Reading the News is Risky

 

That goes particularly should you be Jewish or feel for the Jews in this world going insane. Everyday in virtually every major world news publication there will be at least one article where Jews have been attacked for being Jews. Be the attack be a Synagogue in Germany, a Jew walking in their own neighborhoods in the New York City metropolitan area, wearing the Jewish Yarmulke (Kippah), walking in London or just about anywhere on the globe. To be honest, we feel safer as Jews in Israel than anywhere else in the world. Sure, we have continued rioting along the Gaza border despite assurances by Hamas that this would end after the last agreement, the terror threats emanating from the Palestinian Arab areas in the Shomron (West Bank) resulting from the Palestinian Authority (PA) policy of “Pay to Slay” where Arab families are paid for every Israeli they are able to murder by their government, and there is always the threat of Iran using Hezballah for attacks along the northern border; but here in Israel we know the government acts proactively to prevent as much terrorist violence as possible. Throughout the rest of the world, when Jews are attacked the governing bodies go through motions for a few days, perhaps a week, and then they go back to ignoring the problem. The attacks in the New York neighborhoods have become almost daily occurrences with there being at least three or four every week. But the New York mayor and other state and city officials are pretending that these attacks never happen as they do not serve their agenda where they can blame President Trump. These attacks in New York are being perpetrated by minorities who are far more favored than are those Jews being attacked. As mentioned in our article, “Has the World Gone Crazy Again?,” Israel truly is one, if not the only, place where Jews can expect to be kept safe by their government and its institutions. What makes Israel even more special is that they provide the same protections for all her citizens, Jewish or not.

 

The question which needs to be addressed would require an honest and completely unbiased assessment intending to find the reasons behind such attacks and what can and should be done to educate away from hate and towards bringing societies together. What is unfortunate is that such an assessment is currently impossible as there are numerous politicians, political parties and other such interests who are the ones stoking the flames of hatred and often initiating these Judeophobic attacks. The media and most politicians along with analysts and other pontificators all have a dog in this fight and that growling beast needs a target for setting blame, spite and hate and, as has been the case throughout history, the Jews are their favorite targets. The current bend in the stream of American society is being centered on President Trump and the efforts to Impeach him or make very sure he fails to be reelected in the 2020 elections. In Europe, the realities are much the same with the majority of the political establishment and media being bent either to the far right or, as is largely the case, to the far left. Of course, they never present the facts realistically, thus all the various views claim that their view is the centrist view and everyone else is on the lunatic fringe. This has led to the polarization of much of Western society.

 

The other reality which we must recognize is that the majority of news reporting on television, in print and on the Internet is slanted well to the left. This has led to a view of reality which has become skewed and slanted and nowhere near to reality. This is evidenced particularly in the United States to every mass shooter initially being reported as a Trump supporter and the only far right individuals making attacks on Jews because President Trump is reportedly an anti-Semite and is secretly sending messages coordinating these racist attacks. Allow us to let you in on a little secret, well, not really much of a secret but requires mentioning; when some crazed Judeophobic moron has attacked what they perceived to be a Jew and it was initially reported that they were a white supremacist who received their marching orders from the bigot in the White House and then nothing further is in the news for the following week, you can bet that it turned out the attacker was most likely a far left person who hates the President almost as much as they do Jews. Attacks on Jews, be they from white supremacists or neo-Nazis, fits the media presentation of Trump the racist monster while attacks by leftists are covered up and excused as sacrifices required to reach their socialist and often tyrannical destinations. When the blame cannot be placed with the President, the next culprit driving these attacks is, of course, Israel. Should Israel defend herself from terrorist attacks, rocket barrages and other forms of violent disruptions including the Gaza rioting and launching of incendiary aerial attacks using kites, balloons and drones; for weeks afterwards all Judeophobic violence is simply the obvious reaction of any normal person to the Israeli acts of violence against Palestinian Arabs which were unprovoked. This requires our mentioning violence between the Arabs and Israel, by definitions of the media, is always initiated by Israel launching the first attack as any and all attacks on Israel previous to the Israeli response are never reported painting Israel as the aggressor. Another truism is that minority perpetrated attacks on Jews are seldom reported more than once, and that once is often painted as an unknown assailant who acted in a criminal assault such as attempted robbery and there was no Judeophobic purpose driving the attack. This allows for the Judeophobia committed by those favored by leftist politicians and media to be cast aside as just an instance of mindless violence having merely criminal traits and the fact that it was a Jew who was attacked and further had their ears insulted with Judeophobic taunts was irrelevant.

