Rockets Red Glare with Bombs Bursting in Air

 

As to Americans that sounds distinctly familiar as part of their National Anthem, it is unfortunately the situation for all too many Israelis residing in the southern region. There is this dichotomy with the government where as long as Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their friends attack and destroy anything south of Ashkelon, and even a rocket every now and again into Ashkelon or Ashdod, the reaction will be measured and limited such that it does not threaten to harm a single Gazan. This is done by striking weapons storage, rocket storage, mortar storage, launching sites and manufactures well after midnight and long before dawn, like between one in the morning and three thirty in the morning; then the Israeli government is seen as responding but the world is aware that the response is of a minimal and acceptable nature. The government aims to satisfy those under barrage that they care and are doing something to attempt to mitigate the situation while giving the message to the Europeans that all care has been taken to prevent any Arab even suffering a hangnail due to their actions. Such was the response to approximately one-hundred-eighty rockets launched from the Gaza Strip at Israel. The Iron Dome aerial defense system intercepted at least thirty of the rockets launched with the majority of the rest of the rockets hitting open areas. Allow us to remind you that the success of the Iron Dome is partially due to their launching between two and three interceptors to assure they strike the targeted rocket. This is required as the interceptor can, on occasion, strike another rocket close to the one intended requiring a second interceptor. At fifty-thousand dollars per interceptor, that becomes one large cost to prevent a twenty to fifty dollar rocket from striking within any neighborhood, but Israel will continue to allocate funding as the people are irreplaceable. In Israel, we place a very high priority on the lives of any individual and, as has been proven, Israel places a higher priority on the lives of the citizens of Gaza than does their Hamas rulers. This has been proven by their use of children as human shields. Unfortunately, this past evening at least two Israelis were injured as a result of rockets that landed in Sderot. The injuries, according to Magen David Adom, were a 34-year-old man with wounds from glass shards and a 20-year-old with light injuries both of whom were evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. Over a dozen other people were treated for shock, including three pregnant women who began having labor contractions from the stress.

 

Even the Iron Dome only intercepts close to 90% of the projectiles targeted. The problem in Sderot is the launch to strike time is often too brief for the interceptor to plot an intercept course allowing for it to launch. In Sderot, the people have approximately ten seconds from the launching of a rocket and making their way to cover before it strikes. This is an unimaginable situation for anybody who has not actually experienced such terror. The citizens in Sderot live with this Sword of Damocles over their heads three-hundred-sixty-five days a year, imagine such for your own family and tell Israel how she should respond to these attacks. This is what people in a city of around twenty-five-thousand and the numerous kibbutzim who also live perilously close to the Gaza border and are facing a similar threat. But Hamas and Islamic Jihad are smart enough to know that as long as they do not strike any of the larger populations centers, especially Tel Aviv metropolitan area and the Jerusalem greater area, that the response will be minimal and they need not worry about any serious Israeli reprisals. After all, the southern Israel region hardly even counts when demographic mapping of population density of Israel is mapped. As becomes obvious from the map below is that the vast majority of the voting public, as well as the general public, reside along the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor and along the central coast centered on Tel Aviv. Around Gaza there are far fewer Israelis and the majority of these are not particularly wealthy, and as in every society on this imperfect planet, money talks and everyone else pays the price of their talking. Still, to the credit of the Israeli government, they do place a number of the Iron Dome systems in the south to protect the citizens and they have deployed a fair number of IDF forces along the Gaza border for the people’s protection.

 

Rough Map of Israeli Population Density

 

This brings us to the next series of considerations. Hamas or Islamic Jihad, it really does not matter which, will sooner or later decide to measurably increase the level of their rocket fire and might even use a few of their guided missiles, a large investment as these are few in number, thank Hashem. Still, they have what they call their M-75 Ballistic Missile Named the Jerusalem Rocket (also called the M302 from China originally but copied by Iran), the rocket so famous that they erected a statue to commemorate their great achievement (see below). This is the ballistic missile with which they can strike the near suburbs of Jerusalem and southwestern Jerusalem if they have a favorable wind. What makes this missile so vital is it easily reaches Tel Aviv and has a reported range of one-hundred-fifty kilometers carrying a one-hundred-fifty kilogram warhead. This rocket is capable of bringing down an entire building such as the Azrieli Center Towers, Kirya Tower or the Electra Tower among others causing massive numbers of casualties. The buildings are replaceable, the people are irreplaceable, and that is definitive Israeli logic. It is also why Iron Dome units are placed wherever they are required and we launch as many interceptors as it takes to safeguard every life.

