Surely it is March Madness

 

Usually for March Madness one fills in their brackets with the sixty-four teams and then predicts the winners of each down to the national championship. It takes skill, knowledge and a fair share of luck. The March Madness I am referring to is society seemingly busting at the seams everywhere one looks. The recent shooting in Ferguson, Missouri where somebody used the cover of the crowd protesting outside the police headquarters building to shoot two police standing outside the building striking one in the shoulder and the other in the face. These police were not part of any investigation, had not shot anyone had not done anything to warrant this shooting other than they were police officers in Ferguson. This was a horrific act of violence which is unfortunately not all that unexpected especially when remembering the shooting of two police officers in New York City who were merely sitting in their squad car and were police and thus deserving of whatever they got. Disrespect for societal norms and authority is once again growing across the world. The protests which have taken place in much of Europe have also had their share of riotous behavior and the breaking of police lines to assault specific targets often with ties to Jews such as Synagogues and Jewish Schools and Yeshivas.

 

On another front the actions of European governments and the European Union have started yet another campaign against Israel by financing and erecting buildings and placing Arab businesses or families into these structures immediately as the finishing touches are being applied. All of these structures have been placed in Area C where Arab building is forbidden by the Oslo Accords. Area C was presumed to remain a part of Israel according to the layout and the assignments of rights to the lands in Areas A, B and C. Area A was presumed to belong to the Arabs while Area C was presumed to remain a part of Israel and Area B was the part to be negotiated as to where the actual border would be placed. Obviously the Europeans have chosen to nullify the Oslo Accords as far as the restrictions upon the Arab side while altering the particulars to make the rules even more stringent and restraining on the Israelis. There may even start once more the idea that all of Jerusalem must remain undivided and as such all of Jerusalem must be rewarded to the Arabs once again and then demand a five, or maybe a ten or even a twenty mile wide thoroughfare complete with an eight lane highway, dual rails for passenger train traffic, a third and fourth rail lines for goods traveling between the two parts of the Arab entity, a special wide two lanes in each direction for busses and another three wide lanes in each direction for trucks and tractor trailers and other commercial traffic, rest areas appropriately set along a scenic path for those who desire to walk between Judea and Samaria to Gaza or the other direction. This causeway and thoroughfare right of way would also become owned by the Arabs completing their state. When Israel demands to know how they are supposed to make transit from north of this zone to south of this zone it would not be surprising for the European Union, United Nations and President Obama to be backing a plan that everything south of the Arab thoroughfare would now belong to the Bedouin Tribes and be formed into the first ever Bedouin State where any claiming to be Bedouins may raise their families and tend their flocks. Israel would then what, be warned any actions against this equitable settlement of every problem that they should take it quietly before the world comes up with further divisions of the lands and reasons every Jew must be removed until every Jew resides in Tel Aviv. Kidding aside, and there are those who will claim that this would be a fair start to an agreement if only it addressed whatever other claim that could be imagined, Israel had faced some rather astounding votes taken to denounce her or to refuse to allow any academic interactions.

 

Such was recently voted upon in the London University where over two-thousand students, professors and other staff voted on whether to boycott all of Israeli academic institutions. The results were revealing as seventy-three percent favored the ban and sixty percent of the professors supported the ban. Fortunately this was simply a nonbinding resolution as the fact that a mere four-hundred-twenty-five people refused to accept and approve this motion is a frightening prospect that the new anti-Semitism, the anti-Israel or often referred to as the anti-Zionist platforms and resolutions are often introduced. It comes complete with the similar refrains such as I am not against Jews, just the Israeli government and the existence of Israel. Talk to these anti-Israel types and they will inevitably prove to be anti-Zionist as well. When asked to list exact things the Israeli government has committed they inevitably list the theft of Arab lands and the Occupation of Gaza and the (West Bank) Judea and Samaria. When asked if they hold similar opposition against China or Turkey you will mostly get the deer in the headlamps stare of complete vapid dumbfounded stare. Then you need to slowly coax these afflicted people back to life or they will stand there until they collapse and are hospitalized for suffering from some unidentified ailment. It has a name and it is unaware or creeping anti-Semitism. You have to explain that China swallowed Tibet around 1951 and has illegally occupied Tibet ever since and that Turkey invaded Cyprus in July 1974 and took half the island before being stopped and there the armistice lines was drawn and Turkey cemented their claim and hold on the northern half of Cyprus by kicking out the Greek citizens residing there and brought in families from Turkey and gave them the vacated houses. Now, if your poor afflicted person appears to have regained their composure you can ask again about if they hold any other nation responsible for their occupations and see if they have internalized the information you provided, the likelihood is nothing will have changed.

