Israel - God's Timepiece

[HisDaughter]

May 15th Strategy to invade Israel posted on Facebook
wnd.com

Social-networking sites, specifically Facebook, are being used to promote a campaign that appears to target the very existence of Israel, with hundreds of thousands worldwide seeking to join in a plan to "return" to and take over the original homes of their families in "Palestine" on May 15.

According to an in-depth report by L. Barkan, a research fellow at the Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors and analyzes media reports throughout the Middle East, the idea being circulated is "for millions of Palestinian refugees to march en masse in return to the original homes of their families in Israel."

The movement's plans call for this to be much more than just a visit, however.

"All the families of Jewish settlers in the Galilee area, including in the areas of Safed, Tiberias, and all the way down to Acre, must proceed to the port of Haifa and board ships back to their countries of origin in Europe," explained one posting that is part of the campaign.

One of the Facebook pages soliciting participants in what apparently would be an invasion and attempted overthrow of the region's existing government has been removed by the Facebook administration, but not before collecting some 350,000 endorsements from readers. Other pages remain.

According to MEMRI, some of the Facebook pages "stress that the activities are meant to be peaceful and unarmed, while others hint at violence and armed resistance."

"It also has gained the support of Palestinian officials, through the PLO Department of Expatriate Affairs … which has called on Palestinians living abroad to participate in the march and to publicize it among the Palestinian communities and organizations worldwide," the MEMRI report said.

Timetables to coordinate the events have been posted by administrators who explain it is the moral and legal right of refugees to return to their homes.

One page, "The 2011 March of Return," said, "The goal of [the Facebook] group … is to organize a march of millions, who, on May 15, 2011, will realize the Right of Return to Palestine in deed as well as in word."

It explains marchers will come from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

"The Right of Return is a legal, political, human, moral, and religious right that is irrevocable and unlimited in time, and all must work toward realizing it. We call for the realization of this right through the mass return of millions of Palestinians to historical Palestine, such that every refugee and displaced person will return to his land and to the home from which he was expelled. This will be the first step toward implementing … Resolution 194, which will be followed by further steps, such as awarding reparations to the returned refugees and recognizing heir rights," the site advocates.

MEMRI documents that a page titled, "The Palestinian Refugees' Revolution (The Advance of the Millions)," warned, "We will reach out our hand and build a bridge that will bring us to our green land, to our territorial waters, to the beautiful Mediterranean Sea, to our desert ... to the beautiful Galilee, to Jerusalem, our proud capital, to the neighborhoods of Nablus, Ramallah, and Jenin, to the hills of Lod and Ramla, and to all the [other] places ... We will return, and soon. Long live our cause. May the state of the sons of Zion fall."

Also, on the page called "The Third Palestinian Intifada" was the warning there could be violence.

"After the Tunisian, Egyptian, and Libyan intifadas, the time has come for the Palestinian intifada. The first Palestinian intifada was in 1987 and the second in 2000, but the third Palestinian intifada [will commence] on May 15, 2011," it said, according to MEMRI's documentation.

"It should be noted that, while urging the public to join the mass demonstrations on May 15, the page administrators also hinted at a coming war on the Jews and called on the readers to prepare for martyrdom," Barkan's report confirmed.

"For example, they posted a well-known hadith, which states that the Day of Judgment will only come after the Muslims fight the Jews and vanquish them: 'The hour [of Judgment] will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.'"

Another message on the page states, "Paradise calls you. I ask everyone to come out on May 15. Do not say 'I can't.' For once [in your life], at least, do something to help the Muslims ... martyrdom calls you."

Another site warned against using slogans such as "Destroying the Zionist Entity" and instead talked about returning "to the homes from which we were expelled, nothing more.

"That is a human and moral slogan that can rally all the people of the world to our assistance."

Another page posted the plans: "On Sunday, May 15, after the noon prayers, 'the holy advance will start and the Intifada will be ignited... On this day, all the returning [refugees] will set forth, and the Third Palestinian Intifada will commence, with the support of all the free people in the world.'"

