The Media and Anti-Israel Anti-Zionist Slanted Coverage

Read or listen to news reporting which emanates from the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), AFP (Agence France Presse), AP (Associated Press), CNN (Cable News Network), Reuters, Fox News, UPI (United Press International), Yahoo, Google, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, or even if your news comes with a laugh as you get your news from Comedy Central, or the myriad of smaller news agencies, television news, radio news, political talk shows, print media or even blogs including Beyond the Cusp, as all of these rely on the major news reports and other media to provide the meat and gristle on which we all prey upon to survive and provide the best commentary and even historical references and other interesting color as well as opinions and positions well backed up with facts. The problem comes when you are covering Israel and trying to report relatively fairly, though our Zionist roots tend to make our writings have a slant, often the opposite than many of the news reports, due to their omitting valuable and necessary information or taking the word of terrorist leaders without any filter or validations and pass these propaganda as raw unadulterated news, one needs to carefully provide balance and factual backup of your positions. Here at Beyond the Cusp we often refer to our views as being pro-Israel and pro-Zionist as we made Aliyah almost two years past and have enjoyed our new nation and have found the people to be very accommodating, friendly, helpful and finally finding other Jews who feel as we do about Israel and the problematic situation our dear nation has had foisted upon us. As we are all damaged when Israel is damaged and we feel that it is bad enough that so many news sources report about Israel always in a biased, strongly negative light and then we are told that all we need do is talk more forcefully and then our voices will be heard and Israel will have a positive side that might go a far way to negating the perceived negative slant. The difficulty with this suggestion is when Israelis speak more forcefully the reporters write the quote relegating them to have come from someone who appeared as a desperate Israeli, anxious Israeli, enraged Israeli, or simply called a crazed Israeli which negates everything related as the reporter introduction makes sure to discount any pro-Israel opinions by only using the most wide eyed and loud Israeli and pit their frenzied Israeli opposite a Hamas Fatah spokesperson who is telegenic and calm or they simply just have the Hamas or Fatah spokesperson alone with no intelligent counter either way. Last summer’s coverage of Operation Protective Edge and the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) review looking for violation of human rights both have glaring deficiencies which no factual based reasoning could do without, namely facts. Let’s just look at the simple and obvious slanted coverage and review.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission made the slanting of their report easiest to explain as their biasing of their review was by obvious omissions. Their review began on June 13, 2014 omitting the previous months’ provocation which included the kidnapping of three teens by Hamas operatives who then killed the youths burying them in a shallow grave near their Arab community. The review also omitted the ramping of rocket firing out of Gaza which had reached intolerable levels of several hundreds a day reaching Tel Aviv area which was another escalation. Had Israel not had Iron Dome systems ringing Tel Aviv and other areas of heavy population areas intercepting these rockets, including a number of newer rockets with obviously greater range and warheads than during previous confrontations, the Israeli casualties may easily have outnumbered those suffered by Gazans as a number of the largest missiles with as high as one thousand pound warheads would have struck central downtown Tel Aviv and taken down fifty plus story buildings. This too did not manage to be recorded in the ramping of the threats out of Gaza. By starting on June 13, 2014 and concentrating their review on the start of the Israeli response to the ramped up rocket fire into Israel and by their slanting through starting point they managed to make the Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and others rockets fired into Israel to be a response to Israeli unprovoked invasion and not Israeli actions being in response to the kidnapping followed by the increased rocket launches into Israel. Their study further counted the resulting casualties in a manner which portrayed the lack of Israeli casualties pitted against the numbers of Gazan casualties as another sign that Israel was using disproportional force. The reality was completely due to Israel using disproportional defense of their civilians with the Iron Dome missile interception system which intercepted Hamas and friends rockets with an unbelievable rate ranking its success at approaching perfection well over ninety percent with the few rockets which got through being unable to cause multiple deaths was due to the Israeli investment in rocket and bomb shelters and hardening schools and other places where children might otherwise have simply become victims. By concentrating on simply casualty figures the UNHRC was ignoring the fact that the Israelis had invested in defensive measures which kept their people safe while Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, Islamic State and others invested their money on rockets, weapons and tunnel construction which they intended to utilize in a night of mass terror in Israel. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) found unbelievable and unestimated number and existence of tunnels both as an interconnected assault system under Gaza itself and infiltration into Israel with many of the tunnels having dug numerous branches such that it provided multiple exits and deploy points in Israel. They found IDF uniforms with proper unit markings, handcuffs and large plastic locking straps which can also be used as handcuffs along with syringed and sedative drugs which could be used to make anyone captured into a manageable subject barely conscious thus easier to take hostage, maps of the Israeli communities they were probably going to take hostages, these maps included identifying buildings where the most valuable hostages would be located such as schools, day care centers and other similar denotations, motorcycles which would permit the deployment of terrorists and maps of Tel Aviv and bordering areas. They found plans in the tunnels which described in detail a horrific and well thought out plan which would have added to the confusion after a massive rocket assault on Rosh Hashanah attacking the very synagogues in Tel Aviv where the largest were denoted on the maps, the Jewish New Year’s celebration. Israel dodged a bullet by locating and searching the tunnels thus averting a disaster if this plan had been launched during the High Holidays.

