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Tuesday, November 20. 2012Morning here, Afternoon there, Gaza UpdateHamas fired off more Iranian rockets toward Jerusalem. One landed in a West Bank Palestinian village.
Hamas not only tries to kill Israeli civilians but doesn't care about killing fellow Palestinians. Meanwhile, to continue the report linked above:
Hillary is on the way, to talk in Ramallah with the PLO. Gee, that will do a lot of good, since for Hamas and the PLO each other are enemies. She'll be in Jerusalem, presumably to muscle Israel into not launching a ground operation in Gaza to eliminate more rats. Then she'll visit Egypt, whose "mediation" sits on a table etched with anti-Israel statements. Soft diplomacy yields to soft-headedness. At least, one Associated Press reporter called out the State Dept. spokesperson on ignoring Turkey's calling Israel a "terrorist state" at the same time considering giving the faux-NATO partner US Patriot missiles along its Syrian border. Trackbacks
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Watching FoxBiz interview Dan Gillerman, and mid-interview news flash, Israel and Hamas have just agreed to an Egypt-brokered cease-fire.
Gillerman --coming back to the interview --responded with the comment that the two leaders of Islam now are Iran and Turkey and neither of them are Arab --and that if Egypt can broker a real peace, it means that Turkey and Egypt have allied and defeated Iran. I think what he was getting at, had the interview lasted longer, that the case rests on what is Egypt going to be, a nation or the Muslim Brotherhood. If that is the root question to be answered, then it is Israel --the IDF --that has forced the answer. The answer that Israel needs to have. Buddy, all that's at any online source from Israel is that the fighting continues. There is no mention of any cease fire or anything else. Netanyahu had a press conference with visiting UN Sec Gen Ban, that's all, with usual diplo words. Egypt's Morsi does predict something happening today, but no specifics. So, what?
Your analysis is appealing but too optimistic. A ceasefire just means maybe putting off a bigger confrontation for a year or so, when iran will likely have deliverable nuclear weaponry. Hamas will be further emboldened by a cease fire in which they plan to keep targeting Israel and crying crocodile tears that the international press take at face value. Failure to take on Gaza and iran now, hard, will lead to worse conditions for Israel, the region, and the world. BK, that's what Dan Gillerman was saying, in a compressed manner with the studio clock sweeping toward commercial. He managed to say, ''the snake must be killed'' --meaning, i suppose, the de minimus that Israel must have a permanent stop to terrorist rocket fire from Gaza.
But IDF will cease fire at midnight, according to a later report (half hour ago) by a Fox newswoman quoting ''Israeli govt sources''. Listening to Israeli radio tonight - the accurate term is "fog of war". A parade of sundry former ministers giving their opinions. The only Israeli voices saying there will be a ceasefire tonight are "anonymous diplomatic sources" - which could be something, or could be a stupid wishful leftie.
Official Israeli spokespeople are saying "so far the rockets are continuing, and we are continuing". And in fact the rockets are continuing - it's surreal to hear the talking-head interviews interrupted regularly by announcements of "red alert in city x". The people being pounded are the ones talking most furiously about a ceasefire. There is even disagreement between the desperate statements of the Gaza Hamas leadership - "cease fire tonight!" (hopefully before my *ss is targeted!!) - and Egypt-based Hamas spokesmen. I sincerely hope Israel does not pull its punches. I don't see how Bibi will run as "Mr. Security" just months after repeating Livni and Olmert's mistake. It really does look like they want to clear this front before going after Iran. On a lighter note - here is some "Sh*t Tel-Avivis Say During an Air Raid" - a lovely send-up of Tel-Aviv yuppies finally getting a clue. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28LVEq_4dzQ The video goes by too fast to translate, but much of it is universal. For instance: - Guy finds parking space downtown just as siren sounds. - Cafe Hipster1: now that's too much - we already had one today! - Hipster: Where are you going for tonight's air raid? Clueless Girl - uhhh just where is Gaza? Clueless Boy - uhh south... Yuppies in bomb shelter: There's no cellphone reception here! The closed leftie mind: Leftie1: I read on the BBC... Leftie2: I read in Ha'aretz... Leftie1: I read in the Guardian... Yuppies in bomb shelter: was there a boom? Siren Sounds. Husband: let's GOOO Wife putting on makeup: Just... a... second... Cafe Hipster1: our PR needs more dead bodies! Cafe Hipster2: so they should download from ImageBank! Some gags reference the "Start Up Nation" mentality: -Cafe Hipster: my brother-in-law developed the chip for that Iron thingy... - Hipster2: my father gave them the name! Wife: honey that's the air raid siren! Husband checks cellphone: it's not here, it's in Bat Yam, go to sleep. (everyone and his brother is developing an iPad app here....) LOL --nothing like humor under fire --really, no figure of speech, nothing else is quite like it --deflates the enemy for starters.
So here's a video --humor is unintentional of course --and sort of electrifying, considering this guy (Matthew Lee) slow-roasting the lady's glib wave-off over and over again, is from the AP. http://twitchy.com/2012/11/19/video-ap-reporter-liquidates-eviscerates-state-departments-victoria-nuland-over-gaza-deaths/ The reporter reporting on Matthew Lee, Nick Valencia of CNN, reports that Lee is upset over the Palestinian casualties --maybe so, that's more in line with the AP for sure --but the bone of contention, that USA has failed to object to Turkey's labeling Israel a 'terrorist state', is exactly right --so maybe Valencia (of CNN) is editorializing. Anyway, righteous indignation is powerful --and we on this side of the political divide have had SO MUCH of it --way TOO much of it --conditioned out of us. For example, here's Glenn Reynolds today (have to go there for the hyperlink to source story): QUOTE: IRON DOME: Israel and the world have become one dysfunctional family, with the crazy member being the Gaza Palestinians. “Back in mid-June, during the great Paris weapons show, the Rafael pavilion was absolutely the busiest around, and everybody wanted to look at the new, exciting, Iron Dome system, the greatest achievement in rocket defense ever. But by the end of the show, Rafael hadn’t made a single sale. The Arrow sold well, other systems did great – Iron Dome wasn’t moving. So they contacted their big clients, the serious ones, and asked what gives. And those clients told them no one except Israel has any use for these things. Because in any normal, sane country, if some hooligans were to start targeting civilians with rockets – the army would go and kill them.” Posted at 7:50 am by Glenn Reynolds I've always said (to folks who are willing to listen to me anyway) that there are only 2 entities in the world that do something for the Palestinian people - the United States and Israel.
The United States because of all the foreign aid that we send to them (and how much of that ends up in Swiss banks BTW?) and Israel because it shows compassion towards NOT hitting civilians whenever it is reasonable to do so, and often at a greater risk to its own soldiers and civilians. Any other group that claims to be for the Palestinians is full of it. Charles, you just exhumed Arafat. Now the ICC won't have to -- :-)
=== --back to Matthew Lee and the AP for a moment, it wouldn't be unhelpful if he got a few emails thanking him for focusing so much attention on the Turkish, or Erdogan, attitude, perhaps with some post script configuration of the elephant in the living room: that Hamas is the only one of the two combatants which has the choice to stop the war. "Because, you see, if Israel chooses to stop, she will eventually be rocketted to pieces." "If Hamas, on the other hand, chooses to stop, ((poof)) the war is over. No fire will follow them home." |