Mob Scene with Guns at Their Backs

 

March 30, 2018, is the tentative date for the Hamas sponsored March of Return in Gaza with co-sponsors Islamic Jihad. Their hoped turnout will place a massive procession of 100,000 Gazans with the objective of storming the Israel security fence around Gaza to signify the return of Gaza’s refugees to their original homes. For everyone’s information, if this were truly a march of those who were alive on May 14, 1948 marching on the fence, first there would not be 100,000 Gazans and second they would not be moving with sufficient force to destroy the fence as the youngest would be sixty-nine years old. This match has nothing to do with the fence, their supposed homes or anything else which the media will report; it is about attempting to force Israel to stop the human wave assault on its territory and in the process causing casualties amongst the presumably unarmed Gazans. It can be expected that most of those taking part in this protest will not necessarily be doing so voluntarily and further we can expect that some of those towards the rear will be from Hamas and Islamic Jihad carrying weapons to shoot those not showing the correct level of enthusiasm. Anybody being shot, whether in the front or the back will be blamed on Israel and much of the media will gladly go along with that story, especially any media reporting from Gaza where the outgoing stories are often edited and checked for validity according to Hamas. The last time a general assault was made on the Gaza security fence was Gaza December 29, 2017, where Israel responded with dispersal methods including tear gas grenades as shown in the image below. That was sufficient to prevent any further complications at that time, may things be even less traumatic with this coming threat.

 

Gaza Fence Mass Assault of December 29, 2017

 

The original hope by Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders was for there to be a reciprocal mass walking assault on the security barrier organized by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah in Judea and Samaria regions under PA rule. They ever envisioned Arab communities of Israeli Arabs to also stage walking assaults within Israel in order to press Israeli police and security forces to their limit or beyond. Any coordination between Fatah or the PA and Hamas was quite destroyed by the Tuesday March 13, 2018, assassination attempt of Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in Gaza. Further, even before this killed any hopes of cooperation, the two sides could not even agree on a date for the protests. Where the PA and Fatah decided that the anniversary of Israel founding, May 14, would be the perfect date, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have their hearts set on March 30, which is the day on which many Israeli Arabs commemorate Land Day. With all hopes for joint cooperation, Hamas will likely continue with their plan for March 30, 2018, which is tomorrow.

 

The Gaza fence is relatively stout and may or may not be able to stave off and withhold the assault being made by the human wave (see image below). Then the Israeli security forces would be faced with a horrible situation, either permitting the assaulting crowds to pummel and roam through the area possibly assaulting Israeli citizens or use force to prevent these invaders from progressing any deeper into Israel. The aim of Hamas and Islamic Jihad is to have the Israeli security forces use force and cause a massive casualty event which they would use the pictures to splash across newscasts worldwide attempting to paint Israelis as vicious killers. The simple question one need ask is what if a neighboring nation with which your country had poor relations made a mass convergence on the border with the intent of trespass followed by mischief or worse, what would the response be by security forces from your nation? Would they allow them entry and pass out maps showing the best tourist spots to visit while they roamed the countryside or would they do whatever it took to round up the trespassers and return them from whence they came.

 

Gaza Separation Fence

 

This is a real serious question we want my readers to actually consider. What does one call it when one-hundred-thousand people from a hostile foreign independent autonomous region with belligerent governance that has stated its intention to destroy your nation and everybody who believes as you do religiously from the entire planet, as Hamas has threatened Israel and the Jewish People, move on your border with stated hostile intent? In our book, we call this an invasion. According to International Law, every nation has the right to enforce their borders from foreign intrusion in the process of providing protection for their citizenry. This is the principle behind President Trump and his obsession for building a wall on the southern border. It is all about controlling who is permitted to cross the border. Hamas knows that Israel has the right to protect the border, with deadly force if required. They are counting on Israel having to use deadly force to prevent the mass of humanity from transgressing their border producing a mass casualty event to flood the world with pictures of dead Gazans with IDF soldiers standing over them. The soldiers and their commanders may be looking at the choice of giving Hamas their publicity or allowing thousands of people infiltrating their nation with untold numbers being terrorists.

