The Minority Jewish Cockroach Factor - 11th Biblical Plague Found in Egypt Dig

Haredi daily calls for 'walls to sealed' against haredim recruitment

'Yated Neeman' editorial speaks out fiercely against sense of closeness, solidarity felt by large sections of haredi society toward IDF during Gaza operation.

During the four weeks of Operation Protective Edge, the haredi community’s attitude toward the IDF softened considerably, with many expressing their support for the soldiers in Gaza. But on Thursday, an editorial in the largest-selling haredi daily newspaper, Yated Ne’eman, spoke out fiercely against that sense of closeness and solidarity with the army.

There were numerous supportive initiatives from the haredi world during the conflict: Yeshiva students would “adopt” soldiers to pray for by name, the haredi leadership called to recite prayers in synagogues for the well-being of the Jewish people, and several initiatives provided food and provisions for soldiers.

Some married yeshiva students even (anonymously) declared the war a Torah-mandated conflict and said they were seeking to enlist in the IDF, calling on others to do so as well.

However, the Thursday editorial said that while the solidarity during the war was fitting and appropriate, this should not have any impact on how the haredi community related to the IDF and secular society in the long term.

“This must ring a spiritual ‘red-alert’ warning,” the paper warned.

Yated Ne’eman is the mouthpiece of the mainstream non-hassidic haredi political movement Degel Hatorah.

“This confusion must not penetrate inward,” it continued, and spoke out against what it described as attempts to recruit haredi boys into the army during the operation.

“The unceasing efforts to change us became even greater during the war. The attempt to cynically exploit the emergency situation by digging spiritual terror tunnels must be rejected and expelled,” the editorial stated. It cited the haredi conscription law that passed in March as evidence of attempts to change haredi society.

“At this time when they are trying to coerce us, we must seal every crack and strengthen the weak who are more likely to be tempted,” the article read. “We must raise the walls.... Contact and connection between the haredi camp and the secular is treif [non-kosher], especially at a time like this.”

Shahar Ilan, the deputy director of the Hiddush religious freedom lobby group, said that the article was a reaction by the haredi leadership to sentiment within the community that it felt had gotten out of hand.

He said there was a clear change in the way the haredi community had reacted to Operation Protective Edge compared to previous conflicts, and he ascribed these changes largely to the increasingly pervasive presence of the Internet in the community and ready access to it via smartphones and other devices that, despite great opposition, many haredim use.

“The haredim built huge fences to prevent the population from knowing what happens outside of it, and now the Internet allows every haredi person to know exactly what is happening,” Ilan said. “You cannot now prevent an 18- or 19-yearold haredi boy from knowing that secular or national-religious boys of his age are risking their lives for the country.”

Ilan also expressed optimism that the haredi experience during the war would lead to an increase in haredi enlistment.

Yisroel Cohen, a journalist with the Kikar Hashabbat haredi news website, said there was no doubt that the community had reacted differently to Operation Protective Edge than to previous conflicts. He cited the publication of pictures and biographies of fallen soldiers in the haredi online news media, and the unprecedented decision to delay the end of the yeshiva semester so that the students could continue praying and studying as a merit for the soldiers.

“It’s possible now that the leadership feels that a balance must be brought about, though,” Cohen said regarding the Yated editorial. “The rabbis perhaps feel that too much of a connection has been made, and that needs to be rebalanced out with this kind of message.”

Cohen also noted the impact of a series of articles in a rival haredi daily, Hapeles, which warned that the real enemy are those who wish to harm the spiritual well-being of the Jewish people, meaning secular Israeli society and those who seek to draft haredi yeshiva students into the army.

Hapeles is the mouthpiece of the hardline Bnei Torah political movement which has in recent years competed with Degel for influence and control over the non-hassidic haredi world. Cohen said that the uncompromising attitude of the newspaper and the Bnei Torah movement even during the war could have dragged the mainstream leadership into a more hardline position resulting in Thursday’s editorial. 

http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Haredi-daily-calls-for-walls-to-sealed-against-haredim-recruitment-370426

