"Grim"

I know that many who will be receiving this are celebrating Thanksgiving today and I do not wish to impose unduly on that celebration.  And yet... and yet...

 

I entitled this posting "grim," because this is very much the mood of the nation here.  From the right and from the left there is criticism of the ceasefire agreement concluded yesterday. Somewhere in this country there must be someone who thinks this was a good move, but I have yet to encounter that person.  Unless there is a huge shift in the situation, it seems that Netanyahu and his Likud party may suffer in the coming election for what has happened.

 

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Ceasefire in Israel-Hamas War

Barry Rubin

 A ceasefire ending this round of the Hamas-Israel fighting went into effect at 9 PM local time, November 21, 2012. There were reports—still unconfirmed—of more rockets being fired from Gaza at Israel after the ceasefire was to be implemented. Hamas immediately claimed victory.

The brief agreement provides that both sides will stop all hostilities. For Israel, that included the targeted killings of terrorists and Hamas leaders. For the Palestinian side, the phrase, “All Palestinian factions,” was used. That means the Hamas regime is responsible for any attacks by Islamic Jihad, al-Qaida affiliates, and other small Salafist groups. According to the text, at least, Hamas cannot hide behind allowing or encouraging such groups to attack and then disclaiming responsibility.

Israel Commentary Neglected information and opinion relative to Israel, the Middle East and the immediate world. « Who is Barack Obama? – Part II – A Terrifying Analysis After the Election Only disproportionate deterrence will offset Hamas Terror

How dare anyone in the world including the US, Germany and Great Britain lecture to Israel on “disproportionate deterrence”? Did not the US via Harry Truman release atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in one stroke with generations suffering the severe mental and physical consequences ever since?
Did not Britain and the US level the German cities of Cologne, Berlin, Dresden, Stuttgart, Hamburg killing tens of thousands of people indiscriminately? Did not Germany attempt to level London with blanketed bombing at the onset of WW II?
http://israel-commentary.org/?p=5141
How is that suddenly Israel, when the Jews finally have power of their own and is uses that power with maddening discretion so as not to kill innocent people, the hypocrites and Jew Haters of the world suddenly get on their phony humanitarian soap box relative to “disproportionate response.” Does it take any imagination to visualize what would happen to Israel if the Arabs had anywhere near Israeli military power?
jsk

Only disproportionate deterrence will offset Hamas Terror
by Isi Leibler


The Jewish state was created to overcome powerlessness and provide a haven for Jews – not to have them cringing in shelters. There had previously been considerable criticism of the government for its failure to adequately respond to the ongoing toll inflicted on over a million Israeli citizens obliged to endure thousands of missiles launched against them at the whim of a loathsome neighboring terrorist state. We had tired of hearing successive Israeli leaders repeatedly expressing empty threats and chanting the mantra “this is intolerable and unacceptable and must stop”.

Hamas is no longer a terrorist faction. It is in every respect an independent state the majority of whose citizens enthusiastically support the terrorist initiatives and missile launches initiated by its evil leaders committed to our annihilation.

The situation deteriorated with the advent to power in Egypt of the Moslem Brotherhood, the creators of Hamas. Since then, the Egyptian authorities stood by as Hamas accumulated vast quantities of sophisticated missiles and other lethal weapons including guided antitank missiles and shoulder mounted antiaircraft weapons from Iran, Libya, Sudan and other states.

That explains why despite awareness that Operation Amud Annan – “Pillar of Defense” may escalate into full-scale war, all sections of Israeli society fervently support the IDF operation. It is also gratifying that Jews throughout the world are actively demonstrating solidarity with Israel.

NGO FACTUAL AND LEGAL DISTORTIONS ON GAZA “MEDIA CENTER” ATTACKS

Summary

• On November 18, the Israeli army targeted Hamas’ operational communications arrays and antennas on the roof of two buildings -- the Shawa Hussari and Al Shourouq towers. A number of foreign media outlet offices were located on the lower floors of the Al Shourouq tower. (Hamas has systematically placed strategic infrastructure and weapons close to or within civilian buildings.)
• Many political advocacy NGOs active in the Durban strategy, including false accusations during the 2008-09 Gaza conflict, immediately accused Israel of deliberately targeting journalists and the foreign media. As in the past, these statements provided highly incomplete factual information, lacked context, and made allegations of “war crimes” and other legal claims without any evidence. 
• The NGOs incorrectly declare that Israel acted unlawfully -- simply because the buildings contained civilians. Under international humanitarian law, if civilian objects are being used for military objectives, they are indeed legitimate targets (attacks must comply with the rules of proportionality). This is particularly the case where combatants are exploiting those objects for cover, as Islamic Jihad members have.
• None of these NGOs acknowledges that Al Aqsa and Al Quds TV are an integral part of the Hamas military structure; that Al Aqsa is a Specially Designated Global Terrorist; that channels are used by Hamas to transmit threats to the Israeli civilian population; that they are used to incite genocide and war crimes on the civilian population of Israel; that they are used to indoctrinate and recruit child soldiers.
• Adalah and Al Mezan falsely claimed that Israel was intending to “demolish the ‘Al-Shoroq Tower’.”  The building was not demolished; rather, the IDF issued statements that it was targeting installations on the roof of the building, and based on video footage from the strikes, that is exactly what the IDF did.

