Israel's three options in Gaza - David Brog - http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israels-three-options-in-gaza/
s Israel's battle against Hamas drags into August, a new narrative is emerging here at home. From the White House to Fox News, self-proclaimed friends of Israel are invoking a similar illogic. Yes, they say, Israel has a right to defend itself. And yes, Hamas is aggressively using human shields in a cynical effort to pile up Palestinian civilian casualties. But, they complain, we're now seeing evidence of something completely unacceptable: Palestinian civilian casualties! So Israel - that's right, Israel - had better change its tactics immediately.
"The prolonged killing of children and women in Palestinian territories," an indignant Joe Scarborough told his MSNBC audience, "will only serve to weaken Israel and strengthen Hamas." He's absolutely right - provided that people like Scarborough continue to mislead their audiences into believing that Israel could be doing more than its already doing to protect civilians. It cannot.
Given Hamas' aggressive use of human shields, Israel has only three options. The first option is to crush Hamas regardless of the civilian toll. This is how the Nazis took care of business. This is also how Vladimir Putin defeated the Chechnyan separatists in 1999. This is also how Hamas would behave if they ever had the military might to do so. For all who value innocent human life, however, this option is unacceptable.
A second option is surrender. Since Israelis value innocent human life, and since Hamas has ensured that any Israeli efforts to defend themselves will result in the taking of innocent lives, then Israel's hands are tied. Well played, Hamas. You have exploited Jewish morality to paralyze the Jewish state. To preserve its soul Israel must wave the white flag and seek terms of surrender.
But here's the problem. Hamas' terms of surrender require Israeli suicide - both national and individual. Hamas doesn't want an end to the occupation of Gaza - Israel pulled out every last soldier and settler from Gaza in 2005. And Hamas doesn't want a Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel. The Hamas Charter specifically rejects any compromise or even negotiation with the Jewish state and adopts instead a rather more hostile goal: Jewish genocide.
Gandhi's non-violence worked only because he was fortunate enough to confront an enemy - the British - who valued human life. Had Gandhi fought ISIS or Hamas, his tactics would have done nothing more than facilitate a Hindu genocide. If you hear hyperbole in this claim, please look at what is happening to Christians today in ISIS-controlled Mosul. For all who value their own lives, surrendering to Hamas is unacceptable.
This leaves Israel with one final option: to fight the terrorists while simultaneously doing everything in its power to spare innocent civilian lives. This is the option Israel has chosen. And by all practical measures this is exactly what Israel is doing. Using leaflets, phone calls, text messages and humanitarian pauses, Israel does more than any other army on the planet to ensure that civilians leave a targeted neighborhood or building before it strikes. The Israelis know that by giving up the element of surprise they're more likely to find booby traps and bombs instead of the terrorists they seek. But such is the price of morality.
Confronted with Israel's efforts to spare civilian lives, Hamas has developed enterprising new strategies for engineering their deaths. Hamas fired thousand of missiles into Israel and then rejected repeated ceasefires in order to ensure that Israel would come down to Gaza to fight. Hamas has then repeatedly forced civilians fleeing Israel's warnings back into the danger zone. And Hams fires mortars at Israeli troops from shelters and schools knowing that, to save their own lives, these troops may have to fire back at the source of the mortar without the opportunity to warn and wait. Simply put, Palestinian civilians die when Hamas' efforts to endanger them overcome Israel' efforts to spare them.
We who support Israel know that a Palestinian life is every bit as precious as that of an Israeli. We are no less outraged by Palestinian civilian casualties than Israel's critics. The only difference is that we stop and think before we point our finger in blame. We remember which side tries its best to avoid civilian casualties, and which side strives so diligently to create them. We understand that while we might wish it, Israel has yet to invent the perfect weapon by which it can both defend itself from Hamas and spare all of Hamas' human shields.
If those in the media who blame Israel for these civilian deaths would take the time to examine the chain of causation, they would see that Hamas is the engine behind these horrors. And if these personalities looked down the chain of causation further still, they would see that by blaming Israel for these deaths, they are rewarding - and thereby encouraging - the very Hamas tactics that killed them. If these critics actually thought about it, they'd see that they are all accomplices in the deaths that so outrage them.
