Prime Minister and Defense Minister Bibi Netanyahu informed the media that through mediation efforts by Egypt and others, an agreement has been reached with Hams. According to these reports, Israel will broaden generally the permissible range for Gaza fisherman, will liberalize the crossing of the border for goods, services and importantly once more building supplies intended for the rebuilding of areas destroyed in the past three wars and other confrontations. We feel a need to relay what has been the past result of these loosening of security and other restriction on Gaza. The increased range for the fishing industry makes the Israeli Navy’s job of monitoring the exercise of this profession which sometimes is augmented with monetary rewards for smuggling in weapons, rocket motors and other provisions for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other nefarious interests within Gaza. Building supplies have often been most widely utilized for the building of tunnels and command fortifications for Hamas and Islamic Jihad improving their military capabilities whenever they push Israel to the breaking point and hostilities become unavoidable. These supplies have also been utilized for the construction of infiltrations tunnels under the border into Israel where raids would be launched in order to destroy crops, structures consisting of homes, schools and businesses. These tunnels are also utilized to kidnap Israelis, most often civilians. Much to Hamas’s and Islamic Jihad’s consternation, Israeli technology has produced a method and instruments which allow for the detection of these tunnels and Israel has been destroying them before they are put into use. Israel has also begun erecting a new border barrier which will be taller and, hopefully, a double fence above ground and below ground barrier which reaches hopefully deep enough to prevent further tunneling.
Still, Israeli officials are touting this great peace arrangement as the prevention of an unnecessary war. Let us hope that they are correct but they should stand knowing that once Hamas receives their next few hundred million or even few billion dollars from Qatar, don’t they have something better to do with their oil wealth than to finance terror against Israel, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the latter receiving their monies from Iran funneled through Qatar, will once more return to their violence and will disregard all promises made. Past performance in business is taken as an indicator for future performance providing the judgement of the market proves correct. The same can be stated for dealing with Gaza or the Palestinian Authority, how they have acted in similar situations probably is an accurate indicator of how they will act in the future. This is probably even more true here than it is in business where the market can change and buying habits revert to previous unexpected habits or may develop some new fixation unforeseen. In retail to the public one can see this change very easily as when Amazon first started, their future appeared rather shaky as the Internet had not reached its universal acceptance and use became more readily favorable to the average user. Within a decade, Amazon was among the largest consumer providers exceeded only by WalMart and a few other select businesses. Now even WalMart is the one facing a shaky future and Amazon is facing online competition which may in the future find a better means of serving the public and supplant Amazon as the top retailer. Back before the Internet became a household utility, everyone shopped at the mall and back in that day I had a comfortable living managing a chain outlet. Fortunately, I was blessed to return to school and find work in microelectronics repair with a specialty in medical and satellite communications electronics. After my stint in this field, I reached retirement and not a moment too soon. Now the production of medical devices and satellite communications subsystems has become so inexpensive that virtually every component system is simply discarded should it fail to meet specifications as it is far less expensive to produce additional subsystems than it is to hire a technician or engineer to repair the failed subsystems. By comparison, a subsystem test technician is paid possibly 20% above minimum wage while repair technicians could make, depending on the subsystems they were tasked with repairing, anywhere from three to ten times minimum wage. The lesson is that companies will use technological advances to replace or remove all need for those making the largest salaries whenever possible. This is why if the minimum wage were raised to fifteen dollars an hour, companies would invest all the funds required to produce an automated means of replacing minimum wage positions or would learn to do without the low end workers and reassign their duties to their other employees. This will make some technicians being tasked with an additional responsibility for cleaning the executive washrooms and emptying their trash whenever they have a few spare minutes.
Gazan Youth Launching Incendiary with his Sling
So, perhaps we should take a look at what Hamas and Islamic Jihad are claiming while the Israeli leadership is touting this great peace being agreed upon and implemented over the coming week. First on our list is Deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri who exclaimed, “This is not a peace agreement with Israel, and has no connection to diplomacy. We are interested in ceasing the fighting in exchange for [Israel] lifting the siege. We expect agreements to be signed within a few days. We expect that it will happen soon – there will be understandings of calm that will reduce the siege significantly.” This comment stands in some contrast to the barely veiled threats which were floated as the final preparations were presumably underway to bringing the violence to a close. But what is Hamas leader and top terror chief saying, as his work is what the rest will base their actions. Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza, on Saturday praised the fact that 40,000 Gazans were violently rioting along the Gaza Israel border. He was quoted stating, “Our people (the 40,000 rioters) today stuck to the basic principles, the right of return and the breaking of the siege, and they support the resistance.” His further statement included, “Our people (Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists) say en masse that they want to live in dignity and want to live, and they say: ‘O (Al-Qassam Brigades), beloved ones, bomb Tel Aviv.’” Sinwar insists that issue of the terrorist prisoners in Israel release is his most necessary demand and what he plans to work tirelessly to bring about. He stressed that the so-called “March of the Return” processions would continue until the siege is broken, the “right of return” is realized and all of Palestine has been redeemed. Make no mistake, by this he means all of Israel cleansed of its Jews and others who refuse to bow to Allah. Yahya Sinwar formerly headed the military wing of Hamas and make no mistake, he is the real deal, terrorist through and through and is completely behind the destruction of Israel no matter how long that takes.
