# 14 Nov 12:  Israel Launches Operations in Gaza



## muskrat89

Couldn't find an "Israel Superthread"...

Lots of stuff going on in the Mideast

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/14/us-palestinians-israel-hamas-idUSBRE8AD0WP20121114

http://freebeacon.com/its-war/

http://freebeacon.com/iran-mounts-massive-drills/

http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=291816

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-military-chief-ahmed-jabari-killed-by-israeli-strike.premium-1.477819


----------



## ModlrMike

Well, that's going to drive Rabble.ca insane!  >


----------



## medicineman

ModlrMike said:
			
		

> Well, that's going to drive Rabble.ca insane!  >



Can't make them worse than they already are...oops, inside voice  ;D

MM


----------



## Edward Campbell

The IDF says:


----------



## The Bread Guy

And if you want to follow the latest via the IDF's blog ....
http://www.idfblog.com/2012/11/14/live-updates-idf-terror-targets-gaza/


----------



## gun runner

I wonder if this will explode into a regional conflict, instead of a Syrian civil war. This is gonna get crazy.


----------



## GAP

Maybe Hamas at the bequest of Iran and Syria are purposely stiring things up....if Isreal can be taunted into a massive response, focus is taken off of Assad's plight....


----------



## jollyjacktar

ModlrMike said:
			
		

> Well, that's going to drive Rabble.ca insane!  >


Just went there to have a peek at the site.  They've mis-named it.  It should be called "HardwareStore.ca", because I've never seen such a massive  collection of tools in one place.   :facepalm:


----------



## Edward Campbell

The wire services are reporting that the Israeli Ambassador to Egypt is leaving Cairo; he was called in by the foreign ministry for the (usual) condemnation and, for unknown reasons, is returning to Jerusalem. It does not appear that he is being expelled, nor that he is being, formally, withdrawn, but it's not a good sign.


----------



## Edward Campbell

And, same source: Egypt is recaling its Ambassador to Israel. Now, in diplomatic terms, that is serious.


----------



## jollyjacktar

Gun camera footage of strike in story.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232937/Israeli-airstrike-kills-Hamas-military-chief-Gaza-sparking-fears-new-war.html


----------



## Retired AF Guy

What most commentators are missing is the amazing intelligence collection the Israeli's are capable of; even in the heart of enemy territory. The Israeli's knew what type of vehicle Jabri was driving, where he was going to be and what time he would driving down such and such street.  

One comment. Watched the video of the strike that took out Jabri. I didn't see any missile/bomb streaking in to hit the vehicle. Plus, it wasn't a really big explosion, not what you would normally expect from a PGM or Hellfire missile; possible car bomb?? Just speculating.


----------



## 57Chevy

With thanks to Google and wikipedia and shared with usual provisions:

Operation Pillar of Cloud
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pillar_of_Cloud


----------



## Edward Campbell

Retired AF Guy said:
			
		

> What most commentators are missing is the amazing intelligence collection the Israeli's are capable of; even in the heart of enemy territory. The Israeli's knew what type of vehicle Jabri was driving, where he was going to be and what time he would driving down such and such street.
> ...




Also not commented upon is the Arab/Hamas _treachery_ which gives Israeli intelligence such priceless information. Every Arab (and Persian and West Asian and North African) leader ~ president or terrorist, king or usurper, must go to bed every night wondering which of his inner circle is betraying him, right now, to the hated Israelis ... _Paranoia!__  :nod:_


----------



## Nemo888

Are the attacks on Gaza meant to be a message to Obama? The timing is a bit suspicious.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Are the attacks on Gaza meant to be a message to Obama? The timing is a bit suspicious.




Obama's emerging foreign policy towards the Middle East is just collateral damage, I think. Jabari was always a high priority target and my guess is that when a clear shot was available the political considerations were near zero. It's no secret that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dislikes President Obama and mistrusts his policy intentions but Israel still needs American support - military, diplomatic and political - for its longer term programme.

My guess is that Israel actually welcomes renewed hostilities with Hamas, and not just because they finally got Ahmed Jabari; Israel wants the US led West to accept its view that Gaza is not a Palestinian _province_, populated by "innocent civilians," rather it is a huge military base, where many civilians live and work, from which attacks are launched against Israel. Israel would like to turn Gaza into a modern day Carthage - an Israeli place which, like ancient Carthage under the Romans, can be rehabilitated into a thriving, Jewish, seaport and region.


----------



## 57Chevy

Exactly ER    (* ref your reply #13)
Sometimes the friends of your enemy are also friendly with some of your friends.
Intel in that area can never be considered futile.



			
				Retired AF Guy said:
			
		

> possible car bomb??



From whatever it is in the video that is flying almost straight up from the point of detonation,
I would say more than likely. 
I also think that it was possibly detonated remotely from either one or both of those two white vans seen in the footage.
The timing is incredible.


* poured myself a coffee


----------



## Edward Campbell

An interesting graphic from the IDF (via _Google+_):


----------



## The Bread Guy

57Chevy said:
			
		

> With thanks to Google and wikipedia and shared with usual provisions:
> 
> Operation Pillar of Cloud
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pillar_of_Cloud


While the IDF English-language blog calls the Op "Pillar of Defence" - more on multi-naming and Biblical references therein here at zenpundit.com.


----------



## Edward Campbell

According to _YNet_, an Israeli online news source, Home Front Command asks local authorities to prepare for seven-week fighting period: "In discussions held between Home Front Command Chief Major-General Eyal Eisenberg, regional commanders and heads of local authorities in the center and in the south, authorities have been instructed to prepare for a seven-week period of combat as part of Operation Pillar of Defense and to prepare emergency supplies, accordingly."

Seven weeks would take us about the end of the year 2012, by our calendar.


----------



## medicineman

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Seven weeks would take us about the end of the year 2012, by our calendar.



Cue theme to "The Twilight Zone"...

MM


----------



## Edward Campbell

And, from _Reuters_: "Defence Minister Ehud Barak will seek cabinet approval for funds that could provide Israel with three new Iron Dome rocket interceptors ... Israel's military air defence corps has four Iron Dome batteries deployed and will receive a fifth from state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd after Barak rushed its production ... [Barak will] ask the cabinet to earmark 750 million shekels ($190 million) for expanding the Iron Dome program ... [Iron Dome] has shot down 192 such missiles since fighting flared up on Wednesday."


----------



## Haletown

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Seven weeks would take us about the end of the year 2012, by our calendar.



If Israel cuts off the land borders there will be  a severe reduction in food, fuel and other supplies going into Gaza and I would think the Israelis would stop all Gaza workers who cross the border and earn their paychecks in Israel.

Seven weeks  would likely be more than enough time to put some severe pressure on Hamas, both militarily and on the population they exploit.


----------



## Edward Campbell

The pressure on Israel - diplomatic, political and economic - to accept a ceasefire and something akin to the _status quo ant_ will be enormous. US President Obama will be one of the ones applying the most pressure. Israel's defence budget is, generally, around 9% of GDP (Canada's is less than 1.5%) and about $15 Billion (Canada's is about $25 Billion). $3 Billion of Israel's defence budget comes from the USA in direct, albeit tied, aid. 

But, and it is a HUGE BUT, a disproportionate share of cutting edge defence R&D is done in Israel: _waaaaay_ more, _per capita_, than in the USA, Germany or France, likely more, _per capita_, again, than in all three combined. So Israel has a lever ... bigger brains.


----------



## 57Chevy

How Israel's "Iron Dome" rocket system works

and works well too..

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/85055.0.html


----------



## Edward Campbell

The _War of the Tweets_ is, actually, interesting; this, from the IDF:

"We've targeted 2 senior Hamas operatives: Muhammad Abu-Jalal, company commander in central #Gaza, & Khaled Shah'yer, chief missile operator"

Now I'm sure these guys know they are targets but it is interesting that the IDF tells the whole world. I think the background message is: "We are, carefully, selecting the real bad guys; we plan to kill them; we don't aim at women and kids - but Hamas hides behind them."


----------



## Edward Campbell

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> According to _YNet_, an Israeli online news source, Home Front Command asks local authorities to prepare for seven-week fighting period: "In discussions held between Home Front Command Chief Major-General Eyal Eisenberg, regional commanders and heads of local authorities in the center and in the south, authorities have been instructed to prepare for a seven-week period of combat as part of Operation Pillar of Defense and to prepare emergency supplies, accordingly."
> 
> Seven weeks would take us about the end of the year 2012, by our calendar.




And the _Globe and Mail_ reports that: "The Israeli cabinet on Friday night gave its green light for the recruitment of up to 75,000 reservists, Channel 2 television said, amid signs that Israel was gearing up for a ground offensive in Gaza ... in practice, it means that up to 75,000 reserve soldiers can be drafted into action by the military at any point."


----------



## Edward Campbell

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the _New York Times_, is an interesting analysis of the current conflict:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/world/middleeast/israel-sticks-to-tough-approach-in-conflict-with-hamas.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0


> As Battlefield Changes, Israel Takes Tougher Approach
> 
> By ETHAN BRONNER
> 
> Published: November 16, 2012
> 
> TEL AVIV — With rockets landing on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday and the Egyptian prime minister making a solidarity visit to Gaza, the accelerating conflict between Israel and Hamas — reminiscent in many ways of so many previous battles — has the makings of a new kind of Israeli-Palestinian face-off.
> 
> The combination of longer-range and far deadlier rockets in the hands of more radicalized Palestinians, the arrival in Gaza and Sinai from North Africa of other militants pressuring Hamas to fight more, and the growing tide of anti-Israel fury in a region where authoritarian rulers have been replaced by Islamists means that Israel is engaging in this conflict with a different set of challenges.
> 
> The Middle East of 2012 is not what it was in late 2008, the last time Israel mounted a military invasion to reduce the rocket threat from Gaza. Many analysts and diplomats outside Israel say the country today needs a different approach to Hamas and the Palestinians based more on acknowledging historic grievances and shifting alliances.
> 
> “As long as the crime of dispossession and refugeehood that was committed against the Palestinian people in 1947-48 is not redressed through a peaceful and just negotiation that satisfies the legitimate rights of both sides, we will continue to see enhancements in both the determination and the capabilities of Palestinian fighters — as has been the case since the 1930s, in fact,” Rami G. Khouri, a professor at the American University of Beirut, wrote in an online column. “Only stupid or ideologically maniacal Zionists fail to come to terms with this fact.”
> 
> But the government in Israel and the vast majority of its people have drawn a very different conclusion. Their dangerous neighborhood is growing still more dangerous, they agree. That means not concessions, but being tougher in pursuit of deterrence, and abandoning illusions that a Jewish state will ever be broadly accepted here.
> 
> “There is a theory, which I believe, that Hamas doesn’t want a peaceful solution and only wants to keep the conflict going forever until somehow in their dream they will have all of Israel,” Eitan Ben Eliyahu, a former leader of the Israeli Air Force, said in a telephone briefing. “There is a good chance we will go into Gaza on the ground again.”
> 
> What is striking in listening to the Israelis discuss their predicament is how similar the debate sounds to so many previous ones, despite the changed geopolitical circumstances. In most minds here, the changes do not demand a new strategy, simply a redoubled old one.
> 
> The operative metaphor is often described as “cutting the grass,” meaning a task that must be performed regularly and has no end. There is no solution to security challenges, officials here say, only delays and deterrence. That is why the idea of one day attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, even though such an attack would set the nuclear program back only two years, is widely discussed as a reasonable option. That is why frequent raids in the West Bank and surveillance flights over Lebanon never stop.
> 
> And that is why this week’s operation in Gaza is widely viewed as having been inevitable, another painful but necessary maintenance operation that, officials here say, will doubtless not be the last.
> 
> There are also those who believe that the regional upheavals are improving Israel’s ability to carry out deterrence. One retired general who remains close to the military and who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that with Syria torn apart by civil war, Hezbollah in Lebanon discredited because of its support for the Syrian government, and Egypt so weakened economically, Israel should not worry about anything but protecting its civilians.
> 
> “Should we let our civilians be bombed because the Arab world is in trouble?” he asked.
> 
> So much was happening elsewhere in the region — the Egyptian and Libyan revolutions, the Syrian civil war, dramatic changes in Yemen and elections in Tunisia — that a few rockets a day that sent tens of thousands of Israeli civilians into bomb shelters drew little attention. But in the Israeli view, the necessity of a Gaza operation has been growing steadily throughout the Arab Spring turmoil.
> 
> In 2009, after the Israeli invasion pushed Hamas back and killed about 1,400 people in Gaza, 200 rockets hit Israel. The same was true in 2010. But last year the number rose to 600, and before this week the number this year was 700, according to the Israeli military. The problem went beyond rockets to mines planted near the border aimed at Israeli military jeeps and the digging of explosive-filled tunnels.
> 
> “In 2008 we managed to minimize rocket fire from Gaza significantly,” said Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman. “We started that year with 100 rockets a week and ended it with two a week. We were able to give people in our south two to three years. But the grass has grown, and other things have as well. Different jihadist ideologies have found their way into Gaza, including quite a few terrorist organizations. More weapons have come in, including the Fajr-5, which is Iranian made and can hit Tel Aviv. That puts nearly our entire population in range. So we reached a point where we cannot act with restraint any longer.”
> 
> Gazans see events in a very different light. The problem, they say, comes from Israel: Israeli drones fill the Gazan skies, Israeli gunboats strafe their waters, Palestinian militants are shot at from the air, and the Gaza border areas are declared off limits by Israel with the risk of death from Israeli gunfire.
> 
> But there is little dissent in Israel about the Gaza policy. This week leaders of the leftist opposition praised the assassination of Ahmed al-Jabari, the Hamas military commander, on Wednesday. He is viewed here as the equivalent of Osama bin Laden. The operation could go on for many days before there is any real dissent.
> 
> The question here, nonetheless, is whether the changed regional circumstances will make it harder to “cut the grass” in Gaza this time and get out. A former top official who was actively involved in the last Gaza war and who spoke on the condition of anonymity said it looked to him as if Hamas would not back down as easily this time.
> 
> “They will not stop until enough Israelis are killed or injured to create a sense of equality or balance,” he said. “If a rocket falls in the middle of Tel Aviv, that will be a major success. But this government will go back at them hard. I don’t see this ending in the next day or two.”
> 
> _A version of this article appeared in print on November 17, 2012, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Israel, Battlefield Altered, Takes a Tougher Approach._



_____
From the New York Tiomes:

*Ethan Bronner*, the national legal affairs correspondent, was the Jerusalem bureau chief for The Times from 2008 to 2012, following four years as the newspaper’s deputy foreign editor. Mr. Bronner has also served as assistant editorial page editor of The Times and worked in the paper’s investigative unit, focusing on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

A graduate of the College of Letters at Wesleyan University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Mr. Bronner began his journalism career at Reuters in 1980, reporting from London, Madrid, Brussels and Jerusalem. He worked at The Boston Globe for a dozen years, four of them as its legal and Supreme Court correspondent.

He is the author of “Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America,” which was named one of the best 25 books of 1989 by The New York Public Library and awarded a Silver Gavel by the American Bar Association. Mr. Bronner is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former trustee of Wesleyan University.
     


I certainly agree that the _strategic geography_ in the region (North Africa, Middle East and West Asia) has changed, beyond that I'm not sure I understand what Israel might want to do next, much less why.

I, personally, tend to share the Israeli view that Gaza is not a "normal" place - a province or region - it is, rather, a military base or, at least, something akin to the _Ruhrgebiet_ in 1943. In 1943 the allies undertook a bombing campaign that aimed to cause massive damage, including the deaths of civilian workers in the arms factories. One wonders if the Israelis plan to do something similar ~ a "bomb 'em back into the stone age" sort of thing, or, perhaps to try to drive the people out of Gaza ... into where? Egypt?

For Israel the only real "solutions" to Gaza are:

1. Conquer the place, annex it, drive out the Muslims and repopulate it with Jews - a sort of _Chinese_ solution; or

2. Secure a real, lasting peace with its immediate neighbours: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and a Palestinian State.


----------



## jollyjacktar

If solution # 1 was attempted, it would be I fear, a disaster.  For at least b attempting it, Israel would become instantly a world wide Pariah to most states and a military response from the Arab world would be forthcoming.  I don't know if they would want to go down that path.

Solution # 2 would be the best, however, that too seems to not be in the direction they (some person(s) on both sides of issue) want to travel at this time.  Therefore, I suspect this will bubble over for a bit and subside once again with plenty of finger pointing, name calling and continued bad blood to go around.


----------



## BrendenDias

I do not believe Israel could negotiate peace with the surrounding countries. Hatred has been a reality over religion for hundreds and hundreds of years, and it will likely continue...


----------



## Edward Campbell

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _CBS News_, is a report on operations thus far:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57551501/israel-bombards-gaza-strip-shoots-down-rocket/


> Israel bombards Gaza Strip, shoots down rocket
> 
> GAZA CITY, GAZA STRIP Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with about 300 airstrikes Saturday and shot down a Palestinian rocket fired at Tel Aviv, the military said, widening a blistering assault to include the Hamas prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.
> 
> The intensified airstrikes came as Egyptian-led attempts to broker a cease-fire and end Israel's four-day-old Gaza offensive gained momentum. The leaders of Hamas and two key allies, Qatar and Turkey, were in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials, and the Arab League was holding an emergency meeting.
> 
> The White House said President Barack Obama was also in touch with the Egyptian and Turkish leaders. The U.S. has solidly backed Israel so far.
> 
> Speaking on Air Force One, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said that the White House believes Israel "has the right to defend itself" against attack and that the Israelis will make their own decisions about their "military tactics and operations."
> 
> The Israeli attacks, which Gaza officials say left 12 dead, came as Palestinian militants fired more than 100 rockets toward Israel, including two aimed at the commercial and cultural center of Tel Aviv. Rocket attacks on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem this week mark the first time Gaza militants have managed to fire rockets toward the cities, raising the stakes in the confrontation.
> 
> The widened scope of targets brings the scale of fighting closer to that of the war the two groups waged four years ago. Hamas was badly bruised during that conflict, but has since restocked its arsenal with more and better weapons, and has been under pressure from smaller, more militant groups to prove its commitment to fighting Israel.
> 
> Militants have unleashed some 500 rockets against the Jewish state.
> 
> Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports that, despite vague talk of a cease-fire, Hamas managed to hit a southern Israeli city with four rockets, and retaliation continued unabated.
> 
> A massive explosion rocked the Gaza City soccer stadium this morning and speculation was that the target was a rocket launching site. The Israeli bombing campaign expanded into other areas and included the government infrastructure. The cabinet headquarters was flattened.
> 
> There were reports of civilians among the casualties. At least half of the Palestinians killed in the conflict so far have been civilians, including at least eight children and a pregnant woman.
> 
> In a psychological boost for the Israelis, a sophisticated Israeli rocket-defense system known as "Iron Dome" knocked down one of the rockets headed toward Tel Aviv, eliciting cheers from relieved residents huddled in fear after air raid sirens sounded in the city.
> 
> Associated Press video showed a plume of smoke rising from a rocket-defense battery deployed near the city, followed by a burst of light overhead. The smoke trailed the intercepting missile.
> 
> Police said a second rocket also targeted Tel Aviv. It was not clear where it landed or whether it was shot down. No injuries were reported. It was the third straight day the city was targeted.
> 
> Israel says the Iron Dome system has shot down some 250 incoming rockets, most of them in southern Israel near Gaza.
> 
> Saturday's interception was the first time Iron Dome has been deployed in Tel Aviv. The battery was a new upgraded version that was only activated on Saturday, two months ahead of schedule, officials said.
> 
> Israel opened the offensive on Wednesday with a surprising airstrike that killed Hamas' military chief, then attacked dozens of rocket launchers and storage sites. It says the offensive is meant to halt months of rocket fire on southern Israel.
> 
> While Israel claims to be inflicting heavy damage on Gaza's Hamas rulers, it has failed to slow the rocket fire. In all, 42 Palestinians, including 13 civilians, have been killed, while three Israeli civilians have died.
> 
> Maj. Gen. Tal Russo, Israel's southern commander, said Saturday that Hamas had suffered a tough blow.
> 
> "Most of their capabilities have been destroyed," he told reporters. Asked whether Israel is ready to send ground troops into Gaza, he said: "Absolutely."
> 
> Israel has authorized the call-up of as many as 75,000 reservists ahead of a possible ground operation. Dozens of armored vehicles have massed along the border with Gaza in recent days.
> 
> Israeli officials say they have not yet decided whether to send in ground troops, a decision that would almost certainly lead to heavy casualties on both sides.
> 
> Hamas claims that Israeli intelligence is based on a network of collaborators in Gaza. Officials said two Palestinians have been executed by Hamas' military wing for allegedly providing Israel with sensitive information. One man was shot twice in the head. Another body was tossed into a garbage bin with a gunshot wound to the head.
> 
> The violence has threatened the Mideast with a new war. At the same time, revolts against entrenched regional regimes have opened up new possibilities for Hamas. Islamists across the Mideast have been strengthened, bringing newfound recognition to Hamas, which had previously been shunned by the international community because of its refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence.
> 
> A high-level Tunisian delegation, led by Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem, drove that point home with a visit to Gaza on Saturday. The foreign minister's first stop was the still-smoldering ruins of the three-story office building of Gaza's prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.
> 
> "Israel has to understand that there is an international law and it has to respect the international law to stop the aggression against the Palestinian people," Abdessalem told the AP during a tour of Gaza's main hospital. He said his country was doing whatever it can to promote a cease-fire, but did not elaborate.
> 
> It was the first official Tunisian visit since Hamas's violent 2007 takeover of the territory. The West Bank is governed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Egypt's prime minister visited Gaza on Friday and a Moroccan delegation was due on Sunday, following a landmark visit by Qatar's leader last month.
> 
> Israel had been incrementally expanding its operation beyond military targets but before dawn on Saturday it ramped that up dramatically, hitting Hamas symbols of power.
> 
> Israeli defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential decisions, said military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz personally ordered the scope of the airstrikes to be increased.
> 
> Haniyeh's three-story office building was flattened by an airstrike that blew out windows in neighboring homes. He was not inside the building at the time.
> 
> Another airstrike brought down the three-story home of a Hamas commander in the Jebaliya refugee camp near Gaza City, critically wounding him and injuring other residents of the building, medics said.
> 
> Missiles smashed into two small security facilities and the massive Hamas police headquarters in Gaza City, setting off a huge blaze that engulfed nearby houses and civilian cars parked outside, the Interior Ministry reported. No one was inside the buildings.
> 
> The Interior Ministry said a government compound was also hit while devout Muslims streamed to the area for early morning prayers, although no casualties were reported.
> 
> Air attacks knocked out five electricity transformers, cutting off power to more than 400,000 people in southern Gaza, according to the Gaza electricity distribution company. People switched on backup generators for limited electrical supplies.
> 
> In southern Gaza, aircraft went after underground tunnels militants use to smuggle in weapons and other contraband from Egypt, residents reported. A huge explosion in the area sent buildings shuddering in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, 30 miles away, an Associated Press correspondent there reported.
> 
> The Israeli military said more than 950 targets have been struck since the operation began.
> 
> On Saturday, more than 120 rockets slammed into Israel, causing damage to houses. About 10 Israelis were injured lightly, among dozens of others wounded since the start of the operation.
> 
> Despite the violence, Egyptian-led diplomacy was underway to bring an end to the fighting.
> 
> Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was meeting the leaders of Turkey and Qatar Saturday as well as Hamas leader Khaled Meshal to discuss details of a proposed cease-fire.
> 
> The Arab League also met Saturday to consider sending its chief Nabil Elaraby and a team of foreign ministers to Gaza in the coming two days to assess the situation and respond to humanitarian needs there, according to a draft memorandum obtained by the AP.
> 
> Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters Saturday that during discussions with Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin late Friday, he suggested that Turkey, Egypt, the United States and Russia help broker a simultaneous cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
> 
> "It would be good if we could work on it rapidly to solve the matter within 24 hours, because the death toll is mounting," he said.




You know that tomorrow half three quarters of the preachers in Christendom will condemn the Israelis as 21st century Nazis who are oppressing the innocent Palestinians.






We, most of us in the Christian West, see
Israel this way

I think both jollyjacktar and BrendedDias are correct: neither of the two "solutions" I proposed are achievable. To begin, Israeli domestic public opinion makes the _Chinese solution_ impossible. Further Israel does not want to occupy Gaza: the last thing it needs is responsibility for more Palestinians. There is no real gain for the neighbouring states in making peace with Israel. Nor, for that matter, is there any gain for the Arab neighbours in helping the Palestinians in any meaningful way. (Many years ago an old chum, a Brit with many, many years in region explained to me that "the Palestinians are the other Arabs what the Jews were to Europeans a couple of generations ago." The Arabs, he said, wanted to make believe they were all _noble sons of the desert_ ~ brave and good. The Palestinians, in their views, were _town Arabs_, second class citizens - down upon whom the make believe _desert Arabs_ looked from the balconies of their luxury urban apartments! The Palestinians were and still are the best educated, most _productive_ people in North Africa and the Middle East: they teach school, heal the sick, build bridges and manage the money from the Gulf _sheikdoms_ to Libya ~ the _Jews_ of the Middle East.)

So what should Israel do?

Punish Gaza? For how long and to what end? Will destroying Gaza really harm Hamas? I don't think so: it, Hamas, is a _hydra_, when you cut off one head two grow back. Further, as the bombardment of Gaza increases so, too, does the flow of money from Christendom into Hams' bank accounts in Europe.

I don't have any good ideas.  :-\


----------



## Retired AF Guy

My solution to the problem is; "_Build a big wall around the place, let them go at. Whoever is left standing at the end is the winner." _


----------



## jeffb

BrendenDias said:
			
		

> I do not believe Israel could negotiate peace with the surrounding countries. Hatred has been a reality over religion for hundreds and hundreds of years, and it will likely continue...



The same could be true of Europe prior to the Second World War. Constant fighting for centuries there.


----------



## BrendenDias

Isreal will definitely not just simply lay down either. Does anyone remember Egypt's attempt to attack Israel in it's numerous amounts of attempts? Israel utterly shut down Egypt on every occasion, extremely well. They know how to fight, and win. They have great tanks, their well known "Israeli Commandos," and the pure instinct they have had forever, which is to endure whatever is coming to them. 
This has happened a lot, but all that really needs to happen, is for Iran to get involved to cause a major uproar along the nuclear lines, which will involve USA, and us of course.
What a predicament.


----------



## tomahawk6

The Israelis wont enter Gaza without degrading the Hamas defenses. Hamas has fired over 200 rockets at Israel most intercepted by Iron Dome. I doubt Egypt will go to war to help Hamas,but maybe they will.


----------



## Edward Campbell

The propaganda was is being waged at the speed of light and the Palestinians and their allies and supporters are good at it. Consider this:






By the way, I'm not suggesting, not even for a nanosecond, that the Israelis are not, with equal skill, manipulating public opinion, too.


----------



## Sadukar09

http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.php?showtopic=36869

Excellent photos of IDF armoured units mobilizing.


----------



## Edward Campbell

The _Straits Times_ is reporting that President Obama (currently in Bangkok) says that while _"Israel had a right to defend itself but ... it would be "preferable" to avoid an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza."_ Such _avoidance_, President Obama said, _"would depend on the success of efforts by Middle East leaders to bring a halt to Hamas rocket fire into Israel."_

I wonder if the Egyptian prime minister and Arab League delegates are telling Hamas in Gaza to cease firing on Israel; if they are, I wonder is Hamas is listening.  :-\


----------



## Old Sweat

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> The _Straits Times_ is reporting that President Obama (currently in Bangkok) says that while _"Israel had a right to defend itself but ... it would be "preferable" to avoid an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza."_ Such _avoidance_, President Obama said, _"would depend on the success of efforts by Middle East leaders to bring a halt to Hamas rocket fire into Israel."_
> 
> I wonder if the Egyptian prime minister and Arab League delegates are telling Hamas in Gaza to cease firing on Israel; if they are, I wonder is Hamas is listening.  :-\


The question is from the point of view of Hamas what advanatage would they see coming from a cease fire?


----------



## Edward Campbell

My guess, and maybe I'm _waaaaay_ overthinking this, is that Arab neighbours are quite content to see Israel hammering Gaza/Hamas. Even though some Arab states are more _fundamentalist_ than they were a year or two ago, none are as extreme as Hamas and many have good reason to fear the influence of Hamas and, even worse, Hezbollah ~ which one an Arab leader fears more depends upon his own place in the Sunni <> Shi'a conflict.

For years some Israelis have promoted the idea that Egypt should occupy and "secure" Gaza (and maybe Jordan should do the same to the West Bank) as part of a long standing proposal that an eventual _Palestinian State_ should be _disarmed_ and "defended" (AKA occupied) by _moderate_ Arab neighbours.


----------



## Old Sweat

In the meantime Hamas continues to score propaganda and public opinion points every time the Israelis fire into Gaza. Forget about all the outgoing rockets; the media largely has. There may be intense diplomatic pressure on both sides to agree to a cease fire, but it only will be a matter of time before it is broken again.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Old Sweat said:
			
		

> In the meantime Hamas continues to score propaganda and public opinion points every time the Israelis fire into Gaza. Forget about all the outgoing rockets; the media largely has. There may be intense diplomatic pressure on both sides to agree to a cease fire, but it only will be a matter of time before it is broken again.




Right: the _Twitterverse_ is very active with reports like this, from a BBC correspondent: *"#Israel has bombed the homes of at least 7 Hamas officials today. Several civilians have also been killed, many of them children."* It's all true but it is also _slanted_. Was it wrong, I wonder, that we killed children in Italy in 1943/44 and NWE in 1944/45? Or is it only "wrong" when Israelis (Jews) kill Palestinians (gentiles)?


----------



## Haletown

Israel can keep up the air campaign for a long time, Hamas will run out of missiles, or at least long range ones and the people in Gaza will see their civic infrastructure crumble.

I doubt Israel will do any sustained ground campaign. Maybe some small armour heavy incursions into specific areas where there is a military target, but they will likely stay far away from civil areas.  Bombs are much better for the targets Hamas embeds among their people.

