement came after the UN Security Council on Saturday again rejected pleas from Lebanon that it call for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon after the United States objected.
In closed-door talks the U.S. argued that the focus for Middle East diplomacy for now should be in the G8 summit, council diplomats said.
The U.S. was the sole member of the 15-nation UN body to oppose any council action at all at this time, they said.
“We would expect much more from the Security Council,” Lebanese Foreign Ministry official Nouhad Mahmoud told reporters after the council meeting, singling out the U.S. for blame.
U.S. President George W. Bush on Sunday repeated that Israel had the right to defend itself in the Middle East.
“Our message to Israel is defend yourself but be mindful of the consequences, so we are urging restraint,” said Bush, who has refused to call on Israel to halt its offensive on Lebanon.
French President Jacques Chirac called for a “show of moderation” in Lebanon, and said that a lasting cease-fire is needed.
He went on to say that forces threatening Lebanon’s security and sovereignty must be stopped.
Speaking before the G8 summit, Chirac said he and Bush were in complete agreement that UN resolutions had to be applied, and that “all forces which threaten and endanger the security, stability and sovereignty of Lebanon must be stopped.”
Rice said on Sunday at the summit the United States is deeply concerned about mounting civilian casualties in Lebanon but that an immediate cease-fire would not solve the problem.
Rice told reporters she had told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that “we are deeply concerned about the effect on innocent civilians and we would hope that Israel would be mindful of and restrained in its operations so that innocent civilians do not suffer”.
It is a con job by the US and EU, no doubt.
The analysis below is correct. Hizbollah and Hamas will NOT disarm, will not be forced to. They will emerge stronger in the eyes of the Jew hating masses of the Arab states.
As I said to survive the Israeli Army has got to go back to its revolutionary and fighting origins.
It is trying to do so but my, what opposition it meets.
The biggest enemy is its biggest “friend”, the US Government, and especially Bush.
As you face the enemy your biggest problem is your so-called friend, who says, I am behind you, but GO EASY.
That is Bush.
It fills me full of hatred. For these international enemies of Israel.
GOI is caving. READ CAREFULLY. THIS IS A CON JOB
Livni: Israel, world leaders agree that extremists sparked crisisBy Aluf Benn, Haaretz
Correspondent and News Agencies
(NO BLAME IS BEING PUT ON SYRIA OR IRAN.)
Israel welcomed a statement on Sunday by Group of Eight leaders on the upsurge in Middle East violence, saying it backed its call for Hezbollah to free two Israeli soldiers and halt its rocket fire.
“Israel concurs with the position of the international community, which places responsibility for the conflict on extremist elements,” said Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. “Israel and the international community share a common problem - the presence of extremist terrorists.” (WHAT HAPPENNED TO SYRIA AND IRAN)
“[Israel] sees, along with the international community, that the path to a solution through the release of the abducted soldiers, a cessation of rocket fire on Israel, and full implementation of [UN] resolution 1559.” (This is a con job. Hezbollah will not disarm)
World leaders meeting in Russia agreed Sunday to deliver a “strong message” on the crisis in the Middle East, adopting a joint statement with four conditions they said were needed to halt the escalating violence. They blamed “extremists” for an upsurge in violence and called on Israel to be restrained in responding to attack.
“It is a strong message with a clear political content,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after negotiations at the summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
The leaders expressed their “deepening concern about the situation in the Middle East, in particular the rising civilian casualties on all sides and the damage to infrastructure,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi telephoned Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani on Sunday to urge Tehran to take an “active role” in diplomatic moves to end the crisis in the Middle East. (How horrible . Asking the fox to guard the henhouse.)
An Italian government source said the Iranian had not given an immediate response but would respond “in the coming days.”
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Sunday said she was considering to come to the Middle East to help mediate the crisis.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana headed to Beirut in a British military helicopter on Sunday to meet with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and other high-ranking Lebanese officials. UN envoy Terje Roed-Larson also arrived in Beirut Sunday, in an effort to help mediate the escalating crisis.
In their statement, the G-8 leaders called for the Israel Defense Forces soldiers abducted in Gaza and Lebanon to be released unharmed; the shelling of Israeli territory to end; IDF military operations to cease and forces to withdraw from Gaza; and for arrested Palestinian ministers and legislators to be released. (Missing is the destruction of Hezbollah)
“We do not want to let terrorist forces and those who support them have the opportunity to create chaos in the Middle East,” Merkel told reporters. “Therefore we place value on clearly identifying the cause and effect of events.”
“We are convinced that the government of Lebanon must be given all support and that the relevant UN resolutions regarding the south of Lebanon must also be implemented,” Merkel said.
“We also demand that in addition to the UN activities, another observation and security mission is established. That must be worked out through the UN,” she said.
The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1559 in September 2004, calling for disarming all militias and strict respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence under Lebanese government authority.
The Lebanese Shiite Muslim guerrilla group Hezbollah, which controls the southern border, has refused to disarm as demanded by the resolution, saying it is a resistance movement.
The conflict has dominated this year’s G-8 summit, which Russian President Vladimir Putin, the host, had hoped would focus on energy, education and fighting infectious diseases.
The statement came after the UN Security Council on Saturday again rejected pleas from Lebanon that it call for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon after the United States objected.
In closed-door talks the U.S. argued that the focus for Middle East diplomacy for now should be in the G8 summit, council diplomats said.
The U.S. was the sole member of the 15-nation UN body to oppose any council action at all at this time, they said.
“We would expect much more from the Security Council,” Lebanese Foreign Ministry official Nouhad Mahmoud told reporters after the council meeting, singling out the U.S. for blame.
U.S. President George W. Bush on Sunday repeated that Israel had the right to defend itself in the Middle East.
“Our message to Israel is defend yourself but be mindful of the consequences, so we are urging restraint,” said Bush, who has refused to call on Israel to halt its offensive on Lebanon.
French President Jacques Chirac called for a “show of moderation” in Lebanon, and said that a lasting cease-fire is needed.
He went on to say that forces threatening Lebanon’s security and sovereignty must be stopped.
Speaking before the G8 summit, Chirac said he and Bush were in complete agreement that UN resolutions had to be applied, and that “all forces which threaten and endanger the security, stability and sovereignty of Lebanon must be stopped.”
Rice said on Sunday at the summit the United States is deeply concerned about mounting civilian casualties in Lebanon but that an immediate cease-fire would not solve the problem.
Rice told reporters she had told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that “we are deeply concerned about the effect on innocent civilians and we would hope that Israel would be mindful of and restrained in its operations so that innocent civilians do not suffer”.
Hizbollah, Hamas and the US Elite
Why Hizbollah Does Not Fear The US
(Daled Amos has this piece which I find most useful. It takes what I think is so essential, an historical view of this war. He writes:)
In September, 2004 Norman Podhoretz wrote : World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win. In one section, he recounts a number of terrorist attacks by Hizbollah against the US–without retaliation by the US.
While these took place a little over 20 years ago, the incidents no doubt taught Hamas–and Iran–a lesson they have carried with them to this day.
Podhoretz notes that following the Iranian hostage crisis that haunted Carters term in office:
After 444 days, and just hours after Reagan’s inauguration in January 1981, the hostages were finally released by the Iranians, evidently because they feared that the hawkish new President might actually launch a military strike against them.
Yet if they could have foreseen what was coming under Reagan, they would not have been so fearful.[emphasis added]
The following are the attacks recounted by Podhoretz:
April 1983: Hizbollah sends a suicide bomber who blows up a truck in from of the American embassy in Beirut. 63 employees–including the Middle East CIA director–are killed. 120 are wounded. President Reagan and the US do nothing.
October 1983: Hizbollah sends a suicide bomber to blow up an American barracks at the Beirut airport. 241 US Marines are killed and 81 are wounded. At first Reagan signs off on a plan to retaliate, but then allows Secretary of Defense Weinberger to cancel the plan, lest US relations with the Arab world be damaged. Instead, Reagan pulls the Marines out of Lebanon.
March 1984: William Buckley, CIA station chief in Lebanon is kidnapped by Hizbollah and murdered.
According to Podhoretz:
Buckley was the fourth American to be kidnapped in Beirut, and many more suffered the same fate between 1982 and 1992 (though not all died or were killed in captivity).
Reagan, who swore never to negotiate with terrorists made a deal trading arms in exchange for hostages. According to Podhoretz, 1,500 antitank missiles were sent–some through Israel.
However, though the understanding was that the ayatollahs of Iran would use their influence with Hizbollah to have American hostages released, others were then seized.
The Iranians could now claim to have humiliated two American presidents in hostage cases and to have driven the American military out of Lebanon.
September 1984: The US embassy annex near Beirut is hit by a truck bomb, traced to Hizbollah. At first Reagan allows a retaliation through Lebanese intelligence agents. However, when a similar operation against the cleric thought to be the head of Hizbollah misses it’s target and kills 80 others instead, the plan is called off.
December 1984: In another Hizbollah strike, a Kuwaiti airliner is hijacked and 2 Americans on board, employed by the US Agency for International Development, are murdered. The Iranians storm the plan after it lands and promise to try the hijackers themselves. Instead, the hijackers are allowed to leave the country. Reagan offers $250,000 for information that would lead to the arrest of the hijackers. There are no takers
June 1985: Hizbollah operatives hijack TWA flight 847 and force it to fly to Beirut. The plane is held for 2 weeks, during which time an American naval officer on board is shot and his body is hurled onto the tarmac. Israel releases hundreds of terrorists in exchange for the release of the other passengers.
Podhoretz:
Both the United States and Israel denied that they were violating their own policy of never bargaining with terrorists, but as with the arms-for-hostages deal, and with equally good reason, no one believed them, and it was almost universally assumed that Israel had acted under pressure from Washington. Later, four of the hijackers were caught but only one wound up being tried and jailed (by Germany, not the United States).
It may be true that this time around Hizbollah underestimated Israel and Olmert. On the other hand, if Israel’s operation into Lebanon is cut short due to external pressure–as seems very likely–it may turn out that Olmert may end up as another trophy on Hizbollah’s belt along with Carter and Reagan.
(Daled Amos has this piece which I find most useful. It takes what I think is so essential, an historical view of this war. He writes:)
In September, 2004 Norman Podhoretz wrote : World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win. In one section, he recounts a number of terrorist attacks by Hizbollah against the US–without retaliation by the US.
While these took place a little over 20 years ago, the incidents no doubt taught Hamas–and Iran–a lesson they have carried with them to this day.
Podhoretz notes that following the Iranian hostage crisis that haunted Carters term in office:
After 444 days, and just hours after Reagan’s inauguration in January 1981, the hostages were finally released by the Iranians, evidently because they feared that the hawkish new President might actually launch a military strike against them.
Yet if they could have foreseen what was coming under Reagan, they would not have been so fearful.[emphasis added]
The following are the attacks recounted by Podhoretz:
April 1983: Hizbollah sends a suicide bomber who blows up a truck in from of the American embassy in Beirut. 63 employees–including the Middle East CIA director–are killed. 120 are wounded. President Reagan and the US do nothing.
October 1983: Hizbollah sends a suicide bomber to blow up an American barracks at the Beirut airport. 241 US Marines are killed and 81 are wounded. At first Reagan signs off on a plan to retaliate, but then allows Secretary of Defense Weinberger to cancel the plan, lest US relations with the Arab world be damaged. Instead, Reagan pulls the Marines out of Lebanon.
March 1984: William Buckley, CIA station chief in Lebanon is kidnapped by Hizbollah and murdered.
According to Podhoretz:
Buckley was the fourth American to be kidnapped in Beirut, and many more suffered the same fate between 1982 and 1992 (though not all died or were killed in captivity).
Reagan, who swore never to negotiate with terrorists made a deal trading arms in exchange for hostages. According to Podhoretz, 1,500 antitank missiles were sent–some through Israel.
However, though the understanding was that the ayatollahs of Iran would use their influence with Hizbollah to have American hostages released, others were then seized.
The Iranians could now claim to have humiliated two American presidents in hostage cases and to have driven the American military out of Lebanon.
September 1984: The US embassy annex near Beirut is hit by a truck bomb, traced to Hizbollah. At first Reagan allows a retaliation through Lebanese intelligence agents. However, when a similar operation against the cleric thought to be the head of Hizbollah misses it’s target and kills 80 others instead, the plan is called off.
December 1984: In another Hizbollah strike, a Kuwaiti airliner is hijacked and 2 Americans on board, employed by the US Agency for International Development, are murdered. The Iranians storm the plan after it lands and promise to try the hijackers themselves. Instead, the hijackers are allowed to leave the country. Reagan offers $250,000 for information that would lead to the arrest of the hijackers. There are no takers
June 1985: Hizbollah operatives hijack TWA flight 847 and force it to fly to Beirut. The plane is held for 2 weeks, during which time an American naval officer on board is shot and his body is hurled onto the tarmac. Israel releases hundreds of terrorists in exchange for the release of the other passengers.
Podhoretz:
Both the United States and Israel denied that they were violating their own policy of never bargaining with terrorists, but as with the arms-for-hostages deal, and with equally good reason, no one believed them, and it was almost universally assumed that Israel had acted under pressure from Washington. Later, four of the hijackers were caught but only one wound up being tried and jailed (by Germany, not the United States).
It may be true that this time around Hizbollah underestimated Israel and Olmert. On the other hand, if Israel’s operation into Lebanon is cut short due to external pressure–as seems very likely–it may turn out that Olmert may end up as another trophy on Hizbollah’s belt along with Carter and Reagan.
THE EU BROKE THOSE PROMISES 6 YEARS AGO
As we expected when Israel sets out to defeat the enemy which is attacking its soil the world decides to ask Israel NOT to defeat the enemy.
Even though that enemy, Hamas and Hisbollah, Iran and Syria, are the enemy of the world as well.
And this is what has happened at the G-8 Summit especially on the part of France and Russia.
Here I look at the position of the EU, especially countries like France.
"Europe’s Disproportionate Criticism
By GERALD M. STEINBERG, The Wall Street Journal,July 17, 2006
"JERUSALEM — In early 2000, the European Union was an enthusiastic supporter of unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the security zone in southern Lebanon. Paris was about to take over the EU presidency in July and played a dominant role in the discussions.
