With Trump Comes Stark Reality

 

Already this last year of the Presidency of Barack Obama there has been a dozen terrorist attacks which have been verified as such. In one mere twelve hour stretch in September the American people found out it may not be safe to go shopping in a mall in Minnesota, go running a five kilometer not so fun run in New Jersey or walk window-shopping on the streets of New York City without risk of terrorism striking and potentially injuring or taking one’s most precious life. The United States has faced car bombings, remote detonated bombings, suicide bombings and shooting sprees where the attacker was only stopped when shot dead by an armed citizen or law enforcement officer. All of these terrorist styled attacks were first perfected against Israel where initially they received minimal notice by the Western World media as it was just Israel. Often any reporting on such terror attacks in Israel were covered in such a manner that it appeared as if the Israelis had shot the terrorist who then retaliated with his bombing, shooting or whatever attack as the title was often Palestinian shot by Israeli Defense Force or Palestinian Killed by Israeli Police or other misleading phrasing. As such attacks spread to Europe and across other Middle East and North African Arab nations where their Christian, Kurdish, Hindu or Buddhist minorities were often the targets with some attacks were Sunni-Shia violence and these made the reporting even in Israel more accurate. Now that attacks have spread to the United States the reporting has become stark noted by the insistence after each attack initially the authorities deny any possible tie to terrorism and warning against jumping to any conclusions that Muslims were at all involved in the attacks. Eventually the reality brakes through and the terrorist ties were obvious to the most casual of observers from the start and are finally admitted.

 

The lag time between attacks being perpetrated in Israel and their coming to the United States has thus far been measured in years if not decades granting Americans a reprieve from the more recent types of attacks used in Israel. Apparently this lag time has been shortened considerably with the terror attack at Ohio State University. The car ramming and following stabbing spree until shot by law enforcement officer November 28th brought that lag time down to the slimmest of measure as such are only the most recent of attacks even in Israel. This is not good news for Americans as there are no safe spaces from car rammings and stabbing attacks making everyone almost everywhere potentially under threat. The last couple of years in Israel had seen numerous car rammings which were all part of what was informally referred to as the Stabbing Intifada which has tailed off but not really completely come to an end. We all pray here in Israel, as you do in the United States, that this will be the only time you suffer from such an assault on your persons and communal safety; but we all know the unfortunate reality. Once a new form of terror attack is used it will continue until mitigating means are found for defeating such attacks. Here in Israel train stations and bus stops now have thick five centimeter diameter, cement filled posts a embedded deep into the pavement protecting the people from vehicle rammings. Stabbing attacks are only avoided through vigilance and a communal reaction making the attacker into the hunted as through mutual defense we are all safer.

 

Recently, though largely uncovered by Western media, Israel suffered yet another massive terror assault upon the entire nation through forest fires largely set by Arab arsonists. Neighboring nations, including Croatia, Greece, Jordan, Egypt, Italy, Russia and Turkey, responded with firefighting manpower and equipment for which we are grateful. The United States sent its “Supertanker” which is the largest firefighting aircraft in the world. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sent a coalition of eight fire trucks and 40 firefighters which were used largely in Judea and Samaria as nowhere was immune from the horrors. In the single week during the final days before the rains came but whipped by the high winds accompanying seasonal weather changes Israel suffered one-thousand-seven-hundred-seventy-three separate fires which consumed approximately thirty-two-thousand acres with most located in the Haifa region. In some cases fires were set and once the fire-stations responded fires were set at the station houses themselves. Despite over a hundred people suffered injuries there were no fatalities this season. Over five-hundred homes were completely destroyed while tens of thousands were evacuated at some points. As of last counting there have been over thirty arrests of arsonists all of whom have proven to be Arab terrorists. Apart from the horrific damage to the parks and some neighborhoods the next most distressing reality of this past arson season was the repeated lack of coverage in the Western media once again the reality of “it’s only Israel” coming through loud and clear. There were no Israeli lives lost and, just as important if not more so, no terrorist arsonists shot resisting arrest or in the act of setting fires. Had a single arsonist been shot or otherwise injured, the cries of using disproportional and unnecessary force would have echoed from Rome to San Francisco and from Athens to Chicago and all stops inbetween. Instead, with lack of recriminations to be aired against Israel, the wave of arson was met with deafening silence.

