| What a wastenoreply@blogger.com (Unknown), 21 May 04:30 AM This was the fourth major conflict between Israel and Gaza terror groups since 2008. Of | | What a waste
noreply@blogger.com (Unknown), 21 May 04:30 AM This was the fourth major conflict between Israel and Gaza terror groups since 2008. Of the three previous ones, Guardian of the Walls most resembles 2012's Pillar of Defense - massive bombing campaign, many Hamas rockets, Iron Dome intercepting most of them, many rockets that fell short in Gaza killing the innocent but Israel being blamed, no ground invasion.
From everything we can see, there is something else in common with Pillar of Defense: Nothing was really accomplished. Some residents of Israel's south slam the government over the ceasefire with Hamas, saying the operation in Gaza should have gone on. "We feel like we've gone through it all for nothing," a man tells Channel 12 news in an interview. "We had achievements thanks to the army, but there is no strategy. What kind of ceasefire is this?" The mayor of rocket-stricken Sderot, Alon Davidi, joins widespread attacks on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government by officials in Gaza border communities over the ceasefire with Hamas. "I don't understand why we're having a ceasefire, there is no reason for a ceasefire," Davidi tells Radio 103FM. "The prime minister and the government had our backing, there were achievements but this is not something that changes...Read More |
On CNN, Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi went on CNN, right after a UN speech vilifying Israel, and he promptly engaged in antisemitic tropes that he doubled down on, twice, when called on it. He said the Israel controls the media with their "deep pockets.".when called on it, he said that this was the perception that the world has, and the only way to combat that perception was for the media to stop saying anything sympathetic to Israel. Interviewer Bianna Golodryga did a good job holding his feet to the fire, although she still let him get off too easily, allowing him to lie by saying that the anti-Israel protests worldwide were for a two state solution and for peace - the chants at those protests for "Khaybar al Yahud" showed that this is clearly not the case. Qureshi's antisemitism was not even close to the worst from Pakistani officials. Earlier this week, Pakistan's National Assembly held sessions to bash Israel, and the statements made there show that Pakistan is an evil Islamist nation that celebrates hate and bigotry. Jamaat-e-Islami's Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali asked of the army chief of Pakistan, what good was a seven lakh-strong army if it can't liberate Palestine and Kashmir? Was the nuclear bomb just an artefact to be displayed in the museum? Similarly, Jamaat Ulema Islam's Mufti Abdul Shakoor was convinced that Pakistan...Read More |
From Ian: John Podhoretz: Israel has acted like a moral beacon in the latest Gaza war against terror The Iron Dome doesn't just save Israeli lives and property. It has likely saved the lives of tens of thousands of Gazan Palestinians just in the past two weeks. How? Imagine that the system didn't exist, that Hamas had collected 30,000 rockets, and then began firing them. Israelis would perish by the hundreds or more. The response would, of necessity, be devastating. Israel would be compelled to enter Gaza with overwhelming force and go street by street, tunnel by tunnel, to locate the rocket caches and blow them up. It is awful that 60,000 Palestinians have had to flee their homes or been rendered homeless. But every single one of them owes their current parlous condition to Hamas' strategy of interlacing its weaponry in and around Gaza's citizenry. That has other consequences, as well. As Jonathan Sacerdoti recently noted in The Spectator, more than 400 Hamas rockets fired from Gaza have landed … in Gaza. Hamas simply rolls the casualties from those inadvertent acts of self-destruction into the overall toll it blames on the Jewish state. The central emotional claim against Israel is that disproportionate death toll. But consider what we are being asked to believe here. According to Hamas' own numbers, something akin to 20 Palestinians a day have been...Read More |
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly interviewed Israel's former ambassador Ron Dermer to the UN about the current fighting.
Every time Dermer mentioned Hamas's genocidal goals - which are pretty explicit in its still-current founding charter - Kelly interrupted him.
