FIRST LESSON OF GAZA WAR:
MAINTAIN THE BLOCKADE
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
(The authors are members of the board of the Religious Zionists of America.)
During the first 24 hours of the Gaza war, Palestinian terrorists fired more than two hundred rockets into Israel. Yet only one Israeli was wounded, and none were killed. How is that possible?
When Israel fires missiles at enemy targets, they strike with pinpoint accuracy. Sometimes they hit a lone terrorist on a motorcycle, or a single, targeted apartment in the middle of a dense cluster of apartment buildings.
Yet when Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian terror groups fire rockets into Israel, the vast majority land in empty fields or parking lots or other uninhabited sites.
The difference is not that the Israelis have better aim. The difference is that the Israelis have the right equipment, and the Palestinians don’t.
Israel has the sophisticated computer systems necessary to ensure that their missiles lock on the desired target. The Palestinians don’t have that technology.
The reason they don’t is because of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
That’s right, the much-maligned Israeli blockade–the focus of so much griping by the Arabs, by Palestinian support groups around the world, by the United Nations and even by the Obama administration. That blockade. It’s working.
Israel took a lot of heat for intercepting the Mavi Marmara, the ship of pro-Hamas extremists from Turkey and elsewhere that tried to bust the blockade of Gaza in 2010. In the aftermath of that episode, various groups adopted the blockade issue as their cause du jour.
In 2011, for example, a panel of five “independent human rights experts” for the United Nations declared that the blockade is “a flagrant contravention of international human rights law.” In 2012, the UN’s annual report on the Gaza situation called the blockade “collective punishment.” In 2013, the UN’s “humanitarian coordinator” for Gaza, James Rawley, claimed that “Gaza is becoming uninhabitable” because of the blockade. And just this part March, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency declared that the blockade “is illegal and must be lifted.”
The other usual suspects have chimed in as one might expect. Amnesty International has charged that the blockade is “suffocating Gaza.” Human Rights Watch has complained that the blockade is having “an awful effect.” The International Red Cross has declared the blockade to be a violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Even the Obama administration, which one would have hoped would not fall in line with the knee-jerk Israel bashers of the world, has tried to get Israel to ease up on the blockade. “Gaza Blockade Untenable, U.S. Believes,” read the headline of an NBC News report back in 2010. “The Obama administration believes Israel’s blockade of Gaza is untenable and wants to see a new approach that would allow more supplies” into the territory, NBC reported.
That same week, Vice President Joe Biden told interviewer Charlie Rose, on Bloomberg TV: “We have put as much pressure and as much cajoling on Israel as we can to allow them to get building materials” and other forbidden items into Gaza. Biden seemed oblivious to the fact that many construction materials are what is known as dual-use items: in addition to their primary purpose, they can also be used for terrorist purposes. Concrete for the foundation of a building can also be used to make an arms-smuggling tunnel.
Fortunately, Israel resisted all this international pressure. It maintained the blockade. And as a result, Palestinian rocketeers without target-locating computers continue to fire their missiles into open fields instead of supermarkets and kindergartens.
Amnesty International and the rest owe Israel an apology. But we won’t hold our breath waiting for that. Instead, we’ll just carefully note whose advice has proved sound, and what lessons can be learned from this experience.
The first lesson from the Gaza war: Blockading the enemy works.
SECOND LESSON FROM THE GAZA WAR:
KEEP THE CHECKPOINTS
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
On the first day of the Gaza war, Philip Gordon, the Obama administration’s “Coordinator for the Middle East,” lectured the Israelis on why they should make more concessions to the Palestinians, including apparently taking down security checkpoints in the territories.
On the third day of the Gaza war, the Palestinians reminded everyone why those security checkpoints should be remained–and even expanded.
Gordon began with the usual rhetoric about how “both sides” have not made the necessary decisions for peace, how both sides have engaged in “mutual dehumanization,” and how “both sides” need to use restraint. In doing so, he underscored the inability of the Obama administration to distinguish between aggressor and victim, between a corrupt pro-terror regime and a reliable democratic ally–in other words, between right and wrong.
For this administration, Israel is not America’s only real ally in the Middle East; both Israel and the Palestinian Authority are America’s allies. Gordon’s praise of the PA’s supposed “courage and reliability” made the administration’s perspective all too clear.
Then he proceeded to berate Israel about how “walls and missile defense systems” will not give it true protection. “True safety for Israel,” he insisted, will only come when there is an independent Palestinian state camped out along Israel’s nine-miles-wide borders.
Using carefully-chosen language, Gordon also went out of his way to demand that Israel ensure not only “sovereignty and freedom,” but also “dignity” for the Palestinians. He brought up the “dignity” issue not once, not twice, but three separate times in his speech. Speeches such as Gordon are carefully written by the State Department’s Mideast team and vetted by the department’s top officials. Every word is deliberate and has meaning.
As the State Department knows full well, the Palestinian Authority and its supporters routinely use the word “dignity” in connection with a specific political demand: that Israel remove the security checkpoint that it operates in various parts of the Judea-Samaria (West Bank) territories. Philip Gordon’s thrice-stated demand for “dignity” seems to be a thinly-disguised call for Israel to remove the checkpoints.
Just like the security checkpoints at every American airport, the purpose of the Israeli checkpoints is to deter and catch terrorists. Travelers do not enjoy the inconvenience of having to remove their shoes or submit to a body search, but to call such security measures “undignified” or “humiliating” is absurd.
The absurdity of Gordon’s “dignity” demand on the first day of the war became painfully clear by the third day of the war. That’s when Israeli border guards at the Oranim checkpoint, on Highway 5 near the Arab city of Qalqilya, noticed something suspicious about a particular automobile. The driver was then subjected to the supposedly “undignified” and “humiliating” process of having his car carefully examined. That’s when the guards discovered a hidden coking gas tank, connected to explosives. The driver confessed that he was on his way to carry out a terrorist attack. Had he reached his target with a weapon of that caliber, the consequences would have been catastrophic.
Most of the current attacks against Israel are being launched from Gaza, but Palestinian terrorists in Judea-Samaria are trying to do their share, too. In any war, the bare minimum a country needs to do is to carefully screen foreigners who try to cross its borders.
If Philip Gordon and the Obama administration had their way, the Oranim checkpoint would no longer exist, the Palestinians would have their “dignity,” while Israel would be burying the dead from the gas tank attack.
Second lesson from the Gaza war: Keep the security checkpoints and expand them if necessary, whether the State department likes it or not.
THIRD LESSON FROM THE GAZA WAR:
ABBAS SIDES WITH HAMAS
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is anchored in the premise that the mainstream Palestinian leadership has truly given up its old terrorist ways. Yasser Arafat and his Fatah movement –the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization– put down their guns and “recognized” Israel. The bad guys became the good guys, and the only bad guys are left are a small minority of Hamas extremists.
The Gaza war provides an opportunity to test that theory. Hamas kidnaps and murders Israeli teenagers, and fires hundreds of rockets into Israel. How has Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, responded?
If Abbas and his Fatah movement are truly moderate and against terrorism, then they should side with Israel against the terrorists. If Abbas and Fatah are indeed the good guys, then they should be opposed to the bad guys.
Unfortunately, it hasn’t turned out that way.
On the very first day of the war, Fatah’s official Facebook page, called “Fatah – The Main Page” posted what it called “A message to the Israeli government and the Israeli people.” Here’s what Abbas’s Fatah had to say to Israelis as hundreds of rockets were being fired at them from Gaza: “Death will reach you from the south to the north. Flee our country and you won’t die. The KN-103 rocket is on its way toward you.”
And that was just the beginning.
On July 9, a cartoon on the Fatah Facebook page, titled “Israel Fires Rockets at Gaza,” showed an Israeli bomb, adorned with a huge swastika, about to strike a Palestinian child. (It’s worth recalling that the then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, among others, has said that comparing Israel to the Nazis is anti-Semitic.)
Perhaps the most telling item of all on Fatah’s Facebook page is a dramatic full-color illustration of three heavily-armed Palestinians–one from Hamas, one from Islamic Jihad, and one from Fatah, standing together. The text reads: “Brothers in Arms: One God, one homeland, one enemy, one goal!” If anyone doubts whose side Fatah is on, this makes it crystal clear.
