Should ISIS Replace Hamas in Gaza; So What?

 

There has been a news story running around loose that ISIS is causing ripples of violence and is intending to replace Hamas as the governing body in Gaza. Should this actually come to pass, what difference it would make has not been explained in the stories I have seen and I am pretty sure I know why, the truth would be too revealing. The other reason this story has had the emphasis given it is so that the world will see such an event as something horrific and of causing a sea of change probably for the worse. This is true only if your name happens to be Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal of Hamas or Ramadan Shalah and Abd Al Aziz Awda of Islamic Jihad and potentially some of the other top echelon commanders such as Hamas Military Commander Muhammad Deif. The terrorist members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been complimented by the lead members of ISIS in Gaza as far back as last summer’s Operation Protective Edge though you would be hard pressed to find many, if any, news stories mentioning such, especially outside of Israel. Even within the Israeli media the subject was barely ever breached for reasons that escape me for their logic. The most news that mentioned Hamas and ISIS in the same breath was those quoting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and a few other Israeli politicians and top security officers in the IDF and Shin Bet who were making the point publically that there was really no discernible difference between Hamas and ISIS despite what the world media cared to report. The actual discernible difference should both Hamas and Islamic Jihad along with the remaining Fatah and Palestinian Authority individuals all be supplanted by ISIS would be that Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal of Hamas as well as Ramadan Shalah and Abd Al Aziz Awda of Islamic Jihad and perhaps some of the secondary commanders who were seen as not sufficiently bold in their efforts against Israel as that would be the level of the majority of the change. I am fairly sure that the topmost leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, al-Qaeda of Gaza and any other top commanders who have been getting excessively wealthy usurping funds off the top for personal gain, better known as greed, then you have something to fear as such activities are not pure and will deserve punishment by the leaders of ISIS. The top people with the most profit from their positions such as the billionaires of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal who are both worth many billions of dollars, will simply be spending a lot more time at their mansions in Qatar and as time passes less and less time anywhere near Gaza, Mashal has not visited Gaza except for that occasional photo-op just to validate his credentials and to raise morale amongst the troops. The main loss to these leaders is that the gravy train will stop running and they will just have to suffer a serious financial setback and need to spend very carefully such that they do not spend through their billions of dollars too quickly.

 

In Gaza the difference will be minimal until ISIS has attained what they consider a critical mass such that they have the troops and equipment in place and everything ready for their assault on Israel. They will tell their forces that the day when the Zionist entity will pay dearly and no longer be in possession of the stolen Muslim lands and their fellow Muslims who are pure in their practice and intentions will finally celebrate their victory over the much hated enemies of Allah. Needless to point out but if you happen to be an Arab, Muslim or not, resident in Israel and ISIS were to even temporarily for some few hours gain control of your area of residence then you would be best served to be elsewhere during that period as any Israel Arab, especially the Muslims, will be treated according to Quranic texts and their most violent and strictest of interpretations. This means that those who are followers of Islam will have to explain to deaf ears why they had not risen up and destroyed Israel from the inside and were instead living so peaceably with the Jews. After said testimony, which will be interpreted to be more of a confession of guilt, these Muslims will be declared apostate and appropriately murdered, most likely burned alive as has been the lot for the Shia captured by ISIS. The best off will be the Arab Christians who will be permitted to live after paying the Jiyza, the tax especially levied against Christians and other non-Muslims under which their Muslim leadership will protect them until the next payment comes due, but be warned that sooner rather than later you will either not have the funds to pay the Jiyza or will be given the final choice between adopting Islam or death, and conversion will not necessarily save you as your forced conversion may be determined not to have been spiritually uplifting and you would then meet the fate of an apostate, burned alive.

 

After Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the rest of the terrorist forces in Gaza would necessarily come under the control of ISIS the sea change would barely be more noticeable than a ripple added to the surf pounding the coast; simply put it would produce negligible change. The changes would mostly be cosmetic as while the production of rockets would be increased with the rockets being stored for intense use in support of the eventual ISIS assault to eliminate Israel and liberate the stolen lands which they as the next Caliphate should rule over all the lands that were ever under Islamic rule and that includes all of Israel. The reality would likely be very different as ISIS has a much larger and more important foe than Israel which has been under attack for some time using Gaza as a safe haven and supply depot. The other dirty little secret that the news media have not reported about is that ISIS presence in Gaza is mostly to operate as their liaison with Hamas who manage the supplies and provisions so as to have ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula provided with the appropriate weaponry and ammunition for their attacks on Egyptian forces as their intent is to be able to take possession of sufficient amounts, all or the vast majority, of the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula and have successfully pushed all Egyptian forces from the field of battle and be capable of announcing their great victory and spread into the Sinai Peninsula and declared it as a part of the Islamic State being founded by ISIS. Such an accomplishment would necessarily demand an Egyptian counter-offensive to retake control over the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula using solely Egyptian forces so as not to need Israeli assistance of any note as such would arm ISIS with a propaganda battering-ram with which to unseat President Sisi and the Egyptian government and replace such rule over all of Egypt claiming it for the Islamic State’s Caliphate, just another jewel in their turban and another loss for the Arab Muslims desiring peace under which they can continue their lives.