The French foreign and defense ministers pressed Israel to return its military forces to the international border. In detailed talks that took place at the French ambassador’s residence in Jaffa, in which I participated as an academic consultant, the Europeans assured us that once Israel retreated, Hezbollah would lose its raison d’être as a “militia” and transform itself into a political party. France and its partners would send peacekeepers to prevent terror and missile attacks against Israel, help the Lebanese army take control of the border, and disarm Hezbollah.
In May that year, the Israeli military left Lebanon.
The United Nations certified that the withdrawal was complete. But Europe did nothing.
Hezbollah’s leaders celebrated a great “military victory,” and Iranian “advisers” provided intelligence, training and thousands more of missiles, some with ranges of 75 kilometers and more that could penetrate deep into Israeli territory and for the first time hit Haifa, Israel’s third biggest city.
Instead of the promised transformation, Hezbollah took positions right across Israel’s border and prepared for the next round of the war. Fearing international and particularly European condemnation, Israel did nothing to prevent this dangerous buildup. Emboldened by Israeli restraint, Hezbollah staged the first cross-border attack and kidnapping only five months after Israel’s withdrawal, in October 2000.
Europe’s reaction back then was limited to repeating the usual mantras, calling on Israel to “act with restraint” and to “give diplomacy a chance.”
Now, after steady escalation and attrition to which Israel is particularly vulnerable, Hezbollah triggered a full-scale confrontation by firing another round of missiles at Israeli cities and staging a kidnapping attack, in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed. In tandem with Palestinian assaults from Hamas-controlled Gaza, which also featured missiles and kidnapped soldiers to be traded for terrorists, this opened a two-front war.
This time, though, Israel moved quickly to finally dismantle the strategic threat in Lebanon. No state can simply stand by while its citizens are being killed and abducted, its cities routinely shelled, and part of its population forced to live in fear and sleep in bomb shelters. Hezbollah erroneously thought its missiles and the support from Iran and Syria would allow it to continue attacking Israel with impunity.
Europe’s role, once again, is limited to repeating the same old tired phrases. The EU called Israel’s response and attacks on Beirut and in Gaza “disproportionate” and violations of international law. France in particular was outraged. “For several hours, there has been a bombardment of an airport of an entirely sovereign country, a friend of France… this is a disproportionate act of war,” French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said.
It may have escaped the minister that the initial act of war originated from Lebanon and that the target of this unprovoked aggression is supposedly also a “sovereign country” and “friend of France.”
I feel strongly this is the correct approach. These issues have got to be taken historically. What happened, exactly what happened 6 years ago, all those promises by the EU etc, and this man was present listening, are so valuable.
Even though that enemy, Hamas and Hisbollah, Iran and Syria, are the enemy of the world as well.
And this is what has happened at the G-8 Summit especially on the part of France and Russia.
Here I look at the position of the EU, especially countries like France.
"Europe’s Disproportionate Criticism
By GERALD M. STEINBERG, The Wall Street Journal,July 17, 2006
"JERUSALEM — In early 2000, the European Union was an enthusiastic supporter of unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the security zone in southern Lebanon. Paris was about to take over the EU presidency in July and played a dominant role in the discussions.
The French foreign and defense ministers pressed Israel to return its military forces to the international border. In detailed talks that took place at the French ambassador’s residence in Jaffa, in which I participated as an academic consultant, the Europeans assured us that once Israel retreated, Hezbollah would lose its raison d’être as a “militia” and transform itself into a political party. France and its partners would send peacekeepers to prevent terror and missile attacks against Israel, help the Lebanese army take control of the border, and disarm Hezbollah.
In May that year, the Israeli military left Lebanon.
The United Nations certified that the withdrawal was complete. But Europe did nothing.
Hezbollah’s leaders celebrated a great “military victory,” and Iranian “advisers” provided intelligence, training and thousands more of missiles, some with ranges of 75 kilometers and more that could penetrate deep into Israeli territory and for the first time hit Haifa, Israel’s third biggest city.
Instead of the promised transformation, Hezbollah took positions right across Israel’s border and prepared for the next round of the war. Fearing international and particularly European condemnation, Israel did nothing to prevent this dangerous buildup. Emboldened by Israeli restraint, Hezbollah staged the first cross-border attack and kidnapping only five months after Israel’s withdrawal, in October 2000.
Europe’s reaction back then was limited to repeating the usual mantras, calling on Israel to “act with restraint” and to “give diplomacy a chance.”
Now, after steady escalation and attrition to which Israel is particularly vulnerable, Hezbollah triggered a full-scale confrontation by firing another round of missiles at Israeli cities and staging a kidnapping attack, in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed. In tandem with Palestinian assaults from Hamas-controlled Gaza, which also featured missiles and kidnapped soldiers to be traded for terrorists, this opened a two-front war.
This time, though, Israel moved quickly to finally dismantle the strategic threat in Lebanon. No state can simply stand by while its citizens are being killed and abducted, its cities routinely shelled, and part of its population forced to live in fear and sleep in bomb shelters. Hezbollah erroneously thought its missiles and the support from Iran and Syria would allow it to continue attacking Israel with impunity.
Europe’s role, once again, is limited to repeating the same old tired phrases. The EU called Israel’s response and attacks on Beirut and in Gaza “disproportionate” and violations of international law. France in particular was outraged. “For several hours, there has been a bombardment of an airport of an entirely sovereign country, a friend of France… this is a disproportionate act of war,” French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said.
It may have escaped the minister that the initial act of war originated from Lebanon and that the target of this unprovoked aggression is supposedly also a “sovereign country” and “friend of France.”
I feel strongly this is the correct approach. These issues have got to be taken historically. What happened, exactly what happened 6 years ago, all those promises by the EU etc, and this man was present listening, are so valuable.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Revolution in Israel is now inevitable…islamofascists watch out
The ordinary person, in Ireland or elsewhere, is totally dependent on the Media for how they view any conflict. This has the most serious implications for Israel when one remembers the bias of the great Media corporations, such as the BBC, the Guardian and the Independent, and when one remembers that the main reporter for the BBC at the time broke down in tears when reporting Arafat’s funeral. That was in others words emoting over the grave of the man who had killed more Jews than anybody since the time of Hitler. But mostly the Media itself is merely reflecting the anti-Israeli bias of the world leaders, but especially of the EU countries and of Russia.
At the present moment the war which Israel has been forced to fight on two fronts is being presented by the main media outlets as an escalation which has been caused by Israel.
Putin has led the way at the G-8 Summit of World Leaders held in Japan. His statement shows the fine art of lying.
First Putin makes a reference to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier by Hamas. He then says that he, Putin, is against terrorism and against kidnapping. He then goes on to add the “but”. The “but” in the case of Putin is that Israel has ulterior motives and is not solely interested in finding one soldier. Can one tentatively make a reference to the Protocols here. It certainly crossed by mind when I heard this ex-KGB man use this kind of language.
However, the above is a lie and it amounts really to lying through selecting
only a portion of what happened. There is a lying technique being used here by the KGB propagandist. Let’s see what he does.
Firstly, not only was the Jewish soldier, Guilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas but 2 other soldiers were killed in their murderous and quite cowardly action. It took place inside Israeli soil. It was an act of war. Moreover it was part of an unending series of attacks and the terrorising of Jews inside Israel by thousands of Qassam type rockets onto Israeli soil. Crude they may be but they can terrify and kill and in any case every one of these, including their manufacture with deadly intent, is an act of war. Also every one of these has been manufactured and pointed at Israel from the confines of Gaza. The Israeli Government had persuaded the Israeli people that the Palestinian Arabs would make peace if they withdrew every Jew from Gaza and the Israelis even offered the Palestinians valuable greenhouses to help them along. You can thus imagine the change of mood in Israel.
At the G-8 Summit in Japan, with the ear of hundreds of millions, Putin has hidden quite a bit!
So Putin’s Big Lie technique is exposed. He distorts the truth. The Israeli Government as a whole never ever just talked about the release of Shalit. Somehow Israel had to find a way of stopping the Qassam Missile attacks by Hamas. The Israeli Army in its statements said so.Enter then the US in the shape of Bush and Rice who gave directions to their main stooge in Israel (apart from Peres that is), Defence Minister Peretz, that a peaceful solution should be found, by negotiating with the people who abducted Shalit through the Egyptian Intelligence.
The plan of Rice was to have Shalit returned and Israel would then be happy. This would involve exchanging prisoners who had been locked up for political terrorism.
Talk about rewarding an act of terrorism!
Hamas would not only escape scott- free from its war attack on Israeli soil, for its killing of 2 Israeli soldiers, for all the rockets which had struck Israel in past months with all the terror on Israeli people that that caused, but, and it is a big but, Hamas would come out of the affair with renewed power over the Palestinian masses. The precedent would be laid down in black and white, with the approval of Rice and Bush no less, that Hamas could engage in acts of war and could profit.
This was the line of Olmert and of Peretz but it was NOT EVER the line of the Israeli Army. For a number of reasons, in my opinion:
1. No matter what Government or Coalition of interests takes over in Israel, the fact remains that the country of Israel was founded not through democracy but through armed struggle. When Israeli leaders declared the independence of the Israeli state in 1948 it was attacked the very next day by Arab States joined together with the clear nazi and Genocidal intent to obliterate the country of Israel. It was the revolutionary mobilisation of the Jewish people, a true revolution by the way, given the passivity associated with the Holocaust, that actually created Israel. Six Wars later, all launched by the Arabs, and now in the Seventh, that remains as true as it did on that very first day of Israeli independence back in 1948 when the Arabs attacked.
2. It is a simple fact that if you join an army, any army, and the Israeli Army is mainly an army of Israeli youth, then if you are killed in battle those who will mourn most for you along with your family are your colleagues. Peretz, the anti-Jewish Labour leader, may have been prepared to simply forget about the two other soldiers killed in the Hamas raid, not unlike Putin by the way, but that approach is not the case with a Jewish army, where every Jewish life is a special life.
3. There is another most important reason why the IDF differs in its approach from the likes of Peretz. The IDF is an army of specialists, it specialises in the defence of Israel. It was founded in struggle and it maintains that specialization. Peretz and Olmert, on the other hand, well what special qualities have they got. One organised pay deals, the other looked after the duties of a Lord Major. But the IDF knew that more was involved. The IDF was soon, however, to have very strong allies, and these did not come from the EU or the US, they came from the very fast movement in thought of the Israeli masses. The people of Israeli were turning en masse from song contests (I am being a little facetious here) to political struggle once more.
So to sum up:
In the latter regard the Islamofascists of Iran and their Hezbollah proxies, the Jew-haters in the Palestinian Arab ranks, often think they are superior. The weakness of Israel has been the theme of the Iranian Fascists for some months now.
But in this case what they left out of their equation was the nature of the Israeli people. This is also a people of struggle and a people of principle, just like the army that they formed back in 1948.
We are entering a new period where the ordinary people of every country, not just Israel, can come forward. The ordinary British can reach back into their Cromwellian and revolutionary past, the Irish can reach back towards the Padraic Pearse and James Connolly 1916 principles of struggle against the British Imperialists led by Asquith and Maxwell, and above all others the American people can reach back into the principles laid down by their glorious American Revolution, with its ideas of Liberty which led on to the French Revolution, and laid down the basis for the American Constitution.
But more than anybody realises, these events are going to revolutionise the thinking of Israelis. Expect a situation of dual power to develop with the IDF taking the lead more and more from bankrupt politicians such as Peretz. In turn the IDF will become more and more political and the line between politics and war is going to break down totally. War is politics, politics is war by another name. Expect also the Israeli youth to come forward. And Peretz, Peres, Bush, or whoever had better get used to the idea that a Palestine State era is over. In short Israeli politics will be revolutionised totally.
All that needs to be given conscious expression in leadership. Our task!
At the present moment the war which Israel has been forced to fight on two fronts is being presented by the main media outlets as an escalation which has been caused by Israel.
Putin has led the way at the G-8 Summit of World Leaders held in Japan. His statement shows the fine art of lying.
First Putin makes a reference to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier by Hamas. He then says that he, Putin, is against terrorism and against kidnapping. He then goes on to add the “but”. The “but” in the case of Putin is that Israel has ulterior motives and is not solely interested in finding one soldier. Can one tentatively make a reference to the Protocols here. It certainly crossed by mind when I heard this ex-KGB man use this kind of language.
However, the above is a lie and it amounts really to lying through selecting
only a portion of what happened. There is a lying technique being used here by the KGB propagandist. Let’s see what he does.
Firstly, not only was the Jewish soldier, Guilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas but 2 other soldiers were killed in their murderous and quite cowardly action. It took place inside Israeli soil. It was an act of war. Moreover it was part of an unending series of attacks and the terrorising of Jews inside Israel by thousands of Qassam type rockets onto Israeli soil. Crude they may be but they can terrify and kill and in any case every one of these, including their manufacture with deadly intent, is an act of war. Also every one of these has been manufactured and pointed at Israel from the confines of Gaza. The Israeli Government had persuaded the Israeli people that the Palestinian Arabs would make peace if they withdrew every Jew from Gaza and the Israelis even offered the Palestinians valuable greenhouses to help them along. You can thus imagine the change of mood in Israel.
At the G-8 Summit in Japan, with the ear of hundreds of millions, Putin has hidden quite a bit!
So Putin’s Big Lie technique is exposed. He distorts the truth. The Israeli Government as a whole never ever just talked about the release of Shalit. Somehow Israel had to find a way of stopping the Qassam Missile attacks by Hamas. The Israeli Army in its statements said so.Enter then the US in the shape of Bush and Rice who gave directions to their main stooge in Israel (apart from Peres that is), Defence Minister Peretz, that a peaceful solution should be found, by negotiating with the people who abducted Shalit through the Egyptian Intelligence.
The plan of Rice was to have Shalit returned and Israel would then be happy. This would involve exchanging prisoners who had been locked up for political terrorism.
Talk about rewarding an act of terrorism!