 

Monument for the M-75 Ballistic Missile Named the Jerusalem Rocket

 

Hamas declared earlier this spring that they were armed and prepared to challenge Israel again this summer. They pick their timing for when they believe that the Israeli government is weakest and most consumed with preparations for elections. There are no elections planned for this year as the next scheduled elections are in 2019, but Hamas is as aware as anybody that rarely has an Israeli government managed to serve their entire term without the need for early elections. Often such is done because the ruling party believes that their best shot at holding power is imminently now, so they dissolve the Knesset and call for elections. This has often backfired, and thus is always a risk. Other times a contentious issue arises where the ruling coalition is in conflict and the minority opposition parties believe they see an opening to take power, so they press that the issue dividing the coalition be used for a vote of confidence knowing it will fail. This has often led to consolidating the former coalition voters and thus simply strengthening the previous ruling parties and making the Prime Minister and his coalition even more secure. Elections, especially parliamentary elections, can often have very peculiar results which nobody could have foretold, which is why it is always risky for whoever brings on early elections. Hamas knows that such is a good time to strike Israel as when the government is feeling threatened, they also often are less likely to take any chances on a military offensive. For Hamas, Islamic Jihad and friends, this means they could possibly inflict severe destruction even on central Tel Aviv without suffering an IDF assault into Gaza to end their rocket and missile fire. As to whether Hamas and Islamic Jihad have the ability to strike deeply into Israel, below is an inventory of just some of the rockets and missiles available to them and their abilities. Where these attacks upon the south of Israel have utilized the smaller rockets, having one smash through your roof and blow apart your kitchen while you are in the living room is enough to send one into shock, and if unfortunately it strikes the room one is occupying, then there are deaths and severely wounded and all Israel mourns.

 

 

The other problem faced in Israel is the media never bothers to cover these rocket attacks upon Israel and we have seen times when the numbers of rockets increased to the point where there were hundreds launched daily for weeks without a word in the Western media. Finally, Hamas and Islamic Jihad started launching larger rockets deeper into Israel but as the media still viewed this as old news and not worthy of coverage, the world remained blissfully ignorant to what was happening in Israel. Even when rockets and missiles were launched their full range striking Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and even as far north as Haifa, the media remained relatively silent or reported that a couple of rockets were launched on Jerusalem and Tel Aviv ignoring the other three to five hundred rockets launched on the rest of Israel. When finally, Israel responds with the IDF moving into Gaza with tanks and infantry the media breaks their silence making it sound like the Israelis woke up this morning and decided, hey, why don’t we go invade Gaza and make their lives miserable for no reason whatsoever. The media reaction is one of complete and total shock claiming to have no idea why Israel would go and invade Gaza. After two or three weeks of four hundred rockets each day with an increasing percentage launched on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and other heavily populated areas, the real question the media should have been asking for a good two weeks or more is why hasn’t Israel leveled Gaza to the ground. This has been the exact coverage Israel received the last three times when she responded to overt attacks coming from Gaza and yet the world and the media continue even now ignoring the constant attacks from Gaza using not merely rockets but these other attacks with incendiary devices attached to kites, balloons and even to birds such as the falcon found dead with such a device attached to its leg. How does one explain such cruelty and yet this was all but unreported outside of Israel. Should any Israeli resort to such brutality, you can bet it would make the news for weeks on end questioning the morality of the Israelis.

 