A video segment on Fatah’s Facebook page shows a masked Fatah member standing amidst a huge arsenal of rockets, declaring: “Praise Allah, our jihad fighters have managed to develop these rockets so they will reach the Zionist depth, Allah willing, to a distance of 45 kilometers inside the occupied Palestinian territories…With these rocket we will liberate our Jerusalem. With these rockets we will crush the Zionist enemy…”
And it’s not just words. On July 7, Fatah’s Facebook page announced that Fatah’s military unit, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, “targeted the enemy’s bases and settlements with 35 rockets.”
(All translations courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch.)
When the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians were signed in 1993, the U.S. State Department removed Fatah from its list of terrorist groups. Removing it was not just a statement of how the U.S. views Fatah; it also made it legally possible for the U.S. to start sending $500 million to the Palestinian Authority and the PLO, of which Fatah is the largest faction. Now that Fatah has openly boasted that it is carrying out rocket terrorism against Israel, it’s time to put Fatah back on the U.S. list of terrorist groups.
Fatah and Hamas both belong on that list because, in the end, they are birds of a feather. Certainly there have been moments of tension between the two movements. But those clashes reflected either internal disputes unrelated to Israel, or differences in tactics regarding Israel–not differences in their overall goals.
The third lesson from the Gaza war: The “moderate” Palestinian leadership has shown its true colors. It sides with the terrorists, not with Israel.
FOURTH LESSON FROM THE GAZA WAR:
BODY COUNTS ARE HAMAS PROPAGANDA
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
News media coverage of the Gaza war increasingly is focusing on the body count.
It’s an easy way to make Israel look bad. And it tends to obscure who is the real aggressor in this conflict, and who is the real victim.
Each day, journalists report an ever-higher number of Gazans who have been killed, comparing it to the number of Israeli fatalities, which is still, thank G-d, zero. This kind of simplistic reporting creates a sympathetic portrayal of the Palestinians, who are shown to be genuinely suffering, while the Israeli public just seems a little scared.
But there are important reasons why there are so many more Palestinian casualties than Israeli casualties.
The first is that the Israeli government has built bomb shelters for its citizens, so they have places to hide when the Palestinians fire missiles at them. By contrast, the Hamas regime in Gaza refuses to build shelters for the general population, and prefers to spend its money buying and making more missiles.
It’s not merely that Hamas has no regard for the lives of its own citizens. But even worse: Hamas deliberately places its civilians in the line of fire, in the expectation that Palestinian civilian casualties will generate international sympathy.
On July 10, the Hamas Ministry of the Interior issued an official instruction to the public to remain in their apartments, and “and not heed these message from Israel”
that their apartment buildings are about to be bombed.
A New York Times report on July 11 described in sympathetic detail how seven Gazans were killed, and many others wounded, in an Israeli strike despite multiple advance warnings by Israel to vacate the premises. In the 18th paragraph of the 21-paragraph feature, the Times noted, in passing: “A member of the family said earlier that neighbors had come to ‘form a human shield.’ ”
Isn’t that outrageous? Israel voluntarily gives up the advantage of surprise in order to warn Palestinian civilians and save their lives. Hamas responds by trying to ensure that Palestinian civilians get killed. And the international community chastises Israel for the Palestinian fatalities!
Another reason there are so many more Palestinian casualties is that Hamas deliberately places its missile-launchers and arms depots in and around civilian neighborhoods. Hamas hopes that Israel will be reluctant to strike such targets because of the possibility of hitting civilians. Hezbollah does the same thing in southern Lebanon. This is by now an old Arab terrorist tactic, going back more than three decades.
“One must understand how our enemy operates,” Prime Minister Netanyahu pointed out at the most recent cabinet meeting. “Who hides in mosques? Hamas.
Who puts arsenals under hospitals? Hamas. Who puts command centers in residences or near kindergartens? Hamas. Hamas is using the residents of Gaza as human shields and it is bringing disaster to the civilians of Gaza; therefore, for any attack on Gaza civilians, which we regret, Hamas and its partners bear sole responsibility.”
The final reason the Palestinian casualty toll is higher than that of Israel is that Israel has a superior army, and it’s winning this war. Those who win wars almost always have fewer casualties than those who are defeated. In Israel’s case, that’s a good thing. Israel need not feel guilty or defensive about winning. It’s a lot better than losing, as the Jewish people have learned from centuries of bitter experience as helpless victims.
Anyone with knowledge of history can appreciate how misleading casualty statistics can be. In World War II, the United States suffered about 360,000 military deaths. The Germans lost 3.2-million soldiers and 3.6-million civilians. Does that mean America was the aggressor, and Germany the victim? Japan estimates that it suffered 1 million military deaths and 2 million civilian deaths. Does that mean America attacked Japan, and not vice versa?
The fourth lesson from the Gaza war: The body count is a form of Arab propaganda, which actually conceals who is the aggressor, and who is the victim.
FIFTH LESSON OF GAZA WAR:
U.S. ACTIONS WOULD SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
“I cannot condemn strongly enough the actions of Hamas in so brazenly firing rockets in the face of a goodwill effort to offer a ceasefire,” Secretary of State John Kerry declared on July 15.
Actually, there are a number of things Secretary Kerry could be doing beyond issuing statements expressing dismay. The Obama administration could take meaningful actions to show Hamas that there is a political price to be paid for its terrorism against Israel.
Let’s start with the money.
The United States gives $500-million each year (over $10-billion since 1994) to the Palestinian Authority regime. Even after the PA earlier this year created a new unity government with Hamas – long designated by Washington to be a terrorist organization – the Obama Administration keeps writing the checks.
How do they justify maintaining a half billion dollars annual subsidy to a PA-Hamas coalition? By pretending that Hamas, the coalition partner, actually has nothing to do with the coalition. The individual functionaries in the government are not Hamas members but “technocrats,” the administration insists. That’s the favorite new word of U.S. Mideast policymakers. Their theory–as absurd as this may sound–is that if someone is appointed by Hamas, but does not actually carry a laminated Hamas membership card in his wallet, then he’s just a “technocrat,” not a Hamas appointee.
State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki took this absurdity to a new level in her daily press briefing on July 7, by converting “technocrat” from a noun to a proper noun. She twice referred to the PA-Hamas regime as “the Technocratic Government,” as if that is its official name.
So here’s our first action item for Secretary Kerry: admit that Hamas is part of the PA-Hamas government, and stop giving it American taxpayer dollars.
What else could the Obama Administration do, aside from professing outrage at Hamas? Plenty.
– Obama could insist that Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas carry out a real crackdown on the Hamas terror cells that operate in PA-controlled territories. The New York Times reported on March 23 that Israeli troops entered the Jenin refugee camp in pursuit of terrorists because although Jenin is under the “full control” of the Palestinian Authority, “the Palestinian [security forces] did not generally operate in refugee camps.” Yet those camps are the worst incubators of Hamas terrorist activity.
– Secretary Kerry could also be calling America’s allies, to demand that they make their financial aid to Gaza conditional on Hamas ceasing its terrorism.
– The Obama Administration could stop pressuring Israel to remove security checkpoints in the Judea-Samaria (West Bank) territories, checkpoints which help capture Hamas terrorists.
– The administration could stop pushing Israel to ease up on its blockade of Gaza, a blockade that has prevented weapons and dual-use materials from reaching the Hamas regime.
– The administration could offer a reward for information leading to the Hamas terrorists who kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers, one of whom was an American citizen. For some inexplicable reason, the Rewards for Justice website, www.rewardsforjustice.net, still makes no mention of the kidnap-murder of 16 year-old Naftali Fraenkel. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-California) have introduced bipartisan legislation requiring such a reward. It shouldn’t take Congress to force the Obama administration to take such a simple and obvious step.
Strongly-worded condemnations of Hamas make for good sound bites, but unless backed by real action, they’re meaningless.
The fifth lesson from the Gaza war: It’s time for the Obama Administration’s actions against Hamas to speak louder than its words.
SIXTH LESSON OF GAZA WAR:
OBAMA SHOULD LEARN FROM THE CANADIANS
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
Israel long ago learned that you can tell who your real friends are when the chips are down. The Gaza war is proving that again.
During the 2012 election campaign, when polls showed that President Barack Obama might lose a significant portion of the Jewish vote in key electoral states, he declared that he “will always have Israel’s back.”
But this past week, as hundreds of Hamas rockets rained down upon the Jewish state, and Israel really needed an ally to have its back, President Obama called Prime Minister Netanyahu to demand that Israel show “restraint.”
That was followed the next day by a phone call from Secretary of State John Kerry to Netanyahu, warning against “escalating tensions” and pressing Israel to let him “mediate a truce.”