 

Terrorists are the second part of this plan. If they are capable of transgressing the border, Israel can be guaranteed that a percentage of the marchers are terrorists who will have plans on carrying out acts of terror in the future and will be attempting to get as far as possible into Israel and breaking away from the group so as to remain in Israel. That is one reason why Israel will need to contain any breach of the Gaza border and not allow any permanent infiltrations. The same would be true of any nation facing such a border breach and even more so if their enemy had as a priority infiltration of agents and terrorists, both perpetrators and organizers. As in the image of the earlier attempt where far fewer than one-hundred-thousand persons moved on the border and were prevented by tear gas, this attempt may also be thwarted through a judicious use of tear gas. The real problem is that there is the possibility that when Israel fires tear gas canisters or grenades that Hamas will throw fragmentation grenades into the mix and claim that Israel fired them as part of the attempt to disperse the crowd. As the entire aspect of this exercise by Hamas and Islamic Jihad is to produce dead Gazans and they may not be particularly bothered by who is responsible just as long as there is any doubt and Israel can be made suspect, it is to be expected that the possibility of Hamas and Islamic Jihad producing said casualties while screaming about Israeli violence. Any such claims made against Israel resulting from such an invasion attempt by these terror entities should be rejected without evidence which leaves absolutely no doubt. Unfortunately, Israel will not be granted such generosity by the Europeans or the world media as Israel is pretty much their favorite whipping boy. The truth is we hope that this date passes without any incident and the Gazans find the power to resist their overlords and neither Hamas nor Islamic Jihad is successful in this effort. Perhaps the world should do the Gazans a great favor and either replace their corrupt terror masters with a responsible governance or allow them to relocate to somewhere they are able to start life anew. That is what a responsible world would do, what this world will do is beyond us.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Failure of Palestinian Arab Society

 

The world decries the sad state of life for the average Palestinian Arabs residing under the Palestinian Authority (PA) which is run completely by Fatah (we will be using Fatah as synonymous with Palestinian Authority) and Mahmoud Abbas or those residing under Hamas rule in Gaza. The one favorite reason given for these failures, despite their coming from two opposing systems, is that Israel has not permitted them to succeed. This excuse was prevalent under President Obama and pervades throughout Europe and the main sign has been the presumed lack of elections under Hamas or Fatah. The Europeans blame Israel for this situation despite all evidence to the contrary. In Gaza, Hamas holds dictatorial power only changing leaders when Hamas decides this is necessary usually after a single individual has accrued sufficient money stashed in banks around the world that they are assured a comfortable retirement, as recently occurred with Khaled Mashaal stepping down with Ismail Haniyeh being promoted to take his place while Yahya Sinwar was promoted from being leading officer of the military wing to now take political charge in Gaza. Khaled Mashaal is estimated to have collected a self-worth of approximately $2.5 billion. While in Gaza upon the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004, the emergency election placed his second in command, Mahmoud Abbas in charge of Fatah, the PLO, the PA and the Central Committee. Abbas was to serve a five-year term and is currently in his thirteenth year in office with no elections being held as Abbas knows that he would be replaced by whomever Hamas decides to place on the ballot. Abbas is also aware that once he loses his position, he loses his armed guards and would be fortunate to get out of the area alive. There will be no election held for the Palestinian Arabs in either camp as Hamas and Fatah will continue to hold their power in their respective regions.

