There is a multi-front assault against the Israeli operation Defensive Shield predominantly by the administration of United States President Barack Obama which is being fully supported by the European Union and the majority of European governments and the United Nations with a large supportive roll being gleefully executed by United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and her organization, sent to occupy the front lines and press Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli government to make the concessions demanded by Hamas just so the Israeli military actions in Gaza can be brought to an end and peace and quiet be restored to the areas and residents of Gaza. There are no demands for Hamas in Gaza to stop their attempts to infiltrate Israel through their remaining tunnels yet to be located and destroyed in order to execute mass assault of the Israeli communities the tunnels are designed to reach and attempt to kill large numbers and abduct others to hold as they did with IDF soldier Gilad Shalit pressing to trade them for the release of terrorists from Israeli prisons. These efforts are being further supported by the world’s mainstream media new sources which have stressed the numbers of Gazan casualties intimating that virtually every Gazan casualty was an innocent civilian noncombatant while stressing each and every IDF casualty interviewing those close to the soldier and others until they have sufficient Israelis they can quote claiming that Israel must cease all military actions as they have no hope to accomplish anything further and any additional casualties will all be in vain. Then there is the economic assault being perpetrated by the United States Federal Aviation Administration, a government agency which controls the entirety of the United States air carriers’ fleets, who suspended all American flights into Israel and Ben Gurion International Airport which was copied by the European airlines. Such a suspension will do far more than prevent tourism or travel plans by business people into or out of Israel by restricting the numbers of flights available because these actions has resulted in grossly restricting available flights. This ban also prevents any commercial shipments using United States or European air carriers such as Fed Ex, UPS, DHL and numerous other air freight carriers which will completely stifle and smother access to international trade by Israeli companies. Yet, almost within hours of the FAA ban on air travel into or out of Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry flew straight from Cairo into Ben Gurion International Airport in complete defiance of his own government’s ban, imagine that. Just to add to the dangerous activity engaged by Secretary of State John Kerry, he flew in on a standard executive version of a Boeing 757 airliner, not a military aircraft with defensive capabilities not found on standard airliners; it was just a nicely appointed 757 with really nice seats, and office, a bedroom and other niceties but no additional military capabilities.
The International press is also pressing every single defeatist quote they can find in their numerous interviews even if they had to ask leading questions in order to find the quote they desired. They exaggerate the demands that Israel must pull all IDF soldiers out of Gaza and deploy them within Israel and have them provide defensive functions as there will be no gains from their continued deployments within Gaza. There have been reports which make the claim that all of the Hamas tunnels have been located and destroyed. Such reports have appeared every day in one mainstream media report or another for the past week and will likely continue to appear until they can claim they got it correct. The fact that the IDF has found additional tunnels every single day and possibly every couple of hours has not dulled the mainstream media’s insatiable desire to continue the lie that there is nothing else left for the IDF to accomplish so they may as well be brought back to safety as any additional deaths will be unproductive. The overriding story is a constant beating of the further IDF operations inside Gaza against Hamas are endangering lives needlessly drums to deafening levels. That is why every mention of the death toll in Gaza makes no reference to the numbers of dead who are Hamas combatants and the mainstream media simply implies that every death is a civilian death. There is a tactic which is known well by the members of the mainstream media used by Hamas as well as numerous other terrorist entities almost in coordination with the media who accommodate this deceit by waiting for approval to photograph an area after a strike until the terrorist leadership in the area grants them their approval. The delay is used in order to transform the Hamas combatants into innocent civilians by a complex series of steps, they first remove any weapons from the dead combatant and remove any ammunition and grenades and remove rocket launchers from the area as well as anything else which might denote the corpse as belonging to a Hamas member and then presto-chango, instant civilian casualty. Israel has confirmed that at the very least they have killed approaching, if not surpassed, three-hundred Hamas and Islamic Jihad combatants but the media would never take IDF assurances as worth any credibility though Hamas press releases are sworn by as being from unimpeachable sources of the highest quality.