The above is simply another measure of the separate and unequal measure used by the media between their coverage of Israel and the coverage of her neighbors. Israel is expected to have such a high standard of actions and morality that anything short of perfection is considered a crime against humanity. While on the other hand, the criminal acts which do qualify as crimes against humanity and cruelty to animals by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezballah, the Palestinian Authority, and the various other Arab forces which have attacked Israel over the years are simply ignored as the media gives them a pass as such is expected from these quarters. Thus, when Hamas, Islamic Jihad or others in Gaza tie incendiary devices to birds and send them into Israel, if the media would report it they would claim that Israel failed to rescue the poor falcon which was caught in a tree. There would be no mention of why or how it was caught in the tree or that an incendiary device attached to the bird caused its death, just simply Israelis were unable to save a poor bird which was simply caught in a tree. When the Palestinian Authority pays terrorists proportionally to the number of Israelis they murder, hardly a peep from the world until President Trump held back aid to the Palestinian Authority over these payments, and he was criticized as causing hardship on the poor Palestinians living under Mahmoud Abbas who continues to demand that the United States continue their payments so that he can continue to pay these terrorists and their families for their having murdered Israelis, and they get additional if the Israelis happen to be Jews. But when an Israeli stops a terrorist who is attempting to stab people at a bus stop in Jerusalem by shooting him, the media demands that the Israeli face charges of manslaughter of murder because he shot a terrorist who was only using a knife as if the Israeli is only permitted equal or lesser armaments when stopping terrorism in action. Often such articles begin as such, ‘Israeli man shoots Palestinian dead in Jerusalem this morning. During an altercation at a bus stop, an Israeli brandished his weapon and shot a Palestinian who was amongst a number of people at the bus stop. The Palestinian was pronounced dead at the scene and the Israeli man was not even taken by police for questioning. Some of those waiting for the bus have reported the man was attempting to stab those at the bus stop but it is uncertain as nobody was injured other than the shooting victim.’ For those who believe we are exaggerating, below find an actual headline after a terror attack where two Israelis were injured by the Palestinian assailants who were prevented from causing further harm by an Israeli at the scene who was armed. One would be led to believe that the Palestinians were the victims of a stabbing attack, not that they were the perpetrators of the stabbing attack which was brought to an end by an armed Israeli.

 

 

This kind of coverage is largely responsible for the numbers of people who view Israel as the aggressor and the Palestinians as the victims. The media paints that picture no matter how much it must twist and contort their reporting to make Israel into the horrific perpetrator of the violence and not the victims of violence. We have seen reporting which stated that Israel fired five missiles towards Gaza while not bothering to mention that all those missiles fired by Israel were from Iron Dome, which is an anti-missile battery and cannot be utilized as an offensive weapon and only as an interceptor. These articles will finally mention that the missiles fired by Israel were in response to a dozen rockets fired out of Gaza. Still this gives the impression that the missiles Israel launched were offensive in nature and not fired to intercept the rockets from Gaza plus the wording is often so vague that one gets the feeling that Israel fired missiles into Gaza and then Hamas fired rockets in return when the reality is Hamas fired rockets, Israel intercepted a number of these rockets, and nothing was fired into Gaza. Reports have started off with Israeli IDF fighter jets struck over a hundred separate targets in Gaza. Again, it is not until the third from last paragraph that they mention Israel was responding to attacks earlier from Hamas and Islamic Jihad within Gaza. Often they do not report who was responsible for the rockets from Gaza, they simply magically were launched by a few Gazans out for a lark and not meaning any harm, but Israeli jets struck selected targets, thus Gaza did little if any damage and those Israelis punished them by striking accurately. They never mention that Israel strikes these targets more often than not in the early morning hours to minimize any chance of casualties. Hamas targets as best they can civilians. Below is a picture of a school bus which it was reported to have stopped an attack. This was a Palestinian who used a large construction vehicle on a Jerusalem street striking cars and other vehicles and which finally was stopped but only after he struck this fortunately empty school bus. The caption was as we copied at the time that this was the school bus which stopped the attack. The title should have read attack finally ended after striking vehicles upon striking this school bus, but that might have been too accurate.

 

School Bus which Stopped Attack

 

We could continue with more and more evidence but the fact that at least seventy rockets were fired out of Gaza on Wednesday of this week and until your reading this, unless you read Israeli new sites, you likely thought that all was quiet on the Israel-Gaza front because a week ago it was announced that Egypt had arranged peace between Hamas and Israel. Well, they did and they did not. What happened was the political wing of Hamas made peace with Israel which was easy as they are not firing rockets or sending incendiary balloons and kites into Israel or as we reported a couple of days ago firing on IDF positions. Hamas military wing refused to accept the ceasefire and has continued their attacks. So Israel is at peace with the Hamas political wing while the Hamas military wing continues their attacks upon Israel to which Israel has finally responded. We expect to have some hear that Israel strikes Hamas against ceasefire agreement with Hamas from somewhere in the world simply because they have no desire to actually dig for the facts, they just find something with which to attack Israel, this will bring them accolades from their editors and a possible promotion so they run with whatever makes Israel into the monster. That is the realism which makes up the world’s news. The editors will refuse reality if it does not fit their political proclivities thus reporters find only the news their editors desire and the people suffer by not being told the truth about many of the situations the world over. Yesterday’s story is likely about an ongoing war where followers of Islam, the presumed religion of peace, have been waging a genocidal war of extinctions against the Christians and Animists across the African Transition Zone with the most recent atrocity in Nigeria. The story is worth reading if for no other reason than to be informed and the links provided. The same war is being waged by Turkey against the Kurds in northern Syria and by Iran and Iraq together against the Kurds in northern Iraq. These are the very same Kurds who were ready to declare themselves independent and form a nation state but were advised by the United States State Department that their doing so would be inconvenient for the United States. The Kurds complied and are now being exterminated for their failure to declare themselves a nation. In southern Syria around Damascus and the southern mountains the Druze are being selectively slaughtered by Iranian IRGC forces who are supporting Bashir al-Assad in Syria to hold on to power which he will maintain over an ever shrinking number of people. Have you heard about those stories, probably not as it paints what would be considered an Islamophobic picture. What a shame that the truth must be filtered to protect the very people who are the aggressors in most of these conflicts.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Syria Attempting to Broaden War Threatening Israel