The page lists the destinations of the march: In the West Bank, participants will march on the checkpoints and settlements; in Gaza, on the checkpoints and border crossings; within "the 1948 territories," toward cities and villages destroyed in the 1948 war; in Lebanon, toward Palestine by land and by sea; in Jordan, toward three areas on the border; in Syria, towards the Golan border; in Egypt, toward the Rafah border and toward the coast of Palestine by ship.

May 15 was picked, the pages explain, because it is the 63rd anniversary of the founding of Israel in 1948.

Warned another page, according to MEMRI, "We will have a single slogan: 'End the occupation.' We will put up our tents everywhere, and operate a radio station of the sit-down demonstration, broadcasting national songs not associated with any political faction. We will use pots and spoons to make a racket at night, and when we grow tired, we will blow whistles. We will not leave until the occupation leaves."

Recommended tools to be used?

"A cloth and some vinegar and lemon as protection from tear gas; an aluminum pot and goggles to protect from tear-gas bombs and rubber bullets; an olive branch to signify the peaceful character of the protest; cans of spray paint for spraying on the faceguards of the soldiers' helmets in case of a confrontation; a sleeping bag and a first aid kit; water and soap for pouring on the tires of military jeeps to make them skid."

[HisDaughter]

Israel threatens unilateral steps if UN recognizes Palestinian state
haaretz.com

Israel informed the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council last week, as well as several other prominent European Union countries, that if the Palestinian Authority persists in its efforts to gain recognition in September as a state within the 1967 borders, Israel would respond with a series of unilateral steps of its own.

Senior Foreign Ministry officials said the ministry's director general, Rafael Barak, sent a classified cable last week to more than 30 Israeli embassies, directing them to lodge a diplomatic protest at the highest possible level in response to the Palestinian efforts to gain international recognition for statehood at the UN General Assembly session in September.

The Israeli diplomatic corps conveyed the message that support for international recognition, particularly by most of the members of the European Union, encouraged the Palestinians to forgo negotiations with Israel and to move more quickly toward recognition at the UN of Palestinian statehood. Israeli diplomats stressed that such a move violates the Oslo Accords and will not lead to a Palestinian state even if the General Assembly grants recognition, but could lead to violence on the ground.

European diplomats have confirmed to Haaretz that such a message was conveyed several days ago. One diplomat said his country did not receive a serious response when asked what unilateral steps Israel might take. Another diplomat, from a European country, said in light of the current deadlock in negotiations, international recognition of Palestinian statehood appeared unavoidable in September.

Foreign Ministry sources said no decision has been taken at this stage over a possible Israeli response to UN recognition of Palestinian statehood, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not held any major discussion of such a response on a formal level among his cabinet colleagues. Ideas have been floated on the right wing of the political spectrum in recent weeks, suggesting, for example, that Israel might apply Israeli law to the West Bank or annex major settlement blocs to Israel.

September is expected to be pivotal for several reasons. Last September, U.S. President Barack Obama told the General Assembly that he wished to see a Palestinian state become a member of the UN within a year. In addition, Israel and the Palestinians had agreed that the talks they undertook last September 2 in Washington would last for about a year. Thirdly, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's program of establishing institutions for a future Palestinian state is due to be wrapped up this coming September.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met on Sunday in Ramallah with former Knesset member Yossi Beilin and told him that the Palestinian Authority would not engage in further negotiations with Israel after September. Senior Palestinian sources added, however, that if negotiations are resumed before September and make progress, the Palestinians would be prepared to defer efforts to gain UN recognition of statehood.

Abbas told Beilin that it would be possible to engage in three months of talks in an effort to achieve progress before September, but Netanyahu would have to suspend construction in the West Bank settlements during that period. The PA leader added that the Palestinians would not renew violence against Israel, but hinted at his possible resignation or the breakup of the PA, telling Beilin that there is no October 2011 on his schedule.

