Operation Protective Edge — like Cast Lead and Orchard and Lebanon 2006 and the others — is intended as a single action in a long and unfinished war.

Netanyahu's 'Long War' Doctrine - Putting Gaza  In Perspective 

As a number of former senior Israeli officials pointed out in the course of Operation Protective Edge, Jerusalem had only two possible strategic options to choose from as it entered this fight.

The first involved seeking to inflict serious damage on Hamas's military capabilities in an operation limited in scope. The goal of such a course of action would be to achieve deterrence against Hamas. Implicit in this option is that, at its conclusion, the Hamas authority in Gaza would still be in existence — chastened, but alive.

The second, more ambitious option would have been to have pushed on into the Gaza Strip, and to have destroyed the Hamas authority there. This would have resembled Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Israeli forces would have needed to remain in Gaza for months, or years, in order to suppress and destroy the continued guerrilla resistance which Hamas and other Palestinian groups would no doubt have undertaken.

This second option would also have required Israel to re-establish the civil administration in Gaza, taking responsibility for the lives of the 1.8 million residents of the Strip. This is because it would be politically impossible for the Ramallah Palestinian Authority to receive the Gaza Strip on a silver platter, as it were, from the Golani Brigade and its sister units of the Israel Defense Forces.

It is also likely that the insurgency which would have followed the destruction of Hamas rule would have proven a magnet for the jihadi forces which are currently proliferating in the neighborhood. ISIS and similar organizations are already in the Gaza Strip in small numbers. But the "global jihad" would like nothing more than to find a platform from which to begin war against the Jews.

Given all this, it is not surprising that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have chosen the first option.

Netanyahu, in stark contrast to his image in Europe and to a lesser extent in North America, is deeply cautious when it comes to the use of military force.

Indeed, the record shows that Israel elected to begin a ground campaign on July 18th only when it became clear from its actions and its statements that Hamas was not interested in a return to the status quo ante.

This caution does not come from a temperamental inability to manage military action. Indeed, the Israeli prime minister's performance in recent weeks may go some way to dispelling the image which his opponents have sought to disseminate in Israel in recent years. That is, Netanyahu is a man who buckles under pressure and is easily swayed from his course. This is the first time that one of Israel's longest-serving prime ministers has led the country in a military confrontation. The general sense in Israel is that his performance as a leader has been relatively effective — setting clear and limited goals and pursuing them with vigor.

Netanyahu's caution derives, rather, from his perception that what Israel calls "wars" or "operations" are really only episodes in a long war in which the country is engaged against those who seek its destruction. In the present phase, these forces are gathered largely under the banner of radical Islam, though this was not always so.

In such a conflict, what matters is not a quick and crushing perception of victory. Indeed, the search for a knockout, a final decision in this or that operation , given the underlying realities, is likely to end in overstretch, error and non-achievement. What matters is the ability to endure, conserve one's forces — military and societal — and to work away on wearing down the enemy's will. Military achievement, as well as economic and societal success, are all weapons in this war.

This view notes the essentially implacable nature of the core Arab and Muslim hostility to Israel. So it includes an inbuilt skepticism toward the possibility of historic reconciliation and final-status peace accords.

At the same time, this view does not rule out alliances of convenience with regional powers. As Netanyahu's recent speeches have indicated, the Israeli prime minister is deeply aware that the immediate interests of Egypt and Saudi Arabia are largely coterminous with those of Israel.

All three countries are hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood and to the ambitions of Iran and its allies. All three are deeply dismayed at the current U.S. administration's softness toward and accommodation of these forces. It is an alliance of the coldest, most pragmatic and most hard-headed type. Precisely for this reason, it works.

Egyptian President Sisi is locked in a war of death against the Muslim Brotherhood at home and sees the Hamas enclave in Gaza as an extension of his domestic opponents. The speech given by Saudi King Abdullah this week also held Hamas responsible for the current situation.

So for now, Israel is redeploying its forces outside Gaza, with the option and possibility of strikes back inside if a renewed ceasefire continues to prove elusive. The IDF will continue to maintain the pressure on Hamas, even as the rulers of Gaza participate in ceasefire negotiations managed by Sisi in Cairo. There are reports of Israel establishing a de facto buffer zone inside the Gaza Strip, to reduce the ability of Hamas to fire short-range rockets at southern Israeli communities.

