Oct 18 2011

One life for how many?

Category: Hamas,Israel,terrorism — harmonicminer @ 9:37 pm

Here’s a roundup on the release by Israel of more than 1000 terrorists for one kidnapped Israeli soldier who had been held by Hamas for several years.

Powerline

Daniel Pipes at NRO

Jihadwatch

Redstate

Sometimes, inhuman as it sounds, the numbers do matter, and you can and should put a price on a single human life, a lesson that I fear Israel is going to learn the hard way, when it pays 100-fold for retrieving a single soldier.

UPDATE:  A friend emailed and suggested that the Israeli Defense Force is having trouble filling its ranks, and so the IDF felt that getting this solider back, even at the cost of more terrorist killings of civilians, was worth it to encourage people to serve in the IDF.  I don’t know…  but thought it an interesting idea to pass along.

May 24 2011

Bibi hits a homerun

Category: Hamas,Hizbullah,Islam,Israel,jihad,liberty,middle east,Palestine — harmonicminer @ 8:11 pm

Watch it.  It will be time well spent.

Jun 25 2010

Would all humanitarians in the room please raise their metal rods?

Category: Hamas,Iran,Islam,Israel — harmonicminer @ 8:32 am

Just in case you never heard what was actually on the “humanitarian aid ship” Mavi Marmara, the one you’ve seen in videos of “peace activists” clubbing Israeli inspectors with metal rods, It’s Official: There was No Humanitarian Aid on Mavi Marmara

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has informed Israel’s representatives the world over that there were never any humanitarian supplies or equipment aboard the Mavi Marmara, where Israeli commandos were ambushed by armed mercenaries posing as peace activists. The commandos opened fire and killed nine of the attackers after three soldiers had been brutalized and temporarily captured.

Of the seven flotilla ships that were intercepted by Israel on May 31 and afterward, only four were freight ships, the MFA reported to its embassies and consulates: The Challenger 1 (a small yacht), the Sfendonh (a small passenger boat) and the Mavi Marmara (a passenger ship) did not carry any humanitarian aid, and had only the passengers’ personal belongings.

The four freight ships are the Gaza, the Sofia, the Defeny and the Rachel Corrie. As of June 7, Israel had only offloaded equipment from the Defeny. The equipment offloaded was loaded onto 26 trucks, and an additional eight trucks are waiting at the Kerem Shalom crossing to enter Gaza.

The equipment includes:

1. 300 wheelchairs
2. 300 new mobility scooters
3. 100 special mobility scooters for the disabled
4. Hundreds of crutches
5. 250 hospital beds
6. 50 sofas
7. Four tons of medicine
8. 20 tons of clothing, carpets, school bags, cloth and shoes
9. Various hospital equipment – closets and cabinets, operating theater equipment, etc.
10. Playground equipment
11. Mattresses

The equipment remaining at Ashdod Port on the three cargo ships which have not been offloaded include some 2000 tons of construction equipment – building materials and tools, and construction waste (rubble, toilets, sinks and cement) for re-use.

The MFA noted that:

The equipment does not constitute humanitarian aid in the accepted sense (basic foodstuffs, new and functional equipment, fresh medicines).

The humanitarian aid on the four cargo ships was scattered in the ships’ holds and thrown onto piles and not packed properly for transport. The equipment was not packaged and not properly placed on wooden bases. Because of the improper packing, some of the equipment was crushed by the weight in transit.

The medicines and sensitive equipment (operating theater equipment, new clothing, etc.) are being kept in cool storage at the Defense Ministry base. Some of the medicines had already expired, and some will expire soon. The operating theater equipment, which should be kept sterile, was carelessly wrapped. A large part of the equipment, particularly shoes and clothing, was used and worn.

In other words, this whole thing exists as a proxy for Iran, working through intermediary Turkey (with which it is friendlier and friendlier), to break the blockade into Gaza, which is part of the reason Israel hasn’t been on the wrong end of missile attacks for awhile.

No one is starving in Gaza, other than maybe the political prisoners that Hamas has locked in basements.

Jun 20 2010

Telling the truth with satire

Category: corruption,Fatah,Group-think,Hamas,Hizbullah,humor,Iran,Islam,Israel,jihad,national security,Obama,Palestine,politics,sharia,Syria,terrorism,UN,White House — harmonicminer @ 7:47 am

You really need to check out this Powerline post, and watch the videos they linked here (don’t be impatient, the ad is short) and here.

Entertaining.  And educational.

Jun 02 2010

Is it a failure of Israel, or a failure of liberalism?