 

The good news was the last Liberian has been released from the hospital marking their final Ebola victim to have received treatment. It appears the fears of a worldwide pandemic were a bit premature but they also restricted travel out of the afflicted areas and may have prevented the spread of Ebola further. The heroic acts by many healthcare professionals who volunteered and placed themselves in the midst of the outbreak of this deadly disease should be lauded with high praise. They were likely instrumental in preventing the spread of this epidemic into the world and making it a pandemic. What is a pity is that it takes an emergency before many of us turn our attentions to some of the people who need assistance the most and instead join the protest which only requires one’s attention and time for a Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning spent carrying a sign for those few hours each week. Perhaps if one is truly dedicated to the cause they camp out at the protest site over the weekend and display their dedication and definitely join up if there is planned a stronger statement where specific targets are to be targeted. At the other end of the spectrum, an American aid worker who had volunteered in Ebola infected Africa to aid in battling the epidemic has tested positive for Ebola and will be admitted to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland to be treated. Our hopes and prayers are with this goodhearted person struck by the very ailment they had sought to relieve and treat in others living with them in Africa.

 

Further, the war against ISIS has taken a few baby-steps in containing and possible taking back the city of Tikrit in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Iraqi military and the militias have shocked their United States trainers and imbedded advisors who have complained to the Iraqi government that these forces have been committing atrocities. The reports claim that some of the atrocities committed by the Iraqi forces border on the same level of violence and disrespect for those captured and in their custody as have been leveled on ISIS. This had disturbed their American trainers and if not rectified could lead to the removal of all United States trainers and other support personnel. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said the images amounted to “disturbing and serious allegations.” Below are a pair of photos the first reveals a captive being either hung while blindfolded and restrained or actually having been flung from what appears to be a guard tower with the second depicting a man who had recently been dragged by a yellow rope tied to his right ankle. Both are examples of treatment of prisoners which is unacceptable from a properly trained military and are acts expected of the likes of al-Qaeda and ISIS, not United States trained troops.

 

captive ISIS suspect hanging from guard tower by Iraqi forces

 

Captive ISIS fighter who has just been dragged by his right leg by Iraqi Special Operations Forces from the “Golden Brigades”

 

 

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. the big news are the lost e-mails from her private internet server of Hilary Clinton. This is simply the latest in a maelstrom of troubles and tribulations which are surrounding Ms. Clinton leading some to question if she would even care to run for President and face an even more thorough investigation of her actions by a seeming hostile media. Of course the media cannot get tired of chasing down every lead or hint of misadventures by Hilary going forward. The real problem is that Hilary lacks in charm as much as her husband simply oozes charm which means every explanation she gives simply gets her deeper into the already deep mire of scandalous accusations. It is still our contention that Elizabeth Warren is the media chosen darling they hope will become the Democrat candidate for the 2016 Presidential elections. There are a number of potential candidates waiting in the wings but the odds of a democrat winning election to the White House is considered edgy as the odds of a candidate, other than the Vice President, of the same party who have held the White House for eight years are historically poor.