 

Israel sent her warplanes into Syria this past weekend in order to intercept yet another attempted shipment of weapons potentially including advanced anti-aircraft missiles into Lebanon arming further the Hezballah terrorists who rule the Bekaa Valley and most of Lebanon south of the Litani River. Hezballah has already taken control of most of Lebanon and has indirect, more like reviewing rights of any actions or laws, of the Lebanese government, an improvement of sorts over the direct rule they held a few years back. Apparently trying to rule and fight wars with Israel was taking too great a threat of Israel holding Lebanon responsible. Now Lebanon has been afforded plausible deniable for Hezballah military actions which has not helped much with the events across the border and within their borders with Syria. The length of the reach by Hezballah included their required approval of choice for the new Prime Minister when the new government was formed. Full display of both Lebanon’s difficulty and the threat to Israel are obvious in the map below. Syria will try to drag Israel into the war once again so they can claim to be fighting a holy war against the Zionist entity and will use all of Hezballah’s abilities if need be to accomplish this. That makes the weapons Hezballah already possess and any they are able to smuggle all the more important and why Israel must prevent certain weapons systems of ever being smuggled into Lebanon and to Hezballah forces there. That was the reason for the raid and why there may be more in the future with each one presenting the same difficulties.

 

Map Depicting Hezballah Control in Lebanon
Thanks to Syrian and Iranian Assistance

 

Israeli sources including Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman reported the raid was a success and that all planes returned and were undamaged. The Syrians reported things differently claiming to have shot down one Israel aircraft and damaging another. No pictures of the destroyed Israeli plane were provided to back the Syrian claims and they have made similar claims on previous occasions including once against American aircraft under President Obama’s brief attempt at a Syrian campaign against Islamic State. The Syrians also fired four missiles into Israel with one being intercepted by the Arrow III system which was the first real world use of the system which operated well in all aspects. The remaining three landed in open areas, two in the Israel area of the Jordan Valley and the final one landed in Jordan reportedly causing no damage or loss of life. The attempt by Syria to provide their Hezballah ally with rockets is far from new and Israel has taken to only intercepting weapon systems which would provide Hezballah with additional capabilities with the most serious being anti-aircraft missiles and anti-ship missiles. The Iranians have been attempting to provide the Hezballah terrorists with the Chinese C803 anti-ship missiles as well as SAM missile batteries of a more advanced series than those in the Bekaa Valley already. This probably requires an update on the extent to which Hezballah has been rearmed since the United Nations, United States and European Union guaranteed after the Second Lebanon War as part of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 and the doubling the size of the UNIFIL forces who were assigned to prevent Hezballah from rebuilding their tunnel and bunker systems and rearming with rockets, let alone missiles.

 

The UNIFIL forces have been photographed allowing and even assisting in loading their trucks to move Hezballah munitions, armaments, rockets and personnel around in southern Lebanon south of the Litani River, the area where they are presumably tasked to prevent Hezballah from accomplishing such minor details. Hezballah had completely restructured their tunnel systems, underground bunkers, and massively extended these systems and improved their command and control as well as their communications systems and networks. This will have massive positive effect on their abilities and lethality should there ever be a need for Israel to attempt to blunt their threat to Israeli existence. Before the Second Lebanon War Hezballah was suspected of having stocks reaching as high as thirty-five-thousand rockets of which a very small percentage were of the larger varieties able of reaching beyond Haifa and even fewer which had any guidance whatsoever. This had vastly changed. Their current armaments include tens of thousands of missiles with ranges reaching the entire length of Israel carrying as high as five-hundred kilo warheads which also makes the nuclear arms capable. The various names are easy to remember and they are with their range, diameter and payloads as follows:

Katyusha approx. 132mm diameter range 10 kilometer with a 5 kg payloads
FAJR-3 approx. 240mm diameter range of 43 kilometer with a 45 kg payload
FAJR-5 approx. 233mm diameter range of 75 kilometer with a 175 kg payload
Fateh-110/M-600 approx. 0.61 m diameter range of 300 kilometer with a 500-650 kg payload
Zelzal-2 approx. 610 mm diameter range of 210 kilometer with a 600 kg payload
SKUD-D approx. 0.88 m diameter range of 700 kilometer with a 1000 kg payload

The map below indicates the ranges as they pertain to Israel and the danger becomes evident, very evident. This is one of many reasons that Israel has developed the world’s most advanced layered missile defense systems and is working on secondary and triple level means of intercepting all varieties of indirect weaponry including missiles, rockets, artillery and mortars. Israelis are thankful as many lives have been saved and apparently more will need these systems in the future, which is unfortunate.

 

Hezballah Rocket & Missile Threat

 

Hezballah has not just tens of thousands of rockets and missiles but somewhere approaching two-hundred-thousand of varying sizes and capabilities. Additionally, there have been reports that through captured weaponry from various Syrian rebel groups that Hezballah has come into possession of a limited number of American MANPAD anti-aircraft weapons as well as similar systems designed from Russian and Chinese types of anti-aircraft weapons of a similar nature. These anti-aircraft and any anti-ship missiles which the Iranians have managed to provide to Hezballah are amongst the most dangerous should another war break out. The last war already provided ample indications that Hezballah has received numerous effective anti-tank rockets and have developed very effective tactics for their deployment. This was one area which the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) needed to develop some form of countermeasures. The greatest threat is to the Israeli public as Hezballah’s numbers of missiles are sufficient to use for swarm attacks as they can lose large numbers to interception providing they are able to get some percentage through the Israeli defenses. The numbers of missiles makes air superiority a necessity which is why Israel cannot allow large numbers or advanced air defenses to be provided to Hezballah as only through air superiority can Israel successfully destroy the stores of missiles and their launchers before they are sent in numbers over Israeli cities such as Haifa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheba and numerous others.

 

The difference between Hezballah and Israel is a familiar one but still important to mention while we are on the subject. First, Hezballah uses identical tactics as does Hamas and will the PLO, which is to say the Palestinian Authority when they decide they have gained all they can through blackmail and using the world to demand Israel kowtow to demands for their surrender and return to their terrorist ways, which means firing from behind the people they claim to protect while Israel does everything possible to protect civilians, both Israeli and Palestinians. Hezballah has placed their rocket launchers inside civilian homes and place their command bunkers under hospitals, schools and even Mosques. They defend their positions using civilians and store their weapons and rockets in civilian’s homes, Mosques and schools. Hezballah builds tunnels and bunkers in which they secure their fighters and civilians are forced to remain on the surface usually near Hezballah fighter locations. Further, Hezballah uses villages and towns as their operations centers and builds fighting positions within these locations often people’s homes, schools and other public locations. The Hezballah tactic is to maximize civilian deaths, hardships and destruction of civilian structures all such that at the end of the conflict they can show this destruction to the media as proof of Israel offenses claiming the Israelis simply attacked civilian homes and structures out of spite and not because of their being used as military enforcements. Often the media can tell the claims are bogus as they can see the fortifications and still take their photographs using such angles so as to avoid displaying the fortifications while maximizing the obvious damage. Often the media has their photos and stories edited by Hezballah and in order to be permitted to return and cover future events each media outlet is required to follow the Hezballah story otherwise their entire news service will be barred from covering anything in Lebanon. Meanwhile, in Israel the media is permitted complete freedom and is free from any forms of censorship whatsoever which is why often the bad stories come out about Israel while Israeli enemies always get star treatment by the media. Israel suffers from the identical media difficulty that the United States also faces with total freedom of the media. When you have no operational control over the media and their stories and your enemy exercises total media control and is willing to lie and the media willingly follows along with their messages, it should be no surprise that Israel has the media difficulty.