So, by omission of the attacks by making the study by the UNHRC begin with the first volleys of artillery and tank fire followed by IDF forces going into Gaza, the UNHRC turned a defensive effort into a calculated assault with an intent to destroy as much of Gaza as they could by the IDF, IAF (Israeli Air Force) and the Israeli Navy. The UNHRC also investigated on site and took every Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Gazans who were chosen for the interviews by the Hamas governing body as unbiased sources while on the Israeli side the UNHRC had specific NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) from whom they asked for representatives for their witness accounts as their debriefing of official spokespersons. The problem comes from the NGOs they questioned all being under the funding umbrella of the New Israel Fund or directly funded by the European Union and individual governments. These are NGOs whose main raison d‘être is to denounce the IDF and any right leaning or actual nationalist or Zionist politician and have an especially deep hatred of Prime Minister Netanyahu and guilt by association any government coalition he heads. These NGOs are almost universally funded by outside entities including anti-Israeli NGOs most often from Europe or the United States, European governments and wealthy individuals and their organizations who particularly hate Israel or simply hate Jews such as George Soros. The UNHRC refuses to use random or official entities to procure information and seek out those who will further their intents to demonize Israel. Thus the UNHRC always will produce a severely biased and derogatory study of Israel, the only nation that the UNHRC bylaws demands that they pass a resolution denouncing Israel for the crime-de-jour before addressing anything else the UNHRC is investigating.

The European and world media entities listed at the top of the article did a similar attitude check during the coverage of Operation Protective Edge. Their reporting hardly ever mentioned the three teens kidnapped and murdered and only obliquely referenced the massive increased ramping of the rockets and mortars launched at Israeli population centers usually claiming that Israel responded to rocket launchings always intoned to imply that the rocket launchings were not a huge deal. One has to wonder how these same broadcasters would cover merely three rockets per day being fired into their home nation’s cities by terrorists who ruled a neighboring enclave as Gaza is to Israel. We all know they would be hailing their heroic forces which would have received orders to go into the neighboring enclave and raze it to the ground and those instructions and orders would have followed an intensive series of artillery and bombing runs designed to completely eradicate the entity and the world would have thought nothing of it. If you doubt that there would be an intense reaction to such just read about how the English reacted initially to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Belfast and around London and you will read about the British calling up reserve troops and placing them at almost every corner in Belfast and the use of heavy equipment in their fight against the IRA. Meanwhile the slant of the coverage was to incessantly keep a running total as provided by official spokespersons for Hamas, like they would never lie, and report on Gazan casualties while stressing that there have been almost no casualties in Israel implying disproportional force used by the Israelis. They never divulged the why almost no Israelis were being casualties. The reason actually was a form of disproportional planning and investment in civilian protections. Hamas and friends had a system of bunkers and tunnels that they could have given shelter comfortably to every living thing in Gaza and still managed to get their people through the tunnels to where they could best attack Israel always with the intent on striking civilian targets inside Israel. When the largest hospital in Gaza was struck the media was very quick to blame Israel sighting their own eyewitness accounts of a projectile striking the hospital and then implied directly that it had to be an Israel projectile. Within minutes the Hamas spokespeople were disseminating that the Israelis had struck a Hospital on purpose and for no reason as there was no military target there. They never requested the IDF look into how the hospital was struck and if they had they would have been shown the four rocket series launched from that location and that the four rockets diverted from their firing location and one struck somewhere in Ashkelon, one struck the Shati Refugee Camp, one went out over the Mediterranean Sea and one struck the al-Sifra Hospital. These trajectories were given in care of the Israeli projection systems mapping (see below map) used for immediate return fire on the location from where the rockets originate.