Category: Fatah,Hamas,Islam,Israel,media,middle east,national security,terrorism — harmonicminer @ 8:07 am

This article at Powerlineblog is difficult to summarize. It is a post about an article by Noah Pollak which is reviewing another article by Peter Beinart. I think it’s well worth your time, however, because of the way it explains the disconnect between American liberal Jews, liberals in Israel, American liberalism in general, and the facts on the ground in Israel, which are becoming clearer and clearer to even liberal non-Arab Israelis.  This is a quote from the article by Noah Pollack, discussing Beinart’s article and perspective, all of which is being discussed at Powerline at the link above.

Operation Defensive Shield in 2003, the Hezbollah war, and the Hamas war should have been moments in which liberal Zionists stepped forward to say: Israel took the risks for peace that we demanded. Israel committed itself to a diplomatic process, offered a Palestinian state, and withdrew from Lebanon and Gaza. The terrorists who attack Israel will find no defenders among us. Instead, talk of war crimes filled the airwaves, investigations were demanded, arrest warrants for Israeli officials issued, and now Peter Beinart says that he must question Zionism because civilians were killed in Gaza. Carried away by his own moral indignation, he never asks two fundamental questions: who started the war, and why was it fought from civilian areas?. . . .

Because the history of the peace process repudiates so many of liberalism’s most cherished premises, liberalism is increasingly repudiating Israel, and doing so in a perfectly logical fashion: with people like Beinart now saying that Israel is not in fact an admirable country and that it deserves to be thrown out of the company of liberal nations. In this way, the failure of the liberal vision is transformed from being a verdict on liberalism to being a verdict on Israel. . . .

The distilled pleading of Beinart is merely a series of demands that Israelis refuse to learn from experience: how dare they allow any hostility to Arabs creep into their politics; how dare they vote for Avigdor Lieberman, a populist who plays to the less-than-perfectly liberal Russian immigrants; how dare they lose faith in the peace process and the liberal hopefulness that animated it. Most important: how dare they upset the comfortable ideological existence of American Jews, whose acceptability to their liberal peers depends in no small degree on their willingness to join in pillorying Israel over the failure of the peace process — a failure, alas, that is not Israel’s but liberalism’s.

This is just a sample. Click the link at the top and read the whole thing. Highly recommended.

Jun 01 2010

Headlines and Israel

Category: appeasement,Hamas,Hizbullah,Iran,Israel,jihad,middle east,Obama,Palestine,terrorism — amuzikman @ 12:42 am

From the Drudge Report, headlines, May 31, 2010:

Israel faces int'l fury over flotilla...
Bloody raid...
Israel: Passengers were armed, 'no peace activists'...
Video...
Turkey warns of 'consequences'...
Israel in eye of storm...
Thousands protest, clashes in Athens...
Paris: Demonstrators tried to break into Israeli embassy...
Netanyahu defends...
Crisis...

From the Drudge Report, headlines, May 31, 2010, in an alternate universe:

Palestinians faces int'l fury over flotilla...
Bloody set-up...
Hamas: Passengers were armed, 'no peace activists'...
Video...
Turkey warns of 'consequences'...
Iran in eye of storm...
Thousands protest, clashes in Athens...
Paris: Demonstrators tried to break into Iranian embassy...
Amadinejad defends...
Crisis...

We have come to this – instant global condemnation of Israel every time an incident occurs.  Israel is now officially presumed guilty until proven innocent.  Not many facts are yet known about this incident, but in our world today facts are little more than an annoyance.  No, what seems to matter most is to lay the blame on Israel.

And a sitting U.S. President has become a part of the condemnation chorus virtually from the day he took office.  All the while the terror-sponsoring state of Iran, whose own President has sworn to wipe Israel from the face of the earth, rushes full tilt toward becoming a nuclear power. And when they do I imagine our president’s reaction will be to bow a little deeper to Amadinejad, and he’ll wag his finger a little longer at Netanyahu.  Madness.

Mr President, your words and actions have emboldened not only our enemies but the enemies of one of our closest allies.  And at least in part, the blood shed today is on your hands.  Words have meaning, Mr. President.  You know that.  And your obvious lack of support for the State of Israel coupled with your failed attempts at diplomacy towards our enemies has made this world in which we live a less safe place.  This incident is just a drop in the bucket compared to what I fear is is coming.  And the headlines do not bode well for the State of Israel.

Apr 23 2010

What peace process?

Category: Fatah,Hamas,Iran,Islam,Israel,Syria — harmonicminer @ 8:40 am

Poll: 91% against Obama imposing deal

A huge majority of Israelis would oppose an attempt by US President Barack Obama to impose a final-status agreement with the Palestinians, a poll sponsored by the Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA) organization found this week.

Leading American newspapers reported last week that Obama was considering trying to impose a settlement if efforts to begin indirect proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians proved unsuccessful. The option was discussed in a meeting with current and former advisers to the White House.