Hamas would not only escape scott- free from its war attack on Israeli soil, for its killing of 2 Israeli soldiers, for all the rockets which had struck Israel in past months with all the terror on Israeli people that that caused, but, and it is a big but, Hamas would come out of the affair with renewed power over the Palestinian masses. The precedent would be laid down in black and white, with the approval of Rice and Bush no less, that Hamas could engage in acts of war and could profit.
This was the line of Olmert and of Peretz but it was NOT EVER the line of the Israeli Army. For a number of reasons, in my opinion:
1. No matter what Government or Coalition of interests takes over in Israel, the fact remains that the country of Israel was founded not through democracy but through armed struggle. When Israeli leaders declared the independence of the Israeli state in 1948 it was attacked the very next day by Arab States joined together with the clear nazi and Genocidal intent to obliterate the country of Israel. It was the revolutionary mobilisation of the Jewish people, a true revolution by the way, given the passivity associated with the Holocaust, that actually created Israel. Six Wars later, all launched by the Arabs, and now in the Seventh, that remains as true as it did on that very first day of Israeli independence back in 1948 when the Arabs attacked.
2. It is a simple fact that if you join an army, any army, and the Israeli Army is mainly an army of Israeli youth, then if you are killed in battle those who will mourn most for you along with your family are your colleagues. Peretz, the anti-Jewish Labour leader, may have been prepared to simply forget about the two other soldiers killed in the Hamas raid, not unlike Putin by the way, but that approach is not the case with a Jewish army, where every Jewish life is a special life.
3. There is another most important reason why the IDF differs in its approach from the likes of Peretz. The IDF is an army of specialists, it specialises in the defence of Israel. It was founded in struggle and it maintains that specialization. Peretz and Olmert, on the other hand, well what special qualities have they got. One organised pay deals, the other looked after the duties of a Lord Major. But the IDF knew that more was involved. The IDF was soon, however, to have very strong allies, and these did not come from the EU or the US, they came from the very fast movement in thought of the Israeli masses. The people of Israeli were turning en masse from song contests (I am being a little facetious here) to political struggle once more.
So to sum up:
In the latter regard the Islamofascists of Iran and their Hezbollah proxies, the Jew-haters in the Palestinian Arab ranks, often think they are superior. The weakness of Israel has been the theme of the Iranian Fascists for some months now.
But in this case what they left out of their equation was the nature of the Israeli people. This is also a people of struggle and a people of principle, just like the army that they formed back in 1948.
We are entering a new period where the ordinary people of every country, not just Israel, can come forward. The ordinary British can reach back into their Cromwellian and revolutionary past, the Irish can reach back towards the Padraic Pearse and James Connolly 1916 principles of struggle against the British Imperialists led by Asquith and Maxwell, and above all others the American people can reach back into the principles laid down by their glorious American Revolution, with its ideas of Liberty which led on to the French Revolution, and laid down the basis for the American Constitution.
But more than anybody realises, these events are going to revolutionise the thinking of Israelis. Expect a situation of dual power to develop with the IDF taking the lead more and more from bankrupt politicians such as Peretz. In turn the IDF will become more and more political and the line between politics and war is going to break down totally. War is politics, politics is war by another name. Expect also the Israeli youth to come forward. And Peretz, Peres, Bush, or whoever had better get used to the idea that a Palestine State era is over. In short Israeli politics will be revolutionised totally.
All that needs to be given conscious expression in leadership. Our task!
KATYUSHA ROCKETS IN FLIGHT...
The Tangled Web, the Northern Irish site, continues its wonderful support of Israel against Isdlamofascism
I see that rockets fired by Hezbollah TERRORISTS in Lebanon have killed at least eight people and wounded many others in the liberal minded coastal Israeli city of Haifa. And, get this, good ol' Al-jazeera is broadcasting a live feed of the attack from Mt. Carmel, enabling Hezbollah rocket teams to adjust aim, for accuracy. Al Jazeera is sooo helpful when it comes to helping these Islamic thugs kill more innocent Jews, huh?
This is the second time Haifa has been hit by Hezbollah rockets in recent days and the worst attack on Israel since hostilities with Lebanon broke out. I wonder which nation supplied the rockets for Hezbollah to slaughter Israeli civilians? Could it be Syria, or Iran? And isn't it time both these nations were roundly condemned by the international MSM for their overt support of terrorism? And perhaps it is also time that US and Israeli planes dealt with both these rogue nations? Why SHOULD Israel just sit back and take wave after wave of terror attacks? It's high time that military action like this was taken but here's the odd thing. In report after report, mourning the death of Lebanese "civilians" - the BBC appears to be suggesting that not one Hezbollah terrorist has been killed by precision IDF attacks? Mmmm....just how credible is that, or, perhaps since the BBC can't bring itself to even say the word "terrorist" - the prospect of Israel killing them is too much for the BBC to bear contemplating?
I see that rockets fired by Hezbollah TERRORISTS in Lebanon have killed at least eight people and wounded many others in the liberal minded coastal Israeli city of Haifa. And, get this, good ol' Al-jazeera is broadcasting a live feed of the attack from Mt. Carmel, enabling Hezbollah rocket teams to adjust aim, for accuracy. Al Jazeera is sooo helpful when it comes to helping these Islamic thugs kill more innocent Jews, huh?
This is the second time Haifa has been hit by Hezbollah rockets in recent days and the worst attack on Israel since hostilities with Lebanon broke out. I wonder which nation supplied the rockets for Hezbollah to slaughter Israeli civilians? Could it be Syria, or Iran? And isn't it time both these nations were roundly condemned by the international MSM for their overt support of terrorism? And perhaps it is also time that US and Israeli planes dealt with both these rogue nations? Why SHOULD Israel just sit back and take wave after wave of terror attacks? It's high time that military action like this was taken but here's the odd thing. In report after report, mourning the death of Lebanese "civilians" - the BBC appears to be suggesting that not one Hezbollah terrorist has been killed by precision IDF attacks? Mmmm....just how credible is that, or, perhaps since the BBC can't bring itself to even say the word "terrorist" - the prospect of Israel killing them is too much for the BBC to bear contemplating?
The ‘Disproportionate’ Lie
Masterly coverage of the Media Lies over on Mediacrity
Today’s No. 1 Israel-smear word is “disproportionate.” Just run the words in Google News and you’ll see what I mean — 3,500 hits! It’s a fave of such epitomes of moral authority as the European Union and French UN ambassador and the peace-loving, always restrained Russians and — well, you get the idea. Morality fans!
I’m still waiting for someone in the media to call these hypocrites for what they are, and point out the last time any military action Israel took was ever described as reasonable or “proportionate.” How about “never”?
That is why the Israelis are wise to ignore such blather and strike out hard.Meanwhile, in the “business as usual” front, the New York Times today was displaying its usual indifference to Israeli suffering and pro-Arab slant. With its house terrorism apologist, Hassan “Wrong Man” Fattah, on the job, The Times slathered on the sympathy for the poor, poor employees of the Beirut airport, none of whom actually got so much as a scrape.
Contrast this with the grudging coverage of Hezbollah murder-rockets landing on northern Israel.
But the Times really outdid itself in its usual area of excellence, which is sophistry and simple-minded analysis.
In a lead editorial, the Times opined that Israel risked “playing Hamas’s game” by — get ready for this, friends — blowing Hamas and Hezbollah to smithereens. You gotta love it. Of course, they could send those two groups rose pedals, thereby hurting them politically.
Even that tripe was outdone by a “news analysis” in which Helene Cooper suggested that Syria, now justifiably shunned by the U.S., may have a way of getting the U.S. back on speaking terms again. The path is for Syria to behave even worse than it does now.
“Some Middle East watchers say that if things continue to spiral downward, American diplomats may have no choice but to reach out to Syria at least, even if it is through a back channel,” said Cooper. Thank heavens such geniuses are not running our government.
You know the Times is really pushing at its dreadful limits when it makes CNN look good. Last night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper and other CNN correspondents provided surprisingly balanced, even compassionate coverage of the plight of Israeli civilians in the north of Israel. Cooper even spent some time with an Israeli artillery battery.
The loathsome Christiane Amanpour was nowhere in sight, but a CNN press release says she threatens to return to Israel on Sunday. Get your barf bag ready.
Today’s No. 1 Israel-smear word is “disproportionate.” Just run the words in Google News and you’ll see what I mean — 3,500 hits! It’s a fave of such epitomes of moral authority as the European Union and French UN ambassador and the peace-loving, always restrained Russians and — well, you get the idea. Morality fans!
I’m still waiting for someone in the media to call these hypocrites for what they are, and point out the last time any military action Israel took was ever described as reasonable or “proportionate.” How about “never”?
That is why the Israelis are wise to ignore such blather and strike out hard.Meanwhile, in the “business as usual” front, the New York Times today was displaying its usual indifference to Israeli suffering and pro-Arab slant. With its house terrorism apologist, Hassan “Wrong Man” Fattah, on the job, The Times slathered on the sympathy for the poor, poor employees of the Beirut airport, none of whom actually got so much as a scrape.
Contrast this with the grudging coverage of Hezbollah murder-rockets landing on northern Israel.
But the Times really outdid itself in its usual area of excellence, which is sophistry and simple-minded analysis.
In a lead editorial, the Times opined that Israel risked “playing Hamas’s game” by — get ready for this, friends — blowing Hamas and Hezbollah to smithereens. You gotta love it. Of course, they could send those two groups rose pedals, thereby hurting them politically.
Even that tripe was outdone by a “news analysis” in which Helene Cooper suggested that Syria, now justifiably shunned by the U.S., may have a way of getting the U.S. back on speaking terms again. The path is for Syria to behave even worse than it does now.
“Some Middle East watchers say that if things continue to spiral downward, American diplomats may have no choice but to reach out to Syria at least, even if it is through a back channel,” said Cooper. Thank heavens such geniuses are not running our government.
You know the Times is really pushing at its dreadful limits when it makes CNN look good. Last night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper and other CNN correspondents provided surprisingly balanced, even compassionate coverage of the plight of Israeli civilians in the north of Israel. Cooper even spent some time with an Israeli artillery battery.
The loathsome Christiane Amanpour was nowhere in sight, but a CNN press release says she threatens to return to Israel on Sunday. Get your barf bag ready.
Israel/Hezbollah War
by Ted Belman
from
http://www.israpundit.com/2006/?p=1814#more-1814
I maintain that Israel is working in concert with the US. They both want Hezbollah destroyed and disarmed as probvided in UNSC Res 1559. The talk so far about a ceasefire is directed to acheiving this goal.
Israel has been cutting off transportation routes to prevent resupply of weapons and munitions and the retreat of Hezbollah but are still concerned that Hezbollah will be able to retreat to Syria.
Look for Israel’s cooperation with the US and Britain to enable foreign nationals to be taken out of the country. Meanwhile Israel is getting ready to invade Lebanon in force to engage Hezbollah directly perhaps by Monday. It should be bloody on both sides but not as difficult as fighting in a dense urban area.
I expect that Israel will invade Lebanon from the Golan Heights to cut off Hezbollah’s retreat to Syria. Paratroopers will also be used. Israel will attempt to encircle Hezbollah. The US is most certainly backing them. The destruction of Hezbollah and the ending of Syrian influence in Lebanon would be a big victory for the US and would diminish the power of Iran.
Now both Israel and the US are of the opinion that they don’t want the Assad regime to fall. Something worse may replace it. Just look at Iraq. Nevertheless I am hoping they will administer a painfull lesson to Syria to get them to disown the terrorists and stop supporting the violence in Iraq.
Israel’s massive attack on Lebanon with overt US support and potentionally the same in Syria is designed to make US threats of force against Iran more credible. If Iran shows no greater willingness to bend to the will of US, look for US military action against Iran. If Bush continues to rise in the polls, it will make such an attack more probable. Americans also like a strong horse.
The destruction of Hezbollah will will not go unnoticed by Hamas. Rest assured that Hamas won’t go it alone especially if Syria separates itself from terror. The US will renew its efforts to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran and the terrorists. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt also would encourage this.
Peace Agreement
It is time to negotiate a peace agreement with Lebanon the terms of which should be
1. Palestinians refugees should be given citizenship. They are not going back to Israel.2. Israel should be the guarantor of Lebanon’s independance as it is with Jordan3. The west should put together a large fund to finance reconstruction. Israel should contribute to this fund.4 Any pro Syrian citizens should be deported to Syria.5. Hezbollah terrorists should b e killed or deported to Iran.
Stay tuned.
To the piece by Ted above I added the comment:
I am in disagreement with the characterisation and hopes in Bush. Israel MUST expect no real help from either the US or the EU ruling classes (or elites call it what you will)
What is happening is a different thing. The American people, who are still based on the ideas of their glorious Revolution, with emphasis on Liberty, may at times force the hand of Bush and co.
Please understand that is a different thing and a different perspective to what Ted puts forward.
The basic foundations remain. Bush is an oil man. The US RULERS and their class is drawn to dhimmitude just the same as is the EU.
All depends on the US people and those ideas of Liberty.
The IDF is the most revolutionary and progressive force on the earth. Full stop!
Comment by Felix Quigley — July 16, 2006 @ 8:00 am
from
http://www.israpundit.com/2006/?p=1814#more-1814
I maintain that Israel is working in concert with the US. They both want Hezbollah destroyed and disarmed as probvided in UNSC Res 1559. The talk so far about a ceasefire is directed to acheiving this goal.
Israel has been cutting off transportation routes to prevent resupply of weapons and munitions and the retreat of Hezbollah but are still concerned that Hezbollah will be able to retreat to Syria.
Look for Israel’s cooperation with the US and Britain to enable foreign nationals to be taken out of the country. Meanwhile Israel is getting ready to invade Lebanon in force to engage Hezbollah directly perhaps by Monday. It should be bloody on both sides but not as difficult as fighting in a dense urban area.
I expect that Israel will invade Lebanon from the Golan Heights to cut off Hezbollah’s retreat to Syria. Paratroopers will also be used. Israel will attempt to encircle Hezbollah. The US is most certainly backing them. The destruction of Hezbollah and the ending of Syrian influence in Lebanon would be a big victory for the US and would diminish the power of Iran.