There are currently no contacts between representatives of Netanyahu and Abbas's advisers, and Netanyahu appears to have backtracked on his intention to deliver a major policy speech to jump-start the peace process.

[HisDaughter]

Poll: Young Israelis moving much farther to the right politically
haaretz.com

Young Israelis are moving much further to the right politically, according to a survey to be released Thursday.

The study found that 60 percent of Jewish teenagers in Israel, between 15 and 18 years old, prefer "strong" leaders to the rule of law, while 70 percent say that in cases where state security and democratic values conflict, security should come first. A similar picture emerges in the 21 to 24 age group.

The comprehensive survey was conducted on behalf of Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation, in cooperation with the Macro Center for Political Economics, by the Dahaf Institute.

According to the authors, the report shows a strengthening of Jewish-nationalist beliefs among Jewish youths, and a clear weakening of the importance given to the state's liberal-democratic base.

Among Jewish youths, support for the definition of Israel as a Jewish state as the most important goal for the country grew from 18.1 percent in 1998 to 33.2 percent last year, the survey reports. At the same time, there has been a consistent drop in those who back the importance of Israel's identity as a democratic country - from 26.1 percent in 1998 to 14.3 percent in 2010.

Support for Israel to eventually live in peace with its neighboring countries also fell significantly, from 28.4 percent 12 years ago to 18.2 percent last year. This is the third such survey of young people conducted by the two organizations in the past 12 years.

The study was carried out in July 2010, among a representative sample of Jewish and Arab youth. It included 1,600 participants, 800 aged 15-18 and 800 21-24, which is considered a relatively large group.

The right wing enjoyed a clear majority of support among the young people surveyed. Among Jews, the numbers stood at 57 percent and 66 percent for the two age groups respectively, while those who said they considered themselves to be left wing made up only 13 percent and 10 percent of those respondents.

The support for the right rose overall from 48 percent to 62 percent during the study's 12-year period, while support for the left fell from 32 percent to 12 percent.

As to the possibility of peace with the Palestinians, 755 of the Jewish respondents said they do not believe negotiations will lead to peace, and most prefer that the present situation continue.

[HisDaughter]

IDF prepares for multi-front war in war games
foxnews.com

In the face of a changing Middle East, the IDF held a set of war games this week aimed at preparing the military for all-out war against Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas.

The exercise did not include soldiers or live-fire exercises, but was held to drill commanders and their decisions in the event of a large-scale war on multiple fronts.

The exercise was the first overseen by new Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz. It was organized by Maj.-Gen. Gershon Hacohen, head of the IDF Colleges.

The IDF stressed that the drill was part of the military’s routine exercise program and included all of its various branches – ground, air and navy – with an emphasis on interoperability and operational continuity.

The scenarios simulated during the drill included a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, sparked by a terrorist attack overseas as well as the involvement of Syria, Hamas and Iran.

“The drill is part of our need to retain a level of readiness,” Gantz said.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak and members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee visited the base where the exercise was held, even though the political echelon did not play an active role in the war games.

Hacohen said the exercise was meant to prepare the IDF for a future war in light of the recent changes in the region.

“The IDF is utilizing this opportunity to drill itself and to formulate new understandings,” he said.

Meanwhile Thursday, Barak visited the site of the Iron Dome counter-rocket defense system outside of Beersheba, vowing that Israel would deploy additional batteries in the coming years. Barak decided last week to deploy the first battery, which is still undergoing operational tests, outside Beersheba after 100 rockets and mortars hit Israel in the recent round of hostilities in the Gaza Strip.

“This is not a 100-percent solution, and we still do not have it on all of our other fronts. It will take us several more years before we are equipped with more batteries,” Barak said.

The Iron Dome, developed by Rafael, constitutes the lower tier of Israel’s multilayered missile defense architecture and will be supplemented in a few years by David’s Sling, which is under development to intercept medium-range rockets.

For the upper tier, Israel already operates the Arrow-2 and is currently developing the Arrow-3, which is slated to become operational in 2015.

