Life, Iran, ISIS, Our Fates, and an Unknown Future

 

One need remember that Iran and Iraq went at each other for a period just short of eight years starting on September 22, 1980 and lasting until August 20, 1988 and was initiated by Saddam Hussein and was largely considered to have been a failure by Iraq as Iran stopped the initial surge dead in its tracks and slowly but inexorably backed the Iraqi troops back and they eventually returned to their initial borders. This was just a part of the history of animosities between Iraq and Iran and was seemingly inevitable that they would go after one another. The fact that it was Saddam Hussein who began the hostilities was not so surprising and he may have even been nudged in that direction by the United States who still harbored great animosity towards the Iranians for the hostage crisis which was yet to have concluded. The United States hostages were not released until after the November Presidential elections on the very hour that President Reagan was sworn in to office. One might be able to claim that the hostage release coinciding with the swearing in of Ronald Reagan might make their release his very first accomplishment as President as few would even think to claim they were released as a sign of respect and a parting gift for President Jimmy Carter. The fact that the war between the secular dictatorial forces of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the Shiite Muslim Sharia Iranian State of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini fought to a virtual standstill exchanging the same patches of ground as the fates ebbed and flowed neither capable of delivering a decisive blow that might make the other reel and collapse before a superior force. This was, in many ways, a conflict where despite governments picking sides, some places such as Israel was simply glad that the war kept both nations occupied and facing some fire situation which left them so preoccupied that they had little time to think about harming Israel, something else where these two nations might have also competed to see which could injure Israel the most.

 

Two years, less a mere eighteen days, Iraq decided to invade another neighbor, this time Kuwait. Starting on August 2, 1990 it took a mere two days to August 4, 1990 for Saddam Hussein’s army to sweep across Kuwait. This not only caused Iran to worry that another attack might be in the cards from their nemesis, it also made Saudi Arabia extremely nervous about the possibility that Saddam Hussein might have them in his sights as his next victim. Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz called his good and close friend, President George Herbert Walker Bush and the wheels were put in motion to ride to the rescue. The United States formed a coalition which included a number of Arab and Muslim States which worked under United Nations approval and removed Saddam Hussein’s troops from Kuwait destroying a huge number of the Iraqi armored vehicles including numerous Russian supplied tanks and armored personnel carriers plus scores of trucks and other vehicles. The Iraqi troops caused an unmitigated ecological disaster by setting virtually, if not every, oil well in the Kuwaiti vast oil fields. It took months to extinguish and recap every well and then proceed to put them back into service. Things actually appeared to have settled down in the threats between nations, but that did not mean all was well in the Middle East. Acting on what was interpreted to be United States urgings the Iraqi Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the North made an attempt to dethrone Saddam Hussein expecting the United States to provide some level of assistance. Well, United States assistance was never considered being sent as they had refused to even chase the Iraqi troops back to Baghdad after chasing them from Kuwait. The closest the United States manpower came to Iran was protecting the Americans working in the Kuwaiti oil fields putting out well fires and recapping wells before returning them to service, a task that took several years.

 

After the 9/11 terror attacks on the twin Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and another target foiled by the passengers of Flight 93 which they brought down at the cost of their own lives before it could reach its intended target which was believed to have been either the Capital building or the White House and the beginning of the war on terror with the invasions of Afghanistan to find Osama bin Laden and fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban, President George W. Bush requested further authorization to take military action against Saddam Hussein in order to prevent his further manufacture of chemical weapons and to terminate his reputed nuclear weapons program. The alleged nuclear weapons program had been backed by all evidence gathered by the British, the United States, France and the rest of Europe all indicated that Saddam Hussein an advanced nuclear weapons program which could have been completed except for the Israeli attack destroying the French built Osirak Reactor before it could be fueled and used to produce plutonium for a weapon. There is the common misconception that there was none of the precursors for a nuclear weapons program to be found in Iraq during the Second Gulf War. There was a large amount of Yellowcake, a form of raw uranium used for safe transport and storage and can be transformed into uranium hexafluoride which is what is fed into the centrifuges in order to enrich the uranium. Whereas these approximately five-hundred-fifty-tons of yellowcake, that is over one-million-pounds, were from the stores logged back in 1991 and was under the watchful eyes of the IAEA, that does not mean it was impossible for those stores to be utilized to jumpstart Saddam’s dream to attain nuclear weapons had he decided to demand that the IAEA inspectors leave Iraq and then gone full speed ahead in a mad dash towards making a weapon. North Korea has stores of yellowcake which under IAEA guards until it was not under IAEA guards. Granted it might have been difficult to get the yellowcake into production before the world arrived, as they arrived despite Saddam not touching those provisions as there were suspicions backed by faulty intelligence.