Parents Call Rabbi a Sexual Predator

Wednesday, August 06, 2014Last Update: 6:28 AM PT

Parents Call Rabbi a Sexual Predator By JACK BOUBOUSHIAN ShareThis      CHICAGO (CN) - A rabbi in charge of four Orthodox seminaries in Israel sexually assaulted girls in his charge, and threatened to ruin their marriage prospects if they reported him, the girls' parents claim in a federal class action.      Gary Miller and six other named plaintiffs sued Elimelech Meisels, Rachel Slanger, Peninim of America, Yaakov Yarmish, Tzvi Gartner and four subsidiary Jewish seminaries in Jerusalem, on Monday in Federal Court.      "From approximately 2004 until the present date, defendant Elimelech Meisels engaged in a fraudulent and unlawful scheme to induce Orthodox Jewish parents from across the United States to send their daughters to various seminaries in Israel that he controlled under the guise of educational and spiritual development," the complaint states. "In truth, defendant Meisels' true aim was to fraudulently and unlawfully take thousands of dollars from each of these parents and to induce these girls, by telephone, mail, wire and other means, to travel thousands of miles outside the United States and away from their parents for the purpose of sexually assaulting these vulnerable young girls."      Orthodox Jewish children are traditionally sent to study the Torah for one year after high school in Israel. For girls, their attendance at a seminary "profoundly shapes and influences their marriage prospects within a quasi arranged marriage system known as the Shidduch (translated literally as Introduction) system," the complaint states.      "This influence is so important that it causes Orthodox Jewish parents to save money for years in hopes of being able to afford the annual tuition that regularly exceeds twenty thousand dollars ($20,000)."      The defendant seminaries, part of the Bais Yaakov class of seminaries, are classified as Ultra-Orthodox, and girls are expected not even to physically touch a man outside of marriage.      But the parents say Meisel was not the devout rabbi he held himself out to be.      "Defendant Meisels, like many other sexual predators, preyed on the vulnerable. He did this by developing mentor-mentee relationships with girls and exploiting these relationships to lure the girls into late night coffee meetings and other private settings and then sexually assaulted them," the lawsuit states.      "Once the sexual assaults were complete, upon information and belief, defendant Meisels would intimidate his victims by telling them that no one would believe that a rabbi and author with his reputation would have done such a thing.      "Moreover, upon information and belief, defendant Meisels would threaten his victims that if they shared their story with anyone, he would draw on his vast contacts within the Shidduch system to ruin their reputations and ensure that no viable candidate would want to take their hand in marriage.      "It was widely known within the administrative staff of the seminaries that defendant Meisels was regularly taking students to late night private meetings - a fact itself that is forbidden and known as 'yichud' according to the Orthodox Jewish law and tradition. However, certain still unknown co-conspirators within the seminaries were also aware that defendant Meisels was sexually assaulting the girls and assisted defendant Meisels by actively and passively concealing the assaults."      In July this year, a Jewish religious court, the Chicago Bais Din, heard testimony from several of Meisels' alleged victims, and issued a ruling stating that it believed students at the defendant seminaries were "at risk of harm," according to the complaint.      "News of this decision sent shockwaves to the prospective parent bodies of the Seminaries," the complaint states.      It continues: "Defendant Meisels agreed with defendant Yarmish that they would conduct a sham 'sale' of The Seminaries where defendant Yarmish would claim that he now owned the Seminaries and would claim to the class plaintiffs that these institutions were safe for their daughters. The conspirators hoped that this scheme would force class plaintiffs into leaving their daughters in The Seminaries even though that they were not safe because the conspirators would withhold their tuition deposits."      For the last two weeks in July, according to the complaint, Yarnish, Slanger, Gartner "and other still unidentified coconspirators then engaged in a flurry of written correspondence and telephone calls with the class plaintiffs to try to convince them that the Seminaries were under new ownership and were now safe. The sought to draw on defendant Gartner's status as a rabbi in Israel and the status of two other unnamed co-conspirators to perpetuate their fraud and assure the class plaintiffs that the Seminaries are safe. ...      "On July 24, 25, and 29, 2014, upon information and belief, defendant Gartner and unnamed co-conspirators had meetings in Israel about how to best cover up the fraudulent and unlawful scheme alleged herein and continue to deprive the class plaintiffs of their money by perpetuating the illusion that defendant Meisels is no longer affiliated with the seminaries," the parents say.      They seek class certification and punitive damages for racketeering, fraud, breach of contract, emotional distress, conspiracy and conversion.      They are represented by Shneur Nathan with Hale Law in Chicago.  http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/08/06/70149.htm

2 Mohels (Mohelim) Banned After Infants Contract Herpes in Circumcision Rite

Just One Consent Form Collected by City in Two Years

By Paul Berger

Published August 05, 2014, issue of August 08, 2014.