Keep bombing the tunnels and border areas, keep targeting the Hamas leadership, keep bombing launching sites and magazines.  Egypt won't likely do anything other than talk - that nation is almost broke and is running out of food and the money to import more if it.  The rest of the Arab world couldn't care less about Palestinians because they are so supported and tied to the Iranians. Arabs hate Persians more than they hate Jews and a bunch of suffering Palestinians takes the focus off the real Arab-on-Arab genocide in Syria, civil unrest in Bahrain and Mass protests against the King in Jordan.

Such a lovely place the the Middle East.  No wonder there has never been extended peace in the region.  In the long game, Israel is very happy to have the unrest in the Arab world festering and occasionally boiling over.  As long as they are hating and killing each other, Israel has a more peaceful time.


----------



## Edward Campbell

_Stratfor's_ George Friedman weighs in in this article on potential negotiations which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the _Stratfor_ website:

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/pause-negotiations-israeli-hamas-conflict


> A Pause for Negotiations in the Israeli-Hamas Conflict
> 
> By George Friedman
> 
> November 18, 2012
> 
> The Israeli-Hamas conflict has entered into a negotiation phase. Both sides want talks. Hamas wants them because any outcome that prevents an Israeli ground assault gives it the opportunity to retain some of its arsenal of Fajr-5 rockets; the Israelis want them because the cost of an invasion could be high, and they recall the political fallout of Operation Cast Lead in 2008, which alienated many European and other governments.
> 
> No matter how much either side might want to avoid ground warfare, negotiations are unlikely to forestall an Israeli assault because Hamas' and Israel's goals leave little middle ground.
> 
> One of Hamas' main goals in this current round of fighting is to retain enough Fajr-5 rockets to allow it to threaten the Israeli heartland, the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor. If they succeed, Hamas will have gained a significant lever in its relations with the Israelis. The Israeli goal is to deny Hamas these rockets. The problem for the Israelis is that this requires a ground assault in order to have any chance of success. The Israelis may think they know where the rockets are, but they cannot be certain. Airstrikes can target known facilities, at least those where rockets are not stored in hardened underground bunkers. But only by going in on the ground with substantial force will the Israelis have the opportunity to search for and destroy the rockets.
> 
> Finding middle ground will be difficult. The retention of the Fajr-5 both dramatically improves Hamas' strategic position and gives Hamas the chance to further weaken the Palestinian National Authority. Hamas cannot agree to any deal that takes the rockets away -- or that does not at least leave open the possibility that it could have them. Meanwhile, Israel simply cannot live with the Fajr-5 in the hands of Hamas.
> 
> Lack of International Involvement
> 
> It is interesting to note the remarkable indifference of most countries that normally rush to mediate such disputes, the United States chief among them. Washington has essentially endorsed the Israeli position so strongly that it has no option to mediate. The Turks, who had been involved with the Gaza issue during the flotilla incident of May 2010, have taken no steps beyond rhetoric in spite of relations with both Hamas and Israel. The Saudis have also avoided getting involved.
> 
> The Egyptians have been the most active in trying to secure a cease fire: Beyond sending their prime minister into Gaza on Nov. 16, as well as their intelligence chief and a group of security officials, Cairo then hosted a delegation of senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad members to further this goal. But while the Egyptians have a great interest in preventing an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza and are crucial to the Israeli imperative to prevent weapons smuggling via Gaza, there is little more they can do at present to mediate between the two sides.
> 
> If no one seems to want to serve as mediator, it is because there is such little room for negotiation. It is not ideology but strategy that locks each side into place. Hamas has come this far and does not want to give up what it has maneuvered for. Israel cannot allow Hamas a weapon that threatens the Israeli heartland. This situation is too serious for the parties to reach an agreement that ends the hostilities for now but in reality simply pushes back the issues to be addressed later. No one is eager to mediate a failure. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has said he will go to Gaza in the coming week, but he will not be in a position to find middle ground.
> 
> Israel will not budge on this. Hamas could be compelled to relent under threat from its core financial supporters in the Arabian Peninsula, but these states, such as Qatar, are all far more concerned with the threat posed by Iran. The fact that these rockets likely originated with Iran ought to give them incentive to lean on Hamas.
> 
> Dubious Prospects for Negotiations
> 
> It is important to bear in mind that the war is already under way. Israeli airstrikes are intense and continuous. Hamas is firing rockets at Israel. What has not yet happened is a direct ground attack on Gaza by the Israelis, although they have been mobilizing forces and should now be in a position to attack if they so choose. But the Israelis would much rather not attack. They fear the consequences -- measured both in human casualties and in political fallout -- that would certainly follow.
> 
> Thus, both sides want a negotiated end on terms that would leave the other side in an impossible position. While Hamas might be able to live with the status quo, Israel cannot. A negotiated end is therefore unlikely. Still, both sides are signaling their willingness to talk, and however forlorn the possibilities, there is a chance that something could be arranged.
> 
> We remain of the opinion that this current pause will be followed by a ground assault. Only by expanding the discussion beyond the Fajr-5 to a broader settlement of Hamas-Israeli issues could these negotiations succeed, but that would require Hamas recognizing Israel's right to exist and Israel accepting the equivalent of a Palestinian state run by Hamas in Gaza -- one that might spread its power to the West Bank. The more expansive the terms of these negotiations get, the more dubious their prospects for success -- and these negotiations start off fairly dubious as it is.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Here are two article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _Foreign Affairs_; the first deals with the nature of the operation from Israel's point of view and it concludes with a recommendation that the US press Egypt's President Morsi to borker a deal; the second with a possible outline of that brokered peace:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138432/daniel-byman/israels-gamble-in-gaza?page=show


> Israel's Gamble in Gaza
> *The Perils of Operation Pillar of Defense*
> 
> Daniel Byman
> 
> November 15, 2012
> 
> Israel's latest campaign in Gaza, which began on Wednesday with the killing of Hamas' military commander, Ahmed Jabari, and air strikes on the group's long-range rocket launchers, is a gamble -- and one that Israel might lose. Its goal is to compel Hamas to stop shooting rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip and to crack down on other groups who are also doing so. Hamas, however, will find it hard to bend to Israeli pressure. In turn, it will be up to outside states, particularly Egypt, to foster a deal to end the fighting.
> 
> After Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli incursion into Gaza in 2008-2009 that resulted in over 1,000 Palestinian deaths and tremendous destruction, relations between Hamas and Israel wavered uneasily between hostility and tacit cooperation. True, Hamas' rhetoric toward Israel remained hostile, but the number of rockets that went over the border plunged and most of them were launched not by Hamas, but by more radical groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hamas feared that launching large numbers of rockets would prompt Israel to again retaliate harshly and devastate Gaza, thus jeopardizing Hamas' political position there. At times, the group even tried to restrain its uncomfortable bedfellows. Indeed, although Hamas and Israel would both deny it, their interests were often aligned. As Aluf Benn, one of Israel's leading analysts, put it after Jabari's death, "Ahmed Jabari was a subcontractor, in charge of maintaining Israel's security in Gaza."
> 
> But Jabari's first allegiance, of course, was to Hamas. And, over time, Hamas became increasingly accepting of attacks on Israel. As the memory of Cast Lead faded, the number of attacks coming from Gaza began to rise once more. Israel claims that over 200 rockets struck the country in 2010. The number climbed to over 600 in 2011. And 2012 has seen even more -- over 800 before the current operation began. Most of these attacks came from other Palestinian groups, but more recently Hamas seemed to take a more active role in the violence, openly tolerating other groups' gambits and carrying out some strikes itself.
> 
> By this week, those attacks had "made normal life impossible for over one million Israelis," as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained on Thursday. And so he and his government are again pounding Hamas in an attempt to restore the post-Cast Lead status quo, in which Hamas polices both itself and the rest of the strip. So far, Operation Pillar of Defense, as Israel calls it, has resulted in the deaths of 18 Palestinians (of whom roughly half were civilians). Hamas' response has killed three Israelis.
> 
> No single attack forced Israel to respond. In theory, it could have chosen not to. But the steady increase in rocket fire over the last few years had become politically intolerable for the Netanyahu government. With national elections approaching in January, his administration seemed unable to carry out perhaps government's most basic function: protecting citizens from violence. In addition, although Israel's political and security leaders might recognize the difference, ordinary Israelis simply did not care whether Hamas launched attacks itself or simply did not stop others from doing so. In other words, it was time to take out Hamas or else risk being taken out of office.
> 
> By launching this operation, Israel has resorted to its time-honored strategy of holding the government (or in Hamas' case, de facto government) that hosts militants responsible for the actions of the militants themselves. The approach has had some successes: in Jordan in 1970, Israel pressured Amman to instigate a bloody civil war against the country's Palestinian militants, eventually crushing them. But in Lebanon later in the same decade, Israel tried the same thing, with much worse results. The Lebanese government was too weak to crack down on terrorist activity in its borders and the country descended into chaos. In 2006, the same logic drove Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Although the war was initially seen widely as a Hezbollah victory, Israelis now see it as a win. The Israeli military performed poorly, but Hezbollah has grudgingly kept the peace since then, fearing that rocket attacks from Lebanon would again lead to a devastating Israeli response. Indeed, the last six years have been the quietest along the Lebanon-Israel border in decades.
> 
> Israel's usual strategy might not bring about such decisive results this time. Hamas will find it hard to pull itself back from the brink and start stopping others' rocket fire. Jabari's death has infuriated Hamas' military wing, and whoever replaces him will be just as militant, if not more. Such a leader will press for revenge and warn Hamas' governing arm that his troops might well join rival groups if Hamas throws in the towel. After all, Hamas is trying to be both a resistance movement and a government. In many ways, it has succeeded as a government, establishing law and order and delivering basic services in Gaza. But Hamas must take care not to lose credibility among Palestinians for its willingness to fight -- and die -- in the struggle against Israel. So Hamas has tried to walk a fine line by allowing some attacks -- and, at times, even participating in them -- to maintain its militant street cred while shying away from an all-out assault that would push Israel to repeat Cast Lead.
> 
> Complicating the Israel-Hamas dynamic is the Arab Spring, particularly the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the rise of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood-led government. During the Mubarak era, Egypt helped Israel contain Hamas, maintaining a blockade on goods from Gaza and a travel ban on Gazans as well as supporting Hamas' rival, Fatah. During crises, Cairo often worked with Israel to press Hamas to back off. Today, however, Hamas has an ideological affinity with, and personal ties to, to the government of Egypt's new president, Mohammad Morsi. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood wants to court the Egyptian public, which is viscerally anti-Israel and highly supportive of Hamas. Openly siding with Israel in this conflict would be political suicide for Morsi. So, not surprisingly, Egypt has recalled its ambassador from Israel and publicly criticized Israel.
> 
> Israel, too, cannot afford to alienate Egypt. Putting aside the vital 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty (which still seems likely to hold), Jerusalem needs Cairo to keep whatever little pressure it can on Hamas. Although the rhetoric between the Morsi government and Hamas is far warmer than it was under Mubarak, the new government in Cairo has still not rushed to open up the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. In addition, Israel needs the Egyptian government to continue, and ideally expand, its recent crackdown on radicals in the Sinai, who have repeatedly attacked Israel. Finally, Israel needs the Egyptian government to refrain from whipping up pro-Hamas sentiment among its own people, which could quickly spread across the region and further destabilize already vulnerable countries like Jordan.
> 
> Israel also lacks any easy option to escalate if Hamas does not restrain itself soon. Although Israel has called up reservists and threatened to expand the scope of its military campaign if Hamas doesn't end the rocket attacks, Israelis do not want to reoccupy Gaza. What is more, the Obama administration would be unlikely to get behind a massive operation, since it would further complicate already tense U.S. relations with Egypt and other Arab countries. Perhaps most important, Israel's view of itself would be in danger. The western way of war stresses proportionality, which, in Gaza, means that Israel must limit its strikes--particularly on infrastructure and other targets that directly affect civilians. The logic of deterrence, by contrast, stresses disproportionate punishment: the enemy must suffer.
> 
> In the short run, the United States should press the Morsi government to broker a deal: a development that would not only end the current crisis but also indicate that Morsi can be a responsible leader who can work with Washington. In the long run, the United States, and the world, needs to make the choice between resistance and governance sharper for Hamas. There must be more and real rewards if Hamas moves toward becoming a regular government that eschews violence. Allowing more normal economic activity and more people to go to and from Gaza would show Hamas that the world will let it govern Gaza. At the same time, there must be serious and sustained punishment for any continued rocket attacks or other violence with the international community maintaining economic pressure on Hamas and accepting that Israel will hit Hamas hard to keep its deterrence credible. But Cast Lead showed that any military campaign, no matter how devastating, can only deter Israel's enemies for so long. Israel and the international community need to take some bold political risks in trying to bring Hamas into the fold -- or else start preparing for the next war.




http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138434/ehud-yaari/how-to-end-the-war-in-gaza?page=show


> How to End the War in Gaza
> *What an Egypt-Brokered Cease-Fire Should Look Like*
> 
> Ehud Yaari
> 
> November 17, 2012
> 
> Israel and Hamas are once again locked in a shooting war. Each day, hundreds of missiles fly toward Israeli cities and villages. Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force has been systematically pounding the Gaza Strip, carrying out no less than 1000 strikes on Hamas military targets in the last several days. As indirect negotiations over a cease-fire progress at this moment, with active U.S. involvement, it is time to chart a course to end this round of hostilities.
> 
> Israel has set fairly modest goals for its campaign, dubbed Operation Pillar of Defense. It does not seek to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza, as it has sought in the past, nor does it want to bring about the total collapse of Hamas' military wing. As statements from senior Israeli officials indicate, the objective is a long-term cease-fire along the Israel-Gaza border. Hamas, for its part, has one objective: to stay on its feet. It is trying to inflict maximum damage and casualties in order to prove that Israel's military superiority alone will not force it to back down. With the right kind of a no-victors formula, sponsored by the United States and other international players, a deal can be reached to ensure a long-term calm.
> 
> Previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas, including the 2009 war, have been resolved, with Egyptian faciliation, through a simple formula: each side commits to refrain from opening fire as long as its adversary does the same. But these calm periods -- or tahdia, as they are called in Arabic -- have historically not lasted very long. Hamas has increasingly allowed other heavily armed terrorist groups in Gaza, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to launch attacks on Israel. And in the past few months, despite Egyptian warnings, Hamas has targeted Israeli soldiers and military outposts along the border, too.
> 
> This time, ending the conflict and restoring stability will require a different type of arrangement. The cease-fire agreement should involve other parties and contain additional checks on violence. It will have the best chance of lasting if it is primarily based on an Israeli-Egyptian agreement, supported by the United States and, possibly, by the European Union. It will be up to Hamas to adhere to the terms.
> 
> Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood-led government has showered Hamas with statements of solidarity, and its prime minister made an unprecedented visit to Gaza on the second day of the Israeli operation. But what Cairo ultimately wants is a speedy cease-fire. Despite its support for Hamas, the new Egyptian regime is reluctant to grant the group a defense guarantee or to open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi underscored this on Friday, saying, "We don't want a war now."
> 
> Egypt knows well that ongoing support for Hamas' shelling of Israeli civilians would jeopardize the billions of dollars in international aid that its bankrupt treasury depends on -- $450 million annually from the United States, $4.3 billion annually from the IMF, and $6.3 billion annually from the EU's development bank. This explains why, despite Cairo's venomous anti-Israeli rhetoric over the past several days, Egypt did not take any serious actions beyond recalling its newly accredited ambassador from Tel Aviv. Furthermore, the Egyptian military and intelligence services are hesitant to provoke a confrontation with Israel.
> 
> Given Egypt's adversity to conflict, Egypt and Israel should strive to reach an understanding about Gaza. In doing so, they would reaffirm the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty for the post-Arab Spring era. Such an Egyptian-Israeli understanding could include several components.
> First, Egypt should broker the Israel-Hamas cease-fire at the highest political levels, rather than through behind-the-scenes talks organized by its General Intelligence Directorate. That in itself would constitute a departure from the Morsi administration's policy of putting a pause on normalization with Israel and preventing any contact with the country other than for military or intelligence cooperation. Egypt faces a choice: launching a high-level political dialogue with the Israel to obtain the cease-fire that it desires, or seeing the continuation of violence in Gaza. An Egyptian refusal to lead the political process should raise red flags in Washington.
> 
> Second, since most of the weapons in Gaza were trafficked through Egyptian territory, Cairo should agree to help prevent the reconstruction of Hamas' arsenal. For years now, Egypt has been turning a blind eye to smuggling in the Sinai Peninsula and tolerating the operation of 1200 tunnels that run underneath the Egypt-Gaza frontier. Cairo could try to shut down the tunnels and intercept arms shipments that come through the Suez Canal. Egypt, which is already domestically unstable, has every reason to prevent renewed violence by counteracting the remilitarization of Hamas and its allies.
> 
> Any agreement should also address the growing lawlessness in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, where attacks against Israel and even sometimes against Egyptian security personnel have become regular occurrences. Egypt's Operation Eagle, aimed at cracking down on insurgents there, has so far failed to dismantle the widespread terrorist infrastructure in the area. (Hamas even twice took the liberty of testing its long-range Fajr-5 missiles by firing them into the Sinai desert.) Since a number of Salafi jihadist organizations have branches in both Gaza and Sinai, for all practical purposes the peninsula is an extension of the Gaza front.
> 
> Egypt and Israel need to ensure that when the cease-fire takes hold in Gaza, terror operations do not simply pick up and move south to Sinai. Despite restrictions on Egyptian military deployments in the area, which stem from the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Israel and Egypt can work through the decade-old Agreed Activities Mechanism to allow Egyptian units to take up positions in the eastern Sinai. Israel has already consented to let Egypt introduce a mechanized brigade and commando battalions in the area. Israel could also approve the deployment of whatever Egyptian troops are necessary -- save tanks and antitank weapons -- to uproot the terrorist safe havens. Egypt won't just be doing Israel's dirty work; Cairo knows that these organizations might eventually target the Suez Canal as well.
> 
> A cease-fire agreement could also address the sensitive and important issue of border crossings. Egypt might get Israeli consent to open the Rafah terminal on its border with Gaza, not only for passenger traffic but also for trade. This could mean that Gaza would get its fuel and other commodities from Egypt, while Israel would continue to supply electricity. Egyptian ports could begin to handle the flow of goods in and out of Gaza, and Israel would gradually phase out the commercial activities that pass through the six terminals it now operates into Gaza. The move would signal the completion of Israel's 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip, slowly handing over responsibility for the area's economic needs to the Egyptian government. Egypt, which already perceives itself as a patron of Hamas, would see this situation favorably because it would grant Cairo more influence over the group. And Hamas is already pleading for this type of arrangement, seeking to end its economic dependence on Israeli goodwill.
> 
> Given its leverage over Egypt, Washington has a role to play in bringing about such a comprehensive cease-fire -- and in keeping it in place. The Obama administration should inform Morsi that, in return for the huge financial support Egypt gets from the United States, it must start ensuring stability in the region, create a dialogue with Israel that is not restricted to security personnel, prevent Egyptian territory from becoming a safe haven for weapons smugglers, and convince Hamas militants to stop lobbing missiles into Israeli towns and villages.
> 
> Reaching such a deal in the depths of a conflict will not be easy. But if the aim is anything more than a temporary break from fighting, it's a deal worth striving for.


----------



## tomahawk6

Hamas has launched over 500 rockets into Israel.They arent going to get alot of sympathy when Israel enters Gaza. The IDF killed the commander of Hamas rocket operations.







Palestinians search for victims under the rubble of the destroyed house of a Hamas official after an Israeli air strike in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip November 17, 2012. (Reuters)


Israel claims killing top Hamas operative 
From: AAP November 19, 2012 3:55AM 

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/israel-claims-killing-top-hamas-operative/story-fn3dxix6-1226519236552

  THE Israeli army says it has killed a senior Hamas operative in Gaza who was responsible for the movement's rocket operations. 

An army spokesman identified the Palestinian as Yehia Bia, who was killed in one of the northern neighbourhoods of Gaza City that experienced the brunt of Israeli attacks on Sunday.

"We can confirm a direct hit," the army spokesman said by telephone.

Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said Bia was "the commander of the (Hamas) rocket units" whom the Israeli forces had "intercepted and killed".

The Israeli army said that 544 rockets had struck various parts of Israel since hostilities between the two sides intensified on Wednesday with the killing of the Hamas movement's military leader in Gaza.

Officials said an additional 302 rockets had been intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system and that more fell into the Mediterranean Sea as well as on Gaza itself.


----------



## Journeyman

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> Hamas has launched over 500 rockets into Israel. They arent going to get alot of Israeli sympathy when Israel enters Gaza.


But as noted, the bleeding bleating hearts and anti-Israel propagandists are out in full force.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Journeyman said:
			
		

> But as noted, the bleeding bleating hearts and anti-Israel propagandists are out in full force.



I don't know anything about the source but I find the argument in this piece, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _The Commentator_, compelling:

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2079/gaza_exposes_our_deepest_prejudices


> Gaza exposes our deepest prejudices
> *As dozens are killed in Gaza, what does it tell us about the news media that so little is heard of the other struggles around the region?*
> 
> by Media Hawk
> 
> As the fighting rages on in the Middle East, spare a moment for the civilians who are being murdered en masse.
> 
> No, I'm not talking about in Gaza.
> 
> Although any civilian deaths are to be mourned, the onus of blame for Gazan lives being lost is on Hamas, a fact lost on media commentators and producers, but illustrated by the graphic (below) quite well, along with this video.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From the article
> 
> What I mean is that we should spare a moment of thought for Syrians and Iranians.
> 
> Gaza dominates the news as the death toll this week climbs to 42 - a staggeringly low statistic considering how many hundreds of raids Israel has made. But we continue for some reason, to ignore the tens of thousands being slaughtered in Syria, and the dozens killed in Iran by their respective regimes.
> 
> So far, over 37,000 people have been slaughtered by Assad's regime. And while the international community has had some stern words for the regime, we continue to sit back and effectively ignore the tragedy. Even the media is no longer interested.
> 
> In Iran this week, there have been around 81 public executions. Barbaric punishments, including the cutting off of fingers, hangings and floggings continue to blight Iran and yet not a word can be heard from the international community.
> 
> Yet we continue to lambast Israel for its tireless efforts in defending its Jewish population in the face of terrorist onslaught.
> 
> What does that say about us in the West? I would love to believe that it is simply that many people are instinctively pro-Arab, but the silence on Iran doesn't explain that. I would love to believe it was post-colonial guilt, but I fear it goes much deeper.
> 
> Regardless of the reasons behind which we hold Israel to an impossible standard, this does not account for the blackout regarding other areas in the world.
> 
> I hope we can all agree that no ones lives should be considered more important, simply because they are the cause of international celebrity or  NGO campaigns. I look forwarding to hearing accurate and balanced reporting in future. For obvious reasons I won't hold my breath.


----------



## tomahawk6

I have zero sympathy for people who hide behind the forces of prejudice and intolerance. Hamas fired rockets into Israel and now they reap what they have sown.Its an object lesson for Hizbollah and Iran


----------



## a_majoor

From SDA; a video that shows us what it is like to live in Israel under threat of rocket attack:

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/021956.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsm-mEy38pQ&feature=youtu.be

As for Hamas, being in biblical territory only makes it more fitting to quote Hosea 8:7:

"Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind"


----------



## tomahawk6

The only way for Israel to stop the rockets is to enter Gaza.The launchers are in civilian areas like schools and playgrounds. You dont need to take ground just mini-thunder runs. Go in and take out a target and pull out.


----------



## brihard

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> The only way for Israel to stop the rockets is to enter Gaza.The launchers are in civilian areas like schools and playgrounds. You dont need to take ground just mini-thunder runs. Go in and take out a target and pull out.



Why would we beleive 'entering Gaza' will 'stop the rockets'? They entered gaza in strength back in 06, and it doesn't look to me like it's stopped the rockets.

Why the hell does ANYONE still think that any scale of military intervention whatsoever can make this problem go away? That's completely out of touch with reality?

I'm not purporting to offer a viable solution- but killing people sure hasn't either.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Sometime soldier/author/farmer Gilad Sharon, son of Gen Ariel Sharon, thinks that there are only two useful courses open: totally shatter the Gazan military infrstructure or reoccupy the Gaza Strip. He makes his point in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisons of the Copyright Act from the _Jerusalem Post_:

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?ID=292466&R=R1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter


> A decisive conclusion is necessary
> *There is no middle path here – either the Gazans and their infrastructure are made to pay the price, or we reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip.*
> 
> By GILAD SHARON
> 
> 11/18/2012
> 
> Anyone who thinks Hamas is going to beg for a cease-fire, that Operation Pillar of Defense will draw to a close and quiet will reign in the South because we hit targets in the Gaza Strip, needs to think again.
> 
> With the elimination of a murderous terrorist and the destruction of Hamas’s long-range missile stockpile, the operation was off to an auspicious start, but what now? This must not be allowed to end as did Operation Cast Lead: We bomb them, they fire missiles at us, and then a cease-fire, followed by “showers” – namely sporadic missile fire and isolated incidents along the fence. Life under such a rain of death is no life at all, and we cannot allow ourselves to become resigned to it.
> 
> A strong opening isn’t enough, you also have to know how to finish – and finish decisively. If it isn’t clear whether the ball crossed the goal-line or not, the goal isn’t decisive. The ball needs to hit the net, visible to all. What does a decisive victory sound like? A Tarzan-like cry that lets the entire jungle know in no uncertain terms just who won, and just who was defeated.
> 
> To accomplish this, you need to achieve what the other side can’t bear, can’t live with, and our initial bombing campaign isn’t it.
> 
> THE DESIRE to prevent harm to innocent civilians in Gaza will ultimately lead to harming the truly innocent: the residents of southern Israel. The residents of Gaza are not innocent, they elected Hamas. The Gazans aren’t hostages; they chose this freely, and must live with the consequences.
> 
> The Gaza Strip functions as a state – it has a government and conducts foreign relations, there are schools, medical facilities, there are armed forces and all the other trappings of statehood. We have no territorial conflict with “Gaza State,” and it is not under Israeli siege – it shares a border with Egypt. Despite this, it fires on our citizens without restraint.
> 
> Why do our citizens have to live with rocket fire from Gaza while we fight with our hands tied? Why are the citizens of Gaza immune? If the Syrians were to open fire on our towns, would we not attack Damascus? If the Cubans were to fire at Miami, wouldn’t Havana suffer the consequences? That’s what’s called “deterrence” – if you shoot at me, I’ll shoot at you. There is no justification for the State of Gaza being able to shoot at our towns with impunity. We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.
> 
> There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire.
> 
> Were this to happen, the images from Gaza might be unpleasant – but victory would be swift, and the lives of our soldiers and civilians spared.
> 
> IF THE government isn’t prepared to go all the way on this, it will mean reoccupying the entire Gaza Strip. Not a few neighborhoods in the suburbs, as with Cast Lead, but the entire Strip, like in Defensive Shield, so that rockets can no longer be fired.
> 
> There is no middle path here – either the Gazans and their infrastructure are made to pay the price, or we reoccupy the entire Gaza Strip. Otherwise there will be no decisive victory. And we’re running out of time – we must achieve victory quickly. The Netanyahu government is on a short international leash. Soon the pressure will start – and a million civilians can’t live under fire for long. This needs to end quickly – with a bang, not a whimper.




I suspect that his view is popular in Israel.


----------



## Infanteer

Sharon's approach is very Sherman-esque and makes for a valid option.


----------



## tomahawk6

The bleeding hearts wring their hands and talk about how bad Israel is. The Palestinians are great at playing the victim even after firing hundreds of rockets into Israel. Which to my mind is an act of war.  Acts of war have to be responded to in kind. I also agree with Sharon that to make the rockets stop is to takeover the Gaza strip. It would require occupying 141 square miles and controlling around 1.7m people. It should be telling that not even Egypt wanted Gaza.Maybe under the Egyptian islamist government they might take responsibility but I doubt it.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Sharon's approach is very Sherman-esque and makes for a valid option.




And I think it fits with tomahawk6's approach ~ essentially _blitzkreig_ done properly: speed, violence and shock effect, but followed by an immediate withdrawal when the tactical objective has been accomplished.


----------



## brihard

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> I also agree with Sharon that to make the rockets stop is to takeover the Gaza strip. It would require occupying 141 square miles and controlling around 1.7m people. It should be telling that not even Egypt wanted Gaza.Maybe under the Egyptian islamist government they might take responsibility but I doubt it.



Do you contend that it would be possible to achieve this indefinitely without making the situation incalculably worse?

I imagine the worst of what Iraq or Afghanistan had to offer, played out on the streets of Gaza more or less full time. I believe it would make current civilian death tolls - even the Palestinian one, never mind the negligible Israeli one - pale in comparison.

A 'go in, kill/smash and withdraw' may well achieve the same success as was achieved in 2006. A _tactical_ victory may be won. I conside rit borderline deluded to think a _strategic_ victiry would be won, however. It would just set the clock back a few years and start the cycle again.


----------



## Infanteer

Brihard said:
			
		

> A 'go in, kill/smash and withdraw' may well achieve the same success as was achieved in 2006. A _tactical_ victory may be won. I conside rit borderline deluded to think a _strategic_ victiry would be won, however. It would just set the clock back a few years and start the cycle again.



Do you mean 2008?

Stating that an invasion would only "set the clock back a few years" assumes that no amount of coercion will denude the support of Gazans for Hamas.


----------



## Journeyman

Brihard said:
			
		

> It would just set the clock back a few years and start the cycle again.


As noted in one of the previously-posted articles, this is likely the best Israel can hope for -- a few more years' breathing space. 

Israel certainly doesn't want to occupy Gaza, with the attendant need to govern the place. I suspect that their intent is to strike very hard, break Palestinian toys, and withdraw...with a note pinned to the door: "fire more rockets and we do it all again; you know we're capable, and aren't concerned about international angst, so smarten up."

But Hamas won't smarten up, and so after a few years' grace, we can all just change the dates on these posts.


----------



## brihard

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Do you mean 2008?
> 
> Stating that an invasion would only "set the clock back a few years" assumes that no amount of coercion will denude the support of Gazans for Hamas.