 

Now Saddam Hussein is long gone and Iran has all but annexed the southern third of Iraq, the Shiite controlled area that includes the capital city of Baghdad. The Kurdish has become an entity unto themselves and definitely has autonomy if not complete independence. The Iraqi government, which appears to be weak and feckless with Iran holding the real power but only in the southern third of the nation even partially cemented under their control, has thus far refused to provide any weapons or other provisions to reach either the Kurdish militias or the Sunni tribesmen thus leaving both to their own devices in fighting against such forces such as ISIS which has been marauding and murdering anybody who does not meet their high standards for Islamic purity. This fighting has mostly taken place in the Sunni central area of what has been Iraq and that has left the Sunni stuck between two murderous powers. The Shiite military from the south performs ethnic cleansing whenever they gain sufficient areas to conduct sweeps. It appears that the main people targeted are Sunni males of fighting age. When ISIS takes control of these same areas they too pick the same group and demand that they prove their devotion to Islam by joining the new Caliphate or else suffer the wrath of the true believers. They also threaten the families of these young and middle aged men most of whom just want to be left alone to tend to making a living and caring for their families. ISIS does not care if they are fathers raising a family with young children as they are true warriors for the faith and because their cause is pure, they themselves are pure as are their acts, thus their cause is righteous. This makes their courts just, their drafting of all able-bodied men of fighting age, willingly or not, righteous, their taking of supplies such as food, even if it deprives the people of proper means, is just and all they do and how they go about performing their actions are righteous. Their being holy warriors make anybody opposing their cause or placing themselves contrary to their demands acts of blasphemy. This is why they have been holding public executions and quick trials followed by swift execution of their judgement and the sentence. ISIS has been proving to be a force on the ground with which to contend. Should they ever manage to procure an air force of any size and with even the barest minimum of competence, then ISIS will have the potential to have become at the least an entity possessing the barest minimum for being a nation in the Middle East, at least as a replacement in some ways for Syria.

 

What will add significantly to the range and broaden the abilities of ISIS would be their gaining the backing of al-Qaeda, something they appear to have been doing piecemeal thus far as one former entity which had sworn their fealty to al-Qaeda are now switching and swearing fealty to ISIS such as Boko Haram. The recent threats made by ISIS may end up spelling their demise as they may be biting off more than they can chew. Their threats to replace the Arab Palestinian Authority actually make complete sense as they are two opposing sides of the forces against Israel. Where ISIS are Islamists who follow a strict interpretation of the Quran which defines their form of the Sharia, the Arab Palestinian Authority are secularist, socialist with a small semblance of democratic principles as long as such does not threaten those in the highest places. The Arab Palestinian Authority represent the most vile and far removed form of Islamic governance that one can find, they are oil and water, or more likely pure sodium and water. Hamas, on the other hand, has a very similar charter stand for the same world conquest and placing all of the world’s people under the banner of Sunni Islam by whatever means necessary. As Hamas and Islamic Jihad might have a better than average probability of joining ISIS as a whole entity and thus giving ISIS additional manpower which has already been tested in combat. The statement made by ISIS which could prove their taking on a nut they are unable to crack was their threat to also tackle Israel. The IDF would not need to hold back fighting ISIS as they habitually have been forced into doing with every possible entity watching their every move just waiting to pounce should Israel operate without the strictest of restraints almost requesting permission to return fire when her troops come under fire. The probability that ISIS will open up a new front within its current operating theater would be tactical suicide. Currently ISIS has three fronts, their borders with the Kurdish Peshmerga Militias who are well trained and disciplined holding the northern front in Iraq and the northeastern front in Syria, the Alawites are holed up with their backs against the Mediterranean Sea in the northwest rim of Syria, IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) and the remnants of the Iraqi Army in the south of Iraq and the entirety of their eastern front is the rest of the Iranian armed forces should they push in an eastern and there have been hints dropped this week that President Erdogan has made intonations that Turkey is considering moving down into Syria to scoop up as much of the lands as they are able and that would place another front for ISIS to face off against and of course ISIS has mentioned their desire to take control over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina which would involve a war with Saudi Arabia which would also bring the Egyptians into the fray. ISIS has one service they are providing the world at this stage, they are breaking apart the Iranian crescent by destroying Bashir al-Assad and breaking the direct link from Tehran through Baghdad on through Damascus and through to Beirut or Latakia, Baniyas, Sidon, Tartus, or Tyre and then out into the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. ISIS is a horrific and barbaric entity on the order of something like a Saddam Hussein who gassed thousands of his own countrymen. Saddam Hussein rivaled Hafez al-Assad, the man who had murdered more Syrian people than any enemy until his son, Bashir al-Assad, became what appears to be the last president who may have set the bar to such a height for percentage of one’s nation either murdered, rendered without shelter, made into refugees, fled the nation or been imprisoned or simply disappeared without a trace. For the sake of the Western World it would be to their advantage for ISIS to engage fully with Iran preventing them the peaceful times which would allow them to pursue their nuclear weapons program to its completion including the ICBM missiles which could easily reach anywhere on earth. Maybe it is the fate of ISIS to foil the plans and progresses of the Iranians as United States President evidently will not go so. So, once again we find that silver lining within one of our darkest of clouds. Still, how long will we live with a world where we have to rely on scoundrels to do the work of an elected charlatan?