The first time was perhaps not a big deal: DERMER: It's not a battle between Israelis and Palestinians. It's a terror organization that controls Gaza, not just the terror organization, but a genocidal one that... KELLY: You're talking about Hamas, which is recognized internationally as a terror organization. Go on. The next time shows that Kelly, and presumably NPR, have an agenda of downplaying any genocidal intentions from Hamas: KELLY: Ambassador Dermer, understanding, of course, that every country, including Israel, has the right to defend itself. You are the stronger power here. Why not go first? DERMER: I don't understand why, if Israel is the stronger power, that makes any difference. You just had a representative, a spokesman for a terror organization. And, Mary Louise, it's important to tell your audience this is an organization that calls for the murder of Jews worldwide. KELLY: Let me stop you because my question to you is, why doesn't Israel stop the shooting first? DERMER: I'll answer the question. I'll answer the question. But the context has to be given to the people of the United...Read More |
Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory. Check out their Facebook page. Lawrence, May 20 - A spiritual leader used his sermon this week to stress the Jewish value of always giving someone the benefit of the doubt in the face of awkward or compromising reports, specifically if that someone has cut a generous check to said spiritual leader, the institutions run by that spiritual leader, or to interests of his family and friends. Rabbi Tzvi Ut of Congregation Rodef Shalmonim exhorted his flock this past Sabbath to fulfill the divine commandment of "With righteousness shall you judge your fellow," a passage from Deuteronomy that generations of Jewish scholars have interpreted to apply far beyond the verse's immediate context of jurisprudence. Rabbi Ut stressed that the obligation to judge another favorably pertains especially to those who have done so much for the community by contributing funds or goods to the Ut household and to institutions under the aegis of Ut relatives and associates. "When disturbing reports emerge about pillars of our community," stated the Rabbi, "our first obligation, even in the era of the Me Too movement, is not to prejudge, but to grant the presumption of innocence, because people who donate generously to the Rabbi thereby become worthy of our support. This also holds...Read More |
From Ian: The War Between Wars Heats Up IN CONFLICTS PAST, senior American officials often stepped in and compelled both sides to see the wisdom of a cease-fire. Sometimes Israel wanted to keep fighting. Sometimes it was ready to quit. But it always acquiesced to Washington, in a nod to the special relationship that the two countries share. This time, the Biden administration dispatched Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Hady Amr in an effort to "deconflict," as the neologism has it. This decision was a curious one. Protocol dictates that Amr, a relatively low-ranking official, would not enjoy access to Israel's top decision-makers. It's also unclear how much Israel wants to talk to U.S. officials about Iranian-backed terror these days. Tensions are running high owing to the Biden administration's ill-advised decision to reenter the flawed 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. America's side of the deal will almost certainly include billions of dollars in cash incentives to the regime in exchange for temporary nuclear concessions. In other words, America is set to fund Hamas indirectly, given the terror group's patron-client relationship with Iran. Finally, there is the question of what exactly America seeks to achieve in the region. The Biden administration has repeatedly stated that it seeks to pivot away from the Middle East. But at the same time, it is investing significant...Read More |
By Daled Amos The Hamas deliberate disregard for human life -- Gazan, as well as Jewish -- is not a secret, though this indifference never dissuades Hamas's admirers. Last week, The Algemeiner reported on blatant examples of Gazans killed by Hamas: The volleys of over 600 missiles fired into Israeli territory by Palestinian terrorist groups since fighting began Monday has included at least 150 errant rockets — falling short within the Gaza Strip and causing casualties that Hamas officials have wrongly blamed on Israel, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). "We know that one third of the rockets fired from the Gaza Strip did not reach Israel and fell inside Gaza," [IDF Spokesperson Hidai] Zilberman said. "What we can learn from this is that many Gaza residents who were injured or killed were not hit by Israeli airstrikes but the civilians were hit by rockets from the terrorist groups themselves." [emphasis added] These statistics come from Israel.
But you don't have to take their word for it. Elder of Ziyon points out that corroboration for Gazans being killed by Hamas rockets comes from a pro-Palestinian group too. The anti-Israel NGO...Read More |
The Alma Research and Education Center, which normally does original intelligence analysis of threats on Israel's northern border, takes a look at Israel's bombing of the Al Jalaa towers that housed several media outlets including AP and Al Jazeera. The roof of the building had a stunning amount of antennas and dishes there: This is not normal for a media building. These are sophisticated military intelligence gathering tools.
The IDF at the time of the bombing announced that it "contained military assets belonging to Hamas military intelligence." The array of equipment visible indicates that this is an understatement.
Analyst Tal Beeri notes that a week before the bombing, Israel asked that residents of communities near Gaza turn off and disconnect all home security cameras they have inside and outside their houses.
The only reason that makes sense is if Hamas has a way of intercepting the video signals (whether by direct access to the camera or through wi-fi) from miles away, which is certainly possible, especially if the signal is unobstructed - Gaza towers could easily have a direct line of sight into Israeli communities.
Beeri takes an educated guess that Hamas used the building to grab video signals to effectively turn security cameras into their own spy equipment to see where they can plan drone attacks or kidnap attempts.
He says, "The Hamas military intelligence...Read More |
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