Hamas official: This is second and final cease-fire with Israel - http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Hamas-official-This-is-second-final-cease-fire-with-Israel-370831
A senior Hamas official said on Tuesday that his group was locked in "difficult" talks in Egyptian-mediated efforts in Cairo to forge a lasting cease-fire in Gaza with Israel.
"We are facing difficult negotiations. The first truce passed without notable achievements. This is the second and final cease-fire," Palestinian news agency Ma'an quoted Mousa Abu Marzouk as saying in light of the three-day halt in fighting that started Sunday.
Last week, Hamas refused to extend a first 72-hour halt in fighting with Israel unless their demands, particularly the opening of border crossings with Gaza and the construction of a seaport, were met.
A Palestinian official with knowledge of the cease-fire talks in Cairo told Reuters on Tuesday that another day was needed in the indirect talks before it would be evident whether a truce between Israel and Hamas could be achievable.
"So far we can't say a breakthrough has been achieved ... Twenty-four hours and we shall see whether we have an agreement," said the official speaking on condition of anonymity.
According to an Israel Radio report, Israeli officials predicted Tuesday that another 72 hours were be needed to cement a long-term cease-fire deal with Hamas, in addition to the three-day truce that went into effect on Sunday.
The radio station reported that the delegation was expected to agree to ease some restrictions in Gaza, including extending fishing rights, increasing the number of materials that enter Gaza, along with Israel allowing funds to enter the Strip to be used to pay the salaries of Hamas officials.
The Israeli delegation reiterated that it was not going to give any concessions regarding Hamas's demands to open a seaport and airport in Gaza.
However, a report by the BBC quoted an official in Cairo as saying that the Palestinian delegation had waived, for now, an Israeli proposal to allow a seaport in Gaza pending the demilitarization of the Strip and the disarming of Hamas.
Hamas has shown no inclination to disarm in talks thus far.
An Israeli official told Israel Radio that there had been no progress in the talks so far, as the gaps between the sides remained too vast.
Meanwhile, a member of the Palestinian delegation to Cairo said on Tuesday that the negotiating team now in the midst of cease-fire talks, was not prepared to waive any of its demands which have been presented during the first round of the Egyptian-mediated talks.
However, the source told the al-Quds newspaper, that members of the delegation, including representatives from Hamas and the Islamic Jihad were willing to accept a gradual opening of the seaport and airport in the enclave.
That issue has proved to be the main stumbling blocks during talks, according to the source.
The delegation held a meeting Monday that lasted more than 10 hours, as the Egyptian mediators tried to bridge the gaps between the the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Fresh Gaza hostilities likely Wednesday. IDF to expand counteraction for Hamas rockets - http://www.debka.com/article/24185/Fresh-Gaza-hostilities-likely-Wednesday-IDF-to-expand-counteraction-for-Hamas-rockets-
The seventh truce in the ongoing Israel-Hamas passage of arms is generally expected to end Wednesday night Aug. 13, with a fresh outbreak of hostilities triggered by resumed Hamas rocket fire. The indirect Egyptian-brokered talks between the parties in Cairo have never got off the ground. From the start, all three realized that the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians were unbridgeable and, moreover, that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were totally at odds on a common negotiating stance.
debkafile's intelligence sources report exclusively that Egyptian intelligence mediators presented separate papers to the Israelis and Palestinians, knowing - as they acknowledged informally - that the two papers were miles apart.
A source close to the talks told debkafile Tuesday night that the Israeli envoys had nothing to do all day in Cairo except to drink hot cups of strong tea in the hotel room assigned them by their Egyptian hosts.
In any case, the Egyptian mediators were in no hurry to push for results and, in fact, appeared fairly unconcerned by the prospect of hostilities resuming in a day or two.
This indifference was also noticeable at the joint news conference addressed by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and President Vladimir Putin at the Russian resort of Sochi, Tuesday, when neither made any reference to the Gaza conflict.
The Palestinian team is in no shape to hold practical negotiations on any sort of resolution in Gaza, because it is deeply divided two ways.
For one, Hamas rejects the PA-PLO group as not fit to represent its interests because they say PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas is locked onto the Egyptian side.
The rancor between the two Palestinian factions came to the fore Tuesday night, our sources disclose, when PA security forces began detaining Hamas activists on the West Bank for the first time since the current conflict broke out in July. The arrests took place in the Qalqilya and Tulkarm refugee camps.