 

Once ISIS has managed to wrest the Sinai Peninsula from Egyptian control, then ISIS would turn their attention on capturing Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt and then annex the remainder of the country setting to purify the Egyptian population by testing the people on their levels of devotion and knowledge of the Quran and Muslim Law, the Sharia. Should ISIS have the capability of defeating the Egyptian military, not only would such a victory be impressive adding greatly to their reputation, it would serve as another reason proving they are in fact and deed the Caliphate they have declared themselves to be and thus would attract even larger numbers of disenfranchised youth from Western nations as well as across the Muslim world. Such a victory would make any plans to defeat ISIS close to impossible, especially utilizing solely the Iranian forces, even were there to be provided airstrikes as required in support of ground operations to defeat ISIS or seemingly to stop their incremental advances creeping across the landscape. Such a gain would also connect ISIS forces in Libya to the rest of ISIS as well as placing ISIS that much closer to uniting with Boko Haram in western Africa and based in Nigeria. Adding the weapons systems and fighter aircraft to the ISIS arsenals would also be augmented by providing safe zones in which ISIS could train their own pilots providing them with a force multiplier, air support and bombing targets in order to soften them for the ensuing ground assault, something carried out currently by suicide bombers. Such gains made by ISIS would pose a direct threat to the entirety of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and place increased fears in Europe, particularly the southern nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea. One might suspect that such gains and the accompanying threats would provide sufficient threats that the United States would act in a more forceful manner beyond limited airstrikes, but it is our conjecture that until, at the earliest, mid-January 2017 the world can pretty much rule out any increase in their commitment than to provide minimal air support of a few sorties on an active day. One reason that President Obama would not escalate the situation with ISIS would be due to any expansion westwards across northern Africa poses no imminent threat to Iran. In such a case, western movement would take the focus off Iran allowing them to better prepare for their inevitable conflict with ISIS for as long as ISIS exists, the Shia Muslims will not be safe anymore than Jews, Christians and others who do not bow to Allah.

 

The current efforts by ISIS are bringing more forces to bear in the Sinai Peninsula and it appears they will simply be cementing their gains in Iraq for the time being while continuing their efforts in Syria while striking in the Sinai in an effort to overwhelm the Egyptian forces currently holding the area. This is a natural fit for ISIS to open its next expansion as they already have a resupply base where they are able to keep supplies safely and a place they can hide away from the warfront retreating and enjoying relative peace in which to lick their wounds and plan for their next strike. The ISIS strategy is to strike hard with as many forces across as many fronts of the area of operations causing confusion and high casualty counts on their enemy attempting to overrun their checkpoints and other positions. This is the first time ISIS is fighting a national armed forces as until now they were fighting the remnants of a the Syrian Army and militias such as the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and the Sunni and Shia militias in Iraq and some of Iranian IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) forces which have continued to hold Baghdad and stymying further advances. This has forced ISIS to open a new front from which to make headway and continue to project their strong horse imagery and their invincible forces. Their raid this week assaulted multiple targets striking checkpoints and guard positions across the Sinai Peninsula. These strikes met with varying levels of defense but by the end of the day the Egyptian army had regrouped and pushed ISIS from all the positions they had taken earlier in the day. This was accomplished using assets wisely. The coordinated fight was conducted using forces including the Egyptian Air Force, armored units and those ground forces already deployed in the Sinai Peninsula. ISIS actually brought supplies out of Gaza prompting one Egyptian military leader to breach the subject of Gaza claiming that Egypt held the option of their forces going into Gaza and striking hard at any opposition units that may be; including Hamas, Islamic Jihad or other terror forces they find in Gaza. Initial results have shown that ISIS can push the Egyptian forces from their positions but they have thus far been unable to retain the grounds gained and are forced back into hiding. This may prove to be a war of attrition which would favor ISIS as they are gaining strength as the Western Powers, particularly the United States, appear reticent as they refuse to commit ground troops and actually fight against ISIS. Their anxiousness might be due to their having a plan for one great rout of the United States forces reminiscent of the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam. What that taught the leaders who have studied the History of the United States, particularly their innovative abilities to adapt to their situation and implement strategic options changing their tactics and adopting new and innovative tactics to fit that situation but that as long as the enemy can claim a victory and have produced large numbers of casualties that the media will reside with the isolationist reporting the offensive as have created a new and perilous situation where the forces fighting the United States are described as valiant while the United States military are cast as murderous and treacherous and any other derogatory terms and cast as losing the war or at best not winning. Once the American public has been bombarded with such news reports they demand the troops be brought home and from that point forward the United States has lost and their enemies need only keep up a modicum of effort as a constant reminder and to continue the nightly body count at the opening of every newscast. This was what defeated the United States in Viet Nan, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq once already and the one strength the terror forces have is they have nowhere to run to so they will fight to the last man, woman and child. That sort of determination takes an amount of steady and constant levels of ruthlessness in order to not only defeat them in every battle but to break their spirit and prove to them beyond any doubt that their cause is useless and, in this case, Allah does not favor them being deserving of victory and has handed victory to their sworn enemies. The only question is once the coming war begins, will the American people have the stamina and stomach for completing the fight or will they simply first surrender to the coming propaganda and then inevitably face the final surrender, surrendering to Allah and becoming Muslim and all that does entail.