[HisDaughter]

Hezbollah Preparing for War on Israel

cbn.com

The Israeli Defense Forces released information Thursday documenting that Hezbollah is preparing for war.

Since the end of the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, the terrorist group has entrenched itself deeply in 270 villages throughout southern Lebanon.

Uzi Rubin, Israel's foremost missile expert, told CBN News the threat to the Jewish state was "severe."

"Those bunkers are not in population centers just by mistake," Rubin said. "The idea here is to attack Israeli population centers from Hezbollah population centers, to attack our population centers in order to terrorize and discourage us and to fire from their population centers in order to use them as a human shield."

IDF intelligence estimates the Iranian proxy has constructed some 550 bunkers stocked with a variety of weapons, 300 underground facilities, and 100 weapons warehouses for missiles, rockets, and other war materiel.

Like Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah has constructed its terror infrastructure adjacent to schools, hospitals, and private residences.

The IDF Northern Command reports that the number of Hezbollah terrorists has doubled since 2006.

Since the end of the war nearly five years ago, Hezbollah has acquired more than 40,000 rockets from Iran and Syria. In the southern Lebanese village of al Khiyam, hundreds of missiles, rockets, and mortar shells are being readied for the next war with Israel.

About 100 Hezbollah terrorists work in al Khiyam, where Special Forces are training for combat with IDF troops.

All of Hezbollah's terror activities in southern Lebanon are in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, issued on August 12, 2006 with the U.N.-brokered ceasefire.

Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets on northern Israel in the Second Lebanon War, which began on July 12 and ended on August 14, 2006.

[HisDaughter]

New European Push To Divide Israel
haaretz.com

Isaac Molho, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s senior adviser and top negotiator on the Palestinian channel, made a secret trip to Moscow on Wednesday and met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The purpose of the visit was to dissuade Russia from supporting the European Union’s intention to present in two weeks’ time a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

Molho was accompanied on the trip by the Foreign Ministry’s legal advisor, Daniel Taub, and spent over an hour with Lavrov. Taub and Molho also met with the Russian envoy to the Middle East, Sergei Yakovlev, and other senior Russian officials. A senior Israeli official told Haaretz that Taub and Molho used the visit “to present new Israeli ideas for re-launching the peace process with the Palestinians.”

The visit comes just two weeks before the foreign ministers of the Quartet − the United States, Russia, the European Union and the UN − are to meet. France, Germany and the United Kingdom are pushing for announcing a new international peace initiative. The principles of the initiative known so far include setting up two states on the basis of the 1967 borders with territorial swaps; a fair, realistic and agreed-upon solution to the predicament of the Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as a capital for both states and security arrangements that would protect Israel but not infringe on Palestinian sovereignty.

Hague rules out interim agreements

U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Wednesday that interim arrangements alone cannot end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and progress must be made in the peace process before September. He also called on the United States and the rest of the Quartet to present clear principles for the process, based on the new initiative, as soon as possible.

The European initiative is strongly supported by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is lobbying all members of the Quartet to have it officially endorsed in the upcoming meeting. However, Abbas has yet to confirm whether he will return to the negotiating table if the lobbying succeeds.

The U.S. administration has yet to comment on the initiative, but it has already won the support of the UN and, it would seem, Russia.

Last week, Netanyahu planned to dispatch Molho to a round of talks in London, Paris, Berlin and Brussels to persuade the Europeans to postpone the initiative’s launch. That trip was canceled at the last moment, after the prime minister understood Molho was unlikely to persuade the European governments to withdraw from the plan without new diplomatic statements on the peace process coming from Israel itself.

Molho’s Moscow trip appears to indicate that Netanyahu thought the Russians would prove more attentive to Israel’s objections, and could be persuaded to oppose or at least stall the move.

The results of Molho’s mission remain to be seen, but Lavrov’s statements during the meeting may mean Russia will be reluctant to block the initiative. Lavrov told Molho that continued efforts to find a way out of the impasse were important, and that trust between Israel and the Palestinians needed to be restored. Quartet envoys are expected to visit Israel next week, to prepare the foreign ministers’ summit. They will meet Molho and the Palestinian negotiators. Netanyahu is expected to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday in Berlin.