Radar Trajectory of barrage launched from within Gaza depicting strike points including the short round strike on the Shifa Hospital which Israel blamed by Hamas and Media accepted Hamas talking point unchecked

The biggest piece of omission was the real reason for the disparate numbers of casualties and damage to infrastructure. This was due to a form of disproportionate defense systems provided for the protection of their civilians. As denoted earlier, Israel has a series of shelters and all new residential structures are required to have one room in the units made as a rocket shelter which is fortified to provide what is deemed adequate protection and all large buildings have such rooms easily accessible to those working inside while schools and such are also fortified against rockets nearly universally in Israel. There is a similar system in Gaza which is better known as the terrorist bunker and tunnel systems but the Gazan civilians are not permitted to take shelter within. But such is not the main reason for the difference in these numbers as there was a force multiplier which rendered the vast number of rockets fired out of Gaza ineffective as they were intercepted by the Iron Dome System which track the rockets and determines if they are heading for an area where civilians are likely to be and those it intercepts with an accuracy and percentage beyond expectation. But there is also the attitude difference which was pointed out by the Israeli Prime Minister when he was asked well after the fighting had ended and in an interview by Israeli media which was made available for the asking, still waiting, still? Anyways, Prime Minister Netanyahu stated simply that, “We use our rockets to protect our civilians while Hamas uses their civilians to protect their rockets.” But there is more. While Israel placed the Iron Dome Batteries strategically just outside civilian areas such that they would have the most advantageous angle for intercepting Hamas and friends’ rockets. The Iron Dome systems were the only combat units stationed anywhere near civilian centers unless intelligence predicted a strike was imminent. This stationing IDF units and indirect fire stations such as mortars, rockets, missiles and artillery units outside of built up areas was intended to provide all military targets as far as possible from civilian centers such that any rockets fired at Israeli military would not pose any threat to the civilian population. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ISIS, Fatah, al-Qaeda and the rest of the merry bands of terror entities operated exclusively from civilian areas as shown in this video below

There is one final item and for a change we will try to keep it short. It has to do with the lie that Gaza is the most heavily populated area on earth. How many times have you heard that reported or alluded to in conversations with asides like, Reporter Bob, isn’t it crowded with people all in a closed in area there is Gaza? –Reporter replies, Why, yes, attractive anchor person, you can hardly move in places it is so tight and people at every turn wherever you look (camera pans a large group of Gazans standing around looking innocently going about who knows what but it sure is crowded as camera return to reporter Bob, and that picture about says it all as this is the scene wherever you go. What you never quite figure out is how come whenever they go to reporter Bob he is not surrounded by Gazans getting in the way of the camera as they go about fighting their way through people packed like sardines in a can. Truthfully, if we were to compute density of people during the work week Tel Aviv with its skyscrapers has a higher density than does Gaza City. The reality is very different because as Israel places their military out in the open away from civilians, Hamas and friends lace their military units amidst civilians and often right next to schools, hospitals, hotels where the media stay (as in above video) and also try to gather as many kids near their rocket launches in an attempt to get as many civilians killed as possible. I can hear the propaganda question already of well isn’t Gaza so built up that there is nowhere for the Hamas soldiers to operate? Soldiers?!, we reply. Hamas and friends terrorist forces have places to operate outside of the two or three large metropolises but they choose their locations to endanger the maximum number of civilians as possible. Why would one of the complaints made about the blockade of Gaza in order to keep weapons out also prevents the farmers from getting their goods out to market easily. So, there are farms in Gaza which implies there are open spaces in Gaza. The argument that if they operated outside the cities in the farm areas, then the farmer’s crops might get damaged is a divergence committed to excuse their risking lives of people making the crops worth more than the lives of Gazans. So, crops are to be protected and civilians are worth less than crops, what an argument but the reporters just report that there is no place else for the rockets and command centers to be set up as Gaza is the most densely populated on the plant. Well, yes, if you do not consider Hong Kong, Singapore, Vatican City, The Maldives, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Nauru, Taiwan, Barbados, Malta, Monaco and finally Gaza, yep, the most densely populated place on the planet except for those top ten and that one in the pesky one holding down slot eleven pushing the most densely populated area on earth down to number twelve, oops. If they are instead talking about Gaza City by itself well then we need to compare cities, well it did not make the list of the top fifty cities for population density. Well, I looked hard to find a list which placed the Gaza Strip as the most densely populated nation and the best it came in at on one and only one list at third and otherwise always twelfth give or take a couple of slots and more leaning at even further down the list than twelfth. But what about open spaces you ask? How about my handy-dandy map of the Gaza Strip showing the built-up population-dense areas versus open lands as a picture is worth a thousand words and I promised to keep this short.

