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Israel Tag

Posted by New Neo on July 25, 2014 15 Comments
How do you fight an enemy that is willing---nay, eager---to force you to kill its children even if you don't want to? That's the situation Israel faces against Hamas. It's the situation we face against Islamist terrorists, too, because they use such techniques as one of their primary tools, and the liberal west and the MSM all too often play into their hands by demonizing Israel and the US rather than the perpetrators. This is not new. It began when the west decided that all-out war was something it could no longer in good conscience wage. Civilian casualties in the first half of the 20th Century had reached such huge numbers that we turned in revulsion against them, and the increasing accuracy of weaponry enabled us to entertain the idea---for a short while, anyway---that wars could be fought with "surgical precision." That would be true, if the enemy cooperated. But it doesn't. The Islamist terrorists didn't invent the technique. In order for it to come to full fruition, the enemy needed a west with a guilty conscience about itself and a desire to excuse that enemy's barbarism, and an MSM fully on board with the program. This was already beginning to be the case during the War in Vietnam:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 25, 2014 27 Comments
John Kerry has proposed a seven-day truce, during which time there would be negotiations over a longer-term ceasefire. Hamas reportedly is going to accept the proposal, but that's far from official. The Israeli cabinet is discussing the proposal as we speak. Concerns are that Hamas, having rejected a ceasefire early on and finally beginning to crumble, will simply use the truce to redeploy and recover. We will update when more is known, but you can follow the events in the live video and Twitter feeds at the bottom of the post. A ceasefire that allows Hamas to rearm and reload likely will be unacceptable to Israel in light of the discovery that Hamas had planned a massive Rosh Hashonah attack through the tunnels that are being destroyed:
Israel’s Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu revealed on Thursday that Hamas was intending to attack Israel from dozens of tunnels in a coordinated simultaneous attack. At the beginning of Thursday’s special cabinet meeting the prime minister said, “These tunnels enable the enemy to open a multi-pronged offensive and carry out a massive terror attack inside Israel.” According to security officials cited by Israeli daily Ma’ariv, the political echelon needs to give the military more time to eliminate the tunnels since “we are now not even halfway through.” The attack Hamas was planning, the officials say, “would have made Israel drop to its knees.” They added that even the tunnels destroyed until now takes away from Hamas a strategic asset the terror group has been working on for years..
IDF officers estimate that the job of destroying all the tunnel infrastructure will take another ten days to two weeks to complete:

Posted by David Gerstman on July 24, 2014 13 Comments
Live Video and Twitter feed at bottom of post Five more Israeli soldiers have been killed over the past two days. https://twitter.com/IsraelHatzolah/status/491854825932333057 https://twitter.com/IsraelHatzolah/status/491978983651545088 Last night the FAA lifted its restriction on American airlines flying to Ben Gurion Airport.
The FAA has lifted its restrictions on U.S. airline flights into and out of Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport by cancelling a Notice to Airmen it renewed earlier today. The cancellation is effective at approximately 11:45 p.m. EDT. Before making this decision, the FAA worked with its U.S. government counterparts to assess the security situation in Israel and carefully reviewed both significant new information and measures the Government of Israel is taking to mitigate potential risks to civil aviation.
Hamas had considered the restriction of flights to be a "great victory." Yesterday on The Situation Room, Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan claimed that Hamas was targeting Ben Gurion because there were military flights there.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 23, 2014 39 Comments
While I had seen the images and videos, I did not realize the depth of the depravity exhibited in the anti-Jewish riots in Paris. HuffPo UK reports, France's Jews Flee As Rioters Burn Paris Shops, Attack Synagogue:
France's politicians and community leaders have criticised the "intolerable" violence against Paris' Jewish community, after a pro-Palestinian rally led to the vandalizing and looting of Jewish businesses and the burning of cars. It is the third time in a week where pro-Palestinian activists have clashed with the city's Jewish residents. On Sunday, locals reported chats of "Gas the Jews" and "Kill the Jews", as rioters attacked businesses in the Sarcelles district, known as "little Jerusalem". Manuel Valls, France's prime minister said: “What happened in Sarcelles is intolerable. An attack on a synagogue and on a kosher shop is simply anti-Semitism. Nothing in France can justify this violence.”
The HuffPo post has numerous photos. The Times [of London] Europe Edition reports, Jewish shops set ablaze in Paris’s Little Jerusalem:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 22, 2014 11 Comments
Given the cancellation of flights into and out of Ben-Gurion Int'l Airport at the urging of the FAA backed up by the White House, many are predicting it's likely that the next day or two will be decisive -- either militarily or diplomatically. Anshel Pfeffer at Haaretz writes that the airport shutdown may lead to a heavier Israeli military strike:
This may prove to be a game-changer in a conflict which is now entering its third week. It could provide further impetus for the government in seeking a speedy ceasefire with Hamas, but that seems doubtful. Even a partial suspension of operations at Ben-Gurion is a major coup for Hamas, which has been so starved of any real achievements that they are pretending to have captured an IDF soldier who was almost certainly killed on Saturday night, though his remains have yet to be identified. Accepting Hamas' terms for a ceasefire now is unthinkable. It is much more likely that, faced with the prospect of more rockets cutting Israel off from the international air routes, the government will be inclined to order a much more devastating blow, a wider ground operation to occupy the rocket-launching sites or even directed at Hamas' underground headquarters, with dreadful implications for the people of Gaza living above.
Times of Israel analyst Avi Issacharoff argues, in Worse may yet lie ahead, that Hamas, while talking tough, is in trouble:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 22, 2014 13 Comments
Part of the big news today is that multiple airlines have cancelled flights to Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel as a result of a rocket landing in a town nearby. At first it was unclear if this was a unilateral action, or under pressure from governments. It appears that the FAA and European aviation authority issued a temporary order to that effect. El Al continues to fly, as do some other airlines. But one cancellation can have a ripple effect as other airlines are questioned whether they are putting passengers at undo risk in light of other airlines' can The implications are enormous. Whether intended or not, Hamas has made the case as to why it's rocket arsenal and infrastructure must be dismantled no matter the cost. It also has justified why Israel cannot give up security control of Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"). Hamas has to fire a long way to scare away air traffic, but from the West Bank it's practically a stone's throw. Alan Dershowitz points out, Has Hamas ended the prospects for a two state solution?(h/t Roger Simon):

Posted by David Gerstman on July 22, 2014 2 Comments
According to Ynet nine soldiers were killed Monday in separate incidents. Israel also announced that one of the soldiers killed in Sunday's armored personnel carrier attack has not yet been accounted for. Although not all the circumstances are clear, it appears Hamas may have retrieved body parts and/or belongings to the dead soldier: https://twitter.com/CiFWatch/status/491539100491866113 Of the 27 Israeli soldiers killed so far in Operation Protective Edge, 6 of them have been killed inside of Israel, not Gaza. In separate incidents soldiers were killed by terrorists emerging from terror tunnels:

Posted by New Neo on July 21, 2014 11 Comments
There's a long, long article appearing in TNR that professes to be "The Explosive, Inside Story of How John Kerry Built an Israel-Palestine Peace Plan—and Watched It Crumble." It's worth reading, but perhaps not for the reasons the authors intended. The problem with the article and so many other treatments of the subject is that its premise is that there is a peace plan that can be built and that can crumble---and that someone like John Kerry has the smarts to do it, if it were possible to do it. But the whole thing is a chimera at this point. The piece's conclusion contains a more realistic appraisal of the situation, from Avi Dichter, former head of Israel's Shin Bet:
The American effort will always be multiplied by the amount of trust between the two leaders. So if Kerry's pressure represents the number five, and then Obama's help brings the number to ten, it really doesn't matter. You're still multiplying it by zero. The final result will always be zero.
The amount of trust---or distrust---between the two leaders reflects the amount of distrust between the two countries and their peoples. Peace plans sometimes have been entered into by these two groups (or Israel and other Palestinian groups) for temporary tactical reasons, but that's about it. The Palestinian government does not recognize Israel's right to exist and Hamas is a terrorist group dedicated to its destruction. But for various reasons both have become the darlings of Europe and the Left, and that helps tie Israel's hands to a certain extent. But "partners for peace" they ain't.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 21, 2014 9 Comments
Part of the anti-Israel war effort includes attempts to demoralize Israel and its supporters. That is why Hamas, Hezbollah and others try so hard to kidnap Israeli civilians or soldiers, and even to grab dead bodies. That psychological warfare is on full display in the media and social media. But it's not working because Israelis know that Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups in Gaza, who fire from among civilians towards civilians, leave Israel with no choice but to fight in a war it didn't want but in which so much is at stake. Despite losses from infiltrators and in city combat, Israeli troop morale is high from all reports. The video below has gone viral on Facebook, with over 30,500 likes and almost 20,000 shares as of this writing. It shows Israeli soldiers on a break from combat in Gaza singing: The song is "Who Believes" by Eyal Golan. This is a rough translation (thanks to our Israeli family friend Daniel for the link):