[david749]

"He shall be a wild man;  his hand shall be against every man and every man's hand against him.  And he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren."

Gen 16:12

[HisDaughter]

Israeli Military Strikes Gaza Militants Following Bus Attack
foxnews.com

Israeli aircraft and ground forces struck Gaza on Friday, killing two Hamas gunmen and wounding seven other Palestinians in a surge of fighting sparked by a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli school bus the day before.

Israel's ongoing retaliation for the bus attack has killed five militants, a policeman and a civilian. An Israeli Cabinet minister said the strikes will continue.

In Thursday's attack, Gaza militants hit an Israeli school bus near the border with an anti-tank rocket, badly wounding the driver and a 16-year-old boy. Hamas, the Iran-backed militant group that controls Gaza, claimed responsibility for the attack. The boy remains unconscious in the intensive care ward of an Israeli hospital.

"We see Hamas as responsible for everything originating in Gaza, and we expect that Hamas will understand what is allowed, and of course, what is forbidden," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the Jerusalem Post.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attacks, saying it "crossed the line."

"Whoever tries to hurt and murder children: the blood is on his hands," he said during a meeting with the Czech president, according to the Jerusalem Post.

At around midnight Thursday, with Gaza rocked by explosions, Hamas announced a cease-fire. The Israeli strikes continued, hitting Hamas facilities and smuggling tunnels.

An Israeli airstrike Friday morning near the town of Khan Yunis killed two Hamas gunmen and wounded a third, according to Hamas. Gaza's Health Ministry said three civilians were wounded.

Palestinian rescue services reported that three other Palestinians were wounded by Israeli tank fire in a separate incident in southern Gaza. It was unclear if they were armed men or bystanders. Electricity lines and transformers were damaged, causing power blackouts in some parts of the territory, according to Jamal Dardsawi, a spokesman for Gaza's Electric Distribution Company.

In Israel, studies at some schools near Gaza were canceled Friday because of concerns for the students' safety.

Matan Vilnai, the Israeli Cabinet minister in charge of the home front, told Army Radio that Israel was engaged in a "war of attrition."

"We are acting as we see fit so that this type of fire will not continue, and so that the people behind the fire will regret it," Vilnai said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday condemned the bus attack and expressed concern over civilian casualties in Israel's strikes in Gaza. He called for "de-escalation and calm to prevent any further bloodshed."

The new round of fighting saw a potentially significant strategic breakthrough.

After years of development by an Israeli defense contractor, the Israeli military activated a new cutting-edge missile-defense system for the first time Thursday. The Iron Dome system scored a direct hit on an incoming Palestinian rocket aimed at an Israeli city, shooting it down, Israel said.

Thousands of rockets from Gaza have hit Israeli towns and cities since 2001. Israel's attempts to stop the rockets have included military incursions -- including a three-week assault than began in late 2008.

[HisDaughter]

Hamas: We'll broaden attacks if IDF strikes continue
By JPOST.COM STAFF 
04/09/2011 17:32


Spokesman: "It wasn't known that bus targeted was carrying kids"; group's political wing distances itself from al-Kassam Brigades cmmdr.   
Hamas said on Saturday it would escalate it attacks against Israel to include a wider range of targets deeper into Israeli territory if the IDF failed to halt its aerial assaults on the Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri blamed Israel for an escalation in violence. "If the Israeli escalation continues, amid international silence and complicity, the reactions by resistance factions will broaden," he told Reuters, saying such actions would be necessary to protect Palestinians in Gaza.

At the same time as it made the threats, however, the group seemed to be attempting to deescalate the situation in the Gaza Strip, which has left more than a handful of its commanders dead.

Abu Zuhri also said that Hamas operatives did not intend to target Israeli schoolchildren when they fired a guided missile at a school bus two days ago, critically wounding a teenager and sparking the latest round of border fighting.