And for the second, the Hamas team itself was split between the envoys from Gaza and the delegates from Qatar. The Gaza group want the Cairo talks to lead off by setting conditions for a prolonged ceasefire, during which their political and military demands would be negotiated.
The Qatar envoys insist on reversing this order: first agreed solutions for the long term and only then a deal for extending the ceasefire.
Our Washington sources report that the US tried interceding with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, and also with Israel and Egypt, to persuade them to accept another extension of the three-day truce. This effort fell on deaf ears because the Obama administration has not carved out a role or gained levers of influence in the Gaza conflict.
The coming issue of DEBKA Weekly, out next Friday, Aug. 15 will examine the process leading up to the US administration's loss of standing in the Gaza crisis. If you are not a subscriber, you may click here to sign on.
The one thing that can avert a fresh outbreak of violence Wednesday night is a declaration by Hamas' military wing, Ezz e-Din al-Qassam, unconditionally halting further rocket fire and other aggressive activity.
Israel is not holding its breath for this to happen. Our military sources say that Israel's government and military leaders are ready for the next stage of the confrontation with Hamas. This time, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon are preparing action a lot tougher than limited air strikes in response to Palestinian rocket fire of any intensity. They know that public patience has run out and will no longer tolerate a return to the situation that leaves Hamas holding the initiative to shoot rockets or not.
Not only the public, but the army too will no longer put off with half-measures and is ready to fight Hamas until it is no longer capable of harassing Israel with threats of violence.
Israel Now Knows That There Can Never Be A Two State Solution - http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=24151
The rocket that spelled the end of the two-state solution
"In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: " Genesis 15:18
The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas showed the world a lot of things. It taught us that Hamas uses children as human shields, that they hide rockets in schools, that they launch missiles from civilian hospitals and that they choose death and conflict over life and peace. What did it show Israel? It showed them that the "Palestinians" will never peacefully coexist along side Israel in any way, shape or form. Never. The concept of the Two State Solution died on the battlefield during Operation Protective Edge, and should be buried once and for all.
On July 22, two weeks into Operation Protective Edge, a rocket fired from Gaza landed in the Tel Aviv suburb of Yehud, about one mile (1.6 kilometers) from Ben-Gurion Airport's perimeter fence. The United States Federal Aviation Administration immediately issued a Notice to Airmen instructing them that "due to the potentially hazardous situation created by the armed conflict in Israel and Gaza," all flight operations into and out of Ben Gurion were prohibited until further notice.
"Hamas has delivered a powerful message to the world," Dani Dayan, the chief foreign envoy of the settlers' umbrella Yesha Council, said the day after the missile landed in Yehud. "With one rocket from Gaza they closed down our airport. With an independent state overlooking three quarters of Israel's population, they could close down the entire country." The incident had sealed the "fate of Palestinian statehood," he declared joyfully.
On July 11, Netanyahu warned that "there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan" - a reference to the Jordan Valley and the West Bank. "Adjacent territory has huge importance," he said, and could be used by terrorists to dig tunnels and to fire rockets. The closer terrorists can get to Israel's borders, he said, the more rockets they fire - as proven by Operation Protective Edge. "At present we have a problem with the territory called Gaza," the prime minister continued, noting that the West Bank is 20 times the size of Gaza. He is not prepared "to create another 20 Gazas" in the West Bank, he vowed.
Israel knows, as does now the rest of the world, that to withdraw from the West Bank would be a death sentence to Israel. A Two State Solution is impossible.
PLO reports new Gaza truce, Hamas denies and shoots rockets - Israel is silent, retaliates with air strikes - http://www.debka.com/article/24186/PLO-reports-new-Gaza-truce-Hamas-denies-and-shoots-rockets-Israel-is-silent-retaliates-with-air-strikes
Total confusion reigned Thursday morning, Aug. 14, stirred up by a night of contradictory words and actions around the mirage of yet another truce in the Gaza war. The only immutable fact was Hamas rocket fire starting two hours before the last 72-hour ceasefire was scheduled to end Wednesday midnight and continuing up until 2 a.m. Thursday - namely before and after PLO-Ramallah envoys in Cairo and Egyptian officials reported a new five-day ceasefire had been agreed. Hamas-Gaza denied any such deal until all its conditions met. No Israeli official was available to confirm or deny the PLO-Egyptian claims. However, the Israeli air force retaliated for the Palestinian rocket fire with air strikes over the Gaza Strip.