Now both Israel and the US are of the opinion that they don’t want the Assad regime to fall. Something worse may replace it. Just look at Iraq. Nevertheless I am hoping they will administer a painfull lesson to Syria to get them to disown the terrorists and stop supporting the violence in Iraq.
Israel’s massive attack on Lebanon with overt US support and potentionally the same in Syria is designed to make US threats of force against Iran more credible. If Iran shows no greater willingness to bend to the will of US, look for US military action against Iran. If Bush continues to rise in the polls, it will make such an attack more probable. Americans also like a strong horse.
The destruction of Hezbollah will will not go unnoticed by Hamas. Rest assured that Hamas won’t go it alone especially if Syria separates itself from terror. The US will renew its efforts to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran and the terrorists. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt also would encourage this.
Peace Agreement
It is time to negotiate a peace agreement with Lebanon the terms of which should be
1. Palestinians refugees should be given citizenship. They are not going back to Israel.2. Israel should be the guarantor of Lebanon’s independance as it is with Jordan3. The west should put together a large fund to finance reconstruction. Israel should contribute to this fund.4 Any pro Syrian citizens should be deported to Syria.5. Hezbollah terrorists should b e killed or deported to Iran.
Stay tuned.
To the piece by Ted above I added the comment:
I am in disagreement with the characterisation and hopes in Bush. Israel MUST expect no real help from either the US or the EU ruling classes (or elites call it what you will)
What is happening is a different thing. The American people, who are still based on the ideas of their glorious Revolution, with emphasis on Liberty, may at times force the hand of Bush and co.
Please understand that is a different thing and a different perspective to what Ted puts forward.
The basic foundations remain. Bush is an oil man. The US RULERS and their class is drawn to dhimmitude just the same as is the EU.
All depends on the US people and those ideas of Liberty.
The IDF is the most revolutionary and progressive force on the earth. Full stop!
Comment by Felix Quigley — July 16, 2006 @ 8:00 am
ISRAEL HAS TO DEFEND ITSELF FROM THE ISLAMOFASCISTS
THIS EXTRACT IS FROM http://netwmd.com/blog/
Cry “havoc!” and let loose the dogs of war
Hezbollah has launched rockets into Haifa, Israel’s third largest city, e.g., as if America’s Chicago were hit. At least 9 Israeli citizens have been killed and many others wounded. Once, while writing about a Palestinian atrocity wrought against Israeli civilians, I quoted from “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare:
Cry “havoc!” and let loose the dogs of war,That this foul deed shall smell above the earthWith carrion men, groaning for burial.
After today’s strike on Haifa, Shakespeare’s words are appropriate again. War is indeed a foul deed, but what other recourse does a civilized nation have when its very heart is threatened?
The firing of rockets at Haifa is not some mysterious terrorist act, whose perpetrators came from some shadowy, secret terror cell, requiring extensive police investigations, where a “measured” response is called for.
We know Hezbollah fired these missiles. We know that Hezbollah has an immense arsenal of weaponry at its disposal — “more than 12,000 rockets,” by its own leader’s words.
All the sophistry regarding Israel’s “disproportionate” reactions to terrorism must be swept aside with the rest of the politically-correct rubbish. By what logical argument should Hezbollah have “more than 12,000 rockets?” This is proportionate? Bombing an Israeli city, Haifa, the model of Arab and Jewish coexistence is proportionate? How many Israeli Arabs will be killed by Hezbollah’s rockets? Collateral damage?
War, I am afraid, is at hand. Since Hezbollah’s existence is somehow a non-issue to the legions of the politically-correct, it is time for Israel to leave any concerns about proportionality behind. It is time to finish off Hezbollah once and for all. It is time for the civilized world to stand by Israel and let it do what needs to be done. But the old divisions between the warriors and appeasers are becoming apparent again:
Cry “havoc!” and let loose the dogs of war
Hezbollah has launched rockets into Haifa, Israel’s third largest city, e.g., as if America’s Chicago were hit. At least 9 Israeli citizens have been killed and many others wounded. Once, while writing about a Palestinian atrocity wrought against Israeli civilians, I quoted from “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare:
Cry “havoc!” and let loose the dogs of war,That this foul deed shall smell above the earthWith carrion men, groaning for burial.
After today’s strike on Haifa, Shakespeare’s words are appropriate again. War is indeed a foul deed, but what other recourse does a civilized nation have when its very heart is threatened?
The firing of rockets at Haifa is not some mysterious terrorist act, whose perpetrators came from some shadowy, secret terror cell, requiring extensive police investigations, where a “measured” response is called for.
We know Hezbollah fired these missiles. We know that Hezbollah has an immense arsenal of weaponry at its disposal — “more than 12,000 rockets,” by its own leader’s words.
All the sophistry regarding Israel’s “disproportionate” reactions to terrorism must be swept aside with the rest of the politically-correct rubbish. By what logical argument should Hezbollah have “more than 12,000 rockets?” This is proportionate? Bombing an Israeli city, Haifa, the model of Arab and Jewish coexistence is proportionate? How many Israeli Arabs will be killed by Hezbollah’s rockets? Collateral damage?
War, I am afraid, is at hand. Since Hezbollah’s existence is somehow a non-issue to the legions of the politically-correct, it is time for Israel to leave any concerns about proportionality behind. It is time to finish off Hezbollah once and for all. It is time for the civilized world to stand by Israel and let it do what needs to be done. But the old divisions between the warriors and appeasers are becoming apparent again:
500 ISRAELIS INJURED, MANY KILLED
Do not expect any truth about the situation of war from the Irish Media or the Nazi Neoleftists
This extract is from ynetnews.com
500 Israelis injured since fighting began
About 700 Katyusha rockets fired at Israel, 500 citizens injured, four killed since fighting in northern border began. Home Front Command prepares for worst scenario – rockets reaching center of Israel; Lebanese report of more than 100 killed, hundreds wounded in IDF strikes More than 700 rockets and Katyushas have been fired since the fighting on the northern border began, and Israel Defense Forces officials did not reject the possibility that the rockets will also land south of Haifa.
"The areas south of Haifa will be warned in advance by a siren," Home Front Command Chief Major-General Yitzhak Gershon explained Saturday evening, referring to a situation in which rockets will also reach the center of Israel.
Saturday's Attacks
Tiberias attacked by Hizbullah rockets / Sharon Roffe-Ofir
Second rocket barrage hits northern city, lightly injuring one person; 31 people suffer from shock. Third barrage hits open areas north of city. Tiberias bombed for first time Saturday afternoon, all its beaches evacuated. Residents: 'City not prepared, we feel unprotected here'
"Once the siren is heard, residents will have at least one minute to enter lower floors and secure rooms. This will significantly reduce the ability to hurt people physically and mentally," he added.
The Home Front Command instructed residents of the northern confrontation line to also spend Saturday night in shelters. Residents were also called not to leave for work Sunday, not to gather in the city and not to open summer camps and hold activities for children.
Residents will be allowed to leave the secure zones in order to purchase necessary products according to instructions which will be given Sunday morning, the Home Front Command said.
Residents of the communities north of the Akko-Amiad road and the cities of Carmiel and Tiberias were called to stay in secure rooms or in an internal room in their house. People were allowed to leave for work only if their working place was located inside a closed building.
Residents of Tirat Hacarmel, Haifa, the Krayot, Nesher and Akko were called to remain next to buildings, not to gather, and to leave for work only if the working place is located inside a closed building.
56 still hospitalized
In the last 24 hours, more than 100 Katyusha rockets were fired at northern communities. The residents spent the entire day in bomb shelters. On Saturday afternoon, Tiberias joined the list of rocket-battered communities, but rockets did not only land there.
Nahariy and Safed were attacked once and again and suffered great damages. About 34 rockets hit Safed by Saturday afternoon, while 24 rockets landed in Nahariya. Dozens were hurt and some buildings suffered a direct hit.
Four civilians were killed since the fighting in the north began: A Nahariya resident , a Safed resident , and a woman and her grandson from Meron. The funerals of the two people killed in Meron – seven-year-old Omer Pesacov and his grandmother Yehudit Itzkovich – will be held on Sunday. The two were killed from a direct hit of a Katyusha rocket.
The Ministry of Health opened a situation room in Tel Aviv, which issues orders to the hospitals in northern Israel. The hospitals have treated more than 500 people since Wednesday, most of whom were released to their homes.
On this site we will kep you informed
This extract is from ynetnews.com
500 Israelis injured since fighting began
About 700 Katyusha rockets fired at Israel, 500 citizens injured, four killed since fighting in northern border began. Home Front Command prepares for worst scenario – rockets reaching center of Israel; Lebanese report of more than 100 killed, hundreds wounded in IDF strikes More than 700 rockets and Katyushas have been fired since the fighting on the northern border began, and Israel Defense Forces officials did not reject the possibility that the rockets will also land south of Haifa.
"The areas south of Haifa will be warned in advance by a siren," Home Front Command Chief Major-General Yitzhak Gershon explained Saturday evening, referring to a situation in which rockets will also reach the center of Israel.
Saturday's Attacks
Tiberias attacked by Hizbullah rockets / Sharon Roffe-Ofir
Second rocket barrage hits northern city, lightly injuring one person; 31 people suffer from shock. Third barrage hits open areas north of city. Tiberias bombed for first time Saturday afternoon, all its beaches evacuated. Residents: 'City not prepared, we feel unprotected here'
"Once the siren is heard, residents will have at least one minute to enter lower floors and secure rooms. This will significantly reduce the ability to hurt people physically and mentally," he added.
The Home Front Command instructed residents of the northern confrontation line to also spend Saturday night in shelters. Residents were also called not to leave for work Sunday, not to gather in the city and not to open summer camps and hold activities for children.
Residents will be allowed to leave the secure zones in order to purchase necessary products according to instructions which will be given Sunday morning, the Home Front Command said.
Residents of the communities north of the Akko-Amiad road and the cities of Carmiel and Tiberias were called to stay in secure rooms or in an internal room in their house. People were allowed to leave for work only if their working place was located inside a closed building.
Residents of Tirat Hacarmel, Haifa, the Krayot, Nesher and Akko were called to remain next to buildings, not to gather, and to leave for work only if the working place is located inside a closed building.
56 still hospitalized
In the last 24 hours, more than 100 Katyusha rockets were fired at northern communities. The residents spent the entire day in bomb shelters. On Saturday afternoon, Tiberias joined the list of rocket-battered communities, but rockets did not only land there.
Nahariy and Safed were attacked once and again and suffered great damages. About 34 rockets hit Safed by Saturday afternoon, while 24 rockets landed in Nahariya. Dozens were hurt and some buildings suffered a direct hit.
Four civilians were killed since the fighting in the north began: A Nahariya resident , a Safed resident , and a woman and her grandson from Meron. The funerals of the two people killed in Meron – seven-year-old Omer Pesacov and his grandmother Yehudit Itzkovich – will be held on Sunday. The two were killed from a direct hit of a Katyusha rocket.
The Ministry of Health opened a situation room in Tel Aviv, which issues orders to the hospitals in northern Israel. The hospitals have treated more than 500 people since Wednesday, most of whom were released to their homes.
On this site we will kep you informed
Friday, July 14, 2006
Israel - ‘A light unto the nations’
By Ted Belman
(Ted Belman is the editor of Israpundit and I agree with his analysis here. See the next article for comments on Ted's points)
Israel’s biblical mission is to be a “light unto the nations”. Israel is leading the way in taking on Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. The US is on board in fingering Syria and Iran as being behind it all. They are also behind much of the violence in Iraq.
The US must rise to the challenge and attack Iran. Enough of the talk and endless proposals. It is time for action. In fact there is no better time.
Israel should not be attacking Lebanon who is powerless. Instead Israel should be attacking Syria. Israel will find it easier to win in Lebanon if it destroys Syria.
The US is wrong to think it can stablize Iraq without taking on Syria and Iran. It is also wrong to think it can win the war on terror without cutting off the head of the snake. Thus both Iran and Saudi Arabia must lose their oil revenues. It is time for the US to occupy the oil fields in Saudi Arabia and maintain the oil flow. Also the revenues could then be used to finance the war.
The exit strategy is obvious; shrink Iran and Syria and create an independant Kurdistan. Finally maintain control of the oil fields and the revenues therefrom for the benefit of the third world.
Bomb the nuclear facilities, government institutions and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. At the same time aid and abet secessionist movements among the Kurds and Azeries in north western Iran, Kurds in eastern Syria and the Shia in south eastern Iran.
Once the regimes fall, redraw the borders of Syria, Iran and Iraq as Ralph Peters suggests in Blood Borders and stand by your friends.
Now is the time to regain the initiative. The US should regain their nerve and finish what they started.
(Ted Belman is the editor of Israpundit and I agree with his analysis here. See the next article for comments on Ted's points)
Israel’s biblical mission is to be a “light unto the nations”. Israel is leading the way in taking on Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas. The US is on board in fingering Syria and Iran as being behind it all. They are also behind much of the violence in Iraq.
The US must rise to the challenge and attack Iran. Enough of the talk and endless proposals. It is time for action. In fact there is no better time.
Israel should not be attacking Lebanon who is powerless. Instead Israel should be attacking Syria. Israel will find it easier to win in Lebanon if it destroys Syria.
The US is wrong to think it can stablize Iraq without taking on Syria and Iran. It is also wrong to think it can win the war on terror without cutting off the head of the snake. Thus both Iran and Saudi Arabia must lose their oil revenues. It is time for the US to occupy the oil fields in Saudi Arabia and maintain the oil flow. Also the revenues could then be used to finance the war.
The exit strategy is obvious; shrink Iran and Syria and create an independant Kurdistan. Finally maintain control of the oil fields and the revenues therefrom for the benefit of the third world.
Bomb the nuclear facilities, government institutions and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. At the same time aid and abet secessionist movements among the Kurds and Azeries in north western Iran, Kurds in eastern Syria and the Shia in south eastern Iran.