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

How to Kill the Next Flotilla

 

We reported earlier this week in our article How Does Europe Define NGO in Israel and More? where we examined the funding for much of the costs of the ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ being funded largely through a French NGO using funding provided by the government of France. We had mentioned how so many European NGOs are more government agencies than non-governmental agencies and there are even a fair number of Israeli NGOs financed by funds from European nations and the European Union, some directly and some through other go-between NGOs, levels of separation and deniability. The ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ should be reaching Israel after they drum up enough media coverage stopping at port after port all across the southern ports of Europe along the Mediterranean Sea. Some of those on the flotilla are paid instigators which must be rough duty to sail around the Mediterranean between ports watching those chosen to be the most telegenic and sympathetic looking and sounding giving interviews to an eager press giving coverage about the plight their supplies will alleviate. If only that were true. The provisions on former flotillas consisted of spoiled food stuffs and outdated medical provisions which were not even bothered to be picked up after being transferred across the border into Gaza the day after being unloaded at an Israeli port.

 

The one question I have heard that got me to thinking (yes, I actually do think at times) was why Israel would go to such extremes to prevent a flotilla from reaching Gaza if it was known they normally did not carry any contraband such as weapons, explosives or dual use materials? Great question was my reaction and I attempted to point out that once you make one exception and then that blockade is breached, then the entire reason for the blockade can be challenged in the international courts which might lead to the blockade being determined to no longer be required and then Iran and others could ship any and all weapons into Gaza making their next war with Israel far more dangerous. Still, what if Israel began their own news blitz and each time the flotilla spokesperson gives their spiel about the mean Israeli blockade and how they are carrying only humanitarian supplies and still the Israelis are likely to answer their purely good intentions with excessive violence. Of course they will leave out the part about their having specialists who will instigate the confrontation with violent attacks on the Israeli units in attempts to throw them overboard, kidnap one or two and injure or otherwise prevent any diversion of the ship hoping to either get pictures of IDF violence or forcing the final and last ditch measure of sinking one of the vessels. The person who asked why not allow the flotilla pass is a dangerous precedent as this would permit for Israel to be relying that some other nation making a determination that there is no contraband (contraband includes weapons, explosives, certain fertilizers, and numerous dual use items some of which are less obvious than others) aboard replacing Israel actually checking themselves and also the potential for contraband to be transferred at sea after any inspection thus defeating the blockade through simple deceit. Still, there might be a way of prolonging the gamesmanship of this flotilla and use it to Israel’s advantage. Make it known that if the flotilla were to get their cargo inspected by three nations certifying their cargo, any three stops they desire, and add one last inspection made by Egyptian military authorities at the port of Alexandria and then come straight to Gaza once cleared by the Egyptian military, they would be given free escorted entry to Gaza. Israel should then arrange for the Egyptians to escort the flotilla to their maritime border where an Israeli naval vessel to escort and assure that no other transfers are made at sea and then allow them to continue unhindered further to Gaza port. The Israelis should encourage media live television coverage of the arrival and unloading of the flotilla ships if they can spirit up any actual media excitement for such a momentous occasion. Whether there will be live coverage or not, Israel should place a few drones at high enough altitude to make them difficult to see and beyond any possible audible detection with sufficiently capable to televise the unloading live even using night vision technology if the unload is done at night. When the flotilla arrives and Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their other friends refuse to unload the flotilla and simply send them back from whence they came, then the world will see the falsehood of the flotilla racket and hopefully such shame will end the flotilla farce once and for all.