 

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

 

UNHRC Report on Israel Uses Disproportionate Accusations

 

Very few would argue that Israel has friends to spare or even that other nations are publically lining up to declare good and open supportive relations with Israel and if anything, exactly the opposite is the situation. Despite such a guarded prospective being openly displayed, underneath the radar and far from sight there are many nations who willingly cooperate and even work towards similar goals with Israel. Some act simply to protect Israel from those who stand poised to destroy Israel by small steps, by a million cuts or by a single stroke of the sword beheading her as one would a raging monster. There are claims that Israel has designs on ruling the Middle East from the position of a ‘Greater Israel’ which would extend from the Mediterranean Sea to the two rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. They quote the liberation of Judea and Samaria as the initial step where after Jordan joined the war to annihilate Israel in June of 1967 believing the Egyptian and Syria broadcasts of their easy and unstoppable successes and their imminent approach on Tel Aviv from both the northeast and from the south, Israel was forced to divert troops heading to reinforce the efforts in the Sinai Peninsula against Egypt to address the newly opened from Jordan in the east. That diversion made steady advances pausing to pray upon the liberated Western Wall and Temple Mount which brought forth an emotional attachment renewed that overwhelmed these Israelis with the gift of being the ones who liberated the most holy of grounds to all Jews. They subsequently liberated the rest of Judea along with Samaria reforming the proper and legal border with Jordan as the Jordan River. The liberation of Judea and Samaria was not an attempted conquest and was a response to an attack and reclaiming the lands stolen by Jordan during the wars to destroy Israel immediately after her founding in 1948 through early 1949. Even this small patch of land which by treaties and promises are lands which legally are an important and vital part of Israel being once again attempted to subvert and steal through the invention of a nation which claims to have been attacked and overrun by Israel though nobody can find the war or military operations which produced such a result. This is a crucial test of whether the United Nations, European Union, and all the world’s nations and their international agencies, alliances and partnerships will respect their promises to the Jewish Zionists to permit and support their return and rebuilding of their ancestral homelands on a tiny strip of land nestled at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea which measures merely a size about equal to the State of New Jersey, smaller than El Salvador, Belize, Djibouti and even Macedonia. The map shown below depicts the proportional insignificance of the land claimed for the Jewish homelands compared to the lands of nations claiming a Muslim heritage of which a significant number claim to be Islamic States observing Islamic Sharia which specifically defines Muslim Code of Law and concerning all practices, rituals, interactions and obligations for all Muslims to surrender in their devotions to Allah and defining the place of their nation, of Islam and their interactions between them and other nations all included and codified in Sharia.

 

Display of the Muslim Nations of the World in the Middle East, Asia and Northern Africa in Green with Israel depicted in Red

 

This past week Israel was presented with two reports of which only one can be valid as they are diametric opposites. The one which the media has obsessed over was issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council deliberating over the commission of potential war crimes, crimes against humanity, criminal acts under the Geneva Conventions and any actions the committee found to be of particular interest of which disproportional use of force appeared to be their major area of emphasis with a subcategory viewing what can only be described as seeking reasons for the disparity in injured, murdered, rendered homeless and other material damages and the other was a review of the and the steps taken to prevent inflicting or receiving injury of death of civilians and efforts to minimize collateral damage as well as any efforts to use protected structures, numbers of individual noncombatants in attempts to protect military hardware and positioning military sites of importance within civilian structures and targeting parameters. This military review was conducted independently of the United Nations and included eleven high-ranking military officials who visited Israel back in May as part of this High Level International Military Group on a fact-finding mission for reviewing Operation Protective Edge. As reported in an article in Arutz Sheva their conclusions included:

 

“We examined the circumstances that led to the tragic conflict last summer and are in no doubt that this was not a war that Israel wanted,” the report states. “Israel sought to avoid the conflict and exercised great restraint over a period of months before the war when its citizens were targeted by sporadic rocket attacks from Gaza.”