 

Also in the news is the continued fighting under the ceasefire in the Ukraine despite assurances from the Russians that they have nothing to do with the fighting. This leaves many to question where the rebel forces obtained their heavy weapons. Did they have howitzers in their basements, tanks and APCs in their garages and heavy machine guns hanging over the mantle atop the fireplace? The fighting in Syria continues with the death toll rising now estimated to be over two-hundred-thousand civilian lives alone and who knows how many fighters have died. In Nigeria media reports have apparently confirmed that elite South African mercenaries have joined with the forces at the front lines in Nigeria’s war against the extremist Islamic terrorists of Boko Haram. There is a fight worth waging but the world has mostly turned a blind eye to the struggles against Boko Haram which is just as necessary as is opposing ISIS. They have become one and the same as Boko Haram has officially tied themselves to ISIS and claim that they are fighting to establish the Caliphate. The same goes for the forces from Libya who have been announcing their intentions of invading Italy and taking control of Rome and with it Vatican City where they plan on making the cathedrals into Mosques and claiming supremacy over all of Christendom in the process. Such an assault would be a test for NATO and one which Putin would carefully watch for developments which might signal the death of NATO leaving additional nations Putin wishes to claim for Russia more readily assaulted if NATO has become ineffective by the witness to lack of concern or action in Italy. What a world we live in and yet, somehow we each and every one of us make it to the market and have milk in the refrigerator and can pop some popcorn and watch sports or other television allowing us the serenity of ignoring the crazy madness all around us.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Random Comments, Observations and Sundry Thoughts

President Obama faced the Ebola epidemic panic by being intimate with some nurses who were treating Ebola patient. But this was not the end of his bold moves as he made an inept appointment of an Ebola Czar. One must wonder whether President Obama realizes that the Surgeon General should be the government official who is answerable for the addressing and ameliorating the methodologies and procedures being employed to in the battle to contain and eradicate this serious and potentially fatal disease and its spread. Perhaps somebody from the media might want to inquire how acting Surgeon General RADM Boris D. Lushniak feels about being supplanted from his authority as the leading healthcare official of the United States. While at this they might also ask where he has been since the outbreak of Ebola with the first case of a Liberian man in Dallas, Texas.

United States Secretary of State John Kerry had his government-provided jet suffer mechanical failures and was forced to take commercial transport from the negotiations with Iran in Geneva. One has to wonder why he was made to suffer this discomfort of having to travel like any regular first class passenger. Having never afforded first class travel, I can only fathom the comfort he was subject to. Further, Secretary Kerry also blamed the lack of peace between Israel and the Palestinians and the Israeli inability or unwillingness to surrender to the Palestinian demands in order to make said peace for the emergence and spread of ISIS across Syria and Iraq. Apparently Secretary Kerry was unable of understanding the inferences and conditions demanded by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas when he all but bluntly stated that the only agreement he could ever accept had to include the complete eradication of the Jewish State of Israel. Then again, perhaps Secretary Kerry fully understood and basically saw no problem for Israel committing suicide in order to please and satisfy the Palestinian maximalist demands.

Talking about ISIS (pronounced in our circles as is-is in the same manner as President Clinton who prophetically stated that, it all depends on what the meaning of ‘is is’), there was a new propaganda message for the Western World released with three new spokespersons in order to send personalized messages in three languages, English, French and German. Each spokesperson had a personal message for the leader of their respective national leader, English for British Prime Minister Cameron, French for Frances President Hollande and German for Chancellor Merkel. There was the prerequisite threat to plant the ISIS flag on top of the White House, can they not think up anything original, the White House threat is really getting tired but then if your aim is to one up al-Qaeda, then hitting the one target they failed on would become your number one aim for gaining immortality and further righteous blessings from the extremist Muslim world. We have also heard that former Iraqi pilots who served under Saddam Hussein are now training ISIS terrorists to pilot MIG 21 and MIG 23 jet fighters which were captured with the Tabqa airbase in Syria. Rami Abdul Rahman, one of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights commented, “They have trainers, Iraqi officers who were pilots before for Saddam Hussein. People saw the flights, they went up many times from the airport and they are flying in the skies outside the airport and coming back.”