 

The recent car ramming and stabbing attack does pose as a warning shot before the bow on the streets of America as it signaled a closing in the delay time between introduction of a newer terror wave in Israel and its application in the United States. We have already witnessed the use of ramming in Europe with the van being driven through a Nantes, France crowded market injuring almost a dozen and killing one victim plus the absolutely horrific Nice, France assault where a van filled with grenades and weapons was driven through a crowded 14th of July Bastille Day celebration killing eighty-four people, which included several children. The short delay from the wide use in Israel of car and vehicle rammings and stabbing attacks to their use across Europe and then to the United States bodes a troubling future for all three. Other places across Europe and Canada suffering ramming terror attacks have been but not limited to Glasgow International Airport attack in Scotland; Dijon, France; plus another attack with the Saint Jean sur Richelieu attack which occurred in Quebec, Canada on October 20, 2014. Now with the Ohio State University attack the United States has suffered its second vehicle ramming, the other being the SUV attack at the University of North Carolina. Then there were the greatest and most horrific rammings of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center Towers, Pentagon and the foiled attack which was brought down by the heroes of that day, the passengers on Flight 93 southeast of Pittsburgh.

 

Nice, France Van Terror Attack Carnage

 

The fear now should be from arson attacks, especially those set upwind a relatively short distance from built-up areas such as apartment complexes, business parks and housing developments. Also vulnerable would be deserted areas within some of America’s cities where a fire could be sparked that would then threaten downtown areas where urban renewal borders deserted areas yet to be rejuvenated. There should be some research performed to determine if previous fires may have been started as a form of terrorist attack as such arson attacks often target not only forest and scrublands but also target close-by developed regions. Israel has faced these firestorm attacks twice yearly, the spring winds and the fall winds which provide the necessary impetus for the use of directional winds to fan flames towards their real target, people. One can only pray that through vigilance and the formal fire-watch systems in place in the United States Park Systems stems any arson and other fires before they can rise and threaten people’s lives and property. Sufficient damage occurs already and needs little boost from intentional arson fires set with damage of people and structures as their actual target. Then there were the recent fires in Tennessee which are still being investigated by authorities.

 

But with the coming of the new administration of President Trump there will be a new attitude towards terrorist attacks and how they are treated by the FBI, Justice Department and other enforcement agencies within the government. No longer will the initial reports be that there is absolutely no indication that what appears to have been a terrorist attack actually is a terror attack. Rather any caution shown will still recognize that terror is always a potential cause and if it looks like terror, feels like terror and sounds like terror, then there will be the recognized likelihood that terror was a possibility. Under President Trump there is not to be the candy-coating of reality and the American people will be trusted with being given truth, often unvarnished truth as they will finally be seen and treated as grown-ups who can handle the truth. There will be no condescending hierarchy who claim that the American people cannot handle the truth and that only they, the elite have the capability to handle the truth and thus they claim they stand on the wall deciding what you deserve to know and what you must be protected against. We will have to wait and see which Americans are capable of handling the unvarnished, unsoftened, straight truth and which Americans will be demanding safe-spaces placed and trigger warnings with their newscasts. With a more open and honest evaluation of reality and the inclusion of the American people in the decision process by having an open debate, the United States will likely return taking their place as a leader of the free world. It will likely make most Americans pleased to be treated as the adults they presumably are, and we pray we have not misjudged our friends across the waves. It will be wonderful to have an ally back.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Let’s Play “Can We Find a Trump to Trump This?”

 

The media coverage of items dragged from the depths of Donald Trump’s past would be a whole lot more believable had they treated anything from the Clinton’s pasts or presents with equal severity and critical research. So they have found another outrageous thing Donald Trump said and the Republican Party mainstays are all a twitter, on Twitter and Facebook, castigating their presumed candidate because they actually have moral compasses and core values instead of the win at any cost and damn the rules because the media will protect us and pooh-pooh any charge from our past and present because the political reality in the United States is the media has become the publicist and attack dog of the Democrat Party. Notice the amount of time the media spent on the item of the second about how the Clintons used the Democrat Central Committee to assist them in destroying the campaign and hopes of Bernie Sanders. If you blinked or coughed you missed that coverage entirely. Or how Hillary literally laughed in the faces of the Benghazi Committee and the members of Congress taking the deaths of four Americans including an Ambassador and two brave men who gave their every last breath trying to protect the staff and the Ambassador while President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were doing everything in their power to help the whole affair disappear in a blizzard of misinformation and commanding relief efforts to stand down so as not to make a federal case of protecting these people. Those two men held off the entire attacking terror force we now know for eight long hours always checking the skies for help which never came. They sent out radio plea after radio plea describing their situation and giving exact coordinates of the mortar placements which were bombarding their position. All that President Obama and the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were doing was damage control and minimizing any hope these men had that their country’s leadership actually cared enough to send in the Marines, literally. How silly and ridiculous their efforts must have appeared to the exact people charged with presumably tearing down nations to bring them to safety must have appeared as they put out one fire after another which were being lighted to send hope and tell these men and their protected that help was on the way. Assisting forces were boarding helicopters and warming up fighter jets only to be commanded by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to power down their efforts because these people were not worth risking their careers at such a crucial stage in the reelection campaign of President Obama and the future election, or is it supposed to be coronation, of President Hillary. That is what mattered then and that is what matters now, the placement of Hillary upon her throne.