Once the regimes fall, redraw the borders of Syria, Iran and Iraq as Ralph Peters suggests in Blood Borders and stand by your friends.
Now is the time to regain the initiative. The US should regain their nerve and finish what they started.
Israel: "Act of War"
By J. Peter Pham & Michael I. Krauss
"This was an act of war." Thus Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert succinctly summarized the facts, the law, and the consequences of the raid Wednesday by the Lebanese terrorist group-cum-governing-partner Hezbollah into Israeli sovereign territory that resulted in the abduction of two Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers.
Olmert is correct in the careful distinction that he made, one that has been unfortunately lost on many in the media and even on the White House. The Hezbollah action was "not a terrorist attack but the action of a sovereign state that attacked Israel for no reason and without provocation" -- that is, a pure casus belli. As Olmert patiently tried to explain to the media, "Lebanon is responsible and it will bear responsibility." After Hamas's incursion near Gaza, Israel has been attacked in two locations, by two governments.
(The following by these 2 writers is the central issue. It is not just the Hezbollah it is the whole of the Islamist and Arab fury that a Jewish state should exist)
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Sinioura's claim that his government was "not aware of and does not take responsibility for, nor endorses what happened" at what he conceded was "the international border" of another sovereign nation rings hollow considering his was the first ever government in Beirut to bring Hezbollah into its cabinet.
The Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who claimed responsibility for the attack on Israel was Mr. Sinioura's chief interlocutor in the negotiations to set up his cabinet last summer.
In fact, since then, as we have previously noted, the Lebanese government has allowed Hezbollah to control Lebanon's border with Israel, and to act as a government in the largely Shiite southern part of the country. In so doing, Beirut ignored a United Nations resolution calling upon it to assume control of its frontiers and to disarm the terrorist group. Note that pleas of helplessness are unacceptable; the Lebanese government has never invoked its inability to control its territory or asked for foreign assistance in fulfilling its obligations. No, Hezbollah controls its territory as part and parcel of Lebanese sovereignty.
That case is closed. Israel was invaded by a foreign power. That foreign power killed Israelis and kidnapped soldiers. Israel has demanded the soldiers' safe return (and, we presume, the rendition of the invaders for punishment in Israel). Lebanon has declined to help, which would have been the only way to rescind the casus belli. Israel is now free, indeed obliged by its own sovereignty, to use all necessary force to accomplish this goal.
Beyond Lebanon's responsibility, of course, Syria and Iran are also sine qua non causes of the invasion of Israel. The former, despite its much ballyhooed withdrawal from Lebanon last year still, exercises considerable influence and enables Iran, as we pointed out last week, to reinforce its Hezbollah client. A strong legal case can now be made that Iran and Syria have become legitimate targets of Israeli self-defense.
So war it is -- a war of self-defense against unlawful Lebanese aggression in which the Israeli government has the obligation to its citizens to inflict maximum damage to the infrastructure of those who have attacked them. But this responsibility is not Israel's alone. If the international community wishes to vindicate those most sacrosanct principles of national sovereignty and the right to self-defense, it must assist Israel. It must condemn the attack and demand both the safe return of the IDF soldiers and the bringing to justice of all Lebanese officials who have been complicit in this act of war. It must demand the dismantling of the Hezbollah infrastructure, which it has already (toothlessly) called for.
(And the role of the anti-Semitic UN, the authors go on to describe the situation well)
Of course, we do not hold our breaths for the UN to do what it must. Its new Human Rights Council was elected in May with high hopes that it would stop coddling human-rights abusers tolerating atrocities (e.g., Darfur) as its predecessor, the disgraced Human Rights Commission, had done. With streamlined membership and new rules, there were claims that things would be different. The UN's new council finished its first session recently. So how did it do? Did it call on the world to get tough on human-rights abuses in China? Oops. No. China's on the Council panel. How about the abysmal state of women's rights in Saudi Arabia (see our description here)? Sorry. Saudi Arabia's a member too. Russia? Cuba? Sorry. They're members. No, the Council panel took direct aim at a familiar target: Israel.
The Cold War preceding World War III arguably began when Iranians occupied the US Embassy in Tehran under Jimmy Carter. It's just heated up immeasurably, as a bastion of the West has been formally attacked twice. Time for all good nations to come to the aid of freedom.
J. Peter Pham is director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University. Michael I. Krauss is professor of law at George Mason University School of Law. Both are adjunct fellows of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
If you are a producer or reporter who is interested in receiving more information about this article or the author, please email your request to interview@tcsdaily.com
"This was an act of war." Thus Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert succinctly summarized the facts, the law, and the consequences of the raid Wednesday by the Lebanese terrorist group-cum-governing-partner Hezbollah into Israeli sovereign territory that resulted in the abduction of two Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers.
Olmert is correct in the careful distinction that he made, one that has been unfortunately lost on many in the media and even on the White House. The Hezbollah action was "not a terrorist attack but the action of a sovereign state that attacked Israel for no reason and without provocation" -- that is, a pure casus belli. As Olmert patiently tried to explain to the media, "Lebanon is responsible and it will bear responsibility." After Hamas's incursion near Gaza, Israel has been attacked in two locations, by two governments.
(The following by these 2 writers is the central issue. It is not just the Hezbollah it is the whole of the Islamist and Arab fury that a Jewish state should exist)
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Sinioura's claim that his government was "not aware of and does not take responsibility for, nor endorses what happened" at what he conceded was "the international border" of another sovereign nation rings hollow considering his was the first ever government in Beirut to bring Hezbollah into its cabinet.
The Hezbollah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who claimed responsibility for the attack on Israel was Mr. Sinioura's chief interlocutor in the negotiations to set up his cabinet last summer.
In fact, since then, as we have previously noted, the Lebanese government has allowed Hezbollah to control Lebanon's border with Israel, and to act as a government in the largely Shiite southern part of the country. In so doing, Beirut ignored a United Nations resolution calling upon it to assume control of its frontiers and to disarm the terrorist group. Note that pleas of helplessness are unacceptable; the Lebanese government has never invoked its inability to control its territory or asked for foreign assistance in fulfilling its obligations. No, Hezbollah controls its territory as part and parcel of Lebanese sovereignty.
That case is closed. Israel was invaded by a foreign power. That foreign power killed Israelis and kidnapped soldiers. Israel has demanded the soldiers' safe return (and, we presume, the rendition of the invaders for punishment in Israel). Lebanon has declined to help, which would have been the only way to rescind the casus belli. Israel is now free, indeed obliged by its own sovereignty, to use all necessary force to accomplish this goal.
Beyond Lebanon's responsibility, of course, Syria and Iran are also sine qua non causes of the invasion of Israel. The former, despite its much ballyhooed withdrawal from Lebanon last year still, exercises considerable influence and enables Iran, as we pointed out last week, to reinforce its Hezbollah client. A strong legal case can now be made that Iran and Syria have become legitimate targets of Israeli self-defense.
So war it is -- a war of self-defense against unlawful Lebanese aggression in which the Israeli government has the obligation to its citizens to inflict maximum damage to the infrastructure of those who have attacked them. But this responsibility is not Israel's alone. If the international community wishes to vindicate those most sacrosanct principles of national sovereignty and the right to self-defense, it must assist Israel. It must condemn the attack and demand both the safe return of the IDF soldiers and the bringing to justice of all Lebanese officials who have been complicit in this act of war. It must demand the dismantling of the Hezbollah infrastructure, which it has already (toothlessly) called for.
(And the role of the anti-Semitic UN, the authors go on to describe the situation well)
Of course, we do not hold our breaths for the UN to do what it must. Its new Human Rights Council was elected in May with high hopes that it would stop coddling human-rights abusers tolerating atrocities (e.g., Darfur) as its predecessor, the disgraced Human Rights Commission, had done. With streamlined membership and new rules, there were claims that things would be different. The UN's new council finished its first session recently. So how did it do? Did it call on the world to get tough on human-rights abuses in China? Oops. No. China's on the Council panel. How about the abysmal state of women's rights in Saudi Arabia (see our description here)? Sorry. Saudi Arabia's a member too. Russia? Cuba? Sorry. They're members. No, the Council panel took direct aim at a familiar target: Israel.
The Cold War preceding World War III arguably began when Iranians occupied the US Embassy in Tehran under Jimmy Carter. It's just heated up immeasurably, as a bastion of the West has been formally attacked twice. Time for all good nations to come to the aid of freedom.
J. Peter Pham is director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University. Michael I. Krauss is professor of law at George Mason University School of Law. Both are adjunct fellows of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
If you are a producer or reporter who is interested in receiving more information about this article or the author, please email your request to interview@tcsdaily.com
Israel and the US are in alignment..I wonder...
Written from an American standpoint and definitely not true but his analysis is still worthwhile
July 13, 2006
Stratfor argues
[…] The more fundamental issue is this: Israel withdrew from Lebanon in order to escape low-intensity conflict. If Hezbollah is now going to impose low-intensity conflict on Israel’s border, the rationale for withdrawal disappears. It is better for Israel to fight deep in Lebanon than inside Israel. If the rockets are going to fall in Israel proper, then moving into a forward posture has no cost to Israel.
From an international standpoint, the Israelis expect to be condemned. These international condemnations, however, are now having the opposite effect of what is intended. The Israeli view is that they will be condemned regardless of what they do. The differential between the condemnation of reprisal attacks and condemnation of a full invasion is not enough to deter more extreme action.
If Israel is going to be attacked anyway, it might as well achieve its goals.
Moreover, an invasion of Hezbollah-held territory aligns Israel with the United States. U.S. intelligence has been extremely concerned about the growing activity of Hezbollah, and U.S. relations with Iran are not good.
Lebanon is the center of gravity of Hezbollah, and the destruction of Hezbollah capabilities in Lebanon, particularly the command structure, would cripple Hezbollah operations globally in the near future.
The United States would very much like to see that happen, but cannot do it itself. Moreover, an Israeli action would enrage the Islamic world, but it would also drive home the limits of Iranian power. Once again, Iran would have dropped Lebanon in the grease, and not been hurt itself. The lesson of Hezbollah would not be lost on the Iraqi Shia — or so the Bush administration would hope.
Therefore, this is one Israeli action that benefits the United States, and thus helps the immediate situation as well as long-term geopolitical alignments. It realigns the United States and Israel. This also argues that any invasion must be devastating to Hezbollah. It must go deep. It must occupy temporarily. It must shatter Hezbollah.
At this point, the Israelis appear to be unrolling a war plan in this direction. They have blockaded the Lebanese coast. Israeli aircraft are attacking what air power there is in Lebanon, and have attacked Hezbollah and other key command-and-control infrastructure. It would follow that the Israelis will now concentrate on destroying Hezbollah — and Lebanese — communications capabilities and attacking munitions dumps, vehicle sites, rocket-storage areas and so forth.
Most important, Israel is calling up its reserves. This is never a symbolic gesture in Israel. All Israelis below middle age are in the reserves and mobilization is costly in every sense of the word. If the Israelis were planning a routine reprisal, they would not be mobilizing. But they are, which means they are planning to do substantially more than retributive airstrikes.
Given the blockade and what appears to be the shape of the airstrikes, it seems to us at the moment the Israelis are planning to go fairly deep into Lebanon.
The logical first step is a move to the Litani River in southern Lebanon. But given the missile attacks on Haifa, they will go farther, not only to attack launcher sites, but to get rid of weapons caches. This means a move deep into the Bekaa Valley, the seat of Hezbollah power and the location of plants and facilities. Such a penetration would leave Israeli forces’ left flank open, so a move into Bekaa would likely be accompanied by attacks to the west. It would bring the Israelis close to Beirut again.
(The idea expressed in this paragraph of relying on Egypt (Egypt) is a crazy one by the author!)
This leaves Israel’s right flank exposed, and that exposure is to Syria. The Israeli doctrine is that leaving Syrian airpower intact while operating in Lebanon is dangerous. Therefore, Israel must at least be considering using its air force to attack Syrian facilities, unless it gets ironclad assurances the Syrians will not intervene in any way. Conversations are going on between Egypt and Syria, and we suspect this is the subject. But Israel would not necessarily object to the opportunity of eliminating Syrian air power as part of its operation, or if Syria chooses, going even further.
At the same time, Israel does not intend to get bogged down in Lebanon again. It will want to go in, wreak havoc, withdraw. That means it will go deeper and faster, and be more devastating, than if it were planning a long-term occupation. It will go in to liquidate Hezbollah and then leave. True, this is no final solution, but for the Israelis, there are no final solutions.
Israeli forces are already in Lebanon. Its special forces are inside identifying targets for airstrikes. We expect numerous air attacks over the next 48 hours, as well as reports of firefights in southern Lebanon. We also expect more rocket attacks on Israel.
It will take several days to mount a full invasion of Lebanon. We would not expect major operations before the weekend at the earliest. If the rocket attacks are taking place, however, Israel might send several brigades to the Litani River almost immediately in order to move the rockets out of range of Haifa. Therefore, we would expect a rapid operation in the next 24-48 hours followed by a larger force later.
At this point, the only thing that can prevent this would be a major intervention by Syria with real guarantees that it would restrain Hezbollah and indications such operations are under way. Syria is the key to a peaceful resolution. Syria must calculate the relative risks, and we expect them to be unwilling to act decisively.
Therefore:
1. Israel cannot tolerate an insurgency on its northern frontier; if there is one, it wants it farther north.
2. It cannot tolerate attacks on Haifa.
3. It cannot endure a crisis of confidence in its military
4. Hezbollah cannot back off of its engagement with Israel.
5. Syria can stop this, but the cost to it stopping it is higher than the cost of letting it go on.
It would appear Israel will invade Lebanon. The global response will be noisy. There will be no substantial international action against Israel. Beirut’s tourism and transportation industry, as well as its financial sectors, are very much at risk.
July 13, 2006
Stratfor argues
[…] The more fundamental issue is this: Israel withdrew from Lebanon in order to escape low-intensity conflict. If Hezbollah is now going to impose low-intensity conflict on Israel’s border, the rationale for withdrawal disappears. It is better for Israel to fight deep in Lebanon than inside Israel. If the rockets are going to fall in Israel proper, then moving into a forward posture has no cost to Israel.