Early Thursday, the unofficial word from Jerusalem was that the indirect talks in Cairo, which according to Hamas had broken down, will "apparently" be resumed Sunday.
Egypt, Hamas, the PLO and Israel appear to be totally at loggerheads. This impasse has produced a volatile and unpredictable situation that is closer to a lingering war of attrition between Hamas and Israel than a negotiated accommodation. Towards dawn Thursday, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gath, Netivot, and the Lachish, Eshkol and Shear Hanegev Districts again heard the explosions of Hamas rockets and Israeli air strikes over Khan Younes and central Gaza.
Members of the Israeli cabinet say that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon don't keep them in the picture. Its hazy outline indicates that the two war leaders still hope to maneuver Hamas into accepting a prolonged ceasefire. Because that is the last thing that the Palestinian Islamists seek, they will keep on shooting.
debkafile reported Wednesday night:
Two hours before the Gaza truce was due to end Wednesday midnight, Palestinian rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at large parts of southern Israel, including Ashkelon, Kiryat Gath, Yoav District, Shear Hanegev. Two were intercepted. No casualties were reported. Hamas envoys said that the Cairo talks had broken down and the truce would not be renewed unless their conditions were met. They called off a scheduled news conference without explanation. Hamas went back to launching rockets after Israel nodded its acceptance of a further truce, while at the same time concentrating armored forces on the Gaza border in case the Palestinians against fired rockets. Wednesday afternoon, IDF reservists were called up, as columns of tanks, tank carriers and APCs thundered down the roads leading to the Gaza border.
debkafile reported Tuesday: The seventh truce in the ongoing Israel-Hamas passage of arms is generally expected to end Wednesday night Aug. 13, in a fresh outbreak of hostilities triggered by resumed Hamas rocket fire. The general media trend predicted a further ceasefire.
Our sources also reported that the indirect Egyptian-brokered talks between the parties in Cairo never got off the ground. From the start, all three realized that the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians were unbridgeable and, moreover, that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were totally at odds on a common negotiating stance.
debkafile's intelligence sources learned that Egyptian intelligence mediators presented separate papers to the Israelis and Palestinians, knowing - as they acknowledged behind the scenes - that the two papers were miles apart but they were not overly concerned about the lack of headway.
Our military sources say that Israel's government and military leaders were braced for the next stage of the confrontation with Hamas, which will be a lot tougher, deeper and broader than a few restrained air strikes.
Jerusalem Watchman: Israel, what are you doing? - Stan Goodenough - http://jerusalemwatchman.org/#/2014/08/israel-what-are-you-doing/
You pipe electricity to Gaza, drop leaflets over your intended targets to give your enemy time to escape and live to fight another day, put your own soldiers lives at risk rather than endanger the lives of Israel-hating Gazans.
You send medical and humanitarian aid through your crossings into Gaza (while Egypt keeps its Rafah Border Crossing tightly closed as it has for the past seven years - Egypt itself blockading the Strip even as it piously calls on Israel to lift its blockade and 'siege.') and you permit Palestinians wounded in Gaza to be brought to Ben Gurion International Airport and from there to be flown to the anti-Semitic, near-enemy state of Turkey for medical treatment.
You refrain from killing the men leading Hamas - those primarily responsible for the rocket rain of terror that has driven millions of your people to seek shelter in their reinforced rooms, and that has caused unknown numbers of Israelis to flee from the vicinity of the Gaza Strip.
For some unfathomable reason, Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashaal - the men directly responsible for the deaths of dozens of your soldiers - are still breathing, together with their top tier of terrorism directors and propagators; instead of leveling your weapons at their heads and taking them out, you level threats to kill them unless they do this or unless they do that.
You send official delegates to Cairo to hold negotiations with this organization whose goal mirrors that of the Nazis - and who would enthusiastically pursue that goal if only they had the wherewithal to perpetrate against Israel's Jews what Germany did to Europe's.
It is as if you are negotiating with Hitler! Do you really think there is any difference whatsoever?