Display shows large open areas with little population where Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other combatants could operate without threat to the population.

All done. Hope I was brief enough and did not stray off too far from the point and thanks for visiting.

Beyond the Cusp

Israel Unfortunate Choice Ahead Due to State Department

 

It has long been obvious that though the Pentagon, many on both sides of the aisle in Congress and throughout numerous other Cabinet departments and through numerous sectors and individuals in the United States support Israel and treat Israel as a friend. The animosity which originates from the Department of State sours much of the relations. Israel and the military and intelligence agencies share much information and their different avenues complement each other. There is a long history of Israeli innovation being returned to the Pentagon for incorporation on the United States equipment. One of the earliest of such improvements was what became known as the Super Sherman Tank which Israel redesigned the transmission, engine and upgraded main gun which prolonged the use of this weapons system for many additional years before finally being replaced in the early 1960s by the M60 Tank. One of the more recent and inexpensive upgrades came to the vaunted F-16 Jet Fighter which provided a means for the pilot at a glance to check his six, as looking for somebody coming up behind him as a threat is called. This upgrade consisted of attaching an extended automobile sport side-view mirror; the sport mirror was chosen to reduce drag. Sometimes the simplest of improvements prove just as valuable as retooling entire systems. Then there were the upgraded specifications to the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, many of which were eventually adopted by the United States. Israel also has often been the initial test case for United States weapons systems tests in actual combat, something the Israelis would rather avoid more of in the future but such is not always her choice. But even back in May of 1948 the State Department advised against the United States recognizing Israel when it declared its coming into existence as was also the advice of the Defense Department and virtually any Cabinet Member in President Truman’s staff as well as his closest advisors. One of the stories as to why President Truman went against such advice and recognized Israel immediately after their announced statehood was he was simply remembering the teachings his mother had instilled in him as a young child telling him the Biblical stories about the Hebrews, the Jews and the Exodus and that Israel was the Jewish ancient, and now modern, homelands. If such is a true story, then we thank Mrs. Truman, Harry Truman’s mother for such wisdom in raising her son while thanking Harry S. Truman for his fortitude in the face of raging advice to recognize the Jewish State.

 

An aside, does anybody know what the ‘S’ stood for as his middle name and the entire story behind it? Oddly enough, Harry Truman believed that all great men and especially Presidents had and always should have a middle initial even if they had no middle name from birth. Harry, for reasons unknown, chose ‘S’ for his middle initial though he never attached an actual middle name. This led some to call him, and not all that affectionately, Harry ‘S’ for nothing Truman. President Truman was also the President who first had a wooden nameplate which instead of his name stated, “The Buck Stops Here.” Sure is a far cry from recent Presidents who if they had a sign it would read, “The Buck Never Got Here and I Found Out About it Just Like Everybody Else in the News This Morning.”

 

The State Department animosities towards Israel is one item which cannot be laid at the feet of President Obama as the history of such difficulties may have started even before May of 1948 as they likely were opposed to the United Nations vote which suggested a plan by which Israel would have shared the sliver of land allowing for a Arab State next to the Palestinian Jewish State, as the Jews were called Palestinians in 1947-8 and on until the name was appropriated by Yasser Arafat in 1964 when founding the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization) which the KGB assisted in forming three years before there were any occupied lands unless all of Israel is considered occupied lands, the claim of the PLO, Arafat and his trusted number two, Mahmoud Abbas. The KGB wrote the charter and fashioned the PLO to mirror the same exact claims made by the Zionists except substituted Arab for the word Jew and even went so far as to adopt much of the Old Testament as being Arab and not Jewish history just leaving out the names but keeping the events in a manner. The KGB plan was to use the same tactics and arguments the Jews had made as the Zionist Congress which gained the promise of the world, including the leader of the Arab world, King Faisal I bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi, when the treaty of the San Remo Conference was adopted as part of the peace agreements ending World War I and also affirmed, adopted and enforced by the League of Nations through the Mandate System all of which was adopted subsequently by the United Nations under Article 80 of the United Nations Charter. The KGB saw the advantage of making the PLO the underdog making the identical claims the Zionists had put forward starting before the dawn of the Twentieth Century dating back to the 1897 founding of the Zionist Congress, the culmination of Theodore Herzl’s dream and life’s work which predated the founding by some years and cemented by the Alfred Dreyfuss conviction for treason for which he was later exonerated and the actual traitors found out after a prolonged agonizing series of events which was heightened and succeeded in very large part to Alfred’s wife, Lucie Eugénie, and the support by Émile Zola who wrote the scathing article, “J’Accuse” on January 13, 1898 (see article below).