Yes, sorry, '08. Op Cast Lead.

And I accept the supposition that Israel is not immune to the historically demonstrable truth that short of the utmost extremes, naked force cannot offer remedy to a population that feels itself under a heel and willing to resort to violence. Israel cannot kill its way to Palestinians seeing Hamas as the bad guys. That's not a realistic strategy if the end state is 'peaceful coexistence'.

If Israel simply consciously accepts an inevitable, perpetual 'Israelis and Palestinians will kill each other in small numbers', and accepts that their strategic choices will provide one half of an epoxy that will cement the status quo, then that will be that. But it won't be an improvement.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Journeyman said:
			
		

> As noted in one of the previously-posted articles, this is likely the best Israel can hope for -- a few more years' breathing space.
> 
> Israel certainly doesn't want to occupy Gaza, with the attendant need to govern the place. I suspect that their intent is to strike very hard, break Palestinian toys, and withdraw...with a note pinned to the door: "fire more rockets and we do it all again; you know we're capable, and aren't concerned about international angst, so smarten up."
> 
> But Hamas won't smarten up, and so after a few years' grace, we can all just change the dates on these posts.




 :goodpost:


A _strategic_ victory is possible but I doubt the Israelis are sufficiently bloody minded to pursue it ~ the Arabs would be, but, not the Israelis; Gilad Sharon is the exception that proves the rule. A _tactical_ victory will buy some relatively _peaceful_ time during which Arabs will grow more restive and, maybe, that can be turned inwards causing a nice series of internecine wars and revolutions.


----------



## brihard

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> :goodpost:
> 
> 
> A _strategic_ victory is possible but I doubt the Israelis are sufficiently bloody minded to pursue it ~ the Arabs would be, but, not the Israelis; Gilad Sharon is the exception that proves the rule. A _tactical_ victory will buy some relatively _peaceful_ time during which Arabs will grow more restive and, maybe, that can be turned inwards causing a nice series of internecine wars and revolutions.



Under what circumstances could a strategic victory be achieved even if sufficiently 'bloody minded'?  I can't imagine anything short of outright eliminationist policies that could eliminate the strategic threat presented to Israel. And that would bring its own greater strategic problems.


----------



## tomahawk6

Two options are available as we have discussed. Strike quick and hard at the rocket launching sites and withdraw or an invade and hold approach. The latter would cause fewer casualties to the IDF and invade and hold approach would easily cost Israel hundreds of dead. But not as costly as an invasion of Lebanon. Short term gain or a long term solution ? I think the boil needs to be lanced. If you could destroy the Hamas armed wing, then if there are moderates in Gaza they might surface and administer the area preventing a return of the islamists. Not sure if this is practical or not.


----------



## Infanteer

Brihard said:
			
		

> Israel cannot kill its way to Palestinians seeing Hamas as the bad guys. That's not a realistic strategy if the end state is 'peaceful coexistence'.



A vague and empty statement unsupported by history.  The very fact that war is seen as a viable means to pursue policy implies that a state can kill its way to it political ends.  War is a coercive instrument - for it to be of use, you have to be kill your way to an end.  We were more than able to kill our way to Germans seeing the Nazi party as bad guys.

There are numerous valid courses of action where Israel could achieve policy through overwhelming force; the trick is to ensure such strategies are linked and follow from realistic, pragmatic policy.


----------



## brihard

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> Two options are available as we have discussed. Strike quick and hard at the rocket launching sites and withdraw or an invade and hold approach. The latter would cause fewer casualties to the IDF and invade and hold approach would easily cost Israel hundreds of dead. But not as costly as an invasion of Lebanon. Short term gain or a long term solution ? I think the boil needs to be lanced. If you could destroy the Hamas armed wing, then if there are moderates in Gaza they might surface and administer the area preventing a return of the islamists. Not sure if this is practical or not.



You speak of 'the rocket launching sites' as if they are fixed infrastructure, when they are not. Israel has not succeeded in destroying the armed wing of Hamas in the past; why think they could do so now? They can just kick it back a couple of years again. If an approach of straightforward belligerence were going to work it would have already.

"Why do Palestinians who are not in Hamas join Hamas?"
"Why do Palestinians who are not in Hamas actively enable it?"
"Why do Palestinians who are not in Hamas tacitly support it?"
"Why do Palestinians who are not in Hamas not oppose it?"
"Who do outsiders who are not Palestinian support Hamas?"

Each its own question, each its own portion of overall strategy, each with different answers which each may individually may offer certain solutions that collectively either don't run together or that even conflict with each other.  But extremely rarely in history has a side been able to kill its way to the end of an insurgency.



			
				infanteer said:
			
		

> A vague and empty statement unsupported by history.  The very fact that war is seen as a viable means to pursue policy implies that a state can kill its way to it political ends.  War is a coercive instrument - for it to be of use, you have to be kill your way to an end.  We were more than able to kill our way to Germans seeing the Nazi party as bad guys.
> 
> There are numerous valid courses of action where Israel could achieve policy through overwhelming force; the trick is to ensure such strategies are linked and follow from realistic, pragmatic policy.



Surely you're not trying to compare the formal army of a nation state ca. 1940s with a modern insrugency that is in and of a somewhat supportive population? I don't beleive for a second that you are historically naive enough to think that 'we destroyed panzer divisions to beat Germany, thus if we kill enough insurgents we will defeat Hamas'. I know you're far more stute than that and am a little bit insulted that you're trying to blow this off with such grossly simplistic false analogy. I think what I'm saying on this merits a bit more than that.  My statement is not vague, it is generalist, and deliberately so- I have said straight out that I do not offer solutions to this, I'm merely pointing out that 'kill enough of them' has seldom worked even for states who had little reluctance to do so. The Soviets in Afghanistan, the French in Algeria... Killing the German army as a route to the population as bad guys is an irrelevant comparison; there is no 'great crime' being hidden from the Palestinians. they know EXACTLY what kind of pieces of shit Hamas are, and _nonetheless_ either participate in, support, condone, or are silent about it sufficiently for Hamas to carry on. 

Further still, comparing the destruction of a uniformed, identifiable army that is capable of wielding, with exactitude, the monopoly of armed force and that in almost no way blends with the civilian population, with an archetypal modern insurgency is grossly oversimplistic, and you know it to be. If we cannot militarily destroy insurgencies in Iraq or Afghanistan, why think we can do it in Gaza where they have far better human cover and concealment?

The only way Israel could military destroy Hamas sufficient to eliminate it as a threat would be through such wide scale and brutal application of force that none but the most extremist of westerners could still support Israel. It would be an historical irony of unparallelled proportions.

It may well be that the status quo is about as good as Israel can achieve, and so be it if so. But if one is going to believe that 'more force' will actually fix this against all evidence to the contrary I'm extremely interested to hear some reasoning and some suggested mechanism of how.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Brihard said:
			
		

> Under what circumstances could a strategic victory be achieved even if sufficiently 'bloody minded'?  I can't imagine anything short of outright eliminationist policies that could eliminate the strategic threat presented to Israel. And that would bring its own greater strategic problems.




You answered you own question:



			
				Brihard said:
			
		

> ...
> The only way Israel could military destroy Hamas sufficient to eliminate it as a threat would be through such wide scale and brutal application of force that none but the most extremist of westerners could still support Israel. It would be an historical irony of unparallelled proportions.
> 
> It may well be that the status quo is about as good as Israel can achieve, and so be it if so. But if one is going to believe that 'more force' will actually fix this against all evidence to the contrary I'm extremely interested to hear some reasoning and some suggested mechanism of how.




And that why I say Israel lacks the _bloody mindedness_ to pursue such a course and why Journeyman was correct.


----------



## Infanteer

Brihard said:
			
		

> Surely you're not trying to compare the formal army of a nation state ca. 1940s with a modern insrugency that is in and of a somewhat supportive population?



Gaza in not an insurgency.  An insurgency is a condition within a state when a significant portion of the population violently resists the state's rule.  Just because Hamas utilizes guerrilla tactics as opposed to conventional ones doesn't mean it is an insurgency. 

Guerrilla tactics do not make it invincible either.  It has a command structure, a supply network, and resources to prosecute its campaign.  What's more, this is pretty much a case of interstate conflict; as Sharon mentioned in his article, Gaza is a state with governing organizations, infrastructure, and services that are all possible targets in a coercive strategy.

Although concerned with insurgency, the principles in Wilf Owen's article here lay out the essential elements of how exhaustion works in strategy.



> The only way Israel could military destroy Hamas sufficient to eliminate it as a threat would be through such wide scale and brutal application of force that none but the most extremist of westerners could still support Israel.



Explain.  Is there anything to support this assertion?  You could take your logic to say _"The only way Israel could military destroy *Syria* sufficient to eliminate it as a threat would be through such wide scale and brutal application of force that none but the most extremist of westerners could still support Israel"_ and yet after being thrashed in 1973 to the point where the IDF ready to move into Damascus, Syria was sufficiently coerced to the point where the regime changed its policies (the same happened in Egypt).  Why would the ruling government of Hamas and the people of Gaza be exempt from this phenomenon?  

A simple question to ask is why are these problems happening in Gaza and not the West Bank?  The decision within Palestine to go to war with Israel is clearly not monolithic within Palestinian politics - there is a spectrum that would indicate that acceptable political ends for Israel are obtainable should Hamas be sufficiently weakened to permit Fatah to fill the void.   

Edited for clarity


----------



## brihard

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Gaza in not an insurgency.  An insurgency is a condition within a state when a significant portion of the population violently resists the state's rule.  Just because Hamas utilizes guerrilla tactics as opposed to conventional ones doesn't mean it is an insurgency.
> 
> Guerrilla tactics do not make it invincible either.  It has a command structure, a supply network, and resources to prosecute its campaign.  What's more, this is pretty much a case of interstate conflict; as Sharon mentioned in his article, Gaza is a state with governing organizations, infrastructure, and services that are all possible targets in a coercive strategy.
> 
> Although concerned with insurgency, the principles in Wilf Owen's article here lay out the essential elements of how exhaustion works in strategy.
> 
> Explain.  Is there anything to support this assertion?  You could take your logic to say _"The only way Israel could military destroy *Syria* sufficient to eliminate it as a threat would be through such wide scale and brutal application of force that none but the most extremist of westerners could still support Israel"_ and yet after being thrashed in 1973 to the point where the IDF ready to move into Damascus, Syria was sufficiently coerced to the point where the regime changed its policies (the same happened in Egypt).  Why would the ruling government of Hamas and the people of Gaza be exempt from this phenomenon?



I utilize the term 'insurgency' because there simply is not a precise enough term in general use to explain precisely what the situation is; the allusion to guerilla/terrorist tactics and the the underlying popular support was what I was aiming for. I take it as a given that everyone active in this thread is sufficiently informed on the reality of the conflict from both sides that I can pick one of a number of inevitably somewhat imprecise terms and go with it. The specific choice of wording is not key to my point, so I won't divert down the path of squaring that one up. Suffice it that we all know to what I refer.

I am not claiming that Hamas is invicinble. Rather that Palestinian belligerence has enough energy entering into the equation continuously (fresh hate from growing youth; external financial and logistical support) that Israel has not appeared able to sufficiently attrit it to force them to give up. 

Your Syria analogy- you're again looking at a threat that was contingent on conventional military force to achieve its objective. The Syrian strategoic threat WAS the Syrian military capacity; Israel destroyed it, consequentially the threat was neutralized. The strategic threat in Gaza, however, is an inexhaustible (yes, I choose the word deliberately) supply of pissed off young men who have sufficient ideologically extremist backers to keep them in the tools and resources to fight.

You may _hypothesize_ that the Gaza leadership is vulnerable to military pressure completely coercing them into cessation of hostilities. First off, history suggests through experience that it is not, and second it presumes that the Hamas proto-state has a monopoly of armed force. They do not; their substantial control over armed force is contingent upon their domestic political legitimacy and credibility, which in turn is contingent in part on their ability to be able to be seen as a credible resistor to Israel. They cave, popular support shrinks massively and people find a new martyr's brigade to launch rockets instead.

Don't get me wrong: Where concrete threats are identified, I am all for discriminate, proportional, timely, and lethal application of force in order to kill it. And yes, some collateral damage may happen in the isntance,a nd will happen if it's repeated enough. I acknowledge that cold hard reality is a constraint on idealism. But those are tactical matters; the strategic issue must be that of eliminating the fuel from the fire- I would argue on both sides.


----------



## Edward Campbell

This is a war on many fronts: Gaza, itself, is the obvious one, but Amman, Cairo and Istanbul are also _targets_, albeit of a different sort: Israel wants to convince its neighbours that it is doing some "good housekeeping" for everyone's benefit. Washington is, of course, another front in this war - as is always the case. But so are New York and London, the HQs of the mainstream global media, like _AP_ which file stories like this that headline the number of children killed. It is the _media war_ - which many Israelis see as the media's war on Israel - that may provide the decisive battle. US policy is informed by public opinion and US public opinion is informed by television. It is not, in my opinion, a matter of media *bias*, rather it is a matter of "if it bleeds, it leads" and Hamas is better at getting its "bleeding" out with graphic images that work well on TV.

This is the sixth day of the war ~ the world will start to get impatient; Israel, global opinion will say, has had enough time to "punish" Hamas. If Israel is going to _blitz_ Hamas' rocket launcher sites in Gaza then now is the time. I think the outlines of a ceasefire agreement are already in place; Reuters reports that _"Izzat Risheq, a close aide to Meshaal, wrote in a Facebook message that Hamas would agree to a ceasefire only after Israel "stops its aggression, ends its policy of targeted assassinations and lifts the blockade of Gaza"_ [while, for Israel]_ "Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon wrote on Twitter: "If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."_


----------



## Infanteer

Brihard said:
			
		

> I utilize the term 'insurgency' because there simply is not a precise enough term in general use to explain precisely what the situation is; the allusion to guerilla/terrorist tactics and the the underlying popular support was what I was aiming for.



Why is "interstate conflict" not a precise enough term?  The definition of insurgency is not imprecise either, it is clearly defined in numerous manuals and it is clear that the situation in Gaza is not an insurgency.  Specific wording is important as it is essential to understanding what is really at play here.



> The Syrian strategoic threat WAS the Syrian military capacity; Israel destroyed it, consequentially the threat was neutralized. The strategic threat in Gaza, however, is an inexhaustible (yes, I choose the word deliberately) supply of pissed off young men who have sufficient ideologically extremist backers to keep them in the tools and resources to fight...
> 
> You may _hypothesize_ that the Gaza leadership is vulnerable to military pressure completely coercing them into cessation of hostilities. First off, history suggests through experience that it is not, and second it presumes that the Hamas proto-state has a monopoly of armed force. They do not; their substantial control over armed force is contingent upon their domestic political legitimacy and credibility, which in turn is contingent in part on their ability to be able to be seen as a credible resistor to Israel. They cave, popular support shrinks massively and people find a new martyr's brigade to launch rockets instead.



How is a manpower pool a "strategic threat", and what leads you to believe that it is inexhaustible?  There are 1.7 million people in Gaza, and not all of them are fighters.  That tells me that the pool isn't inexhaustible.  Also, define "strategic threat", because I don't know what you mean by this - it goes back to terminology and being precise.  I'd argue that the threat in the current situation is indirect fire attacks, and that there are very concrete ways to deal with the threat; "pissed off young men" don't simply generate rocket forces.  In fact, I don't think Israel cares about pissed-off young men.

As to my hypothesis, I do make it and I back it with historically valid examples.  Here's another one.  Despite the strategic confusion of 2006 and numerous operational shortcomings (not all accurately analyzed in Western sources), the IDF did significant damage to Hezbollah in Lebanon; this is born out by the fact that since 2006, there has been no significant issues on border with Lebanon and that they were able to move significant forces south to conduct Operation CAST LEAD.  CAST LEAD was limited in its aims; I don't see how an expanded operation could not have the potential to generate similar effects on Hamas' military capacity.  Aside from generating some more pissed off young men, going in and breaking a lot of **** can be an effective coersive strategy provided it is framed by the right policies.

It goes back to my question above - why is this happening in Gaza and not the West Bank?  Military action is part of the package to reduce the role of Hamas and their standing amongst the Palestinian people.  Pissed off young men have, throughout history, been led by old men.  Old men have a stake in things like running water and electricity, or they lose to other old men who do.

To wit, you seem to be implying that military force will not work in Gaza, but you haven't provided anything to back your argument up aside from claims that the Palestinians are unique amongst all political entities in that they cannot be coerced through force.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Walter Russell Mead opines that the big winner is the Israeli defence industry because its missile defence technology will be in global demand.


----------



## tomahawk6

Iron Dome is a joint project with the US.


----------



## brihard

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Why is "interstate conflict" not a precise enough term?  The definition of insurgency is not imprecise either, it is clearly defined in numerous manuals and it is clear that the situation in Gaza is not an insurgency.  Specific wording is important as it is essential to understanding what is really at play here.



Hard to call Gaza a sufficiently effective or existant 'state' for 'interstate conflict' to be much more accurate a term. The degree of political autonomy it enjoys certainly makes it 'something', yet I'm not aware of any real autonomous state ever having existed quite so under the heel of another nation as Gaza does given the Israel blockade. Hamas's control over the monopoly of force is extremely tenuous as best, and I maintain that they can retain it only so long as they remain actively belligerent towards Israel. That's the most anomalous foundation of a state I've ever seen. However, though problematic, I'll concede that it's a better way to describe it than 'insurgency', though I believe that my choice still better reflects the political nuance of the violence inasmuch as Israel has enough power to be the dominant political-military order in the area, even if they do not exert direct control over Gaza itself. These are not 'right/wrong' judgement son my part- just my read of what I perceive of as the facts.



			
				Infanteer said:
			
		

> How is a manpower pool a "strategic threat", and what leads you to believe that it is inexhaustible?  There are 1.7 million people in Gaza, and not all of them are fighters.  That tells me that the pool isn't inexhaustible.  Also, define "strategic threat", because I don't know what you mean by this - it goes back to terminology and being precise.  I'd argue that the threat in the current situation is indirect fire attacks, and that there are very concrete ways to deal with the threat; "pissed off young men" don't simply generate rocket forces.  In fact, I don't think Israel cares about pissed-off young men.



When a substantial portion of a population wishes violence against you, and when the political power depends wholly on maintaining that, and when considerable resources are dedicated to, one way or another, bringing harm to your country how is a pool of those desiring and prepared to be combatants *not* a strategic threat? The pool is inexhaustable inasmuch as it regenerates as quickly as Israel can kill them. Classic dynamic of the death of fighters fertilizing the extremism of the youth. I doubt you'll argue me on that one when we see the Hamas propaganda targeted blatantly at children for the cultivation of the martyrdom cult?

Indirect fire attacks are the *tactical* threat. They are the specific method by which that political ideology, carried out by human actors - the angry young men - is put into play. If a man points a gun at you is the threat the gun or the man? I know which one I would intend to neutralize. It's a simplistic analogy, but I believe it works. I think Israel cares very much about pissed off young men, because that is for the most part who wants to kill Israelis, and who will risk their own lives and theirs of others to do it. The old 'guns don't kill people, people kill people' thing.



			
				Infanteer said:
			
		

> As to my hypothesis, I do make it and I back it with historically valid examples.  Here's another one.  Despite the strategic confusion of 2006 and numerous operational shortcomings (not all accurately analyzed in Western sources), the IDF did significant damage to Hezbollah in Lebanon; this is born out by the fact that since 2006, there has been no significant issues on border with Lebanon and that they were able to move significant forces south to conduct Operation CAST LEAD.  CAST LEAD was limited in its aims; I don't see how an expanded operation could not have the potential to generate similar effects on Hamas' military capacity.  Aside from generating some more pissed off young men, going in and breaking a lot of **** can be an effective coersive strategy provided it is framed by the right policies.
> 
> It goes back to my question above - why is this happening in Gaza and not the West Bank?  Military action is part of the package to reduce the role of Hamas and their standing amongst the Palestinian people.  Pissed off young men have, throughout history, been led by old men.  Old men have a stake in things like running water and electricity, or they lose to other old men who do.
> 
> To wit, you seem to be implying that military force will not work in Gaza, but you haven't provided anything to back your argument up aside from claims that the Palestinians are unique amongst all political entities in that they cannot be coerced through force.



Respectfully, what examples have you cited that proved accurate? The war against Hamas militants is not akin to a conventional war where the army is of such a nature and the battlespace is such that that army can be destroyed easily and not easily replenished. Yes, Hamas's army is certainly more than just those men- their weapons, kit, logistics and infrastructure absolutely count, and that is why I have referred to the clock being set back a couple years. Don't think for a second that I have a problem with Hamas' military capabilities being degraded, because I don't.

As for military force not working in Gaza- I'm not talking in the immediate sense, I'm talking in the long term. I beleive you're minimizing what was done in Operation Cast Lead. Just look at how much of the Palestinian socioeconomic infrastructure was damaged or destroyed. Look at the ratios of fatalities. Look at the numbers involved. The amount of ordnance fired. The tens of thousands of buildings badly damaged or destroyed. That's a pretty big deal. Did it slow Hamas down? Yes. Did it defeat the threat? If it had we'd not be having this discussion today. Had it been three times as large an op we'd maybe be having the discussion a year from now; how many more civilians would have died to achieve that?

I have not claimed that the Palestinians cannot be coerced through force. I am saying the real long term strategic threat - that being visceral hatred of Israel to the point where Palestinians will give up their own lives to take Israeli ones - has never proven to be defeated by those means. Without fail others step up, and become the newest proxies for Iran, Syria, or whomever funnels arms and funds. And why Gaza versus the west bank? Terrain, largely. Settlements are far more isolated, the ground and passage thereon is much easier to control, the easy access to Egypt / he Med isn't there. Population density is of course also a factor- the degree of desperation in the West Bank is lesser than in Gaza, and it is not such a breeding ground for violence. Those who really want to fight stand a better chance doing it from Gaza.

At the end of the day we're sitting here watching the same crap happen again on both sides. Why believe that now all of a sudden the same old approaches will make any difference? It's just part of the cyclical violence that many insist on seizing upon in each instance as a new and unique impending defeat of the terrorists. It's not though. We'll be having this conversation yet again in 4 or 5 years.


----------



## tomahawk6

I read tonight an article about Jacksonian foreign policy by Walter Mead,with a tie in to the present crisis in Gaza and for any other flashpoint as well I suspect. Its rather long so I will just quote a few excerpts.

http://denbeste.nu/external/Mead01.html

For the first Jacksonian rule of war is that wars must be fought with all available force. The use of limited force is deeply repugnant. Jacksonians see war as a switch that is either "on" or "off." They do not like the idea of violence on a dimmer switch. Either the stakes are important enough to fight for—in which case you should fight with everything you have—or they are not, in which case you should mind your own business and stay home. To engage in a limited war is one of the costliest political decisions an American president can make—neither Truman nor Johnson survived it.

The second key concept in Jacksonian thought about war is that the strategic and tactical objective of American forces is to impose our will on the enemy with as few American casualties as possible. The Jacksonian code of military honor does not turn war into sport. It is a deadly and earnest business. This is not the chivalry of a medieval joust, or of the orderly battlefields of eighteenth-century Europe. One does not take risks with soldiers’ lives to give a "fair fight." Some sectors of opinion in the United States and abroad were both shocked and appalled during the Gulf and Kosovo wars over the way in which American forces attacked the enemy from the air without engaging in much ground combat. The "turkey shoot" quality of the closing moments of the war against Iraq created a particularly painful impression. Jacksonians dismiss such thoughts out of hand. It is the obvious duty of American leaders to crush the forces arrayed against us as quickly, thoroughly and professionally as possible.

Jacksonian opinion takes a broad view of the permissible targets in war. Again reflecting a very old cultural heritage, Jacksonians believe that the enemy’s will to fight is a legitimate target of war, even if this involves American forces in attacks on civilian lives, establishments and property. The colonial wars, the Revolution and the Indian wars all give ample evidence of this view, and General William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea showed the degree to which the targeting of civilian morale through systematic violence and destruction could, to widespread popular applause, become an acknowledged warfighting strategy, even when fighting one’s own rebellious kindred.

Probably as a result of frontier warfare, Jacksonian opinion came to believe that it was breaking the spirit of the enemy nation, rather than the fighting power of the enemy’s armies, that was the chief object of warfare. It was not enough to defeat a tribe in battle; one had to "pacify" the tribe, to convince it utterly that resistance was and always would be futile and destructive. For this to happen, the war had to go to the enemy’s home. The villages had to be burned, food supplies destroyed, civilians had to be killed. From the tiniest child to the most revered of the elderly sages, everyone in the enemy nation had to understand that further armed resistance to the will of the American people—whatever that might be—was simply not an option.


----------



## Infanteer

Brihard said:
			
		

> Hard to call Gaza a sufficiently effective or existant 'state' for 'interstate conflict' to be much more accurate a term.



It has an elected parliament and a system of governance administered by Hamas.  It has organized military and para-military forces (indeed, Hamas took control of Gaza through use of its organized Qazzam Brigades).  Hard to say what else it could be besides a state.



> When a substantial portion of a population wishes violence against you, and when the political power depends wholly on maintaining that, and when considerable resources are dedicated to, one way or another, bringing harm to your country how is a pool of those desiring and prepared to be combatants *not* a strategic threat?



You still haven't defined "strategic threat".  What are you trying to convey by adding the term "strategy" to the word threat?

How is "people not liking you" an actual threat vice simply a factor in national will?  Most of the countries around Israel have populations that still want to see it destroyed, but they have not posed any real threat to Israel since 1973.



> Respectfully, what examples have you cited that proved accurate?



The U.S. South in 1865.  Germany 1945.  Hezbollah 2006.  I can keep going through the books to show examples of where strategy served as a useful means for coercive policy.  There were a lot of secessionists, Nazis and Hezbollah personnel left after these conflicts that hated the victor, but it didn't stop coercion from working to some extent.

I've made this argument because you claimed that "Israel cannot kill its way to victory" when clearly history demonstrates that nations have killed their way to victory.



> The war against Hamas militants is not akin to a conventional war where the army is of such a nature and the battlespace is such that that army can be destroyed easily and not easily replenished.



Explain.  That's not an argument that this would appear to support.


----------



## BrendenDias

I'm curious to see what Canada will do, especially after their new negotiations.


----------



## GAP

Millions of hacking attempts target Israel government websites
By Steven Scheer, Reuters 
Article Link

JERUSALEM - More than 44 million hacking attempts have been made on Israeli government websites since Wednesday when Israel began its Gaza air strikes, the government said on Sunday.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said just one hacking attempt was successful on a site he did not want to name, but it was up and running after 10 minutes of downtime.

Typically, there are a few hundred hacking attempts a day on Israeli sites, the ministry said.

Attempts on defence-related sites have been the highest, while 10 million attempts have been made on the site of Israel’s president, 7 million on the Foreign Ministry and 3 million on the site of the prime minister.

A ministry spokesman said while the attacks have come from around the world, most have been from Israel and the Palestinian territories.

“The ministry’s computer division will continue to block the millions of cyber attacks,” Steinitz said. “We are enjoying the fruits of our investment in recent years in developing computerized defence systems.”


Steinitz has instructed his ministry to operate in emergency mode to counter attempts to undermine government sites.

Both sides in the Gaza conflict, but particularly Israel, are embracing the social media as one of their tools of warfare. The Israeli Defense Force has established a presence on nearly every platform available while Palestinian militants are active on Twitter.

“The war is taking place on three fronts. The first is physical, the second is on the world of social networks and the third is cyber,” said Carmela Avner, Israel’s chief information officer.