Posted by David Gerstman on July 21, 2014 5 Comments
Note: There are live Video and Twitter feeds at the bottom of the post ----------------------------- Overnight Hamas attempted two infiltrations through tunnels, one of which opened up near the dining room of Kibbutz in Israel. Both sets of terrorists were eliminated by the IDF. There are unspecified reports of Israeli casualties. The Times of Israel reports:
In open ground near Erez five terrorists come out of a tunnel shortly after six in the morning. They surface near the security fence and only a few hundred yards from the nearest community. An IAF aircraft intercepts them, killing all five, with no Israelis wounded. ... Near Kibbutz Nir Am, a second group of terrorists surface on the Israeli side of the border. It is not clear if they emerge from a different tunnel or a branch of the one that served the other squad, nor is the number of gunmen confirmed. The sizable squad is able to surprise a passing army jeep, ambushing it with an anti-tank missile and inflicting Israeli casualties. But with the help of Nahal troops the force is able to kill the operatives and thwart an infiltration to civilian areas or an abduction attempt.
Ynet has more on this incident as well as other fighting:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 20, 2014 16 Comments
From an Imam in Berlin -- can you tell his words apart from tweets of pro-Boycott Divest and Sanctions professors and campus speakers? From my Twitter feed keeping track of events today:

Posted by David Gerstman on July 20, 2014 15 Comments
[WAJ Note: Live Twitter and video feeds added at bottom of post.] Today, Sunday, fighting has intensified. Ynet reports:
The IDF's ground incursion into Gaza has led to a rapid rise in the number of terrorists killed. Since the beginning of the ground operation, IDF soldiers have eliminated more than 130 terrorists, including more than 60 Saturday overnight. During the overnight firefights, a Golani Brigade battalion commander, Colonel Rassan Alian, sustained light-to-moderate injuries. Large infantry forces entered Gaza overnight, as the IDF expanded Operation Protective Edge on Sunday. The IDF Spokesperson's Unit announced that the ground forces joined the ongoing operations to destroy terror infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, which began with the ground incursion.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2014 4 Comments
This is night two of the ground invasion of Gaza. It does not appear to have moved into the large Gaza City, yet. The focus has been on uncovering tunnels, of which many have been found. You can follow the video and Twitter feed below for live updates. We also will post updates at the bottom of the post. (added) Overnight there was another tunnel attack where Hamas terrorists emerged on the Israeli side of the border and were confronted. Two Israeli soldiers were killed. Also, Hamas sent a donkey loaded with explosives towards Israeli soldiers -- the animal exploded without causing Israeli casualties. More details on all of these below. More Live Video Feeds and Live Twitter Feed below

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 18, 2014 9 Comments
[Council meeting now over] The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting at the request of Jordan. The live tweets are below. The main outcome is that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will leave Saturday for the Middle East to try to mediate a ceasefire. Security Council Emergency Meeting Gaza undersecretary of the UN Jeff Feltman

Posted by David Gerstman on July 18, 2014 10 Comments
Overnight, the New York Times reports that one Israeli soldier and 20 Palestinians were killed. (A report at The Times of Israel puts the number at 22 Palestinians, at least 14 of whom were members of Hamas.)
An Israeli soldier was killed early Friday along with at least 20 Palestinians in the first hours of Israel’s ground offensive in the Gaza Strip as the violent conflict there entered its 11th day. ... Sirens signaling rockets sounded all night and into the morning across Israel’s south; the army counted more than 50 rockets from the 10 p.m. start of its ground invasion until 7 a.m. Friday.
https://twitter.com/IDFSpokesperson/status/490029893204180993 Israel has made it clear that Hamas' network of tunnels is its target. Mitch Ginsburg of The Times of Israel explains what Israel hopes to accomplish with the ground invasion.
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