Talking Point: Israel is the wrong enemy

AAMULEHTI : “Arabs have wasted decades in hatred against Israel. The newest clash between the Islamist Hamas, which rules in Gaza, and Israel is a continuation in a long series of stupidities, of which the most miserable victims are the arabs.”

What have the Arab states won, by not recognizing the state of Israel in 1948, but took it as an arch enemy, wanting to destroy it from the face of the earth?

The Arab Spring, inspired by the free winds will bring self-critical and difficult questions, which has already been shown in the Arab press and elsewhere.

The Arab states have wasted hundreds of billions in the war against Israel.

Has the US Administration Decided to Get Rid of Jordan's King Abdullah?

Khaled Abu Toameh

Unless the US clarifies its position regarding King Abdullah and reiterates its full backing for his regime, the Muslim fundamentalists are likely to step up there efforts to create anarchy and lawlessness in the kingdom. Washington needs to reassure King Abdullah and his followers that it will not allow the creation of an Islamic terror republic in Jordan.

Has the US Administration decided to get rid of Jordan's King Abdullah?
This is the question that many Jordanians have been asking in the past few days following a remark made by a spokesman for the US State Department.

Deputy State Department Spokesman Mark Toner managed to create panic [and anger] in the Royal Palace in Amman when he stated that there was "thirst for change" in Jordan and that the Jordanian people had "economic, political concerns," as well as "aspirations."
The spokesman's remark has prompted some Jordanian government officials to talk about a US-led "conspiracy" to topple King Abdullah's regime.

Hamas trying to scare Israelis, boosting morale among Palestinians

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=8026

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

"Your army jeeps, your vehicles, your planes, your battle ships, are potential targets for our Qassam [rockets]."

As part of its psychological warfare and its efforts to scare Israelis, Hamas is using TV and other media to threaten Israelis with a number of different messages. On the website of its military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas posted several pictures with short texts designed to scare Israelis. Pictures showing armed Hamas fighters, scenes of combat and wounded Israeli soldiers warn Israelis that "your army jeeps, your vehicles, your planes, your battle ships, are potential targets for our Qassam [rockets]," and that "the Qassam rockets will chase you everywhere."

"Your leadership started this battle, but it won't be able to put an end to our rocket attacks."

What Agreements with PA are Really Worth?

by David Lev

Lieberman told the diplomats that throughout the four years that the current government has served, Israel has numerous times sought to restart talks with the PA - always to be put off, delayed, dodged, or outright rejected. And not only did the PA do everything it could to avoid talks - it arrogantly blamed the fact that no talks were taking place on Israel. "Their entire plan is to upset Israel's standing in the international community," Lieberman said.

Lieberman also discussed the renewed rocket terror attacks on southern Israel by Gaza Arab terrorists, and especially the fact that PA chief Mahmoud Abbas has not bothered to condemn the attacks, much less to take steps to end the rocket fire from territory of which he is supposed to be in charge. "This again poses the question who Abbas even represents among Palestinians, what his responsibility is for what has been happening, and what our agreements with him are worth altogether," Lieberman said. (The same game was played by Arafat, but the Israeli government is still unwilling to end the stupid game!)

Up Against a Faux-istinian Culture of Human Sacrifice

November 19, 2012 

Formerly colonized people of color, especially if they are Muslims, can Do No Wrong—and Jews and Israelis can Do Nothing Right. That’s the cognitive game, that’s how it’s rigged.

Prof. Phyllis Chesler

Prof. Phyllis Chesler is the author of fifteen books, including Women and Madness (Doubleday, 1972), The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and most recently, The New Anti-Semitism. She is the co-founder of the Association for Women in Psychology and the National Women's Health Network.