What are we expecting and advise people to observe as things move forward. Israel will follow the steps agreed upon which are presumed to bring calm at long last. This was presumed to be a long-term settlement agreement between Israel and Hamas and by inference Islamic Jihad. Israel has stated repeatedly that as the ruling group in Gaza, Hamas is responsible for all of their groups as well as those of Islamic Jihad and other smaller groups. Despite this, Hamas will often claim that they are unable to prevent Islamic Jihad or the other groups from launching rockets or taking to other forms of violence. Hamas has also used some inventive reasons for rockets in the last few weeks such as bad weather and it was an accident always expecting Israel to accept even the dumbest excuses. We expect that there will be a decrease to the numbers gathering along the clash points along the border but this will be those who basically sat at a comfortable distance from the border but those launching explosives over the border and rolling burning tires and explosives at the fence attempting to breach the border will continue in number largely. There will be coverage by the international and other news groups around the world will mention the smaller numbers of those who treated the border riots as a picnic with entertainment. There will be no coverage of the continued level of violence along the border. Well, that is until the border violence reaches a point where it demands a response from Israel. At the point that Israel responds, it will be the “Breaking News” with the red banners and the urgent voice announcer blaring the news of the Israeli strikes on Gaza listing even the smallest damage and repeating every Hamas report of injuries or fatalities and only towards the end of the newscast will there be any mention of the violence against Israel from out of Gaza. We realize this sounds as a harsh criticism of the news coverage, but thanks to recent events in the United States and it spreading elsewhere, more people have realized that the news they receive is infected by a strong political slant. We can aid you one further and explain that the news is tainted by the causes which qualify as falling within the bounds of “intersectionality” which does not include Israel but supports the Palestinian cause to such an extent that they do not consider Hamas, Islamic Jihad or the PLO as terrorist groups but as legitimate representatives of their beloved Palestinian Arabs. They only begrudgingly admit that Hezballah is a terrorist groups, and that is solely because they were against those backed by the United States in Syria in the fight against Islamic State. We expect that slowly but inexorably, Hamas and Islamic Jihad will ratchet up the violence returning to launching rockets again within a couple of months. There is another situation which would be extremely problematic for all sides. As these riots have been nearly continuous for a full year, they may have become the new normal for many of the population, especially the youth who are the front line and the ones launching most of the explosives and incendiaries. Should this be the case and Hamas has lost the ability to control or prevent the rioting as many now see this as their way to express their frustration and get their feeling calmed, then the border rioting would require strong intervention to bring them to an end. Hamas proved with the protests within Gaza City demanding better living conditions which they put down with violence and a heavy hand. They would probably not use similar to end the border violence and would throw their hands up and tell Israel that they are unable to prevent the people from expressing their rage at the Israeli acts against Gaza. They, of course, never redirect aid from the people to their terror war efforts, well, at least not more than taking over three-quarters of the building supplies and all the money.
There is one wildcard in all of this, and that is Iran. Were Iran to decide, as they did last week, that by launching rockets into Israel and there not being an overt Israeli military response, that they can make Bibi Netanyahu appear impotent costing him the elections, this would result in rockets being launched into Israel at a slow but steady rate through April 9 hoping not to invoke any strong Israeli retaliation. This was the excuse last week once the truth leaked out. At least this election cycle there are no teams of Democrat Party campaign specialists here attempting to elect fellow leftists. Maybe they have finally realized that Israelis do not respond well to outside interference. Perhaps, if we can survive through the election, there might just be a period of quiet before one of the borders erupts with rockets and violent rioting or even an actual attempt at an invasion from out of Syria as Iranian leaders continue to intimate. Let us close answering the perennial question, when will there be peace in the Middle East. The first sign that peace may be coming to the Middle East will be the Arab nations plus Iran actually not fighting one another either directly or in proxy wars such as the war in Yemen where Iran is attacking Saudi Arabia under the cover of the Houthis who are taking control of the country pushing the elected government into an ever shrinking area. Once they learn to live with one another, then maybe, just maybe, they will find some means of accepting that Israel is home to stay. Until they learn to live with each other, there will be no hope of their accepting the Jewish State.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 
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