The last thing Israel needs is a “truce” with Hamas. The Israelis have had two of those already. A “truce” means Hamas gets several more years to build up its supply of rockets, in preparation for the next round.
And with every new round, Hamas has new rockets, that can reach even further and cause even more devastation.
By pressing for “restraint” and a “truce,” Obama and Kerry are, in effect, trying to save Hamas from being crippled or destroyed by Israel. Is that their idea of “having Israel’s back” ?
Now contrast the Obama-Kerry line that with the words of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week:
– “The indiscriminate rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel are terrorist acts, for which there is no justification.”
– “It is evident that Hamas is deliberately using human shields to further terror in the region.”
– “Failure by the international community to condemn these reprehensible actions would encourage these terrorists to continue their appalling actions.”
– “Canada calls on its allies and partners to recognize that these terrorist acts are unacceptable and that solidarity with Israel is the best way of stopping the conflict.”
There was really nothing controversial in Harper’s words. They were simple statements of fact. But in today’s upside-down world, it is remarkable when a world leader simply tells the truth about Israel and the Palestinians.
It’s almost as if we surprised when a world leader turns out not to be a hypocrite, a political coward, or an appeaser. We’re so used to the international community’s outrageous double standards, that it becomes remarkable when a national leader acts like a mensch.
The sixth lesson from the Gaza war: Israel has a true friend in Ottawa. The White House could learn a thing or two from Stephen Harper about what it really means to have someone’s back.
SEVENTH LESSON FROM THE GAZA WAR:
GOAL MUST BE DEMILITARIZATION
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
A simple cease-fire in Gaza would give Hamas time to re-arm and renew its terrorist activities.
The demilitarization of Gaza would put an end to Hamas’s terrorist activities.
Which goal makes more sense?
President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have been working hard to achieve a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This effort is shortsighted–and worse. A simple cease-fire would be a de-facto victory for Hamas. It would give Hamas the time and breathing space it needs to smuggle in more weapons, repair its terror tunnels, and launch new terror attacks on Israel. It would live to fight another day.
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on July 15 to the proposed cease-fire, he explained his decision in these terms: “We agreed to the Egyptian proposal in order to give an opportunity for the demilitarization of the (Gaza) Strip–from missiles, from rockets and from tunnels–through diplomatic means.” Likewise Netanyahu said at a televised news conference on July 16: “The most important thing vis-a-vis Gaza is to ensure that Gaza is demilitarized.”
In a plan presented to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last week, former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz presented a detailed blueprint for demilitarizing Gaza.
Likewise, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who is now the Quartet’s envoy to the Middle East, said on Israel Television’s channel 10 on July 15 that there needs to be a “long-term plan for Gaza that…deals with the real security requirements of Israel in a permanent way…Hamas cannot carry on with the military infrastructure that it has.”
Admittedly, clearing Gaza of its weapons and military infrastructure would not be an easy task, considering the vast arsenal that Hamas has amassed since the last cease-fire two years ago. At the start of the current war, Hamas had an estimated 10,000 rockets on hand. These missiles are more sophisticated than in previous years, carrying heavier loads of explosives and reaching all across Israel, even up to Nahariya, along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Hamas also has armed drones. It has huge weapons depots and bomb-making laboratories. It has concrete tunnels where terrorists hide and through which weapons are smuggled.
In March of this year, the Israeli navy intercepted an Iranian weapons ship bound for Gaza. Hidden underneath sacks of Iranian-made cement were dozens of M-302 surface-to-surface rockets with ranges of 50 to 100 miles. (Note: the distance from Gaza to Tel Aviv is 43 miles.) The weapons cache also included nearly 200 mortar shells, and 400,000 rounds of ammunition. In 2009 and again in 2011, Israel bombed convoys of weapons being transported from Sudan to Gaza.
Who knows how many other such Iranian or Sudanese arms shipments managed to elude the Israelis and reach Gaza?
This is not just a problem for Israel. This is a problem for the entire Free World. Israel is on the front lines in an international war against terrorism. Gaza is just one battlefield. As we learned long ago, what starts in Gaza or Baghdad or Kabul soon makes its way to London and Madrid and New York City.
The international community has demonstrated that when it musters the will, it can disarm terrorists. Serious international pressure and sanctions forced Syria to begin dismantling its chemical weapons last year. British pressure and steadfastness resulted in the disarming of the IRA terrorists. Perhaps that experience is shaping former Prime Minister Blair’s call for dismantling the Hamas terror infrastructure in Gaza.
Instead of continuing to pour billions of dollars in financial aid down the black hole known as the Gaza economy, the international community should turn its attention to Gaza’s weapons. It’s time to follow up on the success in Ireland and the progress in Syria, by demilitarizing Gaza. The people of Gaza need butter, not guns, and the people of the Free World need peace, not terror.
The seventh lesson from the Gaza war: Demilitarization of Gaza, not a ceasefire, must be the goal not only of Israel, but of the entire Free World.
EIGHTH LESSON FROM THE GAZA WAR:
HAMAS REELING, KERRY TO THE RESCUE
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
With Hamas reeling from Israel’s military strikes, Secretary of State John Kerry is rushing to the Middle East–to try to get Israel to cease firing.
Bad move. Rescuing Hamas should not be on America’s agenda.
The vaguely pro-Israel rhetoric emanating from the White House in the first days of the war helped keep Congress and the American Jewish community from criticizing the Obama administration. But it did not reflect the administration’s true feelings.
We know what Secretary Kerry thinks, thanks to yet another one of those I-thought-the-microphone-was-
off moments that have become a staple of American political life in recent years.
Moments before his July 20 appearance on Fox News Sunday, Kerry, not realizing his microphone was “hot”, spoke frankly to his assistant Jonathan Finer, revealing his true feelings about Israel. Referring to the killing of Israeli soldiers by Hamas, Kerry said to Finer, “I hope they don’t think that’s an invitation to go do more. That better be the warning to them.”
Kerry’s instinctive response was not sympathy for the Israeli victims, or anger at the Hamas killers, or frustration at the Palestinian Authority’s collaboration with Hamas. No, his immediate reaction was to worry that Israel might “do more” against Hamas. His hope is that the Hamas terror will be “the warning to them [the Israelis] to stop striking at the terrorists.
That wasn’t all. Kerry then said to Finer–still on the open microphone, for all the world to hear: “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation, it’s a hell of a pinpoint operation” — a sarcastic job at Israel’s attempts to avoid civilian casualties in its anti-terror operation.
Israel’s efforts to spare Palestinian civilians have been unprecedented in the history of warfare. They have forfeited the element of surprise by announcing to the Palestinian populace where the next Israeli actions will be. They have dropped leaflets over targeted areas. They have telephone residents to warn them to get out of the way. No other army in the world would behave this way.
The Washington Post reported on July 21 that Israel’s advance warnings to the residents of the Shijaiyah neighborhood were what led to the killing of 13 Israeli soldiers there: “The Israeli military had warned residents a few days earlier of the impending push into the neighborhood…The militants used that information to their advantage. ‘They knew exactly where to wait for us,’ said [an Israeli] official…”
And what does Israel get in return for this sacrifice? Sarcastic jabs from Barack Obama’s Secretary of State about how Israel’s actions are not “pinpoint” enough.
Kerry’s perspective is apparently filtering down to his underlings at the State Department. Undersecretary Richard Stengel was caught this weekend sending a tweet under the hashtag “UnitedForGaza.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly that the Gaza conflict must end not with another cease-fire, but with the international community demilitarizing Gaza. Likewise, Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who is now the Quartet’s envoy to the Middle East, said on Israel Television’s channel 10 on July 15 that there needs to be a “long-term plan for Gaza that…deals with the real security requirements of Israel in a permanent way…Hamas cannot carry on with the military infrastructure that it has.”
Netanyahu and Blair are right. Gaza must be stripped of its 10,000 rockets, armed drones, weapons depots, missile-making laboratories, and terror tunnels.
The Kerry demand for a cease-fire is not just insufficient. It actually endangers Israel. It undermines Israel’s war effort, and would give Hamas another chance to rebuild, to re-arm, to prepare for the next phase.
Serious international pressure and sanctions forced Syria to begin dismantling its chemical weapons last year. British pressure and steadfastness resulted in the disarming of the IRA terrorists. Gaza should be next in line.
The eighth lesson from the Gaza war: Hamas is on the ropes. Kerry shouldn’t try to rescue them. America should be supporting their defeat and demilitarization.
NINTH LESSON FROM THE GAZA WAR:
WHERE DID HAMAS GET ALL THAT CONCRETE?
