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Sunday, August 24, 2014

Saudi Arabia's bombshell

In a startling development, Saudi Arabia has blamed Hamas for the current bloodshed with Israel. Saudi monarch, King Abdullah has publicly accused Hamas of being responsible for the war between Gaza and Israel. 'It is shameful and disgraceful that these terrorists are doing this in the name of religion, killing the people, whose killing Allah has forbidden, and mutilating their bodies, and feeling proud in publishing this. They have distorted the image of Islam with its purity and humanity and smeared it with all sorts of bad qualities by their actions, injustice, and crimes'. The ninety-year-old King Abdullah accused Hamas of being responsible for a 'collective massacre'. His statement, read by a news announcer, is representative of what other countries like Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf States (except for Qatar), and many Lebanese feel about the confrontation with radical Islam that is being confronted mainly by Israel.

It should serve as a wake-up call to the Obama administration, particularly to Foggy Bottom, whose diplomats and analysts seem to be lagging behind Middle East developments. The battle with radical Islam is not being waged solely with Islamic State in Iraq, Syria, and now Lebanon, but also in Gaza. Israel's Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu, should reciprocate with a diplomatic initiative to try and resolve the differences with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who professes to seek a diplomatic solution to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

The statement by the Saudi monarch is an historic signal to Israel of where it stands now. Therefore, Netanyahu should accept the Saudi challenge, even if it means a breakup of his coalition government, which is dependent on hardliners like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and Economic Minister Naftali Bennett. Meanwhile in Gaza it may get worse before it gets better!

After its rejection of the latest Egyptian ceasefire proposal, Hamas launched salvos of rockets and mortars into Israel. On August 19th, our assessment was that Israel was 'really about to take off the gloves'. Indeed, within 24 hours another Israeli air raid killed three more top commanders after Israeli intelligence had tracked them down. (Although denying that Israeli jets had previously killed Mohammed Deif, its commander in chief, Hamas has failed to show any sign that he escaped unscathed - this would appear to indicate that Deif was indeed killed or seriously wounded). Overnight, the Hamas command structure lost four of its top commanders. Hamas panicked, and with good reason - Israeli intelligence had scored a major coup that could be chalked up to electronic surveillance or possibly spies inside the senior Hamas command.

Connect the dots between Hamas and IS

Obviously stunned, Hamas escalated its rocketing of Israel, and then took a page out of the Islamic State's book of atrocities in Iraq. They rounded up 25 'suspects' who were lined up against the wall and shot dead. A Hamas statement declared that, ‘from now on, traitors will not be brought to court!’ If the victims were indeed Israel 'spies', why would Hamas have waited, and how could Hamas have carried out a serious investigation in less than 24 hours? Obviously, Hamas had selected the suspects at random, and wanted to strike terror into the hearts of all the population of Gaza. The medium was the message: Hamas is as strong as ever despite the loss of the top commanders, and will brook no disloyalty or criticism.

It was bound to happen sometime and it was painful when it did.

4 year-old, Daniel Tragerman, was killed by a mortar bomb while playing inside his home near the Gaza border. When Hamas fire rockets from Gaza, Israeli civilians have up to fifteen seconds to race to their bomb shelters before they land. However, mortar bombs give even less time, barely five seconds, and Iron Dome is not designed to intercept them. His father did manage to rush with a smaller child to their protected room but the mortar landed before he could save his son. The mortar landed just outside their kibbutz home and shrapnel critically wounded Daniel who died a short time later. Aware that Iron Dome cannot cope with mortars that give almost no warning time, Hamas has been pummeling Israeli communities along the border. (Incidentally, some foreign news agencies describe them as 'settlements', which can give the wrong impression. The communities are located on undisputed Israeli land along the border with Gaza).

When the last five-day ceasefire went into effect, many Israeli women and children moved back to their homes, only to face a new barrage of mortars. Up until now, families in the region have made their decisions about whether the women and children should leave for safer havens in Israel until the hostilities end. Now for the first time, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon has said that government services will provide alternate housing for those who choose to leave until the situation quiets down.

Hamas admits executing three Israeli youths

At long last, Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal has admitted that Hamas terrorists did execute three Israeli youths in the West Bank, the atrocity that triggered the current conflagration. But Meshaal was careful to claim that he did not know beforehand, like he was unaware of the latest plot to overthrow Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that was uncovered recently by Israel.

I can hear those who are asking: 'Why is Israel so upset when one Israeli child is killed by a Hamas mortar, when hundreds of Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli aircraft?