“Once the war had begun, Israel made repeated efforts to terminate the fighting,” it continued. “The war that Israel was eventually compelled to fight against Hamas and other Gaza extremists was a legitimate war, necessary to defend its citizens and its territory against sustained attack from beyond its borders.”

The officials then note that Hamas “deliberately and indiscriminately targeted Israeli civilian population centers” through rocket attacks and digging terror tunnels – both of which they conclude are unequivocally considered as “war crimes.” The officials then note that Hamas “deliberately and indiscriminately targeted Israeli civilian population centers” through rocket attacks and digging terror tunnels – both of which they conclude are unequivocally considered as “war crimes.”

The report then contrasts Hamas’s use of human shields with Israel’s attempts to save lives.

“Hamas launched attacks against Israel from the heart of its own civilian communities in Gaza and positioned its munitions and military forces there also, including in schools, hospitals and mosques,” it says. “As well as carefully documented IDF evidence of this, we have viewed international media footage confirming several cases and are aware of senior Hamas officials’ own claims to have used human shields.”

“A recent report by the UN Secretary General confirmed that in some cases Hamas even used UN facilities for storing munitions and launching attacks.”

“Each of our own armies is of course committed to protecting civilian life during combat,” it continued. “But none of us is aware of any army that takes such extensive measures as did the IDF last summer to protect the lives of the civilian population in such circumstances.”
“Our overall findings are that during Operation Protective Edge last summer, in the air, on the ground and at sea, Israel not only met a reasonable international standard of observance of the laws of armed conflict, but in many cases significantly exceeded that standard,” the report concludes. “We saw clear evidence of this from the upper to the lower levels of command.”

“A measure of the seriousness with which Israel took its moral duties and its responsibilities under the laws of armed conflict is that in some cases Israel’s scrupulous adherence to the laws of war cost Israeli soldiers’ and civilians’ lives.”

 

The report also affirmed the Israeli investigated finding that the ratio of Civilian-to-Military casualty ratio was 1:1, well above the world average of 3:1 and far higher than the ratio set as acceptable targeting. The fact that Israel was able to attain such a low ratio was all the more remarkable when one considers that it was the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist fighters intent carried through with deliberate actions to place rocket launchers, command and control centers, mortar positions, stores of rockets and ammunitions and other war equipment and manned positions in, on or near to civilian centers, private residences, hospitals, schools, health clinics, refugee centers and other protected structures. There was an actual in use UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) health clinic which had been evacuated as the fighting inched closer and when a squad of IDF soldiers entered the building it was detonated. Further inspection of the structure and the manner in which it exploded revealed a number of items of concern. First was that the clinic was also concealing multiple entrances to tunnels in its floors and the second and most condemning find was the placement of the explosives which by all measure were found to have been built into the structure as it was erected in anticipation that it could be detonated at some future point during an operation such as Operation Protective Edge. That trap killed three IDF soldiers and injured others. At this point we would like to request you visit the article titled Gaza, Hamas, Corrected Falsehoods, Frightening Realities written on September 15, 2014 which contains additional information and links plus the original use of the video shown below of a Hamas rocket launcher site being set up directly outside the window of a reporter from India who filmed and documented the entire procedure, something for which he would very likely have had an accident had this come to light while he was still reporting from within Gaza. I do not know for sure if he remained in Gaza, but either way, the man had great integrity, nerves of steel, a steadfast standing for truth and a great heart full of love of life. Below is his video and further reporting at link above.