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
It required 800 tons of concrete to build the terror tunnel that almost resulted in a massacre of Israelis on a kibbutz near the Gaza border last week, the Washington Post reports.
Where did all that concrete come from? And how is it related to the $47-million in “humanitarian aid” that Secretary of State John Kerry now wants to give to Hamas?
Most countries prohibit the export of seemingly innocent products that could in fact be used for military or terroristic purposes. Rogue regimes such as Iran and North Korea routinely exploit such “dual use” items, importing them under the guise of peaceful civilian purposes, and then putting them to use in the production of nuclear or chemical weapons.
In the case of Israel and Gaza, concrete is a classic dual-use item. The Hamas regime and pro-Palestinian groups around the world for years have been demanding that Israel permit Gaza to import concrete and other construction materials. How else will people be able to build houses? they ask. Surely Israel and its supporters are not so insensitive that they would want innocent Palestinians to be homeless? And what about the children?
As long ago as 2010, the Obama administration began pressuring Israel to ease up on its blockade of such imports to Gaza. Vice President Joe Biden told interviewer Charlie Rose, on Bloomberg TV: “We have put as much pressure and as much cajoling on Israel as we can to allow them to get building materials” into Gaza.
The international pressure on Israel intensified until finally, last September, the Israeli government buckled. The New York Times reported on September 17 that Israel had agreed “to allow building materials meant for private projects into the Gaza Strip for the first time in six years…Gaza has been struggling with a shortage of building materials…[An] Israeli official said that 350 trucks of cement, steel and concrete would cross into Gaza weekly.”
There are, of course, other dangerous items that Israel continues to prevent from reaching Gaza. For example, the reason Hamas’s rockets usually miss their target is that they don’t have the technology necessary to aim them directly at their favorite targets, such as kindergartens, synagogues, and hospitals. Fortunately, the Israelis have not yet relaxed their blockade to permit the entry of such technology
But thanks to all that pressure from the Obama administration and the United Nations, Gaza has been receiving plenty of concrete for “humanitarian” purposes. And now we can see why Hamas was so anxious to get those building materials–in order to build its vast network of underground terror tunnels so it could murder Israelis more easily.
This week, Secretary Kerry returned to the Middle East, with a $47-million check for Gaza. It’s for “humanitarian” purposes, he says. After all, haven’t we all seen those heart-rending photos of Palestinians whose homes have been damaged in the fighting? Who could be so cruel as to deny “humanitarian” aid?
But the problem is that so long as Hamas rules Gaza, it will use all “humanitarian” aid for its terrorist purposes. Almost anything sent to Gaza can have a dual use. Even if it can’t be put directly to use in furthering terrorism, it can be used to help the terrorists in one way or another. Gasoline can power an electric generator–or a getaway car. Food can feed innocent civilians–or sustain terrorists in some hideout. Concrete can build a house–or a terror tunnel.
The ninth lesson from the Gaza war: Giving “humanitarian aid” and “dual use” items to Hamas will never bring peace to Gaza. Only defeating and disarming Hamas will.
TENTH LESSON OF GAZA WAR:
EXCEPT OBAMA, WORLD WANTS HAMAS DISARMED
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
There is a growing consensus in the United States and around the world that the way to end the Israel-Gaza war is to disarm Hamas. President Obama seems to be the only hold-out.
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on July 24 introduced a resolution calling on the Obama administration to make the disarming of Hamas a central part of any cease-fire proposal.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican, is spearheading this effort together with Democratic senators Charles Schumer of New York and Ben Cardin of Maryland.
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed on July 15 to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal, he said: “We agreed to the Egyptian proposal in order to give an opportunity for the demilitarization of the (Gaza) Strip–from missiles, from rockets and from tunnels–through diplomatic means.” Likewise, Netanyahu said at a televised news conference on July 16: “The most important thing vis-a-vis Gaza is to ensure that Gaza is demilitarized.”
In the days to follow, international leaders began to align with Netanyahu’s position.
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who is now the Quartet’s envoy to the Middle East, said on Israel Television’s channel 10 on July 15 that there needs to be a “long-term plan for Gaza that…deals with the real security requirements of Israel in a permanent way…Hamas cannot carry on with the military infrastructure that it has.”
Then, on July 22, the entire European Union weighed in. In its official statement on the
Gaza situation, the EU declared: “All terrorist groups in Gaza must disarm.”
The Quartet and the EU are not exactly Israel’s best friends. In fact, typically they are among the loudest critics of Israel and the first to demand that Israel make even more unilateral concessions to the Palestinians.
So when both the Quartet and the EU agree with Israel that Hamas must be disarmed, it’s a very significant development.
Perhaps it has to do with the international community’s handling of other recent situations involving the disarming of terrorists and dictators. England insisted on disarming the IRA before reaching its agreement on Ireland. The United States and its allies, as well as Russia, have insisted on Syria surrendering its chemical weapons.
It’s painfully obvious that there will be no peace in Gaza if Hamas is permitted to keep its 10,000-plus missiles, not to mention its terror tunnels, drones, bomb-making factories, and the various other weapons it has been stockpiling. So obvious that even the EU and the Quartet recognize it.
Or maybe it’s just that the EU and the Quartet are finally waking up to the fact that an armed-to-the-teeth terror regime in Gaza is not just a problem for Israel. It’s a problem for the entire Free World. Israel is on the front lines in an international war against terrorism. Gaza is just one battlefield. What starts in Gaza or Baghdad or Kabul soon makes its way to London and Madrid and New York City.
The Washington Post certainly seems to understand that. In its lead editorial on July 24, the Post declared, for the first time, that any Israel-Gaza cease-fire has to include “the disarmament Hamas.” The Post warned that any easing of the Israeli blockade, without disarming Hamas, would “allow Hamas to import more missiles and concrete for new tunnels.”
President Obama and his administration seem to be the only ones who still aren’t facing reality.
Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken, appearing on National Public Radio on July 23, was prodded by the interviewer as to whether the Obama administration is endorsing Israel’s demand for disarming Hamas. Blinken replied: “One of the results, one would hope, of a cease-fire would be some form of demilitarization…”
So Blinken, who in such media appearances is in effect speaking for the White House, merely “hopes” that “one of the results” of a cease-fire would be “some form” or demilitarization. Hoping that something might happen is a far cry from taking steps to make sure it will happen.
But even Blinken’s weak acknowledgement that disarming might not be such a bad idea was too much for Secretary of State John Kerry. Asked in Jerusalem about Blinken’s comments, Kerry replied (according to the Associated Press): “All of the issues of Gaza would be on the table.” Kerry deliberately declined to endorse disarming.
The EU, the Quartet, leading members of Congress, and the Washington Post all now recognize that a cease-fire without disarmament would be a de-facto victory for Hamas. It would give Hamas the time and breathing space it needs to smuggle in more weapons, to repair its terror tunnels, and to launch new terror attacks on Israel.
The tenth lesson from the Gaza war: It’s time for the Obama administration to get on board with the rest of the Free World, and support disarming Hamas now.
LESSON ELEVEN OF GAZA WAR:
ABBAS SLAPS U.S. AGAIN
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
Israel’s “peace partner” Mahmoud Abbas slapped America in the face again, just hours after Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the Middle East to seek an Israel-Hamas cease-fire.
Successive U.S. administrations have propped up Abbas, presented him to the world as a peacemaker, and championed his demand for a Palestinian state. The U.S. has given more than $10-billion since 1994 to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization, both of which Abbas chairs.
And here’s what it received in return: Abbas’s PLO announced on July 23 that it completely supports all of the extremist conditions that Hamas has set for a cease-fire: The release of hundreds of Hamas terrorists imprisoned in Israel; the lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza (so that Hamas can import more Iranian rockets, plus lots of cement to build more terror tunnels); and huge amounts of international aid, which of course will go straight into the pockets of corrupt Hamas and PA officials.
That’s not all. The official newspaper of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, on July 16, published an op-ed by a PA official slandering the United States in the most vile terms.
The author was not some fringe figure, but rather Muharram Barghouti, the director of a PA government agency, the Palestinian Youth Union.
“[W]e can see that the wars in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Palestine were planned by the U.S. in order to protect its interests,” Barghouti writes. Referring to ISIL –the terror group “Islamic State in Iraq and Levant,” which is now carving up Iraq– Barghouti continues: “The U.S. has been using the Jewish ISIL, which is led by Jewish extremism, as represented by [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and [Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman….Not even Hitler, Pinochet and Nero…ever reached this level…The U.S. engaged the Jewish ISIL to attack Gaza – not just in order to commit crimes, kill and destroy, but also to stir up an inter-Palestinian civil war, in an attempt to deepen the rift and Gaza’s separation from the rest of the occupied homeland, to prevent the establishment of the independent [Palestinian] state…We are now more aware that the Americans …are truly the head of the snake.”