 

Then there are the constant attempts to reconcile the differences between Hamas and Fatah and unify rule over the Palestinian Arabs, as this has been a demand by Europe such that a single entity or state can be formed once this is accomplished. As long as there exist two separate entities, the feeling is Israel can claim they have no peace partner, as nobody represents the complete Arab community. The current attempt is being taken by Egypt and was announced a few months back as having all the appearances of coming success. The negotiations have since collapsed and are stymied at an impasse. This is unsurprising as there can be no common ground between Fatah and Hamas. The base problem is that Hamas is a religious movement based in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood and Fatah is a nationalist political movement. The two are like oil and water, no matter how much you shake them trying to find some unity, they simply do not mix. Currently the situation is very counterintuitive as in Gaza the people desire a return of Fatah ruling them as they are tired of the corruption of Hamas stealing all their funds and supplies to fund terrorism and enrich their leadership while in Judea and Samaria the Arabs under Fatah desire Hamas as they are tired of the corruption of Fatah stealing their funds for their leadership to enrich themselves and live lavish lives. Even should both entities get the change in leadership, the corruption will remain the same and the people will continue to suffer. The problem is that neither group, be it Fatah or Hamas, is willing to provide honest and fair leadership and instead end up like every other Islamic governance no matter if its base is political or religious, they will end up as dictatorial with all the wealth going to those at the top and nothing being used to provide for the people. Even in the one place where Islam and good governance had existed, Turkey after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk provided the Turkish people with a Constitution and governance which served the people and separated Mosque and government which functioned for many decades until Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to power promising to return to Islamic principles. Erdoğan delivered on his promise and now he sits as the head of the government and even should he change titles from President to Prime Minister or Prime Minister to President, the power follows the man and not his title and he has taken Turkey down the road to ruin. Turkey was a wealthy and prosperous nation and had almost run through its vast reserves and will soon begin to resemble Egypt, the Sudan or other functional Islamic governances where the people face high unemployment and moving to a modern society is so slow it does not even rate being called a crawl.

 

The answer to the problems in the Middle East is to force a separation between Islam and the governance and to educate the people and develop industries and provide jobs and real wealth for the people. The problem is that under Islamic rule the leaders are rewarded with great wealth while the people wallow in dire poverty. The Imams take whatever wealth is available in exchange for not opposing the government and allowing the leadership to remain in power and well to do. Where there is oil, the people have better lives but still have no future and once the oil runs its course, there will be nothing to finance the government and things will turn for the worse and they will end up just like the other Islamic nations either in civil war, popular uprising, dictatorship backed by the military, dictatorship backed by the Imams, or theocracy with the Imams or Mullahs holding the real power. Find an Arab or Middle East and North African (MENA) nation where there is a government which is different from the above mentioned. Unfortunately, such a search is pretty much doomed to failure as are the nations with these forms of government. Egypt may be the closest thing to an actual democratic government but the government still has a former military chief as its President and the one person most likely to replace him is another military officer.

 

The people are largely uneducated and there is a civil war against their Coptic Christians. This is the bogeyman in most Islamic states, the non-Muslims are blamed for every problem and thus routinely struck with violent hatred and uprisings often backed by the military which only steps in to end the violence once the people are satisfied that they have struck fear into these minorities. The world saw all so plainly what happens to minorities in Islamic governance that the Islamic State started to wipe out the Yazidis in Iraq and what the Islamic State did to the libraries and remains of ancient civilizations simply because they were not Islamic. A similar thing happened in Afghanistan to the Buddhas of Bamiyan which were many hundreds of years old and were some of, if not the, largest such Buddhas in the world destroyed simply because they were considered idols and un-Islamic (see images below). This is the fate of anything which is not considered Islamic under the current form of governance and intolerance in the Islamic world. This includes people who are tortured and forced to convert and if refusing, then they will be put to death. Even should one believe differently and still be a Muslim, such as the Shiites and the Sunnis, they will not tolerate any diversion from what the current leadership considers to be the correct form of Islam. This intolerance is found throughout the Islamic world and the most strong evidence is the war Iran is waging to make Shiite Islam the dominant form.