All this forms part of an effort to undertake the containment and incremental weakening of the Islamist entity in Gaza, in cooperation with whoever, for his own reasons, is willing to cooperate.

Netanyahu's vision is a chilly one, though it is not ultimately pessimistic. It aims to provide firm, durable walls for the house that the Jews of Israel have constructed. Within those walls the energies of Israeli Jews will ensure success — provided that the walls can be kept secure, thus believes the Israeli prime minister. It is from the point of view of this broader strategic picture that the current actions of Israel need to be understood. Operation Protective Edge — like Cast Lead and Orchard and Lebanon 2006 and the others — is intended as a single action in a long and unfinished war.

Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is the author of The Transforming Fire: The Rise of the Israel-Islamist Conflict (Continuum, 2011).

You called it “peace” as long as the Arabs were doing the killing and the Jews were doing the dying...

Op-Ed: Want Proportionality? Give Israel 22 Countries

Spare us the pieties and righteous indignation of Europe. The final solution turned out to be Israel and they can't handle it.

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Jack Engelhard

Jack Engelhard’s classic international bestselling novel Indecent Proposal,...

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Gaza IS the two-state solution and Hamas is the result.

Europe is in an uproar. Frankfurt, Germany is rioting, along with France, the UK and in other places where it’s Springtime for Hitler all over again.

But even over here in America the streets are filling up with hateful marches and slogans against the Jewish State.

Much of this is triggered by Muslims who arrive here with a grudge and stay with a grudge. But also…television termite Jon Stewart sleeps comfortably in his own bed but can find no heart for a million Jewish children who must spend half their lives running for cover as rockets keep raining down from Gaza.

Thousands of Israeli children have been so traumatized over the years from relentless bombardment that they’re afraid to leave their bomb shelters – ever.

Television imbecile Geraldo Rivera has likewise been heard from – a self-proclaimed “passionate Zionist” so long as the Jewish State refrains from defending herself.

Over there in Europe once again it’s Kristallnacht. It is a safer world when that continent goes bonkers over soccer, a game where nothing happens for 90 minutes and people think it’s exciting. Yes, it’s Springtime for Germany for winning the World Cup, and it’s Springtime for Europe whose multitudes are back on the streets howling bitterly because this time around, unlike the 1930s and 1940s, the Jews are fighting back.

OMG – they have a country!

The final solution turned out to be the Land of Israel and it is driving them crazy.   

These mobs are the “humanitarians” – the good, the noble, the refined who chant “Peace.”

Israel gave peace a chance. Instead, the Jewish State got more than 1,000 rockets a year since she gave away Gaza to the Arabs in 2005.

Gaza IS the two-state solution and Hamas is the result.

So please spare me the pieties and the righteous indignation of those “good people” protesting throughout Europe against Israel’s defensive operations in Gaza.

Now you’re up and about? Now you speak? Where were you when, throughout the years, thousands of Jihadist bombs fell on Israel? The streets of Europe were empty. There were no pictures in the newspapers of grieving Jewish mothers and fathers. You called it “peace” as long as the Arabs were doing the killing and the Jews were doing the dying. All was well with the world.

Suddenly, as Israel answered back, you found your CAUSE – and how self-righteous you are in your CAUSE.

You are the best and the brightest of Europe. You are educated. You attended the finest schools. You care for the birds, the bees, the bears, the trees. You favor free speech and freedom of religion.

Strange it is, that the one and only place in the Middle East that shares your world-view, is Israel, and it is Israel that you slander.

Israel is a Jewish State. Is that your problem? At the first hint of Jewish self-defense, how quickly you show your true colors.

I’ve seen the photos of your candlelight vigils along the streets and boulevards of Europe, all of it, all these tears, in the service of those terrorists whom you call your brothers. Indeed you are related to Hamas (and Fatah) as once before, a mere generation ago, you were related to Hitler’s storm troopers. Your angelic faces are touching – and disgusting. Your hypocrisy is transparent and nauseating.

