(7/24/2014)
(7/24/2014)
(8/5/2014)
” . . . a separate militant group to Hamas! They are also responsible for rocket fire into Israel . . .” (1:21)
(8/10/2014)
(6/18/2014)
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What Hath Hamas Wrought?
10 Sunday Aug 2014
Category Archives: Politics
Comment on the Missing Armies of the Muddled
10 Sunday Aug 2014
Obama has given MB plenty of room for operating and for being observed. As he is not a President for Life, the stronger elements that comprise our government will survive him and probably be able to use the knowledge gained during his tenure. I would fear as much a flip toward the extreme Right in America. We really need a central, progressive, and prudent politics, and the zealots in politics have really skewed the conversation away from the middle ranks. That needs fixing, so I am becoming a Passionate Moderate Liberal.
The above comes not from The Awesome Conversation but rather from private correspondence.
As with the polarizing of American politics, which so far remain civil, a glance at the hot conflicts within the Islamic Small Wars campus tell a tale about the possession of armies in the name of the people: Syria just didn’t have one.
Bashar the Butcher al-Assad had an army.
Every band of mixed pedigree with heavy jihad on its mind made itself an army.
The greater portion of the population of Syria, which numbers above six million internally displace and refugee: no army — no defense — nothing against the state’s military power or the ruthless ambition of spoilers ambitious for plunder, rape, and rapine beneath their black banners.
*
Iraq appeared to have had an army before ISIS bore down on it and got it to jump out of its boots and uniforms, so it may be said that moderate Sunnis, Chaldean Christians, and the Yezedis also had no more army in Iraq than they would have had in Syria.
To its credit plus the rightful defensive stance of Shiites looking north toward Sunni extremists, it might be said that Baghdad, finally, has an army, and it’s moving but with the pace known to other armies challenged by Islamist irregulars. Even with an army formed to defend the middle humanity of a state, the same would seem to need an army of detectives to deal with the state’s major irritants.
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Lisa Dafteri – “It’s Terrorists Against Humanists”
08 Friday Aug 2014
“We are the generation that stays quiet about political corruption, favoring political correctness instead. We pride ourselves in sticking up for the underdog while throwing our friends and allies to the dogs.”
(8/8/2014)
However you get the news . . . you get it.
Hamas hasn’t a human program or a prayer to offer anyone. Its officers have made themselves millionaires (actually, Khaled Mashaal is a billionaire) on the way to dealing death to their own constituents, including 160 children recruited for the construction of their tunnels.
Of ISIS, one only finds worse things to mention — rape and rapine all the way to attempted genocide, Shiites, Christians, Yazidis, and anyone else just because and as it strikes BadDaddy’s fancy.
Talk about the “Hamaside” and “Muslim Botherhood” . . . .
WASHINGTON — U.S. warplanes made a second wave of airstrikes Friday in northern Iraq against the militants who have besieged a religious group and threatened the city of Irbil, a Pentagon official said.
Rear Adm. John Kirby, spokesman for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, said the second wave of strikes used a drone to attack a mortar position while four FA-18 fighter-attack planes hit a seven-vehicle convoy outside Irbil.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/08/obama-iraq-airsgtrike/13767377/ – 8/8;/2014.
BBC Live (right now – 8/8/2014/1723 ET):
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28709792
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Guest Blog by Brigitte Wunsch, Luxembourg – “Open letter to an Israeli friend who is living in Germany and is very critical of Israel”
06 Wednesday Aug 2014
Tags
Dear ______,
I’d rather we would not talk about Israel because we seem to totally disagree on this subject, and I don’t want it to have a bad impact on our long-time friendship. But I want to share my thoughts with you about you saying that in reality the Israelis are ashamed about the war in Gaza.
I am sure that the vast majority of my friends in Israel are certainly not ashamed of that war.
Many have children in the army in Gaza or in the West Bank. Many are worried, desperate, and certainly feel no less compassion for the Palestinian civilian victims than you. Most find war terribly and do not want that innocent people die.
But they also do not want thousands of Israelis to die or to continue to live under rocket-fire, under constant threat, with radical Islamists around them that make no secret of what they will do with Jews as soon as they will have the occasion.