 

Buddhas of Bamiyan before pictured on the left and
being destroyed with explosives by Taliban forces on the right

 

The Iranians leadership, the Mullahs, believe that they have been tasked to bring the end times and spread Shia Islam to the entirety of the world or subject the world to their rule and only then can they consider their charge to be complete. They desire to impress their form and only their form of Islam despite Sunni Islam outnumbering Shia Muslims by multiples as they know that if they can prevail and defeat Saudi Arabia and take their oil fields and the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, they will have become the strong horse which will then gain the allegiance of the rest of Islam. This is very likely the first priority of the Iranian leadership once they solidify their Shiite Crescent to surround Saudi Arabia. The Iranians also intend to be the Islamic force which annihilates all the Jews of Israel and eventually the world. They believe very strongly in the Quranic calls which translate as, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.” (Sahih Bukhari volume 4 book 52 number 177) There are also references which equate Jews to pigs and apes or also rats. There are verses throughout the litany of Islamic literature which denigrates Jews often doing so while including Christians but sufficiently often alone that one could conclude the Islamic hatred against Jews is particularly virulent and pervasive. The Iranians wish to be the ones who are able to claim they have begun the first stages of the end times and the coming of the Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam. This is the belief of the Twelvers, a group of specifically ardent Shia Muslims who believe that the Twelfth Imam hid in a well to escape assassins sent by the Sunni and lives there to this day near the holy city of Qom. The Mullahs have built a causeway from Qom to Tehran so the Twelfth Imam can easily make the voyage before declaring the beginning of the Islamic end times and their imminent conquest of the world in a great conflagration filled of chaos, violence and great carnage where the unbelievers will be decimated. But Iran is a peaceful trading partner, just ask Germany, France and many other European nations.

 

Shiite Crescent including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran

 

The Iranians are once again being sought by Hamas to provide rockets, missiles and weapons to use against Israel. Iran will support both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the latter being a paid subsidiary of Iran much like Hezballah, just smaller. Iran is all but drooling over the possibility of also gaining inroads to Fatah and the PA. This would provide for them a knife pointed at the center of Israel and when combined with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, the IRGC in the Sinai Peninsula and Syria and the Iranian Army and Air Force in Syria and the Iranian Navy in the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea near Eilat, and Hezballah in Lebanon with approaching 200-thousand rockets and missiles of varying sizes and ranges with some capable of reaching Cairo and Riyadh, let alone all of Israel, allowing an assault on Israel on every front with only the small stretch of border with Jordan south of the Dead Sea along the eastern edge of Israel, assuming Jordan has not fallen to Iran; they believe that is the magic formula for the destruction of Israel. They apparently have not learned history as in 1948, without an actual functioning military, with virtually no air force plus nobody willing to sell Israel even a BB-gun outside of Czechoslovakia, Israel was attacked by Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia along with some select forces from Turkey, Yemen, the Sudan, Algeria, Libya also including the forces fighting under the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini with German (Nazi) officers advising and several militias and families attacked Israel on the day of her founding. As well as having been fighting them for the two years previous, but at a less obvious level so as not to have the British interfere which was required to prevent a few pogroms, invading from every border and fighting the Jews from within (the Jews did have a small number of Arabs who fought with them to preserve the nation as they did not wish to live under Islamic rule) and somehow over the next two years of on and off warfare, the Jews survived. Iran believes that they now have the magic combination with the addition of nuclear, including thermonuclear, weapons that they can wipe Israel from the map along with everyone they have at the borders.

 