 

I can hear the sceptics with their claims that such bad media won’t prevent the next flotilla as they will simply keep coming and refusing to allow anybody, especially the Egyptians from inspecting their cargos. The main part of the plan is the Egyptian inspection using the Egyptian military overseen by officers picked by President Sisi for their honor and dedication to the new government and the desires of the President and who will do a thorough inspection as they have no love lost for Hamas and friends thus Israel can reliably expect the Egyptians to perform the cargo inspections. The demand for three European nations to perform some kind and unspecified inspection will be to provide evidence should the Egyptians find contraband that the Europeans either missed or intentionally overlooked, then the Europeans will share in any disgrace. This could lead to another manner of checking shipments headed for Gaza but sufficiently onerous demanding three inspections in different nation’s ports and then for the final and most important inspection at Alexandria by the Egyptian military. This may sound like a ponderous set of demands but one must remember that there is another alternative of docking and unloading at an Israeli port and permitting an Israeli inspection and then their delivering your approved goods as quickly as possible by overland in the earliest available trucks as part of the many tens of tractor-trailer loads delivered daily with food, medical and other non-military provisions each day except the Sabbath. Each delivery should be given this choice to every ship intending to make a delivery to Gaza and let them know that after the Egyptian inspection clears their deliveries then they must be escorted to international waters by an Egyptian military vessel which will turn the ship over to Israeli escort to the maritime border of Gaza from which they are on their own. This should be a fair alternative and those who wish to take advantage of such an offer may find some surprises should they also believe that they could get some contraband past the Israelis by using the alternative method. Even the Europeans would be inclined to make an honest inspection should they ever, intentionally or through error or misunderstanding of definitions for contraband, something Israel would be glad to provide a list to any nation requesting such, permit things to pass which they know should be prevented to pass once they have been disgraced when the Egyptians find the contraband and alert the Israelis while confiscating the contraband turning it over to the Israelis when they pass the now inspected cargo without the contraband to continue on to Gaza. There is no reason Israel should be forced to appear brutish when they can offer an alternative to docking in an Israel port so they might be able to take wonderful and generously offered alternative method by which they would be granted full permission to dock at Gaza and even take all the celebratory pictures and videos with their friends in Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the people of Gaza.

 

Israel has no real desire to add to the suffering for the citizens of Gaza. The proof is that the Israelis removed every last Israeli from Gaza on August of 2005 while even took the trouble of exhuming the graves of every Jew and moved them to a new location to keep their graves from being desecrated by any Palestinians desire to act on their vengeful hatreds and bulldozed the synagogue building after removing every last religious items so as to prevent its desecration. Then all of Gaza, every last millimeter was given to the Arab Palestinian Authority who lost their control over Gaza in the Fatah and Hamas with Islamic Jihad in the civil war for the control of Gaza which had been building in intensity but exploded into its final violence filled conflagration from June 10, 2007 to June 15, 2007 setting up the situation of steady rising of violence out of Gaza largely firing rockets on Israel targeting almost exclusively Israeli civilians and other provocations. Now Israel has all of that to thank for the flotillas testing their resolve but perhaps the time has come to use brains over brawn, intelligence as resolve and finally using the flotilla be the ones choosing which venue they prefer. If they choose to force a confrontation with Israel rather than receive merely four inspections with three from potentially friendly European co-conspirators plus an inspection from the Arab state of Egypt and after passing these small requirements then they preferred to force a confrontation, not Israel. By forcing Israel to divert them to an Israeli port instead of, what Israel in their magnanimity had offered to the flotilla coordinators, financiers, political activists and other members and crews, to have inspections at three of their European ports of call plus have them make their next to the last port call in Alexandria for an Egyptian Military run inspection permitting them to achieve direct access to the Port in Gaza. The monies of their arrival at the Gaza City port should prove interesting as will any unloading of goods from flotilla ships which have little or no cargo. The light of truth can be a wonderful light to use to reveal the reality of such farcical attempts to put the IDF, and in turn all Israel, in the worst light possible and refusing to circumvent the unfair Israeli inspections and instead take an alternative method of inspection where the first three are of their choice and one of Israeli origin. Simply offer an alternative and then allow nature and absurdity take their selected path.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

How Does Europe Define NGO in Israel and More?