Asked whether they would support Obama imposing a plan dividing Jerusalem and removing the Jordan Valley from Israeli control, 91 percent of Israelis who expressed an opinion said no and 9% said yes, according to the poll of 503 Israelis, which was taken by Ma’agar Mohot on Sunday and Monday and had a 4.5% margin of error.

Eighty-one percent said it was improper for Obama to try to force such a plan on the two sides, while 19% of those who expressed an opinion said it was proper.

The poll asked whether it would create enduring peace or enduring conflict should Jerusalem be divided, with Jewish neighborhoods remaining part of Israel and Arab neighborhoods becoming part of a Palestinian state. Eighty-four percent said conflict and 16% said peace.

The numbers were similar for the Jordan Valley, where 90% opposed relinquishing Israeli control and 10% were in favor.

Meanwhile, a poll of Palestinians conducted on April 8-10 by the Center of Opinion Polls and Survey Studies at An-Najah University in Nablus asked Palestinians whether they would accept the creation of a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders with a land exchange as a final solution for the Palestinian problem, and whether they would support or reject making Jerusalem a capital for two states.

The numbers on the two-state solution were 66.7% against, 28.3% in favor, and 5% who did not know or did not express an opinion. On the Jerusalem issue, 77.4 said they opposed such a plan, 20.8% were in favor, and 1.8% had no opinion or chose not to express it.

Read that last bit again.  The Palestinians will not accept a “peace plan” on even the least possible advantageous terms for Israel.

There cannot be peace without a peace partner.  Hamas and Fatah have done a sufficiently good job in indoctrinating the last three generations of Palestinians to hate Israel that now there is no chance for Palestinian public support of a plan that Israel could not agree to anyway.

The only “fast solution” to the problem is going to be a complete victory by one side or the other.

There is a slow solution, one that will take about 40 years, a timeline so long that no Western government can possibly keep its eye on the prize that long, although Muslim governments seem to have no problem conceiving and employing decades long strategies (which is exactly why we are where we are today).   That slow solution is fairly simple.

The world’s governments COULD simply cut off all aid to Palestine, if Palestine continues to teach hate in its schools and media, and continues to elect Hamas.  The world does not “owe” Palestine anything, anything at all.  If Palestine chooses to be run by a terrorist organization, so be it.  Then we could wait about 40 years for the current haters to die, and for the next generations to begin to wonder what the fuss was about.  And those people might then be peace partners.

Of course, the world’s governments would have to stand together in this, and, of course, Iran, Syria and China, at least, would be likely to do an end-run around any ban imposed by the rest.

And that illustrates the essential issue.  Far from the “conflict in the middle east” problem STEMMING from the Israel/Palestine issue, the exact reverse is true.  The Israel/Palestine issue EXISTS, still, because several nations see it as in their best interests to keep it from ever being solved.   This has been true since the creation of the modern Israel.

But you can’t make peace with people who, more than anything, want you dead.

When even experienced negotiators begin to see this, it’s time to take notice.

Apr 06 2010

Obama vs. Netanyahu: what you won’t read in the media

Category: Fatah,Hamas,Israel,middle east,Obama,Palestine,terrorism — harmonicminer @ 8:03 am

Yoni The Blogger is a veteran of Israeli Special Forces. He can’t talk about much of what he used to do.  He is unapologetic in his defense of Israel, appropriately so.  He knows things about what goes on in Israel that seem rarely reported in US media.  Here is his take on the recent “summit” of Obama and Netanyahu.

Yoni the Blogger

We have seen the way President Obama treated Prime Minister Netanyahu during the recent visit.

It is clear that if Obama can’t push the Prime Minister into doing what he wants him to do, then Obama would like to force regime change in Israel.

Bibi must, make up his mind if he wants to be the Prime Minister.

I have my doubts.

Bibi upon return to Israel had the rules of engagement for our soldier tightened. Our soldiers if they are in a bullet proof vehicle can no longer shoot at Palestinians that are throwing molotov cocktails at them, it is now even prohibited to fire warning shots in the air at stone throwing Palestinians.

I have learned that IAF pilots stationed in the south are prohibited from travel alone from Tel Arad to Beer Sheva because of the Israeli citizen Beduin shooting at Jewish cars.

Let us not forget the multiple dozens of Buses that came from the north and south full of Israeli Arabs wanting to riot at the Temple Mount along side there Palestinian brothers.

So here is my advise to Bibi.

1. Declare that due to the financial situation in America, Israel is canceling the aid from America

2. Israel must start of PR campaign with ads on American TV showing the value of Israel to America

3. Declare an end to the peace process and annex Judea and Samaria

4. Behind closed doors tell American Military and CIA we will no longer going to give intel to America if the administration is anti Israel . George the first and Webster

5. Tell all Israeli citizens that if Palestinians throw stones at them it is a crime not to return fire. Allow more Jews to own guns

6. Order the IDF to remove all illegal Arab building in all parts of Israel

7. Lastly order the Chief of Staff of the IDF to hit Iran as soon as possible using any and all of the weapons at the disposal of the IDF as the situation warrants.