All of this is simply further proof of why the Arabs, especially the Palestinian Arabs, are unable to establish functioning governance. Their entire governance is based on destroying Israel with no concern for building an economy and providing necessities for the people. That is a recipe for failure on all fronts. Israel has developed one of the most robust and accurate anti-missile systems with overlapping layers. There are the Arrow Systems; there are three systems in use, David Sling and Magic Wand, Iron Dome, Trophy Systems for vehicle and installation last line of protection and additional measures including from space and ground based installations which are so secretive that some only have their military nomenclature and have not even been named as of this article. Needless to add, the Israelis have systems in place and operational which can take out ICBMs and CBMs anywhere from their initial launching to any point in their trajectory and no matter their path or other measures as Israel probably developed the countermeasure for these offensive systems before the offensive systems were fully tested and placed into service. Attempting to strike Israel with missiles is possible, but it is not financially effective for the attacking nation (or for Israel except Israelis think it well worth the cost if they get to live). Israel has prepared sufficient defensive measures to prevent effective missile strikes such that their layered system has as many as three or even four systems overlapping at many distances. There is a reason why Iran gave Hezballah approaching 200-thousand rockets and missiles; their intent is to overload the Israeli defenses with numbers hoping that some make it through and if they are lucky, actually cause distress and damage possibly also some number of casualties. There is the final level of Israeli preparedness; the public is well trained through experience in finding and taking cover in shelters in case of rocket or missile attack. It is this training and practice which prevents catastrophic casualties as there often are in Gaza where Hamas had not built shelters and often sacrifices civilians to protect their rockets and launchers. Visit the Internet and search for Gaza children rocket launcher and there will be pictures and videos showing the use of children to protect these weapons. Israel will remain despite the attacks and the Arab people, especially the Palestinian Arabs who are on the front line and thus the ones demanded to make the most sacrifices, as Israeli governance treats lives as precious, even Palestinian Arab lives which they attempt to prevent, but one cannot prevent casualties when your opposition has as its main intent to have the maximum number of civilian casualties to show the world. They get their own people killed and then blame Israel and the world drinks this up with great gusto. The one piece of good news in everything thusfar, Hashem will provide that Israel survives and does so with minimal casualties and even minimal damages. This has been proven thusfar and there is no reason to doubt it continuing. Unfortunately for the Palestinian Arabs, you are left being the pawns sacrificed by your leaders such that they can have lavish lives and live the good life. If you reside in Gaza and your apartment building has been destroyed, go visit the westernmost areas where your leaders reside and see the complete lack of damage. Do you desire to know why this is so? The reason is that they never launch rockets or mortars from these areas and thus the Israelis do not launch at these areas. Perhaps you should ask the IDF to target these places and make your leaders also enjoy making great sacrifices you have been called upon to make.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Abbas Going on Anti-Trump Tour

 

Mahmoud Abbas has a whole new reason that every world leader needs to recognize Palestine, preferably with Jerusalem as its capital city, because doing that is just so in your face Trump. He will be heading to the European Union (EU) Foreign Policy Ministers’ monthly meeting and starting with the top Foreign Policy Minister, Federica Mogherini, following up with the other twenty-eight Foreign Ministers on Monday. Riad al-Malki, the PA official in charge of foreign affairs, said Abbas will tell the EU, “Since Trump’s decision has altered the rules of the game, he expects the European foreign ministers to come forward and collectively recognize the state of Palestine as a way to respond back to Trump’s decision.” Wow, now that takes chutzpah! Now Mahmoud Abbas is not only declaring that the United States is disqualified from moderating anything of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, but is now inviting the EU and member states to replace the United States as the moderator and to do so they will qualify for this honor if, and only if, they recognize the new Arab State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. It is still unclear whether he means Eastern Jerusalem or all of Jerusalem which he has claimed before. Abbas elaborated on his theme from last week’s Islamic Conference Organization emergency meeting in Istanbul stating, “We have to take legal, political and diplomatic measures. The US has chosen not to be a mediator for the peace process. We reject it as mediator. The US is with Israel and supports and backs it.” Abbas added that, “Every Monday we will join another twenty-two or thirty organizations. There are five-hundred-twenty-two organizations, and we have the right to be members of them. Injustice has been committed against us, and the peak of the injustice is the US declaration that united Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.” What our benighted ruler of the Palestinian Authority (PA), PLO and Fatah very intentionally left out was the fact that President Trump’s declaration refers only to Jerusalem and specifies that its borders are to be determined in negotiations. Technically speaking, President Trump’s declaration was no different than the Russian recognition by Putin of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

 