From an international standpoint, the Israelis expect to be condemned. These international condemnations, however, are now having the opposite effect of what is intended. The Israeli view is that they will be condemned regardless of what they do. The differential between the condemnation of reprisal attacks and condemnation of a full invasion is not enough to deter more extreme action.
If Israel is going to be attacked anyway, it might as well achieve its goals.
Moreover, an invasion of Hezbollah-held territory aligns Israel with the United States. U.S. intelligence has been extremely concerned about the growing activity of Hezbollah, and U.S. relations with Iran are not good.
Lebanon is the center of gravity of Hezbollah, and the destruction of Hezbollah capabilities in Lebanon, particularly the command structure, would cripple Hezbollah operations globally in the near future.
The United States would very much like to see that happen, but cannot do it itself. Moreover, an Israeli action would enrage the Islamic world, but it would also drive home the limits of Iranian power. Once again, Iran would have dropped Lebanon in the grease, and not been hurt itself. The lesson of Hezbollah would not be lost on the Iraqi Shia — or so the Bush administration would hope.
Therefore, this is one Israeli action that benefits the United States, and thus helps the immediate situation as well as long-term geopolitical alignments. It realigns the United States and Israel. This also argues that any invasion must be devastating to Hezbollah. It must go deep. It must occupy temporarily. It must shatter Hezbollah.
At this point, the Israelis appear to be unrolling a war plan in this direction. They have blockaded the Lebanese coast. Israeli aircraft are attacking what air power there is in Lebanon, and have attacked Hezbollah and other key command-and-control infrastructure. It would follow that the Israelis will now concentrate on destroying Hezbollah — and Lebanese — communications capabilities and attacking munitions dumps, vehicle sites, rocket-storage areas and so forth.
Most important, Israel is calling up its reserves. This is never a symbolic gesture in Israel. All Israelis below middle age are in the reserves and mobilization is costly in every sense of the word. If the Israelis were planning a routine reprisal, they would not be mobilizing. But they are, which means they are planning to do substantially more than retributive airstrikes.
Given the blockade and what appears to be the shape of the airstrikes, it seems to us at the moment the Israelis are planning to go fairly deep into Lebanon.
The logical first step is a move to the Litani River in southern Lebanon. But given the missile attacks on Haifa, they will go farther, not only to attack launcher sites, but to get rid of weapons caches. This means a move deep into the Bekaa Valley, the seat of Hezbollah power and the location of plants and facilities. Such a penetration would leave Israeli forces’ left flank open, so a move into Bekaa would likely be accompanied by attacks to the west. It would bring the Israelis close to Beirut again.
(The idea expressed in this paragraph of relying on Egypt (Egypt) is a crazy one by the author!)
This leaves Israel’s right flank exposed, and that exposure is to Syria. The Israeli doctrine is that leaving Syrian airpower intact while operating in Lebanon is dangerous. Therefore, Israel must at least be considering using its air force to attack Syrian facilities, unless it gets ironclad assurances the Syrians will not intervene in any way. Conversations are going on between Egypt and Syria, and we suspect this is the subject. But Israel would not necessarily object to the opportunity of eliminating Syrian air power as part of its operation, or if Syria chooses, going even further.
At the same time, Israel does not intend to get bogged down in Lebanon again. It will want to go in, wreak havoc, withdraw. That means it will go deeper and faster, and be more devastating, than if it were planning a long-term occupation. It will go in to liquidate Hezbollah and then leave. True, this is no final solution, but for the Israelis, there are no final solutions.
Israeli forces are already in Lebanon. Its special forces are inside identifying targets for airstrikes. We expect numerous air attacks over the next 48 hours, as well as reports of firefights in southern Lebanon. We also expect more rocket attacks on Israel.
It will take several days to mount a full invasion of Lebanon. We would not expect major operations before the weekend at the earliest. If the rocket attacks are taking place, however, Israel might send several brigades to the Litani River almost immediately in order to move the rockets out of range of Haifa. Therefore, we would expect a rapid operation in the next 24-48 hours followed by a larger force later.
At this point, the only thing that can prevent this would be a major intervention by Syria with real guarantees that it would restrain Hezbollah and indications such operations are under way. Syria is the key to a peaceful resolution. Syria must calculate the relative risks, and we expect them to be unwilling to act decisively.
Therefore:
1. Israel cannot tolerate an insurgency on its northern frontier; if there is one, it wants it farther north.
2. It cannot tolerate attacks on Haifa.
3. It cannot endure a crisis of confidence in its military
4. Hezbollah cannot back off of its engagement with Israel.
5. Syria can stop this, but the cost to it stopping it is higher than the cost of letting it go on.
It would appear Israel will invade Lebanon. The global response will be noisy. There will be no substantial international action against Israel. Beirut’s tourism and transportation industry, as well as its financial sectors, are very much at risk.
Confronting State Sponsors of Terror Is the Only Option
Friday, July 14, 2006; By Michael Oren
A good analysis with some serious weaknesses from Israel´s point of view. The writer buys into the disastrous Olmert Bush Rice vision
JERUSALEM — For the first time since the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israel is facing hostilities on two fronts. The exceedingly volatile situation is liable to embroil other Middle Eastern states, culminating in a regional conflict similar to that of the 1967 Six-Day War.
Faced with such a prospect, Israel could yield to international appeals for restraint and allow tensions to subside. By doing so, however, it would accelerate a process in which Syrian- and Iranian-backed terrorist groups in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon can keep the country in a state of perpetual military mobilization, paralyzing it economically and deepening its diplomatic isolation. To deny the terrorists this victory, indeed to survive, Israel must take bold action to fundamentally alter the security situation on its northern and southern borders.
Paradoxically, Israel has been attacked from the two territories from which it unilaterally withdrew with the approval of much of the international community.
Since the pullout of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah terrorists have periodically fired rockets at civilian targets in Israel and ambushed soldiers across the U.N.-recognized border. Since the withdrawal from Gaza last year, Hamas and other Palestinian groups have fired more than 1,000 rockets into Israeli territory and have repeatedly attempted to conduct terrorist raids across the border.
Israel refrained from large-scale military reprisals for this aggression, confident of having won international goodwill through its withdrawals and fearful of being dragged back into the Lebanese and Gazan morasses. But Israelis have learned that unprovoked violence against them raises little outcry in the world and that failure to react to isolated acts of terror invites unremitting terror. Today a united Hezbollah-Hamas axis has emerged, financed and trained by Syria and Iran, with the goal of destabilizing Israel and frustrating its efforts to disengage from the conflict. In spite of the perils that this front poses to Israel, and the ethical dilemmas that fighting it raises, Israel can transform the situation into one that promotes both domestic and regional stability.
In countering Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel has little choice but to strike at those who authorize the attacks: the heads of those organizations. Both Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza and Hasan Nasrallah in Lebanon appear indifferent to their own people’s safety. For propaganda purposes, they order rocket crews to operate in densely populated areas so that Israeli retaliation will inflict the maximum number of civilian casualties. But these leaders remain extremely reluctant to pay for terror with their own lives, a fact that Israel discovered when its policy of targeted assassinations compelled Hamas to agree to a cease-fire.
By contrast, punishing the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples collectively, as Israel has been doing, only strengthens their support for terror while creating painful ethical problems for Israelis. And negotiating with the terrorists for their hostages’ release merely encourages them to kidnap more Israelis. Ultimately, Israel has no alternative other than convincing these leaders that terror incurs a personal cost.
But even targeted assassinations are no substitute for deterring the state sponsors of terror. Israel cannot hope for quiet along its borders as long as Hamas leaders continue to direct terror with impunity from Damascus and as long as Hezbollah receives orders from Syria and Iran.
Efforts by the United States, the United Nations and the European Union to dissuade Iran and Syria from activating their terrorist agents have consistently proved ineffective. Therefore Israel has no realistic option but to convince these states that the price of promoting aggression is prohibitive. If Israeli soldiers and civilians are the targets of Iranian- and Syrian-backed terror, then the Iranian and Syrian militaries must become targets for Israel.
By eliminating the terrorist leaderships in Gaza and southern Lebanon and deterring Syria and Iran from prodding their proxies to war, Israel can restore a reasonable level of security to its citizens. Such measures will also be implicitly welcomed by Israel’s Jordanian and Egyptian neighbors, who are similarly threatened by these same terrorist groups.
(There is much in this article to agree with but the writer shows great weakness in the following. There will be no new status quo because the Islamofascists are playing for keeps this time. And the writer also shows that he buys into Olmert´s crazy pan of withdrawing from Judea and Samaria and he also obviously buys into the Islamo0fascist Palistine state theme also, ie into the Bush Rice plan)
Only by establishing a new and more stable status quo along Israel’s borders can Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proceed with his plan of redrawing those borders permanently, either unilaterally or in cooperation with a nonviolent Palestinian partner.
The writer, a military historian, is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute in Jerusalem.
A good analysis with some serious weaknesses from Israel´s point of view. The writer buys into the disastrous Olmert Bush Rice vision
JERUSALEM — For the first time since the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Israel is facing hostilities on two fronts. The exceedingly volatile situation is liable to embroil other Middle Eastern states, culminating in a regional conflict similar to that of the 1967 Six-Day War.
Faced with such a prospect, Israel could yield to international appeals for restraint and allow tensions to subside. By doing so, however, it would accelerate a process in which Syrian- and Iranian-backed terrorist groups in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon can keep the country in a state of perpetual military mobilization, paralyzing it economically and deepening its diplomatic isolation. To deny the terrorists this victory, indeed to survive, Israel must take bold action to fundamentally alter the security situation on its northern and southern borders.
Paradoxically, Israel has been attacked from the two territories from which it unilaterally withdrew with the approval of much of the international community.
Since the pullout of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in May 2000, Hezbollah terrorists have periodically fired rockets at civilian targets in Israel and ambushed soldiers across the U.N.-recognized border. Since the withdrawal from Gaza last year, Hamas and other Palestinian groups have fired more than 1,000 rockets into Israeli territory and have repeatedly attempted to conduct terrorist raids across the border.
Israel refrained from large-scale military reprisals for this aggression, confident of having won international goodwill through its withdrawals and fearful of being dragged back into the Lebanese and Gazan morasses. But Israelis have learned that unprovoked violence against them raises little outcry in the world and that failure to react to isolated acts of terror invites unremitting terror. Today a united Hezbollah-Hamas axis has emerged, financed and trained by Syria and Iran, with the goal of destabilizing Israel and frustrating its efforts to disengage from the conflict. In spite of the perils that this front poses to Israel, and the ethical dilemmas that fighting it raises, Israel can transform the situation into one that promotes both domestic and regional stability.
In countering Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel has little choice but to strike at those who authorize the attacks: the heads of those organizations. Both Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza and Hasan Nasrallah in Lebanon appear indifferent to their own people’s safety. For propaganda purposes, they order rocket crews to operate in densely populated areas so that Israeli retaliation will inflict the maximum number of civilian casualties. But these leaders remain extremely reluctant to pay for terror with their own lives, a fact that Israel discovered when its policy of targeted assassinations compelled Hamas to agree to a cease-fire.
By contrast, punishing the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples collectively, as Israel has been doing, only strengthens their support for terror while creating painful ethical problems for Israelis. And negotiating with the terrorists for their hostages’ release merely encourages them to kidnap more Israelis. Ultimately, Israel has no alternative other than convincing these leaders that terror incurs a personal cost.
But even targeted assassinations are no substitute for deterring the state sponsors of terror. Israel cannot hope for quiet along its borders as long as Hamas leaders continue to direct terror with impunity from Damascus and as long as Hezbollah receives orders from Syria and Iran.
Efforts by the United States, the United Nations and the European Union to dissuade Iran and Syria from activating their terrorist agents have consistently proved ineffective. Therefore Israel has no realistic option but to convince these states that the price of promoting aggression is prohibitive. If Israeli soldiers and civilians are the targets of Iranian- and Syrian-backed terror, then the Iranian and Syrian militaries must become targets for Israel.
By eliminating the terrorist leaderships in Gaza and southern Lebanon and deterring Syria and Iran from prodding their proxies to war, Israel can restore a reasonable level of security to its citizens. Such measures will also be implicitly welcomed by Israel’s Jordanian and Egyptian neighbors, who are similarly threatened by these same terrorist groups.
(There is much in this article to agree with but the writer shows great weakness in the following. There will be no new status quo because the Islamofascists are playing for keeps this time. And the writer also shows that he buys into Olmert´s crazy pan of withdrawing from Judea and Samaria and he also obviously buys into the Islamo0fascist Palistine state theme also, ie into the Bush Rice plan)
Only by establishing a new and more stable status quo along Israel’s borders can Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proceed with his plan of redrawing those borders permanently, either unilaterally or in cooperation with a nonviolent Palestinian partner.
The writer, a military historian, is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute in Jerusalem.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
VITAL SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL FROM AMERICAN CHRISTIANS
Christian group to advocate more support for Israel
By Julia DuinTHE WASHINGTON TIMESJuly 13, 2006
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060712-114540-2037r.htm
More than 3,000 pro-Israel evangelical Christians will be in town next week for a "Washington/Israel summit" to push the Bush administration toward stronger support for the Jewish state.
Starting with a banquet July 18 at the Hilton Washington and visits to Capitol Hill the next morning, the inaugural gathering of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) will showcase a deeper cooperation between evangelical Christians and Jews in the face of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's suggestion in October, often reiterated since, that Israel "be wiped off the map."
Organizers say Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon, retired Israeli defense chief Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman -- all of whom are Jewish -- will be at the dinner. Several members of Congress also are scheduled to attend, including Republican Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, both Catholics. Leading evangelicals that have confirmed their invitations include the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Gary Bauer.
Their host will be Texas evangelist the Rev. John C. Hagee, pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio and author of "Jerusalem Countdown," a 2006 book about a nuclear-armed Iran. "There's a new Hitler in the Middle East," Mr. Hagee said in an interview. "He's talking about killing Jews. He will have the ability to do so with nuclear weapons. "I believe that the president of Iran fully intends there to be a nuclear holocaust.