Hamas never says “Israelis”. For them there is no difference.
But I can comment only for myself: I am against violence and war and just as horrified and shocked as you are about injured and killed children all over the world .
My compassion is not limited to Indian or South American children, nor is it limited to Palestinian kids either.
My sympathies are also go to Syrian Pakistani, Sudanese, Nigerian, Iraqi, Somali, Lybian children who are killed by hundreds of thousands by the same ideology, by radical Islam, which has cost the lives of more tha 11 000 000 Muslims since 1948 11 000 !!! [STET]
I have contacts with Palestinians, even with a filmmaker from Gaza, now … but .. I see the danger posed by radical Islamists such as Hamas, and that the blockade of Gaza came AFTER the rocket attacks, and is not it’s cause.
And I know that the wall that has been erected after horrible terror attacks brutally murdered more than thousand Israeli civilians in buses, schools and pubs have lost their lives, and that the settlements are NOT the main cause of failed peace talks, which is the general consensus and mantra of the “European Hasbara” of the Left, Greens, Islamists and neo-Nazis.
I am shocked by your lack of compassion for Israelis being bombarded for years, the many gruesome terrorist attacks, many of which I indirectly (and one even had directly experienced!) !!
And your one-sided criticism of Israel and your lack of understanding what is happening there. Your black and white view of Israel scares me.
I also have my criticism of many what happened in Israel, the swing to the right, but that is also happening in Europe.
My friends there, and I are almost all for a two-state solution.
But radical Islamism all around Israel makes this solution increasingly impossible and dangerous for Israel.
It is not only the settlement policy, which can be criticized of course.
But writing hateful and ironic, cynical comments, and sometimes even posting false photos or articles is certainly no way to peace either.
The only way to peace is the path of the heart, through encountering each other, and a mutual attempt to understand each other’s pain and fears.
I have a few such friends in Israel who are seeking this path. But it is not possible when organizations like Hamas have power because they are making any contact impossible.
And to liken Bibi and Bennet, no matter how much one may accuse them of racism or war-mongering, to the leaders of Hamas, who kill and torture their own people, is absurd.
I am often enough in Israel to capture the atmosphere there. Yes, there is a growing racism , and hatred, and religious fanaticism, like all over the world, and it has to be taken care of.
But the way you criticize Israel in your many posts, and never utter even a single word of criticism of Hamas or Fatah, you kindle only hatred of Israel.
I’m against war and violence, but I see a great danger in radical Islam, that is the new fascism, and history repeats itself again, unfortunately. And with radical Islamists, it is not possible to conclude peace negotiations.
Have you read the Hamas Constitution which openly calls for the murder of Jews?
Hamas wanted to start a mega terrorist attack and would kill every Israeli if they had the chance.
And now they can send rockets from Gaza to Haifa. What should Israel do according to you, to protect their civilians?
Was it wrong that the Allies bombed Dresden and Berlin?
It is not easy to answer this moral question…
The violence and the suffering of many innocents is of course shocking to any feeling being, and the pictures of dead or injured children are heart-breaking of course.
But the vast majority of people in Israel is also realizing the danger of not reacting to the constant shelling of rockets and the threat of the tunnels, and of Hamas acquiring more weapons.
Would you like to see such gruesome pictures also from Israel? Bombs on planes? Some rockets hit Ben Gurion airport a few days ago. How many deaths would there be now in Israel, after years of missiles fired into Israel by Hamas if there were no shelters and no iron dome?
Israel is between a rock and a hard place.
And what I do know, not from the media but from the children of my friends who are now soldiers in Gaza, is that they very often tell people exactly where they should stay to be safe if the houses are being blown up, but that Hamas prevents them to escape, and fires rockets near schools, hospitals and mosques.
This whole situation is terrible, and moves me very much.
However, I am sure that one-sided criticism of Israel, particularly in Europe where anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are so closely intertwined, does not contribute to peace, and hurts not only Israel, but also the non-Islamist Palestinians.
I would appreciate if this issue would be settled between us, I respect your opinion, but do not agree with it.
For me this is not a reason not to be friends, or to judge you.