 

 

J Accuse Emile Zola critique the wrongful conviction of Alfred Dreyfuss of treason solely as a Jew he made the perfect scapegoat behind which the General staff of the French Army could conceal perfidy of one of their own royalties as anti-Semitism played a high motivating factor in belief that Alfred Dreyfuss was guilty as Jews were rumored to be of untrustworthy nature and not loyal to the state. This was played up in his trial but in the end Alfred Dreyfuss became the only man ever released and exonerated after being imprisoned on Devil’s Island Prison.

 

A full English translated transcript of the J’accuse article by Émile Zola is posted here.

 

Meanwhile, the little trip to review L’affair Dreyfuss simply shows that the United States Department of State is anything but alone in possessing such a history and with the current tone and direction in Europe, and even signs in the United States, has company in the present as well. There are those when the largest challenge facing the United States was Soviet Communism claimed that the State Department was staffed primarily with Soviet Communist sympathizers or possible agents, which was given great validation with the trial and conviction of Aldrich Ames and Alger Hiss. Much of the rest of the attitudes of the public that there was a definitive Soviet strain running through the State Department also made sense as the people most desired and required by the State Department were people fluent in Russian and most of the applicants historically had been leftists which immediately sends up red flags (all puns intended) that large numbers of Communist populated the State Department. Now the emphasis for the State Department is the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Muslim nations including non-Arab states such as Iran, the Philippines, Malaysia and other Asian Islamic majority nations plus some of the Northern African and Horn of Africa Islamic nations. This has brought a number of Arabic and Farsi speaking individuals into the State Department and, as can be expected, the conspiracy theories are all about the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, Iranian, Saudi and a myriad of other Islamic infiltrators taking over where the Communist infiltrators left off in the who has infiltrated the State Department paranoia. Of course one must keep in mind that just because one has paranoid delusions that one is not actually correct in their suspicions. With either theory, whether it be Soviet agents or Islamic agents infiltrating the State Department, either or both were not exactly close friends of Israel; one might even venture to place them as enemies of the Jewish State.

 

The suspicion that the State Department has a distinct dislike of Israel does not need much investigation to realize the reality of such accusations. Add the current White House and the fact that an Iranian born person is currently a close advisor to the President and the tracing of a small but not insignificant number of Muslim Brotherhood related, linked or having strings which lead to the Brotherhood individuals employed by the White House in different advisory and support positions explains the reasoning that President Obama had as his plan from day one to, in his world, “put some daylight between the United States and Israel,” and he has succeeded in this endeavor with great achievements. The President’s other claim upon entering the White House of making Iran a member of the clubs of world nations and placing them as the leading influence in the Middle East as well as the rest of MENA and, if the Iranians get their greatest of desires, far more including Europe and beyond. When President Obama initially stated his desire to bring Iran into the clubs of nations few expected at first that one of those clubs was the nuclear weapons club, one of the more exclusive clubs soon to become the fastest growing club with new members galore within the next eighteen months or less. The world may as well face the facts that unless another nation steps forward to enforce the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT) then not only will Iran be nuclear armed within the rest of the term of President Obama as they are highly unlikely to bet the house and the opportunity to become a nuclear power on the next President honoring the promises made by President Obama and otherwise treating them in the same vein as he treated those of his predecessors, President George W. Bush in particular. If this is the Iranian deadline one can bet that it is everyone’s deadline.