Last month, U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said cyberspace is the battlefield of the future, with attackers already going after banks and other financial systems. U.S. banks have been under sustained attack by suspected Iranian hackers thought to be responding to economic sanctions aimed at forcing Tehran to negotiate over its nuclear programme. 
end


----------



## Edward Campbell

A retired Israeli diplomat discusses the shape of an Egyptian brokered peace in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _Project Syndicate_:

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/egypt-s-efforts-to-broker-a-ceasefire-in-gaza-by-itamar-rabinovich


> Egypt the Peacemaker?
> 
> Itamar Rabinovich
> _Itamar Rabinovich, a former ambassador of Israel to the United States (1993-1996), is currently based at Tel Aviv University, New York University, and the Brookings Institution._
> 
> Nov 19, 2012
> 
> TEL AVIV – Before the current fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza escalates further, a ceasefire must be negotiated. Of course, like previous ceasefires, any truce is likely to be temporary, inevitably undermined by the forces that perpetuate Israel’s armed conflict with Hamas. Nonetheless, with Syria consumed in civil war and the wider Middle East already unsteady, a ceasefire is essential both for saving lives and preserving today’s uneasy regional peace.
> 
> Much depends on Egypt, which is best placed to broker an agreement. But assessing the prospects of any diplomatic effort requires understanding the protagonists’ perspectives and agendas.
> 
> Israel does not have a comprehensive policy toward Gaza. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took a courageous step by withdrawing unilaterally from Gaza and dismantling the Israeli settlements there. But he fell ill before these measures could be fitted into a larger effort to address the Palestinian issue.
> 
> His successor, Ehud Olmert, began negotiating a final-status agreement with the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas. But this did nothing to end the violence emanating from Gaza, which has effectively seceded from the Palestinian Authority and become a Hamas-controlled proto-state. Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in the winter of 2008-2009 re-established deterrence and brought a period of relative calm; but it has been clear since the start of 2012 that the parties were once again on a collision course.
> 
> During his first term as Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu refused to continue to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority on Olmert’s terms, and never considered holding talks with Hamas. He agreed to swap Palestinian prisoners for an abducted soldier, Gilad Shalit; but, for Netanyahu, as for most Israelis, negotiating with an organization whose blatantly anti-Semitic charter rejects Israel’s right to exist is pointless.
> 
> From Netanyahu’s point of view, the Gaza problem has no satisfactory solution. His aim is to obtain and maintain calm along the border. Israel provides electricity, water, and passage to Gaza, but also maintains a siege intended to prevent imports of larger, more lethal weapons. Israeli leaders were aware of Hamas’s buildup of medium-range missiles, mostly smuggled through Sinai in underground tunnels, but continue to argue that, absent the siege, Iran and others would supply more (and more sophisticated) weapons.
> 
> In fact, Israel discovered over the last few years that Gaza contained enough rockets and missiles to paralyze its south. Major Israeli cities were hit several times. During Operation Cast Lead, rockets struck perilously close to Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport. For Israeli leaders, it was only a matter of time before Tel Aviv could and would be hit.
> 
> For its part, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, seeks to consolidate its control over Gaza and use it as a base from which to take control of the West Bank and the Palestinian national movement. This outcome would be comparable to the Brotherhood’s takeover in Egypt, further establishing its ascendancy in the region.
> 
> Recent events appear to have emboldened Hamas. Although the conflict between Iran and its Sunni rivals and the Syrian civil war forced it to loosen ties with Iran and Syria and move into the Sunni fold, in many respects this has been a comfortable shift. Hamas feels more confident next to an Egypt dominated by its parent movement. The Emir of Qatar paid a visit to Gaza as a reward for Hamas’s break with Iran and left a check.
> 
> But Hamas is not alone in Gaza. Its hegemony is challenged by the more radical Islamic Jihad (which remains allied with Iran) and a host of Salafi and jihadi groups, some connected to radical elements in Sinai, which complicates Hamas’s relations with Egypt. Moreover, these groups have frequently initiated attacks on Israel from Gaza or through Sinai, generating cycles of violence that have embarrassed Hamas.
> 
> At the same time, pressure from these more radical groups may have forced Hamas itself to become more aggressive in recent months, perhaps bolstered by the knowledge that its arsenal of dozens of Fajr-5 rockets could hit the Tel Aviv area should Israel retaliate on a larger scale. The change in Egypt’s politics and policies had a similar effect: Hamas calculated that Israel would not jeopardize its fragile relationship with Egypt by launching another ground operation in Gaza.
> 
> Hamas was taken by surprise when Israel attacked, killing its military leader, Ahmed al-Jabari, and destroying most of its Fajr-5 arsenal. It responded with massive shelling of southern Israel, and managed to send several missiles toward Tel Aviv and one toward Jerusalem. Air raid sirens were finally heard in Israel’s two largest cities.
> 
> In response, Israel is visibly preparing for a large-scale ground operation. There is no appetite in Israel for a second Operation Cast Lead; but nothing less than a stable, long-lasting ceasefire is acceptable.
> 
> Such a truce is possible. Israel’s assault scored impressive initial successes, while Hamas can take pride in having reached Tel Aviv with its missiles, an achievement that eluded Hezbollah in the 2006 Lebanon War.
> 
> Moreover, Egypt, Hamas’s patron and senior ally, maintains a relationship and channels of communication with Israel, and does not want to sever all ties – not least because to do so would provoke a confrontation with the United States, which underwrites the Egyptian army.
> 
> In fact, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is seeking more financial aid from the US and the International Monetary Fund, and wants his coming visit to Washington, DC, to be a success. He also wants to restore Egypt’s position as a major regional force. Playing the peacemaker would serve him well on all counts.
> 
> So Morsi is juggling. He has denounced and warned Israel, recalled Egypt’s ambassador to Tel Aviv, and sent his prime minister to Gaza. But, so far, he has not crossed a single red line.
> 
> There is little time to act. More fighting will bring additional actors into the picture (including Turkey). If the US and Europe choose to remain inactive, they must at least encourage Egypt to play its role.
> 
> Egypt’s major obstacle is Hamas’s insistence on an end to the Israeli siege and targeted killings as part of a ceasefire agreement. The challenge for Egyptian leaders is to persuade Hamas to settle on lesser terms without further fighting.




I think the point about Turkey acting is important. I've been guessing, for some time now, that Turkey is changing direction: away from Europe and the US led West in general and towards a new, leadership _position_ in the Muslim world. In terms of leadership I think we are dealing with a "zero sum gain:" if Turkey gains influence it must come at the expense of Egypt.


----------



## Edward Campbell

According to Anderson Cooper of _CNN_ who is reporting from Gaza, these are outbound missiles, from Gaza to Israel:







Personally, I find it hard to blame Israel for responding, violently, to this sort of thing.

That's why I hope tomahawk6 is right and Israel will, very soon, before a ceasefire can be implemented, attack, with speed and violence, to destroy the launchers and missile stocks and, concomitantly, engage (euphemism for kill) many, many fighting age (15-35 years old) men.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Both the IDF and the _National Post_ are reporting that the Hamas leaders targeted by Israel are hiding in the Gaza Media Centre, itself, and in other buildings occupied by major Western media outlets: good tactic, the media hates being attacked.





A member of civil defence inspects the damage after an Israeli air strike on a floor in a building that also houses media offices in Gaza City
November 19, 2012.                                                                                                                                              REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Source: _National Post__

It looks, to my old eyes, as if the IDF targeted a specific room. The National Post report says that "It’s the second strike on the building in two days. The Hamas TV station, Al Aqsa, is located on the top floor ... Islamic Jihad has sent a text message to reporters saying that Ramez Harb was killed in the strike Monday. Harb is a leading figure in their militant wing, the Al Quds Brigades."
_


----------



## Sythen

B.Dias said:
			
		

> I'm curious to see what Canada will do, especially after their new negotiations.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUfFdhIOoQM

Canadian PM: I Will Defend Israel 'whatever the cost'


----------



## Edward Campbell

Sythen said:
			
		

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUfFdhIOoQM
> 
> Canadian PM: I Will Defend Israel 'whatever the cost'




I think he means "... whatever the cost ... except for money or soldiers and all that sort of stuff."


----------



## jollyjacktar

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> I think he means "... whatever the cost ... except for money or soldiers and all that sort of stuff."



He must mean his reputation with the voters here in Canada...  >


----------



## Edward Campbell

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Also not commented upon is the Arab/Hamas _treachery_ which gives Israeli intelligence such priceless information. Every Arab (and Persian and West Asian and North African) leader ~ president or terrorist, king or usurper, must go to bed every night wondering which of his inner circle is betraying him, right now, to the hated Israelis ... _Paranoia!__  :nod:
> _


_


Slightly different but still very similar ... this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, illustrates, yet again, that the Israelis have excellent local intelligence which, I'm guessing, can only come from *inside* the organizations concerned. Further, the Israelis are able to warn the journalists to stay away while they kill the Islamic Jihad bad guys ~ someone *inside* Gaza is passing those messages for them, most likely someone from inside Hamas.

Now, to make matters worse, it looks like, maybe, Hamas sold out Islamic Jihad:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/killing-of-jihad-leader-opens-rift-with-hamas/article5455415/



Killing of Jihad leader opens rift with Hamas

PATRICK MARTIN
GAZA CITY — The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Nov. 19 2012

Israel dealt a body blow to Islamic Jihad Monday, killing one of its most senior Palestinian leaders and exacerbating tensions between Jihad, the second largest militant group in Gaza, and Hamas. The result could make a ceasefire with Israel that much harder to reach.

Rames Harb’s charred body was carried out of a 14-storey office building in central Gaza, just before 4 o’clock in the afternoon. About 45 minutes earlier, the building, a media centre that is home to Palestinian and international journalist organizations in Gaza, was struck by an Israeli missile.

Mr. Harb and four Jihad colleagues were in their third-floor office when the missile came through their front window.

The colleagues were seriously injured, but Mr. Harb’s clothes were blown right off him and his body burned from top to bottom.

He probably never knew what hit him, but his organization does.

Standing amid the broken glass and shattered concrete shortly after the attack, journalists from the building said Israeli authorities had warned them the day before to stay away from their offices. Mr. Harb and his associates must not have gotten the message. They were alone in the building when the attack came. And while Jihad members are livid at Israel for killing their Gaza City leader, they also are angry at Hamas for the ruling group’s apparent willingness to accept Israel’s terms for a ceasefire.

It verges on collaboration, they say.

Israel bombed dozens more targets in the Gaza Strip and militants in the Gaza Strip fired 110 rockets at southern Israel on Monday, causing no casualties. Intense diplomatic efforts to craft a ceasefire agreement continued, with United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-moon shuttling from Cairo to Jerusalem and President Barack Obama pressing Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to use his influence with Hamas leaders to broker a stop to rocket launches from Gaza.

But Hamas, which has governed the densely populated Gaza Strip, is not the only player.

Islamic Jihad says it wants to fight the Israelis, not just fire rockets that get shot down. Notably, Jihad members were among the only ones to have engaged in combat with Israeli forces when they invaded Gaza in January, 2009. Most Hamas fighters fell back and hid, saying they were waiting to tackle the Israelis when they entered Gaza’s maze of small streets – a battle that never came.

They also say they won’t agree to stop firing rockets in the future, a position that would bring them into real conflict with Hamas should it agree to an Israeli demand that Hamas guarantee that all other militias in the Gaza Strip stop firing rockets and mortars into Israel.

‪Hamas officials insist they are not selling out to Israel when they indicate they are prepared to deal.

“The only ceasefire Hamas will agree to is one in which Israel agrees to stop all aggression and to end the siege [on Gaza], explained Mushir Masry, a leading Hamas MP. If Israel does that, he said, “it’s a deal worth having.”

‪Nabil Shaath, a prominent minister in the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, made a rare visit to his native Gaza Monday to wave the PA flag and “to show Israel it can’t divide the Palestinians [between those in Gaza and those in the West Bank].”

“We are one people,” he said, “and we’ll stay that way.”

On the subject of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, he agreed that it would be good for all Palestinians, “provided Israel is made to adhere to it, too.”

Not every senior Palestinian official is keen to have a ceasefire, however, at least not yet.

‪Ayman Batniji, spokesman for the Hamas police force and a charismatic imam at a downtown Gaza mosque, was wandering through Shifa Hospital Monday afternoon.

Since police headquarters had been destroyed in the wee hours of Sunday morning – the new facility had only been open for six days – Mr. Batniji, dressed in a stylish brown leather jacket, had been without an office. His views, however, have a home among many in Hamas’s security forces.

On the subject of an Israeli invasion, he all but declared: Bring ’em on.

“It will be a big disaster for the Zionists if they enter Gaza,” Mr. Batniji said. “We’ve got 10,000 men willing to sacrifice themselves to kill as many of the Jews as possible.”

“These people [the Israelis] never learn,” Mr. Batniji said. “They lost in 2000 [when they pulled out of Lebanon]; they lost in 2005 [when they withdrew their forces from Gaza]; they lost in 2006 [when they retreated from Lebanon, again] and they lost in 2009 [when they ended their attack on Hamas in Gaza].

“They will lose even bigger this time,” he predicted.

Clearly, it is not an easy path for Hamas to agree to a ceasefire.
		
Click to expand...



But, in the final analysis, ‪Ayman Batniji is right: there is no way for Israel to "win" this in any conventional military sense. The hatred upon which organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad feed is deep and strong. Thousands of silly, ill educated, hopeless young men will line up for a chance to kill Jews. It is possible, even likely, that yet again, the Arabs will find a new and exciting way to "lose" this battle, but Israel can't win it.
_


----------



## FJAG

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> Probably as a result of frontier warfare, Jacksonian opinion came to believe that it was breaking the spirit of the enemy nation, rather than the fighting power of the enemy’s armies, that was the chief object of warfare. It was not enough to defeat a tribe in battle; one had to "pacify" the tribe, to convince it utterly that resistance was and always would be futile and destructive. For this to happen, the war had to go to the enemy’s home. The villages had to be burned, food supplies destroyed, civilians had to be killed. From the tiniest child to the most revered of the elderly sages, everyone in the enemy nation had to understand that further armed resistance to the will of the American people—whatever that might be—was simply not an option.


The Jacksonian approach wasn't new to North America having first been used by Europeans when Thomas West the 3rd Baron De La Warr used "Irish Tactics" in 1610 to subdue the Powhatan nation by raiding villages, burning crops and houses, removing provisions and along the way killing and terrorising the population. The Powhatans had been using exactly the same tactics against the Jamestown colony.

Regardless of the origins, these tactics have been contrary to the law of war long before the Geneva Convention. The Allies, including the Americans coined a new war crime, waging wars of aggression, and ensured that a meaningful number of Nazis were hanged for this.

The resulting Geneva Conventions codified much of what was already part of the customary law of war. 

A key consideration that comes into play in any conflict and particularly in the field of targeting, is the Principle of Proportionality which can be paraphrased as "the anticipated loss of life and damage to property incidental to attacks must not be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage expected to be gained."

A second consideration for anyone planning to occupy hostile territory are the very onerous responsibility that falls on an occupying military power in administering the occupied territory and its people.

Is there anyone here who really thinks that Gaza can be "subjugated", whether by Jacksonian approach or any other, to the point where a million and a half Palestinian Muslims are going to give up their fanatical hatred of Israel?

Sadly, the world does not stand with Israel. Even amongst its most stalwart allies, the media and much of the population is critical of Israel's settlement policies and believe that the "Palestinian Problem" is just as much, if not more, Israel's fault as that of Hamas. Most countries are overtly opposed to Israel. 

Israel is between a rock and a hard place. Its Iron Dome system, while an excellent militarily, is a double edged sword in the media war. It's difficult to win the propaganda wars when your actions are based on self defence from Hamas missile when your own systems are knocking them out of the skies while your own "smart bombs" are creating "excessive collateral damage". Don't bother pointing out to me that Hamas is firing indiscriminately at civilian targets and that they are using civilians and their property as shields. You know it. I know it. The general public on the other hand only sees hundreds of dead and wounded Palestinians including children compared to only a handful of Israelis. 

I very much support Israel and wish them luck but won't even pretend that I have a solution to their problem.


----------



## BrendenDias

I doubt Harper would send troops to Isreal. He probably means verbal defence... hah. 
Netanyahu probably won't be happy if Canada doesn't lend out some sort of a hand to the Israeli effort, just my opinion.


----------



## Edward Campbell

B.Dias said:
			
		

> I doubt Harper would send troops to Isreal. He probably means verbal defence... hah.
> Netanyahu probably won't be happy if Canada doesn't lend out some sort of a hand to the Israeli effort, just my opinion.




The only support Israel really needs is a) financial from the USA; and b) moral from countries like Canada.

My guess: the IDF does not want now would it accept any foreign troops on its own territory. National pride was strong when I was last in Israel, some years ago now, and I have seen nothing to suggest that they have had a sudden crisis of confidence. When US troops visit, for combined training, they often do so - in the minds of the IDF - as "students" who are there to learn something. My, also very likely out of date, experience with the IDF and US was that neither actually "likes" the other and the IDF does not think it has much to learn from its American friends. Israel is a small country and it is not a "rich" one, except in _human capital_: the Israelis are well educated, sophisticated and "advanced;" their science and technology is at the top of the global heap; they want "help" but not just any help, see my opening sentence.

The Israelis would, probably, be happy to see Western nations join a *very looooong* UN mission in Gaza or the West Bank as one possible solution to their desire to see a disarmed Palestinian State with an independent "occupying" power.


----------



## tomahawk6

Just a few weeks ago the US had Patriot batteries in Israel and as far as I know the US maintains an X band type radar on Mt Keren in the Negev. It has a range of 2900 miles and would provide early warning to Israel of an Iranian missile launch.


----------



## OldSolduer

So what's going on in Syria and Iran?


----------



## The Bread Guy

.... calling on Muslims to help pile on - full statement attached to avoid racking up the Taliban webmeister's hit count:


> .... The Israeli regime, over the last few decades of its savage occupation of Palestine, has had the oppressed Palestinians suffer every kind of oppression, misery and bloodshed. Thousands of innocent Palestinians have been brutally murdered or blown to bits, their houses have been leveled and knocked down in the Israeli airstrikes and ground offensives and most of their rightful land has been usurped.
> 
> In fact, the Israeli regime has never stopped at anything and will never stop at this as well. Accordingly, in order to avoid this invasion what is an act of terrorism, the Islamic Emirate hereby urges the entire Muslim Ummah, particularly the Muslim leaders, human right organizations and the peace-loving people in the world to regain a strong position to work out ways so as to put an end to the Israeli invasion of Palestine and its savage aggression against the oppressed people of Gaza City and to let the Palestinian nation live free and in peace in their own land ....


Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight....


----------



## Maxadia

Apparently a truce may have been called:

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/D2VboA0QsnQ7pjtUy0792M/Israel-strikes-Gazas-Islamic-bank-as-death-toll-hits-109.html



> Updated: Tue, Nov 20 2012. 10 26 PM IST
> Gaza/Jerusalem: An Egyptian-brokered ceasefire in the Gaza conflict will go into effect later on Tuesday, a Hamas official said.
> There was no immediate Israeli comment. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier he was open to a long-term deal to halt Palestinian rocket attacks on his country.


----------



## The Bread Guy

RDJP said:
			
		

> Apparently a truce may have been called:
> 
> http://www.livemint.com/Politics/D2VboA0QsnQ7pjtUy0792M/Israel-strikes-Gazas-Islamic-bank-as-death-toll-hits-109.html


Latest from Israel - not _quite_ yet:


> .... Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev told Reuters the announcement was premature and Israeli military operations in Gaza, territory run by Hamas Islamists, would continue in parallel with diplomacy.
> 
> "We're not there yet," Regev said on CNN. "The ball's still in play." ....


----------



## Edward Campbell

Jeffrey Goldberg, who writes for _The Atlantic_ and _Bloomberg View_ is not an unbiased observer but I think this column, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _Bloomberg View_, is a pretty fair assessment of the Israeli point of view:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-20/seven-truths-about-israel-hamas-and-violence.html


> Seven Truths About Israel, Hamas and Violence
> 
> By Jeffrey Goldberg
> 
> Nov 19, 2012
> 
> There are many lies being told about the current conflict between Israel and Hamas. Here are seven things that are true.
> 
> *No. 1.* This most recent outbreak of violence represents the opening round of the third Palestinian intifada. The first intifada, which began in 1987 and petered out in the early 1990s, was an uprising of stones and Molotov cocktails. The second intifada, which began 12 years ago, was an uprising of suicide bombers. The third uprising, inevitably, was going to feature rockets and missiles. I don’t care to think about what sorts of weapons and tactics will feature in the fourth intifada.
> 
> *No. 2.* Hamas’s strategy in this latest conflict makes perfect sense. Hamas, which is the Palestine branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is theologically committed to the obliteration of Israel and believes, as a matter of faith, that Jews are Allah’s enemies. Its leaders have believed, since the group’s inception, that Jews are soft (“We love death and they love life,” a Hamas leader once told me, and it is a commonly expressed thought). Hamas also believes that eventually misery and fear will drive most Jews to leave Israel, which it views as a Muslim waqf, or endowment, not merely the rightful home of the Palestinian people.
> 
> This strategy only works because Hamas leaders believe that the deaths of Palestinians aid their cause. As we have seen in this latest iteration of the Arab-Israeli war, every death of a Palestinian civilian is a victory for Hamas and a defeat for Israel. Palestinians in Gaza who dissent from this approach are often punished by Hamas.
> 
> *No. 3.* Hamas’s decision to increase the tempo of rocket attacks at Israeli civilian targets -- the cause of this latest round of violence, as President Barack Obama and most Western leaders have asserted -- emerged not only from a desire on the part of the group to terrorize the Jewish state out of existence. It also emerged from a cold political calculation that the Arab Spring (or, in the eyes of Hamas, the Islamist Spring) means that the arc of history is bending toward them and away from the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas and its more moderate Arab supporters. This analysis has encouraged Hamas to assert itself now as the main player in the Palestinian “resistance.”
> 
> *No. 4.* The Jews aren’t abandoning ship. One of the reasons Hamas’s strategy so far hasn’t worked is because Israel’s Jews are more patriotic, and braver, than Hamas ideologues can bring themselves to admit. The Jews didn’t abandon Israel during the height of Hamas’s suicide-bombing campaigns in the 1990s and early 2000s, and hundreds of Israeli Jews, as well as Israeli Muslims, Christians and foreign visitors, died in those campaigns. As of this writing, three Israeli Jews have died in the past week’s rocket attacks.
> 
> The majority of Israelis believe that they are finally home. Unlike their ancestors during the long period of exile from Israel following the Roman conquest of Jerusalem, they believe it is wrong and counterproductive to run from persecution and attack.
> 
> *No. 5.* Israel, unlike Hamas, has no strategy in Gaza. It has only tactics. Israel is justified in defending itself. It isn’t tenable for a sovereign state to allow its citizens to go unprotected from rocket attacks from someone else’s territory. If Russia or the U.S. had come under similar attack, those responsible would almost immediately find themselves dead. All of them. But for Israel, military victory over Hamas is impossible, which is why a ground invasion of Gaza is a bad idea. So long as Hamas maintains the capability to fire even one rocket into Israel, or dispatch one suicide bomber to a Tel Aviv cafe, it will view itself as having won this round.
> 
> For a while, at least, expect Hamas to have more difficulty launching attacks. It has, after all, lost much of its rocket force as well as its military commander, the allegedly indispensable Ahmed al-Jabari. But I’ve been to the funerals of four or five indispensable Hamas men over the years, and they are always replaced. Short-term, it is possible that Hamas will refrain from firing rockets and keep others from doing so as well. But there is no long-term military solution for Israel, short of turning Gaza into Chechnya or Dresden. This is militarily feasible, but it would be immoral and would end in Israel losing its international legitimacy.
> 
> *No. 6.* There also is no direct political solution for Israel. If Hamas were willing to negotiate with Israel about anything more than prisoner exchanges or cease-fires, it wouldn’t be Hamas. It is impossible for Israel to do serious business with an organization that wishes it dead. But there is an indirect political solution for Gaza. The Palestinians are currently split between the moderate camp of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, on the West Bank, and the extremists of Hamas in Gaza. Successive Israeli governments have undermined the Palestinian Authority government on the West Bank by expanding the Jewish settler presence.
> 
> The settlement project aids Hamas, which can point to it as proof that Israel is uninterested in the two-state solution endorsed by Hamas’s more-moderate rivals. If Israel were to reverse settlement growth, this could serve to buttress Palestinian moderates, who are in a position to negotiate with Israel. If the West Bank were to gain real freedom, the Palestinians of Gaza might turn away from Hamas. All of this is unlikely -- pessimism needs to be our guide in the Middle East - - but this plan represents the only alternative to continued military strikes on Gaza by Israel.
> 
> *No. 7.* Opinions on both sides hardened in the first intifada and hardened further in the second. Here in the third, they will harden some more. Palestinian society is infected with dreams of physically eliminating its enemy. Parts of Israeli society, too, are succumbing to fever dreams of total victory. The trends on both sides are almost entirely negative. The most likely outcome of this round: A cease-fire, a period of quiet and then a gradual return to shooting.
> 
> _(Jeffrey Goldberg is a Bloomberg View columnist and a national correspondent for The Atlantic. The opinions expressed are his own.)_


----------



## muskrat89

Yeah, this will speed a ceasefire along...

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/20/hamas-kills-six-suspected-aiding-israel-drags-body-through-streets/


----------



## Retired AF Guy

muskrat89 said:
			
		

> Yeah, this will speed a ceasefire along...
> 
> http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/20/hamas-kills-six-suspected-aiding-israel-drags-body-through-streets/



Were they really Israeli agents or just some poor guy who happened to be in the wrong pace at the wrong time. Or may be someone was peeved off at someone else and denounced them as an Israeli agent to get revenge.


----------



## a_majoor

More on the attack on the Media center. Most telling is the media's reaction to the event, certainly editing out important facts to drive a narrative gives one pause when considering what else is being manipulated in other, perhaps lesser, stories and for what purpose? A breif discussion on why the US response may have been muted is also in this article:

http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2012/11/20/benghazi-gaza-and-the-killers-of-cnn/?print=1



> *Benghazi, Gaza, and the Killers of CNN*
> Posted By Roger L Simon On November 20, 2012 @ 12:01 am In Uncategorized | 51 Comments
> 
> Has Benghazi helped Israel?
> 
> It’s hard to calculate the amount, but it seems likely that the evolving Libyan scandal has been useful to Israel in its struggle with Hamas in Gaza.
> 
> The embarrassing — even humiliating — mishandling and subsequent misnaming of the terror attack on the U.S. consulate/CIA installation has made the administration look quite ridiculous in its claim that al-Qaeda and similar Islamic extremist organizations were on the run. With four Americans dead in Benghazi, the reverse appears to be true.
> 
> Sympathy for Islamofascists is not at a high point and, consequently, Barack Obama, not always Benjamin Netanyahu’s best friend, has been remarkably understanding of Operation Pillar of Defense, affirming, while in Thailand, that “we are fully supportive” of Israel’s right to act against Hamas.
> 
> During an interview I conducted Monday with David Siegel, Israel’s consul general for the southwestern U.S., Mr. Siegel, one of the Jewish state’s key diplomats in this country, was effusive in his praise regarding the president’s solidarity with Israel in its current struggle. (The interview is now available here [1] on PJTV.)
> 
> We will see how this plays out in the next few days when the inevitable pushback occurs, but conservatives, who were in such strong opposition to Obama in part because of his Middle East policy, may have to eat a small portion, at least, of crow.
> 
> The Israelis also have to thank Obama to a degree for the better treatment they are getting from the mainstream media this time around, for the moment anyway. Yes, the New York Times (probably the most reactionary institution in our country today) remains blissfully unaware [2] of the presence of terrorists in the Gaza Strip, bellowing on about the destruction of media buildings by Israeli forces without noting that shielding themselves inside the buildings were four senior leaders of Islamic Jihad.
> 
> And yes, CNN bought yet another Pallywood production [3] hook, line and sinker, years after the notorious Mohammed al Dura case and the “Green” man in the Lebanon War and who knows how many other incredibly obvious counterfeits. Anderson Cooper should don a dunce cap [4] for this and spend a long time in the corner.
> 
> Through it all, you have the sense the media is chomping at the bit to go forward with their traditional anti-Israeli narrative, but Obama’s attitude is impeding them for the moment. Who knows how long it will last? But everything possible should be done to encourage the president’s new outlook.
> 
> Of course, there would be no Gaza War ever if Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et. al. did not lob missiles at Israeli civilians day in and day out to provoke one. Israel would have no interest in fighting otherwise. Only Hamas would. And only Hamas does, by creating a deliberately asymmetrical war that results, again deliberately, in the killing and maiming of its own people for the benefit of the media.
> 
> For McLuhan, the media was the message. For Hamas, the message is the media publicizing their message.
> 
> By participating in this pas de deux, the media are complicit with Hamas in that killing and maiming because it is done for them. It happens so the media can report it. They might be shocked to hear it, but if they stopped to think for a second, the media would realize that the war, on Hamas’ part anyway, would not exist if no one publicized it. Without publicity, Hamas couldn’t be less interested. And the Israelis, unprovoked, would never send a single missile into Gaza. Everyone knows that.
> 
> So Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the others fight for the benefit of the media. That’s it. That’s their sole motive — to show Israel as brutal with the help of the press. They live for the Israelis to make a mistake — and if the Israelis don’t, they invent one.
> 
> By participating in this charade, the media are effectively racist, treating the Palestinians like “ignorant wogs” from the days of British imperialism, incapable of taking care of themselves or of making a decent society for themselves. The media portray the Palestinians as victims, therefore encouraging Palestinian victimhood.
> 
> They are also “objectively pro-fascist” in Orwell’s term [5], because Hamas is an Islamofascist organization and they are doing Hamas’ will.
> 
> CNN et. al. rarely report the obvious — that if Hamas devoted a tenth of the time and money to hospitals, schools, and other civic institutions that they do to amassing an arsenal of 12,000 missiles and whatever else, the Gaza Strip would flourish like a paradise.
> 
> For now we can thank Obama and Benghazi for keeping this murderous roundelay a bit in check. Evidently the ceasefire dickering has already begun. Apparently the Israelis have the temerity to be asking for a long one. I don’t know if that matters. Hamas and similar organizations live on hate — and hate lasts thousands of years. It has to be stopped at the core.
> 
> I have a different suggestion for the Israelis to start with one simple and basic demand — for Hamas to change its charter that calls for the extermination of Israel. Without that, what will have changed?
> 
> Also read: Director of National Intelligence Office Altered the Benghazi Talking Points [6]
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Article printed from Roger L. Simon: http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon
> 
> URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2012/11/20/benghazi-gaza-and-the-killers-of-cnn/
> 
> URLs in this post:
> 
> [1] here: http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=476&load=7728
> 
> [2] remains blissfully unaware: http://freebeacon.com/nyt-once-again-unaware-of-terrorists-in-gaza/
> 
> [3] Pallywood production: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL8ANySuSuk
> 
> [4] Anderson Cooper should don a dunce cap: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2012/11/19/cnns-cooper-retracts-video-palestinian-man-faking-injury
> 
> [5] Orwell’s term: http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/pacifism/english/e_patw
> 
> [6] Director of National Intelligence Office Altered the Benghazi Talking Points: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/11/20/cbs-director-of-national-intelligence-office-altered-the-benghazi-talking-points/



AS for strategy and tactics, it is totally counterproductive for Israel to "reward" bad behavior. Bombing rocket facilities and making incursions to eliminate other threats is a short term and tactical approach, but since Isreal controls the suppluy of electricity and other commodities, it may make the most sense to simply cut the cord as the price of "bad" behaviour. This would cripple the Hamas ability to carry out most civil government tasks they have chosen to do (which would also break much of their hold on the population) and I predict a large portion of the armed fighters would turn on each other within the Gaza strip not for any ideological reasons, but simply to sieze whaterver supplies and tradable goods are left. With much of the logistical "support" removed, political legitimacy of the Hamas shattered and the C2 of the various fighting organizations in Gaza ineffective as they descend into warlordism and chaos, the Gaza strip would no longer be such a threat to Israel, and moderates could attempt to take back their society to regain access to the electrical and economic lifelines.