"It was not known that the bus targeted on the outskirts of Gaza carried schoolchildren," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters, adding that the road where the bus was travelling was often used by IDF vehicles.

Officials in Jerusalem said that the government received a request from Hamas' political wing asking for a cease fire Saturday afternoon, Israel Radio reported. The request was reportedly delivered through intermediaries, according to the officials.

Additionally, an Israel Radio report quoted Palestinian security officials as saying that the decision to escalate the situation by Hamas was made by the commander of its armed wing, Ahmed Jabari, against the wishes of its political leadership in Gaza and Damascus.

According to the Palestinian source, Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh accused Jabari of "megalomania" for his actions in escalating the situation, according to the report. He added that Jabari's decision to escalate the situation was partly motivated by the assassination of his close friend, Ismail a-Lobed, who was the organization's point man for smuggling weapons into Gaza from the Sinai Peninsula.

Lobed was apparently Hamas' contact person with Beduin smugglers and his assassination presented a huge loss of smuggling routes for the organization, Israel Radio quoted the source as saying.

The current escalation began on Thursday when Hamas fired an anti-tank missile against a school bus in the Gaza border region. A 16-year-old boy was critically injured in the attack.

In the following 48 hours, the IDF forcefully attacked terrorists and Hamas commanders in Gaza. Over 20 Palestinians, including Hamas members have been killed in the strikes so far.

Early Saturday morning, three Hamas commanders were killed in an IAF air strike on a car in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Palestinian news agencies reported a fourth Hamas man was killed in an IDF strike a few hours later.

Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Strip have fired dozens of Grad rockets and some 100 mortar shells into Israel since Thursday. At least five of the Grad rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket defense system outside Beersheba and Ashkelon.

[HisDaughter]

Hamas: We'll broaden attacks if IDF strikes continue
By JPOST.COM STAFF 
04/09/2011 17:32


Spokesman: "It wasn't known that bus targeted was carrying kids"; group's political wing distances itself from al-Kassam Brigades cmmdr.  
Hamas said on Saturday it would escalate it attacks against Israel to include a wider range of targets deeper into Israeli territory if the IDF failed to halt its aerial assaults on the Gaza Strip.

What did they think a "school" bus would be carrying?  Fruits and vegetables to market?  And then like all good muslims, they blame Israel for the escalation.

[HisDaughter]

Several Gaza rockets fired at Ashkelon, western Negev
By JPOST.COM STAFF 
04/09/2011 17:40


Total number of rockets, mortars launched from Gaza into Israel rises to over 70; Iron Dome intercepts 1 more missile; 15 Grads fired overnight; Hamas commander killed in IDF strike on Gaza.   
Over five rockets were fired Saturday afternoon from Gaza towards Ashkelon and the western Negev. No injuries were reported.

One rocket exploded in an industrial area south of Ashkelon, and another exploded near a town in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council. Another three rockets fell in open areas.

The Iron Dome system was able to intercept one of the rockets, bringing the total number of intercepted rockets since Thursday to eight.

Overnight Friday, 15 Grads were fired from Gaza into Israeli territory. The Iron Dome rocket-defense system intercepted five of them in the Beersheba and Ashkelon areas, Israel Radio reported.

Saturday morning two additional Grad rockets were fired at Ofakim and 25 mortar shells were fired into the Eshkol Regional Council. No injuries were immediately reported. Dozens of mortar shells were fired overnight.

Including shorter-range Kassams and mortars, over 40 projectiles were fired from the Strip since the escalation began on Thursday.

Five Israelis were reportedly injured when scrambling to enter bomb shelters as rockets were being fired into their areas.

Three Hamas commanders were killed in an IAF airstrike early morning Saturday on a car in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Palestinian news agencies reported a fourth Hamas man was killed in an IDF strike late Saturday morning. The IDF said it was looking into the reports.

Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported that other IDF strikes took place overnight in Gaza City, a Hamas training base in the northern Strip and a neighborhood in  Khan Younis.