You speak of disproportion. You want proportion? Give Israel 22 countries. There’s plenty of “proportion” coming from your BBC, which delights in presenting one side of the story and picks up where Der Sturmer left off. Now, with this type of “news,” we know how Europe was conditioned for a Holocaust.

Already we see nights of broken glass. Thank you, Europe, for reminding us why America was discovered just in time and why Israel was redeemed many generations too late. You dare judge Israel? In your deportations, your expulsions, your forced conversions, your inquisitions, your pogroms, finally your Holocaust you have no moral authority over Israel or even within your own borders. You gave all that up from 1492 to 1942 and beyond.

To those on the Left who sought Peace, well dear Peace Lovers – Peace brought this on. “Land for Peace” and “Painful Concessions” made this war. As for those “innocent civilians” in Gaza, they were given a choice and they chose Hamas. They chose this pestilence.

God bless the IDF! Go Israel!

Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. Engelhard wrote the int’l bestseller Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. New from the novelist, the anti-BDS thrillerCompulsive. Website: www.jackengelhard.com

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/15336#.U-ABdeNdW-l

‘‘Palestine is Muslim land ... Jew and Christian will not stand ..."

The Hamas trap: hidden labyrinth was wired for war

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Israeli security thought it had adequate intelligence about Gaza. It was in for a surprise. It was not just the labyrinth of tunnels discovered, much more extensive than expected, but the stockpiles: thousands of weapons, Russian anti-tank missiles, explosive devices, and large amounts of tranquillisers, handcuffs, syringes, ropes. The tools of capture on a large scale.

Some of the tunnels are very deep,   big enough to hold vehicles. They were dug with electric jackhammers, mostly about 20 metres below ground, and reinforced with concrete made on site, in workshops adjacent to the tunnels.

The tunnels served as command centres, infiltration points into Israel, weapons stores, rocket-launcher hiding sites, and the means to move and conceal fighters during urban combat. The tunnels dug into Israel were created in parallel pairs, with multiple shafts to the surface for multiple entry points. Inside urban Gaza, the labyrinth could allow fighters to move unseen between homes and alleys.

Gaza had been wired for war. On a scale more advanced than Israeli military intelligence realised, which is why the Israel Defence Forces lost more than 40 soldiers in the first phase of Operation Protective Edge.

Israel is thus engaging in very limited ground combat in Gaza, given the whole area is a booby-trap of explosives, ambush and civilian targets. The largest known military control centre for Hamas was placed in the basement of a hospital.Areas of cities were laced with hundreds of booby-traps. The commander of the IDF Gaza Division, Brigadier-General Mickey Edelstein, said that in a single street in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, his soldiers had found booby-traps in 19 of 28 homes. Three Israeli soldiers were killed by an explosive device when they entered a building designated as a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. The IDF has conceded it was surprised by the scale of the bomb traps across Gaza.

The IDF’s use of bombing has created a heavy civilian cost.

‘‘Hamas planned these tunnels for years, and planned to use them to kidnap soldiers,’’ chief spokesman for the IDF Brigadier-General  Moti Almoz told a recent media briefing.

Actually, since then it has emerged that Hamas had a much broader agenda. Kidnappings can deliver psychological blows to Israel but not strategic ones. Hamas wanted strategic blows. It wants jihad. Having devoted so much  to war preparations, by some estimates 40 per cent of its budget, Hamas, with Iran, created the capacity for a major strike on Israel.

Israeli intelligence is assembling evidence from the tunnel labyrinth and from captured Hamas members, that the scale of the effort was to have the capacity to launch a  co-ordinated attack involving thousands of the approximately 15,000 fighters Hamas has trained in Gaza.

Hamas had also doubled its rocket arsenal between 2012 and this year, with hundreds of missiles with the range to reach Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, according to head of IDF military intelligence research Brigadier-General Itai Brun. Bigger missiles had been on their way in March, supplied by Iran and sourced in Syria. But the cargo ship Klos-C, an Iranian vessel under a Panamanian flag, carrying a load of M-302 surface-to-surface missiles, was intercepted by Israeli Navy special forces in the Red Sea.

With each revelation in recent weeks, the mood in Israel is that Operation Protective Edge has averted a catastrophe for the country, a mass terror attack, emerging from underground, incubated by the implacable hatred of Hamas.

