Israeli-Arab War

[Aplomb]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050948.html

Last update - 13:02 29/12/2008

Top PA negotiator: No peace talks with Israel during Gaza assault

By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies

Chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia said U.S.-backed peace talks with Israel have been put on hold, citing the Israel Air Force's offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"There are no negotiations and there is no way there could be negotiations while there are attacks against us," Qureia told reporters.

The moves comes one day after a Syrian government official said that Damascus has decided to suspend its indirect peace talks with Israel, in the wake of the mass offensive Israel launched in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, which left more than 300 Palestinians dead and scores more wounded.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said "Israel's aggression closes all the doors to any move toward a settlement in the region."

Israel and Syria held four rounds of indirect negotiations, mediated by Turkey, after the peace talks were launched in May. The talks were suspended when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced he would step down earlier this year.

[Aplomb]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050943.html

Last update - 12:11 29/12/2008

Iran clerics enlist volunteers to fight 'Zionist regime' in Gaza

By Reuters

A group of Iranian hard-line clerics is signing up volunteers to fight in the Gaza Strip in response to Israel's air strikes that have killed at least 300 Palestinians, a news agency reported on Monday.

"From Monday the Combatant Clergy Society has activated its Web site www.rohaniatmobarez.com for a week to register volunteers to fight against the Zionist regime (Israel) in either the military, financial or propaganda fields," the semi-official Fars news agency said.

The hard-line group, which is headed by some leading clergy, says it has no affiliation with the government and was formed shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious decree to Muslims around the world on Sunday, ordering them to defend Palestinians in Gaza against Israeli attacks "in any way possible".

A religious decree is an official statement by a high-ranking religious leader that commands Muslims to carry out its message. While there is no religious and legal force behind it, Khamenei is respected by many Iranian and non-Iranian Shi'ites.

Iran refuses to recognize Israel, which accuses Tehran of supplying Hamas Islamists with weapons. Iran denies the claim, saying it only provides moral support to the group.

Israel said the strikes, that have killed 307 Palestinians, were launched in response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip after the Islamist Hamas group ended a six-month ceasefire a week ago.

Fars said the hard-line group provided volunteers with a registration document called "Registration form for dispatching volunteers to Gaza". It said more than 1,100 people so far had registered for military service against Israel.

Khamenei said on Sunday that whoever was killed in the fight to defend Palestinians was "considered a martyr".

Iran will send its first ship carrying aid to the Gaza Strip on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said.

"Iran has dispatched its first plane load of aid, including medicine, to Gaza on Sunday. The second cargo is on the verge of being dispatched," Qashqavi told reporters on Monday.

Tens of thousands of Iranians protested on Monday to condemn Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, which began with air strikes on Saturday.

Protesters burned Israeli and U.S. flags and demanded a stronger response from international organizations to stop Israel's raids, a Reuters witness said

[American Patriot]

Sounds like the beginning of the end for someone...

Israel At 'War to the Bitter End,' Strikes Key Hamas Sites

Well... about time. Terrorists need to die.

[Aplomb]

http://tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=185797

Ahmadinejad lambastes UN for silence on Gaza crisis


TEHRAN (IRNA) -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here on Sunday condemned silence of the UN Security Council on the ongoing atrocities in the Gaza Strip.

Addressing a local seminar on Varzesh-e Pahlavani (sport of the heroes), he added, “The UNSC even knows that issuance of a resolution by the international body will not create the minimum problem for the criminal Zionists.”

Today, the oppressed people in Gaza are living in the most difficult situation and the crimes committed against them are unprecedented in the history of the world, Ahmadinejad said.

As to critical situation of the besieged Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, he regretted that the so-called human rights advocates have given a green light to the criminals so that they can continue their savage crimes.

They believe that they can break the resistance of the Palestinian nation through their military power, Ahmadinejad said, stressing that the Palestinians will be victorious in the near future.

He also voiced solidarity of the Iranian nation with their Palestinian brothers.