 

 

One Israeli method to clear a rooftop or building which was being used as a launch site on its roof or from numerous balconies or out of windows of which Israeli drones had detected such fire operations they would first, a few minutes before the actual strike, drop small, very loud, fragment-free, low explosive charges which operate as a large flashbang grenade, called knockers as they were the knock on the ‘proverbial door’ before kicking that ‘door’ in, in order to cause the people to flee the structure before it was struck, something unheard of by these reviewing military officers, something considered completely inconsistent with attempts to maximize even the casualties of the combatants as well an civilians. Such a tactic as well as the radio broadcasts, phone calls, leaflet drops, SMS messages to individual phones and other undisclosed methods for warning the civilian population to leave the area and despite it also gave the combatants to flee still allowing for the destruction of the launchers and depriving them of a preferred and planned firing location. Firing locations which have been preplanned have a tactical advantage in that they are in a set point and the operators have a set of dialable targets where the precise settings for the strike are known while taking up a random or alternate location often either forces the operator to make their best computation (often referred to as best guess) and may also place numerous targets beyond reach, blocked due to locations of larger structures or other obstacles. This is the reason such locations need to be eliminated as otherwise enemy combatants can return and continue to utilize their advantageous locations and the firing data. Also included in this report were the three Israeli teens kidnapped and murdered by Hamas operative in Judea and the ramping up of numbers and increased ranging of rockets which inevitably led to the Israeli response. Also noted was the fact that much of the destruction was restricted to within two miles of the Gaza-Israeli border as this was also the location of the majority of the ground fighting which is far more intense and thus the destructive force increases exponentially to the level of opposition and follows the front lines as each side attempts to clear an area in order to advance in comparative safety.

 

The United Nations report from the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) omitted mention of the three Israeli teens kidnapped and murdered and made only minor mention of increased rocket fire both in numbers and ranges and instead concentrated on a few limited points which can be defined by one simple phrase, disproportional force and results. There was little mention of the protective shield that the Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepted well over ninety percent of the rockets fired into Israel in determining by the systems’ computers and radar tracking information where the rocket, mortar or artillery would strike and even higher percentage shoot down of those projectiles computed to be heading to strike within populated areas. This prevented literally tens of thousands of Israeli casualties a majority of which would likely have been fatalities as the Iron Dome did work to almost one-hundred percent of projectiles heading for central Tel Aviv and its skyscraper towers. The Iron Dome system is the perfect example of the price Israel places on individual lives as each anti-missile-missile costs tens of thousands of Shekels and were used to intercept rockets which at most cost hundreds of dollars to make. The main point made repeatedly by the UNHRC report referred to the casualty numbers and basically posed the identical question which many reporters posed during Operation Defensive Edge, where were the Israeli casualties, the Jewish casualties (one reporter was caught asking the exact question of why were there no Jewish deaths while so many in Gaza were killed). The preoccupation with Israeli casualties has reached ghoulish levels and casts the pale of anti-Semitic origins for such a line of reasoning. The answer was easy to see, Iron Dome and the fact that Israel was not only willing but gladly invested the millions of Shekels and thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of hours and prototypes, testing, writing software code and rewriting when necessary and simply editing (as if editing code is ever simple) and finaly perfecting a system that provided the protection desired, nearly perfect protections and the rest we depended upon the hand of Hashem. The absolute proof was made evident by a multiple miss by an Iron Dome system tasked with protecting Tel Aviv and was tracking a missile headed directly to downtown central Tel Aviv and three intercepts missed before what was insufficient a breeze resulted in the missile being swept aside and out into the Mediterranean Sea where it exploded harmlessly. We covered this report in our article How to Fight Terrorist Fanatics Unless You’re Israel which was published with links on September 26, 2014. Somehow this miraculous incident did not appear in the UNHRC report and also omitted was the purported report that when being asked by a senior Gaza government official (read Hamas commander) how come his rockets were not striking in Israel and killing the Israelis the officer replied, “They keep shooting them down and even when they miss their G0d simply swipes them away harmlessly.”

 

The point driven home by the scant accusations in the document against Hamas are dwarfed to the point of near absence compared to the claims and vile and putrid twisting of the facts in order to convict Israel in the court of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist with potential to classify it as anti-Semitic venomous bile coming from the most base hatreds imaginable. The fact that the initial person selected to be the chair of this investigation was forced to resign because of a proven record of anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist positions and that he was employed by the PLO to render favorable interpretations and provide defense and Jurist William Shabas was replaced with Judge Mary McGowan Davis who was a member of a panel appointed to follow-up on the Goldstone Committee which investigated presumed Israeli infractions in a previous war with Hamas. That report was later revealed for its biases and inaccuracies by the man who sat as the chairman, Judge Richard Goldstone, and who refuted his own report in an article for the Washington Post. One has to believe at some point that the UNHRC has some problems when it comes to all things Israel. One last bit to end on hopefully a slightly brighter note, there was a rumor which I sincerely pray was meant as a joke and not an actual fact that the UNHRC was required by its own bylaws to open every session with a motion denouncing Israel and the discussion would simply be to include the particulars for that denunciation. The only problem such a joke would face is that it might be taken as fact and not one bit of humor be found within.

 

Beyond the Cusp