The sheer scale of the war infrastructure revealed guarantees that Israel is far from done with this operation. It does not yet know the full scale of what was built and it wants this springboard of war and attrition destroyed. Tunnels have also been discovered in the West Bank, some stocked with bomb-making materials.

This is why the Israel government and  public reacted with fury when US Secretary of State John Kerry suggested last week that Israel agree to a ceasefire which included a cessation of its operation to find and destroy tunnels. The proposal was deemed preposterous. (Numerous references to Kerry’s facelift reflected the scorn with which his intervention was held.) Even famously pacifist Israeli author Amos Oz has been moved to condemn Hamas for creating a web of warfare through the civilian population of Gaza. At the other end of the political spectrum  Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, the leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, said of the war preparations uncovered: ‘‘Without the ground operation, we would have woken up one day to an Israeli 9/11.’’

Such is the nature of the Israel-Palestinian debate that many people regard all this as Israel reaping what it sows. Even as Israel strikes against a war machine, it is blamed for creating the conditions which created the threat.  The result of this logic trap – and the differing standard applied to killings by Jews and killing by Muslims – is that more media coverage and outrage has been directed at Israel for the unintended deaths of children in Gaza than has been directed at the butchery of Muslims by Muslims, on a massive scale, in  Iraq and elsewhere. In Syria alone, three years of  war have seen between 120,000 and 170,000 people killed, including more than 11,000 children. This violence has spilled into Iraq, with atavistic massacres of prisoners by jihadis from Islamic State.

The deep animosities which are the ultimate source of this bloody absolutism could even be heard on the streets of Sydney last week, in the chants of demonstrators, some waving the black flag of the Islamic State: ‘‘Palestine is Muslim land ... Jew and Christian will not stand ... From Lakemba to Gaza ... You can never stop Islam.’’

Twitter: @Paul_Sheehan_

 Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-hamas-trap-hidden-labyrinth-was-wired-for-war-20140803-zzznh.html#ixzz39NiICJoD

"If I hear one more person say that Israel needs to do a better job at setting an example, I am going to tell them to get in a car and go to Gaza."Do it with an Israeli license plate"

Get off of your Moral High Horse: This is an Asymmetrical War

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I’m so sick of reading condescending statuses, articles and blog posts from fellow Jews and Israelis criticizing those of us who have feelings of anger, vengeance and the desire to see our enemies be put to justice. I’m disgusted that after three of our brothers were mercilessly kidnapped and killed by barbarians and thrown in a field to rot, that people can sit back and judge the leaders of this country for ordering our military to demolish their homes and arrest people that are potential perpetrators of terror.

We took the high road many times, gave up land and released terrorists from prison with blood on their hands into the public, and look where that got us. I would actually argue that we are TOO nice to Hamas and the people of Gaza. I’ve never heard of a single country on earth that supplies their mortal enemies with water, goods and electricity on a daily basis, have you?

Human rights are a difficult issue to tackle but I cannot and will not believe that people who have absolutely no moral compass, no regard for the value of human life- people who cheer in the streets at the killing of children, deserve respect or deserve mercy. Especially after years of giving them leniency. This whole attitude that these docile, self-righteous people (which includes the Obama administration, the UN, European Union and most international critics) have taken by proclaiming that we should take the higher road in our military response and not do unto our enemies as they have done unto us is pathetic and achieves nothing. The international community is against Israel, as is most of the mainstream media. No matter what we do, we are in a propaganda war with the world. Therefore, whether or not the state of Israel takes military measures in protecting her citizens from the reign of terror around us or whether she takes a step back and lowers the level of violence inflicted upon Gaza is IRRELEVANT. We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t, and therefore I say let us do.

As I read pieces on websites including Times of Israel, such as Marc Goldberg’s “How Many Palestinians Should We Kill?” a lump begins to rise in my throat. My blood is boiling. I feel a sense of rage that almost surpasses the anger I felt two days ago when I turned on the news to see the teenagers had been brought home in coffins. Not only has an injustice so grave befallen us that we are glued to our televisions not knowing whether to cry, rage or fear. Not only do we sit in our homes worrying for our fellow Israelis every minute that another rocket hits the South. Now our very own people have the hutzpah to say that going through every measure possible, including arresting terrorist suspects is too extreme, and that we should be a better example for the world.