[Aplomb]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129088

Tanks Deployed at Gaza Barrier; Barak: War to the Death


by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

(IsraelNN.com) The IDF positioned hundreds of tanks along the Gaza separation barrier Monday as the Air Force resumed aerial attacks on terrorist targets throughout Gaza. Israeli gunboats fired several missiles towards the Gaza coast. Arab sources said that several people were killed or wounded, including several terrorists who were hiding in mosques.


The IDF also declared the area near Gaza Belt communities a closed military zone, leading to speculation that a ground invasion is near. Israel ordered journalists out of areas abutting the Gaza Strip border on Monday, citing the risk of terrorist rocket fire, but the move also keeps the media from reporting on troop movements.


The IDF issued emergency "Tzav 8" orders to 7,000 reservists to be prepared for an immediate call-up. The government and military have tried to refrain from a ground invasion into Gaza, which is booby-trapped with hundreds of Hizbullah-like underground bunkers that foiled the IDF in the Second Lebanon War two years ago.

Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Institute for Policy and Planning at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, told Bloomberg News, "It is clear to everyone that there is no way to end this without some sort of ground offensive."

Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Brigadier-General Dan Harel said, "We are hitting not only terrorists and launchers, but also the whole Hamas government and all its wings. We are just at the beginning of the battle, this will not be hasty. The worst is not behind us – it is still ahead of us."


Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated,"This operation will expand and deepen as much as needed. We went to war to deal a heavy blow to Hamas, to change the situation in the south."


He told a special Knesset meeting Monday, "We have nothing against the people of Gaza, but we are in a war to the death with Hamas. We are engaged in an all-out war against Hamas and its proxies."


Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has asked Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik (Kadima) to cancel the meeting, saying it was ill-timed. He did not attend.


Israel is continuing counterterrorist operations as Hamas escalated rocket attacks on Israel on Monday. A Bedouin construction worker was killed and several others were wounded in a Grad Katyusha attack on Ashkelon.

More than 40 rockets exploded in Ashkelon, Sderot, Netivot and the Eshkol region Monday, sending more than two dozen people to the hospital for treatment for shock.



Damage was extensive in Sderot, where one rocket hit in the center of town while another struck next to a house.

[Aplomb]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129068

Hizbullah Vows to Open Second Front in Gaza Conflict


by Hana Levi Julian

(IsraelNN.com) Hizbullah terrorists have vowed to open a second front against Israel in the north in retaliation for the IDF military operation against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.


Terrorist chief Hassan Nasrallah issued a statement on Hizbullah's Al-Manar television station Sunday, vowing that "northern Israel will burn as Gaza is burning." Nasrallah rarely appears in person; he speaks via a video hook-up from his hideout due to fears of assassination by Israeli agents, following the 2006 Second Lebanon War.


Hizbullah officials were quoted in a number of Arabic-language publications on Saturday warning that they would not permit Israel to attack Gaza without retaliating.


Last week seven Katyusha rockets were discovered primed and ready for launching in southern Lebanon, located near the northern border of Israel. All seven were aimed at targets in the Jewish State.


Prime Minister Ehud Olmert -- anticipating such a reaction -- warned Hizbullah Saturday night in his speech informing the nation about the military operation in Gaza that any "others who may seek to take advantage of the situation would be wise not to."


The last time Israel faced a two-front war was in June 2006, when a military conflict began with a cross-border raid by Hamas terrorists near the Kerem Shalom Crossing with Gaza that resulting in the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Two other soldiers were killed and a fourth soldier was critically wounded in the attack. Shalit remains captive in Gaza to this day.


Less than a month later, in July 2006, Hizbullah terrorists carried out a cross-border raid in northern Israel, kidnapping and ultimately murdering IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.


The attack, which was conducted simultaneously with the launch of a barrage of Katyusha rockets at Jewish communities in northern Israel, opened a second front in the military conflict that had began with Gaza, and ignited the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

[American Patriot]

Hizzbulah hasn't figured this out yet, give them some time. Overwhelming force and all that.....