I am not holding my breath for Bibi to do any of this because he has folded every time the going got tough.


It is clear that, among US presidents, Obama is rivaled only by Jimmy Carter in his disdain for Israel.  I expect that Israel is simply counting the days till the 2012 elections, and hoping for the best.

Mar 26 2010

Gosh, Pat, I didn’t know you were such an Obama fan

Category: Fatah,Hamas,Israel,jihad,middle east,national security,Obama — harmonicminer @ 8:00 am

Netanyahu’s Hollow Victory? Pat Buchanan’s apparent hatred of Israel continues to masquerade as “conservative” foreign policy prescriptions.

“The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital.”

With this defiant declaration, to a thunderous ovation at AIPAC, Benjamin Netanyahu informed the United States that East Jerusalem, taken from Jordan in the Six Day War, is not occupied land. It is Israeli land and Israel’s forever, and no Palestinian state will share Jerusalem. Israel alone decides what is built, and where, in the Holy City.

With his declaration and refusal to walk back the decision to build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, which blew up the Biden mission, “Bibi” goes home a winner over Barack Obama.

But it is a temporary triumph and hollow victory — over Israel’s indispensable ally. For the clash revealed that the perceived vital interests of Israel now collide with vital U.S. interest in the Middle East.

Memo to Mr. Buchanan: land taken in wars of self-defense is legitimately kept. That is the time honored historical fact.  Live with it.  Jordan will certainly have to.  So will the “Palestinians,” who COULD easily have been resettled in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, et. al., after the failure of those nations to destroy Israel in war.  (Of course, those people have been denied the opportunity to live elsewhere, because each of those nations had something to gain from keeping the hatred of Israel alive…  or so they thought.   In any case, none of them wanted the war to be over until Israel was destroyed.)  If Jordan had not attacked Israel, along with many others, Israel would not be building settlements in Jerusalem today. Everyone will have to live with the consequences of their decisions, including those made decades ago by different governments.

But there is nothing illegitimate, nothing at all, about Israel keeping the land it won while defending itself (almost unsuccessfully so) in wars not of its making.

Memo to the rest of Israel’s neighbors: if you want to keep the land you have now, don’t attack again.

Memo to Obama:  Israel’s support in the USA is broad and deep.  You might want to remember that.  The honeymoon is over.  You might want to remember that, too. 

Dec 14 2009

Hamas is ARMING UP again

Category: Hamas,Islam,Israel — harmonicminer @ 10:05 am

Jerusalem Post, via Yoni

Israel is likely to face advanced Iranian weaponry, long-range rockets, large missile silos and dozens of kilometers of underground tunnels connecting open fields with urban centers in the event of a future conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to the latest Israeli assessments.

Since Operation Cast Lead ended almost a year ago, Hamas has increased its weapons smuggling and today operates hundreds of tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor. It has smuggled in dozens of long-range Iranian-made rockets that can reach Tel Aviv as well as advanced anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank missiles.

Hamas is believed to have a significant number of shoulder-launched anti-tank missiles and 9M113 Konkurs, which have a range of four kilometers and are capable of penetrating heavy armor.

In addition, Hamas is believed to have today a few thousand rockets, including several hundred with a range of 40 kilometers and several dozen with a range of between 60 and 80 km. Intelligence assessments are that Hamas smuggled the missiles into the Gaza Strip through tunnels, possibly in several components.

Iran already supplies Hamas with 122mm Katyusha rockets that are smuggled into Gaza in several pieces and then assembled by Hamas engineers.

One of the main lessons Hamas learned from Cast Lead was the need to reinforce its defenses and as a result has invested efforts in digging additional tunnels, which connect open fields with homes belonging to key operatives as well as command centers.

The idea is to enable freedom of movement for the operatives between different battlefields, which it found difficult during Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza earlier this year.

Hamas has also increased its use of civilian infrastructure, particularly mosques, which the terror group already used quite extensively for storage and launching rockets during the operation. Hamas is believed to have taken control of almost 80 percent of the mosques in Gaza, using them to store weapons and set up command-and-control centers.

Hamas, is “padding” itself as well by setting up its command centers in large apartment buildings. This way, it believes, the IDF will not attack them by air, and will need to send ground forces deep into the population centers, where it will lose its technological advantage.

In addition, Hamas is hoping to increase the effectiveness of its rocket capability during a future conflict and has created large missile silos.

Hamas has also recently increased its efforts to dig what the IDF calls “offensive tunnels” close to the border with Israel, which the terror group could use to infiltrate into Israel and kidnap soldiers.

These tunnels are believed to be of strategic value for Hamas, which would only use them for large-scale attacks and high-value targets.

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