New York City has banned two mohels from performing a controversial circumcision rite after they were suspected of infecting babies with herpes.

But the city’s health department will not reveal their names.

Five infants have contracted herpes since September 2012, when the health department passed a regulation requiring mohels to get written consent from parents before using their mouth to suction blood from a circumcision wound — a religious rite known as metzitzah b’peh, or MBP.

MBP can transmit a strain of herpes from the mouth of a mohel to the infant and is potentially fatal to newborns, whose immune systems are underdeveloped. Infants who contract the disease can also suffer brain damage. The MBP rite is common in the ultra-Orthodox community.

In the past, some parents whose babies contracted herpes have refused to identify their mohel to city health officials. Of the five cases since the autumn of 2012, the health department has been able to identify just two mohels.

Only one of those mohels obtained written consent before performing the circumcision.

“In all of the cases, we have asked whether there were forms and, in the two cases where we were able to identify the mohel, we have requested them from him,” a health department spokeswoman told the Forward on July 24. Of these two cases, one had a form, which he provided, the spokeswoman said. The other one did not. “The department issued orders banning both mohelim” from practicing MBP, she said.

The spokeswoman would not name the mohels, citing privacy concerns. She also did not respond to several emails asking how the ban would be enforced and how the public could know the mohels in question were banned if their names were not made public.

More liberal Orthodox Jewish leaders do not support the MBP practice and deplored the latest news about its consequences. “I would hope that any mohel who unfortunately has transmitted a disease via metzitzah b’peh would stop practicing metzitzah b’peh because of the safety of our children,” said Rabbi Leonard Matanky, president of the Modern Orthodox Rabbinical Council of America.

But Matanky stopped short of calling for the health department to release the names of the banned mohels. The rabbinic leader said it would be presumptuous of him to comment, because he did not have enough information about the cases or the legal reasoning behind the city’s decision.

New York’s consent form regulation was created in the wake of the death of a 2-week-old boy following ritual circumcision with MBP in Brooklyn in 2011.

MBP is a holdover from centuries ago, when saliva was the best way
to clot a wound.

Today, more liberal Orthodox groups advocate that mohels who want to continue the practice should use a sterile pipette to simulate direct oral suction. Alternatively, some mohels use gauze. But some ultra-Orthodox groups, such as the Satmar Hasidim, consider MBP by direct oral suction to be commanded by Torah.

Oral herpes is a common infection that manifests itself as a cold sore but often has no visible symptoms. It is passed to the infant via the mohel’s saliva.

Babies whose mothers already carry herpes are immune to the virus. But babies who are not immune are at a high risk of illness.

Mohels in New York City perform MBP on an estimated 3,600 ultra-Orthodox boys each year.

Ultra-Orthodox mohels also perform MBP on the children of secular or religiously liberal Jewish couples, and these couples are often ignorant of the practice and its risks.

Since 2000, according to the city health department, 16 babies in New York City have been infected with herpes following MBP. Two of those babies died, and another two suffered brain damage.

The consent form tells parents that the health department believes MBP “should not be performed because it exposes an infant to the risk of transmission of [herpes] infection, which may result in brain damage or death.”

Several ultra-Orthodox groups filed a lawsuit in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 2012, asking for an injunction against the regulation.

The groups claim that medical evidence showing that MBP causes herpes infection in infants is weak. They say that the regulation violates their communities’ freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald postponed implementation of the regulation while she considered the case.

In December of that year another infant was infected with herpes. Although the regulation was not in force, a lawyer for the city confirmed for the Forward that the December case was the only occasion in which a consent form had been collected.

Since then, four other infants have been infected. The two most recent cases were in July of this year.

Many ultra-Orthodox mohels refuse to comply with the regulation.

For 18 months the Forward has fought to learn the identity of the mohel involved in the December 2012 infection.

The Forward filed a request under New York State’s Freedom of Information Law, seeking the identity of the mohel. The city denied the request, and a state judge upheld it in December 2013.

Supreme Court Justice Timothy Dufficy said that revealing the mohel’s identity would seriously undermine the city’s regulations that encourage individuals to report neonatal infections.

Dufficy wrote, “Individuals would be dissuaded from complying with the reporting requirements if their anonymity was compromised.”

The Forward has appealed his decision.

Contact Paul Berger at berger@forward.com or on Twitter, @pdberger

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/203243/-mohels-banned-after-infants-contract-herpes-in-c/?p=all#ixzz39YYHKcLD

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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