We are already a light unto the nations. Taking every step possible to ensure that the Israeli people be safe does not change that. If I hear one more person say that Israel needs to do a better job at setting an example, I am going to tell them to get in a car and go to Gaza. Go to the West Bank. Do it with an Israeli license plate (as Bibi told the Christian BDSers). Get yourself off of your cozy sofa in your cozy flat in Tel Aviv and see what it is really like to be hated by these people. Then talk to me about retribution. I saw video footage of teenagers, young boys just like Eyal, Gilad and Naftali hurling stones at the military ambulance that contained their dead bodies. Stop being a lazy activist, and go confront these people with words if you think it is possible. Go see how invested in ‘Human Rights’ our enemies, who you think should be more protected are.

Maybe Marc Goldberg hasn’t seen the Palestinian Media Watch videos of Hamas’ Mickey Mouse teaching five year olds how to strap on suicide vests and kill Jews. Maybe Marc Goldberg has never been to Sderot and heard the numb voices of innocent Israeli children that live with the normalcy of running into bomb shelters every day. Certainly Marc Goldberg has never been a victim of terror or been face to face with someone who doesn’t even know him but would risk their own life to kill him because he is a Jew.

The Israeli Defense Forces have been reprimanding soldiers for publicly making threats against Arabs. Our military has never and will never support intentional violence against civilian populations or innocent people. People like Marc Goldberg who claim otherwise, ignorantly insult the morality, legitimacy and incredible restraint the IDF uses in every conflict to ensure that the least amount of harm is done to civilians. If Marc or anyone else thinks differently, THEY are the roadblocks to peace.  So long as people like him, and leaders like Obama and the European Union, continue to waste their time criticizing the way the Israeli military handles this asymmetrical war, the world will continue to excuse and allow terror.

The naivety astounds me. So-called pacifists such as the author of the ridiculous aforementioned article claim that killing terrorists and building settlements will never rid us of terror. I thank Marc Goldberg for stating the obvious, but last time I checked, killing a terrorist prevented him from committing a future act of terror. He mentions at the end of his article that we must sit down and negotiate. That’s comical… has that never been tried before? This conflict is not about land, it is not about settlements- it is not about tangible concessions. It is about ideology and irrationality. No matter how nice we play, or how much we negotiate, Hamas will always want more and hate more. So until someone has a solution to the ideological epidemic that poisons the minds of Muslims across the world including the enemies of the State of Israel which has caused them to hate themselves and their enemies more than they love their own, Israel shall continue to do what she must to protect her people.

Read more: Get off of your Moral High Horse: This is an Asymmetrical War | Cara Lebenzon | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/get-off-of-your-moral-high-horse-this-is-an-asyemmtrical-war/#ixzz37YsgGyzB
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‘I don’t understand the Jews. Why can’t they just go to their slaughter?’

THE GENOCIDE LIBEL

In order to justify killing Jews, Jew-haters throughout history made up libels about the Jews that were so awful that they justified, at least for the Jew-hater, the mass murder of Jews. The charge that the Jews of every age — not just some Jews at one time — killed God Himself was used by medieval Christians to justify mass murdering of Jews.

Then came another grotesque libel — what is known as the blood libel. Also prevalent in the Middle Ages, this charged Jews with kidnapping Christian children, sacrificing them and using their blood to bake matzo (the unleavened Passover bread).

Later libels against the Jews included the forgery known as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which purported to prove that Jews plotted to rule the world.

At this very moment, we are living through as enormous a libel — directed not against all Jews, but against the Jewish state: Israel is committing genocide of Palestinians and is, therefore, morally identical to the Nazi regime.

This libel is spread by left-wing radicals and by Muslims, especially in the Middle East. Some examples:

On a popular radio show in Italy, that country’s most famous philosopher, Gianni Vattimo, was asked whether he would like to see more Israelis killed. Vattimo responded: “Of course.” He then added that Israel is “a bit worse than the Nazis … I’d like to shoot those bastard Zionists … and [Europeans should raise money] to buy Hamas some more rockets.”

The prime minister of Turkey, Recep Erdogan, told CNN International, “What Israel does to Palestine and to Gaza right now has surpassed what Hitler did to them. … We do not accept this genocide by Israel.”