From day one of the Gaza war, Abbas’s Fatah movement has openly sided with Hamas. The Obama administration just pretends not to notice.
Fatah’s official Facebook page features a dramatic full-color illustration of three heavily-armed Palestinians–one from Hamas, one from Islamic Jihad, and one from Fatah, standing together. The text reads: “Brothers in Arms: One God, one homeland, one enemy, one goal!” If anyone doubts whose side Fatah is on, this should lay such doubts to rest.
A video segment on Fatah’s Facebook page shows a masked Fatah member standing amidst a huge arsenal of rockets, declaring: “Praise Allah, our jihad fighters have managed to develop these rockets so they will reach the Zionist depth, Allah willing, to a distance of 45 kilometers inside the occupied Palestinian territories…With these rocket we will liberate our Jerusalem. With these rockets we will crush the Zionist enemy…”
Another video posted on the Fatah Facebook page, on July 10, shows Arab women training with weapons and preparing rockets for launching. The narrator declares: “Another aspect of the Palestinian woman’s role in all areas is being created here. She is not merely the man’s partner in domestic life, but his companion wherever he is; on the battlefield, she is at his side on the frontline, and fulfills an active role in training generations of resistance [fighters], who will confront the “invincible” army.”
It’s not just words. On July 7, Fatah’s Facebook page announced that Fatah’s military unit, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, “targeted the enemy’s bases and settlements with 35 rockets.”
(All translations courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch.)
The eleventh lesson from the Gaza war: Abbas has once again clarified whose side he is on. He has chosen Hamas, against not only Israel, but America.
TWELFTH LESSON OF GAZA WAR:
THE ISRAELI LEFT IS WAKING UP
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
Those who follow Israeli politics never would have imagined a day when the leading voices of the Israeli Left would praise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, call for crushing Hamas, and admit that the Palestinians in general do not really want peace with Israel. But that’s exactly what’s happening.
On July 6, just before the Gaza war began, Tzipi Livni, leader of the leftwing Hatnuah Party and current Minister of Justice, told Israel Army Radio: “There is no hope for peace [with Hamas], it is an organization that does not accept our existence here and has terror against Israeli civilians as part of its worldview.”
Her remark was no aberration. On July 22, in the midst of intense U.S. pressure on Israel for a cease-fire, Livni spoke out against agreeing to any cease-fire “before we really finish the tunnels project which was laid out as a strategic objective.”
Another leftwing minister in Netanyahu’s broad coalition, Science Minister Yaakov Peri (of the Yesh Atid party), has likewise changed his tune. “I can only compliment him [Netanyahu], unfortunately,” Peri, a former head of the Shin Bet (General Security Services) told the New York Times on July 27. “It seems the steering is in the right hand in this conflict.”
Moving even further to the left, one finds Barak Ravid, diplomatic correspondent for the harshly anti-Netanyahu newspaper Haaretz, now taking the prime minister’s side and harshly criticizing Secretary of State John Kerry. In a July 27 dispatch, Ravid said Kerry’s proposal for a cease-fire “might as well have been penned by [Hamas leader] Khaled Meshal. It was everything Hamas could have hoped for.”
According to Ravid, Kerry’s plan “Recognized Hamas’ position in the Gaza Strip, promised the organization billions in donation funds and demanded no dismantling of rockets, tunnels or other heavy weaponry at Hamas’ disposal. The document placed Israel and Hamas on the same level, as if the first is not a primary U.S. ally and as if the second isn’t a terror group which overtook part of the Palestinian Authority in a military coup and fired thousands of rockets at Israel.”
Ravid noted with dismay that the State Department “distributed photos of Kerry’s meeting with Qatar and Turkey’s foreign ministers in Paris. The three appear jovial and happy-go-lucky. Other photographs show Kerry carousing romantically with the Turkish foreign minister in the pastoral grounds of the U.S. ambassador’s home in Paris, as if the Turkish official’s prime minister didn’t just say a few days ago that Israel is ten times worse than Hitler.”
Kerry’s “conduct in recent days over the Gaza cease-fire raises serious doubts over his judgment and perception of regional events,” Ravid wrote. “It’s as if he isn’t the foreign minister of the world’s most powerful nation, but an alien, who just disembarked his spaceship in the Mideast. For a few moments Friday one could not avoid recalling the things Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said about Kerry, and admit that despite the fact that it wasn’t appropriate, he may have had a point.”
Ravid was referring to Ya’alon’s characterization of Kerry, last March, as “obsessive” and “messianic” in his drive to get Israel to make more concessions to the Palestinians. Ya’alon said Kerry “should take his Nobel Prize and leave us alone.”
Perhaps the single most stunning instance of an Israeli leftist changing his tune is that of Prof. Shlomo Avineri, widely regarded as one of the intellectual pillars of the Israeli left. Avineri has mainstream credibility both because he is a scholar rather than just a pundit, and because he has been affiliated with the moderate-left Labor Party rather than the more extreme parties. His stint as director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry further burnished his credentials.
Writing in Haaretz, July 10, Avineri bluntly conceded: “We were mistaken.”
The Israeli left was mistaken to believe “that we were talking about a dispute between two national movements, and that the other side felt the same way,” Avineri wrote. “The Palestinian side does not believe that we are talking about a dispute between two national movements: It believes that we are talking about a dispute between one national movement–the Palestinian–and a colonial imperialistic entity that will eventually die off.”
“The Palestinian title for the two-state solution is different than the Israeli version,” Avineri pointed out. “The Israeli stance talks about ‘two states for two peoples’ but in the Palestinian version the phrase ‘for two peoples’ does not appear. It only talks about ‘two states.’ If someone thinks that this is just poor phrasing, he should ask his Palestinian counterpart to express an opinion about the ‘two states for two peoples’ version and he will sooner or later get the answer that there is no Jewish people…in the Palestinian narrative, the Jews are not a people or a nation, but only a religious group, and therefore they are not entitled to a state.”
Avineri concluded: “The source of the dispute is not borders, settlements or even Jerusalem…”[T]o ignore these deep-seeded views constitutes a lack of intellectual honesty.”
Lesson Twelve from the Gaza War: The Israeli Left is going to have a lot of soul-searching to do. And it’s starting already.
LESSON THIRTEEN OF GAZA WAR:
OBAMA’S “WALTER CRONKITE MOMENT”
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
President Lyndon B. Johnson knew the Vietnam War was a lost cause when Walter Cronkite, America’s most respected television news anchor, turned against it–symbolizing, for Johnson, that a large portion of the American public had likewise turned negative. President Barack Obama may have just had his own “Walter Cronkite Moment,” involving the Gaza War and the Washington Post.
The date was February 27, 1968. Cronkite, the anchor of the CBS Nightly News, was the most-watched, and most-admired newsman in America. He concluded an update on the Vietnam situation by declaring his opinion that “we are mired in stalemate…it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.” Cronkite’s message was crystal clear: America could not win, and therefore should negotiate its withdrawal from the region.
President Johnson, who was watching the broadcast live in the White House, reportedly said to his aides, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Without “Middle America”–without broad public support–Johnson could not prosecute the war successfully. The handwriting was on the wall for America’s defeat in Vietnam, because no democratic country can long wage war if most of its public opposes it.
Barack Obama’s Walter Cronkite Moment has been provided by the Washington Post, the “nerve center” of the nation’s capital.
In two remarkable lead editorials, less than a week apart, the Post has come down squarely for the policies of Israel’s prime minister, and against the Obama administration, in the Gaza war.
On July 18, the lead, unsigned editorial in the Post focused on Hamas’s vast network of tunnels, which it noted “have only one conceivable purpose: to launch attacks inside Israel.” It condemned “the outside world” (implicitly including much of the news media) for wrongly “blam[ing] Israel for the civilian casualties it inflicts while attempting to destroy the tunnels,” pointing out that Hamas deliberately built the tunnels under homes, mosques, schools and hospitals.
In two important respects, the Post took issue with the Obama administration’s positions. First, the Post warned that the Hamas demand (endorsed by the Obama administration) to end the Israeli blockade of Gaza “would allow Hamas to import more missiles and concrete for new tunnels.” Second, the Post urged that any concessions to Hamas and the Palestinian Authority must be linked to “the disarmament of Hamas.”