Not to be outdone, the United States has taken selected volunteers from the Iraqis fighting against ISIS to the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range in Arizona and is training them to become pilots using old British BAC 167 Strikemaster training jets. Additional reports claimed that these pilots were selectively being trained on the Boeing A-10 Thunderbolt II close support jet fighter more familiarly called the Warthog by those who appreciate these formidable aircraft for their specialized abilities virtually unequaled by other close support aircraft. These pilots once trained are presumed to be taking the fight to the Syrian battlefields with ISIS. What may be troublesome to those who have fought against the retirement of the A-10 Warthogs from service by the United States Air Force and who have even suggested these aircraft be transferred to the Marine Corps, a suggestion which has received some degree of agreement from some within the Corps as the A-10 Warthog would provide service well suited for the Marines’ mission statement as a front line expeditionary force which often finds itself tasked with establishing the initial base for future operations often in conjunction with the Army. Might the training of these pilots on A-10 Warthogs be in preparation of transferring these aircraft to these fighters in the Middle East? There’s an idea that could not possibly go awry, could it?

There was a meeting in Cairo, Egypt this past weekend to gather funding pledges under the pretext of rebuilding Gaza replacing or repairing homes, clinics, schools and other public and private structures and infrastructures making life whole again for the Gazan residents. There were countless pronouncements that there would be sufficient safeguards to prevent the previous reallocation and misallocation of building supplies and funds to rebuild the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror structures, bunkers, infiltration tunnels, tactical tunnels, command and control bunkers as well as resupplying rocket and other weapon supplies and stores. These statements of intent are only necessitated because this is exactly what happened the last time that Gaza was presumably rebuilt by the generous contributions from the world after the last conflict where they also made similar guarantees. Those guarantees were made in response to questions as to what use the funds pledged would go towards, would it be as in the past when many of the funds and building supplies from the last reconstruction of Gaza after the Gazan war launched by Hamas against Israel and a good part of the provisions and funds were diverted by Hamas for their own use. What the gathering should have been named is the ‘Let’s make it less painful and completely rearm and rebuild all Hamas’s weapon, rocket and armament stores and rebuild their bunkers and tunnel systems so they can restart their next offensive against Israel in minimal time.’ I realize it does not sound as altruistic or have a catchy phraseology, but then neither did the real title which was, ‘The Cairo International Conference on Palestine Reconstructing Gaza.’ Time will tell how much of the building materials and funds end up diverted to rebuild and resupply terrorist infrastructure and how much of the reconstructing of Gaza is left incomplete to be reused for future funding drives.

There have been reports that President Obama and the United States negotiation advisors have reached a decision concerning the upcoming continuing less than optimally productive Iran nuclear program negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 nations of United States, Britain, France, China, Russia plus Germany. One might recall that the last negotiations resulted only producing an agreement to extend the terms already in place from the last agreement and set a new deadline for six months into the future. The fact that this set the date as November 24, 2014, which just happens to be after the midterm American elections and which could not have been exactly what was desired by anyone such that any agreement might be used as a part of the campaign by Republican candidates. This delay may have been necessitated by the conclusion which has been reported unofficially, which makes sense as if it were to be reported officially before the midterm elections, what good did the postponement for six months provide, as the reports claim that the United States negotiators are ready and willing to meet the Iranian demands most of the way in exchange for their assistance in combating ISIS. Never mind that Iran is already engaged in fighting ISIS as they are assisting their ally Iraq which has already come under assault by ISIS terrorist forces. The rumors claim that the United States may be prepared to permit Iran to retain and operate as many as ten-thousand centrifuges while Iran demands the right to operate nineteen-thousand centrifuges. The Iranians are also demanding their Qom enrichment facility be left intact. The Qom facility is ensconced deep within a mountain making it unassailable by even most of the most powerful bunker-buster bombs and whose inner workings and operations are imperceptible to satellite and other conventional observation making them only assessable by direct inspections presumably when the IAEA inspectors are permitted by Iran, not the most dependable method. The last time the United States attempted to make unprecedented concessions to Iran they ran into a surprise as the British were astonished at the American offer and the French were apoplectic driven to use their veto to prevent what they viewed as a total surrender. Will there be another example of sanity shown by either the British or the French, we can only wait, hope and pray.