 

Where are the investigations into the Clinton Foundation or has all suspicions now been squelched and another fire put out just as all those, and this was their terminology, “Bimbo Explosions” were handled all those years as Willian Jefferson Clinton was the rising star of the Democrat Party from Little Rock and these continued “Bimbo Explosions” while he was President wagging his finger at the camera and the American People claiming, “I did not have sex with that woman Miss Lewinski.” Notice how such womanizing and actual sexual escapades are being silenced as if Hillary never assisted these cover-ups and the entire media machine has silenced all mention of anything untoward from the Clinton Sex Machine which was Bill Clinton’s driving force while climbing and maintaining his political stardom. The media is downplaying the potential for mischief which will present itself with Bill Clinton back in the White House as First Husband where he will be sent to travel the globe and rub elbows and whatnot with the wives of other nation’s Presidents and Prime Ministers. Is this the picture we want for the United States?

 

 

We are being treated to every lewd and unsolicited glance from the past of a man who never expected to actually be running for President of the United States and did not have handlers his entire life scripting his way around every failing and misspeak as many in the political class have had the luxury of for these past fifty to sixty years. While Hillary resided in the hallowed halls of the political game Donald was working in the real world and actually had real world failings and missteps which remained unsanitized making for such fine targets for today’s media. The media has on record the entire playlist of past Donaldisms right next to the “Do not ever allow see the light of day” playlist of Clintonisms. Imagine yourself thrust into the limelight having your entire past and that of anyone who was close such as a wife, husband, college roommate or just about anyone else and every prank from summer camp, as we’re sure if Donald Trump ever assisted in short-sheeting a counselor’s bunk we will hear of this as the ultimate in horrific behavior two days before the election on Sunday, November 6 as the lead in every Sunday newsprint. The story will be retold on all the talk shows and will lead with nothing else being covered with interviews with the traumatized counselor who is needless to say traumatized by this coverage out of the blue and not because of post-traumatic stress disorder from the short-sheeting. Nor has he been likely to have sought, as might be claimed, psychiatric help to get past this horrific experience brought on by young Donald who has obviously never matured from that day forward. This is the typical type of story we are being treated to as if they have any bearing on how Donald Trump will serve as President while how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acted in that service to the country is inconsequential as it has no bearing on how she will act as President. Tell me how that makes any sense.

 

There has been one other item which has bothered us since the very first primary where Donald Trump won so handily against some extremely stiff competition and how every word he uttered in a debate were the only quotes the media ever played unless there was a complete failure by one of the other candidates. Did anyone notice how Donald Trump was considered a serious candidate and one capable of leading the campaign of one of the major political parties in the United States. The media was his campaign and they did their part to get him the nomination right before they turned on him like a rabid dog might one morning turn on its owner seemingly for no reason. The difference is there was a reason and that is the media has their dog in this race. Somehow Donald Trump was the media’s favorite and there was a reason. Any legitimate Republican even to include Ted Cruz, the media’s backup for Donald, would have cleaned Hillary Clinton’s clock in this election and the political world knows this. It had become apparent that Donald Trump is not only running against the Democrat Party, the Clinton machine, both Bill and Hillary Clinton and the media but also the Republican Party as well. The Republicans have yet to put up even the tiniest squeal of protest against the treatment and have actually piled and heaped shame upon Donald themselves and are now heading for the exits in a well-rehearsed fire drill making Donald persona non grata even in his own party and have made it appear even his running mate will have nothing to do with him after this well held secret was waiting in the wings to be used at this juncture. The Republican Party knew this was coming as each and every one who was questioned as the story was breaking or even before it broke so that these reactions of Republican elites could be aired with the story were ready and willing to throw Donald Trump under the bus. One need ask why?