I have been getting email and phone calls from dear friends in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Tel Avivians and Jerusalemites are sober but slightly shocked to have woken up to a lesser, but still a Sderot-like reality. Senior citizen friends cowered in stairways and hunkered down in “safe” rooms. Younger citizens rushed to shelters or hit the ground. Everyone supports what the IDF is doing. No one was injured or worse.

Day #6 of Israel’s decision to fight back, to stop the constant barrage of Hamas rockets, meant this: according to the IDF, in the first five days, over 500 rockets from Gaza rained down on Israeli civilians and the Iron Dome intercepted 287 such rockets. Additionally, they note that 45% of Israelis live within rocket range of Hamas’s missiles and rockets. That number is equivalent to 140 million Americans.

Would America or any other non-Muslim majority country live with such constant terror, such overwhelming vulnerability to genocidal forces?

An Arab View...

Khaled Abu Toameh

This hostility is the direct result of years of anti-Israel and anti-Western incitement in the Arab and Muslim world -- not only toward Israel but also toward the United States. In today's world of the Palestinians, anyone who talks about peace with Israel is a traitor and a collaborator; but anyone who calls for the destruction of Israel and fires rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is a hero.

There is nothing more nauseating than watching people celebrate as rockets are being fired toward Israel from the Gaza Strip.

This is what happened last week when Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
As soon as the sirens went off, many Palestinians took to the streets and rooftops, especially in Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods, to cheer Hamas. Sometimes they responded to the Hamas rockets by launching fireworks into the air as a sign of joy, and chanting, "We are all Hamas!" and, "O Jews, the army of Mohammed is coming after you!"
Scenes of jubilation over the rocket attacks on Israel were also reported in several Palestinian cities in the West Bank, including Ramallah, the center of Palestinian "pragmatism and moderation."

The Escalating Conflict Between Hamas and Israel

James Phillips

November 19, 2012

Over the last four days, militants in Gaza have fired more than 840 rockets at Israel. Hamas rockets have reached the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the first time, thanks to the smuggling of Iranian rockets into Gaza. The increasing range and sophistication of Palestinian rockets has expanded the reach of terrorists, who now can threaten up to half of Israel’s population.
Israel has intercepted 302 of those rockets with its Iron Dome missile defense system, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Iron Dome, on which the U.S. has collaborated, has proven its worth and underscored the importance of missile defense in future U.S. military budgets.
Meanwhile, Iran is seeking—successfully—to keep the pot boiling at Israel’s expense to distract international attention from its nuclear program. A leaked International Atomic Energy Agency report indicates that Iran could soon double the number of centrifuges at its Fordo facility from 700 to 1,400.

Finally, the BBC's pro-Palestinian propaganda machine has swung into action

Peter Mullen
 World

The BBC has been slipping up recently. No – I don’t mean to refer to unpleasant recollections of Savilegate and McAlpinegate. Let us just leave them conveniently on the Corporation’s CV. Instead I am wondering why it took the BBC so long to get into its full propaganda mode in its reporting of the war between Israel and Hamas. I don’t say there was ever anything distantly approaching even-handedness. You never get that with an ideological pressure group as committed to its own unassailable self-righteousness as the BBC. But at least for the first few days of the war there was the pretence of objectivity.
But true colours will inevitably show themselves and, sure enough, over the weekend the Corporation began to screen its horrific and heart-breaking accounts (with pictures, of course) of the Gazan children slaughtered by the nasty Israelis. What is never explained – because propaganda aims not to explain but to seduce – is the fact that Hamas stores its rockets and high explosives in schools and hospitals, and those leaders who are not so far up the pay scale that they are allotted their personal bunkers are obliged to live in their own houses with their families. And even the most meticulously targeted airstrike cannot distinguish between a terrorist and his three-year-old son when they are sitting in the same front room.

Hamas's War On Journalists‏

TIP Press: press@theisraelproject.org
Main Office Phone Number:  202-857-6644

Hamas's human rights violations against journalists have increasingly found the group at odds with civil liberty and human rights groups. Hamas notoriously beats journalists, including citizen journalists. The Iranian-backed group has policies forcing reporters to be accompanied by "sponsors." And of course, just this weekend, Hamas began trapping journalists in the Gaza Strip, raising fears that the Iran-backed terror group intends to use them as human shields during Israel's anti-terror Operation Pillar of Defense.

Hamas disinformation: Israel's international airport closed, planes redirected to secret base

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=7998

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

On the fifth day of Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense that targets terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and which has successfully destroyed many Hamas rocket launching  points, Hamas issued false information about its own successes fighting Israel.

[Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Nov. 18, 2012]

Today, a news ticker on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV incorrectly claimed: 

"Media of the enemy: International airport Ben Gurion closed, planes being redirected to a secret base in the north
[of Israel]."