Beyond the Cusp

The World’s Priorities Are Upside-Down

This past week the nations of this planet met in Cairo and pledges almost five and a half billion, that’s billion with a ‘B’, dollars to rebuild Hamas and make a show of rebuilding Gaza. The entire efforts to address the Ebola outbreak, which is threatening to blossom into a world-wide pandemic, have to date not cleared the hoped for one billion dollars as it has now threatened to spread out of Western Africa. Meanwhile, Israel shipped over six-hundred-tons of construction materials to Gaza which included six-hundred-tons of cement including fifty truckloads of aggregate as well as ten truckloads of steel. To date Hamas and Islamic Jihad have already spent the past two-plus months since before the late August ceasefire rebuilding in Gaza, rebuilding their tunnels and bunkers including the command bunker that is located beneath Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza and the infiltration tunnels out of Gaza under the separation barrier at the border and into Israel. All of this is going on while the World Health Agency healthcare workers are being felled by inadequate equipment to prevent their contracting Ebola. Thus far three-hundred-seventy-five have contracted Ebola (67 in Guinea, 184 in Liberia, 11 in Nigeria, and 113 in Sierra Leone) of which two-hundred-eleven have succumbed to the deadly disease (35 in Guinea, 89 in Liberia, five in Nigeria, and 82 in Sierra Leone).

The comparisons are literally endless. One could point to the fact that so little monies have been raised to actually stop a potential pandemic in its tracks while the world once again ran to rearm Hamas, allow for the reconstruction of the Hamas bunker and tunnel system, pay for the replacement of the nearly exhausted and destroyed rocket arsenal, provide bigger and more lethal rockets and potentially, this time, guided missiles increasing the deadly potential of Hamas barrages and resetting the stage in Gaza for another destructive conflict possibly in even less than the two year cycle which has existed since Hamas took control of Gaza in a bloody coup killing the majority of Fatah and Palestinian Authority forces and hierarchy in the process. Hamas’s murderous ways are not restricted to killing Israelis; they also freely murder Gazans as well as Palestinian Authority personnel and Fatah leaders. Immediately after the final ceasefire with Israel was initiated and even before the rebuilding of the tunnels and bunkers had begun, Hamas murdered over twenty people in open and very public executions without even the semblance of a trial. These summary executions were taken against some of the remaining Fatah members and others who were accused of assisting Israel with evidence as flimsy as that their cellphone had an Israeli SIM card. The reasons given for such brutality being committed in the open and even going so far as to perform a number of the executions in the public square before Gazans of all ages, both men and women both old and young including children, was simply to reinforce their authority at the end of the conflict sending the message that Hamas is still strong and all-powerful in Gaza and that the people need continue to fear and obey all Hamas edicts or face an immediate death sentence possibly carried out on the spot with no need for any trials. This too is part and parcel of what the world just financed for the people in Gaza instead of attempting to improve their lives.

The almost five and a half billion dollars raised for presumably the rebuilding of Gaza will also be used to install built-in explosive and other booby-traps built right into the buildings’ walls, floors and ceilings such as were put within the actual structure of one United Nations UNWRA run health clinics which also housed one of the myriad of tunnel entrances. This particular clinic was detonated as IDF soldiers had entered the clinic and were preparing to investigate the tunnels below before deciding whether to destroy them. Five IDF soldiers were caught in the fatal range of the blast and collapsing structure. Subsequent investigations revealed the blast came from within the structure of the walls of this clinic. These explosives had been emplaced when the building was built thus planning to utilize this healthcare clinic as a trapped building even realizing, or especially because of, the probability it might become a shelter for Gazans during any conflict. As this form of explosive booby-trap worked so efficiently and also has the potential of placing innocent Gazans in jeopardy while they are in the proximity of IDF soldiers which could be used to impart the story to give the media that Israelis had committed a suicide attack on the innocent Gazans who were unfortunate enough to be within a United Nations healthcare clinic which had the explosives installed during its construction for just this purpose. The fact that the Palestinians, both in Gaza and with the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), have a habit of projecting their misdeeds onto the Israelis in an attempt to blur any differentiating facts or methods of operations is a well-established tool in their arsenal of media manipulation and other forms of propaganda.