[Aplomb]

http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/lin...2308145636.htm

Final count down starts for Israel collapse


Tehran, Dec 29, IRNA

Iran-Gaza-Government
The final count down has started for the collapse of the Zionist regime, government spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Elham said on Monday.


Speaking on the sidelines of a large rally held to protest the ongoing slaughter of the defenseless people in Gaza Strip by the Zionist regime, the spokesman said that Israel has "waged a war not only against the innocent Gazans but against the whole humanity." "This is a battle not only in the Islamic lands but in the whole world and its threats would possibly spill over even to Europe," Elham said.


He added that Tehran would support any humanitarian efforts to stop Israeli genocide in Gaza.


Israel's massacre in Gaza Strip entered its third day leaving over 310 people dead and more than 1,400 injured.


Most of the victims of the Zionist regime's brutality against Gazans are defenseless women and children.


The medical centers in the enclave announced that they cannot provide more medical care to the huge number of injured people.


Elham said that Israel's savage attacks on Gaza Strip resulted from its increasing desperation regarding its weakness in the face of Palestinians public resistance.


"Bombarding defenseless women and children can no longer save the Zionist entity," said the spokesman.


He also condemned the international community for their silence towards Israeli crimes.

[American Patriot]

Final collapse.....

Right.

I'm not holdin' me breath.... but, I'll have a beer when I git 'ome and hoist it to them Israelites....

[Aplomb]

http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/...-israel_gaza-0

Israel prepares to wipe Gaza Strip off Earth’s face


Israel continues its massive military operation against Palestine for three days running.

Over 310 people have already been killed in the Gaza Strip as a result of Israel ’s air strikes. Over 180 Hamas activists have been killed, spokesmen for the organization said. Over 1,000 people have been wounded – mostly gunmen, policemen, officials and Hamas activists, sources in Palestine say.

Over 40 tunnels, which Palestinian terrorists made to deliver weapons and ammunition to the Gaza Strip, have been destroyed in the military operation so far.


The governments of Turkey and Jordan, as well as the UNRWA and the Red Cross organizations will send 100 trucks of humanitarian cargoes to the Gaza Strip December 29.


Israel made at least 20 missile attacks against the Gaza Strip overnight. Israeli warplanes also bombed the Islamic University in Gaza, where Hamas was keeping Qassam rockets and explosives.


It seems that it is only a start. Israel prepares to continue the military actions despite numerous protests from the international community. A ground operation in the Gaza Strip may start in the next few days. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that her country had no choice. “We do what we have to do to protect our citizens,” Livni said.


The Gaza Strip is not going to surrender. Hamas is now prepared to launch over 200 missiles against Israel daily.


Israel is pulling tanks and infantry reinforcements close to Gaza in preparation for a possible attack on Hamas militants, Israel's Ynet web portal and the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post reported on Sunday.


Israel's air force launched on Saturday a number of simultaneous airstrikes targeting the ruling radical Islamist movement Hamas's paramilitary units. The airstrikes, launched in response to rocket and mortar fire by Hamas militants against southern Israel, have reportedly killed more than 270 Palestinians, RIA Novosti reports.


Ynet referred to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as saying in an interview with British Sky News television that the Israeli ground forces would enter the Gaza Strip, if the move was deemed necessary by Jerusalem.


According to The Jerusalem Post, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal called on West Bank residents to rise up against Israel in a new "intifada" but at the same time repeated that his organization was interested in renewing the ceasefire agreement with Israel.


He said that the ceasefire would be possible on the condition that Israel lift its siege of Gaza and open all crossings in and out of the Gaza Strip.



The Israeli parliament (Knesset) will gather for an emergency meeting to discuss the actions of the Israeli Army in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik with a request to postpone the meeting. The speaker refused, and Olmert said that he would not attend the meeting at the time when actions were a lot more important than words.