 

Most people read news about some NGO making some claims or making accusations and their ears perk up and they assign extra special veracity to the words that follow the announcement that such-n-such groups, an NGO, claims that… No matter what nation the NGO calls home, the NGO is considered to be independent of any political bend and especially free of the foreign policy interests of any government because NGO stands for Non-Governmental-Organization. But perhaps this is not as pure as we have been led to believe as there are numerous NGOs which it turns out are paid agents for European nations and are used as the new twenty-first-century pirates who are sent on NGO raids of other nations seeking to find or provoke a situation which can be utilized to slander another nation, and if they can hit NGO pirating gold, perhaps even something presentable to an international court or be brought for one of those oh-so political lynching before the United Nations General Assembly where condemnations are all but automatic on any charges against certain “always guilty nations” or perhaps the United Nations Human Rights Council or, even better for elevating the paying nation’s international prestige, the charges can be filed by their NGO in their highest tribunal which has already applied to and received by the United Nations to hear and adjudicate human rights and war crimes charges and the whole cycle has come home and returned on their investment.

 

The obvious target of all the available culprits where presumed human rights are abused and there is no real, fair, just and uncorrupted judiciary where minorities are regularly seized out of their homes and executed after the briefest of trials and religious apartheid exists with factions in open warfare and every other conceivable injustice occurs daily deserving the targeting of the vast resources of the European governments both individually and through their combined financial resources funneled through the European Union in the Middle East, Africa or any other political hot spot is not Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, not North Korea and not even al-Qaeda, Hamas, ISIS, Hezballah, Boko Haram, Islamic Jihad or other terrorist entity; it is, let’s all say this together, Israel. The hot issue this week whose organizers deserved receiving roughly half a million euros from French government aid was Plateforme des ONG Françaises pour la Palestine (Platform of French NGOs for Palestine) efforts to break the internationally sanctioned and legal naval blockade of Gaza under the ever so original name of ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ which is expected to arrive any time this week. Never mind that Gaza receives every ounce of legal aid and even is permitted dual use building material of which it has been estimated that possibly a significant amount well exceeding half of the cements and other materials are confiscated by Hamas for their use in building infiltration tunnels with which to attack and murder Israelis and kidnap others to hold for ransom crossing a legally recognized border committing breaches and activities aimed at civilians all of which are acts of war. If the real reason of the ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ was to get desperately needed supplies to the people in Gaza, who admittedly could use building materials which would actually go to rebuilding their homes, stores and other damaged infrastructure resulting from repeated acts of war on the part of their existing governance of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist entities firing rockets, missiles and mortars upon Israeli civilians even to include striking Israel’s two largest metropolitan areas of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv requiring a military response to prevent further breaches of the peace, all that is required is for the aid to be delivered to any Israeli sea port where it would be inspected and all nonmilitary aid would be delivered within the following two to three days overland on any of the several tons of food, medical supplies, building materials and other approved aid withholding only those items deemed to be of a military nature and legally removed from any shipment.

 

It is almost needless to point out that these flotillas are not about getting supplies to the people of Gaza as was proven by the infamous Mavi Marmara flotilla where the lead ship attempted to run the blockade in order to ambush any IDF units used to intercept them and then be able to take film and still pictures with which to smear Israeli efforts requiring excessive violence on ‘innocent aid workers and human rights activists’ and then file them to be plastered on page one of every newspaper and film at the beginning of every news broadcast across the Western World thus presenting what the desire to claim are the brutalities committed by the Israeli military in the name of the government. These attempts by terrorists to instigate a fight and have the IDF inflict what would be presented as unnecessary violence went awry when the Israelis also arrived with cameras and shot the entire interdiction to show the world the edited out assaults initiating the actions which landed a number of both IDF and instigators in the hospital and resulted in nine terrorists who had assaulted the IDF soldiers using knives, pipes, bats and eventually small arms fire which immediately escalated the incident into an international incident where eventually the evidence from all sides was aired and the world was left to judge for themselves. Every single internationally sanctioned and recognized neutral investigations found fault on both sides but laid the blame for initiating the violence fell on the terrorist elements eventually identified as belong to IHH who boarded the ship at an unofficial stop subsequent to the filmed set-off in Turkey.

 