There is one more pernicious side to the funding of the presumed rebuilding of Gaza despite, or possibly because of, the knowledge that as much as half of the construction materials and two-thirds of the monies will end up being utilized to rebuilding the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror entities’ infrastructure, weapon stores and ammunition supplies; and that is that it sends the message to these terrorist entities that their actions and constantly repetitive assaults on Israel are fully and completely backed and approved by the rest of the world. It sends the message that the world has the terrorist minions’ backs and is prepared to rebuild their capabilities and rearm and redeploy not only the levels of weapons they had before the conflict but to provide sufficient support to arm them with even bigger and better weapons’ systems for the next round. The camouflaging these efforts under the guise of reconstructing Gaza and rebuilding the homes, clinics, schools and other public structures only fools the consciences of those who make the decisions to provide such aid. There will be no study, honest or otherwise, into how much of the destruction in Gaza was remaining from the last conflict approximately two years ago for which a previous confab was held and funds poured into Gaza and to Hamas for distributing. There was no study after that conflict to determine how much of the apparent destruction was remaining from the previous conflict of two years prior and which had its gala event to ‘rebuild’ Gaza and repair the lives of the Gazan people. This compulsive willingness of the world to rush to the aid of Hamas and company with funds beyond their wildest dreams, well OK, maybe within their most grand and wildest dreams, sends the message that terrorism pays and pays well, but seemingly only if your target is Israel. All over the rest of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) there are efforts to destroy or at least degrade terror entities such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and others but in Gaza, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Lebanon to a lesser extent for Hezballah the world rushes in with their ‘humanitarian’ aid to reconstruct the ‘civilian’ infrastructure always getting the caveat that none of the monies will be siphoned off for terrorist functions and uses like there occurred last time because this time the threats that there will be no repeat of funding should the same actions be repeated, the exact same solemn promises that were given last time right before the monies were distributed with one third going for rearming and rebuilding the terror infrastructure, one third into the pockets of the elite and the leadership and a final third for a façade of reconstruction which will somehow come up short and require additional funds within the year which will also be divided up as noted. This is not a world repeating the same mistakes hoping for a different outcome, that would be insanity. This is a world giving funding assured and comfortable that much of the donations will be diverted for nefarious purposes, some for enriching the leadership and those who need to be rewarded for their efforts in support of giving the terrorists an acceptable front to place before the world and some more for the necessities for further terrorist efforts against Israel and perhaps some scraps will remain to make a small effort at rebuilding such that the efforts will warrant further funding. It has never ceased to amaze me how many times the sewage treatment plant in Gaza has been given the necessary funding for its repair and even a couple of times for its replacement yet it still overflows every year during the fall and winter rains. It still is minimally if at all functioning and is probably poised to overflow and malfunction here again fairly soon which will give Hamas and the Palestinian Authority an additional reason to beg for more aid. This sanctioning of the terror war against Israel cannot end before the world comes to grips with the fact that as long as Israel is able to defend against the terrorist entities, Israel will not disappear no matter how much the world desires such, sorry.

The funding of the terrorists this time around had a nice new twist to the story, a unity government free from the influences of terrorists such as Hamas. Never mind that one of the members of this technocrat unity government is the former utilities chairman for Gaza and the Hamas government and that though technically without power, Mahmoud Abbas still appears to be standing over all including the acting head of the unity government. The world also placed their full faith and honor on the single meeting of the unity government in Gaza a few short days before the Cairo fundraiser convention aiming to give just that appearance, as it was announced and explained by Hamas why they permitted this obvious challenge to their sovereignty over Gaza. This thinly veiled hoax should not have fooled anybody with more than two brain cells but somehow managed to fool some of the most brilliant, educated, savvy and knowledgeable people the world has to offer. People such as the Lady Catherine Ashton, United States Secretary of State John F. Kerry, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Jude, Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende, Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and of course Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri along with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Delegates representing some fifty nations and twenty regional and international NGOs (non-governmental organizations), many of which joined in on the condemnations of Israel which peppered the discourse of the conference. Some blamed Israel for being unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to allow for a viable Palestinian state which would exist side-by-side with Israel in peace and security. Others placed the blame for making this convention necessary on the blatant Israeli aggressions against Gaza and Israeli use of disproportional force. Some would denounce the “international silence” that surrounded Gaza’s destruction. This added a little flavor from the Durban conferences to the event.

