Israel Update

Posted by Clyde Middleton on Feb 1 2009 Filed under Israel, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

GENERAL UPDATE – A truly disturbing article: Hizballah terror teams fan out in six countries prompting maximum Israeli alert. / According to our sources, most of the terrorist teams were sent out from places outside Lebanon, drawn from the covert spy and terror cells Hizballah maintains in other parts of the Middle East as well as Africa and Europe. A large number were deployed in the hope that if most of them miss, at last one will achieve a spectacular hit. / Israeli holidaymakers in Sinai are warned to leave at once; there are plots to snatch them off its beaches and smuggle them into the Gaza Strip.

To set the tone for how the world views the Jewish people: In 1921, Albert Einstein presented a paper on his then-infant Theory of Relativity at the Sorbonne, the prestigious French university.

“If I am proved correct,” he said, “the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong, the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew.”

Smart man. Devastating observation.

Onward.

(Updates throughout article.) Several things are happening in Israel right now. Rather than update the Operation Cast Lead post or the Israeli Elections post, we’re going to summarize the activities here. Read those posts for background.

Summary: Mitchell’s plan is pathetic. He is in over his head – so is his boss. This is not the streets of Chicago. This is a real war zone. Get out. Bibi will win the election – lead is widening. Cast Lead isn’t over – Iran is gearing up to help Hamas do it right in Round 2. IDF is in the air. Comment: This bombing and all subsequent operations will be 100% targeted at Hamas. Little civilian casualties. Hamas facilities including Mosques will be flattened. I would not be surprised if we went in and kidnapped Hamas leaders. Observation: Wires have nothing from Obama. Putz is silent. Bush would have issued a statement. Obama is clueless.

UPDATE. Feb 1, v2. IDF is in the air. Israel Air Force aircraft late Sunday bombed a Hamas security building in the central Gaza Strip and two other targets in the southern coastal territory, Palestinian witnesses said. / Witnesses in the central Gaza village of Mughraqa said a missile struck after dark in a cluster of caravans that served as a Hamas security headquarters. …/… Before the attack, Israeli aircraft flew over the Gaza-Egypt border, setting off sonic booms, and witnesses said hundreds of people who work in the tunnels there fled, along with residents.

IAF hits targets in Khan Yunis, Rafah after day of rockets. Palestinians reported huge explosions as Israeli jets dropped bombs on the Gaza-Egypt border area, where Hamas operates tunnels to smuggle in weapons, food and other goods. No casualties were reported. The military had no immediate comment. …/… At least 15 Kassam rockets and mortar shells struck Israel on Sunday. One rocket landed between two kindergartens in the Eshkol region, one struck Sderot, two others hit open areas nearby and a fourth hit the Sdot Negev region.

MORE – The strafing of the targets, a police station and six smuggling tunnels, was the first time the government has allowed the IDF to retaliate since last week. Israel had responded tit-for-tat until the Sabbath, when a long-range Grad rocket struck the southern edge of Ashkelon.

UPDATE. Feb 1. The war is about to be back on? Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on Sunday reported receiving recorded phone messages by telephone warning those who live near weapons tunnels or storage facilities to evacuate their homes at once. / “Everybody who is near any place used for terror or weapon storage facility or tunnels, should evacuate the area immediately,” the voice message warned, according to witnesses. Similar warnings have preceded Israeli attacks, but not in all cases.

More from YNet: Ynet has learned that Hamas offices in the Strip had also been cleared in light of the attacks and the consequent threats issued by Israeli ministers.

Iran sees it, too: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the Palestinian group Hamas to be prepared for possible fresh Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Sunday.