Artillery strikes were reported in the Rafah area along the Strip's southern border with Egypt.

[HisDaughter]

Sa'ar: Hamas has sustained heavy damage in recent days
 By JPOST.COM STAFF AND BEN HARTMAN 
04/09/2011 17:44


Former nat'l security adviser Eiland says if quiet can't be reached, J'lem should consider "Defensive Shield" type operation in Gaza.   
Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar told Israel Radio on Saturday that Hamas has sustained heavy damage from IDF operations in recent days. The IDF continue to strike Hamas, he added, "we will not permit sporadic shootings or the disruption of life" inside Israel.

While deflecting questions about a new IDF operation in the Gaza Strip similar to Operation Cast Lead, Sa'ar said: "We won't give up our right to defend ourselves," and will continue to operate, under full consideration, to implement a principle of defending our citizens".

On Friday, Sa'ar said that the recent escalation in rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza do not pose a danger to school children in the western Negev.

In a conference call with the foreign press, Sa’ar stated that the western Negev “is an area that over the past years we have worked systematically to establish protection for it and these schools are built up to security standards. In farther away places like Ashkelon the situation is different.”

Sa’ar said the real danger that would be faced by school children in the western Negev is on the way to and from school, a day after a 16-year-old student was critically injured when his school bus was hit by an anti-tank missile. No other children were on the bus at the time it was hit.

Sa’ar said there won’t be any mass school cancellations after Thursday’s incident, in that “today [Friday] was the last day of learning before the Passover vacation and this was the last day for primary schools, kindergarten and high schools. We are trying to do the utmost so that children will continue to study, and only to make changes in the most extreme circumstances.” Sa’ar added that earlier on Friday he sent a letter to a number of former Education Ministries in other countries around the globe in which he criticized “terror that is aimed to hurt and kill kids.”

Also Saturday, former national security adviser Maj.-Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland said in an interview with Israel Radio that if quiet cannot be reached in the Gaza Strip, Israel needs to consider a more extensive operation similar to the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank.

Acknowledging the possibility that both Israel and Hamas want to avoid a serious escalation, Eiland said that if such a calm does not prevail, Israel should conduct a more extensive operation in the Strip.

There are two options for such an operation, he explained. One is to strike Hamas with the goal of establishing deterrence against the continued firing of rockets and mortars. The second option, he said, is to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza. He warned, however, that whatever regime replaces Hamas may very well be worse than the current situation.

If a more extensive operation is embarked upon, Eiland said, the most important thing is that Israel needs to define its goals, specifically what it wants to achieve and to plan how it can accomplish it. He pointed to the Second Lebanon War as an example of an operation where such an approach was not taken.

He added that if such an operation embarked upon, that there will no doubt be a heavy price paid by Israel. If it results in quiet, however, then it would be worth stopping the current situation of constant fire that we have today.

Eiland said that the best situation Israel can expect from Hamas is a quiet similar to that enjoyed on the Lebanese border in the past five years since the Second Lebanon War in 2006.

[david749]

Thanks much for the posts.



http://www.thegoldenreport.com/reports/235-it-never-ends-they-just-want-to-kill-us

[HisDaughter]

Thanks much for the posts.



http://www.thegoldenreport.com/reports/235-it-never-ends-they-just-want-to-kill-us

Great essay!  Thanks David!

[HisDaughter]

Israelis launch global war on Hamas
washingtontimes.com


Israel’s security agencies are stepping up targeted attacks throughout the world on Hamas‘ leadership in what one Israeli official called “intelligence-based prevention.”

In the past two months, Israeli operatives have intercepted a German ship in international waters, fired a missile at a suspected Hamas leader in Sudan, and captured a Hamas engineer in the Ukraine, according to Israeli and Western officials and press reports from the region.

“Israel defeated the wave of suicide bombing attacks against it in 2002 by identifying the leadership that was behind it and making it clear to them that they would pay a price,” said Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and specialist on international terrorism.