As for the repeated assertations that "Gaza is under the heel of Israel", do you hear similar statements about Tibet or the Xinjiang region of China? How about the Ukraine during the Soviet period? East Germany? What about the Kurds in Turkey and Iran? Many nations and ethnic groups claim to be effectively under the control of an outside power with most if not all the conditions set by the "occupying power"; maybe we should ramp up the rhetoric in these places as well ?</snark>


----------



## Edward Campbell

The media is fixated on the _disproportionality_ (well it *could* be word!  : ) of the casualties between Gaza and Israel. And they are disproportionate ...
.
.
.
.
.
.
... *because* Israel invests in *defence*, for itself, as a country and for every person in the country. Hamas, on the other hand, *welcomes* disproportionately high casualties because they know that it will bring them undeserved sympathy.

Most reporters are just stenographers: they take dictation from the Hamas PR agents and then pass it off as "news" or "commentary."

But Hamas does speak the truth, sometimes: *"The Jews,"* they said *"love life and we [Arabs] embrace death"* and that, they implied, is why Arabs will, eventually win ... they are the more bloody minded of the two. Maybe they're right, maybe if they sacrifice enough of their own people the Israelis will give up and migrate to North America.

*"What bothers me most is not that Arabs kill our children,"* Golda Meir said *"but that they force us to kill theirs."*


----------



## George Wallace

ERC

Hamas is playing the same game as was played in the Former Yugoslavia and so many other conflicts around the world.  They are playing the "underdog" and trying to better the Israelis in the eyes of the Media.  It is a "competition" to gain the most sympathy from the Media and show themselves as more "righteous" in their activities.   All of it is PsyOPS for a more accurate definition.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Not sure what this means but, apparently, a mob has just (last hour?) set fire to the Al Jazeera TV studio, which is very near Tahrir Square in Cairo. Is Al Jazeera too biased for the _Arab street_?


Edit to add: Ooops, I meant to say *unbiased*. As Journeyman notes, just below, it is well known for accurate reports what have gotten it into difficulties before.


----------



## Journeyman

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Is Al Jazeera too biased for the _Arab street_?


If, by "biased" you mean "accurate," I'd say yes. For several years now, I've routinely followed al Jazeera for world news.


----------



## The Bread Guy

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Not sure what this means but, apparently, a mob has just (last hour?) set fire to the Al Jazeera TV studio, which is very near Tahrir Square in Cairo. Is Al Jazeera too biased for the _Arab street_?


Like many other media outlets, considered fair and balanced right up until they consistently run with stuff counter to the street's master narrative/story line/spin.


----------



## GR66

There are very few options for a long-term solution to this bloody mess.  I think that any attempt at a solution will ultimately have to come from Isreal.  On the hardline Islamist side there is no incentive to try and find a political solution as the total destruction of Isreal is the ONLY objective.  Many Islamists may also feel that demographics are on their side in the long run anyway.  I would argue that it is in Isreal's long-term best interest to try and find some type of (even imperfect) solution as soon as possible while they still clearly have a very strong hand.

In my opinion the best course for Isreal would be to unilaterally declare an independant Palestinian state and recognize the Palestinian Authority as the de facto interum government of that new country.  They would have to make major concessions in order to make Palestine a truly viable state...most/all of the West Bank, a land link between Gaza and the West Bank, hand over control of utilities, freedom to conduct trade, possibly even some type of access to East Jerusalem, the whole 9 yards.   The entire purpose of that action would be to recast the characterization of the conflict of Isreal being an occupying power keeping freedom from the poor, oppressed Palestinians.  The Palestinians would be given what they've been asking for...their own country.  They would have the control required to try and shape their own future.  

Any attacks against Isreal afterward could then be characterized as attacks by one nation against another and deserving of retaliation.  The moderate Palestinians would then have a choice...allow the extremists to continue their attacks and risk being characterized by the rest of the world as extremists themselves and seeking to wage a war of aggression against the Jewish people.  Isreal would be in the novel position as being re-cast as the victim after they made the big concession of "giving in" to the Palestinian's initial demands in the first place.  The other option for moderate Arabs would be to turn their backs on the extremists and try to build their new nation into something worthwhile.

It's certainly no ideal solution.  Isreal would be giving up much for no immediate gain in return.  The extremists would still be extremists and attacks on Isreal would continue (at the very least for the short term).  Palestine would still be pittied by many in the West until they eventually start to get on their feet economically and socially.  But at least the narrative would have the chance to change for Isreal which is more than they have on the plate at the moment.


----------



## GAP

A Sudan Surprise
Hamas militants may have received new weapons from Iran through Sudan, experts say
http://freebeacon.com/a-sudan-surprise/
Y: Adam Kredo November 21, 2012 

Sudan has played a key role in arming Hamas militants with sophisticated Iranian-made rockets, experts said.

The Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) principal objective in Gaza is to rid Palestinian terrorists of sophisticated Iranian-produced rockets that are capable of striking deep into Israel’s heartland, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

These rockets originated in Sudan and were then smuggled into Gaza with Iran’s help, sources said.

The existence of these advanced Fajr-5 rockets reveals the deepening ties between Iran and its terrorist proxies in Gaza and Sudan, where the rockets were housed before shipment.

“To put it simply, it was Iranian-made Fajr-5s, imported via Sudan, that prompted this war,” said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “Iran’s fingerprints are all over this.”

Hamas terrorists in Gaza were provided around 100 Fajr-5 rockets by Iran. The rockets are capable of travelling nearly 50 miles, putting both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv within their reach. These missiles differ drastically from the crude rockets typically fired by Hamas terrorists.

The Fajr-5 missiles are believed to have been smuggled from Sudan into Gaza via Egypt’s porous Sinai region.

Sudan, a longtime ally of Iran, acted as a “key transit point” for these weapons, Schanzer said.

“[Sudanese capital] Khartoum has long been a transit point for Iranian-made rockets to Gaza,” he said. “The smuggling route goes up through Egypt and across the Sinai [desert] into the tunnels and into Gaza.”

Israel was the prime suspect after a weapons facility in south Khartoum mysteriously exploded in late October. The Jewish state’s attack on the Yarmouk military manufacturing facility was preventive in nature, experts said.

“I am convinced that the October bombing of an IRGC weapons factory in Khartoum was part one of this operation,” Schanzer said. “The Israelis learned of a large cache of Fajr-5s and destroyed it there.”

“But it appears that around 100 of them had already made it into Gaza,” he added. “This prompted the Israelis hunt down the Fajrs during this latest round of fighting.”


----------



## The Bread Guy

We have a ceasefire coming - this from the IDF Info-machine ....


> A short while ago, a ceasefire agreement regarding the fighting in the south, came into effect. Following eight days of operations, the IDF has accomplished its pre-determined objectives for Operation Pillar of Defense, and has inflicted severe damage to Hamas and its military capabilities.
> 
> As a result of IDF operations, the command and control apparatus of Hamas was significantly struck, beginning with the targeting of the commander of the military wing of Hamas, Ahmed Jabri, continuing with the targeting of broad terrorist infrastructure, facilities and military bases, as well as the destruction of dozens of smuggling and explosive tunnels.
> 
> During the operation, the IDF damaged and destroyed significant elements of Hamas' strategic capabilities, among them. Amongst those capabilities were long-range (over 40 km) and hundreds of short- and medium-range rocket launchers. These actions have severely impaired Hamas' launching capabilities, resulting in a decreasing number of rockets being fired from the Gaza Strip. The 'Iron Dome' defense system has accomplished high rate of successful interceptions (84%) and Hamas' accuracy with regards to hitting populated areas within Israel remained below 7% ....



.... and from mainstream media:


> A ceasefire is set to go into effect at 9 p.m. local time Wednesday in Gaza, putting an end to eight days of shelling between Hamas and Israeli forces that has injured hundreds and and inflamed tensions ....
> 
> 
> 
> Understanding Regarding Ceasefire in Gaza Strip
> 
> 1.a.Israel shall stop all hostilities on the Gaza Strip land, sea and air including incursions and targeting of individuals.
> 
> b.All Palestinian factions shall stop all hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel, including rocket attacks, and attacks along the border.
> 
> c. Opening the crossings and facilitating the movement of people and transfer of goods, and refraining from restricting residents free movement, and targeting residents in border areas and procedures of implementation shall be dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the ceasefire.
> 
> d. Other matters as may be requested shall be addressed.
> 
> 2. Implementation Mechanism:
> a. Setting up of the zero hour for the Ceasefire Understanding to enter into effect.
> 
> b. Egypt shall receive assurances from each party that the party commits to what was agreed upon.
> 
> c. Each party shall commit itself not to perform any acts that would breach this understanding. In case of any observations, Egypt - as the sponsor of this understanding - shall be informed to follow up.
Click to expand...


----------



## brihard

Hamas and Israel can achieve ceasefire in under two weeks, yet the NHL is still on strike...  :facepalm:


----------



## Journeyman

Brihard said:
			
		

> Hamas and Israel can achieve proclaim ceasefire in under two weeks....


You'll understand if I don't rush out to book a 'Sandals Resort Gaza' beach-front holiday just yet.


----------



## Jarnhamar

Ceasefire will last long enough for Gaza dudes to get more rockets and start firing them.


----------



## dapaterson

Journeyman said:
			
		

> You'll understand if I don't rush out to book a 'Sandals Resort Gaza' beach-front holiday just yet.



You're just upset about that "Damascus discount getaway" you booked last month.


----------



## jollyjacktar

dapaterson said:
			
		

> You're just upset about that "Damascus discount getaway" you booked last month.


You know though, there were places in Syria I would have been interested in seeing before they blew the hell out of the place.  Now?  I doubt it would ever be worth the effort in my lifetime.


----------



## tomahawk6

Bias doesnt mean accurate. Bias usually is favoring one side over another. But I have to say that al Jazeera is more even handed than during OIF. Anytime an al Jazeera office is sacked and burned by an angry arab mob is an indication that someone isnt happy with the reporting. ;D


----------



## Edward Campbell

It looks, to me, as though there is one big "winner" in this ceasefire: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

I'm guess that he won, in some large part, because Israel wanted him to win, an Egyptian _victory_, more important a Morsi victory is in Israel's long term interests. My suspicion is that by agreeing to what appear to be _unbalanced_ ceasefire terms Israel is:

1. Extending the hand of friendship to President Morsi; and

2. Strengthening Morsi's hand in the region.

I'm also guessing that Israel expects something in return.

Going back to one of my recurring themes: if Mohamd Morsi is the winner then, given that the "balance of influence" in the region is a zero sum game, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the loser.


----------



## cupper

He may begin to have internal security problems though, if the road he is moving down starts to piss off too many of the populous.

*Egypt’s President Morsi takes sweeping new powers*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/egypts-president-morsi-takes-sweeping-new-powers/2012/11/22/8d87d716-34cb-11e2-92f0-496af208bf23_story.html?hpid=z2



> CAIRO – Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi declared extensive political powers for himself Thursday, taking broad and sweeping control of his country a day after he won international praise for fostering a cease-fire in Gaza.
> 
> Under the terms of Thursday’s decree, Morsi said that all of the decisions he has made since he took office — and until a new constitution is adopted — were final and not subject to appeal or review. He declared the retrial of high officials accused of the deaths of protesters during the country’s 2011 revolution, a measure that appeared targeted at former leader Hosni Mubarak. And he dismissed Egypt’s Mubarak-era prosecutor general, immediately swearing in a new one.
> 
> The announcement, which was read on state television by Morsi’s spokesman, Yasser Ali, late Thursday afternoon and broadcast repeatedly, appears to leave few if any checks on the president’s power. The military, not long ago a powerful weight against the executive branch, was sidelined in August in a similarly sudden decision when Morsi fired the top ranks in a single sweep. And Egypt’s short-lived parliament was dissolved by the country’s top court shortly before Morsi, a political Islamist, took office.
> 
> Some commentators on Egyptian television quickly began bandying about words like “dictatorship.” Protesters were massing in Tahrir Square, some with posters containing split images of the faces of Mubarak and Morsi. Meanwhile, a group of Morsi supporters from his Muslim Brotherhood movement gathered elsewhere in central Cairo to show their support for the decision.
> *
> “If a danger arises that threatens the January 25 revolution,” the proclamation read, the president “can take any procedures and preparations that he sees necessary to face this danger.”*


----------



## Edward Campbell

Yes, but he also gets $4.8 Billion in loans from the IMF as a reward.

He may be a tyrannical thug ~ but what Arab leader is anything else? ~ but he can, for the moment, pay off his bond holders.

And, as we always say: "Now he's *our* tyrannical thug."


----------



## GAP

Gee....sure sounds like the same kinda stuff that went on in Iran when the Ayatollahs came to power


----------



## Edward Campbell

GAP said:
			
		

> Gee....sure sounds like the same kinda stuff that went on in Iran when the Ayatollahs came to power




It is, and it's the same kind of "stuff" that went on when "we" (US CIA and UK SIS) put the Shah of Iran back in power (1953) and when we (the Brits) put the the Hashemites on the thrones of Iraq (Faisal) and Jordan (Abdullah) during/just after the World War I. "We" tend to buy the (always only temporary) "loyalty" (if that's what you want to call it) of various kings, sheiks and presidents rather than actually trying to teach the Arabs democracy or good governance, which are not the same thing at all (George W Bush's foolish dreams to the contrary).


----------



## cupper

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Yes, but he also gets $4.8 Billion in loans from the IMF as a reward.
> 
> He may be a tyrannical thug ~ but what Arab leader is anything else? ~ but he can, for the moment, pay off his bond holders.
> 
> And, as we always say: "Now he's *our* tyrannical thug."



But the question is for how long? Even though he fired all of the generals who were previously "Loyal" to the old regime, and replaced the old judges with his own people, it wouldn't take much to set off the powder keg. There was plenty of discussion after the elections that the younger generations and more moderate Islamist elements were not happy with the outcome, and felt marginalized by the senior more conservative members of the Brotherhood. The PR looks good to those Arab allies outside Egypt, but the power grab and crackdowns that will surely follow could well hurt his place within the country.


----------



## GAP

The Brotherhood moved to far too quickly, especially after kicking Mubarak out......they should have done it gradually.....


----------



## cupper

GAP said:
			
		

> The Brotherhood moved to far too quickly, especially after kicking Mubarak out......they should have done it gradually.....



True that they moved to far too, but they did sit on the sidelines during the start of the protests, and only became involved after the Army took over. Waiting to see which way things would fall.


----------



## Edward Campbell

cupper said:
			
		

> But the question is for how long? Even though he fired all of the generals who were previously "Loyal" to the old regime, and replaced the old judges with his own people, it wouldn't take much to set off the powder keg. There was plenty of discussion after the elections that the younger generations and more moderate Islamist elements were not happy with the outcome, and felt marginalized by the senior more conservative members of the Brotherhood. The PR looks good to those Arab allies outside Egypt, but the power grab and crackdowns that will surely follow could well hurt his place within the country.





			
				cupper said:
			
		

> True that they moved to far too, but they did sit on the sidelines during the start of the protests, and only became involved after the Army took over. Waiting to see which way things would fall.




And that's what I'm doing: waiting to see how the various situations develop. I don't even pretend to understand Arab politics.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _Foreign Affairs_ is an interesting analysis of *why* we just had this eruption of violence in Gaza. The key seems to be that Hamas was _morphing_ into a legitimate government but was unwilling to reign in terrorists within its borders and, as the article says, _"Israel would not let Hamas shirk responsibility"_ for what was being done my more radical groups in Gaza:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138435/barak-mendelsohn/hamas-miscalculation?page=show


> Hamas' Miscalculation
> *Why The Group Thought It Could Get Away With Striking Israel*
> 
> Barak Mendelsohn
> 
> November 18, 2012
> 
> The escalation in the fighting last week between Israel and Hamas caught many observers by surprise. Operation Cast Lead, Israel's 2008 campaign against Hamas, had led to an uneasy calm between the warring sides. And last year's release of Gilad Shalit (the Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped by militants in 2006) in exchange for a thousand Palestinian prisoners had even given observers hope that Israel and Hamas had found a way to manage their conflict. But then, Hamas attacked an Israeli mobile patrol inside Israeli territory on November 10 and Israel retaliated by assassinating Ahmed Jabari, Hamas's military chief. This time, the violence that has followed has not faded quickly; indeed, the fight is still intensifying.
> 
> Given the destruction wrought by Israel and Hamas' last major conflict, Hamas' calculations in the lead-up to this round of fighting are especially puzzling. The typical explanation is that Hamas ramped up its rocket campaign earlier this year in an effort to break Israel's siege on the Gaza Strip. Under fire, Israel had to retaliate.
> 
> That answer, though, is unsatisfying. In many ways, the siege had already been broken. True, the Gaza Strip is tiny, densely populated, squeezed between Israel and Egypt, and dependent on both countries for the passage of people and goods. And all of that makes it a rather claustrophobic place. Yet Israel's efforts to tightly control the area's borders, which started after Hamas won elections there in 2006, had gradually wound down. After the public relations disaster that followed Israel's 2010 mishandling of the Gaza-bound Turkish aid flotilla, the flow of goods over the Israeli border into Gaza increased substantially. Moreover, the tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border, through which most of the goods coming into Gaza are smuggled, became so elaborate that they resembled official border crossings. In fact, the volume of trade that travels through the tunnels could be up to $700 million dollars a year.
> 
> To some extent, Hamas had a political interest in perpetuating the siege idea, which could be used to foment anger against Israel and drum up popular support. Further, it made sense for the movement to preserve some limitations on the movement of goods into Gaza, since the smuggling industry lined its coffers. Thus, although life in Gaza might not have been all that pleasant for Gazans, Hamas wanting to break the siege is not a compelling explanation for its renewed violence against Israel.
> 
> In fact, two factors pushed Hamas to ramp up its bombing campaign: competition from Salafi groups and Hamas' belief that its strategic environment had improved in the wake of the Arab Spring. Since Hamas was elected, it has found the Salafi groups in Gaza especially difficult rivals to manage. Fatah, Hamas' main competitor before it pushed the group out of the area in 2006, was never such a challenge: with the Oslo peace process discredited and Israel's retreat from the Gaza Strip largely attributed (at least in the Gazan psychology) to Hamas' militant activities, the remnants of Fatah just couldn't compete. The small jihadi outfits, though, embodied the fighting ethos. And unlike Hamas, they were free from the constraints that governing puts on ideological purity.
> 
> Under pressure, Hamas repeatedly tried to quell the Salafi threat, and it did not shy from using brute force to do so. The clearest demonstration came in August 2009, when Hamas killed the leader of Jund Ansar Allah, a Salafi group that had openly challenged Hamas' authority, and a number of its members. But short of using extreme violence to suppress Salafism in Gaza, which would have been too costly for Hamas, Hamas could not eliminate the Salafi challenge. It watched with worry as new Salafi groups emerged and strengthened throughout the strip.
> 
> The pressure on Hamas only increased in the wake of the 2011 Arab uprisings. The Egyptian revolution and the subsequent chaos in the Sinai Peninsula were a backwind in the sails of Gaza's Salafis. The collapse of authoritarian regimes in North Africa unleashed a flood of weapons and fighters, which Salafis channeled into the Sinai Peninsula. With the Egyptian military unable to control the area, Gazan Salafis turned the peninsula into a staging ground for attacking Israel. They believed (correctly) that Israel, anxious not to kill its peace accord with Egypt, would not dare to respond directly.
> 
> Indeed, Israel resorted to thwarting attacks emerging from Sinai and the Gaza Strip as best it could by preventing Gazans from getting to Sinai in the first place. On a number of occasions, Israel preemptively targeted Salafi leaders in Gaza. The Salafis responded by lobbing rockets back at Israeli's southern towns. Periods of quiet between rounds of violence became shorter and rarer.
> 
> The new regional order presented Hamas with a serious dilemma. As the ruler of Gaza, it could not sit on the sidelines while Israel targeted territory under its control. But it was unable to fully rein in the Salafis without proving once and for all that it was no longer a resistance movement. For Hamas, then, the only choice was to tolerate the attacks. It portrayed them at home as a way to preserve the struggle against Israel. Abroad, it refused to acknowledge any role in them at all to reduce the danger of a backlash. Over time, pressure from Hamas rank and file led the organization to take a more active role in each round of violence.
> 
> The flaw in Hamas' logic, though, was that it assumed that Israel would cooperate and not retaliate. Israel would not let Hamas shirk responsibility, though, and demanded that Hamas assert its authority over the radical factions. To reinforce the message, this year, Israel carried out a number of strikes on Hamas targets. Once it became a target itself, Hamas was even less able able to show restraint. It eventually resumed carrying out its own strikes on Israel, a move that was cheered by the Hamas rank and file, who, without such attacks, might have defected to the more radical groups.
> 
> Another of Hamas' miscalculations was expecting Egypt to be supportive of its actions, which, when combined with Israel's fear of alienating the regime in Cairo, would allow Hamas to escalate the conflict without it spinning out of control. The hope was not off base. In August, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi had retired the military's top brass and taken full control of Egypt's foreign and security police. The development was particularly significant given that the Supreme Military Council, which had maintained close relations with the United States, was not as interested in helping Hamas. But, the group was wrong again. Hamas' closer ties with Egypt did not discourage Israel from fighting back.
> 
> Simply put, Hamas' strategic environment was not as favorable as it thought. When it tried to push Israel's boundaries, Israel pushed back. Now the group is in a bind. It needs a face-saving resolution to the fighting, one that would allow it to claim some achievement worth of the devastation inflicted this month on Gaza. Even after that, the group will still face the same old tension between its ideology of resistance and the responsibilities that come with governing. And all the while, its Salafi challengers will be lurking, challenging its commitment to the struggle against Israel. If Hamas wants to avoid future such escalations, it will need to crack down on these groups. But that would come with a price -- in popularity and legitimacy -- that Hamas seems unwilling to pay. Hamas must also finally make the transition from resistance movement to normal political party. It will probably take a push from Cairo for that to happen. Hamas' alliance with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood offers the group some of the cover it needs to make the much-needed transition. And the Muslim Brotherhood is a good model for Hamas to follow, besides. Absent Hamas' political transformation, no cease-fire with Israel will hold for long. The next round of violence awaits, just over the horizon.



_BARAK MENDELSOHN is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Haverford College and the author of Combating Jihadism: American Hegemony and Interstate Cooperation in the War on Terrorism._


I think, actually just guess that Prof Mendelsohn's last paragraph sums it up.


----------



## cupper

Mendelson is not alone in putting forth this line of reasoning. Several other articles and news reports I've read or heard over this period also agree that Hamas was running the risk of losing credibility as a major player in the fighting when compared to the other militant groups within Gaza. They had become conflicted in the role thrust upon them when they won the elections. They needed to govern the territory, keep the peace among the various militant factions while at the same time fight for the creation of an independent Palestinian state.


----------



## cupper

Interesting take by Fareed Zakaria on the Arab - Israel balance of power, based on a 2010 study by the CSIS.

*Israel dominates the new Middle East*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-israel-dominates-the-middle-east/2012/11/21/d310dc7c-3428-11e2-bfd5-e202b6d7b501_story.html?hpid=z6



> As missiles and rockets exploded in Israel and Gaza, television news was dominated by the tragic violence, and we were warned that the battle between Israel and the Palestinians might spread because we are in a new and much more dangerous Middle East. Islamists are in power, democracies will listen to their people. In fact, as the relatively quick cease-fire between the parties shows, there is a very low likelihood of a broader regional conflict. It’s true that we’re in a new Middle East, but it’s one in which Israel has become the region’s superpower.
> 
> In a thorough 2010 study, “The Arab-Israeli Military Balance,” Anthony Cordesman and Aram Nerguizian document how over the past decade Israel has outstripped its neighbors in every dimension of warfare. The authors attribute this to Israel’s “combination of national expenditures, massive external funding, national industrial capacity and effective strategy and force planning.” Israel’s military expenditures in 2009 were about $10 billion, which is three times Egypt’s military spending and larger than the combined defense expenditures of all its neighbors — Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. (This advantage is helped by the fact that Israel receives $3 billion in military assistance from Washington.)
> 
> But money doesn’t begin to describe Israel’s real advantages, which are in the quality and effectiveness of its military, in terms of both weapons and people. Despite being dwarfed by the Arab population, Israel’s army plus its high-quality reservists vastly outnumber those of the Arab nations. Its weapons are far more sophisticated, often a generation ahead of those used by its adversaries. Israel’s technology advantage has profound implications on the modern battlefield.
> 
> The most powerful Arab military, and the one against which Israel is often judged in scholarly studies, is Syria’s. But of course the Syrian army is now in turmoil as it battles its own people and Bashar al-Assad hangs on to power.
> 
> Then there are the asymmetrical threats from groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The study takes a look at them and analyzes Hezbollah’s huge arsenal of missiles. The authors conclude that these pose no real threat to Israel because the missiles are largely unguided and thus ineffective. Hamas’s rockets are even more crude and ineffective. Israel’s response, its “Iron Dome” defense system, has worked better than expected.
> 
> As for terrorism, the other asymmetrical strategy against Israel: Despite Wednesday’s attack on a bus in Tel Aviv, Israel is largely protected from terrorists because of the wall it built in 2003.
> 
> As for larger threats, the study points out that Israel is the only country in the region with a sophisticated nuclear arsenal — estimated to be between 100 and 500 weapons, many of them on submarines — and advanced ballistic missiles.
> 
> This is why Egypt, despite being under a new Islamist government, is not going to risk war with Israel. Nor are the other Arab states. They will make fiery speeches and offer humanitarian assistance. But they will not fight alongside the Palestinians in Gaza or do anything that could trigger a wider war.
> 
> Turkey, another powerful regional player, has a government that has weakened its ties with Israel and clashed with it repeatedly over its treatment of the Palestinians. But these are verbal clashes, unlikely to amount to much more. In fact, Turkey is now facing a situation in which its efforts to become a regional power have backfired. It gambled that it would be able to dislodge the regime in Syria, which has not yet happened. Its relations with Iraq have deteriorated as it shields the Sunni vice president from Baghdad’s Shiite-led government, which wants to arrest him. And since Turkey has frosty relations with Israel, it can only watch from afar as Egypt becomes the bridge between Israel and Hamas. The only real outside broker in the region is, of course, the United States, Israel’s closest ally.
> 
> These are the realities of the Middle East today. Israel’s astonishing economic growth, its technological prowess, its military preparedness and its tight relationship with the United States have set it a league apart from its Arab adversaries. Peace between the Palestinians and Israelis will come only when Israel decides that it wants to make peace. Wise Israeli politicians, from Ariel Sharon to Ehud Olmert to Ehud Barak, have wanted to take risks to make that peace because they have worried about Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. This is what is in danger, not Israel’s existence.


----------



## Nemo888

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> The pressure on Israel - diplomatic, political and economic - to accept a ceasefire and something akin to the _status quo ant_ will be enormous. US President Obama will be one of the ones applying the most pressure.



How could you not apply that pressure in good conscience. Guilt by association is wrong. Punishing 1.6 million people, including killing women and children, for the actions of a few rebels is morally abhorrent. Am I the only one who still believes in the Geneva Convention? The restrictions since 2007 are worthy of the Polish Ghettos. Starving out their industry to the point that 95% of manufacturing has has shut down, seizing 35% of their agricultural land as a "buffer zone" and not letting their fishing fleet past the three mile limit. Most of the population has nothing to do with the attacks and they have legitimate grievances about having their country taken from them. Now forced to the point that they barely even have food they go berserk and start fights they cannot win out of desperation. To call resistance terrorism and to pretend Israel has the legal right to do this is not genuine. If we choose to side with something so wrong we should hang our heads in shame for every dead civilian.


----------



## a_majoor

Sorry Nemo, but these are the people who voted Hamas into power, cheer and hand out sweets whenever an Isreali is killed and, despite the devastation wrought by the IDF, continue to support Hamas in power (or make no move to remove them, which is effectively the same thing).

Being a Biblical land, this seems an appropriate summary:

Hosea 8:7: "they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind"

While I don't understand what passed for politics in the Arab world either, it seems Israeli diplomats and strategists have scored big; both Hamas and Egypt's President and the Muslim brotherhoods get what looks like a win on the surface, but a huge mass of internal problems to deal with as a consequence. They will be spending a lot more time dealing with that then Israel for a long time to come.


----------



## brihard

Thucydides said:
			
		

> Sorry Nemo, but these are the people who voted Hamas into power, cheer and hand out sweets whenever an Isreali is killed and, despite the devastation wrought by the IDF, continue to support Hamas in power (or make no move to remove them, which is effectively the same thing).



Hamas received 440,000 votes, or about 44% of eligible voters. Not even a majority of the popular vote. That doesn't seem like a particularly strong argument, given a total population of about 1.7 million. There are many, many innocent people who did not vote for Hamas, and many who were not able to vote at all. Are they too reaping what they've somehow sown?

I'm with Nemo in terms of it being a matter of good conscience for a major world power to try to leverage for a ceasefire in this conflict. It's exceptionally rare, in my opinion, for the presence of killing to be more desirable than the lack thereof.


----------



## Nemo888

So the indiscriminate murder of  children, who I might add cannot vote, are acceptable losses to you. They are guilty by association. This shows your true character. I for one will side with the Greatest Generation and the Geneva Convention's “Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.”


----------



## brihard

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> So the indiscriminate murder of  children, who I might add cannot vote, are acceptable losses to you. They are guilty by association. This shows your true character. I for one will side with the Greatest Generation and the Geneva Convention's “Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.”



Step back there, buds.

"Discrimination, proportionality, military necessity, least necessary force".

This is not Operation Cast Lead where the civilian fatalities were a much great proportion of total deaths. Civilian deaths in battle do not in and of themselves equal to the murder of civilians. I have generally been quite skeptical towards ISraeli effots in Gaza, and I have vehemently called out their excess in 2008. In this instance however let's not forget that they WERE on the receiving end of some 1200+ rockets fired from Gaza, and that for the most part did a good job of engaging justifiable targets. In a dense urban environment, some civilians are going to die. In a conflict, there will be errors, there will be failures, and shit, sometimes a bomb or missile will straight up miss.

The total fatalities in this particular outbreak of violence look to have been approximately half civilian, half military- and the numbers were small enough that a relative handful of bombs gone astray, or legitimate targeting decisions with more civilians present than was though to be the case pushed those numbers up. But I will not accuse the Israelis of being indiscriminate in this latest outburst, and given the incoming fire they were taking, proportionality, military necessity, and generally speaking minimal necessary force to defeat the threat looks to have been the case.