 

Many are asking why, all of a sudden, we are seeing Judeophobic driven attacks. The answer is probably not something most normal people care to admit, but it is the truth just the same. These Judeophobic driven attacks, formerly referred to as anti-Semitic assaults, are the result of two main factors, a general increase in politically and racially motivated attacks and the media and political assaults upon Israel which give the appearance that Jews are fair game once more. Trust us when we tell you that these Judeophobic incidents are merely an increase as these attacks upon Jews for being Jews never truly ended. The concept that after the Holocaust the world had learned that there was a monster within which needed to be eradicated and that anti-Semitism was defeated and would never again be a problem was and is being proven to be an absolute falsehood. The Judeophobia did not begin with the Nazis and did not end with their defeat. Yes, for a while it was not acceptable to give evidence of Judeophobic thoughts, and acts, was considered unacceptable in modern society. Unacceptable does not equate with defeated and permanently erased. Hating Jews never actually disappeared and was grossly unreported as often such attacks were addressed in the Jewish neighborhood by forming security patrols which cities loved as it meant that area would not require as heavy a police presence as their job was being done by neighborhood volunteers. This was of little help to those Jews residing in areas where there were no identifiable Jewish neighborhoods or they resided outside those areas. Growing up in the presumed idyllic 1950’s and 60’s, this commentator can assure you that anti-Semitism was alive and well in my predominantly Christian neighborhood. Simply remember all the accusations and taunts you have ever heard which reek of Judeophobic hatred and they were most likely hurled while attempting to catch the fastest Jew in the neighborhood. Judeophobia never disappeared, not even immediately after World War II as many Jews who attempted to return to their former neighborhoods found their former homes occupied, their former stores under new ownership and if they protested, they would, more often than we would like to admit, be killed by their former neighbors. Sometimes they would murder entire groups of returning Jews simply to avoid the embarrassment of having to tell them that all of their possessions had been divvied-up on a first come-first served basis starting right after the Nazis took them. Even today these events are largely covered up, sometimes through legal restrictions on speech.

 

How did this renewed Judeophobia arise is a question often asked but rarely answered honestly? Partially the rise is related to the apparent passive permission granted such acts as they are often explained away either as due to mental conditions to political motivations, but only if they can be tied to right-wing origins. But the largest contributing factor has been the acceptable left-wing driven Judeophobia which target the Jewish State of Israel blaming her for many of the worldly problems. On further inspection, one can find many of the identical Judeophobic accusations which were formerly used blaming Jews have been adapted to now blame the only Jewish homelands of Israel. Israel is often blamed for the wars in the Middle East, or the entire globe, despite the majority of these wars in the Middle East being Arab on Arab wars along with Sunni-Shiite wars such as the civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and beyond. Even had Israel never been born, these internal Arab and Islamic wars would have occurred and likely been ignored by the Western media as they were for centuries during the Caliphate through Ottoman rulers of the MENA* region. But there is far more to the coming tsunami of Judeophobia throughout much if not all of our world than what drove traditional anti-Semitism. The first truth which need be understood is that despite the far greater attention to historic anti-Semitism which took place in Europe and their colonial efforts, ignored the identical anti-Semitism which occurred in the Islamic world. Western historians would read histories told by Islamic and Arab sources which hardly if ever even mentioned their treatment of Dhimmis: Jews, Zoroastrians Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists, Animists and other non-Islamic religions or even Muslims following a different sect of Islam than those in power; and simply took their idealistic renditions of reality as fact instead of the fiction it actually was based upon. Almost no Western historian of the Arab and Islamic worlds ever actually lived as part of the general population in order to find the reality instead taking the lazy-man’s approach of simply taking hearsay as their facts for their history of these societies. But this is currently being partially true and especially true when it comes to Israel.

 

This brings us to the inbred instinct of much of the world to exhibit, believe or think in a manner which is tainted by Judeophobia. As an example, we will use the BDS** movement. This was not and is not a movement which had its origins in leftist human rights policies. The origins of BDS was the Arab and Islamic refusal to trade, recognize or even communicate with Israel, as they call her, the Zionist Entity. Efforts are traceable back to Yasser Arafat and the Khartoum Resolution of September 1, 1967. The efforts to take what was largely a regional trade and official isolation of the Jewish State into an international movement resulted from huge investments in anti-Israel propaganda propelled by Arab oil monies under organizational control of the Muslim Brotherhood, numerous Arab governments and Islamic organizations worldwide. The largest effort was amongst college and university campuses where Israel was cast as an Apartheid nation oppressing the poor Palestinian Arabs. One was required to ignore the facts which include that the Palestinian Arabs are ruled by either Hamas (Gaza), the PA (Shomron) or other Arab governing entities in refugee camps and not by Israel; the graft, embezzlement and mismanagement by their own leadership and governments; and completely ignoring that Israel is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, free democratic government where equal rights is one of the central ideals of the country. But the comparison of Israel to Apartheid South Africa became a mainstay of the anti-Israel propaganda. One of the main beliefs the BDS movement is centered upon is that no supporter should ever visit Israel unless they are guided by a fellow believer showing them exactly what they expect. The BDS movement demands that they be permitted to be the sole input as to what exactly Israeli society acts and how they treat their citizens. They imply heavily that Israel rules all the Arab Palestinians even if they are in a refugee camp in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and beyond even with some within Gaza under Hamas rule or the Arab regions of the Shomron under PA leadership. The truth is that the Palestinian Arabs are not Israeli citizens and are not ruled by Israel and the sole Israeli provided act is their defense should they come under attack from the outside as the lands they reside upon are legally part of Israel and thus hers to defend.