 

The Republican Party has their candidate for the Presidency and she is Hillary Clinton. That is correct, both major parties are running Hillary Clinton for President and her path to the White House was supposed to be a cleared path with the least presentable and least probable candidate being chosen by the Republicans and then denigrated and destroyed by the same Republican Party such that Hillary would have her deserved and rightful coronation. This is the dirty little not-so-secret secret of this entire campaign from both parties. Was there any Republican who was being seriously considered potentially a threat to a Hillary Clinton victory? Jeb Bush with all his millions would have walked off with the election but he was destroyed before he got started. He was likely promised by the Democrats to be given his turn after Hillary Clinton serves her eight years and he will get four. Who were the front runners from the start? Remember? There was Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and John Kasich. All the stars were eliminated by the media one-by-one and the Republican Party never cried foul and simple whimpered along in tacit agreement with the decimation of their candidate field leaving only candidates Hillary might be capable of defeating. Even with this field they had to go to a Donald Trump candidacy to even be able to pretend Hillary was the better choice. There wasn’t a bigger clown to ridicule than Donald Trump but something went awry. What was that they say about the best laid plans of mice and men? Well, all the King’s horses and all the King’s men are trying to put Humpty together again but Hillary keeps falling off her perch and cracking into a million pieces before our eyes and it is not news. Her excuses lead like she was suffering from pneumonia which was why she fainted at the 911 rally and had to be slid away from all coverage, as required to keep the lie going, into a van without escort or Secret Service protections and media circus one would expect. Then this weak and eviscerated pneumonia victim then turned up escaping her minders waving to all who passed by from Chelsea’s New York apartment chipper as the first day of spring. Then there was her bright and shiny perky Hillary at the first debate and we are anticipating an equally medicated and scripted Hillary with the little bug in her ear feeding her every word and every thought guiding her along while Donald Trump is left to his own devices completely abandoned by all. Trump should place a sign over his campaign headquarters stating, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” He was cherry picked as the only person Hillary Clinton could easily beat six ways come November 8, Election Day and she has proven unable to even manage this. What would have been her chances against any competent candidate? None, negligible and without a doubt her rise would have been an impossible Herculean task. Alas, poor Sisyphus is going to have a new task in Hades. Sisyphus will be tasked with pushing Hillary Clinton up the hill to a microphone only to have her tumble back to the bottom every time.

 

Sisyphus Pushing Hillary Up the Hill

 

Sisyphus may as well represent the media, the Democrat Party, the Republican Party, talking heads from Sunday Morning News shows, the nightly news anchors, etc. Actually, to parse a phrase, “Never was so much owed by so few to so many,” can refer to Bill and Hillary who owe a debt for her successes and covering her many failures in deed and character to the entirety of the political and media empires which have congealed around protecting her path to the White House. What is so surprising is that it will take a landslide victory by such a great margin to get past the fixes already in place in the crucial states to make President Hillary a certainty. Donald Trump is not going to need the undecided battleground states as those are fixed where such opportunity presents; such as Philadelphia having 125% turnout with 98% voting for the Democrat and other noted irregularities such as Chicago in all too many elections. Trump is going to need to win in places where the powers that be do not expect him to even have a snowball’s chance in Death Valley on an August afternoon such as taking New York or California, something we have believed he might be able to pull off and they put some early efforts in place in both these states, or any other solid Democrat stronghold. Perhaps he can take Illinois or Minnesota or Maine or anywhere in New England or the great northwest of Oregon (OK, no hope in Oregon) and Washington (not much better then Oregon) and if he takes any of these there will be no amount of cheating or vote buying or rigging that will prevent his landslide. If Pennsylvania and New York go to Trump early in the reporting as the polls close, then the gig is up and Hillary is finished. That is the reality and they know this which is why Donald Trump will be made into the most hideous monster of a human being since Idi Amin Dada. The torrents of the media are on the verge of demon Trump all the time. Expect even comedy and other venues of shows on television to start with anti-Trump campaign assistance. We can expect the late night shows to begin blasting away at the latest “Did you hear this scandalous item from Trump’s past?” They will talk about things he presumably did in grade school as if he did them yesterday in Times Square. Expect people from Trump’s past, real and imaginary, to be presented as witnesses to his character, or lack thereof, and a string, a procession coming to the microphone given their fifteen seconds of fame where all they need do is say, “I’m Joe Six Pack and Donald Trump is an evil monster who left me without hope or any future when he destroyed my car, house, dreams, relations with Marilyn Monroe or whatever fiasco of a life tragedy they can claim and the public will be expected to realize, oh my gosh, how could I ever vote for such a mean and evil person while Hillary Clinton will remain wrapped in her cocoon protected from prodding or other harms. No words about Benghazi, old news; or the e-mails, not prosecutable; or pay to play, no proven quid pro quo; or her losing of the Rose Law Firm tax files until the statute of limitations was passed and then they were in a white house clothes closet found by the cleaning crew, old news; or her presumed ill health, simply pneumonia and what a miracle recovery, isn’t she wonderful; her lying to Congress and to the relatives of the dead about Benghazi, not Benghazi again, can’t you leave that old news alone; cleaned server hard drive, really want to try that again; and any wrongdoing by the Clintons is either old news, been there-done that, that again, we tired of hearing about that, doesn’t mean anything, “never happened, OK, happened but doesn’t matter, OK matters but you sure it was Hillary, that again?”