The foreign minister of Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif announced: “These [Israeli] actions cannot be considered anything other than genocide and crimes against humanity.”

lan Pappe, an Israeli leftist who is director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter, wrote an article titled “Israel’s incremental genocide in the Gaza ghetto” on the Electronic Intifada website.

On July 9, when a total of 63 Gaza Palestinians had been killed, Al-Arabiya reported that “Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas told a crisis meeting in Ramallah … that Israel is committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza during its military offensive which has so far killed at least 50 Palestinians. ‘It’s genocide by Israel against our Palestinian people.’”

In a column published by Al-Jazeera, Abukar Arman, former Somali ambassador to the United States, wrote that “Israel has defeated North Korea for the rogue state par excellence award.”

Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela, and Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, labeled Israel’s invasion of Gaza “genocide” and Maduro added that it was “extermination.”

 For the record: Israel attacked Gaza solely in response to hundreds of rockets sent by Hamas to kill as many Israelis as possible. When Israel gave Gaza over to the Palestinians, it did not embargo essentials such as cement. But none of the millions of tons of cement allowed, or later smuggled, into Gaza were used to building schools or hospitals. They were used to build tunnels to smuggle terrorists into Israel and to hide rockets. The charter of Hamas calls for the annihilation of Israel. Israel is the only country in the world targeted for annihilation.

Though Israel is charged with engaged in genocide against Palestinians, in the last 20 years, the number of Palestinians has doubled; and since Israel’s founding in 1948, the Palestinian population has grown five-fold. It must surely rank as the least effective genocide in world history. While not all Muslims or all leftists seek, or support those who seek, Israel’s destruction, virtually all those who do are either Muslim or on the left.

One left-wing exception is Bill Maher, who told the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles (full disclosure: I am a columnist for that newspaper): “What I find so ironic is that after World War II, everybody said, ‘I don’t understand the Jews. How could they have just gone to their slaughter like that?’ OK, and then when they fight back: ‘I don’t understand the Jews. Why can’t they just go to their slaughter?’ It’s like, ‘You know what? We did that once. It’s not gonna happen again. You’re just gonna have to get used to the fact that Jews now defend themselves.”

 Article originally posted on Townhall.com

Over 100 shopping malls across America could be targeted by terrorists

Audio: Mega-Terror Attack Predicted in American Shopping Malls

Over 100 shopping malls across America could be targeted by terrorists.

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7/28/2014, 11:10 AM

A7 Radio's "The Tamar Yonah Show" with Tamar Yonah

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"The target will be shopping malls. The method will be with explosive devices meant to inflict suffering and death and to wound as many as possible."     

Dr. Jim Garrow is a 2009 nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. His work saving baby girls from gendercide in China came to international attention as did his rather elite network of schools across China.  He worked in Intelligence in the US government, and says that according to his contacts, a huge mega-terror attack in America is to take place.  He joins Tamar on her show and talks about his past, his present connections with intelligence sources, and his firm belief that in the future, a mega-terror attack will take place in American shopping malls across the continent.
According to a send-out of his:
"Intelligence Rumblings:

I have avoided sharing certain information because I took an oath and will not break that oath. I am skating on the edge today because of information that I would be derelict in my duty if I did not share it. Islamists currently in the country, aided by those who have recently arrived via the southern sieve we call a border and those who boldly came on aircraft in a variety of disguises have a purpose in their criminality. Be warned, this is not for the faint of heart.

The target will be shopping malls. The method will be with explosive devices meant to inflict suffering and death and to wound as many as possible. This is terrorism in its lowest form. The purpose is to inflict fear in the hearts of Americans through this targeting of where we go to shop and relax.

The date will be a significant one for the Islamists. The event will happen simultaneously across America at hundreds of locations (note the number). The police, DHS, and security services throughout the nation should be warned and take appropriate action.

Why release this on Facebook? It turns out that the necessary agencies are reading my stuff. Why make phone calls when this gets the news out in a speedy fashion to all of them in an instant message.

Be warned, my sources on this are impeccable. I lay my 100% record of reliability on the line.- Dr. Jim Garrow
Jul 25, 2014"

For archived shows, visit the Tamar Yonah page and visit her award winning blog. 