I was led to believe that, when he trained militarily unskilled Jews in Palestine to fight, Charles Orde Wingate taught your first soldiers to combat your enemies for the sake of your existence, for the sake of your nation. His teachings purportedly formed the foundation of your subsequently created Israel Defense Forces - the IDF.
The name sounds nice but it should be the Israel Offensive Forces - you know that winning means taking the initiative...being an offensive force, albeit only insofar as you would take the battle all the way to those who declared war on you.
What you need to do (I don't have to be an expert or be privy to inside intelligence to say this) is you need to accurately identify your enemy (as Islam's mujahideen or holy warriors, not Arab nationalists), target this enemy in its Hamas form, and crush it without mercy.
You need to win this - and the only way to win it is to take from Hamas both the ability and the will to continue to fight.
Unless you do this - unless you take hold of the battle with both hands and fully engage your foe, you are sending your young men needlessly to their deaths, adding to the never ending pile of dead soldiers whose sacrifices will have to be repeated all over again by others who will die with the next round and in the next wave.
What are you criteria? What is your outlook? What are you hoping to achieve? Really? Just quiet for quiet?
It sounds good, but for you quiet means your citizens continue with their lives as uninterruptedly as possible, day in day out, month in month out, all the while waiting for the next volley of rockets to fall, or the next wave of terrorism to break upon them.
For Hamas and the larger Arab-Muslim world, quiet means it has the chance to renew its strength, equip and plan for the next round. And this while the Islamic State is expanding its territory and sowing tsunamis of terror through the Middle East, the number of its adherents exploding as it pulls in new members across Arab national borders. Day by day, month by month, the Middle East is becoming increasingly dangerous for Jews and for the Jewish state.
Israel, you are trying to fight Hamas like politicians, staging operations - weighing the cost and the risks and the possible international fall out - the threat of prosecution in international criminal courts, etc. tying your own hands with your own calculations.
What you need to do, for the sake of your nation, for the sake of Israel's very existence down the road, is order all journalists out of Gaza, order all Gaza's civilians to head south to Rafah and break through the Egyptian crossing, flooding into the Sinai.
You need to stop taking calls from the White House, the Kremlin, 10 Downing Street, the Palais de l'Élysée the Bundeskanzleramt and the Vatican.
Address your nation, tell the people of Israel you are neither continuing an operation, nor beginning a new one, against Hamas.
Tell them you are declaring war on Hamas to destroy them.
And set to it.
The sooner you do, the sooner you will secure your nation - the Jewish nation - in the homeland you have returned to to stay.
In light of the long and pain-filled history of the Jewish people, your people, this is your duty to them.
Secret Cairo message: Hamas won't bend because it wasn't beaten - IDF: Beware of waiting game - http://www.debka.com/article/24180/Secret-Cairo-message-Hamas-won't-bend-because-it-wasn't-beaten-IDF-Beware-of-waiting-game
Cairo sent a secret message to Jerusalem Saturday night, Aug. 9, saying that Egypt had been unable to bring Hamas around to any compromise because "you [Israel and the IDF] haven't hit them hard enough." This is revealed by debkafile's exclusive military and intelligence sources. Therefore, there was no point in sending Israel's envoys back to the Egyptian capital for negotiations on a durable ceasefire, because they would be coming on a fool's errand.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cancelled their departure, after understanding the import of the message: The Egyptian ceasefire initiative proposed by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi had nowhere to go, until Israel's armed forces clobbered Hamas' military wing, Ezz e-Din Al-Qassam, into submission.
After their price for a ceasefire was rejected, Hamas and Islamic Jihad considered dropping out of the negotiating track. But meanwhile, on Friday, Aug. 8, they went back at their old practice of shooting rockets at the Israeli population, while also reserving the option to ramp the barrage up or down as it suited their plans.
By Sunday morning, Aug. 10, the short 72-hour respite for southern Israeli was over and the diplomatic impasse in Cairo had evolved into a diplomatic void.
From the first week of the IDF ground operation in the Gaza Strip, Israel's leaders had been groping for a way out of the hostilities. Half a dozen ceasefires were declared - and violated by Hamas, who viewed the effort as a sign of Israeli weakness.
The prime minister and defense minister Moshe Ya'alon had counted on the 72-hour ceasefire, which expired Friday morning, providing Hamas commanders with a chance to come out of their bunker hidey-holes and view the devastation on the Gaza Strip surface. They would then be shocked into throwing in the towel - or so it was hoped.