Six days later, the Post presented Obama’s Cronkite Moment, Part 2. In its lead, unsigned editorial on July 30, the Post asserted that Israel has “good reason” to have rejected Secretary Kerry’s recent ceasefire plan. The Obama administration has only “rhetorically endorsed” the Israeli demand for disarming Hamas, the Post pointed out. The administration “doesn’t seem to regard [disarmament] as feasible in the short term.”
Exactly right. The only time Obama or Kerry mention disarming is in the context of some vague, distant goal that would be part of a complete solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Taking Israel’s side, the Post argued that the disarming of Hamas needs to take place now, not later. It suggested a trade of “steps that would enable Gaza’s economic development” in exchange for “Hamas’s surrendering of its missiles.”
The publication of these two editorials, by a newspaper never known to be particularly supportive of Israel, is a groundbreaking development. It demonstrates to the Obama administration that a significant portion of elite Washington opinion sides with Israel in this conflict, not Hamas. Coming on the heels of polls showing the majority of Americans supporting Israel, and strong pro-Israel statements from leading Democratic congressmen, Obama must now face political reality: not only Republicans, but many Democrats, including key opinion-shapers such as the Post, want to see Israel victorious and Hamas defeated and disarmed.
The thirteenth lesson of the Gaza War: When it comes to Israel and Hamas, Obama has not only lost “Middle America” (President Johnson’s term) but most of America. And a foreign policy position that most Americans so strongly oppose is simply not sustainable.
LESSON FOURTEEN OF GAZA WAR:
GERALDO FLUBS AGAIN…ON GAZA
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
Geraldo Rivera committed one of the most infamous flubs in the history of television journalism, with his much-hyped flop of an expose about gangster Al Capone’s time capsule. This week, Geraldo treated American television viewers to another time-capsule flop — this one involving the Gaza war.
Week after week in the spring of 1986, ABC-TV hyped Geraldo’s upcoming special, “The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults.” The gimmick was that Geraldo, on live television, was going to open a safe of Capone’s that had been shut since the 1930s. Thirty million Americans — at that time the largest audience ever for a TV special – -tuned in to watch Geraldo dramatically open the time capsule, only to find that it contained nothing but empty bottles and dirt.
Geraldo was just then gaining widespread recognition as a journalist. One would think that the Capone caper would have harmed his career. On the contrary. “My career was not over, I knew, but had just begun,” Geraldo wrote candidly in his autobiography some years later. The incident taught him that on television, the truth is often less important than the theatrics.
Geraldo showed this week that he still considers theatrics more important than truth. Only this time, the truth has to do with the Gaza war and the stakes are life and death for the people of Israel.
Appearing on the FOX-TV daytime talk show “Outnumbered” on Monday, July 28, Geraldo was asked to respond to a clip of a Hamas spokesman saying that “the Israeli occupation” was the root cause of the war.
Anybody with the slightest knowledge of recent Middle Eastern history would not have been fooled by that Hamas lie. But not Geraldo. His response was to dramatically announce that he could solve the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict “in thirty seconds.” His solution: “The Hamas spokesman was right–Israel has to end its occupation.”
It’s as if Geraldo is trapped in a time capsule of his own that was sealed in 1994.
Apparently he is unaware that in 1995, Israel withdrew from the cities in Judea-Samaria (the West Bank) where 98% of the Palestinians Arab in that region live. For the past 19 years, those Palestinians have been “occupied” by the Palestinian Authority, not by Israel. In 2005, Israel withdrew every one its soldiers and citizens from the Gaza Strip. For the past nine years, 100% of the residents of Gaza have been “occupied” first by the Palestinian Authority, and then (as of 2006) by Hamas.
There is no “Israeli occupation” any longer.
Except, of course, if Hamas and the Palestinian Authority use the word “occupation” to mean something other than what Geraldo thinks they mean.
And that’s the point. Hamas and the PA –each according to their official ideology-– consider Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem to be “occupied.” They consider all of Israel to be “occupied Palestine.” They consider Israel’s very existence to be the “root cause” of the conflict, and will never accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state.
Lesson fourteen of the Gaza war: Geraldo Rivera and other ignorant pundits ought to face the truth: This is not a fight over “occupied territories” or settlements or refugees. This is a fight over Israel’s existence.
LESSON FIFTEEN OF GAZA WAR:
EXCEPT FOR GAZA, NEW YORK TIMES SUPPORTS DEMILITARIZATION
EVERYWHERE
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
You can tell Israel’s demand for disarming Hamas is gaining traction when the editors at the New York Times stoop to using a headline that has almost nothing to do with the story underneath, in order to pour cold water on Israel’s position.
“Question for Demilitarization of Gaza Is Seen Getting Netanyahu Only So Far,” the headline on a long July 31 news article announced. The only problem was that the article, by the Times’s chief Jerusalem correspondent, Jodi Rudoren, barely even mentioned the demilitarization issue.
Except, ironically, in her lead paragraph, where she reported that “there is growing momentum around a new formula, ‘reconstruction for demilitarization’.”
After that opening paragraph, however, Rudoren set off on her theme: that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should stop focusing so much on stopping terrorists, and should instead “shift positions on the larger Palestinian question.” In plain English, he should stop quibbling about tunnels and just let them set up a state in Israel’s back yard already.
Rudoren proceeded to trot out various “analysts” and “experts” who just happened to agree with her argument. But only one of them, Nathan Thrall of the George Soros-funded International Crisis Group, mentioned the issue of disarming Hamas. He said the Israeli government’s demand for demilitarizing Gaza is not feasible, and Israel is raising it just as “a card in order to limit the amount of concessions” that it has to make to Hamas.
Near the end of her article, Rudoren, threw in a couple of token alternative viewpoints, including that of Netanyahu adviser Ambassador Dore Gold. He pointed to the United Nations Security Council resolution demanding that Saddam Hussein give up his weapons of mass destruction, and the current international effort to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons. But Gold’s remark was buried in the 18th paragraph of the 20-paragraph story.
Most important, the headline that Rudoren’s editors wrote reflected Nathan Thrall’s viewpoint, not Dore Gold’s.
The frustration of the Times’s editors is understandable. In recent days, Israel’s calls for demilitarization have attracted powerful adherents.
On July 15, Tony Blair –Middle East envoy of the Quartet and former prime minister of Britain– said that action must be taken to remove Hamas’s “military infrastructure.” On July 22, the European Union declared: “All terrorist groups in Gaza must disarm.”
On July 24, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a resolution calling on the Obama administration to make the disarming of Hamas a central part of any cease-fire proposal.
Also on July 24 and again on July 30, the Times’s arch-rival, the Washington Post, published lead (unsigned) editorials calling for “the disarmament of Hamas.” The Post specifically challenged the Obama administration’s preference for putting off demilitarization until some far-off day. The Post proposed that any economic aid to Gaza be linked to Hamas surrendering its missiles.
Traditionally, the New York Times has always been on the side of international disarmament. Even when doing so would have given the Soviet Union military advantages over the United States, the Times could be counted on to hail the glories of demilitarization. But when it comes to choosing between demilitarization and championing the Palestinian cause, well, demilitarization has to give way.
And so the editors at the Times are left flailing their arms in frustration, watching world leaders and prominent newspapers endorsing Israel’s call for the demilitarization of Gaza, while all the Times can do is run misleading headlines and hope to fool those who aren’t paying close attention.
The fifteenth lesson of the Gaza war: Ignore the New York Times and disarm Hamas. That is the real way to peace.
LESSON SIXTEEN OF GAZA WAR:
LEARNING FROM YOM KIPPUR WAR
PREVENTS A ROSH HASHANA WAR
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the two holiest days on the Jewish calendar, will now forever be linked as the two most crucial moments in Israel’s military history–one for a surrender to foreign pressure, one for a bold defiance of foreign pressure.
In the days leading up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, both the United States and Israel became aware that Egypt and Syria were planning to attack. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger telephoned Israel’s acting ambassador in Washington, Mordechai Shalev, and relayed to him a “presidential entreaty” –that is, a direct demand by the White House– that Israel refrain from launching a preemptive strike.
This was revealed in the book ‘The Secret Conversations of Henry Kissinger,’ by Matti Golan, chief diplomatic correspondent for the left-wing Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. The chief of staff of the Israeli Army, General David Elazar, later testified before an Israeli government commission of inquiry that he had recommended a pre-emptive strike, but Prime Minister Golda Meir turned it down, on the grounds that Israel would lose America’s support if it struck first. For the same reason, Meir rejected Gen. Elazar’s request for a full mobilization of Israel’s reserve troops.