 

The propaganda casting Israel as the greatest evil known in all of history is based on hatred and is completely fictional. Simply visit Israel for a few weeks on your own, spend the first two taking in all the history which has swept these lands for over four thousand years, and spend the last week realizing that you are in a nation which has total freedom and near total equality where all have the same opportunities for work, education, residence, healthcare and everyday life. There is the little truth that there are numerous checkpoints, similar to those throughout the world in airports. This complaint is about a real truth as the Arab Palestinians to the most religious Jews all are required to pass through checkpoints in order to enter movie theaters, malls, some restaurants, government buildings and anywhere else that crowds of people are likely to be found. We read all about how the Palestinian Arabs need to pass through checkpoints to enter Israel and laugh as they are literally entering a different country under its own separate governance and thus are required to have the proper identification in order to be permitted entrance. Israeli Arabs who are those who remained in their homes ignoring the Mufti’s call for all Arabs to leave Israel before the 1948 Arab initiated war to annihilate Israel and her Jews was launched on May 15, 1948. These Arab Israelis are the above mentioned and their progeny and all have Israeli citizenship and are completely equal. Then there is the restriction for Israelis, specifically Jews and other non-Muslims, which they see and need to comply with should they attempt to enter the Arab Palestinian ruled regions which is pictured below. The sign is written in Hebrew, Arabic and English assuring all are likely able to read the sign which states, “This road leads to Area A under the Palestinian Authority. The entrance for Israeli citizens is forbidden, dangerous to your lives and against the Israeli Law.” The reality for Jews who have entered Area A as defined by the Oslo Accords is very different than the reality for Arabs leaving Area A and entering Israel.

 

Sign Warning Israelis it is Illegal to Enter Arab Region for Safety Reasons

 

If you were to visit Israel and for a moment forgot that you had left anywhere else, you could easily believe that you were in any other of the world’s metropolitan or rural areas depending on where you are standing. The Galilee has farms for as far as one can see, there are rural parks and wildlife reserves and it is framed by hills and the heights. On the other hand, if you are in one of the cities such as Tel Aviv, you would believe you were in Los Angeles or London depending on the weather. The media will never admit to such, but we invite all to make such decision for themselves. If only we could arrange trips, unsupervised trips so the truth can be found, and bring all who have open minds to see reality and thus, just maybe, be inspired to refute the virtually uncountable lies told by the propogandists such as those of the BDS movement. Is Israel perfect? No, but where is any place which could be said to be perfect as should it exist, we might wish to move there. Honestly, it would take more than we can imagine to have us leave Israel. With the news reporting attacks on Jews, mostly in the developed world, almost daily currently, there are serious doubts as to the safety of anywhere other than here in Israel. The fact that Synagogues require armed security whenever they have services (especially during the recent High Holidays when larger than usual attendance is expected) and Jewish daycares and schools also requiring armed security as well as Jewish agencies, we will remain here where security is provided for all the citizens and no violent act is tolerated no matter the ethnicity, race, religion or other form of designation of the victim or the perpetrator. Yes, Israel has many of the same difficulties faced by any democratic governance and society leaving room for improvement, but Israel largely is one of the best places to live and especially to raise a family. Israel has been experiencing a building boom over the past few years partially in anticipation of increasing influx of Jews from Europe and the Americas and also due to the positive population growth numbers. The increasing violence due to Judeophobia is very likely to increase and within the next decade this will become an accepted part of many countries as their Jews flee. The Jews fleeing Europe (mostly western Europe) divide into two main camps, those making Aliyah coming home to Israel and those leaving for North America (mostly Canada and the United States). Those heading for anywhere other than Israel, our advice is not to unpack any more than absolutely necessary as you may be moving again sooner rather than later. Many of us in Israel are aware that the time is coming when all Jews will live in Israel only leaving briefly when business or other needs require. Yes, Israel as a nation will continue to be amongst the first to arrive and the last to leave wherever disasters occur. The returning of the Jews to their ancestral lands, revivifying a long dead language (Hebrew) and building a modern marvel for those who are willing to know truth over propaganda. In all honesty, there are moments where it is easiest to simply look around, listen to the people conversing and be amazed at what this little country that could has grown and become. Israel is a just over seventy-years-old, is about the size of New Jersey and despite all the supposed horrors, is ranked as the thirteenth happiest country. We were surprised with this ranking as we believed it to be rating Israel far too low but then we realized by looking at the top six nations that this was a heavily weighted Eurocentric report.

 

World Happiness Chart 2016-2018

Source and Entire Chart

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

* MENA = Middle East and North Africa

 

** BDS = Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (against only Israel and Israeli owned companies)

 

Gaza is Pushing too Hard

 

Yes, Gaza has demanded our attentions once again. This time we are doing some version of a follow-up story showing the unfortunately expected breach of trust which we first addressed here. In that article we predicted and also showed that the agreement of trust which was to bring quiet along the Gaza border was not even worth the paper it was written upon. We pointed to the “March of Return” border protests which resemble rioting and other threats including launching incendiary kites and balloons which that day after reaching an agreement, these attacks sparked twenty or so fires. This “March of Return” has been a daily occurrence which always peaks on Friday afternoons after religious services and a good sermon to get the troops riled up and fully loaded with hatred for Israel. We know that when we attend religious services, the first thing that comes to our mind is to run to the border and launch incendiaries attempting to burn down the neighboring nation. Well, no, not really. But this is exactly what has been occurring every Friday, if not every day the entire week, since near the end of March of 2018. How long and exactly how much of Israel must be turned into a scorched earth scene? And the other question is what will it take to end these provocations. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are simply pushing too hard.