Israeli Channel 10 News reported on Sunday that Slovenia is expected to recognize the State of Palestine as a response to President Trump declaration of Jerusalem, plus there were reports that three other European nations, Luxembourg, Ireland and Belgium. The Foreign Minister of Luxembourg several days ago called for the recognition of Palestine, in an effort to persuade France to take the lead of a group of European countries. A number of European nations have recognized the State of Palestine in largely symbolic moves. This anti-Trump tour by Abbas actually may have found the one chord which will reverberate in Europe, especially those with leftist governances which hate President Trump more than they desire to accept reason. We have seen many examples of such overreaching hatred of Donald Trump daily in social media posts, a hatred which apparently does not weaken with time. Mahmoud Abbas is working this angle as his former argument that the Jews, Israel, is the central cause of the wars, chaos, terrorism and everything else going wrong in the world thus if only the world would recognize that Israel must be replaced with Palestine such that the world will be corrected. If only these lands, which are an Islamic Waqf, meaning that it had once been conquered by Islamic forces and thus must never be ruled by any other, were returned to Arab Islamic rule with Mahmoud Abbas as its caring and compassionate ruler, then all would be right with the world. Well, almost everything as there is also the matter of that other Islamic Waqf of Lands known to most of us as Spain. Islamic leadership has never forgiven the Christians of Spain for their expulsion in 1492 and claim that Andalusia must be reinstated and Sharia, Islamic Law, must be restored. But now Mahmoud Abbas can use both arguments and play of the many Europeans who, largely secretly, hold anti-Semitic beliefs and feelings and now add to their anti-Trump dispositions to the pot and stir it well. Abbas has come to tell them he has a new idea where he intends to “See no Evil, Hear no Evil and Unleash His Evil.”

 

Abbas’s Promise to “See no Evil, Hear no Evil
And Unleash His Evil.”

 

He knows that his time is short and that once he has accomplished his state that if he establishes this state without making it demilitarized and allowing the Israeli Defense Forces and other security groups to guard his domain for them, then without the Israeli overview, Hamas will remove him and take his life in a mere matter of weeks if not days. Abbas had best remember the lessons of Gaza and how merciless Hamas was against their own brothers simply for the sake of power. The real problem is the reality should any form of Arab nationhood beyond being granted a semi-autonomous region under Israeli domain much as they actually have currently. What the world appears to be missing is the reality that the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria already are apart from Israel outside of security agreements and live under the laws and rules made by their elected legislative governance. The world has always simply blindly accepted Mahmoud Abbas description that the Palestinian Arabs have been denied the right to vote since 2005 and that this is the result of Israeli perfidy. The problem is that the reason there has been no election since is because Mahmoud Abbas has refused to allow elections. The last election came when Israel turned all of Gaza over to the PA. In this election, Hamas won with by a healthy margin. Mahmoud Abbas having Fatah lose the election for the Parliament made his rule difficult. The conflict for control went on until Hamas took complete control over Gaza leaving the fortunate Fatah and Abbas supporters fleeing to Judea and Samaria. Then Abbas expelled as many Hamas followers that the PA knew about leaving the Hamas part of the legislature ruling Gaza making it a no-Fatah-zone and the PA ruled in Judea and Samaria evicting all Hamas and Islamic Jihad members and Abbas’s Fatah Party ruling there. Israel does not rule over any of the Palestinian Arab populations. So, the Palestinian Arabs have two separate governments with one, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, ruling Gaza and the PA under the Fatah Party ruling in Judea and Samaria. The PA rules Area A and selected areas of Area B and Israel rules Area C all according to the Oslo Accords. As both governances, Gaza and the PA, have devolved into dictatorships both on occasion actually having their parts of the Legislature hold a meeting, usually as part of a photo opportunity and a way of pretending that they have any normative governance. These shows are used to blame Israel for preventing their actual rule or to make believe they have kept a promise such as altering their Charter from stating their intention to completely destroy Israel and kill every single Jew in the process. This coming show is no different from any farce put on by the PA. Unfortunately, this new ploy may just work better than their previous attempts to destroy Israel. There is one saving grace; Mahmoud Abbas has guaranteed the Arabs he rules that he will only accept the complete destruction of the Zionist Entity, or Israel. As even with all the European recognition in the world is not going to destroy Israel thus Abbas will reject any agreement offered no matter how generous, as he has already proven. It is so odd that the person who is often the saving grace for Israel ends up being Mahmoud Abbas. How ridiculous does that sound? We agree.

 

Beyond the Cusp