But instead, Hamas commanders immediately seized on the ruins as an opportunity to parade the Palestinians of Gaza to the world as victims of "Zionist" inhumanity, of which they hands were entirely clean.
By now, Netanyahu and Ya'alon appear to be stumped for a policy.
All their military and political maneuvers, including their decision to limit the IDF ground incursion in the Gaza Strip last month to a depth of no more than one kilometer, failed to wrest the tactical initiative of the war from Hamas or bring harm to its military wing.
Friday, when Hamas resumed its rocket barrage Friday, it was in good shape, unlike the Gazan population, to embark on a war of attrition and keep it going for weeks, if not months.
The inhabitants of the communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip were cast into a depressing uncertainty. After living under rocket attacks of varying intensity for 14 years, many decided to finally pull up roots, when promises by the prime minister and army leaders, that the bane was finally over and they could live in peace and safety, went out the window.
IDF generals warned Sunday morning of the dangers to the Gaza communities of a protracted period of indecision. They recalled the situation on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War, when the army stood ready, day after day, to rebuff Arab aggressors around its borders, while the late Prime Minister Levi Eshkol dithered and the Chief of Staff, the late Yitzhak Rabin, couldn't take the suspense.
Today, too, IDF divisions stand at their staging posts, ready and willing - just as soon as they get the order - to drive deep into the Gaza Strip and finally dislodge the fundamentalist Palestinian orchestrators of the senseless violence emanating for so many years from this sliver of territory.
If this order goes out, then, perhaps, Egypt may find Hamas more amenable to negotiating some sort of durable cessation of hostilities and an end to the destruction.
Islamist fundamentalists gain tactical advantage over the US and Israel in Gaza and Irbil, 1,372 km apart - http://www.debka.com/article/24178/Islamist-fundamentalists-gain-tactical-advantage-over-the-US-and-Israel-in-Gaza-and-Irbil-1-372-km-apart-
While different in many ways, the two most active Middle East conflicts, waged by the US in northern Iraq against the Islamic State, and by Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, have strong common features:
1. Both stood idly by for years as Islamist fundamentalists, Al Qaeda's IS in Iraq, and the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip, systematically built up military force for bringing forward their aggressive designs.
The Obama administration shrugged when al Qaeda started forging ahead, first in Syria and then in Iraq.
But for occasional air strikes against "empty sands" in Gaza, Binyamin Netanyahu's government neglected to step in when Hamas built up a vast stockpile of rockets and an underground terror empire, as former AMAN director Amos Yadlin admitted publicly last week.
When, in mid-2013, IS commander Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi executed a major tactical move by relocating his entire force from Syria to Iraq, Washington was unmoved - even when in Jan. 2014, the Islamists took over the unresisting western Iraqi province of Anbar and a row of important towns, including Falluja and Tikrit.
The Iraqi army's armored divisions, rather than resist the ruthless Islamists sweeping across the county, turned tail, bequeathing the conquering force the rich spoils of heavy, up-to-date American weaponry in mountainous quantities.
And still President Barack Obama saw no pressing cause to step in - even though, by then, it was obvious that this booty was destined not only for subjugating Baghdad, but being injected into the Syrian war and the IS arsenal in preparation for leaping on its next prey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and at some point, Israel too.
The US president was finally jerked out of his unconcern when the soldiers of Allah started marching toward the gates of Irbil, capital of the semiautonomous Kurdish Republic of Iraq (KRG).
Friday, on Aug.8, a couple of US warplanes and drones went into belated action to curb their advance. According to the Pentagon statement, two FA-18 jets, launched from the USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier in the Gulf, dropped 500lb laser-guided bombs on a "mobile artillery piece" that was shelling Kurdish forces defending Irbil, "where US forces are based."
A little more than one hour later, four F/A-18 aircraft hit a stationary convoy of seven vehicles and a mortar position near Irbil, wiping them out with eight bombs.
Gallons of water and tons of packaged meals were also air-dropped for the hundreds of refugees who had fled towns in northern Iraq that were mowed down by the Islamists, with nothing but the clothes they stood up in.