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“The big mistake(s) Kerry made”.........

Published on July 29, 2014

U.S. MIDDLE EAST POLICYMalice or Incompetence?

John Kerry’s ceasefire proposal for Gaza has probably destroyed what remained of the United States’ influence in the Middle East, at least for the duration of this administration’s tenure.

After a hectic day yesterday spent in large part seeing off my son, daughter-in-law, and two-year-old grandson on a two-year sojourn in Berlin, I hastened this morning to my keyboard to comment on perhaps the most noteworthy piece of U.S. diplomatic idiocy in the Middle East that I’ve witnessed in several years (which is really saying something). It had been on my mind since expressing the essence of the matter to Richard Aldous on TAI’s weekly podcast in the morning, and repeating it privately over the telephone to a fellow editor (of a weekly) who is not an area expert and so has been calling me episodically but regularly over the past decade to get my take on various matters. So, thus rehearsed, I was ready to let fly at 7:30 AM when, to my shock, I found that I had been beaten into print by, of all people, David Ignatius.

Why do I put it that way? Because in recent years I have rarely agreed with Ignatius’s take on just about anything. But in today’s “The big mistake Kerry made” I find little to criticize. He’s got the essence:

Kerry’s error has been to put so much emphasis on achieving a quick halt to the bloodshed that he has solidified the role of Hamas, the intractable, unpopular Islamist group that leads Gaza, along with the two hard-line Islamist nations that are its key supporters, Qatar and Turkey.  In the process, he has undercut not simply the Israelis but also the Egyptians and the Fatah movement that runs the Palestinian Authority, all of which want to see an end to Hamas rule in Gaza… Any deal that reinforces Hamas’s stranglehold—rather than building a path toward change of government, elections and eventual disarmament—is misconceived.

Given Ignatius’s exquisite cultivation of sources inside Democratic administrations, he is no doubt relying on documentary evidence and assistance in knowing some details of recent goings-on not readily available to me. Who—in the White House would be my guess—provided Ignatius his catalysts I’d rather not speculate about; suffice it to say that competitive intra-administration leaking, that venerable Washington political sport, is alive and well—which is why I often tell out-of-town audiences that Washington is one of the few cities in the world where sound travels faster than light.

Now, there are a lot of people who wrongly believe that the Obama Administration, not to exclude the President himself, is resolutely anti-Israel and pro-Muslim Brotherhood. The Middle East and South Asia are not the only places where one can find brain-addled conspiracy theorists, after all. But Ignatius doesn’t think Kerry’s mistake is born of malice aforethought toward Israel, so that leaves us with what can only be called incompetence (though Ignatius does not use the term… must protect that access). I agree that it’s not malice, but it is incompetence of a kind and on a scale that tars John Kerry as the dumbest Secretary of State in my lifetime.

Let me elaborate just a bit, and try to provide some perspective here. As Ignatius notes, Kerry went first to Cairo in his quest for a quick ceasefire, but found that the Egyptians could not budge Hamas. Why this surprised him I can’t imagine: Doesn’t he know that this is not Mubarak’s Egypt anymore, where a long-standing double-gaming gambit once provided some indirect U.S. entry into Hamasistan? This is post-Morsi, al-Sisi Egypt, and the Egyptian double game is over. That’s good in that it makes Egypt and Israel effective allies at weakening Hamas, but the drawback is that Cairo can no longer serve as an effective transmission belt for the insertion of U.S. sticks and carrots.  So chalk up that flight as a waste of aviation fuel.

Then it got worse. By ministering to Qatar, where the head of the Hamas political wing lives at the invitation of the Al-Thani, Kerry strengthened that troublemaking little pissant of a country. If you thought U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia—which in this dustup is a tacit ally of Egypt and Israel—could not get worse than they already are, you goofed: They just did. (But if you want to hear anti-Qatari venom that can singe the hair on your chin, better to go to Abu Dhabi or Dubai.)

Then worse still: Kerry ministered to arguably the world’s foremost anti-Semite, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. (Richard Cohen’s piece today, “Erdogan’s anti-Semitic fetish”, also leaves me bereft of criticism in the face of another Washington Post columnist who also regularly irritates me.) There are rumors that another Gazan flotilla will be launched, this time with the Turkish Navy as guardian. I hope this isn’t true, because no good can come of it.