 

The final warping of the media coverage is the often result in civilian casualties between Israel and her enemies. The extensive efforts that Israel goes to in order to keep its civilians protected, its enemies all spend seemingly an equal amount of effort to maximize the destruction of civilian structures and the numbers of dead and injured civilians they are able to produce. This leads to a high civilian casualty count while Israel often suffers minimal civilian deaths and casualties. Israelis are well trained and are conscious of the closest shelter when there is a war and are willing to drop anything including prayers to head to their closest shelter. Israel’s enemy governments and terror forces consider shelters as a waste of resources which could be better used to purchase weapons. This leads to a civilian casualty count in Israel often approaching zero while her enemies who place their fighting forces and weapons stores and rocket tubes within civilian homes and use civilians as human shields suffer civilian casualties in the tens, hundreds or unfortunately thousands. Still, it has been shown and witnessed that Israel does far more than any other military to protect and avoid civilian casualties on either side even to the point of calling off strikes to avoid civilian casualties even when the civilians have voluntarily gathered to protect terrorists. The IDF is amongst, if not the, most moral military in all history. Don’t take our word for it; listen to Colonel Richard Kemp in the video below giving evidence to the United Nations.

 

 

An example came when the IDF had three terrorist leaders holed up in a Mosque in Gaza. The IDF troops refused to enter the Mosque as this is something they avoid out of respect for a house of worship (you never want to see what Israel’s enemies do to captured Synagogues). Hamas radio called for women to rush to the Mosque with some extra burkas and within minute’s two dozen women in burkas and some carrying burkas entered the Mosque. Soon afterwards, the women left the Mosque as a mob hiding the three terrorists wearing burkas somewhere in the group. The IDF officer ordered his men to simply leave as the alternative would have been unthinkable for IDF soldiers to potentially appear to accost Muslim women.

 

In conclusion, the problem facing Israel also involves Russia as the ally and enforcement arm of Syria. Israel coordinates with the Russian commanders before sending any aircraft into Syrian airspace such that Russian and Israeli aircraft are not in conflict. Thus far, by all information, the Russians have not been sharing such information with the Syrians intentionally but there is obviously some leakage. When Bashir al-Assad’s military commanders receive hints or information of an imminent Israeli strike they inform their militias and other unattached forces who have been armed and often actually are Hezballah and receiving support directly from Iran. Syria would love to open a front against Israel in the hopes of internationalizing the war and bringing it before the United Nations General Assembly where Israel will be once again denounced. The end result will be a front opened across the Golan Heights with Hezballah attacking from the Israeli northern border backed by the Lebanese Army which is American armed including tanks and aircraft. As they have already been given these arms, the merging of the Lebanese Army with Hezballah being placed under their control, Israel may be facing the combined forces of Hezballah, Lebanon, Syrians and presumably independent militias all of which are backed by Russia. Russia is not in any means taking action against Israel and with Iran gathering forces and aligning forces under a unified command group independent of the Russians, is going to put Putin into a delicate position. When these forces finally open a full force assault upon Israel in an attempt to bring things before the United Nations where Israel will be blamed for initiating the violence and this will place Russia in the position of deciding whether to pull out of Syria demanding that their port facilities in Latakia as Russian protected territory and otherwise Russian forces will stand down and release Syria to its fate or Russia continuing to back Syria and very possibly be drawn into a war with Israel. Should Russia engage Israeli forces, be it on the Golan Heights or against aircraft in Syrian or Lebanese territories, then what does the United States do and NATO and the United Nations. There is a distinct possibility that the United States will use these events to press Israel into making a crippling series of concessions to Abbas giving him his state with the Green Line as a border as a prerequisite for continued aid while facing the war on the Israeli north against Syria, Lebanon, Hezballah, and full Russian assistance and Iran who will also add another front at some point using Hamas on the Israeli southern border along Gaza and with aid of militias along the Sinai-Negev front. This would soon include the Palestinian Authority as Abbas would be overthrown immediately after the forced peace and the withdrawal of the IDF either by ISIS or Hamas bringing this as well as the final front. This could lead to Israel fighting a war with fronts on all borders even to include the Mediterranean Sea leaving Israel in a desperate war for her existence and Israel would at best finally establish her borders as the Jordan River and hold the southern borders while establishing the Litani River and Golan Heights as their northern border and end these wars by establishing defendable borders with the downside of the entire nations requiring the rebuilding of her entire infrastructure. It would take Israel over a decade to rebuild but once the restructure has been completed, Israel would be the envy of the world when it comes to infrastructure and the Third Temple would be constructed and the Arabs who are unwilling to live supporting the Jewish State deported and finally a bright future before her.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Crushing Truck Terror in Jerusalem