Similarly, the Hamas website Al-Risala falsely claimed yesterday that Hamas had succeeded in shooting down an Israeli F-16 plane:

"Hamas' military wing Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed that an 'Israeli' F-16 fighter plane was shot down... A reconnaissance aircraft was shot down as well."

Israel's image war

Boaz Bismuth

The Israel Defense Forces are bombing the Gaza Strip and the world is, for the most part, silent. In fact, the IDF is bombing Gaza and the world is, for the most part, supporting Israel.

How is this happening? Wars today are fought not only with bullets, but also with images. During Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel has succeeded in appearing as the victim, even though it is acting with strength and determination. But don't get too excited. This could turn around in a moment.

Israel's advocates have so far had a much easier time than they did during Operation Cast Lead, in 2008-9. The IDF has focused on attacking specific terrorists and has been extremely careful to not harm innocent civilians, even if this has meant calling off planned strikes. The government's instructions on this have been clear.

The true path for Israel

Dr. Gabi Avital

It's early in the morning. Max Nordau invites his friend, Vladimir Jabotinsky, for a coffee before the War of Independence, lamenting a Jewish reality that Moses already knew well in his time: "The Jew learns not by way of reason, but from catastrophes. He won't open his umbrella under a cloudy sky; he waits until he is drenched and catches pneumonia."

Time has passed and the sovereign State of Israel has a large and impressive military force. Has the "Jewish" principle mentioned above remained the same? One cannot deny there have been situations in which the country's leaders recognized danger and fought it, such as the Six-Day War, the bombing of the nuclear reactor in Iraq and, most recently, the intensive debate over the Iranian nuclear issue. But when it comes to counter-terrorism, the track Israel has followed is reminiscent of a self-designed obstacle course.

In Gaza, Macabre Manipulations of a Child Victim

CAMERA

Not for the first time, the death of a Palestinian child killed in hotly disputed circumstances is being categorically blamed on Israel. Elder of Ziyon blogger was the first to catch the latest case, involving the death of 4-year-old Mahmoud Sadallah of Jabaliya, whose body was photographed with Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Qandil as he visited the Gaza Strip Friday.

Photos of the boy's body on display were distributed by the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters, all of whose captions categorically stated that the boy was killed in an Israeli air strike, despite the fact that news articles by the New York Times and even AP itself made clear that the circumstances behind his death were "hotly disputed," (as AP put it), and that he may have been killed by an errant Palestinian rocket. CNN's Sara Sidner also reported as fact that Mahmoud Sadallah is "another victim of an [Israeli] air strike," ignoring evidence to the contrary.

Obama Stabbing Israel in the Back Behind the Scenes

 Daniel Greenfield
The trajectory of conflicts like these are fairly clear. Israel bombs some terrorist targets and then launches a ground incursion into Gaza to suppress terrorist activities. But the Obama Administration is already working against a ground offensive behind the scenes, as a New York Times report mentions.

Obama supposedly called Netanyahu to discuss options for “de-escalating” the situation, but all those options are going to involve signing on to another meaningless cease fire while Hamas continues carrying out attacks, on and off. Netanyahu has made calling off a ground operation contingent on an end to rocket attacks. Which Obama isn’t likely to be able to deliver. And worse still, Obama has proposed that Egypt broker a ceasefire.

Syria: Spillover into Iraq?

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
The Jerusalem Post

http://www.meforum.org/3381/syria-iraq-spillover

Writing on his blog "Syria Comment," Joshua Landis contends that "Iraq is seeing much more spillover from Syria than Lebanon." His premise is that "already in response to the growing civil war in Syria, Iraqi violence has spiked and al-Qaida is resurgent there."
However, I contend that Landis is wrong on several counts. Beginning with his premise, the notion that "Iraqi violence has spiked" is based on a short term overview of trends of violence in Iraq, without looking at the bigger picture. Indeed, this issue is a common fault when it comes to media reporting on statistics of violence and civilian casualties.

For example, at the end of September, outlets like Reuters reported that Iraq had seen its bloodiest month for more than two years, citing a figure of 365 killed, supposedly double the toll from the previous month.

Southern mayors oppose ceasefire

 Neri Brenner

Egypt's president said Saturday evening that there are indications for an imminent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, but heads of southern local authorities believe Israel must not agree to a truce before dealing Hamas a severe blow.

"If we've come this far, we must continue," Eshkol Regional Council head Haim Yalin told Ynet on Saturday evening. "We must reach a situation in which we have won, in which terrorism is forced into a peace agreement."