 

 

In a recent article, Minister of the Knesset Avi Dichter spoke to residents at Kibbutz Sa’ad which sits in the Gaza envelope between Sderot and Netivot. As one would expect, he attempted to tell these Israelis exactly what they wished to hear. The report included some of what Avi Dichter had stated, namely, he stated, “I have known Gaza for decades. The operational solution to Gaza will be a combat move. It will not take two weeks or two months; we will need lots of patience. This will be the first Gaza war and probably the last one as well. That’s the solution I see. On the defensive issue, we as a committee will deal with problems and accompany the process to ensure that the things presented here will be resolved.” This is the basic boilerplate presentation given by virtually every Likud politician when visiting the Gaza envelope where the highest percentage of these incendiaries strike. Something has to be happening to these Likud politicians as when they get back to Jerusalem, where their party has led the ruling coalition for over a decade, they appear to forget every promise given to those living under fire near Gaza. Instead of taking bold actions as they had promised, they hem and haw debating whether or not it would be wise to engage Hamas and Islamic Jihad and speak of the horrible consequences which will come via Europe and much of the world denouncing any Israeli attempt at mitigating the terrorist attacks and defending her citizens. One would think that the world has it in for the Israeli people from their horrified reactions to every Israeli attempt to remain viable and safe. We recently spoke about how the European Union is building in areas where the Palestinian Arabs are not permitted to build according to the Oslo Accords in order to establish for the Palestinian Arabs facts on the ground such that these projects will force Israel back to her pre-Six Day War boundaries. These structures have no roads, utilities, trash removal or government services necessary to make them livable (pictured below).

 

Illegal European Union structures bearing obvious EU Identification signs

 

We have decided to attempt to take the measure of what need be done to set Gaza on a new track where the people can lead normative lives. To accomplish such, the initial step is to allow them to elect their own leadership instead of having a Hamas led dictatorship where the Hamas leadership decide who amongst them would best marshal the people against Israel. The Gazan governance does not care whether or not most of the people have their electricity rationed as it is not their electricity turned off for all but four to six hours each day. They also do not worry all that much that their waste treatment plant overruns sending tons of semi-liquid waste in torrents down the streets in Gaza City. Operating presumably on orders from either the military wing of Hamas or of Islamic Jihad, a team of rioters destroyed much of the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing including setting the feed lines which bring natural gas into Gaza simply to protest that Israel has gas and after this Gaza did not (pictured below)? Hamas and Islamic Jihad have yet to repair the damaged structures from the last three wars instigated against Israel. We are fully aware that the European Union believed that Israel overreacted when launching an offensive into Gaza after weeks of ever-increasing rocket fire which came deeper and deeper into Israel reaching almost to Jerusalem and reaching close to one-hundred-rockets per day. Their main complaint, and the complaint of the United Nations and almost countless leftist organizations was simple, the Israeli effort was disproportional as more Gazans, mostly Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, were killed than Israelis and IDF forces. They demand that Israel make sure to lose just as many people as died in Gaza. There were reporters and editorials which postulated that Israel must provide Gaza with these Iron Dome defense batteries which has worked miracles in preventing the majority of Hamas and Islamic Jihad rockets from striking targets in Israel. This is the kind of logic which much of the world uses when they are attempting to make everything in the Arab-Israeli conflict to come out fair in a no-win situation for all. What we cannot quite find is where this idiotic concept of disproportional casualty numbers in an armed conflict is by its nature unfair and potentially seen as racist, more on that in a moment. Wars are supposed to be disproportional as that is how one wins a war.

 

Gas Pipes Set Ablaze at the Kerem Shalom Gaza Crossing to Israel

 

As reported in, of all places, Haaretz, they delineate how it came to be that Jews became the “super white privilege” people. This has become the latest means of being anti-Semitic while appearing so left liberal. This is sheer idiocy but there is method and motive to their insanity. By putting forth the idea that Jews are the whitest of white, actually over half of the Jews in Israel are from the Middle East and North Africa and not exactly lily-white, this allows for Jews to be denied all sorts of the little things that make life enjoyable such as employment, loans, carnival rides and virtually everything which can be claimed was racist at sometime in the past. This was the idea spread at the University of Illinois at Chicago a couple of years ago as the pamphlets were posted over the campus. Their erroneous claim was that nine out of ten people, that’s 90%, in the 1%, those people we are all supposed to hate, that 1%, they are Jews. First and foremost, the people in the top 1% changes regularly as the economy moves along and new areas of innovation arrive and people get in early such as the Internet businesses. Amazon, YouTube, PayPal and others have sent a number of people from oblivion to the top 1%. People who were financial nobodies are today ruling the 1% and, in another decade or so, it will be those who managed to put together and manage mining of the Asteroids. Fifty years ago, the ultimate 1%er was J Paul Getty, an oil magnate. Jews have only made the big times in the recent past in the United States. One only need remember the firestorm of controversy kicked up when Donald Trump opened Mar-a-Lago permitting Jews and Blacks to become members. The other country club owners did not which one of these they found more repulsive, allowing Blacks or Jews was an anathema to their thinking. Trump, as usual, simply did his own thing working to do what was correct even if it went against the going flow of that time. But it is this new definition of the Jew as the top 90% of the top 1% need be taken down a peg or two by whatever means necessary, and this will eventually result in ostracization, the final form of anti-Semitism before finding some final solution to the existence of Jews, and specially Israel. By this reasoning, Israel is to be considered more privileged and granted more breaks simply because it has been labeled as having super-white privilege. We can see how this is not going to go well.