Palestine ’s moderate administration fears that a third Intifada may begin as a result of the current conflict. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority Chairman, said that he had asked Hamas not to end the truce with Israel. “The truce was supposed to remain in force. We do not want the Gaza Strip to be destroyed,” he said.


US President George W. Bush prefers not to make any official statements regarding what has been happening in the Gaza Strip recently. It is only said that Bush watches the development of the situation closely. US President elect Barack Obama follows Bush’s example at this point. Experts say that the operation of the Israeli Army has minimized Obama’s chances to conclude a peaceful agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

[Malsua]

>>Over 310 people have already been killed<<

That's not Massive. Get back to me when it's 31,000.

[Aplomb]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...cle%2FShowFull

Dec 29, 2008 0:30 | Updated Dec 29, 2008 11:34 Analysis: Don't forget the Iranian connection

By DAVID HOROVITZ

Among the many negative consequences of the Second Lebanon War in summer 2006 was the distraction it provided from Iran's nuclear program.

So focused was the international community on 34 days of fighting, and so inarticulate was Israel in explaining that it was (indecisively) confronting the Iranian takeover of southern Lebanon, that Teheran slipped gratefully into the global shadows, there to quietly advance its progress toward the bomb.


Today, there is a danger of the same process repeating itself.


Hizbullah is an Iranian creation. Hamas is not. But it has drawn itself increasingly into Iran's orbit.



Much of its imported weaponry, and the expertise with which it now produces and refines its own rockets, have been provided by Iran.


Dozens of its commanders have been trained in Iran in recent years, coming home and disseminating that "education" as Hamas has built an army in Gaza.



And, increasingly too, Hamas has come to act in the service of Iran's aims.


Many signs, even on day two of Operation "Cast Lead," suggest that Israel is trying to conduct this conflict on the basis of lessons learned from the war against Hizbullah as regards the avoidance of grandiose stated aims and the absence of boasting about the IDF's capacity to destroy its enemy.


What is not yet clear, by contrast, is whether Israel is truly intending to pursue its deceptively narrow-sounding stated goal of restoring long-term calm to the South.


This aim is actually immensely complex, given that Hamas's raison d'etre is to attack Israel and that it is thoroughly indifferent to the deaths of its own people - as exemplified by its ruthless seizure of control in the Gaza Strip 18 months ago.


Many signs, too, suggest that Israel is making an effort, albeit not wholly successful, to improve on the abject public diplomacy of the 2006 war.


What is not yet clear, by contrast, is whether the official spokespeople have internalized the necessity to highlight Iran in their message to the world - Iran, the state champion and major enabler of Hamas's terror-state in Gaza.


Iran is inspiring, funding, arming and training Hamas.


Iran is avowedly committed to Israel's destruction, and regards Hamas as a tool toward this goal.


The same Iran, via an emboldened Hizbullah, is now most of the way to achieving proxy control not merely of southern Lebanon, but all of Lebanon.


The same Iran, already armed with missiles that can reach Israel, is extending its missile range to Europe and, it hopes, ultimately to North America.


The same Iran is openly challenging not just the Middle East order but the world order, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad personifying that challenge, thoroughly backed by the entire Teheran regime.


And that same Iran is moving ever closer to the nuclear capability it intends to use in the service of its goals.


The long-term deterrence of Hamas's capacity to threaten Israel would represent the long-term deterrence of one aspect of Iran's rapacious and far-reaching power drive.



That's an outcome of Operation "Cast Lead" that at least part of the watching world might appreciate - if Israel can manage, first, to explain it clearly, and then to achieve it.

[American Patriot]

>>Over 310 people have already been killed<<

That's not Massive. Get back to me when it's 31,000.

Dead people are NO laughing matter.

Wait, they are terrorists. Never mind...

[American Patriot]

Muslims around the world rally over Israeli's attacks

(Nothing further follows......)