Everyone has their past, and experiences, and if I lived in Germany I would perhaps also share your opinion; if you were in Israel and your sons in the army now , you would probably think differently as you do now, I don’t want to condemn anyone.
I look forward but to talk to you about other issues.
Very best wishes, and also do not condemn you me and some of your friends in Israel on our opinion.
Our children have often wept over friends killed in attacks, and we sat there with our gas masks during the Gulf War, or in the shelter when missiles were falling.
There is a wise Indian saying “condemn no one unless you’ve been walking around a few days in his moccasins”.
See you soon, be well, and I hope that soon peace will come ………
Shalom,
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For Gazans
05 Tuesday Aug 2014
(8/4/2014)
“Shaked added that yesterday, 186 trucks entered carrying mainly medical equipment and medicines. The shipment was the largest since Operation Protective Edge began and included – inter alia – 3,000 units of blood, water tanks and generators to supply electricity to local hospitals. Thousands of liters of gasoline and diesel fuel were also delivered, as well as 87 tons of natural gas.
Since the start of Operation Protective Edge, 1,752 trucks with humanitarian aid have entered the Gaza Strip.”
As the latest ceasefire takes effect this morning, it may bear keeping in mind that Israel has continued shipping throughput to Gaza throughout hostilities to the extent feasible.
Field hospital for wounded Palestinians from Gaza
The IDF, in cooperation with the Red Crescent, has opened a field hospital at the Erez Crossing, on the Gaza border, to treat wounded Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. The field hospital contains an emergency room, lab, pharmacy, pediatric ward, ambulatory clinic, gynecology unit, family and internal medicine, and is equipped to treat dozens of patients.
Since the field hospital opened on 20 July, doctors and staff have attended to 50 patients. Some have been treated and released, some treated and sent on for additional care at a hospital, and some sent immediately for hospital care. Unfortunately, Hamas has directly and indirectly prevented patients from arriving for care at the field hospital.
The officer also noted, however, that Hamas has prevented Israeli humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, and that a field hospital erected by Israel near the Erez border crossing to treat Palestinian wounded has not seen much use. Indeed, COGAT reports that fewer than 50 injured people have sought treatment at the field hospital, due to Hamas’ opposition to it.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-gaza-conflict-2014/.premium-1.608949 – 8/5/2014
(7/19/2014)
Since the start of Operation Protective Edge, 3,360 rockets have been launched at Israel, striking at the civilian population throughout the country, from north to south. Three civilians have been killed.
http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Pages/Israel-under-fire-July-2014-A-Diary.aspx (up to date, quoted 8/5/2014).
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Palestinian Leader Mudar Zahran: “Most Gazans Have Had Enough With Hamas.”
01 Friday Aug 2014
Jordanian Palestinian leader Mudar Zahran has been arguing for years for a revolutionary version of the “Jordanian Option”, the idea that the Palestinians should be absorbed by and governed by Jordan, an idea pursued by Yasser Arafat with disastrous consequences, but which in Zahran’s vision promotes a democratic pro-Semitic Jordan.
As King Abdullah II of Jordan would have to abdicate to get to the first leg of such an adjustment, Zahran generally argues his case from London.
Nonetheless, with Palestinian bona fides, Zahran has stepped out of the box that keeps the “middle east conflict” oscillating between temporary accommodation and relative quiet and then the rounds of brutal violence unleashed by the passions fueled by Arab hate in some proportion of the refugee populations. The dictator generally boasts — and being delusional may believe — that everyone is behind him (and everyone loves him too), but the more level-headed among empiricists may rightly query that boast: truly, provably, how many constituents within the mafia state of theofascist Hamas deeply hate and resent its existence and its power over their lives?
As all autocracies are no-go zones for honest pollsters, no one really knows.
However, with this “different kind of war”, states share in their enmity reliance on general communications networks and devices and word gets in and word gets out — and then it moves quickly.
So one may take it on Mudar Zahran’s word, “Most Gazans Have Had Enough With Hamas”, until Gazans are free of Hamas and free to speak freely.