This newest effort is sailing the Mediterranean Sea and is anticipated to reach Israel once these participants have soaked up sufficient sun, fun and news cycles to fully show off the representatives of Human Rights NGOs, dignitaries, recognized public figures and the seemingly required member of the Israeli Knesset for that extra pinch of presumed righteousness, then they will head for Gaza to present their ‘aid for the starving masses and for rebuilding the destruction from last year’s conflict with Israel. Most of the ships making up the ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ will obey the instructions by the Israeli patrol boats and divert to drop off aid goods at Ashod, Haifa, Tel Aviv or whichever port has been prepared to receive and process the goods as rapidly as humanly possible. If form holds true, the aid packages will include food that has not been properly refrigerated or kept dry making it almost entirely unusable and medical supplies past their usable date but Israel will transfer it into Gaza where Hamas and the governing entities will simply leave it until it has to be disposed of before these useless supplies become a health hazard. That is exactly what became of the aid from the previous ‘Freedom Flotillas’ and their showcase deliveries. To be honest, most Israelis do not wish for a fight and would be more than happy if the aid actually was received by the Gazan people and any useful provisions are a benefit to them and Israel has even liberalized their permissible aid to include the very cement, rebar, wood, sheets of aluminum and other building supplies with which Hamas, Islamic Jihad et al are rebuilding the destroyed infiltration tunnels making improvements and enlarging them as well as digging new, deeper and longer ones which will have added rails for electric rail carts to get the raiding parties to the far end ready and still rested for their assaults in southern Israel and potentially beyond, just as the captured plans described when the tunnels were found and destroyed during Operation Protective Edge last summer.

 

The assault the Israelis spoiled when they found the tunnels during the ground operations included and had in place awaiting implementation of the plans during the Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were motorcycles, manufactured IDF uniforms complete with patches and all identifying insignia, maps, weapons, ammunition, handcuffs, rope, drugs, syringes and supplies to outfit hundreds if not over a thousand infiltrators who could have committed mass murders and mass kidnappings mostly, as the plans indicated, from the neighboring towns and kibbutzim and even raid into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem which were to be carried out in much the same manner as the Mumbai, India assault where ten Pakistani terrorists landed near the Gateway to India Monument equipped with plastic explosives, grenades, hand guns, machine guns and other tools carrying out the worst and most lethal terrorist action in Indian history. The viciousness of the assault was exemplified by the horrific attack in the Chabad ‘Nariman House’ and the raid on the two of the main train stations and the international hotels as the terrorists continued murdering everybody they could on route to their eventual targets. The November 26, 2008 attack lasted four horrific and trying days before all the terrorists were killed with one, Ajmal Kasab, being captured and questioned by the Indian authorities seeking information on why one-hundred-seventy-nine people were killed and more than three-hundred were wounded . The estimated numbers who could have been murdered in a similar assault on Israel during the High Holidays with assaults planned to begin across the entirety of Israel coordinated for simultaneous explosions followed by the other operations including plans to assault numerous local synagogues and the main and largest synagogues in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere included numbers so shocking as to be beyond belief and the confusion which could be entered into the equations with terrorists dressed as IDF soldiers giving spurious orders to a frightened public funneling them to set up terrorist locations where the people were likely to be murdered or taken hostage to be used in later negotiations which were unlikely to end with any acceptable results.

 

The ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ will most likely be using a similar modus operandi of the previous ‘Freedom Flotillas’ where a single selected ship staffed with instigators and terrorists who will be attempting to force a confrontation which can be filmed to be edited later to show the violence perpetrated on innocent individuals by presumed sadistic IDF Jews against simply human rights advocates which included women and other identifiable representatives of peace organizations who have volunteered to stand on the periphery in the hopes of being mistaken for one of those attacking the IDF and receive rough treatment. What these Flotilla planners are counting on is that the Israelis will attempt to use the minimalist amount of force required to divert the ship or ships attempting to break through the naval blockade which, may we remind all, has been investigated by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC) and passed muster as being a legal and properly applied blockade meeting or exceeding all the requirements of such an operation. These reviews noted that all legal aid is delivered in a timely manner and in as pristine a condition as it arrived after an efficient and speedy inspection for contraband such as arms as certain dual use materials such as those used for the production of explosives, weapons, ammunition, other munitions, rockets and the fuel to launch them and other recognized illegal substances. The rules under international law on enforcement of a recognized blockade is to attempt to intercede with the least necessary force to persuade the ship’s captain to divert and dock at an assigned port for inspection and offloading of aid which will be delivered afterwards and the use of force may escalate as the orders are ignored and efforts continue to cross the blockade line. There is no actual requirement for the enforcing forces, be they ships, aircraft or other units to actually attempt to board the offending ship to take control and sail it to an approved port. Should a ship persist in attempts to cross a blockaded port and pose a threat of breaking the enforcement it becomes legal to simply shoot the ship out of the water by any and all means as the enforcing fleet and military power at the scene, if that is perceived as the least dangerous alternative for their personnel. The enforcement rules under international law allow for the sinking of the offending vessel and do not require less destructive measures. A good example of the amount of force permissible by a legally blockading nation would be a study of the Cuban Missile Crisis where United States President Kennedy had given orders for any Russian vessel crossing the blockading ships were to be fired upon and sunk. The United States blockading forces included numerous destroyers, cruisers, aircraft and the vessels which came the closest to actually firing on the Russian lead ship had she not turned away with little room left before action was taken, a nice way as saying actions were imminent, were two attack submarines which already had entered their firing sequence into the ships attack computers and I believe one had even loaded and flooded their tubes in preparation to fire. It may have been the sonar reporting of such act which convinced the Russian captain to divert his ship and not continue his confrontation. That was amongst the closest the Cold War adversaries faced off which could have had dire and vastly different consequences. The ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ personnel, planners and ship captains have probably studied the previous attempts to break the blockade and are counting on Israel to interdict by placing her troops in harm’s way if that is what becomes necessary to prevent the blockade from being transgressed. There is also the option to demand a cursory check of the goods and if found not to contain anything banned to allow the ship to proceed to a port in Gaza. The difficulty there is the requirement for boarding once again, always a dangerous process where the boarding party are the force most vulnerable which was made exceedingly evident during the Mavi Marmara confrontation.