You want to call him out for trivializing civilian deaths in general if they can be accused of having been on 'the wrong side'- I won't argue that based on his post. But you've gone well beyond that to the point of accusing Israel of rather serious criminal actions which, in this instance, I don't believe is a justifiable claim.


----------



## Nemo888

I'm half in the bag brother. It's one am on a Friday night. I probably would have said what you said if I was sober.


----------



## tomahawk6

When fighting a terror group who may not wear a uniform,it seems they become civilian fatalities in death.


----------



## Edward Campbell

There's no doubt that babes in arms are not "guilty" of anything, they care not terrorists, but, equally, there is no reasonable way to avoid some "collateral damage."

When we can see that a) Israel was able to hit a pinpoint target - one floor of a building wherein good, usually reliable intelligence indicated that a "legitimate" target was in place, but b) several women and children were killed because they were too near the target, then we must decide if the civilian casualties were *acceptable* "collateral damage."

Israel has a well earned reputation for being very tough in its responses to attacks but, also, in trying to act in accordance with _humane_ principles, but, sometimes, more often than many would like, the lawful and strategically appropriate tough response is inhumane. I don't know where the line can or should be drawn. I remain convinced that Israel has a legal and moral _right_ to exist and to defend itself. If your government decides to attack Israel then you, and your babe in arms, may have to pay a high rice for that decision - it isn't just soldiers who are burdened with an _unlimited liability_ for politicians' actions.


----------



## Edward Campbell

But: *"Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions ... whoever can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent, and thereby succeed in winning, may be called a heaven-born captain."*_
Sun Tzu_

There must be another way, or other ways, to defeat the kinds of threats Israel faces from Hamas, Hezbollah and so forth: something other than killing women and children, satisfying though we know that to be ...






After the Dresden raid


----------



## larry Strong

The Covenant of Hamas 1988

http://middleeast.about.com/od/palestinepalestinians/a/me080106b.htm  Part 1
http://middleeast.about.com/od/palestinepalestinians/a/me080106c_4.htm  Part 2

An excerpt from the preamble:


> Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.



How do you make peace when one side has stated that they won't stop till the enemy is obliterated??

I will end my post with the following excerpt form Article 13, quite an interstinhg read. The bottom line is they won't accept peace till it's all their way.....Now to go and buy me a pair of rose colored glasses



> [Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion....


----------



## Edward Campbell

I'm not suggesting it's easy, Larry, maybe it's not even possible but ... Hamas has changed in ways we've discussed above. It is no longer just a _movement_ that aims to destroy Israel; now it is, also, maybe even mainly, a political _party_ that governs a place and which must conduct a foreign policy, of sorts. It, Hamas, has made some choices and they have consequences; it will have to make more and more, increasing complex, choices and they will also have more but less predictable consequences. Some of those consequences may open an as yet unseen "door" for a _modification of tactics_ by one side or the other or both.


----------



## larry Strong

Hello ERC

I was actually replying to the 2 posts above. 

However in respects to your answer I feel that there needs to be a change in attitude in the Hamas organization, and I don't see that happening for a couple generations. Or at least till such time as the "Hamas Covenant" is not dominant in the minds of the current "Elders" and has ceased to be indoctrinated into the minds of the current school generations, who just step up and fill the empty shoes with the same mind set.

I don't believe Israel is totally blame free either, however the old adage of "Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house" comes to mind.

later
Larry


----------



## Nemo888

But Israel put them in the internment camp that makes them radical in the first place. The Jewish state of Israel was wiped out in AD 70. Coming back 1878 years later and kicking out the current residents may fulfill their religious prophecy, but it is still wrong. Palestinians deserve a country and to be citizens. Wouldn't this make anyone want to resist? To call that terrorism is a bit sick.


----------



## Jarnhamar

Larry Strong said:
			
		

> How do you make peace when one side has stated that they won't stop till the enemy is obliterated??



Kill them Remove them and replace them with someone more open to peaceful coexistence.



			
				Larry Strong said:
			
		

> I don't believe Israel is totally blame free either, however the old adage of "Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house" comes to mind.



Or perhaps don't throw stones when your neighbors have guided missiles.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> But Israel put them in the internment camp that makes them radical in the first place. The Jewish state of Israel was wiped out in AD 70. Coming back 1878 years later and kicking out the current residents may fulfill their religious prophecy, but it is still wrong. Palestinians deserve a country and to be citizens. Wouldn't this make anyone want to resist? To call that terrorism is a bit sick.




I'm sorry, Nemo but to suggest that Hamas and Hezbollah are anything but terrorists, based on their words and deeds is to deny reality.

Israel is not blameless and its methods are tough, maybe even counterproductive, but Israel is not a terrorist state.

The rights and wrongs of Zionism and of the Balfour Declaration and all that make for an interesting, albeit completely sterile, academic debate but the _facts on the ground_ are:

1. Israel is there. It is a lawful member of the United Nations; and

2. Any attempt to change that situation by armed force *will be*, not might be, a crime under customary international law.


----------



## larry Strong

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> But Israel put them in the internment camp that makes them radical in the first place. The Jewish state of Israel was wiped out in AD 70. Coming back 1878 years later and kicking out the current residents may fulfill their religious prophecy, but it is still wrong. Palestinians deserve a country and to be citizens. Wouldn't this make anyone want to resist? To call that terrorism is a bit sick.



"The Jews tried - twice - to rebel against Roman rule. The first Jewish rebellion, in AD 66-70, ended in massacre, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and the mass suicide of the defenders of the Masada.

The second rebellion, in AD 132 (or 135? can't remember), was the last straw for the Roman authorities, who permanently exiled the Jews from their homeland. They were forced to scatter - the English translation of the Greek word Diaspora, which was used to describe the scattered state of the Jews from this point forward - throughout the ancient world and make their lives as a permanent minority in unfamiliar places.

After that, the land of Israel was controlled by the Canaanites, the Assyrians (northern part), the Egyptians, the Babylonians / Chaldean, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Christians (parts of it), the Ottoman Turks, and the British."

Ahad Ha'am believed that, "the Moslems [of Palestine] are the ancient residents of the land ... who became Christians on the rise of Christianity and became Moslems on the arrival of Islam**." Israel Belkind, the founder of the Bilu movement also asserted that the Palestinian Arabs were the blood brothers of the Jews*. In his book on the Palestinians, "The Arabs in Eretz-Israel", Belkind advanced the idea that the complete dispersion of Jews out of the Land of Israel after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman emperor Titus is a "historic error" that must be corrected. While it dispersed much of the land's Jewish community around the world, those "_*workers of the land that remained attached to their land*_," i.e the Jews, stayed behind and were eventually converted to Christianity and then Islam.


*   Israel Belkind, "Arabs in Eretz Israel", Hermon Publishers, Tel Aviv, 1969, p.8
** Salim Tamari (Winter 2004). Lepers, Lunatics and Saints: The Nativist Ethnography of Tawfiq Canaan and his Jerusalem Circle

So why are the Jew's not allowed to return to their ansestral homelands??


----------



## brihard

Larry Strong said:
			
		

> So why are the Jew's not allowed to return to their ansestral homelands??



A compelling point. We could almost call that, oh, 'right of return' or some such?


----------



## Journeyman

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> ....it isn't just soldiers who are burdened with an _unlimited liability_ for politicians' actions.


I believe that, unlike here, Middle Eastern politicians are not merely aware of that, but intentionally use it for propaganda purposes, as has been discussed. 

I also believe that Israeli fires are discriminate whereas Hamas' long history of rocket attacks, by virtue of relying on unguided weapons -- from Katyusha to "Qassam" to Fajr-5 -- are intended to cause indiscriminate casualties.

Yet those beliefs don't matter much here in the west. This week I happened to be at Carleton and Queen's Universities; in both places I saw protests with red, white, green, and black flags, vilifying Israel (both managed to squeeze in at least one anti-Harper sign too  :  ). Mind you, I suspect that illustrates the failings of our "institutions of higher learning" and a requirement to think, rather than the efficacy of Hamas' propaganda machine, but that's a completely separate topic.

Sorry Hamas apologists, but I think you're wrong on this one.


----------



## brihard

Journeyman said:
			
		

> Sorry Hamas apologists, but I think you're wrong on this one.



It is, of course, possible to be sympathetic to the plight of the majority of the Palestinian population without being a Hamas apologist. And I'm as firm in my condemnation of Hamas tactics as I have been skeptical of Israeli ones when they appeared in past instances to be crossing lines.

That's part of the problem with the discoure on this... Very quickly if one takes any position that is at all moderated and not firmly and unflinchingly on one side or another, you very quickly get both sides calling you an apologist / hack / propagandist for the other... Sometimes both sides in the same conversation (I'm not referring to here of course- this site has rather high standards for discussion and low tolerance for BS). As amusing as it sometimes, it's problematic.


----------



## Journeyman

I was referring primarily to the university protesters.


....but I can understand your sensitivity.


----------



## brihard

Journeyman said:
			
		

> I was referring primarily to the university protesters.
> 
> 
> ....but I can understand your sensitivity.



Oh, I'm right with you on that- I saw enough of that nonsense at Carleton; the _unthinking_ partisanship from both sides, the utter blocking out of the other side's point of view and grievances. It's nonsense and perpetuates the problem.


----------



## George Wallace

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> But Israel put them in the internment camp that makes them radical in the first place. The Jewish state of Israel was wiped out in AD 70. Coming back 1878 years later and kicking out the current residents may fulfill their religious prophecy, but it is still wrong. Palestinians deserve a country and to be citizens. Wouldn't this make anyone want to resist? To call that terrorism is a bit sick.



Have you just done a little bit of "Revisionism" here?  Rewriting history to match your views?


----------



## brihard

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> But Israel put them in the internment camp that makes them radical in the first place. The Jewish state of Israel was wiped out in AD 70. Coming back 1878 years later and kicking out the current residents may fulfill their religious prophecy, but it is still wrong. Palestinians deserve a country and to be citizens. Wouldn't this make anyone want to resist? To call that terrorism is a bit sick.



A grievance may be legitimate- and there are many of those in Israel/Palestine on both sides. But when you take your acting on an unresolved grievance to the point of deliberately trying to kill civilians to make a point, yeah, I'll comfortably call that terrorism.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Mods: this thread is going the way of all _Israel vs Anyone_ threads. We will, almost certainly, have need of a fresh, new "Mid-East Crisis!" thread within a few weeks.

Maybe we should close this and await _"events, dear boy, events."_


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Brihard said:
			
		

> Hamas received 440,000 votes, or about 44% of eligible voters. Not even a majority of the popular vote. That doesn't seem like a particularly strong argument, given a total population of about 1.7 million. There are many, many innocent people who did not vote for Hamas, and many who were not able to vote at all. Are they too reaping what they've somehow sown?
> 
> I'm with Nemo in terms of it being a matter of good conscience for a major world power to try to leverage for a ceasefire in this conflict. It's exceptionally rare, in my opinion, for the presence of killing to be more desirable than the lack thereof.



Then let the other 56% rise up and kick Hamas out.

Just a general observation on the discussion also. Why is it people always talk about the innocents and the rights of the Palestinians but somehow conveniently forget about the loss of life and devastation that the Arab world has poured down on Israel. The losses may not be as great, but that's simply because Israel is better prepared, trained and has a higher regard for protecting their people than Arab terrorists do theirs.


----------



## brihard

recceguy said:
			
		

> Then let the other 56% rise up and kick Hamas out.
> 
> Just a general observation on the discussion also. Why is it people always talk about the innocents and the rights of the Palestinians but somehow conveniently forget about the loss of life and devastation that the Arab world has poured down on Israel. The losses may not be as great, but that's simply because Israel is better prepared, trained and has a higher regard for protecting their people than Arab terrorists do theirs.



I do not forget or ignore those things- when I have conversations with other friends of mine and the issues of the West Bank come up, I point out that it, the Golan, and the Sinai were taken in a defensive war against literally all of Israel's neighbours, and most of *their* neighbours- and that the Sinai was given back. I always firmly support Israel's military decision in those instances, although I distinguish the need for military depth in the West Bank from the annexation/settler issue. I equally quickly smack down those who try to present 1973 as Israeli aggression. And of course you have plainly see in above posts that I have openly agreed with the accurate appelation of certain Hamas tactics as 'terrorism', and the differences in word use to describe deliberate Hamas attacks on civilians versus Israeli attacks that cause civilian casualties usually as an unavoidable reality of conflict, and occasionally as a result of error or neglect. So please don't sit there pretending that everyone must have only a one sided view on the conflict, because that is false.


----------



## brihard

So, in the news today- Israel has doubled the nautical fishing limit, and is expanding the arable land to which Gazan farmers have access. Exactly the sort of common sense concessions that should have been made a considerable time ago, that has minimal real impact on Israel's security, and which will have a concrete positive impact on the Gaza economy and the lives of some residents.

It's nice to see good sense and humanity starting to break through the bilateral belligerence in the wake of the latest flare up. It also allows ISrael to say "Look, we have done something concrete and good." That is very much in their interest diplomatically.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/11/20121124151832736999.html


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Brihard said:
			
		

> I do not forget or ignore those things- when I have conversations with other friends of mine and the issues of the West Bank come up, I point out that it, the Golan, and the Sinai were taken in a defensive war against literally all of Israel's neighbours, and most of *their* neighbours- and that the Sinai was given back. I always firmly support Israel's military decision in those instances, although I distinguish the need for military depth in the West Bank from the annexation/settler issue. I equally quickly smack down those who try to present 1973 as Israeli aggression. And of course you have plainly see in above posts that I have openly agreed with the accurate appelation of certain Hamas tactics as 'terrorism', and the differences in word use to describe deliberate Hamas attacks on civilians versus Israeli attacks that cause civilian casualties usually as an unavoidable reality of conflict, and occasionally as a result of error or neglect. So please don't sit there pretending that everyone must have only a one sided view on the conflict, because that is false.



Please re-read what I posted. I said it was a general observation of the thread. 

Nothing was pointed at you. 

So please stop pretending I'm attacking you.


----------



## brihard

recceguy said:
			
		

> Please re-read what I posted. I said it was a general observation of the thread.
> 
> Nothing was pointed at you.
> 
> So please stop pretending I'm attacking you.



I misinterpreted what you said. I'm used to taking exactly that kind of flak in several other places, so sometimes it gets hard to differentiate the 'general' from the 'specific'. I apologize.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Brihard said:
			
		

> I misinterpreted what you said. I'm used to taking exactly that kind of flak in several other places, so sometimes it gets hard to differentiate the 'general' from the 'specific'. I apologize.


no harm, no foul


----------



## Nemo888

Larry Strong said:
			
		

> "The Jews tried - twice - to rebel against Roman rule. The first Jewish rebellion, in AD 66-70, ended in massacre, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and the mass suicide of the defenders of the Masada.
> 
> The second rebellion, in AD 132 (or 135? can't remember), was the last straw for the Roman authorities, who permanently exiled the Jews from their homeland. They were forced to scatter - the English translation of the Greek word Diaspora, which was used to describe the scattered state of the Jews from this point forward - throughout the ancient world and make their lives as a permanent minority in unfamiliar places.
> 
> After that, the land of Israel was controlled by the Canaanites, the Assyrians (northern part), the Egyptians, the Babylonians / Chaldean, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Christians (parts of it), the Ottoman Turks, and the British."
> 
> Ahad Ha'am believed that, "the Moslems [of Palestine] are the ancient residents of the land ... who became Christians on the rise of Christianity and became Moslems on the arrival of Islam**." Israel Belkind, the founder of the Bilu movement also asserted that the Palestinian Arabs were the blood brothers of the Jews*. In his book on the Palestinians, "The Arabs in Eretz-Israel", Belkind advanced the idea that the complete dispersion of Jews out of the Land of Israel after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman emperor Titus is a "historic error" that must be corrected. While it dispersed much of the land's Jewish community around the world, those "_*workers of the land that remained attached to their land*_," i.e the Jews, stayed behind and were eventually converted to Christianity and then Islam.
> 
> 
> *   Israel Belkind, "Arabs in Eretz Israel", Hermon Publishers, Tel Aviv, 1969, p.8
> ** Salim Tamari (Winter 2004). Lepers, Lunatics and Saints: The Nativist Ethnography of Tawfiq Canaan and his Jerusalem Circle
> 
> So why are the Jew's not allowed to return to their ansestral homelands??



Because after 1800 years you can't go, "Hey buddy, that's my seat." They can return, but kicking out the people living there for centuries or longer and taking their stuff is wrong. That would be like the American Indians coming back in the year 3550 and kicking us out of our homes and businesses and making us live in a walled interment camp around Hudson Bay. The main argument here that having the military force to do so makes it acceptable is not valid. When you start by doing something immoral and then compound it with violence the monsters you create are your responsibility. When I was a boy Palestinian boys threw rocks at the IDF. That was the only terrorism going on. The IDF got into the habit of shooting them. 30 years later those boys who survived build rockets. After fifty years in an interment camp after being thrown out of your home and having your lands confiscated who wouldn't be angry and want to resist.

 There are only a few ways this can end. Israel can kill them all, make them citizens or give them a state of their own. Keeping them interned in a defacto prison camp for generations makes no sense unless you need slave labour.


----------



## Jarnhamar

What's stopping Israel from making them citizens or giving them the land?


----------



## brihard

ObedientiaZelum said:
			
		

> What's stopping Israel from making them citizens or giving them the land?



Political will. I don't believe that any coalition with this as a platform would be able to win the Knesset.


----------



## Jarnhamar

I'm asking out of pure ignorance, I don't know the first thing about that conflict  (save what I read on this forum).

Just feels like it might be easier to say fuck here you go this part is yours this part is ours. If you keep dropping rockets on us we'll flatten your stuff and make it ours. 



> Because after 1800 years you can't go, "Hey buddy, that's my seat." They can return, but kicking out the people living there for centuries or longer and taking their stuff is wrong.


Good point


----------



## Journeyman

ObedientiaZelum said:
			
		

> Just feels like it might be easier to say fuck here you go this part is yours this part is ours.


Except for the stated policy of several jihadist groups to destroy Israel, killing the Jews. No concession will be enough.


----------



## PuckChaser

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> When I was a boy Palestinian boys threw rocks at the IDF. That was the only terrorism going on. The IDF got into the habit of shooting them. 30 years later those boys who survived build rockets. After fifty years in an interment camp after being thrown out of your home and having your lands confiscated who wouldn't be angry and want to resist.



Well now you've just shown everyone you've got an axe to grind against Israel.

Oh, and the only terrorism going on? Here's a little snippet from that time period: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/israel-terror.htm


----------



## cupper

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Wouldn't this make anyone want to resist? To call that terrorism is a bit sick.



Let's not confuse two different issues here. You can resist without resorting to acts or terror.

Do the Palestinians have a right to carry out acts of civil disobedience and other acts of resistance? Perhaps.

Do factions within the Palestinian community have the right to carry out acts of terrorism to further their cause to achieve an independent homeland? No.


----------



## a_majoor

Stratfor lays out how IRON DOME works in conjunction with other systems and also how Hamas conducted the rocket war:

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20121120.aspx



> *Iron Dome Spoils The Hamas Surprise Attack*
> 
> November 20, 2012: Israel has bought seven batteries of Iron Dome anti-rocket missiles. Four are in action and a fifth one entered service several weeks early (on November 17) because of the major rocket assault Hamas and other Islamic terror groups in Gaza launched on November 14th. Over 500 rockets were launched during the first two days, but then the number began to decline. On Saturday (the 17th) 230 rockets were fired, with only 156 on Sunday, and 121 on Monday. While the Palestinians have fired over a thousand rockets into Israel so far, and killed three Israelis, their effort is faltering and the Israeli response is not. Few of the rockets landed in occupied areas. That’s because Iron Dome has been able to detect and destroy 90 percent of the rockets that were going to land in an area containing people. The Israeli military says they have shot down over 300 rockets so far.
> 
> Iron Dome uses two radars to quickly calculate the trajectory of the incoming rocket and do nothing if the rocket trajectory indicates it is going to land in an uninhabited area. But if the computers predict a rocket coming down in an inhabited area, guided missiles are fired to intercept the rocket. This makes the system cost-effective. That's because Hezbollah fired 4,000 rockets in 2006, and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have fired over six thousand rockets in the past eight years and the Israelis know where each of them landed. Over 90 percent of these rockets landed in uninhabited areas, and few of those that did hit inhabited areas caused casualties. Israel already has a radar system in place that gives some warning of approaching rockets. Iron Dome uses that system, in addition to another, more specialized, radar in southern Israel.
> 
> The Palestinians had been making and breaking ceasefire deals for years but threw away all pretense of making peace after one of the Israeli retaliatory air strikes killed the head of Hamas military operations. Israel had threatened to resume its missile attacks against Hamas leaders if the rocket and mortar attacks on southern Israel did not stop. So on the 14th Israel began shooting at Hamas leaders again and Hamas decided it was time for a major attack against Israel, if only to protect the terrorist group leadership.
> 
> Five years ago an Israeli campaign against key terrorist personnel severely restricted the movements of Hamas leaders and forced the terrorist group to agree to a ceasefire. But that deal has fallen apart now because Hamas would not control the smaller Islamic terror groups who continued to attack Israel. Now that Israel has resumed its attacks on all terrorist leaders in Gaza, Hamas is screaming “war crimes” (and getting some support in the West), but the resumption of these attacks appears to be the only thing that can get the Hamas leadership to keep their word. On the down side, the smaller Islamic terror groups in Gaza have become larger and now threaten civil war and the possibility of Hamas rule ending (to be replaced by an even worse crew of Islamic radicals). The only other Israeli option is a ground campaign, like the one in 2009. But that risks more Israeli casualties. Israel does not want to send in ground troops, as this will lead to more Israeli deaths. But the ground operation is obviously an option given the large force of Israeli troops and armored vehicles now gathered at the Gaza border.
> 
> Since Hamas is a big believer in using civilians as human shields (often against their will), a ground campaign would get a lot more Palestinians killed. So the attacks against specific terrorist leaders are seen as the better option. Even this risks civilian casualties because Hamas puts its government and military facilities in residential neighborhoods. It has also, on the advice of its Hezbollah advisors, built rocket launchers near mosques, schools, hospitals, and residences. The Israelis have distributed lots of videos of Palestinian rockets being fired in this way. Still, most Arab and some Western media keep maintaining that Israel is at fault for defending itself or simply existing.
> 
> This latest war with the Palestinians has been a major test for the Iron Dome system. Each battery has radar and control equipment and four missile launchers. Each battery costs about $37 million, which includes over fifty Tamir missiles (costing $40,000 each). In the two years before this month Iron Dome had intercepted over 100 rockets headed for populated areas. In the last week Iron Dome has intercepted at least another 300 rockets.
> 
> The Palestinians are believed to have tried to defeat Iron Dome by firing a lot of long range missiles simultaneously at a few cities. In theory this could overwhelm one or two Iron Dome batteries. But Israel is keeping 24/7 UAV watch on Gaza and have so far spotted attempts at large scale simultaneous launchers and bombed many of the launch sites. This has resulted in many rockets destroyed on the ground or launching erratically and landing within Gaza or nowhere near where they were aimed. Because Iron Dome can track hundreds of incoming missiles, quickly plot their trajectory and likely landing spot, and ignore the majority that will not land near people, the Palestinians have to put hundreds of larger (long range) missiles into the air at the same time to be sure of causing lots of Israeli casualties. So far the Palestinians have been unable to get enough rockets into the air at the same time and at the rate Israeli aircraft are bombing Hamas rocket storage sites (and setting off secondary explosions of the rockets to confirm the hit), the Palestinians will be out of rockets in another week or so.
> 
> Earlier this month Israel successfully completed tests of new software for its Iron Dome anti-rocket system. The improvements enable the Iron Dome missiles to intercept incoming rockets farther away. The 90 kg (200 pound) three meter (9.8 foot) long Tamir missiles use a proximity fuze to detonate near the incoming rocket.
> 
> The Palestinian rocket attacks have been around since 2001, but got much worse once Israel pulled out of Gaza in August of 2005. This was a peace gesture that backfired. From 2001 to 2005, about 700 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. Since the 2005 withdrawal, over 5,000 more rockets were fired into Israel. The rate of firings increased after Hamas took control of Gaza in June, 2007.
> 
> Hamas has been bringing in more factory made Iranian and Chinese made BM-21 and BM-12 rockets. Israel believes Hamas currently has, in Gaza, factory-made BM-21 rockets, each with a range of 20-40 kilometers. They also have some shorter range (six kilometers) Russian designed B-12 rockets. The 122mm BM-21s weigh 68.2 kg (150 pounds) and are 2.9 meters (nine feet) long. These have 20.5 kg (45 pound) warheads but not much better accuracy than the 107mm model. However, these larger rockets have a maximum range of 20 kilometers. Again, because they are unguided, they are only effective if fired in salvos or at large targets (like cities, large military bases, or industrial complexes). There are Egyptian and Chinese variants that have smaller warheads and larger rocket motors, giving them a range of about 40 kilometers. Israel believes there are dozens of Iranian Fajr rockets, with a range of 70 kilometers, plus several hundred extended-range (40 kilometers) 122mm rockets, and even more standard range (20 kilometers) 122mm rockets in Gaza. There are believed to be over 10,000 rockets stored in Gaza. Iron Dome was designed to detect and hit those with a range of 10 kilometers or more, as these could reach more heavily populated areas of Israel. While Hamas always hinted at negotiating an extended ceasefire with Israel, it still maintained that the ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel.


----------



## cupper

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Because after 1800 years you can't go, "Hey buddy, that's my seat." They can return, but kicking out the people living there for centuries or longer and taking their stuff is wrong.



Lets not overlook what happened in the intervening two millennia. There were the Arab conquest, the Crusades, the Mongol invasion, the Turks, the Ottoman Empire, European colonialism. WWI lead to the creation of what would eventually be known as Palestine (Israel and the Palestinian Territories plus part of the Sinai) governed by the British. Post WWII we had the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state, accepted by Jewish Leaders, but rejected by the Arabs, resulting in a civil war. And so on up to today.

Add to all of this the religious significance of the region to Christians, Jews and Muslims.

This is a little oversimplified, but I'm sure that you can understand my point, that to say one group or another has a specific "claim" that continues across the centuries that trumps any other groups "claim" would be like tilting at windmills.


----------



## midget-boyd91

For anyone interested: 
The Iron Dome missile defense in action at night.
VERY impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVefOuwHFh8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxwCYZ6Zhew


----------



## Nemo888

uncle-midget-Oddball said:
			
		

> For anyone interested:
> The Iron Dome missile defense in action at night.
> VERY impressive.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVefOuwHFh8&feature=related
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxwCYZ6Zhew



Impressive that they now need to spend billions protecting themselves from the hungry mobs in the internment camps who have no navy, air force and a negligible army.  They can't spend treasure like that forever. The only way out of an insurgency where you are morally wrong is to change your doctrine. Applying more force only makes the enemy doctrinally stronger and eats up more of your resources. Basic COIN. (Though if you have the stomach for it you could kill all 1.7 million of them. That has worked before in the region. )

It looks to me that Israel has no idea how to deal with the mess they put themselves in.  They make the classic COIN blunder. They think that because they have resources and territory their victory is assured and their doctrinal weakness is irrelevant. It shocking how many times that has been disproved this century.


----------



## midget-boyd91

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Impressive that they now need to spend billions protecting themselves from the hungry mobs in the internment camps who have no navy, air force and a negligible army.  They can't spend treasure like that forever. The only way out of an insurgency where you are morally wrong is to change your doctrine. Applying more force only makes the enemy doctrinally stronger and eats up more of your resources. Basic COIN. (Though if you have the stomach for it you could kill all 1.7 million of them. That has worked before in the region. )
> 
> It looks to me that Israel has no idea how to deal with the mess they put themselves in.  They make the classic COIN blunder. They think that because they have resources and territory their victory is assured and their doctrinal weakness is irrelevant. It shocking how many times that has been disproved this century.



.... yeah, I was just gonna leave it at "impressive."


----------



## Jarnhamar

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Impressive that they now need to spend billions protecting themselves from the hungry mobs in the internment camps who have no navy, air force and a negligible army.



Do you understand the psychological effects that are caused in people when they are subject to random deadly attacks in which they have no means of immediate retaliation or cannot even see who is attacking them?

Do you know how PTSD works and how it's basically caused?

It sounds as if you discredit the psychological harm that random missiles cause in people in this case simply because there have not been a high kill ratio.


----------



## Edward Campbell

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Impressive that they now need to spend billions protecting themselves from the hungry mobs in the internment camps who have no navy, air force and a negligible army.  They can't spend treasure like that forever. The only way out of an insurgency where you are morally wrong is to change your doctrine. Applying more force only makes the enemy doctrinally stronger and eats up more of your resources. Basic COIN. (Though if you have the stomach for it you could kill all 1.7 million of them. That has worked before in the region. )
> 
> It looks to me that Israel has no idea how to deal with the mess they put themselves in.  They make the classic COIN blunder. They think that because they have resources and territory their victory is assured and their doctrinal weakness is irrelevant. It shocking how many times that has been disproved this century.




 :bullshit:

It is the first duty of the nation state to defend itself and its citizens; that's a duty at which Israel excels and at which Hamas is a miserable failure. In fact Hamas, contrary to customary international law, uses its citizens as human shields ... an act which is both cowardly and beyond the pale of the normal, moral conduct of war. Israel is acting in a proper, *civilized* manner, as befits a culturally sophisticated, liberal democracy; Hamas acts like what it is: a band of cowardly, sniveling terrorists, hiding behind the skirts of old women and babes in arms.

And because you are clearly a troll:  :ignore:


----------



## CBH99

I wouldnt go on to label someone a troll so quickly.  Just because they have a point of view different than your own, doesnt automatically make them a troll.

His thoughts were articulated in a manner befitting of someone who understands the subject matter at a level adequate enough to make some decent points.  And honestly, I agree with some of the points he made.

-  Bulldozing houses & villages to make room for more Israeli settlements is NOT befitting of a civilized country.  This has been expressed by both the US and the UN - especially with the level of force and often times un-announced intentions of the Israeli government to do so.