 

Anti-Semitic Flier used on Campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago

 

Gazans, as Arabs, are treated as people of color while many Arabs are as white as the most privileged of that 1% which have white privilege. On the other side, there are significant numbers of Jews of color, Arab, Ethiopian and throughout the Middle East and North Africa they were stripped of their wealth, refused entry to any nation unless they possessed a passport of that nation and over eight-hundred-thousand emigrated going to Israel, the exception once again taking in unwanted Jews. Israel has taken other unwanted peoples including hundreds of Vietnamese Boat People providing them with citizenship if desired and a future in which they could remain free, and more important, alive. So, Gazans and Israelis likely span the color charts with remarkable similarity, thus neither has white privilege or any other advantage other than how they approach life and problems. Hamas and Islamic Jihad see the people of Gaza as cannon fodder to be utilized as human shields for terrorist fighters, rocket launchers, vehicles and buildings. Israel has taken great and extensive trouble to place sufficient shelters for the numbers of people at most locations. If you are in Israel and the rocket attack sirens sound, do not panic and just follow the people who will all be heading for the closest shelter. Hamas and Islamic Jihad spend virtually all their money on rockets, explosives and other instruments of their terror trade. Israel invests in items such as the Iron Dome with which she protects her people even further. Hamas and Islamic Jihad see dead civilians, or a killed terrorist stripped of their weapon and other military equipment instantly becomes a dead civilian, as propaganda wins with which to claim how awful Israel and the Jews have been. Do not think that the terrorist forces and many across the Arab and Muslim worlds see one iota of a difference between an Israeli and a Jew and often use the term Jews when speaking about Israelis.

 

Coming back to the present, this past Friday there were over six-thousand rioters launching grenades, firebombs and slinging stones at IDF soldiers while others flew the kites and balloons with incendiary weapons attached setting at least three fires which were reported. This is despite the presumed agreement to end hostile acts. We doubt that Hamas has lost control as when people demonstrated in Gaza City, Hamas ended the economic protests against their rule with all the finesse of a runaway train beating many of the protesters, raiding their homes and arresting numerous people suspected of taking a lead in these anti-Hamas and Islamic Jihad protests. Zero tolerance would be the apt phrase to describe the Hamas actions on these economic protests. But the rioting along the border, the world is told, is a grass roots movement beyond their control. A better interpretation would be that the terrorist rulers have created a monster who’s protests they have absolutely no intention of bringing to an end. Unlike the economic protests which placed the blame for the horrid conditions in Gaza on Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership, the border riots are covered by the international pages of newspapers reminding everyone of the terrible economic condition in Gaza blaming Israel and their forced inspection of goods entering Gaza. This is ridiculous as if Hamas desires these protests to end, all they need do is stop bussing people to the riot locations, no longer provide the balloons and kites and let us not forget the incendiary packages and this alone would end the border riots and Hamas would not be required to beat severely any of the rioters as they did the economic demonstrators. Hamas does not desire for any of their active confrontations with Israel to end and they also desire to keep it at a level which the world will accept as fair. So, apparently there is a measuring stick which defines when rioters launching incendiary packages into a neighboring nation burning down square kilometers of farmlands, wildlife preserves, forests and residential areas. The Israelis who reside near Gaza are having their lives turned upside-down as these packages explode spreading fire over a wide area. Any person caught in the immediate area when one of the incendiary packages detonates would likely be killed being burned to death which would be dreadful.

 