2. The US appears to be falling into the same error of judgment made by Israel's war planners in the month-long Operation Defense Edge, i.e., that air strikes are capable of wiping out an Islamist terrorist peril. That lesson was there for Washington to learn in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and latterly Gaza.
3. President Obama refuses to put American boots back in Iraq, specifically, special operations forces, because this would reverse what he considers his crowning foreign achievement, the withdrawal of the US army from Iraq.
For very different reasons, Israeli leaders abstained from sending special forces deep inside the Gaza Strip to eliminate the Hamas high command and main rocket stocks.
Because of these common factors, the two campaigns are destined to share a common outcome: IS will forge ahead in Iraq, and Hamas will continue firing rockets at the Israeli population, to force Jerusalem into submission. Neither conflict looks like ending any time soon.
4. Another less obvious common thread is to be found in Irbil. Two powerful patrons, the US and Israel, were responsible for shaping, training and funding the Peshmerga as the national army of the semiautonomous Kurdish Republic.
Both maintain military and intelligence missions in the KRG capital and may be presumed to be advising Kurdish generals on strategy for rebuffing the advancing Islamists.
Yet this menacing advance continues relentlessly, and the Kurdish army is showing the first signs of fallilng apart in the same way as the Iraqi divisions in earlier rounds of the IS onslaught. The sense of doom in Irbil is such that the US and Israel are preparing to evacuate their personnel.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that US warplanes and drones are the wrong weapons for stopping Al Qaeda's jihadis, just as Israeli air strikes were never much good against Hamas, and will not stop the war of attrition the Palestinian fundamentalists launched Friday, Aug. 8.
5. Islamist fundamentalists, fighting on separate battlefields 1,327 km apart, have gained the tactical advantage in both over the US and Israeli armies. President Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had better take a hard look at their tactics before it is too late.
Israel, Gaza, the US and the faux-ceasefire - http://www.debka.com/article/24194/DEBKAfile's-quick-guide-to-the-perplexed-reader-Israel-Gaza-the-US-and-the-faux-ceasefire
After a month of fighting and at the onset of another surreal ceasefire, debkafile offers some clues to those readers who, understandably, find themselves a bit baffled about the status of the war in Gaza and where Israel stands. Here's a brief guide to the goings-on:
Is there a ceasefire?
Senior Fatah and Egyptian officials said late Wednesday, Aug. 14, that negotiators in Cairo had agreed to a five-day truce, extending the previous 72-hour ceasefire. But neither Hamas nor Israeli officials themselves have formally acknowledged this deal, nor do they seem inclined to do so. In short, no, there is no truce.
What's with the split between Obama and Netanyahu?
The dispute between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is nothing new: it has been bubbling since Obama took office in 2009. As reports emerge that the White House blocked a transfer of Hellfire missiles to the IDF during Gaza operations, Obama is accusing Netanyahu of attempting to bypass his office by looking to allies in Congress for support. This, too, is old news, as Netanyahu's predecessors also used the US legislature to circumvent the will of US presidents.
But the Netanyahu-Obama split has taken on a novel spin in that, only twice before, was Washington denied a say in an Israeli military campaign.
In 1956, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion teamed up with Egypt and France for an attack on Egypt behind the US' back. In 1981, it was Menachem Begin who defied Washington when he ordered the successful bombardment of an Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad.
So who are Israel's allies for the Gaza operation?
Now it is Netanyahu's turn to swim against the American tide. His actions have a more comprehensive impact than those of prime ministers' past. Not only is he standing in opposition to the Obama administration's ingrained policy of avoiding military force, he's also working closely with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to counter the US Mid East policy departure that hinges on Obama's understanding with Iran. This new Israel-Saudi-Egypt alliance has pushed US off the regional center stage and sidelined its efforts to bring the Gaza conflict to an end.
Why doesn't' Washington go for Egypt and Saudi Arabia?
For the US, crossing Saudi Arabia and Egypt is tricky. But publicly lambasting Netanyahu and Israel is par for the course. Viewed through this lens, the press "leak" to the Wall Street Journal on the blocked missile supply makes perfect sense.