And then worst of all: Kerry presents Israel with a draft of a ceasefire agreement that puts Hamas on the same level as Israel, and demeans Fatah and the PA, with which Israel is bound up in a legal if highly imperfect relationship; that would give Hamas the politically life-sustaining prize it seeks in the form of an “open borders” concession it can characterize as helping the people of Gaza; and that would prevent Israel from finishing the work of destroying the deadly tunnel network under the border.

A ceasefire under those terms would enable Hamas to resupply its war machine, bringing in unlimited numbers of missiles and mortars—and concrete, too, to rebuild and expand the tunnel network. It would enable Hamas to begin the next phase of conflict, in which it targets Israeli civilians while using Gazan civilians as human shields, at a time of its choosing. It would mean that all the IDF killed in this conflict would have died in vain.

Now, I have never been a particular fan of the current Israeli Prime Minister or his party, but no Israeli government could have stomached an outrageous document like that. That such a document, encompassing such a wildly wrongheaded view, could ever have been produced, let alone submitted to the cabinet in Jerusalem, effectively puts an end to U.S. influence on Israel for the duration of this Administration. What little trust endured after the blunders of the first term and the misconceived “peace process” initiative of the second term is now gone. And when the U.S. government loses the ability to influence Israel, those Arab parties that want something to do with Israel—but not too much in public—lose interest in Washington. Thus ditto U.S. influence in Cairo and Riyadh, and probably in Amman and Ramallah, too.

Think what this means in historical perspective. In past post-disengagement crises over Gaza, the U.S. Secretary of State was the big guy on the block. U.S. influence relied on our having the money and the biggest guns, true—and we still have those. But it relied more on having suasive reputational power with nearly every actor on the regional diplomatic stage. It relied as much or more, in other words, on the highly efficient and effective shadow of U.S. power, to quote Acheson, than on the power itself. We may have used Egypt’s table a few times in the past, but it was our game that was being played on that table. Now John Kerry, with Barack Obama’s fulsome help, has reduced the U.S. position to that of a message carrier for Hamas via Doha and Ankara. We have fallen from being the undisputed master of ceremonies to creeping around the region as a second-echelon go-between—and a failed one at that. (At a time like this a former State Department employee can barely resist quoting Elmer Fudd: “Oh, d’hawwah.”)

The disaster that is this Gazan War is not entirely, or even mainly, the fault of the Obama Administration, however. The nadir of U.S. influence reflects significant changes in regional realities as well as its own vast diplomatic malpractice. It reflects, for example, the fact that recent Israeli governments, by accelerating land grabs in the West Bank and raising new and, one suspects, deliberately obstacular demands on Palestinian Authority negotiators, have pushed ever more Palestinians into immoderate desperation. Insofar as U.S. policyis guilty of causing the present distress, it is the George W. Bush Administration’s doing, not the Obama Administration’s. Why?

Because it was the Bush Administration, flush with the willful delusions of the “forward strategy for freedom”, that sanctioned Hamas’s participation in the 2006 elections, even though those elections were predicated on the framework of the September 1993 Oslo Accords, which Hamas has always rejected outright and completely. Hamas only won those elections with plurality, not majority, vote counts because of Fatah’s political incompetence, true; but it never should have been permitted to participate in the first place. Then followed a slow-moving multilateral plot to dispossess Hamas of its victory, but Hamas preempted the plot with a bloody coup—and that’s what got this murderous, vicious bunch of fanatics ensconced in Gaza in the first place.

Please understand the main point: Hamas’s present position was contingent, not necessary and certainly not inevitable. Since U.S. policy had a significant share in causing this problem (along with others, yes, of course), which has paralyzed every attempt to make political progress among the protagonists as well as sired horrific violence, we arguably have some responsibility for solving it—for getting rid of this scourge. So why is John Kerry doing precisely the opposite?

It is a sad day when I applaud the failure of an initiative by an American Secretary of State, just as it’s a weird day when I applaud David Ignatius.  It’s just one of those days, I guess.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/garfinkle/2014/07/29/malice-or-incompetence/