Minister of the Knesset Avi Dichter was correct in stating what is necessary to correct the injustices inflicted on the Gazan peoples. But there is a serious problem with his idea as it appears that he is in favor of the “mow the grass” scenario for treating Gaza. This requires Israel to send the IDF into Gaza where they destroy rocket stores, bunkers, tunnels, weapons, explosive stores, rocket and warhead manufacturing, chemistry explosive labs, rocket launchers and their positions as well as any other tools of the terrorist trade and perform this every two or three years. There are a number of problems with this concept beyond the most obvious in that it does not solve any of the issues and simply kicks the can down the road. Should Israel continue with this method they will find themselves in a pincer attack when Iran orders her IRGC in Syria to launch and then invade Israel, orders Hezballah to launch and then invade Israel from Lebanon, and have Islamic Jihad and Hamas to launch and then invade Israel from Gaza. This will place Israel in the one place she really prefers to avoid, a multi-front terror war stretching the IDF thin until numbers of reserves can be called up and assembled. Another problem with Gaza, as with most Palestinian Arabs, is that for the past twenty-plus years their children have been raised and suckled on hatred of Israel and Jews, they equate the two often. These youths spend their summers at summer boot camp where they are trained to ready for that final war which will destroy the Zionist entity. These youths are raised to believe that there is no greater honor than to die while murdering Jews and that should such ever occur to them, this is the fastest, most direct path to an eternity in a heavenly environment with green grass, trees, waterfalls, rivers, and they also get seventy-two perpetual virgins who are absolute virgins every time they have sex. Their life there will be filled with sensual earthly delights and a never-ending flow of wine which, while making one very joyous and in good spirits, this wine cannot make one drunk nor cause hangovers. This is simply the icing on the cake as just murdering Israelis (assumed to be Jews) is something which they have been taught brings great pleasure to them and great honor to their family and tribe. They are versed in the Quranic edicts which spell out all the ways that the Jews are set to try and destroy the Arab world through conquest which started with their invasion (arrival actually for a century before 1948) from May of 1948 and how the Arabs were all living peaceably and were thrown from their homes and properties were stolen and that each of the children have their family lands simply waiting for them to return and Allah will make this happen. They are taught that the Jews are almost as demonic as the entities they worship and how they are the accursed of Allah. So, basically, the children in Gaza have been taught how Jews cause all the wars, steal everyone’s wealth and stole these children’s rightful homeland of Palestine (which is interesting as Arabic has no letter P so they call it Falestine) in 1948 and then started a war of conquest in 1967 and again in 1973 referring to the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War respectively. The reality is slightly different as the Arab forces initiated both conflicts as soon as Egypt closed the Strait of Tiran to Israeli ships thus blockading the Israeli port of Eilat.

 

Additionally, many of their parents were also raised on this intensive diet of hate for Israel, Jews and everything they believe. They honestly believe that their end-time savior cannot come until they have fought and defeated the Jews, not Israel but the Jew. This is why originally the Hamas charter called not just for the conquest of Israel but the slaughter of every Jew on the planet. Hezballah Chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah: “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” (NY Times, May 23, 2004, p. 15, section 2, column 1.) That does not sound like anybody Israel could meet halfway, and Nasrallah is probably somewhat less fanatical than Hamas’s new leader, Yahya Sinwar, their former head of their military wing, as if there actually is any difference but the Europeans find having a military wing and a political wing allows them to claim that the political wing is actually separate and desirous of peace and eschews violence. The reality in Gaza is that much of the population is enthralled with Hamas and/or Islamic Jihad and the vast majority of those under twenty-five are unemployed and so desperate to find work or some meaning of self-worth that they are willing to risk life and limb to kill Jews for the rewards they will receive. Hamas has allowed the living and work considerations to fall by the wayside which only increases their ranks as they all know in their heart that their deprivation is all on Israel and their leadership is faultless.

 

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. There is only one means of ending the riotous border events which harm the Israelis residing in that region, and that is to remove Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Israel knows who their officers are at the top and central command. Israel knows their officers and enlisted men and knows which women are assisting their manufacturing positions, often at a direct threat to their lives. The main problem is what to do with a vast number of brainwashed individuals believing virtually anything they are instructed as they have total faith in their Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups. The only means of assuring that all the terrorist operatives have been removed from Gaza would be to depopulate Gaza and then repurpose the assets such that they are used productively, that there is plentiful clean water, 24/7 electricity, plenty of natural gas, working sewage treatment facilities, probably a desalination plant and a total environmental clean-up making the place inhabitable once more. As for allowing Arabs to return to Gaza, this would be something which has to be performed on a one-at-a-time system where everything is checked and double checked only allowing those who do not have blood on their hands. Israel would be required to take over the school system and begin to teach the children in the means which allow them to find gainful employment. The Arabs permitted to return would still be monitored closely by the IDF ensuring that they do not revert to their former terrorist ways. Needless to point out that the leadership of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad as well as some of their people who were amongst the true believers will require not being permitted to return. Anyone permitted to remain in Gaza caught performing or attempting any terrorist acts would be removed from Gaza and sent out into the world after serving their sentence, and would not be permitted to reenter any part of Israel thereafter.

 

But should Hamas or Islamic Jihad force another confrontation, this time we need to make very sure that it will not be required to do so again in a few months or even years. The next Gaza conflict should be the final Gaza conflict even if Israel need act upon the promise given to Arik Sharon by George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice that should things go wrong from the Gaza withdrawal, Israel retained the right to retake Gaza and place it under their own military rule until everything is worked out. The problem is that Israel does not desire the problems which Gaza would present of which terrorism is in the top ten but not the top five. These five imperatives should Israel retake Gaza would be the lack of utilities, lack of adequate water, malfunctioning or useless sewage treatment and a general improvement such that the Gazans can lead normal lives and Israelis in the Gaza region will be safe from exploding balloons, rockets launched at them, sniper fire and all the other threats posed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Gaza requires being taken in its entirety and for the final time incorporated into Israel. The time for Israel to take control of the regions promised her under International Law and for those Arabs who cannot stand to allow Israeli (Jewish) rule, they can be invited to depart and never darken the Israeli doorstop ever again. There will be those who decide to return to their terrorist past and they will face deportation where they are to be banned from ever returning. It is time that Israel simply take the world to task for their broken promises and force the world to live up to their obligations and promises. The Arabs will scream and protest calling for the United Nations to sanction Israel or even throw Israel from the United Nations. Whatever the price for achieving peace and having the world live up to their promises which they have ignored and refused for so long, it will be worth paying that price as long as it is only required that Israel pay that price but once. The time for a diplomatic solution has very sorely passed and now Israel need act before her enemies decide that perhaps now is the time to test the defensive systems of the IDF such as the Arrow Systems and David’s Sling.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Forgotten People are the Israeli Public