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31 Thursday Jul 2014
Posted in Politics
. . . the governor wasted no time translating his beliefs into law. Because the governor believed that homosexuals were “a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick,” he outlawed them, instructing his police officers to seek, capture, beat up, and imprison every gay individual in the state. Similarly, women were deemed better off tending to their families than wasting their time with such corrupting pursuits as jobs. A special educational program was devised and approved to teach young girls the fundamentals. These future wives and mothers, read the governor’s statement, “must be fully capable of being aware and of grasping the ways to manage their households. Economy and avoiding waste in household expenditures are prerequisites to our ability to pursue our cause in the difficult circumstances surrounding us.” The men of the state reveled in this new way of life, asserting themselves as lords of their manors; before too long, nearly half of them took to regularly battering their wives.
How many of those who define themselves as liberals would support the governor?
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/180947/liberals-who-oppose-israel#undefined – 7/31/2014.
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How Hamas and Affiliates Brought Death and Destruction to Gaza – Or Have Set off Explosions Themselves
30 Wednesday Jul 2014
The title’s a bit heady and long for a brief compendium and observation on a blog . . . but on with it —
Old folk wisdom: “He who points the finger at others out to point it back at himself first.”
Mea culpa: the Israelis are not perfect, but in the site of God — or perhaps just one another, open courts, and an open democracy — they keep working on becoming better children of the universe and students of the universal in humanity.
Hamas, its associates, and its fans would seem to represent a different sort of unconscionable consciousness, one always accusing, deflecting, denying, and lying, for here is a short list of egregious accidental (on purpose?) and deliberately evil behaviors that have led to the injuring and killing of hundreds of residents of Gaza.
Shifa Hospital – Hamas Headquarters
On July 15, for example, William Booth of the Washington Post wrote that the hospital “has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” Back in 2006, PBS even aired a documentary showing how gunmen roam the halls of the hospital, intimidate the staff, and deny them access to protected locations within the building—where the camera crew was obviously prohibited from filming.
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/180730/top-secret-hamas-command-bunker-in-gaza-revealed#undefined – 7/29/2014.
The station said that a “Hamas Fajr-5 rocket aimed at central Israel, which was fired from a playground outside the Shifa hospital and exploded on the site causing casualties, had at least a 100 kg (220 lbs) warhead,” according to The Times of Israel.
Reporter Nir Devori of Channel 2 and analyst Ehud Yaari confirmed the carnage was most likely the result of a failed Fajr rocket launch — aimed at central Israel.
Vanity Fair also weighed on on the weighing of evidence:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2014/07/gaza-shifa-hospital-bombing – 7/28/2014
When it’s convenient to update a piece, I do, so here has arrived this from the elder of zyon blog:
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/italian-journalist-confirms-hamas.html#.U9rPpuNdV8E – 7/29/2014.
Related in the blogosphere:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/07/hamas-hits-shifa-hospital.php – 7/28/2014.
What kind of a monster would deliberately “shield” a war room, a control room, a bunker, with a hospital of ill and injured patients above it?
Among this blog’s key terms, “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy” takes a good run at the anomic aspect of Hamas, which appears not to care about the humanity of its constituents. From that alone, whether it cares much about God either: it shouts a lot, collects and keeps hundreds of millions of dollars in the pockets of its own, and it gets other people to die for its own grandiose delusions.
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Hamas said the explosions were a “direct” strike by Israeli drones, while Israel said they were caused by failed militant rockets. “A short while ago Al-Shifa hospital was struck by a failed rocket attack launched by Gaza terror organizations,” the IDF said in a statement, adding that “there was no Israeli military activity in the area surrounding the hospital whatsoever. “
http://time.com/3046808/gaza-israel-hamas-cease-fire-shifa-hospital/ – 7/29/2014.
UNRWA School – Beit Hanoun
UNRWA has admitted that a Hamas misfired rocket hit a U.N.-run school in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, according to Channel 2′s Ehud Ya’ari, but an errant IDF artillery shell also may have hit the facility, where Gaza sources claim an estimated 17 children and United Nations personnel were killed and 200 others were wounded Thursday afternoon.
I like my month/day/year style more than Israel’s day/year/month, but beyond that, these two items tells that the Big Media Story was suspect from near start.