 

Meanwhile, the State Department is patting each other on the back for another fantastic success just like the success they made in North Korea. One need understand that the State Department is always shocked when the other side of these actually very weak agreements fails to even bother to take ten minutes aside and rejoice their victory before setting about to break every promise and stipulation in the deal they just signed. Perhaps if we made it a rule to sign all agreements the morning of the day observed as their weekend then their employees tasked with enforcing agreements would take at least the remainder of the signing day off before working to invalidate every last word including ‘of’, ‘the’ and ‘and’ of that agreement. There is an exception, and that is Israel. Israel is held by the State Department to a standard unparalleled throughout all of human history. The State Department does not only hold Israel to the terms of every agreement but even believes Israel should also be forced to commit to upholding State Department inter-office memorandums and bullet points. These are not parts of treaties or agreements; these are simply the dreams and other machinations from the dark recesses of the twisted minds of people who really do not like Israel. The animosity towards Israel from the State Department is palpable. This was made evident during the administration of President George W. Bush amongst others before him back to November 29, 1947, or at the least May 15, 1948.

 

To give a prime example of the brilliance in making the world that little bit extra tough for Israel, the State Department will always be there with its version of tough love, let us look at the foremost action taken at largely the behest of the State Department as communicated to President George W. Bush by then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. We need to remember that George W. Bush, despite his insistence that Israel be divided further ignoring international law and treaties which give Israel the undivided lands west of the Jordan River. Also in plans to assist Israel by applying the deeply rooted, if not thought out, plan that democracy instituted allowing the citizenry to vote will produce leaders who will be willing to work towards the same goals as the Western Democracies, all will result in more fanfare than progress or change. Never mind that the people in many of these nations and populations have little if any concept on freedom, independence of the ballot box and anonymous voting rights meaning their recorded vote theoretically is untraceable back to them or any other individual. They do not believe that their cast vote matters unless it is cast to retain those in power otherwise when they return to power life will not be comfortable, and one can rely on the promise that they will return to power and their vengeance will be swift and brutal. Only if they are replaced by somebody even more brutal and strong enough to resist any and all attempts to steal their position by coup does this new ruler remain in power. This was recently made very evident when Egyptian President Morsi despite attempting to replace some of the ranking Generals in the military was unable to rid himself of Commander of the Armies Sisi who removed him, set up an interim government run by military council sans himself and while he appeared bold and favored to be the next President. This came to pass and in his first year as President of Egypt he has removed much of the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as tried former President Morsi for criminal intents thus guaranteeing he will never return to office.

 

When President George W. Bush insisted that the new election in the Palestinian autonomous regions of Gaza, Judea, and Samaria allow anybody and everybody to be permitted to field candidates, even Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda of Gaza, the various criminal gangs and on and on; Arab Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas protested vehemently but to no avail; Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu warned exactly as had Abbas and with the same results; everybody who knew anything about the Middle East would have realized that Hamas would likely defeat Fatah and the other so-called moderates would lose. Abbas even made sure his office was not included in the coming fiasco. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed the concept that elections would solve all the ills and with proper representation and the terrorists embarrassed sufficiently and out of power as no rational people would choose terrorists, especially known terrorists to lead their society as to do such would be madness. This line of reason was solidly purported by the State Department, the source of this misbegotten concept that democracy, especially democracy where there is absolutely no history of independent thought and even the predominant religion was based on surrender of the self to the whole we were told, the entire world was told, that democracy cures all ills. Well, guess what, Hamas won and won easily. Their electoral victory was muted as much as Abbas was able which may have partially led to the Hamas coup to take complete control in Gaza. Now it is that same State Department which calls for Israel to allow these “Freedom Flotillas” to pass unmolested through the arms sea embargo enforced by both Egypt and Israel claiming that it could do no harm. Israel, quite rightfully, maintains that once a single such flotilla was granted free pass the next ones would be chocked full of arms. Still the State Department is right there looking over Israeli shoulders for the slightest innuendo that Israel may be about to act is done in a manner which the State Department current directives and policy statements. As far as the State Department is concerned, Israel is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States and is ruled over as a protectorate under State Department management. The State Department has been working endlessly and with unceasing efforts to undermine every Israeli attempt to mitigate the Iranian nuclear threat. It has perhaps the State Department and White House concerted efforts to prevent Israel from taking any action. They leaked the information that Israel had arranged to lease for training purposes a pair of Azerbaijan airfields which had the immediate effect the Israeli hope to use that military option President Obama and the State Department not only were dead set on keeping said military plan firmly cemented on the table but to also cement any Israeli hope to terminate the Iranian immediate nuclear threat their own method. There was another leak; this time from the White House ending the hopes being granted overfly permission by Saudi Arabia. Every time there has been a plan it has been blocked either by the White House or the State Department. It was a report from the State Department which advised every President to demand that Israel return all of the property she may have gained even in defensive wars where she was the attacked and thus aggrieved nation and had every right under international laws to retain any and all lands gained in such a defensive war such as were deemed necessary to provide for defense or that had other valuable resources which would aid in future efforts and discourage their enemies from again bringing war against the aggrieved nation. But instead of the winner getting to dictate the peace, the State Department with valuable assists from the European Union and its member nations, along with the Arab League and the aggressor nations have an almost universal privilege at determining where the boundaries will be drawn almost exclusively placing the lines in some manner forcing Israel all the way back to her previous position reinstating the Green Line placing Israel into jeopardy once more.