 

We hear almost incessantly about the plight of the Palestinian Arabs never stopping to wonder how their lives differ from that of Israelis. We are referring to daily life along with the occasional trip to see a doctor, go to Tel Aviv to get goods not available in our town, take a trip to Jerusalem to visit government offices or to simply look at all the sights or a myriad of other items. The first things we will talk about are the regular obstacles and things which make up an average week. Should we decide to go to either mall in town, there will be the checkpoint where we walk through a magnetometer checking for metal no matter how small and any bags you have are gone through by one of the people at the checkpoint. Just to get this out of the way, there are checkpoints all over Israel even to include restaurants, office buildings, train stations and on and on meaning that it is possible to have to pass through three or four or more on a badly planned day. Additionally, there are security cameras in places throughout town. Some are looking for shoplifters while others are actually for security. Checkpoints and monitoring cameras are simply part of life in our current state of the world. We take them as a necessary part of our being kept protected and safe. Even with all the precautions keeping one safe, often you just worry if you really are being kept as safe as possible, and you accept that some balance has been attempted, but, yes, checkpoints can be a hassle, more so when you are late and barely have time to catch the right train.

 

The biggest difference between residing in Israel and the Palestinian Arab regions is economic. Do not take that to mean that there are no wealthy Palestinian Arabs, as there are many who have gotten quite wealthy often through providing the terrorists with their tools of their trade. Others were favored by the leadership, be they Hamas or Palestinian Authority (PA), and thus given special treatment which provided them with a steady and quite sufficient cash flow. This is much the same as it is in many places except theirs is on steroids. If the PA or Hamas are not getting their “rightful” cut of your business, then you will soon find yourself out of business and replaced with somebody more appreciative. In Israel there are stratification in wealth with some who have become extremely wealthy and those who are barely getting by. The housing makes this quite apparent. The main difference is in Israel the government is restricted by the rule of law under which the government and its officials are constrained to work. The Palestinian Arab governments are rule of man where the people with political power can use such unrestrained for their own purposes. In Israel everything lives within the same set of rules, not so much under the PA and even worse under Hamas. Your opportunities being greater in Israel is largely due to the fact that the government is constrained and not taking half of the profits and using it in a terror war against Israel. This also puts a damper on the Israeli economy as there is the added cost of providing security which requires a virtual war footing 24/7 and yet Israel has managed to be a successful economic nation.

 

There are a few things which Israelis suffer through silently, for the most part with this article an exception, which the Palestinian Arabs do not suffer of which the most obvious is the fear of being caught in a terrorist bombing. We hear some claiming that they have to fear being caught in a bombing raid from Israeli fighter jets, this we will get to in a later paragraph. Then there are terrorist attacks such as stabbings, vehicular ramming, shootings, stones slinging and other forms of attacks. Fortunately, these are a rarity in our little town, probably because we are considered to be in the boondocks and rarely merit attention, which can be a good thing. Still, when we take a trip to Haifa, our chance of being in a terror attack likely doubles, Tel Aviv it becomes four-fold and going to Jerusalem makes such nearly ten-fold a problem and we will not even talk of Hevron or visiting Joseph’s tomb or other places which require visiting around 2:00 AM with a full IDF escort platoon or company as if the visit is discovered, the visitors will require a military styled extraction as a riot with fire-bombs, rocks, bottles and anything else being hurled at the “invasive Jew.” Even visiting the Temple Mount, one runs a risk of having a riot break out or a shooting to occur threatening their safety. Visiting the Western Wall one can sometimes find that there are those from upon the Temple Mount hurling sometimes sizable rocks down on those praying below and this is a three to four story fall where the rocks pick up their share of momentum. All of these terrorist threats do not exist for the Palestinian Arabs as the Jews are not seeking to murder every last one of them as they are attempting, or at least desiring, for us.

 

About that threat of being caught in an Israeli airstrike, that is a fairly rare occurrence with the exception of when there is open warfare. If one reads the reports on the Israeli retaliatory strikes, they will find that any number of buildings have been hit and there are no or extremely few casualties and rarely fatalities resulting. The IDF is ordered to strike buildings known to be vacant and often when an Israeli strike has been provoked, Hamas or the PA make sure to keep their forces out of harms way. Further, Israel targets military forces and structures and attempt to avoid civilian structures with the exception of targeted strikes on leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups. When strikes are formulated by the Palestinian Arabs, they target Israeli civilians and often the most vulnerable, our children. One deadly example is pictured below where a mortar struck a kindergarten play area fortunately a mere hour before the children arrived. The attacks are often planned to coincide with the times when children are on their way to or from classes. Even the disjointed and varied schedule has little effect as they simply observe and choose the best times for killing the children to attack. Israeli strikes are usually executed in the early, early morning when there are few if any people who might be hurt or worse. That is a major difference. Israel attempts to minimize civilian casualties while the terror groups target Israeli civilians, which includes sometimes Israeli Arabs.