 

This election is not about Donald Trump or anything he ever did as anything Trump has done did not result in dead bodies, dead United States Ambassador and two former Navy Seals left hanging to die, lies and cover-ups of felonies, risking and compromising United States top secret information, selling lies to Congress and the American people, and a trail of continuous scandals and cover-ups longer and deeper than anything, oh wait, here’s a grandmother who was denied a visit by her great-grandchildren because Trump had to lead a parade. Ridiculous, yes, but also an example in jestful hyperextension of reality not that far stretched. And we have yet to get into the lies and mischaracterization of Hillary’s proven positions on numerous foreign policy and international relations. A simple pair of examples would be her being capable of handling Vladimir (the Invader) Putin better than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s presumed love for Israel against Donald Trump the presumed anti-Semite whose daughter is an Orthodox practicing Jew and whose every child is married to or dating a religious and/or Zionist Jew while Chelsea also married a Jew who is a Democrat leftist progressive whose parents were members of Congress and his father later served time in federal prison for fraud, is a wealthy hedge fund manager and alumnus of Goldman Sachs thus bigtime Wall Street connection, but to his credit Marc Mezvinsky has an upbringing and adulthood which were shaped by a strong Jewish background amid all the politics according to media reports. Trump’s eldest daughter actually converted, Chelsea has not and probably never will convert thus her children will not be Jewish by religious law while Ivanka Trump will raise their children as true and honest Jews by Halacha. This Jewish connection to the potential next Presidential family is unprecedented in American and Jewish history with few Jews outside of Israel ever being so close to the seat of power. Benjamin Disraeli as the Victorian Prime Minister of Britain being probably the most famous exception may soon have some competition but that remains to be seen. Remember that much of the Trump controversies are manufactured from deeds of a man outside of politics and on the wrong side of the media and both parties’ elites and was chosen to be the sacrificial lamb at the coronation of Hillary Clinton, who has been unofficially but practically cleansed of all her and her husband’s wrongdoings by a complicit media and political elites, and they have now realized they chose a wolf from amongst the sheep.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Look Back and Forward to Coming Incitements for War

 

Hamas has sent out hints that they are starting their escalation which they expect will instigate a war in Gaza and a separate and more important war in the compliant Western Media. Similar to how Ben Rhodes used the White House press corps to sell a completely bogus story of how the negotiations and change in Iranian Presidency was moving along the Iran Nuclear Deal, a deal whose conditions had already been agreed upon by the end of 2012, Hamas will use the international media stationed in Gaza, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to sell their story of the horrors of war Israel is inflicting on the people of Gaza without any reason. Mark this week as the start and watch as everything develops slowly ramping until Israel is forced to strike and then the media wakes and up to that date nobody had noted the rockets as none reached them in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. The only aggression the media, especially the European media and the New York Times ever note is when Israel strikes, which they initially claim was always unprovoked except for the little terror act or other instigating act mentioned in paragraph three or four but managed as inconsequential. The media is where Hamas can expect assistance and blaming Israel leading page one above the fold with five line tall headlines condemning Israel once again casting Hamas sympathetically as the victim who only fired a few missiles the day before. The thousand or so missiles fired over the four to six weeks prior, well, maybe they will mention that as the article is continued in Sections C page 12 or somewhere equally well hidden. They do not want to paint the terrorists too harshly because then their reporters and photographers will be cast out from Gaza and be unable to get those interviews and photographs of the destroyed house with the baby dolls sitting centered in the rubble without a speck of dust all pristine and untouched (see below). Apparently there are no photographers stationed in Israel as finding any pictures of the rocket holes in Israelis homes and even the reporters appear allergic to Sderot as they might be forced to face reality.