-  I understand that Hamas launches attacks from highly populated civilian areas, into Israel.  And Israel obviously has a right to defend itself and its citizens.  However, using WP in highly populated areas in Gaza is NOT befitting of a civilized country either.  (And dont say they dont, because there is plenty of footage of them doing so, as well as more than a member or two on here who Im sure has served in the area.)

-  Hamas is definately evil, no doubt about that.  Launching rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas is cowardly and evil - no argument from me there.

-  He has a point, Israel is actually terrible at COIN.  Bulldozing homes and villages in order to forcefully expand your territory and repopulate it with your own settlements does absolutely NOTHING beneficial to the peace process, despite what you seem to somehow think.  

Does it anger people and polarize them against an Israel they see as treating them with utter contempt?  Absolutely.  Does it piss people off who lose everything they own, just so Israel can build a condo building where their home used to be?  You bet it does.  Does it leave angry, near poverty, unemployed young men an enemy they can direct their anger at, an enemy that is actually very much tangible to them?  Yes, it does that too.  

Israel might be fantastic at security.  But its COIN doctrine is flawed, I agree.  You dont battle an insurgency by going out of your way to create more insurgents, or using indiscriminate weaponry yourself (i.e. white phosphorous) in areas where you know civilians are going to be injured.

Guess that makes me a troll too...


----------



## GAP

I guess


----------



## Edward Campbell

I define "troll" as someone who posts provocative and inflammatory remarks *with the intention* of provoking outrage or an emotional response or disrupting the normal flow of discussion. In my opinion, and it's the only one that matters since it is my ignore function, Nemo888  qualifies.

I post _provocative_ remarks, but my *intention* is to stimulate discussion, not to derail it. I like to think that is helpful rather than trolling.

There is much that is debatable* about Israel's _strategy_, which is why I cited Sun Tzu yesterday. What is not debatable, but which the troll wants to introduce in order to derail the discussion, is the fundamental differences between Hamas and Hezbollah on one side and Israel on the other.

_____
* If you would like to have a really useless and totally sterile debate think about UN Res 242 (1967) and the _strategic *constipation*_ that results.


----------



## Nemo888

Hamas are monsters. You'll get no argument from me. But with the perspective of the last half century they are monsters the Israeli's created through their own evil actions. Until they admit that the monsters will not stop growing and the conflict will only escalate.


----------



## Teeps74

Fact is, the point has been made that Israel is not even attempting to follow COIN doctrine, has not bothered since day one... As a result, we have an insurgency that has actually been getting stronger for the past half century, one that feeds other insurgencies around the world.

Would it really be so wrong to change up doctrine and realize that the PEOPLE are more important then the land? The constant expansion of the settlements is a real justified reason for people to be upset... And this is not even taking into account the reports of settler terrorism committed against Palestinians. 

(Sorry, I can not defend the one uniformed military which murdered one of ours in cold blood. And so, on that note, I will bow out.)


----------



## George Wallace

Going back to 1948, we see quite  a different picture of the Region.  Israeli "terrorists" attacking British troops, police, infrastructure, businesses and organizations.  How times have changed.


----------



## Jarnhamar

You never answered my question Nemo.


----------



## Nemo888

Obedient Zelum,

I did not say the rocket attacks were not evil. The attacks are primarily at the settlers who have whittled away their territory. It is an act of desperation after having their entirely legitimate grievances ignored for decades. Like why did you steal all our land and throw us in a defacto prison camp for fifty years?

The Palestinians are the poorest people in the Middle East and as poor as South Saharan Africans. Since 2007 they were deprived of food water and electricity. Many camps like Khan Yunis don't even have running water now that Israel has taken over Palestinian aquifers. They are nuts now. I think understandably so. After 1800 years a bunch of what they consider Europeans come, take their land and put them in camps. Every year they advance and take more land away and collectively punish them for the actions of a few rebels. The rebels, and they are not many of the 1.7 million interned, see it as the only way to resist that makes a dent in their enemy. If the West cut off military aid I expect the Israelis would feel it financially in a few years and have to make a deal. It is counter productive supporting Israel's current strategy. They either have to start negotiations and admit how they helped create the problem or become more evil and just wipe them out.

I gave up on Israel after the murder of our UN observer as well. My dad was a peacekeeper there in the 50's.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Obedient Zelum,
> 
> I did not say the rocket attacks were not evil. The attacks are primarily at the settlers who have whittled away their territory. It is an act of desperation after having their entirely legitimate grievances ignored for decades. Like why did you steal all our land and throw us in a defacto prison camp for fifty years?
> 
> The Palestinians are the poorest people in the Middle East and as poor as South Saharan Africans. Since 2007 they were deprived of food water and electricity. Many camps like Khan Yunis don't even have running water now that Israel has taken over Palestinian aquifers. They are nuts now. I think understandably so. After 1800 years a bunch of what they consider Europeans come, take their land and put them in camps. Every year they advance and take more land away and collectively punish them for the actions of a few rebels _terrorists_  The rebels_ terrorists_. , and they are not many (44% of the population according to some figures posted above).  of the 1.7 million interned, see it as the only way to resist that makes a dent in their enemy. If the West cut off military aid I expect the Israelis would feel it financially in a few years and have to make a deal. It is counter productive supporting Israel's current strategy. They either have to start negotiations and admit how they helped create the problem or become more evil and just wipe them out.
> 
> I gave up on Israel after the murder of our UN observer as well. My dad was a peacekeeper there in the 50's.



TFTFY


----------



## Infanteer

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> They make the classic COIN blunder.





			
				CBH99 said:
			
		

> -  He has a point, Israel is actually terrible at COIN.





			
				Teeps74 said:
			
		

> Fact is, the point has been made that Israel is not even attempting to follow COIN doctrine, has not bothered since day one...



The situation in Gaza is not an insurgency, so why mention COIN?  All this indicates to me is that you do not know what COIN is and you do not have a real understanding of the situation.


----------



## Nemo888

44% with 55% voter turnout.  So 24% of eligible voters. Not a good argument for collective punishments. 

An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority. If is not that then what is it?


----------



## Infanteer

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority. If is not that then what is it?



Is Israel the constituted authority in Gaza?


----------



## Teeps74

Infanteer said:
			
		

> The situation in Gaza is not an insurgency, so why mention COIN?  All this indicates to me is that you do not know what COIN is and you do not have a real understanding of the situation.



I have a very strong knowledge of both. Don;t want to call it an insurgency? Fine, terrorist actions that have EXACTLY the same motivations. Feel better?


----------



## Infanteer

Teeps74 said:
			
		

> Don;t want to call it an insurgency? Fine, terrorist actions that have EXACTLY the same motivations. Feel better?



That's fine.

If people aren't consistent and accurate in their use of terminology then we misdiagnose the problem, leading to misinformed debate.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> 44% with 55% voter turnout.  So 24% of eligible voters. Not a good argument for collective punishments.
> 
> An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority. If is not that then what is it?



So, sticking to your hyperbolic reasoning, we can assume that the other 76% agree with the status quo and don't approve of the terrorist methods and reasoning.

Terrorist attacks should not be confused with armed rebellion.


----------



## Nemo888

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Is Israel the constituted authority in Gaza?


They were physically for most of the conflict. They only withdrew ground troops to the territorial edges in 2005. They still have complete control over the air, sea, all trade and traffic in and out. They decide who is a resident and who is a foreigner. They also still control taxation and levies. They even built walls around the Occupied Territories to better control them. Considering they are "guests" of the Israeli state I would still say yes they do have authority over the Palestinians.


----------



## Fishbone Jones

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> They were physically for most of the conflict. They only withdrew ground troops to the territorial edges in 2005. They still have complete control over the air, sea, all trade and traffic in and out. They decide who is a resident and who is a foreigner. They also still control taxation and levies. They even built walls around the Occupied Territories to better control them. Considering they are "guests" of the Israeli state I would still say yes they do have authority over the Palestinians.



However, that just sounds like your opinion.

What does the UN say? (I don't know, I'm asking)


----------



## Nemo888

Infanteer said:
			
		

> The situation in Gaza is not an insurgency, so why mention COIN?  All this indicates to me is that you do not know what COIN is and you do not have a real understanding of the situation.


I believe you need to read this so _you_ can have a real understanding of the situation. 
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - A Case Study for the United States Military in Foreign Internal Defense
A Monograph
by
Lt Col Reid M Goodwyn
U.S. Air Force

"Drawing primarily from academia, this monograph analyzes insurgencies using the familiar METT-TC format to understand an insurgency’s motivations, strategies, tactics, targets, and means. It then uses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case study against which the reader may test the theoretical knowledge presented on _insurgencies_."


----------



## Nemo888

Sorry link. http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA437597


----------



## Edward Campbell

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Walter Russell Mead opines that the big winner is the Israeli defence industry because its missile defence technology will be in global demand.



Mead again, in is blog _ViaMeadia_, quotes a _Boston Globe_ report which says:

_"Israel’s ability to shoot down hundreds of rockets fired by Hamas militants this past week has been hailed as a breakthrough in missile defense. But, military analysts warn, the real challenge is only beginning ... unlike the homemade, rudimentary rockets used by Hamas, thousands of sophisticated missiles with greater ranges and payloads are being stockpiled in Lebanon by Hezbollah ..._ [Isreal is developing]_ the next-generation interceptor missile ... a critical test of the system, called the Stunner, is set for Israel’s Negev Desert in coming days ... Israelis are counting on the missile to become the centerpiece of their defense shield, known as David’s Sling."_

Mead says: _"American financial support for Israeli efforts to develop missile defense systems should not be seen simply as aid to an ally. If Americans and Israelis working together come up with systems that work against increasingly sophisticated threats, American security will be substantially enhanced. The prospect of defensive systems that could protect North Korea’s neighbors is also appealing and would help stabilize a volatile region of the world ... let’s hope those Negev tests go well."_

Amen to that!


----------



## Jarnhamar

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Obedient Zelum,
> 
> I did not say the rocket attacks were not evil. The attacks are primarily at the settlers who have whittled away their territory. It is an act of desperation after having their entirely legitimate grievances ignored for decades. Like why did you steal all our land and throw us in a defacto prison camp for fifty years?



Agreed you did not say it wasn't evil.  The contexts of your message reminded me of a few other opinions I've seen on forums which basically suggests the rocket attacks weren't really a big deal since not many Israel's have died.

For example,






I think the attacks could be an act of desperation. I also think it's more simple- they just want to kill Israeli's and fuck with them.  Or, the people firing the rockets KNOW exactly how Israel will react and not giving a shit whom amoung their own die in the counter attack, fire the rockets so Israel will fire back killing them allowing them to play the victim card.



> The Palestinians are the poorest people in the Middle East and as poor as South Saharan Africans.



Perhaps they could spend money or resources on food instead of making rockets.




> I gave up on Israel after the murder of our UN observer as well. My dad was a peacekeeper there in the 50's.


Didn't we let Israel go unpunished for this attack?   As long as countries like Canada and the US let Israel get away with that kind of behavior they're going to keep doing it.


----------



## Infanteer

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> They were physically for most of the conflict. They only withdrew ground troops to the territorial edges in 2005.



Ahh, but we are not talking about 2005, we are talking about now - read the thread title.  The rest of your stuff is just fluff, and does nothing to support the statement that Israeli government constitutes the state in Gaza; embargoes of all sorts have long served as a form of interstate activity.

As for your source, don't hang your hat on an 8 year old Staff College dissertation.


----------



## Nemo888

Ok. If you are right the insurgency has been a success and driven the IDF out of the occupied territories. Proof of a COIN failure. I still consider it an ongoing insurgency for my above stated reasons. They have  been successful enough to hold a little territory now, but this is definitely not over.


----------



## Colin Parkinson

The main driver of this long term conflict is the Arabian capacity for disillusionment. Despite at least 6 attempts to destroy the Jews (several of them with the full support of a major super power) they have failed miserably to do so and have worsen their situation everytime. Despite this they persist in a military conflict, rather than take a purely political and economic approach. In fact really the only success they have had is the removal of soldiers and settlers from Gaza and more or less self -autonomy in the West Bank. Both are a result of political action. A fact totally lost on the current leadership in Gaza. Meanwhile the international community is acting as an "enabler" to the Palestinians and Hamas has already said they intend to rebuild using donor money, which of course begs the question what do they intend to rebuild? Likely their military capacity first followed grudgingly with basic infrastructure to keep the supply of potential martyrs content till the next round.


----------



## Infanteer

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/11/24/david-frum-who-won-and-who-didnt-in-gaza/



> David Frum: Who won, and who didn’t, in Gaza
> 
> Who stands where after this week’s fighting in Gaza? Let’s tally the list, from the biggest winners to the biggest losers.
> 
> 1) Egypt’s President Muhammad Morsi scored big for himself and his Muslim Brotherhood movement. On Wednesday, Morsi issued a new “constitutional declaration” that further consolidated his own power. Article VI confers on Morsi the power to rule by decree. Article II immunizes him from legislative and judicial scrutiny.
> 
> This week’s authoritarian actions move Egypt rapidly along the way to one-party Muslim Brotherhood rule. They occurred without a murmur of protest from the United States. More than that: On Wednesday, Egypt signed an agreement to borrow $4.8-billion from the International Monetary Fund, at a concessionary interest rate of 1.06%. As the largest shareholder in the IMF, the United States could have stopped the loan had it wished. Instead, the loan proceeded — almost as if it were the price of Egypt’s good offices in Gaza.
> 
> 2) The Obama administration. President Obama has suffered from a perception that he was not a reliable friend of Israel’s. The events of last week will quiet those concerns, at least for a time. The President publicly endorsed Israel’s right to defend itself. The administration may have privately urged restraint; if so, none of those urgings were heard in public. The Obama administration allowed “no daylight” between itself and Israel on this issue — gaining new credibility for any future time it opts to apply pressure on the Netanyahu government.
> 
> Moving now to the mid-point of the tally — those who both gained and lost — we come to:
> 
> 3) The Netanyahu government. Israel suffered human and economic losses from this utterly unnecessary conflict. However, it did put an end to the missile barrage without the need for a bloody ground war, and without provoking international odium. Benjamin Netanyahu continues his record as the most militarily cautious of Israeli prime ministers. He proceeds now to Israel’s January elections in a very strong position.
> 
> 4) If Israel gained more than it lost, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank lost more than it gained. Yet it still gained something. Its reputation for weakness and irrelevance may have been reinforced in Arab and Muslim eyes; its importance as a superior alternative to Hamas was enhanced in American and Israeli eyes. Look for measures in the months ahead to build up the Palestinian Authority’s prestige and support its economy.
> 
> Finally we come to the losers, plain and simple.
> 
> 5) Iran. Iran has relied on Hamas and Hezbollah to retaliate against Israel should Israel ever strike Iran. The effectiveness of Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile-defence system opens questions about how potent the Hamas-Hezbollah second strike would be. It’s very doubtful that Israel does intend to attack Iran. But suddenly it seems more unlikely than ever that Iran would be able to fire back upon Israel if Israel did attack.
> 
> 6) Hamas itself. Hamas fired one last rocket barrage as it signed the ceasefire, a symbolic act of defiance. Those Hamas leaders still alive may now do some chest-thumping about “resistance.” But the fact is, Hamas miscalculated this war in every possible way. Hamas expected to mobilize Egypt to support them. It did not. Hamas expected to do more damage to Israel. They failed. Hamas expected to compel the international community to do business with them. They are more of a pariah than ever.
> 
> Most serious of all for Hamas: They started this war when they attacked an Israeli mobile patrol, inside Israeli territory, on Nov. 10. This was a conflict of Hamas’ own choosing. It achieved absolutely nothing for them, while doing painful damage inside Gaza. If the scale of the damage was much less in 2012 than in 2008, that reflected Israel’s decision-making, not Hamas’ capabilities.
> 
> And now Hamas must worry about being upstaged and out-flanked by even more militant ultra-Islamist groups, which will accuse them of the same weakness and incompetence that they charge against the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas.
> 
> All of this makes them the war’s biggest loser — aside, that is, from the Palestinian people, who always lose as a result of their leaders’ bloody and reckless machinations.



Bringing things back to the most recent Gaza conflict, here is an interesting opinion piece by David Frum to which I largely agree with (shared with all the usual caveats).  To wit, Israel employed violence to meet its ends, which were aimed at neutering Hamas.  It seems that they may be on their way to achieving that.  Hamas, who hid out in Operation CAST LEAD as the Israelis killed the more radical Salafist groups, looks impotent to its more moderate opponents in the Palestinian Authority as well as to the die-hards in the more militant groups.

If the "Jews into the Sea" crowd within Gaza is fragmented amongst smaller factions while those seeking any sort of political solution begin to gravitate to the PA, then Israel is likely better off than it was at the beginning of the month.


----------



## tamouh

I don't think Hamas is the loser here. The latest BBC article I read indicates Hamas got some serious concessions from Israel regarding to border Patrol. This could be playing right into Israel's hand since any violence on Israeli/Gaza border may come back to hunt Hamas.

Egypt can also put alot of pressure on Hamas now. I do think that for the next few years, we're going to see a period of peace between Israel and Hamas.  Not because they want it, but because they're both now under spotlight should either party attempt a cross border incursion. Hamas is likely going to align itself more with Egypt (the logical ally), and depart away from Iran/Hezboallah. Israel on the other hand may have gained some concessions from the US in regard to Iran.

In my opinion, Egypt came back as the only victor from this short conflict. Egypt president's latest power grab is a consequence of the saying to the victor goes the spoils. In all cases, I think this is the last such incident we will witness in some time. Nations are busy with regime changes, and there is no time or patience for Israel/Palestine skirmishes.


----------



## tomahawk6

Part of the deal is for US special forces to go after the terrorists operating in the Sinai,which is supposed to cut the land routes to Gaza for arms smuggling.I havent seen any open source confirmation of this other than Debka. If true it would be something the Egyptians want as well as these terrorists have caused them serious problems and even threaten the Sinai Peacekeeping Force.


----------



## cupper

Everybody should prepare themselves for tomorrow.

We're either going to have a complete failure of the Israeli / Palestinian cease fire in Gaza and eruption of the West Bank and maybe Lebanon

OR

An awakening of the foretold Zombie Apocalypse.

Either way, we will soon know if Yasser Arafat was poisoned or not. They are going to dig him up tomorrow to run tests.

Prepare to bug out.


----------



## BrendenDias

You forgot a third option..
Aliens.
 :


----------



## Edward Campbell

According to the _Washington Post_, Prime Minister Netanyahu will get some political support from an unlikley source: former foreign minister Tzipi Livni who has announced that she will return to politics and contest the upcoming elections as leader of a new party which, according to the article, _"would aggressively pursue peace with the Palestinians ..._[and add]_ ... another name to what already is a fractured centrist opposition."_


----------



## George Wallace

Just a little factoid on Israel:




According to the CIA World Factbook:

Non Jews (mostly Arabs) make up 23.6% of the Israeli population.

Islam is practiced by 16.9% of the population


----------



## Colin Parkinson

The world needs to tell Hamas, no more aid till you stop the rockets. hamas does not need to pay for the rockets or the cleanup so why would they stop?


----------



## Infanteer

Good opinion piece from Jonathan Kay over at the National Post (shared with the usual caveats):

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/11/20/jonathan-kay-how-israels-iron-dome-won-the-war/



> Jonathan Kay: How Israel’s Iron Dome won the war
> Jonathan Kay | Nov 20, 2012 11:06 AM ET
> 
> Egypt, the United States, the UN and various other international actors have been pushing hard for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu is looking for a way to avoid a ground invasion, and likely would stick to a deal that puts an end to both Hamas rockets and Israeli air strikes on a simple quid pro quo basis. But Hamas is in a more complicated position: Its only currency in the region comes from its ideologically inflexible, openly terroristic opposition to the existence of the Jewish state. And so, in its rivalry with the Palestinian Authority, Hamas needs to show that its addiction to violence is bearing fruit.
> 
> But despite the spasm of Arab cheerleading that predictably has flared up during the actual fighting, Hamas hasn’t done much with its hundreds of launched rockets except kill three people in Kiryat Malachi — a rounding error on the number of Hamas fighters that Israel has killed. A mere ceasefire, at this point, will be seen, once the dust settles, as a Hamas defeat.
> 
> That is not the narrative that has dominated in the Western media, of course. Reporters have highlighted the “changing face” of the Middle East — what with Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and other Muslim nations expressing some measure of support for Hamas. Then again, reporters always like to recast this or that event as a watershed in the march of humanity. And it’s questionable how much really has changed. The million-strong pro-Palestinian marches in the vaunted “Arab Street” that we always are promised never seem to materialize. Moreover, the Hamas brand will continue to be problematic for Arab leaders, especially since Gaza is a spawn of terror in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, not just in Israel.
> 
> During Gaza’s brief Palestinian civil war, recall, Hamas thugs killed pro-Fatah activists by throwing them out of windows. And this week, Hamas gunmen summarily executed a half dozen men alleged to be Israeli “collaborators” — with one of the bodies chained to a motorcycle and dragged through Gaza City. All of Hamas’ major weapons systems come through Iran, which has become a despised entity in the Sunni Arab world thanks to its support for Bashar Assad, the butcher of Damascus. Sound like the sort of fellows Mohammed Morsi wants to be surrounded with in a photo-op?
> 
> The 2006 Lebanon War, in which Hezbollah militia were able to inflict significant casualties on an Israeli invasion force, also was billed as a “victory” for Arab militants. Yet in hindsight, it was nothing of the kind. Much of Lebanon was smashed to smithereens, and many Lebanese citizens asked the simple question: “For what?” Hezbollah has been relatively well-behaved ever since, and has set off nary a firecracker during the current fighting. Deterrence sometimes works, it seems, even with terrorists. (At least, it sometimes works in the case of terrorists who control their own geographical enclave, seek out a popular constituency among local residents, and therefore have something to lose by initiating a nihilistic military confrontation that they have no hope of winning.)
> 
> In the war’s aftermath, Hamas will be left to survey a scene of wreckage in the Gaza Strip — all for nothing. Worse than nothing, because Hamas will have seen its missile stock either destroyed on the ground or squandered in largely useless attacks against Israel. Hamas munitions factories that took years to build were destroyed by Israeli bombs in days. The war will heighten Israel’s determination to prevent more Iranian missiles from entering Gaza, a project that already seems to have taken a muscular turn in Sudan.
> 
> One theory is that Hamas has won merely by demonstrating its ability to “strike fear” in the hearts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem through its Fajr-5 missiles. But even this propaganda “victory” arguably was turned on its head by Israel’s deployment of Iron Dome — a mobile, locally-developed short-range air defense system. Iron Dome did not, and probably cannot, stop all incoming threats. But it did a good job stopping the missiles that were aimed at the most important urban targets. Indeed, it likely was thanks to the capabilities of Iron Dome that Israel has (thus far) been able to avoid a Gaza ground war: Had just one large missile landed in a populated portion of a major Israeli city, the pressure for an invasion would have been irresistible.
> 
> In Tel Aviv, in particular, the spectacle of Iron Dome intercepting an incoming missile actually created a massive morale boost for residents, many of whom truly were paralyzed by fear at the time. In some ways, it duplicated the inspiring experience that Londoners had when they saw British planes knocking Messerschmitts out of the air 72 years ago.
> 
> Iron Dome is a product of Israeli genius (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, to be more precise). But it is also a fitting symbol of the Israeli spirit itself — being a groundbreaking work of high-tech engineering designed to save lives and protect property in one of the world’s most dangerous corners.
> 
> In Gaza, meanwhile, mothers and fathers are championing the Gaza spirit by encouraging their sons to go out and kill Jews any way they can.
> 
> Funny how people are different that way.
> 
> National Post
> jkay@nationalpost.com



Students of strategy can draw a lot from this.  Hamas tried to use force to achieve its policies.  However, Hamas failed politically because it had a bad strategy that was easily countered by Israel.  Israel, on the other hand, used enough force (in a mostly defensive strategy) to achieve its ends.

In the end, all Hamas has to show for its efforts is a bunch of dead leaders, a stunted military capacity, Egypt giving it a bit of a cold shoulder and the world seeing your guys dragging corpses around the streets with motorcycles....


----------



## jollyjacktar

Infanteer said:
			
		

> In the end, all Hamas has to show for its efforts is a bunch of dead leaders, a stunted military capacity, Egypt giving it a bit of a cold shoulder and the world seeing your guys dragging corpses around the streets with motorcycles....



They seem to be, however, blind to this perspective from what I've read of reaction and stories emanating from Gaza.  They seem to believe, they won more than they lost.


----------



## Edward Campbell

I think Jonathan Kay's analysis of Hamas' share of the outcome is quite valid. But I remain convinced that the IMF loan to Egypt was the most significant event of that week in the Middle East.


----------



## GAP

They played everybody nicely, then stepped on their own dicks......


----------



## Nemo888

Infanteer said:
			
		

> In the end, all Hamas has to show for its efforts is a bunch of dead leaders, a stunted military capacity, Egypt giving it a bit of a cold shoulder and the world seeing your guys dragging corpses around the streets with motorcycles....



Well that, and the UN recognized them as a state. 138 FOR , 9 AGAINST and 41 ABSTAINED. Time for us to get on the right side of history.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/11/29/un-palestinian-state-israel-vote.html


> Palestinian UN statehood bid gets thumbs up
> 138 countries voted in favour; Canada, 8 others voted against
> 
> A majority of countries voted in favour of the Palestinian Authority's bid to have its status in the UN upgraded to state recognition.
> 
> The Palestinian Authority is now a non-member observer state. It was previously a non-member observer. The new status will allow it access to some UN international agencies and to sign treaties.
> 
> “Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two states and became the birth certificate for Israel," said Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president. He was greeted by the General Assembly with standing applause and uncharacteristic whistling.
> 
> “The United Nations General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine.”
> 41 countries abstained from vote
> 
> In the General Assembly, 138 countries voted yes, including France, Turkey, Russia and China. Nine countries voted no, and 41 countries abstained.
> 
> Canada voted against the bid, along with the U.S. and Israel.
> 
> Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird was in New York to oppose the move by the Palestinians for statehood, and presented the country's concerns directly before the world body.
> 
> “We cannot support an initiative that we are firmly convinced will undermine the objective of reaching a comprehensive, lasting and just settlement for both sides. It is for these reasons that Canada is voting against this resolution," said Baird. "We will be considering all available next steps.”
> 
> There has been speculation that Canada will ask the Palestinian delegation in Ottawa to leave or not renew its $300 million in aid to the authority over five years.
> 
> Deepak Obhrai, Baird's parliamentary secretary, said Canada has not made any decisions about its future interactions with the Palestinian Authority.
> 
> "Whatever decision we take will be a very responsible decision," he said. "Our goal is to achieve peace in the region."
> 
> Paul Dewar, the NDP's foreign affairs critic, said he was deeply disappointed with Canada's vote.
> 
> "[Baird] left us with this veiled threat for the Palestinians," he said. "And the question for the Conservatives is: how is that going to advance peace?"
> 
> Canada's vote was expected by the NDP as Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said Canada favours a two-state solution in the region.
> 
> "That will not be accomplished in reality unless and until the Palestinian Authority returns to the negotiating table and is able to get a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel.… So we encourage them to do that and we will not support any other shortcuts or any other ways of trying to arrive at that solution without such a peace agreement," he told reporters on Wednesday.
> Majority vote required for approval
> 
> Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas formally asked the UN a year ago to consider his application for full membership, but the request was blocked by the Security Council.
> 
> Unlike the Security Council, in the General Assembly, the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the United Nations, no one country has veto power. Most of the General Assembly's 193 member states are sympathetic to the Palestinians and the resolution to raise its status only required a majority vote for approval.


----------



## Jarnhamar

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Well that, and the UN recognized them as a state. 138 FOR , 9 AGAINST and 41 ABSTAINED. Time for us to get on the right side of history.
> 
> http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/11/29/un-palestinian-state-israel-vote.html



Just remember it's the winners that write the history


----------



## FoverF

Nemo888 said:
			
		

> Well that, and the UN recognized them as a state. 138 FOR , 9 AGAINST and 41 ABSTAINED. Time for us to get on the right side of history.




Hmm, let's see...




> Palestinian UN statehood bid gets thumbs up
> 138 countries voted in favour; Canada, 8 others voted against
> 
> A majority of countries voted in favour of the Palestinian Authority's bid to have its status in the UN upgraded to state recognition.
> 
> The Palestinian Authority is now a non-member observer state. It was previously a non-member observer. The new status will allow it access to some UN international agencies and to sign treaties.
> 
> “Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181, which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two states and became the birth certificate for Israel," said Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president. He was greeted by the General Assembly with standing applause and uncharacteristic whistling.
> 
> “The United Nations General Assembly is called upon today to issue a birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine.”
> 41 countries abstained from vote
> 
> In the General Assembly, 138 countries voted yes, including France, Turkey, Russia and China. Nine countries voted no, and 41 countries abstained.
> 
> Canada voted against the bid, along with the U.S. and Israel.
> 
> Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird was in New York to oppose the move by the Palestinians for statehood, and presented the country's concerns directly before the world body.
> 
> “We cannot support an initiative that we are firmly convinced will undermine the objective of reaching a comprehensive, lasting and just settlement for both sides. It is for these reasons that Canada is voting against this resolution," said Baird. "We will be considering all available next steps.”
> 
> There has been speculation that Canada will ask the Palestinian delegation in Ottawa to leave or not renew its $300 million in aid to the authority over five years.
> 
> Deepak Obhrai, Baird's parliamentary secretary, said Canada has not made any decisions about its future interactions with the Palestinian Authority...





I'm not informed enough to be pedantic, but I'm pretty sure those are the guys Hamas was throwing out of windows, murdering in their homes, and gunning down in the streets.

Having been violently ousted by Hamas from Gaza, the Palestinian Authority is only sovereign over the West Bank. Recognizing them as a state is in absolutely no way an endorsement of Hamas; quite the opposite, if anything.