 

Further proof was provided during last summer’s Operation Defensive Edge where the State Department was assigned final clearance for any and all shipments of arms to Israel including guaranteed by documented arms agreements, the kind President Obama claims he was arranging with Iran with one very significant difference, the Israeli arms agreements had been ratified by Congress receiving near unanimous support from Congress. This one extra signoff should have been merely a formality but instead became a complete arms embargo for the duration of the conflict. The coordinated assault meant to force Israel into a defenseless position as she might have run out of munitions, in particular JDAMs and other smart weapons which minimize collateral damage as best as possible which weapons are vital to reduce civilian casualties which Hamas and Islamic Jihad and other groups fighting against Israel who locate their emplacements instead of out in open areas use the heavily populated cities, and Gaza had large areas of farmlands (as depicted in map below showing population distribution in the Gaza Strip) and is not packed border to border with people. Central Israel where Hamas aimed most of their M 75 and the M 302 missiles has a greater population density than does Gaza. Jerusalem neighborhoods would rival Gaza City for population density as would Akko but these facts never quite make it onto the facts sheet the State Department puts out for the media and news shows to utilize as presumably unbiased reporting.

 

 

Population density map of the Gaza Strip where the display shows large open areas with little population where Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other combatants could operate without threat to the population but instead choose to place the entirety of their rocket and missile systems within Gaza City, Khan Yunis, Deir al-Bala, and Jabalia Camp. The Israelis, on the other hand, set up well outside the inhabited areas such as Sderot to assure the civilians are in minimal danger though these efforts are wasted as Hamas and Islamic Jihad fire their missiles and rockets and mortars into the Israeli civilian centers hoping to murder noncombatants through their actions, both Israeli and Gazan which doubles the war crimes committed by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the rest.

 

 

Israel has no choice but to believe that Israel may not ever return to the trust level shared for almost half a century. This may mean that the F-35 Jet Fighters will be the first and last stealthy airframes purchased from the United States. As another source would just as likely to become problematic with time, perhaps some serious consideration should be given to produce all vital military components and complete systems within Israel dependent only on the outside world for raw materials such as iron, carbon and fuel. The designs and manufacture should be completed at home. We have the ability and the facilities as is proven by the drone manufacturing where the Hermes 900 drone which is virtually the size of a modern fighter just differently powered and unmanned. On that note we should point out that going pilotless with each fighter pilot placed on the ground nearby or in a squad aircraft which would carry a set of up to twenty-five pilots with each controlling his aircraft inside an escort plane sitting twenty to thirty miles from the deployed aircraft keeping them safe while allowing greater maneuverability for their aircraft no longer subjected to human limitations. Each aircraft is also set automatically to using defensive maneuvers and returning to its home base or returning to the arena should its pilot regain control. Such a system would maximize safety for pilots and Israel could use their advanced drone knowledge to accomplish this system before the rest of the world if only we would take the leap and have the faith in our engineers and technicians to work out such a system where each pilot sits in a mock-up canopy with all the controls just as they are in the aircraft just like the trainers are today except this system does not need to try and mimic the movements and G-forces. The sooner we stress this as Israel’s future air force the sooner it will be the Israeli Air Force (IAF). What’s the saying, “The future is now!” Why not make that the motto of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the Army, Navy, Air Force, Border Patrol and even Law Enforcement, time to get smart, efficient and a step ahead.

 

Beyond the Cusp