What happened next is well known. Israel suffered massive casualties in the war. The Egyptians and Syrians made enormous territorial gains, before eventually being pushed back. Kissinger, seeing how Israel gave in to his pressure on the eve of the war, did it again. He delayed America’s airlift of weapons and ammunition so that Israel would not score too big a victory. And he pressured Israel to release Egypt’s Third Army, which General Ariel Sharon had encircled in a brilliant maneuver.
Israel’s surrender to American pressure only invited more pressure. Giving in to Kissinger’s demands did not win Israel the U.S. support it expected.
As the current Gaza war has unfolded, another Arab plan to attack Israel on one of its holiest days has been revealed.
It turns out that Hamas was planning to use its vast network of underground tunnels to perpetrate a mass terror attack on Israel this coming Rosh Hashana. The plan was for two hundred terrorists dressed in stolen Israeli army uniforms to emerge simultaneously from numerous tunnels, and invade six kibbutzim and towns in southern Israel, to slaughter and kidnap the residents. The initial force of 200 was to be followed by a wave of several thousand additional terrorists. Ha’aretz has characterized it as a “mega-attack.” The details were learned from Palestinian terrorists captured and interrogated by Israel in recent days.
The Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv quoted senior security officials saying that “the war with Hamas prevented a disaster on the order of the Yom Kippur War.”
The reference to the Yom Kippur War was appropriate in more ways than one. Today, as in 1973, Israel has been subjected to relentless pressure from the White House. President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have been demanding that Israel hold back, cease fire, stop striking Hamas.
But today’s Israeli leaders have learned from the Yom Kippur mistake. Instead of surrendering to Obama’s pressured, they have been striking Hamas with decisive blow after decisive blow. Ignoring Obama’s outrageous demands, Israel has been destroying the terror tunnels, eliminating Hamas terrorists, and snuffing out Hamas rocket launchers. The Yom Kippur Lesson prevented the Rosh Hashana mega-attack.
Lesson sixteen of the Gaza war: Those who strike first will live to strike last.
LESSON SEVENTEEN OF GAZA WAR:
STATE DEPT DECREES NEW RULES
FOR HOW ISRAEL FIGHTS TERRORISTS
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
The State Department has announced new rules for when the Israeli Army may, and may not, target Hamas terrorists. This may come as a surprise to the Israeli public, which has grown accustomed to its army being led by career military officers with decades of terrorist-fighting experience.
The State Department’s new decree was handed down in the wake of an August 3 incident, in which an Israeli missile eliminated three Hamas killers riding on a motorcycle in the Gaza city of Rafah.
That the Israelis are able to pinpoint such a small, moving target is itself a remarkable achievement and a testimony both to Israel’s doctrine of avoiding civilian casualties as well as its admirable technological prowess.
But the Israelis are not super-human. They cannot control the direction or velocity of the shrapnel that scatters from a missile’s explosion. In this case, the terrorists were killed, but the shrapnel flew in various directions, some of it into a nearby crowd of civilians, of whom, regrettably, ten were killed as well.
The civilians happened to be standing not far from a school. Even though the proximity of the school to the motorcycling terrorists was obviously pure coincidence, those who are unfriendly to Israel immediately pounced on the opportunity to make the Jewish State look bad. “Missile Strike Near U.N. School in Gaza Kills 10,” screamed the front-page, top-of-the-fold headline in the New York Times.
Over at the State Department, it should have been obvious what happened. After all, State Department spokesmen have on more than one recent occasion found themselves having to explain why the Obama administration’s drone attacks on suspected terrorists in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Yemen accidentally harmed some nearby civilians.
But when it comes to Israel, the State Department has invented different rules. And it is now demanding that the Israeli army follow those rules.
Within hours of the incident — obviously long before any investigation could be undertaken — State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki labeled it “today’s disgraceful shelling.” She then explained: “The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians.”
Calculating the likely distance that shrapnel can reach, and factoring in the density of Gaza’s population and the propensity of Hamas to operate within the most populated areas, the Israeli Army now has new guidelines for where it may attack terrorists in Gaza: Nowhere.
There is nowhere in Gaza that does not have civilians nearby. There is no Hamas activity that takes place far from civilians. The entrances to Hamas tunnels are located inside people’s homes. Hamas command bunkers are situated underneath hospitals. Hamas killers on motorcycles drive through civilian areas because every street is in a civilian area. And if Gaza’s civilians try to leave a battle zone, Hamas thugs try and force them to stay there.
If Israel plays by the State Department’s rules, it can never strike at any Hamas terrorists. No matter how many warning phone calls the Israelis make, no matter how many leaflets they drop, there will always be civilians nearby who might get hit by shrapnel.
That’s how war is conducted in the Middle East.
Lesson seventeen of the Gaza war: If Israel wants to survive in the Middle East, it has to play by its own rules, not the decrees of Foggy Bottom.
LESSON EIGHTEEN OF GAZA WAR:
GALLUP POLL: 93% OF US JEWS BACK ISRAEL
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
It’s hard to imagine any issue on which more than 90% of American Jews agree. Is anti-Semitism bad? Are latkes good? Are reruns of “Seinfeld” worth watching?
Yet we finally do have one such issue. According to a new Gallup Poll released on August 1, when asked about the Gaza War, 93% of American Jews said they sympathize with Israel, 5% sympathize with both sides, and 2% sympathize with the Palestinians.
Note that the poll was carried out amidst a veritable tsunami of pro-Palestinian news media coverage in the United States. American Jews have been bombarded daily with heart-rending images of frightened or wounded Palestinians. The New York Times, especially, has done its utmost to perpetuate the notion that the Palestinians are innocent victims of Israeli brutality.
Just before the poll results were released, a front-page story in The Forward, reporting on American Jewish opinion regarding the war, was headlined “Many Jews Rally For Israel, While Some Protest Gaza War.”
The headline alone conveyed the impression that a substantial proportion of U.S. Jews were criticizing Israel.
According to the body of the article, “a series of opposing rallies and protests have drawn Jews on both sides.” Reinforcing the idea of a deep division in the community, six of the nine individuals interviewed in the article were critics of Israel. (And even one of the pro-Israel demonstrators was quoted not in support of Israel, but in defense of the right of the critics to speak out against Israel.)
The Gallup poll clearly demonstrates the opposite: that the division, if one can call it that, is more than 9 to 1 in support of Israel.
(Note that the respondents were not forced to choose between Israel and the Palestinians; they had the option of choosing “both sides.” Yet only 5% did so.)
How is that there is such overwhelming –almost unanimous– support among American Jews for Israel in this war?
After all, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is routinely portrayed in the news media as “right-wing,” and most American Jews are supposedly liberal to left-wing. So shouldn’t they be opposing Netanyahu’s war policies (even though they are backed by an overwhelming majority of Israelis) ?
Furthermore, most American Jews voted for Barack Obama, and the Obama administration has often been harshly critical of Israel’s conduct of the war, while showing sympathy to the Palestinians. So shouldn’t they be supporting Obama?
Moreover, this is a community that has — over three generations — repeatedly given birth to dissident organizations that are opposed to Zionism or Israel. In the 1940s, it was the American Council for Judaism, a group established by anti-Zionist Reform rabbis. In the 1970s, it was Breira, organized by former anti-Vietnam war radicals. In the 1980s, it was the New Jewish Agenda, created by New Age activists.
More recently, J Street has emerged. One of J Street’s oft-repeated claims is that the mainstream pro-Israel organizations do not speak for most American Jews — that there is a silent majority in the Jewish community favoring J Street’s positions. Certainly if one were to believe the fawning media coverage it has received, J Street would appear to have the support of a significant number of American Jews.
But the new Gallup Poll strongly suggests otherwise.
It’s not that there has been much of a shift to the “right” in the Jewish community. In fact, American Jews haven’t abandoned an essentially liberal outlook all that much. It’s the world that has changed.
Beginning with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, many Palestinian leaders and spokesmen attempted to convince the world — and American Jewry — that they had become moderate and no longer sought the destruction of Israel. For some twenty years, American Jews watched as the “moderate Palestinian” myth gradually fell apart. The “jihad” speeches … the hate-filled Palestinian school books … the attempt to smuggle in a ship filled with fifty tons of weapons … the salaries for imprisoned terrorists … Every new development chipped away at the Oslo illusion.