 

The backing of the ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ by the French government using one of their nationally supported and funded NGOs is indicative of a problem which Israel had some serious problems and is where any discussion about this situation of European governments, amongst others, directly or indirectly through NGOs whose main purpose is a form of money laundering where they receive funding directly from governments who may even have requested the funding be funneled directly to another NGO where the initial recipient of the funds uses a percentage or set handling fee to pay for their services and then they pass the funds along wither through another middle NGO or directly to the intended NGO all pending the amount of separation desired by the donating government where they pay for each level of separation. Where this system is sufficiently deceitful and underhanded manner for a government to mount subversive efforts to undermine the independence or functioning of another government they wish to target through using NGOs which are officially registered with the originating government, in Israel there is a second and far more sinister route being used, the support and funding, largely through the NGO the New Israel Fund (NIF) which in turn doles the funds for different activities and functioning of other NGOs operating within Israel. The devious part is that these majority or even completely foreign funded NGOs, some by outside individuals and others by the European Union or European governments as well as Arab and Muslim governments are registered as Israeli NGOs despite their almost entirely foreign funding sources. The Israel Parliament, the Knesset, has passed a series of bills to attempt to address this situation. These legislations have included such requirements that any NGO receiving a majority of their funding from outside Israel be required to register as a foreign NGO which would eliminate some of the tax exemptions, the requirement for all NGOs to report all foreign funding including funds from other NGOs which receive the majority of their funding from outside Israel, an attempt to make foreign funds granted to NGOs to taxation and a number of other requirements many of which the very nations funding these ‘Israeli’ NGOs themselves have enacted which would even go so far as to exile any NGO from their registry forcing them to register under the nation or one of the nations paying their funding requirements which, needless to point to, prevents Israel from returning the favor in kind by subverting NGOs operating in Europe under European registry. Every one of these legislations have been denounced by people on the left of the political scale as the NGOs most likely to be affected are the most liberal and often anti-Israel NGOs that operate as Israeli NGOs. These protestations have caused each of these laws to be nullified by the Israeli Supreme Court often claiming that they are discriminatory despite their being applicable to all NGOs operating in Israel and specifically to those registering as being Israeli NGOs operating licensed by the Israeli governing body which oversees NGOs, an overseeing body which has been hampered from taking any actions against these anti-Israel, anti-Zionist NGOs who perform the bidding of their paymasters from outside Israel still enjoying the apparent approval of the Israeli government. The actions of the Israel Supreme Court are not surprising as they have performed the actions of a blocking stone placed around the neck of every piece of legislation passed by the Knesset which the Supreme Court has set themselves up as an override proof veto machine and nowhere have they been more active than against nationalist and Zionist interests such as the problem with the foreign funded anti-Israel NGOs and also another major problem, the repatriation of illegal immigrants to their home nation even to include those that the United Nations and European Union have registered as facing no oppressions or even arrest and trial should they be returned to their nation of origin. The infiltrator problem, what the illegal immigrants have been named, has caused widespread lawlessness for many neighborhoods in southern Tel Aviv and other less well-off neighborhoods. When efforts have been made to expand the territory being invaded and potentially inflicted with this problem the wealthier neighborhoods have no difficulty in receiving law enforcement fast and expediently.