For this reason: Israel takes unprecedented steps not to harm Palestinian children, certainly far more than the U.S. and its NATO partners have in the Middle East. On the other hand, Hamas not only uses Palestinian children as human shields, but the terrorists try to deliberately rocket Israeli kids. Moreover, Hamas started this round when its members kidnapped the three young Israelis and shot them in the head. Does this not recall the IS execution of American journalist James Foley in Iraq? In addition, try connecting the dots between the Hamas execution of 25 Palestinians in Gaza and the IS atrocities in Iraq.

So Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal was feeling the heat when he rejected any comparison with IS in his interview with Yahoo News: ‘We are not a religious, violent group - IS is a totally different phenomenon’. Really? So is Meshaal unaware of what is written in his own Hamas covenant? Article 7: "The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him." If this is not religious fanaticism and genocidal violence, what is?

It gets better (or worse). Article 8 of the Hamas Covenant also reiterates the credo of its ally in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood: "Allah is the goal, the Prophet is the model, the Koran its constitution, jihad its path, and death for the sake of Allah its most sublime belief." Therefore according to Meshaal's convoluted explanation, it follows that neither is the Muslim Brotherhood a religious, violent group. Tell it to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el Sisi.

The proportionality ploy

Israel is taken to task for far more Palestinians being killed than Israelis - Hamas and the UN tell us that some 2,000 Palestinians have been killed. Somehow they and the news reports never subtract the estimated 750 to 1,000 terrorists the IDF estimates have been killed in the fighting. On the other hand, only four Israeli civilians have been killed along with 64 soldiers. The fact that the Palestinians have repeatedly refused to halt the rocketing, and therefore bear responsibility for the Palestinian civilian deaths seems to cut no ice - unless the critics feel Israel has no right to fight back.

Some British, and even American, interviewers keep asking why so many Palestinians and so few Israelis have died in the fighting. This is how it goes: 'It's disproportional and that violates international law!' There are some other statistics worth noting: In the past 47 days, Hamas and the other ‘non-religious’ and ‘non-violent’ terrorists in Gaza have launched an estimated 3,800 rockets at the Jewish state. IDF intelligence, which should be considered fairly reliable after taking out four top Hamas commanders, estimates that 600 of those rockets have been launched close to schools, mosques, hospitals, and other public buildings. Many more have been fired from inside populated areas.

The IDF has disclosed that it conducted some 5,000 strikes on terror targets, destroying Hamas control centers, rocket arsenals and production facilities, as well as hitting rocket squads caught in the act. So, if an estimated 1,400 Palestinian civilians have been killed in 5,000 IDF attacks, doesn't that mean that one Palestinian civilian was killed for every three Israeli raids? If, as the Palestinians and the critics charge, Israel is deliberately targeting Palestinian civilians, the Israeli pilots would be lousy shots. On the contrary, what it proves is that they carried out their mission with great precision and caution in trying not to hit civilians who were being exploited as human shields in one of the most densely populated areas of the world.

Are those air strikes necessary?

In the past two days alone, Hamas has launched no less than 200 rockets and mortars at Israel. Can you imagine air raid sirens blaring and frantic Israeli children racing dozens of times a day and night for their bomb shelters? I apologize for what might seem to be a heartless analysis of civilian deaths and suffering. Nonetheless, facts remain facts. It is also true that the killing of innocent civilians, particularly children, is abominable no matter which side they're on.

Today, in order to survive in our ancient homeland, an enemy such as Hamas, deliberately forces us to kill Palestinian children. The truth will come out - Hamas is a brutal and vicious Islamist force that knows no limits in achieving its fanatical goals; terrorists who have also shown no qualms in throwing their Fatah rivals off high-rise buildings, or tossing them from second or third floors just to break their legs. Knee- capping is also deemed a suitable punishment.

Now Hamas has adopted another tactic of terror - the round up of 25, probably innocent, Palestinians and their execution in front of the cameras. It is as if the Islamists, Hamas or IS, revel in the barbarity and sadism of their actions, that are all in the service of Allah. The photos of the IS terrorist, with the London accent, lording it over American journalist James Foley before beheading him has become iconic in representing the free world's clash with Islamist terrorism. It has depicted what is at stake and the security services of Britain, France, Australia, Canada, and many other countries, whose citizens have joined Islamic State, and are undoubtedly burning the midnight oil in trying to cope with what has become a clear and present danger. Hopefully the Obama administration also seems to be waking up to the fact that this is what President el Sisi is confronting in Egypt.