Hamas continuing to lob rockets – and sometimes blaming Fatah for doing it: Two Israel Defense Forces and an Israeli civilian were lightly wounded on Sunday when four mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip exploded near them in the Sha’ar Hanegev region of the western Negev. / Palestinian militants in Gaza fired at least five Qassam rockets and eight mortar shells at southern Israel over the course of the day. / Three rockets struck the Eshkol region, two of them landing in open fields and the third between two kindergartens. A fourth rocket struck an open field in the Sdot Negev Regional Council area and a fifth exploded in Nir Am, near the Gaza border. No casualties or damage were reported in any of the strikes. Hamas: “We ain’t doing nothing.”

UPDATE. Jan 31. They can’t help themselves: Palestinian militants fired a rocket from Gaza on Saturday that exploded close to the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon without causing any damages or injuries, an Israeli military spokesman said.

We posted on the news blackout concerning the Iranian ship full of arms, secret compartments, and missiles that President Bush detained and President Obama released. Seems Cyprus is not impressed with the claim that the ship is carrying its flag. They have seized it and are conducting a search:

Cyprus president Demetris Christofias said Friday, Jan. 30, that a ship being searched off Limassol is carrying a cargo that contravenes UN resolutions.

He did not identify the cargo, but Cyprus state radio reported the vessel was Russian-owned and may have been traveling from Iran to Syria with weapons destined for Hamas.

The animals are coming out of hiding. After getting their ass kicked from end of the strip to the other, the surviving leaders of Hamas are coming out and declaring victory.

Khalil Al-Hayya, one of three survivors of the five best known Hamas leaders, told supporters at a rally that the group had achieved victory in the war and was now engaged in a political battle. We promised to come out to you either as martyrs or as victors,” Hayya told supporters. “Today I come out to you and you are victors.”

Translation: I didn’t come out in a body bag.

The toll of the first phase of Operation Cast Lead was brutal: About 1,300 Palestinians were killed and more than 4,000 wounded. Israel lost 10 soldiers in the fighting and three civilians were killed in Israel by Palestinian rockets launched into Israel from Gaza. Hamas’ use of civilians are shields is absolutely pathetic. Where is the world condemnation of their tactics?

Of note is there now-position on Shalit: “Hayya reaffirmed his group’s demands to conclude a prisoner swap with Israel that would see the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners for the return of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Gaza militants in 2006.”

Khalil went on to say that “Shalit will not see the light of day” blah blah blah, which, if anything this doucebag says can be trusted, is confirmation that Gilad is still alive. Coming to three years in captivity.

Before OCL began, remember that Iran sent an aid ship. Upon arrival, it was not allowed to dock. It is now a command and control center for Hamas:

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that the aid ship Iran Shahed , which the Israel embargo of the Gaza Strip forced to stay 42 km from the coast, took delivery Monday, Jan. 26 of sophisticated communications equipment from Cyprus for maintaining contact with Hamas leaders who remain in hiding. It came with a group of maintenance engineers.

Neither Iran or Hamas have any interest in peace with Israel. This war continues in their mind and actions.

UPDATE. Feb 1. See OCL updates. How’s that peace plan working out for you? You’re in over your head. Cut the “can’t we all just get along” simpleton diplomacy.

UPDATE. Jan. 31. What an absolute waste of words: President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy said on Friday the new administration’s push for Israeli-Palestinian peace after the war in the Gaza Strip faced substantial hurdles, and he predicted further setbacks.

Mitchell’s plan in a nutshell: Create Palestine; get Israeli settlements out of Judea and Samaria; leave Arab settlements in Israel proper intact; divide Jerusalem; open all the borders with Israel; take down the safety wall; build a highway across Israel to join the Strip with the Judea and Samaria; and create Clinton’s “Holy Basin” which is turning over Jewish religious sites to the world.

Let me see if I can summarize a response: OK, maybe, we’ll talk; no; pretty funny – sure, why not?; hell no; maybe on Thursdays; no; rollicking laughter; and now you’re pushing it – go away.

Mitchell’s plan is a complete sell-out of Israel to terrorist organizations. The Palestinians want a country? They GOT one – right next door. It’s called the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It’s got a flag and everything. Go there.