 

Photographs of the destroyed house with the baby dolls
sitting centered in the rubble without a speck
of dust all pristine and untouched

 

Sderot is a unique town with cement shelters scattered throughout the town and at each end of playgrounds as the children only have fifteen seconds or less to reach safety when the Code Red sirens sound signifying rocket launch from Gaza. Sderot was having ten to twenty and more alarms a day for over a week before Israel finally struck Hamas in the last war. If you are doubting, shocked or surprised by this you are in good company as it was barely if ever mentioned. Hamas had launched over a thousand rockets into Israel the week before Israel attacked. Still, most new services did not cover anything until Israel launched attacks. Each time Israel responded with tank fire or an air strike the news would read Israeli strikes on Gaza destroy house and tool shed or some similar reference such as training area or building neighboring hospital or school. Then there will be the quotes of residents of Gaza residing near strike target. They were shocked awake by explosions or interrupted their normally peaceful dinner meal. Then there will be the quote of several different denunciations of the Israeli strike by several NGOs, Gaza officials (read Hamas officers), and a number of European sources. There will be a recap of the Israeli strikes over the previous days or weeks and then, in paragraph four or later will come the other shoe dropping and we find out that several rockets landed in Israel. It will be stressed that they did no damage nor hurt anybody. There will be no sympathetic interviews with the traumatized Israeli children in Sderot where the Israeli government has set up a fully staffed medical facility to council and assist the children and the adults who are suffering just as the Gazans suffer from these attacks. Both sides are suffering but only one side has actual terrorists running their government and holds no elections giving the people an opportunity to choose something other than constant warfare. There are two sides where the people are caught in an ever escalating violence and the sounds of explosions day and night with children fearing going to school or outside to play. There are two societies receiving injuries not necessarily visible at first glance.

 

 

Seldom are the Israelis suffering from the incessant fighting given their opportunity to tell their story. The media story in much of the world overlooks the Israeli pain, the Israeli suffering, the Israeli children traumatized as there is little sympathy and after all the Israeli side rebuilds the homes struck by rockets and in Gaza the homes are not being replaced. Have they mentioned that Israel had been permitting tons of cement to be trucked into Gaza? You likely read recently that Israel is no longer allowing shipments of cement into Gaza but likely not the reason why. Israel had to end their generosity as Hamas was using ninety percent of the cement to build attack tunnels into Israel reaching under the border as well as bunkers and launch points for their rockets to protect them from Israel airstrikes. The report that Israel had ended allowing cement into Gaza does not tell the entire story as Israel had allowed tons of cement into Gaza and by some estimates sufficient to have rebuilt over half of the destroyed homes and businesses. Also with the report that Israel stopped allowing cement into Gaza was another report that over three-quarters of the homes in Gaza are still not been rebuilt. So the homes are not rebuilt or even a decent start at rebuilding them and Israel stopped allowing cement in. Israel must be really cruel and cold hearted, or really is fearful of what has already been accomplished with the vast majority of the tons of cement already allowed in over the past year plus in a response to pleading by the United Nations, European Union and the rest of the oh so civilized world.

 

Hamas has taken definitive credit for yesterday’s terror attack on the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv. This comes almost two weeks after Hamas promised to reinstitute terror bombings and shootings and expressly threatened Tel Aviv as proof that nowhere in Israel would be spared their violence. There were four people murdered and at least sixteen wounded. The murdered were 41-year-old Ido Ben-Ari of Ramat Gan; Ilana Naveh, 39, of Tel Aviv; Ben Gurion University professor Michael Feige, 58; and 32-year-old Mila Mishaev of Rishon Letzion. Ido Ben-Ari’s wife was with him and is currently hospitalized in moderate condition after suffering gunshot wounds. He was a veteran of the IDF elite Sayeret Matkal unit. Ilana Naveh was a mother with four children and was reportedly murdered celebrating her 40th birthday. Michael Feige was a father to three children and worked as a prominent professor at Ben Gurion University. Mila Mishaev was engaged to be married, and according to reports managed to call her boyfriend immediately after she was shot multiple times. She had been waiting for him at the restaurant when the gunmen opened fire. The dearly lost are pictured below.