 

Remains of Tail Section of Mortar Striking Kindergarten Play Area

 

Mind you, there is one threat which actually targets our little town along with everywhere within Israel, and that is Hezballah. Hezballah is a terror army under direct control of Iran who also has provided them with weaponry including a large supply of rockets and missiles. The estimates range around one-hundred-fifty-thousand rockets and missiles. The fortunate break, if it can be considered as one, is that as we are a smaller city and reside rather close to the Lebanon border, the rockets (rarely missiles as we do not have targets that important to the terrorists) they strike us with have smaller warheads, usually between fifteen and forty pounds of high explosive or incendiary agents (see tables below). Still, having three to five hundred of such projectiles striking in and around your town can make for a really bad day. Have it happen for ten, twenty or over thirty days in a row and life approaches unbearable. This is something which, believe it or not, you get accustomed to as just one additional potential threat which can ruin one’s life. We understand that the damage caused by these “smaller” warheads is nothing compared to four-hundred-pound warheads on their larger missiles. Still, one really does not wish to be anywhere close to a missile strike. These threats were much of the impetus for the development of Iron Dome which is capable of severely reducing the risk for Israelis being struck in any such attack. The problem should Iran order Hezballah to start launching their rockets and missiles in great numbers, when they are launching hundreds of these every hour, even the Iron Dome has its limitations.

 

Hezballah Rocket and Missile Types and Sizes

 

There is one other threat which Israelis face that the Palestinian Arabs only need worry about misfires or faulty guidance systems, and that is the threat of an attack directly from Iran. Such an attack would most likely be targeting Tel Aviv metropolitan region, nowhere in Israel is all that far outside of this area and thus potentially could be struck. Iran would only be firing missiles and there is the potential for these warheads to carry anything from explosives and incendiaries to nerve agents, biological agents and other chemical agents. The nerve, chemical and biologic agents are all qualified as weapons of mass destruction and constitute war crimes should they be employed. Iran could not care less about such niceties. They would launch anything and everything if it might add to the body count in Israel. This includes nuclear warheads should Iran possess such weapons, and we fear they have a stock of nuclear warheads and potentially thermonuclear warheads. These missiles would need be intercepted by David’s Sling or the Arrow systems which are designed to intercept ballistic missiles, exactly the variety Iran would utilize in such an attack. Are they as effective as the Iron Dome? We need remember that we only know of the effectiveness of the Iron Dome because it has been tested in actual conditions during the last set of rocket barrages out of Gaza launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We hope to never find out exactly how well the anti-ballistic missile systems work as we would just as soon avoid any situation under which they would be tested. The fact that the United States placed a THAAD system in Israel to provide further defensive capabilities should Iran attack Israel is another sign of how serious the situation has become. This was a precaution provided for these times when tensions between the United States and Iran are running high and keeping in mind that Iran has promised to destroy Israel within an hour after any American attack upon Iranian assets. This means that Iran already has missiles targeting Israel ready for launch as soon as the word is given. But you get used to such things.

 

Life in Israel is good and always a bit interesting. Fortunately, these interesting items mostly include trying something new for lunch, watching the local schools play sports, wondering if the movie will be any good, and other normal items. Then, in the back of your mind, you have these other little elements which cause an entirely different kind of excitement, the not so pleasant kind. We all know of the threat and sometimes even discuss what we expect, what we should expect and what we fear we need to expect. One-hundred-fifty-thousand rockets and missiles is a terrible and real threat. Hezballah is the largest and best armed non-state military. The reality is that Hezballah is to Lebanon what the IRGC is to Iran. So, the next time somebody complains about how the Palestinian Arabs have to pass through checkpoints, please inform them that Israelis also are required to pass through checkpoints as part of their everyday lives as well. When their complaint is that the Palestinian Arabs have such a poor economy compared to Israel, tell them it is their terrorist governments which steal most of the funds and take a lion’s share of the economy to operate their terrorist attacks and to line their own pockets. And lastly, when they claim that the Palestinian Arabs reside under constant threat of attack, please do not let that lie pass unchallenged as the attacks Israel directs are targeting buildings used by the terror outfits and Israel attempts to minimize casualties while the threats against Israelis are targeting the public at large. Finally, there is always the threat sitting on the northern border of Israel in the form of Hezballah and the threat off in the east known as Iran, and that last threat very probably is a nuclear armed state. The main difference is that the Israelis do not have a propaganda system in place around the world financed by billions of petro-dollars and supported on virtually every college and university campus in the forms of BDS and the plethora of Palestinian Arab rights groups and other groups disguised as human rights groups which are in reality anti-Israel teams used to attack any time Israel defends herself. These are the realities which are clouded in a storm of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic hatred which is poisoning much of the Western World and already has inundated most of the third world nations. Strip away the lies and propaganda and the picture radically changes, but we do not expect such a miracle for the time being and still hold out hope the Messiach will soon arrive and all will be repaired one way or the other.

 

Beyond the Cusp