“Presently, the effort to cripple Hamas‘ military capabilities is no longer confined to the Gaza Strip alone, but to the entire Hamas global network and that of its allies.”

On Thursday, an anti-tank rocket hit an Israeli school bus near the Gaza border and wounded two people. Israeli planes and tanks fired at Hamas positions in Gaza on Thursday in retaliation.

After a day of Israeli attacks that reportedly killed five Palestinians, Hamas issued a statement offering a cease-fire. The Interior Ministry told reporters in Gaza that militant groups had agreed to stop firing rockets.

The Israeli military had no immediate public comment.

But the overt warfare might end there for now; still, the security services will keep up their secretive work.

“This is a policy of intelligence-based prevention, which has stepped up in recent months,” an Israeli national security official, who asked not to be named, told The Washington Times. “One part of the strategy is prevention.”

While Israelis have conducted intelligence operations throughout the world for years, these kinds of direct actions have become more central to Israel’s war policy against Hamas under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Our security requirements are fundamental … for the achievement of peace,” Mr. Netanyahu said after talks Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

“But they’re particularly important now in this uncertain period that we’re going through.”

The Arab world has been in turmoil since January, with the Libyan civil war the latest in the unrest that has Israel nervous.

“We can’t be sure … if this is [like] an 1989 change in Europe or the 1979 revolution in Iran,” Mr. Netanyahu said, referring to the fall of communism in Europe and the rise of the Islamic terrorism in Iran.

The renewed Israeli approach is in some ways a response to the international condemnation of Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli air-and-ground offensive against Hamas positions in Gaza launched in December 2008.

Operation Cast Lead claimed between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinian casualties. Israel says Hamas deliberately interspersed its military positions in civilian neighborhoods in hopes that Israeli attacks would kill civilians and that Hamas could wage a propaganda war against the Jewish state.

The 2008-09 Gaza war prompted the U.N. Human Rights Council to appoint Richard Goldstone, a South African jurist, to investigate the war. He at first concluded that Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians.

Mr. Goldstone recanted that charge last week in an Op-Ed for The Washington Post.

Because the covert campaign targets leaders and is often done in secret, the diplomatic damage to Israel for these actions tends to be muted.

The first example of this new tactic against Hamas happened in January 2010, when a Mossad team killed Mahmoud al-Mahbouh, a senior Hamas operative, in a Dubai hotel.

More recently, Israeli operatives in February captured Dirar Abu-Sisi, a Hamas engineer Israel accuses of designing military rockets for the group, aboard a train in the Ukraine, according to Israeli court documents unsealed Monday. Mr. Abu-Sisi told Israeli reporters he was innocent Monday.

On Tuesday, an unidentified aircraft fired a missile at a car carrying two men in Sudan. Israeli officials publicly neither confirmed nor denied any role in the operation.

However, a Hamas member of parliament, Ismail al-Ashqar, said this week that the attack was aimed at his nephew, Abdel Latif al-Ashqar, a Hamas commander, according to the Gaza based Safa news service. The government of Sudan has also said Israel was behind the missile attack.

In March, Israeli commandos boarded the Victoria, a German ship carrying Chinese-made land-to-sea rockets. Mr. Netanyahu said the ship was from Iran and headed eventually to Gaza.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman, said, “We are not looking only for Hamas leaders, we consider Hamas accountable for any rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. If we find a three-man rocket team, they will be targeted whether or not they are leaders. This is to prevent rockets from coming down on Israeli civilians.”

Col. Leibovich added that every attack in Gaza is authorized by a military lawyer and is “accordance with international law.”

“We are not looking for any escalation,” she said. “We do have operational plans in our drawers. Hopefully, we won’t have to pull them out, but we will not tolerate these kinds of attacks against Israeli civilians.”

The Israeli national security official, however, said there would be a steep price Hamas will pay if Israel determines that Hamas deliberately fired at an Israeli school bus.

“If this turns out this was a premeditated attack, that this was a planned decision to fire a rocket on a school bus, this is something we will have to not only counter but also make Hamas understand this action’s consequences,” the official said.