[Aplomb]

http://www.carolineglick.com/e/

December 22, 2008, 11:58 PM

Repeating failure in Gaza

Permalink | Comments (8) | Email | Del.icio.us | Digg This | Print
If additional proof is needed that Israel is in desperate need of a new government, one needs to look no further than the situation in the South.


After the Olmert-Livni government failed to defeat Hizbullah in the 2006 war, the public demanded that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resign and enable the people to elect a new government capable of defending the country and fixing the damage that he and his colleagues had just wrought. Olmert refused. He justified his contempt for the public by claiming that since he was the one who had failed, he was in the best position to fix the mess he created.


His reasoning was not simply self-serving. It was strategically devastating. His stubborn insistence on remaining in power made it impossible for the country to embark on a new course.


And today, with the South under siege, the hollowness of Olmert's assertion that he and his colleagues could be trusted to learn from their mistakes is unmistakable. On Sunday the IDF was forced to order schools around Gaza to bar children from playing outside. And as Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Yuval Diskin acknowledged at Sunday's cabinet meeting, their fate may soon be shared by hundreds of thousands of other children.


Diskin announced that over the past six months of Israel's one-sided cease-fire with Hamas, Hamas expanded its rocket range from 20 kilometers to 40 and is now capable of attacking the outskirts of Beersheba, Ashdod, Gedera, Kiryat Gat and Kiryat Malachi in addition to Ashkelon, Sderot and Netivot. So due to the so-called cease-fire, Hamas now has more than a million Israelis at its mercy.


SINCE IT abandoned Gaza in September 2005, the government has more or less stood down and allowed Hamas to build its armies and terror arsenals unchallenged. But with the February 10 general elections swiftly approaching, and with public anger at their abandonment of the South daily rising, on Sunday Olmert's ministers decided that the time has come to launch a military offensive into Gaza.


To prepare the ground for the promised offensive, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has ordered the diplomatic corps to build international support and understanding for the planned military action. Of course, as Likud Knesset candidate and former chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon pointed out on Israel Radio Monday morning, the very fact that Israel today lacks international support for defending the country against Hamas's illegal terror offensive shows how empty pledges made by Livni and Olmert on the eve of the 2005 surrender of the Gaza Strip truly were.


At the time, Livni, Olmert and their colleagues promised that after Israel left the area, if the Palestinians dared to attack the country, Israel would have full international backing to defend itself. Now, with an Iranian proxy in control of its southern border, Israel finds itself condemned for every action it takes to secure its citizens from murder.


At any rate, the cabinet decided that whenever Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Olmert feel comfortable with the international climate, the IDF will gradually escalate its currently anemic operations in Gaza. Presently the IDF is not even going after Hamas targets, just Islamic Jihad ones. And on Monday morning Barak announced that every additional operation will require prior approval by the government.


While the government is congratulating itself on its willingness to defend the country after three years of negligence, the fact is that its strategic aim is not to defeat Hamas. This fact was made clear in the summary of the government's decisions reported in the media on Sunday afternoon. The government made clear that the aim of both the diplomatic and military offensives is to pave the way for the "international community" to intervene in Gaza to protect Israel from Palestinian terrorism.


IF THAT sounds familiar, it is because it is. It is the same strategy, and the same strategic goal, that the government adopted during the 2006 war with Hizbullah. After reacting helter skelter to Hizbullah's initial aggression which began the war, Olmert and Livni decided that Israel shouldn't bother trying to defeat Hizbullah. Instead of ordering the IDF to defeat the enemy, they ordered it to put on a sound and light show replete with aerial bombing and some good photo-ops of ground forces raising the flag in Bint Jbail and other villages. The aim of their military extravaganza was to convince the "international community" to deploy forces to Lebanon's borders to protect Israel in place of the IDF.