 

Tel Aviv Sarona Market Shooting Victims

 

Videos below give a small feel for the events but there really is no way we can express in any manner the horror of the event nor the horrors the friends, families and most of all the children who will wonder why they were made to suffer such a loss and will age before their time learning to live without a parent. The two terrorist shooters were cousins Khalid and Muhammad Musa Mehamara. Their family has a previous connection with terrorism, not as unusual as one might think. Their uncle Taleb Mehamara was a member of a terror cell that in 2002 targeted Israelis in southern Judea, killing four in that shooting attack as well. He was a member of the Fatah Tanzim terror organization and was tried, convicted and is serving currently in an Israeli prison. The two cousins had infiltrated Israel illegally from their small town of Yatta just outside Hevron. Several other terror groups, whose names will not be given the privilege of publicity here, praised the attack. Israeli Security Services has stated that they believe the two had been inside Israel for about a month before perpetrating their attack. The Security Agencies will be checking into what assistance and from whom the terrorists received said assistance during the lead-up to the attacks. One can only hope they can completely peel the onion and everyone who had any information and did not speak up are made to face charges as accomplices to this abhorrent crime. As a reaction to the attack as well as not taking any unnecessary chances, Israel has cancelled two-hundred-four work visas for members of the terrorists’ extended families and rescinded approximately eighty-three-thousand entry permits given to residents of Judea and Samaria for Ramadan. Now we will just have to wait and see how long before the world condemns Israeli reaction of rescinding the thousands of entry permits for Ramadan as a form of collective punishment.

 

The reality of this terror attack may be more horrific than this slaughter in a crowded market; this could be exactly what Hamas promised, the start to a very hot summer. There have been a number of media reports which have, despite Hamas taking credit, referred to this as a shooting. It took place in Israel therefore it cannot be terror. Either it was just a crime or Israel deserved it or whatever reasoning that can be twisted and warped to justify or excuse the attack such that it is not terror. You have to understand, terror happens in Madrid, in Paris, in London, in Brussels, New York or Boston, not Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Hevron or anywhere which is Israel. Terror happens even in Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, even Libya and Syria, just not Israel. When rockets start trickling over the Gaza border into Israel it will be scoffed at and ignored as just a rocket or two or three then four a week. When it becomes a half-dozen it will be a minor story which might make page A-35 on a slow news day otherwise not at all. A dozen rockets a week, well, well, that is not even two a day, no story, call us when there are more than three each day. A few more weeks and at five a day the excuse is they haven’t hit anything of note, why are you complaining, tell us when it gets bad. Finally one larger rocket heads for Tel Aviv where the reporters sit on the beach sipping their drinks. They hear a missile launch followed by everybody pointing in the sky where one bright orange light streaks towards a white streak and then a flash and a rumble seconds later rolls across the ground. Iron Dome has just saved Tel Aviv and the reporters have a story about the Israeli missile launch that blew up harmlessly in the skies over Tel Aviv. Then nothing more is reported as the rockets are flying over the border at a half dozen a day. When they reach a dozen and still the reports are about the Israel airstrike which caused further damage to an already largely destroyed Gaza, they further stress Israel is still not letting cement to be delivered. Eventually one would think with thirty or forty rockets a day but the news talks about Israel launched four Iron Dome missiles which intercepted something harmlessly overhead. When the eventual and unavoidable Israeli letting loose the dogs of war and going in with tanks and troops, then there will be reports about the rockets mentioned in the story, somewhere in the fourth or fifth paragraph after ample mention of the Israeli offensive. Sure, they will tell how the rockets were the initiating cause but people tend to believe the order they are mentioned. That order means it is all Israel’s fault as their tanks entered before the rockets were mentioned in the article so that is how it happened, the tanks went in and then the rockets were fired, right? So the story goes and again the news gets twisted and the European elites slap each other on the backs for another job well done.

 

Actual terrorists shooting, blurred in video (why escapes us)

 

Café clearing out with people running, starting just past twenty seconds in.

 

Security officer from neighboring Israeli Broadcast Company pursuing and shooting terrorist. The officer exercises excellent gun control!

 

Sarona Market Terrorist Shooting Attack in Tel Aviv

 

Beyond the Cusp