HE ADDED AND HE IS QUITE RIGHT:
The only way he will be stopped will be by a pre-emptive military strike in Iran."
The United Nations condemned Israel when it launched a pre-emptive strike in 1981 against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's nuclear program by bombing the Osirak nuclear reactor.
Mr. Hagee said American evangelicals must provide cover for Israel in the case of a pre-emptive attack -- "as a last resort," he specified -- on Iran. "We are not going to be silent," he said. "We are organizing Christians from coast to coast to express themselves in the support of Israel. I don't believe Congress has a clue how much grass-roots support for Israel exists in the evangelical community."
CUFI, a five-month-old Texas-based nonprofit mixing evangelical fervor with biblical literalism, is his organizational vehicle. Its political structure spreads across 50 states -- broken down by region, state and then city -- to recruit activists and lobby elected officials on Israel's behalf. Mr. Hagee also is setting up an "Israel Rapid Response" network of e-mails, faxes and phone calls to mobilize voters. Such efforts have not gone unnoticed overseas.
The Israeli daily Ha'aretz dispatched a reporter to San Antonio, who in a May 5 article labeled the effort "a magnificent evangelical industry." This spring, the preacher hired David Brog, 39, former chief of staff for Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, as his executive director. "I'd admired him from afar," Mr. Brog said in an interview explaining why, as a Conservative Jew, he works for a Christian organization. "I believe this is the most important thing I could do not only for Israel but for Judeo-Christian civilization today, which is under threat from radical Islam.
By Julia DuinTHE WASHINGTON TIMESJuly 13, 2006
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060712-114540-2037r.htm
More than 3,000 pro-Israel evangelical Christians will be in town next week for a "Washington/Israel summit" to push the Bush administration toward stronger support for the Jewish state.
Starting with a banquet July 18 at the Hilton Washington and visits to Capitol Hill the next morning, the inaugural gathering of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) will showcase a deeper cooperation between evangelical Christians and Jews in the face of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's suggestion in October, often reiterated since, that Israel "be wiped off the map."
Organizers say Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon, retired Israeli defense chief Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman -- all of whom are Jewish -- will be at the dinner. Several members of Congress also are scheduled to attend, including Republican Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, both Catholics. Leading evangelicals that have confirmed their invitations include the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Gary Bauer.
Their host will be Texas evangelist the Rev. John C. Hagee, pastor of the 18,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio and author of "Jerusalem Countdown," a 2006 book about a nuclear-armed Iran. "There's a new Hitler in the Middle East," Mr. Hagee said in an interview. "He's talking about killing Jews. He will have the ability to do so with nuclear weapons. "I believe that the president of Iran fully intends there to be a nuclear holocaust.
HE ADDED AND HE IS QUITE RIGHT:
The only way he will be stopped will be by a pre-emptive military strike in Iran."
The United Nations condemned Israel when it launched a pre-emptive strike in 1981 against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's nuclear program by bombing the Osirak nuclear reactor.
Mr. Hagee said American evangelicals must provide cover for Israel in the case of a pre-emptive attack -- "as a last resort," he specified -- on Iran. "We are not going to be silent," he said. "We are organizing Christians from coast to coast to express themselves in the support of Israel. I don't believe Congress has a clue how much grass-roots support for Israel exists in the evangelical community."
CUFI, a five-month-old Texas-based nonprofit mixing evangelical fervor with biblical literalism, is his organizational vehicle. Its political structure spreads across 50 states -- broken down by region, state and then city -- to recruit activists and lobby elected officials on Israel's behalf. Mr. Hagee also is setting up an "Israel Rapid Response" network of e-mails, faxes and phone calls to mobilize voters. Such efforts have not gone unnoticed overseas.
The Israeli daily Ha'aretz dispatched a reporter to San Antonio, who in a May 5 article labeled the effort "a magnificent evangelical industry." This spring, the preacher hired David Brog, 39, former chief of staff for Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, as his executive director. "I'd admired him from afar," Mr. Brog said in an interview explaining why, as a Conservative Jew, he works for a Christian organization. "I believe this is the most important thing I could do not only for Israel but for Judeo-Christian civilization today, which is under threat from radical Islam.
Ahmadinejad: World will soon witness the demise of Israel
Wed. 12 Jul 2006
Iran FocusTehran, Iran, Jul. 12 – Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that the world will soon witness the demise of Israel, the government-run news agency Fars reported.
“In the near future we will witness the rapid collapse of the Zionist regime”, Ahmadinejad told a crowd in the north-western city of Jolfa.“The nations of the region will record the names of states that support the Zionist regime alongside the Zionist’s crimes”, he added.
Ahmadinejad caused an international furore last year when he publicly declared that the Holocaust was a “myth” and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map”.
from
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7885
Iran FocusTehran, Iran, Jul. 12 – Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that the world will soon witness the demise of Israel, the government-run news agency Fars reported.
“In the near future we will witness the rapid collapse of the Zionist regime”, Ahmadinejad told a crowd in the north-western city of Jolfa.“The nations of the region will record the names of states that support the Zionist regime alongside the Zionist’s crimes”, he added.
Ahmadinejad caused an international furore last year when he publicly declared that the Holocaust was a “myth” and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map”.
from
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7885
How To Deal With Terrorist Kidnappings
In their article for The Middle East Forum The Evolving Threat: International Terrorism in the post 9-11 Era, Michael Rubin and Suzanne Gershowitz discuss political strategies to counter acts of terrorism–including kidnapping.
Kidnapping has become a favorite tactic in part because acts of violence themselves are not as effective:
People have become inured to violence so the attacks do not get the same kinds of headlines.
Both and planning and execution of the attacks are difficult and costly.
Instead:
Kidnapping allows terrorists to bypass this dynamic. Hostage-taking extends media attention and allows reporters to humanize the victim. For journalists, an assassination or bombing is anti-climatic; the press only begins its coverage after the operation has ended. But uncertainty about whether a hostage remains alive creates the suspense necessary for a good story. Terrorists have repeatedly used videos of hostages pleading for their lives in order to seize headlines. The plight of freelance journalist Jill Carroll captivated audiences as each video is released and deadline passed.
The results have been everything that the terrorists could hope for, since the West has often caved and paid the ransoms that not only encourage more kidnappings but also provide the terrorists with the means to acquire better weapons. All this of course leads up to the inevitable question:
How then should Western governments respond to the seizure of hostages? With firmness calculated to defend the long-term safety of both their own citizens and Iraqis. Terrorists do not employ ineffective tactics. The key to defeating the scourge of kidnapping is to make it unprofitable. Sometimes long-term victory trumps short-term tragedy.
The problem is the blind belief that diplomacy and negotiation is capable of resolving any conflict. Hamas and Hezbollah are two examples, of many, where such a policy will not work. Both work from an undeviating ideology that by definition opposes any real dialogue in their goal to destroy Israel.
The answer according to Rubin and Gershowitz is
Ideologues ultimately must be marginalized to the point of impotence, isolated, or eliminated. …Rather than be treated as powerbrokers, Nasrallah and Hamas political bureau chief Khalid Mishaal should be international pariahs.
Terrorists, whether secular or religious, engage in terrorism for a simple reason: They find it a useful tactic. If the West is to defeat terror, it must raise the cost of terrorism beyond the endurance of terrorists.
They advocate using strong and forceful measures, such as one that Israel has already used on a number of occasions–targeted assassination–for a number of reasons:
In the short term, it disrupts the plans of the terrorists
In the long term, it weakens the terrorist organizations–o It creates power struggleso It makes terrorists careless when they rush to retaliate
According to this assessment, the Israeli government was at one point successful in raising the cost of terrorism beyond what the Palestinians could bare–it was only with the policy of unilateral disengagement that the cost of engaging in terrorism once again become worthwhile.
There are a number of instances outside of Israel that show the efficiency of a strong approach, and they are not limited to targeted assassinations:
After President Reagan sent an air strike against Libya in response to the Berlin disco bombing, Qadhafi reduced the level of terrorism launched against the West.
After Turkey staged military exercises along their border, the Syrian government stopped sheltering PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
After a Turkish air strike on the Iranian border city of Piranshahr in 1999, Iran stopped using PKK fighters against the Turkey.
After the US ousted the Taliban, denying al-Qaeda a safe-haven and serving as a warning to other potential terror sponsors, there have been no further terrorist attacks on US soil.
If such a policy is not only logically but historically sound, why hasn’t the West made such an approach a regular part of their policy? Fear of creating a cycle of violence, of so stoking the fire of aggression that it spirals out of control.
Rubin and Gershowitz conclude:
Political leadership should be about protecting national security, not just winning popularity in the weekly opinion poll. Ultimately, investing in short-term force can win long-term security and contain the terrorist scourge. Democratic nations must not forget, though, that they are up against an international community that accommodates terrorists and blames the victims–Western democracies and Israel–for terrorists’ actions. If democracies do not defend their own legitimacy, no one will.
One issue not dealt with is collateral damage, the death of innocent civilians exploited with such efficiency, particularly by the Palestinian Arabs. It is not an issue taken lightly by the West and it has led Israel to twist herself into a pretzel when she has taken strong action against Palestinian terrorists–and has cost her the lives of many of her soldiers.
In Gaza Israel has, belatedly and not to the degree she is capable, started to use force and take the fight to Hamas and the terrorists. The larger question remains as to how far she can and is willing to go in taking the fight to Hizbollah.
Bottom line, there is nothing new being suggested. The major issue, the hurdle that needs to be overcome is one of attitude, a willingness to defend oneself and use all available options. The question is whether the West–and Israel–is willing.
Theodore Herzl famously said “If you will it, it is no dream.”
The corollary may well be: If you do not have the will, it is going to be a nightmare.
Based on the reports on Israel’s response to Hizbollah, the situation is closer to the former.
Kidnapping has become a favorite tactic in part because acts of violence themselves are not as effective:
People have become inured to violence so the attacks do not get the same kinds of headlines.
Both and planning and execution of the attacks are difficult and costly.
Instead:
Kidnapping allows terrorists to bypass this dynamic. Hostage-taking extends media attention and allows reporters to humanize the victim. For journalists, an assassination or bombing is anti-climatic; the press only begins its coverage after the operation has ended. But uncertainty about whether a hostage remains alive creates the suspense necessary for a good story. Terrorists have repeatedly used videos of hostages pleading for their lives in order to seize headlines. The plight of freelance journalist Jill Carroll captivated audiences as each video is released and deadline passed.
The results have been everything that the terrorists could hope for, since the West has often caved and paid the ransoms that not only encourage more kidnappings but also provide the terrorists with the means to acquire better weapons. All this of course leads up to the inevitable question:
How then should Western governments respond to the seizure of hostages? With firmness calculated to defend the long-term safety of both their own citizens and Iraqis. Terrorists do not employ ineffective tactics. The key to defeating the scourge of kidnapping is to make it unprofitable. Sometimes long-term victory trumps short-term tragedy.
The problem is the blind belief that diplomacy and negotiation is capable of resolving any conflict. Hamas and Hezbollah are two examples, of many, where such a policy will not work. Both work from an undeviating ideology that by definition opposes any real dialogue in their goal to destroy Israel.
The answer according to Rubin and Gershowitz is
Ideologues ultimately must be marginalized to the point of impotence, isolated, or eliminated. …Rather than be treated as powerbrokers, Nasrallah and Hamas political bureau chief Khalid Mishaal should be international pariahs.
Terrorists, whether secular or religious, engage in terrorism for a simple reason: They find it a useful tactic. If the West is to defeat terror, it must raise the cost of terrorism beyond the endurance of terrorists.
They advocate using strong and forceful measures, such as one that Israel has already used on a number of occasions–targeted assassination–for a number of reasons:
In the short term, it disrupts the plans of the terrorists
In the long term, it weakens the terrorist organizations–o It creates power struggleso It makes terrorists careless when they rush to retaliate
According to this assessment, the Israeli government was at one point successful in raising the cost of terrorism beyond what the Palestinians could bare–it was only with the policy of unilateral disengagement that the cost of engaging in terrorism once again become worthwhile.
There are a number of instances outside of Israel that show the efficiency of a strong approach, and they are not limited to targeted assassinations:
After President Reagan sent an air strike against Libya in response to the Berlin disco bombing, Qadhafi reduced the level of terrorism launched against the West.
After Turkey staged military exercises along their border, the Syrian government stopped sheltering PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
After a Turkish air strike on the Iranian border city of Piranshahr in 1999, Iran stopped using PKK fighters against the Turkey.
After the US ousted the Taliban, denying al-Qaeda a safe-haven and serving as a warning to other potential terror sponsors, there have been no further terrorist attacks on US soil.
If such a policy is not only logically but historically sound, why hasn’t the West made such an approach a regular part of their policy? Fear of creating a cycle of violence, of so stoking the fire of aggression that it spirals out of control.
Rubin and Gershowitz conclude:
Political leadership should be about protecting national security, not just winning popularity in the weekly opinion poll. Ultimately, investing in short-term force can win long-term security and contain the terrorist scourge. Democratic nations must not forget, though, that they are up against an international community that accommodates terrorists and blames the victims–Western democracies and Israel–for terrorists’ actions. If democracies do not defend their own legitimacy, no one will.
One issue not dealt with is collateral damage, the death of innocent civilians exploited with such efficiency, particularly by the Palestinian Arabs. It is not an issue taken lightly by the West and it has led Israel to twist herself into a pretzel when she has taken strong action against Palestinian terrorists–and has cost her the lives of many of her soldiers.
In Gaza Israel has, belatedly and not to the degree she is capable, started to use force and take the fight to Hamas and the terrorists. The larger question remains as to how far she can and is willing to go in taking the fight to Hizbollah.
Bottom line, there is nothing new being suggested. The major issue, the hurdle that needs to be overcome is one of attitude, a willingness to defend oneself and use all available options. The question is whether the West–and Israel–is willing.
Theodore Herzl famously said “If you will it, it is no dream.”
The corollary may well be: If you do not have the will, it is going to be a nightmare.
Based on the reports on Israel’s response to Hizbollah, the situation is closer to the former.