The next few days will have coverage of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and United States Secretary of State John Kerry releasing sound bites to the media about their hopes and beliefs that the Israelis will soon heed the calls from the world to end the needless carnage in Gaza and quiet may soon be reestablished in Gaza. There will likely be little commentary whether or not there will be quiet in Israel or if the rockets will continue to rain on civilian areas within Israel. Hamas has made it more than obvious that they will never accept any Egyptian brokered peace initiative and their obstinacy has been strongly reinforced by having meetings between United Nations and United States personnel with representatives of the governments of Turkey and Qatar and initiated further coordination in efforts to forge an initiative which might be more presentable and acceptable to Hamas. When one considers the statements made in recent days as well as over the past years by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denouncing and demonizing Israel and insulting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as well as other Israeli officials including Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and even Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, it is not surprising that the Turkish leadership would be completely supportive of Hamas. Their unrivaled support for Hamas is in complete agreement with their disintegrating relations with Egypt since the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood supported President Morsi and his replacement with former Egyptian Military Head General Sisi. Prime Minister Erdogan’s support for Sunni Islamist extremist militant groups even extends to his open support for ISIS. Also, Qatar has been Hamas’s most prolific and generous financial backer since their falling out with Iran over Hamas supporting the Sunni rebels against Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad. It was a twenty-million dollar donation from Qatar which United Nations Middle East Envoy Robert Serry attempted to have transferred to Hamas during the search for the three Hamas abducted Israeli teens where he first requesting that Mahmoud Abbas handle the transactions and after being refused approached Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to make the transfer. This led to Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman to demand his eviction. Why the United States and United Nations are both rebuking the Egyptian efforts to mediate a ceasefire and instead seeking to facilitate either a Turkish or Qatari mediation escapes credulity unless one is to believe that both entities desire to place Israel in the worst and most compromised position possible and are seeking as pro-Hamas an agreement as can be presented to give their full backing and force upon Prime Minister Netanyahu. This also makes the actions by the FAA to suspend flights appear more as a shot across Israel’s bow than a necessary actions for the protection of the airlines. If the airlines believed there exists a serious and present danger to their aircraft, pilots, passengers and other personnel, they would not wait for any memo or announcement from the FAA, they would cancel the flights on their own volition. The only reason that an FAA order was issued was because the airline companies probably refused an advisory notice that continuing flights into Ben Gurion International Airport was no longer safe and should be suspended and that forced the administration’s hand and the ban was then issued taking the decision out of the airline company official’s hands. Just a point of information, Ben Gurion has an Iron Dome battery placed specifically to protect it from any missile attacks and the closest any Hamas rocket has struck was over a mile from the airport presenting no danger to approaching or leaving flights but did destroy an Israeli family’s home. This was the validating reason the FAA gave that flights to and from Israel were unsafe. Proof this move was an economic threat was the additional demand that the airline companies remove all their aircraft from Ben Gurion International Airport and fly them elsewhere devoid of passengers or cargos. This will cause the restitution of flights to take at least one additional day as the aircraft will need to be restationed inside Israel.
Between the media going to great lengths to write up the story that Israelis are tired of the death and destruction and that the deaths of soldiers are mounting to heights that have sapped the will of a nation to continue the fight are false and a disgusting attempt to poison the waters. The dispatch of Secretary of State Kerry when neither side requested his assistance is another affront which signifies that President Obama believes that this just might be the conflict where he can appear Presidential and win a victory even if it is at the cost of Israel’s future and the possibility for Israel to clean out the rats nest which is Gaza. There has been an eerie silence about the disposition of the rockets found stored at two separate United Nations Relief Workers Agency (UNRWA) schools which UNRWA officials arranged to have them removed by Hamas refusing Israeli requests simply for photographs as proof of the find. There has been no explanation why the request by a member state of the United Nations, Israel, was refused yet a recognized terrorist group even by the United Nations standards was given these rockets which were illegally stored in a United Nations facility. The world media and governments simply accepted such as business as usual. It is the accumulation of so many things as business as usual and virtually all of such events favoring Hamas over Israel which leads to suspicions that perhaps it really is Hamas with the cooperation, support, backing and blessings of the world governments and agencies against Israel. Yes, President Barack Obama has stated that the United States stands behind Israel in her right to defend themselves, but he also promised that the Americans under his healthcare initiative would save two-thousand-five-hundred dollars, be able to keep their own doctor if they liked them, keep their health insurance plan if they desired, and that after every scandal just read or heard it when everybody else did on the news, so somehow I will take his actions to speak louder than his words. His reliance on Turkey and Qatar, two nations supporting Hamas and antagonistic to Israel as proof of where his intentions and emotions lie. The backing of such by the United Nations and European Union do not make such decisions any more palatable. Israel needs to decide exactly what it is they require and feel is necessitated and then work towards that end regardless of whether or not Europe or the United States desire different. Let the news stories and the full court press by those less interested in the lives and future of Israelis and their country than they are with the survivability of Hamas and Islamic Jihad scream, pound their fists, stomp their feet and call Israel whatever names that intimate her being an out of control obsessive aggressive nation and yell it from the highest mountains and have it plastered across page one of media outlets the world across including even in Israel with thanks to Haaretz. We know what is necessary and what must be accomplished in order to make our little sliver of land safe and allow many of the children who have spent much of their lives living in fear and not playing outside without one eye on the closest shelter finally only have to worry about the weather and the rain falling onto their little heads be soft water and not steeled projectiles. Perhaps this is a little harsh, but perhaps Israel should send Secretaries Kerry and Ki-Moon back to their offices in the United States and tell them that this time, we will call them and do not call on us before then, thank you. This time the Hamas rockets are able to threaten and strike virtually every inch of Israel and if there were to be another time these rockets would become larger guided missiles with who knows what capabilities including chemical agent delivery which is the reason there cannot be a next time. This is a war for the life of Israel and we must fight it as such and everybody else may scream themselves hoarse, we are not listening and frankly only care about securing our future. Were your nation under the same threats you would act exactly as we must now act, so do not bother to condemn Israel for choosing life, we meant Never Again and continue to mean Never Again.
Beyond the Cusp 