 

There was one effort which many found amusing as a member of the Knesset brought a number of these illegal immigrant families to enjoy some recreation at one of the public swimming pools in a wealthier Tel Aviv neighborhood. The people monitoring who were allowed to enter this ‘public swimming pool and recreation area’ made every effort to prevent the entry of these ‘other outsiders’ but were eventually forced to permit their entry. Within minutes of their entering this public area the most affluent found the atmosphere so threatened that they made a hasty retreat before being put in a position of sharing their environs with those such as these people who had been unfairly thrust into their formerly perceived protected public area. Such grandstanding only succeeded in making some ripples in the news over the ensuing week and then everything returned to normal and the criminal elements were still ignored and the residents of the afflicted neighborhoods almost require escort just to do their grocery shopping and going out after sunset is unthinkable, such is the reality the Supreme Court is forcing on these unfortunate people who have sufficient problems just making ends meet and who deserve better security in their neighborhoods but even law enforcement has been timid in imposing the law in such neighborhoods as they cannot be on every street corner, or so we have been informed.

 

Reform is going to be required on many fronts but Israel is a young nation still ironing out some of her deficiencies and rough spots. Israel is still on their first republic unlike some in Europe who have worked their way through five republics within their last two to three centuries or had coups which led to consequences for the entirety of Europe and beyond. For a relative newcomer to the world’s stage and facing probably one of the roughest of neighborhoods to make their debut and against all odds she remains standing and not about to throw in the towel no matter how many NGOs of foreign funding antagonize her soldiers and protest her duly elected government attempting to use bullying tactics as described in such playbooks as Rules for Radicals, the Communist Manifesto, Che Guevara’s A Revolutionary Life and many others. Books not read or not considered enlightened enough include the worldviews from Hobbes, John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, Immanuel Kant, George Berkeley, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, Montesquieu with his separation of powers concept, and even Gulliver’s Travels author Jonathan Swift. The ‘Age of Reason’ which was also known as the Enlightenment brought a whole new manner of government where the common man was respected and was a capable individual who had learned much from the greatest of all teachers, the hardships and challenges of everyday survival from which we get this well-known phrase thanks to Friedrich Nietzsche (and an aside to Conan for making it known by the masses), “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” Let us hope that the ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ and all the incidents she may cause in the coming days only make us, all of us, stronger.

 

That is the one thing which I believe makes much of the world angered by Israel and turned to scorn and ridicule her is that as the Jewish State, Israel attempts to be better in their treatment and assistance to others, to honestly make a difference where it counts in the world and make it a better place by the actions of each and every individual Israeli. If Israel is capable of lifting up souls one at a time, then that is what she will endeavor to accomplish. Israel has a soul and a heart and these fill her with hope over fate, light over darkness, helping over pitying. This is evident in Israeli assistance to those suffering from a natural disaster such as was in Haiti, the Philippines, Japan and recently Nepal. Many Nepalese were perplexed by the Israeli response both to their needs and to locating every single Israeli known to be in Nepal. They noted we sent search and rescue along with medical teams to places even the Nepalese government does not visit. Israel continued the search even when there was but one Israeli not yet accounted for and then refused to leave after hearing of his death but instead mounted an expedition to locate, retrieve and bring his body home to be interred where his loved ones could know he rested, his mortality rested. It did not escape the Nepalese people that there were nations with hundreds and even thousands of people in Nepal who sent nobody to assist their own people, let alone the people of Nepal yet Israel tracked down and located every Israeli including the retrieval of the one fatality’s body and aided the people of Nepal remaining even after every Israeli had been accounted for; remaining plus sending a second team to relieve the initial assistance sent in order to provide until the emergency had ended and Nepal was as healthy and back on her feet as possible after such a disaster. Israel had the first operating fully equipped and staffed hospital in Haiti, built and equipped a clinic in a remote village where no such care was available and trained the villagers how to use the most useful equipment and eventually left the clinic and equipment in place and had even interested some medical personnel including some physicians to set up practices in the clinic. Israel had the most wonderful and beautiful of programs I have ever encountered anywhere with their Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) which is a non-profit organization based in Israel but reaching out to the world wherever there is a need leading to their being known worldwide for their commitment to saving lives by improving the quality of cardiac care for children from developing countries and creating centers of medical competence in these countries. They not only help finance and build departments in hospitals and entire hospitals where none exist and train the physicians in cardiac care for children leaving behind a self-sufficient group who is fully capable of providing the care to the people locally. Until such care is available locally they fly children from all nations, and they mean all nations even if to have that child cared for in Israel but the government does not recognize or particularly like Israel, they fly the family to a neutral nation and then to Israel without stamping their passport, provide the cardiac care and recovery and return them through the same neutral nation all because life is precious. You want a one phrase for Israel, try every single life matters. That is the basis for so much Israel does even in ways that are difficult to explain, but rest assured that all life is precious is still included in what Israel does and it shows quietly in her actions.

 

Beyond the Cusp