The results of the IDF forensic investigation naturally follows, and while its conclusions may be displeasing to some and suspect by anti-Semites (because they are what they are), the data will be around for independent examination when the fighting concludes.
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The preliminary report indicates that militants fired anti-tank missiles at IDF soldiers, who then responded by firing several mortars in their direction.
The preliminary inquiry and footage indicate that a single errant mortar landed in the courtyard of the UNRWA school, when it was completely empty.
Gaza Military Assault Tunnels
The Institute for Palestine Studies published a detailed report on Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon in the summer of 2012. It reported that tunnel construction in Gaza has resulted in a large number of child deaths.
“At least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas officials”
The author, Nicolas Pelham, explains that Hamas uses child laborers to build their terror tunnels because, “much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies”.
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/180400/hamas-killed-160-palestinian-children-to-build-terror-tunnels – 7/25/2014.
Related:
http://www.businessinsider.com/video-why-israel-is-afraid-of-hamas-tunnels-2014-7 – 7/29/2014.
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But there is no Iron Dome for tunnels. The tunnels give me real pause. It’s hard enough to imagine a situation in which your neighbours are quite intentionally trying to blow up your house and kill your children with rockets. But Hamas’s well-developed kidnapping strategy represents a whole other category of depravity. The handcuffs and tranquilizers are mere baroque, Pulp Fictionish details. The core depravity of Hamas is its longstanding policy of treating every Jew as a target for elimination.
Multiple media outlets report that Hamas’s offensive tunnel network – now known to have been composed of over forty attack tunnels dug underneath Israel’s border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip – was set to be activated during the Jewish High Holidays (September 24th) as a mass terror attack.
The attack was meant to generate as many as ten thousand casualties, men, women and particularly children and hundreds of captives. Explosives were particularly placed underneath kindergartens to make certain that these “institutions” would be the first struck, even before any thing else.
The tunnel-building program involved 800 million tons of concrete, according to reports on the web, the deaths of 160 Palestinian children (that would seem the minimum number known), about $1 million per project, so now we’re about looking at $40 million or more dollars worth of wreckage — completely wasted Gazan money, except for those who got paid working underground — and that’s probably another dismal story about exploitation (I wonder how much line-level workers made).
Involving Hamas Earlier in Time
I would like to have seen more snap in this calmly narrated video, but the point of it is clear: a violent incident of some kind within Gaza and independent of the IDF took place, killing and wounding a “cast” reassembled on a beach and filmed for anti-Israel propaganda.
Again: where the data persists and the investigative method is empirical, the dead may well tell a different story than the malignant narcissist would have you believe.
The mentality: aggrandizing, bloodsucking greedy, unrestrained sociopaths.
The world has seen this pattern repeated around the world, and while it would seem to be waking up to it, it may not be doing so with the strongest hand, the ambitions of the venal outstripping efforts to get at them before they do real damage as has been deeply experienced in places as different as Pakistan, Somalia, and Iraq.
Addendum
Related history:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/michael-widlanski/from-arafat-and-abbas-to-hamas-lying-and-crying-for-terror/ – 7/30/2014.
After the evacuation, Israel opened up border crossings to facilitate commerce. The Palestinians were also given 3,000 greenhouses which had already been producing fruit and flowers for export for many years.
But Hamas chose not to invest in schools, trade, or infrastructure. Instead, it built an extensive network of tunnels to house thousands upon thousands of rockets and weapons, including newer, sophisticated ones from Iran and Syria. All the greenhouses were destroyed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/post_8056_b_5602701.html – 7/28/2014. I don’t agree with the nastiness covered by political politeness in the first point (or similar ploys): “Yes, there’s an unfair and illegal occupation there, and yes, it’s a human rights disaster” — for, no, there has been no Israeli occupation of Gaza since surrendering it to the refugees in 2005: there has been only a military cordon to keep out arms (which cordon appears to have failed despite its naval blockade and inspections of overland shipping. And the same cordon has not been illegal by any internationally agreed upon basis in law. That the Arab states arrange gang-ups in the UN and such anti-Semitic spectacles as the Durban conferences is just a fact of life, but that it happens doesn’t make it right.
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