----------



## Edward Campbell

In my opinion, which is not anywhere near as well informed as I would wish, the whole _Islamic Crescent_ is in a crisis:

     1. There are sectarian disputes in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, and in Malaysia ~ especially between those who want to retain _Asian_ traditions and those who want to impose _Arabic_ culture under the guise of religious orthodoxy;

     2. There are (still very small) revolts in some Philippines provinces and in the Malaysia/Thai border region;

     3. There is a _separatist_ movement in the far West of China (in Xinjiang province which borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (and even, for a wee bit, Afghanistan));

     4. There is civil unrest in all the _Stans_, Afghanistan being in the worst shape;

     5. Iran is spreading trouble and strife throughout West Asia and the Middle East;

     6. The _Arab Spring_ series of revolts still paralyzes the Middle East and North Africa;

     7. Turkey may be challenging Egypt for leadership in the regions; and

     8. Hams and Hezbollah engage Israel but threaten everyone.

It looks, to me, like a series of small crises which could, at almost any time, combine into an explosion. If you take a _Clash of Civilizations_ view of the world then such and explosion is a "good thing" for the US led West because it turns Muslim rage inwards, against itself.

It may be, for those who see the world through a more *cultural* lens, that it may be that an (inevitable?) religious war between Sunni and Shia Muslims is be starting and this may coincide with a religious _reformation_ which may (a lot of "mays" here) lead to an intellectual enlightenment. That, reformation + enlightenment, is also a "good thing."


----------



## Kat Stevens

Or, it may lead to a (further?) descent into barbarism, and, given that area's track record over the last bunch of centuries, I'm not optimistic.


----------



## a_majoor

An interesting counterpoint to what Edward said is in Robert Kaplan's new book "The Revenge of Geography"

Iran and Turkey both demographically and economically dominate the Middle East (and in the case of Turkey control much of the water as well). Their geographical positions also give them a huge advantage in the 21rst century in terms of "position", since they can act as hubs between multiple regions to transfer oil, natural gas and water throughout the region to markets in Europe, India and Asia.

These are very powerful advantages, which suggest that regardless of what happens in the rest of the Middle East, these two nations will have strategic advantages over the rest. The fact they are both the cores of ancient states/empires and have relatively homogenous, non Arab populations also suggest they will remain stable despite the turmoil around them.

How this plays out if the rest of the region descends into chaos (especially a war or series of religious wars) is harder to fathom, Iran and Turkey are on opposite sides of the Shiite/Sunni divide, and are historic rivals as well, but neither would relish the thought of having their infrastructure and access to markets disrupted. I suspect that they might play the game though various proxies, letting the Arabs (and maybe the Kurds) do their dirty work for them.

If you read Kaplan, he sketches out a more hopeful scenario based on mutual interests, but human nature being what it is I suspect that would be an outside probability.


----------



## Haletown

Interesting news on Iron Dome . . .  First I have heard the system in place right now is  Pre Beta.

http://www.iag-inc.com/2012/11/30/iron-dome/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter


Don't tell the media that military kit is used even if it isn't 100% perfect by the book.

Can you say F-35 Helmet?


----------



## Edward Campbell

My *opinion*: Israel is, at this moment, on the wrong track.

Israel's _strategic_ interest is, put simply, survival. There is an old saying that Israel must win every war but the Arabs only need to get lucky once. There's a lot of truth in that. To raise the odds for survival Israel needs to reduce the number (and strength) of its enemies. The Palestinian Authority (Mahmoud Abbas, _et al_ in the West Bank) need not be an enemy. Hamas and Hezbollah are strong, committed enemies and they must be weakened and, eventually defeated. Ditto Iran.

Now is the time to make peace - a generous peace - with the West Bank. In my opinion the primary condition of a generous peace, a peace the Palestinian Authority cannot refuse, is the unilateral establishment of a *fair* border. The existing wall provides most of that. The wall needs to be completed but it *must exclude* many, many Israeli settlements that hang like appendices deep in the West Bank. Big settlements like Ariel (pop 15,000+) must be abandoned. The new border will still be unpopular with the Palestinians and the Europeans and it will take (steal if you like) bits land that the Palestinians, with considerable justification, regard as their own. But it, a secure, defensible border, is an essential first step. I highly doubt that a negotiated border is possible so an imposed one - a *fact on the ground* - is the next best thing. The other conditions for peace, it seems to me, are easier. Abandoning many settlements is a HUGE political price for Israel, and Netanyahu may be one of the very few Israeli leaders with enough political capital amongst the settlers to manage it - but it will cost him his job. Mahmoud Abbas will also lose his job if he accepts such a peace but both he and Netanyahu must know that they, their countries, both need peace and they need it sooner rather than later.

Israel then needs to help the Palestinian Authority re-establish its political power base in Gaza. Targeted, covert, assassinations and financial espionage (mainly in European banks) are the best way Israel can help.

Then Israel can focus on making peace, of sorts, with whoever takes power in Syria.

That will leave Iran and its state sponsored terrorist groups. Israel can survive them.

My  :2c:


----------



## kevincanada

I'll qoute wikipedia, and another sight and add some notes on Hamas of my own.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas*

_Hamas's 1988 charter calls for the replacement of Israel and the Palestinian Territories with an Islamic Palestinian state. After the elections in 2006, Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Al-Zahar did not rule out the possibility of accepting a "temporary two-state solution", and stated that he dreamed "of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it."[54] Xinhua reports that Al-Zahar "did not rule out the possibility of having Jews, Muslims and Christians living under the sovereignty of an Islamic state."[54] In late 2006, Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, said that if a Palestinian state was formed within the 1967 lines, Hamas was willing to declare a truce that could last as long as 20 years, and stated that Hamas will never recognize the "usurper Zionist government" and will continue "jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem"_


*http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html*

_Article Thirteen: Peaceful Solutions, [Peace] Initiatives and International Conferences
[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. *For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion;* the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the movement educates its members to adhere to its principles and to raise the banner of Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad: “Allah is the all-powerful, but most people are not aware.” From time to time a clamoring is voiced, to hold an International Conference in search for a solution to the problem. Some accept the idea, others reject it, for one reason or another, demanding the implementation of this or that condition, as a prerequisite for agreeing to convene the Conference or for participating in it.* But the Islamic Resistance Movement, which is aware of the [prospective] parties to this conference, and of their past and present positions towards the problems of the Muslims, does not believe that those conferences are capable of responding to demands, or of restoring rights or doing justice to the oppressed. Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the nonbelievers as arbitrators in the lands of Islam. Since when did the Unbelievers do justice to the Believers?* “And the Jews will not be pleased with thee, nor will the Christians, till thou follow their creed. Say: Lo! the guidance of Allah [himself] is the Guidance. And if you should follow their desires after the knowledge which has come unto thee, then you would have from Allah no protecting friend nor helper.” Sura 2 (the Cow), verse 120 *There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility. The Palestinian people are too noble to have their future, their right and their destiny submitted to a vain game.* As the hadith has it: “The people of Syria are Allah’s whip on this land; He takes revenge by their intermediary from whoever he wished among his worshipers. The Hypocrites among them are forbidden from vanquishing the true believers, and they will die in anxiety and sorrow.” (Told by Tabarani, who is traceable in ascending order of traditionaries to Muhammad, and by Ahmed whose chain of transmission is incomplete. But it is bound to be a true hadith, for both story tellers are reliable. Allah knows best.)_



The highlights are mine in bold.  This second link is from the Hamas Charter.  How do you achieve peace with someone who thinks like this?
my 2 cents says Hamas has no interest in peace. If they did why would that put stuff like this in the charter,  If you read the whole charter it gets worse.


----------



## cupper

Not to Pick nits, but do not forget that what you are reading is someone's translation of a document in another language, so things can get lost or misinterpreted in translation.

Not that I support Hamas or it's declared aims. But you always need to consider the source, particularly if it involves translated materials.


----------



## kevincanada

cupper said:
			
		

> Not to Pick nits, but do not forget that what you are reading is someone's translation of a document in another language, so things can get lost or misinterpreted in translation.
> 
> Not that I support Hamas or it's declared aims. But you always need to consider the source, particularly if it involves translated materials.



That's fair, I will translate it out from Arabic using Google and post the results.  The translation will be in the raw form this way.  Slightly harder to read although still manageable.

*This section of Charter in Arabic from http://www.aljazeera.net/specialfiles/pages/0b4f24e4-7c14-4f50-a831-ea2b6e73217d*

الحلول السلمية، والمبادرات، والمؤتمرات الدولية:
المادة الثالثة عشرة:
تتعارض المبادرات، وما يسمى بالحلول السلمية والمؤتمرات الدولية لحل القضية الفلسطينية مع عقيدة حركة المقاومة الإسلامية، فالتفريط في أي جزء من فلسطين تفريط في جزء من الدين، فوطنية حركة المقاومة الإسلامية جزء من دينها، على ذلك تربى أفرادها، ولرفع راية الله فوق وطنهم يجاهدون.

?واللهُ غَالِبٌ عَلَى أَمْرِهِ وَلكِنَّ أكثر النَّاسِ لاَ يَعْلَمُونَ? (يوسف: 21).

وتثار من حين لآخر الدعوة لعقد مؤتمر دولي للنظر في حل القضية، فيقبل من يقبل ويرفض من يرفض لسبب أو لآخر، مطالبًا بتحقيق شرط أو شروط، ليوافق على عقد المؤتمر والمشاركة فيه. وحركة المقاومة الإسلامية لمعرفتها بالأطراف التي يتكون منها المؤتمر، وماضي وحاضر مواقفها من قضايا المسلمين، لا ترى أن تلك المؤتمرات يمكن أن تحقق المطالب أو تعيد الحقوق، أو تنصف المظلوم، وما تلك المؤتمرات إلا نوع من أنواع تحكيم أهل الكفر في أرض المسلمين، ومتى أنصف أهل الكفر أهل الإيمان؟

?ولَنْ تَرْضَى عَنْكَ اليهودُ وَلاَ النَّصَارَى حتَّى تَتَّبعَ مِلَّتَهُم قُل إنَّ هُدَى اللهِ هُوَ الهُدَى وَلَئِن اتَّبَعْتَ أَهْوَاءهُم بَعْدَ الذي جَاءَكَ مِنَ العِلْمِ مَا لَكَ من اللهِ من وَلِيٍّ وَلاَ نَصِيرٍ? (البقرة: 120).

ولا حل للقضية الفلسطينية إلا بالجهاد، أما المبادرات والطروحات والمؤتمرات الدولية، فمضيعة للوقت، وعبث من العبث. والشعب الفلسطيني أكرم من أن يعبث بمستقبله، وحقه ومصيره. وفي الحديث الشريف "أهل الشام سوط في أرضه ينتقم بهم ممن يشاء من عباده وحرام على منافقيهم أن يظهروا على مؤمنيهم ولا يموتوا إلا همًا وغمًا". (رواه: الطبراني مرفوعًا وأحمد موقوفًا، ولعله الصواب، ورواتهما ثقات، والله أعلم).
لى هذا الأساس الذي تعبأ فيه إمكانات الدوائر الثلاث، فإن الأوضاع الحالية ستتغير، ويقترب يوم التحرير.
*
End Result after running the language through http://translate.google.com/*

Peaceful solutions, and initiatives, and international conferences:
Article XIII:
Contradict initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences to resolve the Palestinian issue with the doctrine of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Valtafrat in any part of Palestine overcook part of religion, Fotunaih Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its debt, it reared its members, and to raise the banner of Allah over their homeland struggling.

? Allah has ordered, but most people do not know? (Yusuf: 21).

And raised from time to time call for an international conference to consider in resolving the issue, Tribal accept refuse from refuse for one reason or another, calling for the achievement of a condition or conditions, to approve the contract and participation in the conference. The Islamic Resistance Movement to know the parties that make up the conference, and past and present positions of Muslim issues, does not believe that these conferences can achieve demands or return rights, or do justice to the oppressed, and those conferences only type of Arbitration people of disbelief in the land of Muslims, and when did justice the people of disbelief people of faith?

? You will not be satisfied with the Jews nor the Christians until you follow their religion Say God is Huda Huda While followed their own lusts after which comes from knowing what you God or helper? (Baqarah: 120).

There is no solution for the Palestinian cause but jihad, and the initiatives and proposals and international conferences, time فمضيعة, and the futility of tampering. The Palestinian people Akram of tampering with his future, and his right and his fate. In the Hadith, "the people of Syria whip in their home avenge those whom He will of His slaves and haram Manafiqihm to show their underwriters and die only two mines." (Narrated by: Tabaraani brought Ahmed suspended, and perhaps the right thing, and trustworthy Roathma, and God knows best).
Lee This is the basis on which the potential packed three circles, the current situation will change, and is approaching the day of liberation.


----------



## Edward Campbell

There is a longish article in the _National Post_ headlined *‘Where was the outrage?’ As hundreds of thousands cheer Hamas chief in Gaza, world remains silent: Israel*. The article cites a recent series of appearance and speeches by Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal and Ismail Haniya. Hamas' leader in the Gaza Strip that, quite explicitly, called for the destruction of Israel and pledged never to accept a two-state solution. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is quoted as wondering _"Where was the outrage? Where were the UN resolutions?"_

It's a fair question that points to the hypocrisy and, I suggest, racism in the US led West. Not anti-Semitism, rather simple racism: we Westerners hold the israelis to a much higher standard than the one to which we hold Arabs. Quite simply: israelis are "like us" and the Arabs are ... well a bit "less" than us, unable to be held to "our" standards. We "know" that the Arabs will lie and go back on their word but we "excuse" them because ... because, being Arabs, they are not quite as "good" as us. It is pure, simple, institutional racism.

_"Meanwhile,"_ the article ends, _"the European Union warned Israel of unspecified consequences if it went through with plans to build thousands of new homes in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The bloc’s 27 foreign ministers said in a statement, “The EU will closely monitor the situation and its broader implications and act accordingly.”_

If you don't like the racism argument then you must, at the very least, accept that President Obama and the lesser leaders of the West are hypocrites.


----------



## Journeyman

An article by Eitan Shamir (Office of the Prime Minister, Jerusalem) in _Infinity Journal_, states that those who interpret Israel's handling of Hamas through the lens of either a population-centric or an enemy-centric approach will most likely get it wrong. Israel assumes that neither the population will reduce its ideological support for such organizations, nor can the smuggling of rockets/mortars be eliminated.

Rather, the aim is simple deterrence: "The Israeli approach is much more limited and is primarily designed to merely persuade the other side that any action against Israel will result in a high price – thus achieving deterrence."1 

Based on Lebanon '06 and Gaza '08, it seems to work for short periods, which is probably all Israel can hope for, regardless of the hand-wringing and finger-pointing coming from dubiously effective organizations like the UN or EU.



[size=8pt]1.  Eitan Shamir, "Coping with Nonstate Actors," _Infinity Journal_, Issue No. 2, Spring 2011, p. 8.


----------



## a_majoor

This blogger wonders if the recent recognition of "Palestine" by the UN hasn't set the stage for an even longer and more terrible war between Israel and her enemies. Between this, an almost unlimited supply of arms and money from oil rich nations like Iran or radicals in the Gulf (not to mention lots of manpower from various Jihadi groups eager to be in on the kill) and the ability to receive favourable coverage from the world press, there seem to be very few reasons for the Palestinians to exercise restraint. 

Perhaps the only true solution would be a "Roman Peace", but the reaction to that would only compound the initial problem.

http://www.russ-campbell.net/2012/12/un-set-stage-for-war-in-palestine.html



> *UN set stage for war in Palestine Territories*
> 
> The united Na­tions, with its ill-con­ceived Nov. 29 de­ci­sion to grant the Pales­tini­ans the sta­tus of non-mem­ber ob­server state, has prob­a­bly set the stage for all-out war be­tween the Hamas/Fa­tah-led Pales­tini­ans and Is­rael.
> 
> It cer­tainly seems—based on cel­e­bra­tions in Gaza and the West Bank—that the Pales­tin­ian lead­er­ship be­lieves it has earned the UN’s ap­proval as an in­de­pen­dent en­tity with the right to ac­cess the In­ter­na­tional Crim­i­nal Court.
> 
> More­over, Pales­tin­ian ex­pec­ta­tions seem high enough to en­cour­age the po­lit­i­cal leader of Hamas, Khaled Me­shaal, to visit Gaza for the first time ever to preach his ha­tred and con­tempt for Is­rael, telling uni­ver­sity stu­dents on Sun­day:
> 
> God will­ing, we shall lib­er­ate Pales­tine to­gether, inch by inch. We started this path and we are go­ing to con­tinue un­til we achieve what God has promised.”
> 
> At an ear­lier rally, the Hamas leader promised to lib­er­ate the en­tire land of Pales­tine, and said, “We will never rec­og­nize the le­git­i­macy of the Is­raeli oc­cu­pa­tion.”
> 
> Strong words in­deed from a man who, less than a month ago, told CNN’s Chris­tiane Aman­pour in Cairo  he was “ready to re­sort to a peace­ful way, truly peace­ful way, with­out blood and weapon.” He also said Hamas had ac­cepted a two-state so­lu­tion based on the bor­ders of 1967.
> 
> Flushed with self-de­clared vic­tory in their re­cent con­flict with Is­rael, Khaled Me­shaal’s Gaza-based ter­ror­ist or­ga­ni­za­tion seems to be po­si­tion­ing it­self to cap­i­tal­ize on its pop­u­lar­ity with the Pales­tin­ian pub­lic and be­come the se­nior part­ner in a re­newed work­ing re­la­tion­ship with Mah­moud Ab­bas’s Fa­tah po­lit­i­cal party that gov­erns the West Bank.
> 
> Should rec­on­cil­i­a­tion oc­cur be­tween Hamas and Fa­tah, it would end the un­easy al­liance be­tween Ab­bas and Is­rael, which ex­ists only be­cause both sides are united in their op­po­si­tion to Hamas. And, should Hamas gain the up­per hand in any new part­ner­ship with Fa­tah and be­come the cen­tral player in Pales­tin­ian pol­i­tics, for­get about a peace agree­ment with Is­rael any time soon.
> 
> I just don’t see a cur­rent Is­raeli leader ne­go­ti­at­ing with Hamas, an or­ga­ni­za­tion whose lead­ers time and again kill Is­raeli civil­ians while re­peat­edly stat­ing their re­fusal to rec­og­nize the Jew­ish state.
> 
> With no prospect for a peace­ful so­lu­tion and with Hamas call­ing the shots for the Pales­tini­ans, the sit­u­a­tion on the ground will likely de­te­ri­o­rate, lead­ing in­evitably to a Third In­tifada, this one al­most cer­tainly more ter­ri­ble than the last.
> 
> As one of Is­rael’s staunchest al­lies, Canada’s re­solve to stand by the Jew­ish state will be se­verely tested should my pre­dic­tion prove ac­cu­rate. Hope­fully, PM Stephen Harper will be up to the test.


----------



## Infanteer

Journeyman said:
			
		

> Rather, the aim is simple deterrence: "The Israeli approach is much more limited and is primarily designed to merely persuade the other side that any action against Israel will result in a high price – thus achieving deterrence."
> 
> Based on Lebanon '06 and Gaza '08, it seems to work for short periods, which is probably all Israel can hope for, regardless of the hand-wringing and finger-pointing coming from dubiously effective organizations like the UN or EU.



Well, Infinity Journal does publish high quality works.  

It's funny, for all its foibles, the 2006 invasion of Lebanon is, politically, a success; not only has there been nothing of interest cast from South Lebanon, but Hezbollah clearly didn't see value in taking advantage of Israel's attention to Gaza in 08 and 12.

Sometimes deterrence is all you need - it worked from 1945-1991.


----------



## Journeyman

Infanteer said:
			
		

> Well, Infinity Journal does publish high quality works.


The author _appeared_ to have some insight on the Israeli perspective....


----------



## a_majoor

Lawrence Solomon suggests there is a perverse incentive for the Palestinians to reject an actual peace and two state solution; foreign money. This reminds me a bit of my early experience doing UN Peacekeeping in Cyprus. There was a lot of protest theater by both sides to convince the UN it was still needed, and the UN obligingly spent millions of dollars on the island to maintain the peacekeeping force and infrastructure. The Ledra Palace hotel was still a ruin in 1989 when I was there, despite having been in UN hands since 1974 and the UN paying a huge yearly rental to the owners there was still no water pressure past the third floor and the elevator did not work in the section we lived in (two quick memories). There was no political movement for peace or reconciliation in the island because there was no incentive to do so, but lots of incentive to encourage the UN to remain.

Maybe we need to eliminate the payments the Palestinians receive and watch their entire outlook and behaviour change:

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/12/14/lawrence-solomon-two-state-solution-benefits-only-israel/



> *Lawrence Solomon: Two-state solution benefits only Israel*
> 
> Lawrence Solomon | Dec 14, 2012 11:18 PM ET | Last Updated: Dec 15, 2012 3:29 AM ET
> More from Lawrence Solomon
> 
> Palestinians stand to lose jobs and foreign aid should peace come
> 
> Let’s assume that Israel and the Palestinians make peace and establish two states, side by side, that would not be at war or threaten each other, much as happened after Israel and Egypt made peace three decades ago. How great would that be?
> 
> For Israel, really great! Before Israel made peace with Egypt in 1979, military spending in this then-poor country exceeded a staggering one-third of GDP. By 1982, after Israel completed its troop pullout from Egyptian soil, its military burden dropped to under 25%, and then continued to drop, enabling Israel to increasingly concentrate on growing its economy.
> 
> Today, Israel’s per capita GDP exceeds that of many European countries. According to Gallup’s chief metrics for excellence among countries — measured by the residents who have full-time work and who believe they are “thriving” today and will thrive even more in future — Israel ranks third in the world, behind only Denmark and Sweden and ahead of Canada in fourth place. Unlike most countries, Israel avoided the global recession in 2008. Its economy is at full employment and its GDP growth, which has been booming in recent years at 5%, continues to be strong in this current downturn at 3%, just about the best in the Western world.
> 
> Should that ever-elusive peace deal with the Palestinians one day materialize, Israel’s economy would be ever so much stronger, probably growing at 5% to 7% per year, according to 2010 estimates from Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer.
> 
> Part of that boost would come from Israel’s ability to cut its military spending, which today is about 7% of its GDP, just a fifth of its mid-1970s levels but still painfully burdensome. In contrast, the U.S., despite its military presence around the globe, spends less than 5% of its GDP on the military; countries with peaceable neighbours such as Denmark, Sweden and Canada typically spend 1.5% or less.
> 
> Related
> As hundreds of thousands cheer Hamas chief in Gaza, world remains silent: Israel
> No peace deal without new Israeli settlements, Netanyahu says
> 
> Israel’s economy would also get a boost by eliminating costs that don’t show up in the military budget, such as the hit to the broad economy when a million people must flee to bomb shelters, as occurred in Israel’s recent war with the Palestinian territory of Gaza. Israel would also save the costs of providing services to Palestinians in the territories — these include health care, agricultural programs, water treatment, waste disposal and tax collection, among other services.
> 
> But would peace serve Palestinians as well? Probably not. As a fully fledged state, Palestinians would no longer have an entitlement to Israeli aid and with the high-profile Israeli-Palestinian issue defused, Arab oil states that have reluctantly provided aid in solidarity against Israel would be able to bow out. More importantly, with the end of unrest Palestine would soon lose the raison d’être for international aid from Western countries and agencies such as the World Bank — the belief that the West could leverage its aid to end conflict and arrive at a peace treaty. Foreign aid diplomacy, in fact, has driven the peace process since Bill Clinton in 1993 brought together PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin to sign what is known as the Oslo Accord.
> 
> Palestinians were promised that they’d be lavished with aid if they agreed to talk peace with Israel and lavished they were — Palestinians soon became the world’s largest per capita recipients of foreign aid, although much of it went to corruption. Arafat became a billionaire — following his death in 2004 his wealth was estimated to be as high as $3-billion; his wife, known for her extravagance, now lives in Paris. One of Arafat’s most trusted aides, Mohammed Rashid, is reputedly worth more than $500-million. The current president of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, who is widely seen as relatively free of corruption, is believed to be worth a mere $100-million — Rashid reported to Saudi TV that the Abbas family’s palaces and homes in Palestine, Jordon, Tunisia and elsewhere are alone worth more than $20-million.
> 
> The aid also trickled down, letting Palestinians as a whole derive some benefit — in the early years after the Oslo Accord, and before the Intifada of 2000-2005 tanked their economy, their per capita GDP soared to exceed Egypt’s. Even today Palestinians remain better off than many of their Arab neighbours, making them envied for their relative affluence. In much poorer regions of neighbouring Egypt where some 30 to 40 million people live on $2 per day, for example, parents for years have encouraged their daughters to marry Palestinians, to secure a fee for themselves and an easier life in Palestine for their daughters.
> 
> More than foreign aid could dry up should peace come. According to recent figures from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 80,000 Palestinian residents in the West Bank territory work for Israelis, 65,000 of them in Israel proper and 15,000 in the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. These 80,000 employees — about 10% of the entire Palestinian workforce in the West Bank — receive twice the pay that Palestinian employers in the West bank provide, and three times the pay provided by employers in Gaza, whose residents don’t have access to Israeli jobs. West Bank Palestinians would expect an independent Palestine to ban settlements and restrict employment in Israel, worsening their economic lot.
> 
> Unlike Israelis, Palestinians fear they would see no glorious peace dividend — to them peace looks more like a punitive tax. Not surprisingly, while public opinion polls show Israelis to overwhelmingly favour a two-state solution in which Israel and an independent Palestine live side by side, they also show Palestinians in the Palestinian territories to overwhelmingly oppose it.
> 
> At the same time that Palestinians reject peace, they embrace peace talks. Earlier this year, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research surveyed Palestinians on how the government should meet a budget shortfall for this year. Only 9% backed tax increases while “a majority of 52% selected the option of returning to negotiations with Israel in order to obtain greater international financial support.”
> 
> Of course, a Palestinian state need not spell economic decline. Without corrupt leaders and with an acceptance of Israel, a Palestinian state, too, would thrive. For the foreseeable future, however, neither of these two prerequisites for a thriving Palestine are in the offing.
> 
> LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com


----------



## teabag

I'm a little confused by what Mr. Solomon is trying to say.  The tone of the article seems to be condescending, like an audience member in a poker tournament who knows what cards everybody holds.  He does not outright denounce to a two-state solution yet it is implied that peace would not be in Palestine's favor.  Then would that mean he is in favor of prolonging conflict between the two states?  According to the provided statistics, it certainly appears to be the wise economic choice.  I can understand why he is reluctant to suggest that they continue killing each other, even though he believes it to be the best financial outcome for a percentage of the Palestinian people.  But is throwing money in their general direction the goal here? 

In the closing remarks Mr. Solomon posits two points for the state of Palestine to thrive.  It must have been made in jest because he knows that neither will occur.  Then, was the article written for the sake of satire - or comedy, even?  If not, then what he is saying is that Palestinians shall never thrive and that both external and internal factors contribute to it.  

It is written with no consideration for the humanity of the parties involved.  Mr. Solomon writes as though he lives in a world where people, emotions and feelings can be bought or traded for money.  As though all the hate that has built up - due to religious texts or otherwise - could be brushed aside if only the Palestinians could see the greater good. 

And this is not about the world being unfair by holding Israel to a higher standard.  Israel, as proven in the article, is doing quite well.  They _are_ living at a higher standard across the spectrum regardless of how you define success and that is precisely why the world does not treat both states as equals.


----------



## GAP

Disingenuous argument at best, leading to a plea for the "poor Palestinians" .......... :


----------



## kevincanada

I really don't like these opinion articles,  Missing so much information and making huge assumptions.  Like if they had peace, Palestine would loose entitlement to Israel aid?  What the heck?  The people get aid even though they are enemies because its the right thing to do, peace or not.

Or they can decrease Military spending since they have peace? hehehe like Palestine is their only enemy.

Bless the media and it's bad information


----------



## a_majoor

Perhaps you need to re read the post. What Solomon is saying is that the Palestinians have a perverse incentive to keep the fighting going, while Israel has a positive incentive to conclude the conflict with a "Two State" solution. So long as the Palestinians can get access to foreign money and aid, they are free to continue doing what they are doing today, rather than seek a peace treaty and end hostilities.

A Palestinian "state" would be expected to be self sufficient the way other states are, and to devote their resources for the betterment of their people. As an independent state, they would no longer be automatically entitled to aid from Israel (which is essentially carrying out its duties as the de facto administrator of Gaza and the West Bank), and most other states in the region would expect the Palestinians to shoulder their own load as well. The Palestinians could indeed do this if they wished (consider the radical changes to government and society in South Africa after the end of Apartheid, for example.)


----------



## teabag

Mr. Solomon hints that the state of Palestine could continue to receive certain financial benefits if conflict continued while under Israeli occupation/administration.  The article appears to state that Palestinians stand to lose if a peaceful two-state solution is implemented but throws in two caveats towards the end - like it was blackmail.

To be fair, the state of Palestine is not the only party in receipt of foreign aid.  Your closing remarks in your previous post said we should cease foreign aid to the Palestinians and see what changes will happen.  You must also know that Israel receives more than billion dollars in aid from the United States every year.  This is not economic aid as with the state of Palestine but _military_ aid.  Mr. Solomon did not make any mention of that. 

The state of Palestine does have a lot of problems to address - like how to be self-sufficient in that part of the world - but it is wishful thinking to accept that their beliefs (highlighted by numerous quotes from religious/political leaders and scriptures) will change.  Arguments between Israelis and Palestinians seem to focus on quotations and people keep pointing out the fact that at its core the Palestinian people do not seem to be inclined to recognize Israel.   Knowing this, it then begs the question of why Israel, having the military might, does not simply wipe them off the map rather than send their infrastructure two decades back in time while also garnering two decades worth of hate for the future? 

And Apartheid in South Africa feels a little distant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...


----------



## a_majoor

Are you comfortable with the idea of the State of Israel imposing a "Roman Peace"? I am not, and it would seem that the people of Israel are not either, otherwise they would have done so a long time ago. I also wonder how many decades of "good will" you think a Roman Peace would generate?

So long as there are perverse incentives for the Palestinians to continue, they will. Remember that only a small fraction of the Palestinians actually voted for Hamas or the "Palestinian Authority", so if there is a stronger incentive for peace than for war, the people will move in the direction of peace.


----------