Everyone attending the event in Cairo would have denied their understanding that the Palestinian unity government will have served its purpose and was facing being dissolved in relatively short notice. The unity government would likely meet its demise far more quickly than it took to bring it to life as it required months of debates and arguments spread throughout the many meetings, many of which included the most base and vulgar threats. The initial need for the unity government was to allow for a path which Hamas could utilize to take control of Judea and Samaria as well as Gaza but without the need to resort to violence. That need presented the Hamas leadership a problem as polls indicated a neck-and-neck race with the outcome undeterminable until the vote. Hamas could not trust leaving such an important step for their control on all of the Palestinian areas to the people so they proceeded to campaigning against Israel, literally. Hamas knew that if they were to initiate a conflict with Israel and thus be provided a center platform before the media and the world they could sharply influence the vote by casting Abbas as too timid and fearful of the Israelis to properly reach the Palestinians’ rightful victory of extinguishing Israel and founding Palestine from the (Jordan) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea. They also realized that as they had yielded power granting Abbas to lead the unity government that the world would necessarily need to lay much of the blame for the conflict on Abbas despite the fact that they needed to address Hamas in order to reach any ceasefire or treaty. The conflict did attest that Hamas was the strong horse willing to strike Israel and challenge the IDF but the propaganda victory did not suffice in making all of the top Hamas leadership happy. Haniyeh was satisfied that Hamas had done enough for him to win any election but Mashaal did not see this in his cards. This led to Mashaal initiating his Plan ‘B’ which would have removed Abbas, Fatah and all of the non-Hamas leadership of the Palestinian Authority and replace them with Hamas members and leadership. This was the coup attempt which Israeli security, Shin Bet, discovered as they covertly surveyed the field of battle and all the other doors which might be opened. They detected the door for a Hamas attempted coup open and with the assistance of the IDF arrested most of the instigators and all of the leadership which was within Israeli zones of operations. This saved Abbas who also used the foiled coup attempt to force Mashaal to make further concessions threatening to reveal his role in the coup thus poisoning the political field for Mashaal and potentially Hamas as well. This and other intuitions show that Hamas will not likely take control of the top seat of power in the Palestinian Authority, that being Chairman Abbas’s position which he plans on keeping until death does he depart, and that is exactly how he will leave his office and Hamas realizes this. Abbas has cancelled all schedules for elections for his position almost countless times and any thought of such an election playing out now is delusional. It is the fact that Abbas will not relinquish his seat of power as he realized that without this power he will likely be murdered and the fact that Hamas is just fine with that necessity and would murder Abbas in the blink of an eye to gain power themselves. Such is the standoff which is as firm as any rocks on which to bash and shatter any unity government. And yes, we have all been here before. At the moment of this writing the situation is that Abbas will only leave his seat of power over Fatah and the Palestinian Authority feet first and wearing a toe tag and Hamas cannot and will not allow any unity government to proceed without elections being held for Abbas’s seat as chairman and even should they lose, no matter how unlikely that would seem, they would continue to pursue taking complete control and until then they will retain their power in Gaza. This would mean that the unity government’s days are numbered and will meet its demise as the monies from the pledges start rolling in. Hamas stands assured in their perceptions that very few if any of the pledging nations would make their payments actually contingent on Abbas being the supervisor and guiding hand over all the funding thus denying Hamas their use of the majority of the funds for their own ends. Thus dies another unity government and we just got to know you.

Beyond the Cusp