In defending their strategy to the public both during the war and in its aftermath, Olmert and Livni refused to acknowledge the prohibitive cost of surrendering borders to terror armies. Instead, they spoke darkly of the cost to Israel of controlling its own borders as part of an ongoing "occupation." In Lebanon, Olmert and Livni succeeded in expanding the size of the UNIFIL force deployed along the border. And they presented the expanded force as proof of their strategic genius. But UNIFIL is a disaster.


It has consistently refused to lift a finger to prevent Hizbullah from rearming and reasserting its control over the border area. Rather than contend with Hizbullah, UNIFIL devotes its time to condemning the IAF for conducting surveillance flights over Lebanon. Those flights enable Israel to keep tabs on the Iranian and Syrian weapons shipments to Hizbullah that UNIFIL has refused to prevent.


Under the protective gaze of UNIFIL forces, which Livni and Olmert promised the public would protect Israel from Hizbullah, Hizbullah launched a successful coup against the pro-Western democracy forces in the country in May and gained control over the Lebanese government. And under UNIFIL's protective gaze, the Lebanese army - which has both the US and Russia standing in line to sell it state of the art tanks, fighter jets, helicopters and precision bombs - has actively colluded with Hizbullah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in south Lebanon.


AND NOW, rather from learn from their mistakes in Lebanon, Livni, Olmert and Barak are seeking to repeat them in Gaza.


In moving to implement their tried and failed "war" strategy in Gaza, Livni, Olmert and Barak are abandoning their tried and failed and tried again and failed again "cease-fire" strategy. Unlike their war strategy, which has only been tried and failed in Lebanon, their cease-fire strategy has been tried and failed in Lebanon and Gaza.


Barak was the first leader to adopt the cease-fire strategy. He implemented it in Lebanon after he surrendered Lebanon's southern border to Hizbullah in May 2000. At the time, as prime minister, Barak announced that Israel would use overwhelming force to combat Hizbullah if it dared to attack after the withdrawal. But then when Hizbullah kidnapped three IDF soldiers along the border in October 2000, Barak refused to take action.


Barak's one-way cease-fire with Hizbullah was exploited by the group to build up a formidable missile arsenal, to organize and train its forces and to construct its warren of underground bunkers and command and control centers which it used to such great effect in the 2006 war. Moreover, emboldened by successive Israeli governments' refusal to lift a finger against Hizbullah, the Iranian-proxy trained, funded and directed Fatah terror cells in Judea, Samaria and Gaza in their attacks against Israel.


In Gaza, the Sharon government first enacted the one-sided cease-fire with Palestinian terror groups led by Fatah in June 2003. In exchange Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas promised to take action against Hamas and Islamic Jihad rocket squads. Of course he never did. And of course, all Palestinian terror factions used the cease-fire to rebuild their forces and expand the range of their rockets - at the time from six to eight kilometers to 15-17, placing Ashkelon under attack from the first time.


ISRAEL FINALLY decided to end its non-aggression pledge in the aftermath of a joint Hamas-Islamic jihad massacre of 20 children and their parents travelling on a bus on their way home from the Western Wall in August 2003. The response involved taking out a Hamas terror commander in Gaza.


Not surprisingly, supported by Egypt, the EU and the Israeli media, all Palestinian terror groups were quick to blame Israel for ending the "truce." The unilateral cease-fire strategy in Gaza was never replaced by a plan to have the "international community" deploy forces to defend Israel. This was the case mainly because no one ever expressed any interest in sending forces to Gaza. In the absence of a foreign deus ex machina to save the country, Ariel Sharon, Olmert and Livni decided to follow the path blazed by Barak in Lebanon and simply surrender Gaza to the terrorists.


Before the government sends IDF forces into harm's way to put on a pre-election show for the public and invite an international force to come to Gaza and protect Hamas from the IDF, the public would do well to consider whether we are truly limited to repeating failed strategies over and over again. Is there perhaps an option other than failure we could choose?


The answer to that question is yes. There is an alternative strategy, and it has already been tried. And it succeeded. That strategy is the strategy of victory adopted in Judea and Samaria during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.