The one thing Mitchell is doing right so far is ignoring Hamas. But he’s getting heat on it from all places … wait for it … Tony Blair:

“I do think it is important that we find a way of bringing Hamas into this process, but it can only be done if Hamas are prepared to do it on the right terms,” the London-based paper quoted Blair as saying.

On the division of Jerusalem, it seems Olmert may be talking like he is PM for longer than the 8 weeks left in this term:

“Minister Livni was not in the room with Prime Minister Olmert and Chairman Abbas when they had their conversation about this agreement. This is something that someone on the other side did,” added her spokesman Gil Messing. “It was not the work of Minister Livni. She is against it in all terms that are possible to elaborate and she said so yesterday in the Cabinet.”

“This agreement” is an agreement to divide Jerusalem. And humorously, Livni is being tagged with it.

We wrote earlier that there was a pushback against Mitchell showing up now because it was so close to the election. The interpretation was that Obama was tryng to empower Livni. The opposite has happened. See the impact on the election below.

The remarkable thing about the Mitchell Daisy Chain is that Olmert is talking at all. Yes, Mitchell met with Bibi. But anything Olmert says is worthless. He is out of office the first week of March. Why isn’t the press treating anything Olmert says as they did anything President Bush said in his last several weeks? Does anyone find it ironic that Obama is even bothering to talk to this guy?

Bibi will tell Mitchell to go pound sand.

UPDATE. Feb 1 v2. Bibi’s lead is widening. According to a source in Israel Beiteinu, the poll predicted that the Likud would win some 30 seats, Kadima 21-22, Israel Beiteinu 17-18 and Labor 16. But Israel Beiteinu’s voters were the most intense in their support and therefore most likely to vote, while Kadima’s were the least likely to do so.

UPDATE. Feb 1. This is dumb: “Kadima leader Tzipi Livni said over the weekend that men work inefficiently to tally up extra hours at work.” Could you imagine the backlash in politics if a man said a similar thing? Why do women think they have privilege to put down our gender? This is precisely WHY a perception of a difference exists – because people like Livni won’t shut up about it.

Bibi’s election is looking more and more certain. We wrote before that Livni was putting her election hopes in the hands of Hamas acting well. Seems she is feeling the pinch of reality:

A senior member of the ruling Kadima party was quoted as saying Friday that the dovish camp’s situation in the election “appears bad, and in fact, the battle appears to be lost,” according to a report in News1.

“The renewed attacks by terror organizations in Gaza are pushing voters to the Right bloc,” he said, “especially to Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu.”

Is it really that bad? Seems so:

Senior ministers from Kadima are plotting to remove Tzipi Livni from the party’s top spot in anticipation of Kadima’s expected loss in the February 10 elections.

According to a report by journalist Yoav Yitzchak in News1, the process of removing Livni will be put in motion immediately after the elections – assuming the party does indeed take a beating – unless Livni resigns from the position of her own accord.

Yitzchak says that these ministers are currently biding their time quietly and abstaining from any public pronouncements because they believe that “Kadima, which currently has 29 Knesset members, is about to be routed, but in the current circumstances there is nothing to do but try and cut the losses.”

The Israeli Elections post has poll data. Bibi is only getting stronger. Labor and Lieberman have joined him. This election is over … but February 10 is a political lifetime away.

We’re excited to announce that we are part of an effort working with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to counter the anti-Israeli bias in the worldwide media. There are over 100 influential opinion makers, including The Patriot Room, that will be working from a central database of articles and inside information to provide timely rebuttals to the too-prevalent misinformation published by the MSM.

Share

Save

Related Posts

1. Gaza War, Round 2?
2. Israel v. Hamas, Day 4
3. Israel v. Hamas, Day 3
4. Did Palestinian Spotters Help Israel Assassinate Mahmoud al Mabhouh?
5. Hamas West Bank cells ordered to launch terror war

Short URL: http://libertypundits.net/?p=3014