HEZBOLLAH KATYUSHA ROCKETS MURDER CIVILIANS
A volley of at least five Katyusha rockets hit downtown Nahariya near a main avenue Thursday morning just after 0700.
One woman, in her 40s, was killed in the strike, and 16 other residents are being treated for wounds.
One rocket slammed through the roof of the victim's top floor apartment, killing her outright and causing damage.
Nahariya is a coastal city several kilometers south of the border with Lebanon.UPDATE: A second barrage hit near a major avenue shortly before 0800. There are reports of wounded in this attack as well.
Officials halted commuter railway traffic to the city, due to the severity of the bombing, and closed one of the cities shopping malls, fearing more attacks. Bomb shelters have been opened, as of 0900, but residents have not been ordered to use them yet, according to the mayor. Dozens of similar attacks are being reported along much of the northern border, including an Air Force bases on Mt. Meron near Zafed and Kiryat Shmoneh in the Galilee panhandle. Kibbutzim , towns and villages throughout the region have also been hit, as some 250,000 northern area residents spent the night in in bomb shelters and security rooms, and remain there, as this report is posted.
One woman, in her 40s, was killed in the strike, and 16 other residents are being treated for wounds.
One rocket slammed through the roof of the victim's top floor apartment, killing her outright and causing damage.
Nahariya is a coastal city several kilometers south of the border with Lebanon.UPDATE: A second barrage hit near a major avenue shortly before 0800. There are reports of wounded in this attack as well.
Officials halted commuter railway traffic to the city, due to the severity of the bombing, and closed one of the cities shopping malls, fearing more attacks. Bomb shelters have been opened, as of 0900, but residents have not been ordered to use them yet, according to the mayor. Dozens of similar attacks are being reported along much of the northern border, including an Air Force bases on Mt. Meron near Zafed and Kiryat Shmoneh in the Galilee panhandle. Kibbutzim , towns and villages throughout the region have also been hit, as some 250,000 northern area residents spent the night in in bomb shelters and security rooms, and remain there, as this report is posted.
The Next Middle East War
The next Middle East war–Israel against genocidal Islamism–has begun.
So writes Yossi Klein Halevi in his article for The National Review. And he expects it to be a long war, extending for months or even years with temporary lulls along the way as Israel battles Iran’s two proxies, Hamas and Hizbullah–enemies attacking from the 2 areas that Israel abandoned.
But while the Israeli right views this as proof of the flawed approach of unilateralism, Halevi still stands by it:
Those of us who have supported unilateralism didn’t expect a quiet border in return for our withdrawal but simply the creation of a border from which we could more vigorously defend ourselves, with greater domestic consensus and international understanding. The anticipated outcome, then, wasn’t an illusory peace but a more effective way to fight the war. The question wasn’t whether Hamas or Hezbollah would forswear aggression but whether Israel would act with appropriate vigor to their continued aggression.
Instead, Israel’s leadership failed to follow through on their assurances and respond forcefully–allowing the near-daily Kassam rockets to be launched from Gaza with no meaningful response. Till now.
But the issue is more than just a failure to provide the promised response to terrorist attacks–if Halevi is correct in the goal of Israeli unilateralism in general and the Disengagement in particular, then there was a major failure to communicate it both inside and outside Israel.Joel Mowbray writes from Israel that
the reason ordinary, otherwise apolitical Israelis supported Gaza disengagement last year had nothing to do with Oslo-era delusions that peace was possible. Israelis simply want an end to the prolonged “negotiations” which never really lead anywhere. Unilateral disengagement was sold and supported on the idea that there was no partner with whom to negotiate, so Israel would just pull out to end the headache once and for all. It offered at least the hint of a promise of “normalcy.”
There were those who saw the Disengagement, combined with the Security Fence, as a way to simply separate Israel from the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorist threat.
But in the end, the real enemy that Israel will finally have to deal with is neither Hamas nor Hizbollah but the force behind them–Iran, a showdown all the more inevitable as Iran grows closer towards achieving nuclear capability. According to Halevi
to a very senior military source with whom I’ve spoken, Israel is still hoping that an international effort will stop a nuclear Iran; if that fails, then Israel is hoping for an American attack. But if the Bush administration is too weakened to take on Iran, then, as a last resort, Israel will have to act unilaterally. And, added the source, Israel has the operational capability to do so.
Back in May, I posted an article with some opinions on both sides as to whether Israel had the capapbility to deal with Iran’s nuclear threat and an account by someone who trained Israeli pilots who compares them with Iranian pilots.
But in the meantime, there remains Hamas and Hizbollah. Halevi mentions the need for the “destruction of the Hamas regime and the dismantling of the Hezbollah infrastructure.” While the destruction of Hamas might be feasible, that is not the case in Lebanon, where Hizbollah is a more integrated political entity and has far greater firepower.
An article by Patrick Devenny of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. in the Middle East Quarterly, Hezbollah’s Strategic Threat to Israel, details the extent of Hizbollah’s capabilities–their threat, how Hizbollah would attack, and what defenses Israel has. According to the article:
While Hezbollah would launch its rockets with the goal of causing mass casualties to shock and demoralize the Israeli population, they would also likely attempt smaller but more devastating infrastructure assaults. High-value targets would include the industrial section of Haifa, whose sprawling petrochemical plants and oil refinery would be vulnerable to bombardment. The loss of the Haifa refinery, one of only two such installations in Israel, would threaten Israel’s economic security. Hezbollah could also launch rockets against the city’s port and Matam Park, a hub of Israeli high-tech development. Even minor damage could lead to serious disruptions in Israel’s delicate economic framework. The vulnerability of the Israeli economy to a Hezbollah rocket attack was demonstrated by events in 1996 when the group fired over 500 Katyushas into northern Israel; Israeli officials placed the cost of the relatively minor two-week assault at approximately US$100 million.
See also Israel Matzav on Hizbollah’s capabilities.
Devenny discusses Israel’s defenses, especially the Tactical High-Energy Laser program (THEL), which may not be available for the army till 2008. Instead, the best defense against what Hizbollah has would be a preemptive strike.
Devenny engages in a lot of theory and analysis.
Now we may see if he is right.
So writes Yossi Klein Halevi in his article for The National Review. And he expects it to be a long war, extending for months or even years with temporary lulls along the way as Israel battles Iran’s two proxies, Hamas and Hizbullah–enemies attacking from the 2 areas that Israel abandoned.
But while the Israeli right views this as proof of the flawed approach of unilateralism, Halevi still stands by it:
Those of us who have supported unilateralism didn’t expect a quiet border in return for our withdrawal but simply the creation of a border from which we could more vigorously defend ourselves, with greater domestic consensus and international understanding. The anticipated outcome, then, wasn’t an illusory peace but a more effective way to fight the war. The question wasn’t whether Hamas or Hezbollah would forswear aggression but whether Israel would act with appropriate vigor to their continued aggression.
Instead, Israel’s leadership failed to follow through on their assurances and respond forcefully–allowing the near-daily Kassam rockets to be launched from Gaza with no meaningful response. Till now.
But the issue is more than just a failure to provide the promised response to terrorist attacks–if Halevi is correct in the goal of Israeli unilateralism in general and the Disengagement in particular, then there was a major failure to communicate it both inside and outside Israel.Joel Mowbray writes from Israel that
the reason ordinary, otherwise apolitical Israelis supported Gaza disengagement last year had nothing to do with Oslo-era delusions that peace was possible. Israelis simply want an end to the prolonged “negotiations” which never really lead anywhere. Unilateral disengagement was sold and supported on the idea that there was no partner with whom to negotiate, so Israel would just pull out to end the headache once and for all. It offered at least the hint of a promise of “normalcy.”
There were those who saw the Disengagement, combined with the Security Fence, as a way to simply separate Israel from the Palestinian Arabs and the terrorist threat.
But in the end, the real enemy that Israel will finally have to deal with is neither Hamas nor Hizbollah but the force behind them–Iran, a showdown all the more inevitable as Iran grows closer towards achieving nuclear capability. According to Halevi
to a very senior military source with whom I’ve spoken, Israel is still hoping that an international effort will stop a nuclear Iran; if that fails, then Israel is hoping for an American attack. But if the Bush administration is too weakened to take on Iran, then, as a last resort, Israel will have to act unilaterally. And, added the source, Israel has the operational capability to do so.
Back in May, I posted an article with some opinions on both sides as to whether Israel had the capapbility to deal with Iran’s nuclear threat and an account by someone who trained Israeli pilots who compares them with Iranian pilots.
But in the meantime, there remains Hamas and Hizbollah. Halevi mentions the need for the “destruction of the Hamas regime and the dismantling of the Hezbollah infrastructure.” While the destruction of Hamas might be feasible, that is not the case in Lebanon, where Hizbollah is a more integrated political entity and has far greater firepower.
An article by Patrick Devenny of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. in the Middle East Quarterly, Hezbollah’s Strategic Threat to Israel, details the extent of Hizbollah’s capabilities–their threat, how Hizbollah would attack, and what defenses Israel has. According to the article:
While Hezbollah would launch its rockets with the goal of causing mass casualties to shock and demoralize the Israeli population, they would also likely attempt smaller but more devastating infrastructure assaults. High-value targets would include the industrial section of Haifa, whose sprawling petrochemical plants and oil refinery would be vulnerable to bombardment. The loss of the Haifa refinery, one of only two such installations in Israel, would threaten Israel’s economic security. Hezbollah could also launch rockets against the city’s port and Matam Park, a hub of Israeli high-tech development. Even minor damage could lead to serious disruptions in Israel’s delicate economic framework. The vulnerability of the Israeli economy to a Hezbollah rocket attack was demonstrated by events in 1996 when the group fired over 500 Katyushas into northern Israel; Israeli officials placed the cost of the relatively minor two-week assault at approximately US$100 million.
See also Israel Matzav on Hizbollah’s capabilities.
Devenny discusses Israel’s defenses, especially the Tactical High-Energy Laser program (THEL), which may not be available for the army till 2008. Instead, the best defense against what Hizbollah has would be a preemptive strike.
Devenny engages in a lot of theory and analysis.
Now we may see if he is right.
FROM ISRAEL PART 1
FROM http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014647.php
(Very interesting reports on the spot from Joel Mowbray as war builds up)
TEL AVIV--As I sit in a cafe while writing this, I am one of the few in Israel under age 40 not glued to the TV. World Cup mania has reached a fever pitch, and young Israelis have turned out en masse to watch Italy and France fight for global bragging rights.
Tomorrow morning, Israelis will return to their daily grind, while their government inches closer to war with Hamas. It's been two weeks since 19-year-old Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted from inside Israel proper, and Israeli tanks have rolled through much of northern Gaza, largely because Palestinian terrorists have used those villages to launch incessant missile strikes into populated Israeli cities. Hamas is demanding that the Jewish state release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and the nascent Ehud Olmert regime is--for the moment at least--sticking to its pledge not to negotiate with terrorists.
What's remarkable is how little the fate of young Shalit is being discussed by ordinary Israelis. Those around his age--all of whom are subject to mandatory military service--could easily see themselves in his position, and worse, Israeli parents must worry that their own children could be held hostage by Islamic terrorists bent on the elimination of all Jews. Yet the battle fatigue that has set into this tiny nation under constant attack for six years now has rendered Israel incapable of devoting too much emotion to any single tragedy.
Prime Minister Olmert is holding a press conference tomorrow at 10am local time (3am EST), and most likely, he will reiterate his position of no negotiations with terrorists. But various other Israeli officials have signaled that the Jewish state will do as it has done before and release an obscene number of prisoners as ransom.
Olmert's next move will no doubt be scrutinized by Western and Arab leaders. If he caves and offers the "exchange" (think 1,000 thugs and terrorists for one young Israeli), he will be seen as weak and vulnerable. If the Gaza incursion continues and Shalit is rescued, then Hamas will be emasculated in the eyes of its own constituents and most of the Arab world.
If Shalit lives, it is fairly safe to assume that most Israelis will look for no deeper meaning in the tactics Olmert uses. Even if he dies, Israelis will mourn, but then just as quickly, they will attempt to achieve the normalcy that always manages to escape them.
(Very interesting reports on the spot from Joel Mowbray as war builds up)
TEL AVIV--As I sit in a cafe while writing this, I am one of the few in Israel under age 40 not glued to the TV. World Cup mania has reached a fever pitch, and young Israelis have turned out en masse to watch Italy and France fight for global bragging rights.
Tomorrow morning, Israelis will return to their daily grind, while their government inches closer to war with Hamas. It's been two weeks since 19-year-old Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted from inside Israel proper, and Israeli tanks have rolled through much of northern Gaza, largely because Palestinian terrorists have used those villages to launch incessant missile strikes into populated Israeli cities. Hamas is demanding that the Jewish state release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and the nascent Ehud Olmert regime is--for the moment at least--sticking to its pledge not to negotiate with terrorists.
What's remarkable is how little the fate of young Shalit is being discussed by ordinary Israelis. Those around his age--all of whom are subject to mandatory military service--could easily see themselves in his position, and worse, Israeli parents must worry that their own children could be held hostage by Islamic terrorists bent on the elimination of all Jews. Yet the battle fatigue that has set into this tiny nation under constant attack for six years now has rendered Israel incapable of devoting too much emotion to any single tragedy.
Prime Minister Olmert is holding a press conference tomorrow at 10am local time (3am EST), and most likely, he will reiterate his position of no negotiations with terrorists. But various other Israeli officials have signaled that the Jewish state will do as it has done before and release an obscene number of prisoners as ransom.
Olmert's next move will no doubt be scrutinized by Western and Arab leaders. If he caves and offers the "exchange" (think 1,000 thugs and terrorists for one young Israeli), he will be seen as weak and vulnerable. If the Gaza incursion continues and Shalit is rescued, then Hamas will be emasculated in the eyes of its own constituents and most of the Arab world.
If Shalit lives, it is fairly safe to assume that most Israelis will look for no deeper meaning in the tactics Olmert uses. Even if he dies, Israelis will mourn, but then just as quickly, they will attempt to achieve the normalcy that always manages to escape them.
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