In Defensive Shield, IDF forces were sent into Palestinian terror centers with orders to defeat enemy forces. And they did. In succeeding months and years, IDF forces were ordered to remain in place and prevent enemy forces from rebuilding their capacity. As the absence of rocket arsenals in Judea and Samaria and the near disappearance of suicide bombers from Israeli cities shows, the strategy has worked.


THE PROBLEM with repeating the successful strategy used in Defensive Shield in either Gaza or Lebanon is that doing so would require politicians to admit that they have made mistakes. Livni, Olmert and Barak have all based their careers on their advocacy of the view that Israel must not "occupy" land to defend itself, but rather should subcontract its security to peace treaties, to its enemies and to Europeans and Americans.


They cannot implement a strategy that requires them to recognize that the price of defending ourselves is smaller than the price of surrendering our security to our enemies. Doing so would be tantamount to acknowledging that they have led the country astray. And as they demonstrate through their stubborn maintenance of tried and failed strategies, this is something they will not do.


But then, as Ya'alon noted in his radio interview Monday, that's why Israel is lucky to be a democracy. On February 10 we will have the opportunity to make clear our view that leaders who have failed cannot be trusted to clean up their messes.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

[Aplomb]

No, they are not all terrorists being killed. That is news in numbers of civilian casualties to pressure Israel to stand down. I doubt this is going to be a repeat of the backing down and defeat in 2006.

[Toad]

I was watching the live feed on Fox News hoping to see some idiot get the stones to try and climb into the embassy and watch the IDF drop them.

Man, I would pay good money to see some 140 lb hippy college freak get clocked and dropped by IDF. Would be the next new "Don't taz me, Bro" viral video but rated R for violence.

Actually, doubt it would be rated R. It'd be over so fast he'd never know what hit him.

[Aplomb]

See what I mean about these bad boys and their shameful killing of anyone in their lousy targeting of so-called terrorists (as if you didn't already know) :

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1050912.html

Last update - 21:06 29/12/2008

7 killed as IAF destroys Gaza home of senior Hamas commander

By Haaretz Service and News Agencies

Tags: Hamas, Israel, Israel News

An Israeli air strike on Monday destroyed the Gaza Strip home of a top commander in Hamas' armed wing, killing seven people, including several members of his immediate family, Palestinian medics and local residents said. The senior Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades commander, Maher Zaqout, was not at home at the time, Hamas said.

[Aplomb]

http://www.moscownews.net/story/447319

srael pounds Gaza Strip for third day

Moscow News.Net
Monday 29th December, 2008

The Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has been pounded for a third consecutive day, with the Israelis preparing to launch another invasion.

Around 307 Palestinians have been killed in air raids, which have been stepped up by Israel which started its campaign on Saturday in response to rocket and mortar fire that intensified after the Islamist Hamas group ended a six-month ceasefire a week ago.

Hamas has claimed 180 of its members had been killed and that the rest of the dead included civilians.

Israeli tanks have been lined up on Gaza's edge, poised to enter the densely populated coastal enclave of 1.5 million Palestinians.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, has said the military action will continue until Israeli’s no longer have to live in fear of constant rocket barrages.

Hamas has meanwhile urged Palestinian groups to use suicide bombing operations against Israel.

The Israeli offensive has enraged Arabs across the Middle East, with protesters taking to the streets in many countries to burn Israeli and US flags and call for stronger expressions from their leaders to the attack on Gaza.

[Aplomb]

http://www.arabamericannews.com/news...y&article=1836

Arab Americans to protest Israeli assaults on Gaza
By Khalil AlHajal
Sunday, 12.28.2008, 05:14pm

DEARBORN - Arab American organizations called the community to action on Saturday in condemning and demanding and end to Israeli airsrikes on Gaza that began Saturday, killing more than 280 as of Sunday afternoon.