 

Truck ramming terrorism returns to where such first found targets, Israel. On the promenade in the Amon Hanatziv neighborhood in Jerusalem where soldiers were getting off a bus, a truck rammed into the crowd on Sunday killing four and wounded seventeen (disturbing video below). The attack could have been far worse if not for the timely acts of a civilian security guard/guide who shot the terrorist as he was turning the truck for a second ramming. Quoting an interview printed in the Jerusalem Post, they reported,
Security guard and tour guide Eitan Rund told Army Radio that after the truck drove into the crowd, “I saw the truck go in reverse, and then I realized that it wasn’t an accident. I ran toward him [the driver] and emptied my whole clip. He drove backward and onto the wounded again. They were motionless, some wounded and some scared. It wasn’t a good scene. There was hesitation to open fire. I have no doubt that this was a significant factor, because all they tell them recently is to be careful. It could be that a few minutes less of hesitation and the situation would have been better.”

 

 

 

We here at BTC find the fact that soldiers at the scene, many of them armed, were so hesitant to fire at the terrorist that this might have produced the first fatalities due to the recent events and the trial that found Sergeant Elor Azariya guilty of manslaughter. We had predicted just such a scenario where soldiers would die from hesitating to shoot fearing legal repercussions in our recent article, What the Guilty Verdict of Sgt. Elor Azariya Will Mean. From the video it appears that nobody at the scene could have prevented the truck striking the crowd as it came screaming from the street directly into the people departing the bus with less than a second to react. Perhaps, if there was hesitation, it came once it appeared the terrorist was attempting to turn the truck for a second run. The evidence that some hesitated was the fact that the cab of the truck was not riddled with 5.56mm rounds having punched holes in the chassis and smashing through the windshield. Instead, the windshield appears to have approximately a dozen holes signifying bullet strikes with a few appearing to have multiple hits (see image below). The reality is that after twenty seconds of the above video, when the soldiers waiting a short distance from the attack behind a Jersey Wall barrier start to run in a direction away from the terrorist and the truck, a number can be seen to have weapons and are showing absolutely no interest in running towards the truck to engage but are running away. The soldiers with weapons were amongst some of the last to flee, but they appear not to be advancing to shoot and engage the terrorist. This was some of the evidence that perhaps shooting terrorists has become something viewed as a dangerous idea and as long as anybody else is engaging, then best not to shoot and end up tried for needlessly placing too much firepower at the target.

 

Truck From Jerusalem Ramming Terror Strike

 

The IDF officer, Col. Yaniv Aluf, commander of the IDF Officers School, was the officer who carried out a preliminary investigation of the attack. His report conflicts with the version of events reported by the civilian security guard’s interview where he reported that soldiers hesitated. Col. Yaniv Aluf’s investigation suggested that at least two cadets fired toward the terrorist at close range. Major General Moti Almoz agreed with the Colonel claiming that it was wrong to suggest that soldiers were hesitant to shoot or especially that the Azaria conviction had any bearing on the incident. Major General Almoz added that the soldiers likely did not know initially that this was a terrorist attack and were probably thinking it was a car accident. Almoz was quoted stating, “The moment that they realized that it was an attack, two cadets fired toward the truck.” That was two soldiers out of how many who were armed, that would be a point worth knowing. With the numbers of soldiers and the many that had weapons, that truck should have looked more like those in movies where the vehicle falls apart once touched and not simply having a dozen bullet holes in the windshield. We are fairly sure that there will be no responses from any of the soldiers at the scene as they were likely briefed and instructed not to talk to the media.

 