At the same time, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt share the same beef against the administration for working closely with Iran. Obama's cohorts in Baghdad are colluding with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei under the guise of battling the extremist Islamic State (IS, formerly IS) slashing its way through Iraq. The two powers plan to resolve Iraq's crisis to their own benefit. To this end, Obama has granted Iran its rubber stamp and the status of a regional superpower - even before it inks a deal on a nuclear accord, which
Saudi Arabia and Israel, in particular, fear will turn out to be inimical to their strategic interests and national security.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia hit back by sending Sisi to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday August 12 in Sochi. They are inviting him to join the new alliance. It is too soon to say how far Netanyahu is willing to go in this direction.
Is Operation Protective Edge Over?
The answer is a resounding "no!" Netanyahu and his Defense Minister, Moshe Ya'alon, would be content to end the war. They've been trying to do this from the operation's second day, July 8, but are finding that an exit strategy keeps on slipping ever further from their grasp. The two Israeli leaders got themselves into a mess by taking it for granted that they could reap the success of a war against terrorists with a deal at the negotiating table, so falling into the same error as Obama.
Thanks to these early missteps, the fighting is sliding into an on-again, off-again war of attrition, with scattered occasional rocket fire from Gaza and Israeli reprisals. We haven't yet seen the end of this war, and it will change form as time goes on.
Meanwhile, Thursday, 500 trucks loaded with food, medicines and other essentials rolled through the Kerem Shalom crossing into the Gaza Strip, continuing the supplies that never faltered in the course of the month-long IDF operation. This fits the general ambivalence of the Netanyahu government's style of warfare.
Another round of talks has been scheduled to take place in Cairo next week.
When is a red alert the real thing?
This week saw three grades of rocket alert: Red Alert, False Alarm and No Alert. We propose this key to set minds at rest within the radius of Hamas rockets: The first signifies an authentic rocket attack in response to which everyone should take shelter; the second attests to wishful thinking that a ceasefire may actually hold and so you must pretend you didn't hear the explosion; and the alarm system is silenced when the government is determined to convince everyone that peace is at hand. So now you know you were dreaming when your home is blasted.
Hezbollah: Israel is a cancer and the ultimate goal should be to remove it - Ariel Ben Solomon - http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Nasrallah-Israel-is-a-cancer-and-the-ultimate-goal-should-be-to-remove-it-371182
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said in an interview that "Israel is a cancer" and that the "ultimate goal should be to remove it."
Speaking in a multi-part interview on Thursday, which is to be published over the next two days in the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which tends to support Hezbollah, Nasrallah said that Israel seeks short wars that lead to "a quick, decisive and clear victory."
"The reason for this is their realization that any future war is going to be a lot more difficult in terms of its targets and the ability of the resistance - its rocket capabilities and capabilities in all areas. The enemy cannot withstand a war of attrition," he said.
Nasrallah played down the success of the Iron Dome defense system, asserting "it will face a real issue when there is a large number of rockets."
Asked about advice he would give the "Palestinian resistance" in Gaza, Nasrallah responded, "When a human being is given two choices, either surrender or fight, there is no choice between fighting and humiliation. The culture of the resistance and the choice of the resistance grew among the Palestinian people because they have no other option."
Asked about Hezbollah's relationship with Hamas following its break with its ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Nasrallah said that despite this, "contacts and meetings were never put on hold. Everything stayed normal."
Asked, "Are we going to enter Jerusalem?" the Hezbollah leader responded, "I have no doubt."
"The most dangerous problem we face today, whether it is with the Lebanese or Arab public, is to get to a point where the people of the region consider Israel's existence normal," emphasized Nasrallah.
He went on to add, "Israel is an illegitimate entity and it is a threat to the region. It is a constant threat to the whole region. We cannot coexist with this threat. That is why the ultimate goal of the [Arab and Islamic] nation is to end Israel's existence irrespective of the problems, sensitivities and everything that has happened and could happen between Palestinians and non-Palestinians, Shia and Sunni, Muslims and Christians."
Nasrallah also delved into personal details, saying he hadn't driven a car since 1986.
Asked if he uses Facebook, the organization's leader said, "Due to the security situation, I should stay away from anything related to mobile phones or the Internet."
However, he said he keeps up to date by reading reports.
Nasrallah also commented on his changing of residence constantly, saying that "when changing places and relocating become a part of a person's life, it becomes the usual situation."
Israel and the Arab media say I live in a bunker and am secluded, "but I do not live in a bunker," he said.
He also said that he used to speak English. "But due to lack of practice, I can understand but rarely speak it."
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