The Congress of Arab American Organizations (CAAO) announced plans for a human chain demonstration to be formed along Warren Avenue in Dearborn on Tuesday, December 30, beginning at 4 p.m. at the corner of Warren and Chase Road. A meeting for community leadership is scheduled for Monday, Dec. 29, 6 p.m. at the Lebanese American Heritage Club, 4337 Maple Road in Dearborn.

A memorial service for those killed in the raid is scheduled to follow the Tuesday protest at Byblos Banquet Hall, 7258 Chase Road in Dearborn.

"We call on the current and the incoming U.S. presidential administrations to take immediate action to prevent any more deaths of innocent civilians by starvation and by bombing," said CAAO spokesman Osama Siblani - who is publisher of The Arab American News. "The United States stands alone in the world in its unconditional support of Israeli aggression and genocide, and that is inexcusable. The economic seige should be lifted now, adequate food and fuel allowed in to warm and feed the people and all military aggression against this civilian population stopped immediately."

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) called on the U.S. and the international community to take "immediate action to pressure Israel to end its attacks and stop the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza."

The group issued an "action alert," asking the public to contact elected officials and President-elect Barack Obama to demand they put pressure on Israel to end the airstrikes.

"An immediate suspension of hostilities on all sides is necessary to reinstate the ceasefire," the ADC release read. "Further, the collective punishments of the population of Gaza will not likely lead to security for Israelis. According to numerous surveys, similar attacks in the past have only served to garner more support to the extremist elements of Hamas and renewed rocket attacks on Israel."

To contact elected officials through ADC, click here.

To contact Obama, asking him to issue a statement calling for an end to hostilities, click here.

The UN Security Council on Sunday urged an immediate end to all military activities and called on all parties to address the humanitarian crisis in the territory, according to an Agence France-Presse report.

The non-binding statement by the 15-member body "called for an immediate halt to all violence" and urged the parties "to stop immediately all military activities."

In a rare example of council unity over the divisive issue of Gaza, the text was approved after five hours of closed-door consultations called by Libya, the lone Arab member of the council, in response to the Israeli air raids.

Israeli warplanes widened their sights on Sunday, according to an Associated Press report.

The Israeli military said warplanes attacked 40 tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border in the course of four minutes Sunday. Medics said two people were killed and 25 were injured. Witnesses reported large fires and dozens of explosions. Black smoke rising from the area of the attacks was especially dense closer to the Mediterranean, apparently after missile struck a makeshift underground fuel pipeline.

Weapons and commercial goods are brought in through the passageways, relieving shortages caused by the blockade Israel and Egypt imposed after the Hamas takeover.

Shortly after the tunnel attacks, crowds of Gazans, backed by a bulldozer, breached the border wall with Egypt and poured across the frontier to escape the chaos. Egyptian security officials said a border officer was killed in clashes with Palestinian gunmen.

Israel's Cabinet authorized the military to call up 6,500 reserve soldiers for a possible ground invasion and moved tanks, infantry and armored units to the Gaza border.

Syria, reflecting the rage in the Arab world over Israel's aerial onslaught, broke off indirect peace talks with the Jewish state.

The civilian casualties included a 15-year-old boy who died in southern Gaza on Sunday in an attack on a greenhouse near the border. At least 644 people were wounded, said a Gaza health official..

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it was unclear when the operation would end. The situation in southern Israel "is liable to last longer than we are able to foresee at this time," he told his Cabinet.

Israel's foreign minister Tzipi Livni told "Meet the Press" that Israel launched its strike because Gaza's Hamas rulers were smuggling weapons and building up "a small army."

"Our goal is not to reoccupy the Gaza Strip," she said.

Israeli soldiers and settlers left the tiny seaside territory in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, though Israel retained control of Gaza's borders.

A Palestinian boy is carried to al-Shifa hospital following an Israel air strike in Gaza December 28, 2008. Israel launched air strikes on Gaza for a second successive day on Sunday, piling pressure on Hamas after 229 people were killed in one of the bloodiest 24 hours for Palestinians in 60 years of conflict with the Jewish state.