The grim reality comes in the form of the names of the deceased. Three female soldiers – 20-year-old Lt. Yael Yekutiel of Givatayim, 22-year-old Lt. Shir Hajaj of Ma’aleh Adumim, and 20-year-old Sec.-Lt. Shira Tzur of Haifa – and one male soldier, 20-year old Sec.-Lt. Erez Orbach of Alon Shvut, were declared dead at the scene. Additionally, the hospital reported that two cadets were seriously wounded, and fifteen other officers and cadets sustained less severe wounds. Our prayers are that they all make recoveries such that there can be some small miracles from this horrifying event. The terrorist was identified as Fadi al-Qanbar, from the nearby neighborhood of Jebl Mukaber, long a source of incitement and attackers. Some reports claimed that the terrorist’s family was known to have ties to terrorist activity. Before anybody asks why this person was not under surveillance, even if such a tactic was thought to be a deterrent, there are not sufficient security personnel to follow every potential terrorist within the areas under Israeli control. As far as giving the Arabs the lands the world claims would satisfy them and end the terror, one question if you don’t mind, why were the Arabs launching terror attacks before June of 1967 when there was no “occupied territory” and why were there pogrom like riots in Jerusalem and Hevron in the 1920’s and 1930’s before there was even a State of Israel. The terrorism has nothing to do with “occupied territory” unless you claim all of Israel is “occupied territory” and every home and apartment where lives a Jew is “occupied territory,” then you might be closer to correct. Mahmoud Abbas has stated numerous times that he will only end terrorist activities when all of Israel has been defeated and made Judenrein. That is his final compromise, all of Israel destroyed and every Jew dead. How is Israel to negotiate with such?

 

All the conferences like we will speak on tomorrow and all the wondrous exclamations of how peace can be attained by Israel for a small price, all these grand and eloquent statespersons from Europe, the United States State Department and President Obama from the White House all misunderstand Mahmoud Abbas’s claim to his desire for the missing 22% which is rightfully Arab. If we may be permitted a quote from Egyptian Judge, Justice El Araby, from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and who sat in judgement as part of the panel which heard the case where the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) sought an advisory opinion in 2003 from the ICJ on the legality of the security barrier erected by Israel. The Honorable Justice El Araby warned the UNGA and others that filing further ran some risks, as he stated,

 

“The international legal status of the Palestinian Territory (paras. 70-71 of the Advisory Opinion), in my view, merits more comprehensive treatment. A historical survey is relevant to the question posed by the General Assembly, for it serves as the background to understanding the legal status of the Palestinian Territory on the one hand and underlines the special and continuing responsibility of the General Assembly on the other. This may appear as academic, without relevance to the present events. The present is however determined by the accumulation of past events and no reasonable and fair concern for the future can possibly disregard a firm grasp of past events. In particular, when on more than one occasion, the rule of law was consistently side-stepped. The point of departure, or one can say in legal jargon, the critical date, is the League of Nations Mandate which was entrusted to Great Britain.”

 

This advisory would be well heeded by these coming conferences and potential United Nations Security Council endorsing and attempting to enforce any grand solution on Israel by establishing an Arab State of Palestine with defined borders which Israel had not agreed to grant. The truth is that under real and standing International Law derived from the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Conference, the Treaty of Sèvres, Treaty of Lausanne, the British Mandate, the Churchill White Papers, Anglo-American Convention, Article 80 of the United Nations Charter et al. For a fairly straight forward coverage of the rights for the establishment of the State of Israel at the very minimum on all lands west of the Jordan River, please refer to Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine under International Law. The reality is that any Arab State can thus far only be established in Gaza as Israel voluntarily, if also foolishly granting too much relying upon trust in promises in a private letter from a President of the United States which apparently can be ignored once they leave office as proven by President Obama claiming the letter has no legal standing and he did not make and thus will not keep the promises within, let that be a cautionary note to all putting faith in promises from American Presidents. Any further release of land by Israel would be excessively foolish but it is also the sole legal manner in which there can be any future state for the Palestinians and as long as their terrorist means and claims to erase all of Israel killing all the Jews found within continue, there will be no such surrender of territories for that purpose or any other. The ongoing threat to take Israel before the ICJ and win the rights to lands, according to Abbas all of the lands, but any lands will find their decision handed down being that all the lands belong rightfully to Israel and that only through an agreement, a treaty, can there be anything resembling an Arab State within the borders of the Jordan River west to the Mediterranean Sea. This is why despite constant threats from Abbas and his merry henchmen and the European Union and numerous European governments to take Israel before the ICJ and force Israel to grant the Palestinians their rightful state has and never will happen is because they all know the legal rights and claim Israel holds to these lands and they are aware that they would not only lose in the ICJ but that all future arguments they wish to present would become worthless. Even should the Arabs conquer the lands, they would still revert to the Jews whenever they decided to sue in the ICJ for their rightful inheritance and the only manner around such would be to get a representative for Israel to sign a surrendering document giving up all claims to these lands. We would advise against holding your breath as that will cause unconsciousness.

 

Beyond the Cusp