It all reached a terrible in climax in Gaza. Israel finally did what Israeli and American Jewish doves had long demanded: it unilaterally withdrew every Israeli soldier and citizen from every inch of Gaza. It was the ultimate test of Palestinian intentions.
And how did the Palestinians respond? By burning down the greenhouses Israel left them, electing Hamas terrorists as their leaders, and firing thousands of rockets into “occupied Sderot,” “occupied Ashkelon,” and now, “occupied Tel Aviv.”
American Jews have responded to this sobering new reality as any normal, logical, rational thinking people would respond.
Lesson eighteen of the Gaza war: There is an overwhelming American Jewish consensus in support of Israel.
LESSON NINETEEN OF GAZA WAR:
CRYING “RACISM” CAN’T SAVE HAMAS
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
For the past four weeks, as the war has raged in Gaza, Israel has repeatedly pointed to the Hamas strategy of using civilians as human shields. Palestinian spokesmen and supporters, in turn, have insisted that it’s “racist” to accuse Palestinian terrorists of such behavior.
Diana Buttu, a longtime legal adviser to the PLO who frequently appears in the international media, was interviewed on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” on July 10. She declared: “The idea that Palestinians use their children as human shields is racist and reprehensible.”
Yousef Munayyer, executive director of a pro-Arab group called the Jerusalem Fund, appeared on “The Reid Report” on MSNBC on July 24. Referring to the human shields charge, he asserted that “there’s something fundamentally wrong and racist about that argument.”
Part of the reason that these Palestinian propagandists have been able to sow seeds of doubt concerning the human shields is that Hamas does such an effective job of intimidating journalists.
For example, several days ago, the Wall Street Journal published a photograph by Nick Casey of Hamas spokesman Mushir Al Masri using a local hospital as a backdrop to give interviews. The hospital and its patients served, in effect, as a shield for Masri to speak to reporters without being targeted by Israel. A few days after it was posted, the Journal has removed Casey’s photo from its website without explanation.
Meanwhile, a French journalist in Gaza, Radjaa Abu Dagga, published an article in the French newspaper Liberation, describing how when he was taken in for questioning by Hamas, the interrogators used a room in the Al Shifa hospital–proof that Hamas is using the hospital as a shield. But that article, too, was deleted from the Liberation web site after a short time.
But now the story is coming out, and there’s nothing that the Palestinian truth-deniers can do but yell “racist.”
Sreenivasan Jain, a courageous reporter for New Delhi Television (NDTV), posted a detailed expose on August 5, showing Hamas terrorists assembling, and then firing, a rocket right in the middle of a neighborhood filled with residential buildings and hotels. His amazing report can be seen on the NDTV website at:
http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/watch-ndtv-exclusive-how-hamas-assembles-and-fires-rockets/332910
It’s the most graphic evidence yet of Hamas deliberately acting in, and from, civilian areas–in the hope of drawing Israeli fire that will cause civilian casualties and increase international criticism of Israel.
Now comes the most damning evidence of all — in Hamas’s own handwriting.
On August 5, the Israeli Army released copies of an official Hamas manual that it discovered in the Shuja’iya neighborhood of Gaza, where one of the fiercest battles of the war was fought.
It’s titled “Urban Warfare,” and it was produced by Hamas’s Shuja’iya Brigade.The manual includes detailed instructions on how to use the civilians of Gaza against Israel. It explains how because of Israel’s concern about civilian casualties, Hamas can use the “presence of civilians” to its military advantage. Having civilians nearby causes the Israelis “(1) Problems with opening fire; (2) Problems in controlling the civilian population during operations and afterward; (3) Assurance of supplying medical care to civilians who need it.”
The “Urban Warfare” manual also emphasizes the benefits of damage to civilian property: “The destruction of civilian homes: This increases the hatred of the citizens towards the attackers [the IDF] and increases their gathering [support] around the city defenders (resistance forces[i.e. Hamas]).”
Lesson nineteen of the Gaza war: The “racism” lie spouted by the likes of Diana Buttu and Yousef Munayyer cannot change the inescapable truth that Hamas deliberately uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, and therefore bears complete responsibility for the harm that has come to them.
LESSON TWENTY OF GAZA WAR:
GERALDO JUSTIFIES ARAB TERRORISM–AGAINST HIMSELF
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
Just when you thought that the tortured rationalizations for Palestinian terrorism couldn’t get any more weird or absurd–they just got weirder.
Appearing on the Fox Television talk show “Outnumbered” on August 4, veteran television journalist Geraldo Rivera launched into a tirade against Israel over the number of Palestinian casualties in the Gaza war.
Geraldo went so far as to dismiss Hamas’s thousands of rocket attacks on Israel as “laughable” since only three Israeli civilians have been killed by them. The millions of Israelis who are huddling in bomb shelters –which is the reason for the low Israeli civilian casualty toll– are not laughing.
Challenged by one of the show’s co-hosts as to whether he was on the side of Israel, or Hamas, an overheated Geraldo blurted out, “I have a Jewish star tattooed on me! I’m a lifelong Zionist! I would die for Israel!”
Geraldo insisted that he has covered Israel for decades, which is in reality a way of saying that every once in a while, over a stretch of many years, he has spent a few days in Israel, covering a story.
Of course he believes that makes him an expert, because in his next breath, Geraldo declared that since he has covered Israel so much, he knows the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. “Just end the occupation! End the occupation already! There are Palestinians who have grown up their entire lives not knowing anything besides the Israeli occupation!”
Actually, there are almost no Palestinians who could qualify for that description. In 1995, Israel withdrew from the cities in Judea-Samaria (the West Bank) where 98% of those Palestinians reside. In 2005, Israel withdrew all of its soldiers and citizens from Gaza. The only “occupation” the Palestinians endure is the occupation perpetrated upon them by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the two authoritarian regimes that rule those territories.
Yet here was the purportedly well-informed, veteran journalist yelling on national television about how “ending the occupation” would bring peace to the Middle East.
And then it got worse.
What about the Hamas rockets and other Palestinian terrorism, the co-hosts asked Geraldo. His response: “When people are under occupation, they get ticked off.”
That blatant justification for attempted mass murder of Israelis and Jews was appalling. But it was also ironic.
Because, having just pompously declared himself a “life-long Zionist” (fat chance) who is willing to “die for Israel” (even fatter chance), what Geraldo has really done is provided an advance justification for a Palestinian terrorist to target him.
But no need to worry–the next time he goes to Israel, Geraldo will no doubt continue to enjoy protection from Palestinian terrorists, courtesy of the Israel Defense Forces, upon whom he has been busy heaping scorn.
Lesson twenty of the Gaza war: liberal pundits who justify terrorism are not only inviting attacks on Israel, but ultimately upon themselves.
LESSON TWENTY-ONE OF GAZA WAR:
THE FAA DID ISRAEL A FAVOR
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
Israel and its friends were justifiably shocked and angry when the Federal Aviation Agency briefly suspended all American flights to Israel in the middle of the Gaza War. But the truth is that the FAA did Israel a big favor.
At first glance, the FAA announcement was, of course, outrageously unfair. It was made in response to a single Hamas rocket that landed more than a mile away from Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport. The FAA decision seemed to be a panicky surrender to terrorists’ threats.
One U.S. senator went further, asking whether the Obama Administration might have engineered the FAA action as a way of putting pressure on Israel. Indeed, the FAA move came just hours before Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Israel –at Ben-Gurion Airport– on a mission to force Israel to cease firing at Hamas. It is a coincidence that just weeks earlier, Kerry was threatening that Israel would find itself isolated in the world if it did not quickly agree to Palestinian demands?
Supporters of Israel understood the severe damage that the suspension could cause to Israel’s economy –indeed, to its entire way of life– and they responded swiftly. Some, like former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, flew to Israel to demonstrate their support for the Jewish State. Others bombarded the White House with protest letters.
Two days later, the FAA lifted its suspension. Had the Hamas threat abated? Was the administration giving in to Israeli and Jewish protests? Or was it simply satisfied that it had successfully fired a warning shot across Israel’s bow?
Whatever the explanation, both Israel’s supporters and detractors recognize that the implications of the episode are serious.
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote in his August 5 column that Hamas was sending a message: “If we can close your airport, your global lifeline, with one rocket from Gaza, imagine what happens if you leave the West Bank, right next door.” A deeply worried Friedman added: “That F.A.A. ban will now be used here as a key argument for why Israel must never cede the West Bank.”
Mind you, Friedman is not particularly worried about the danger to Israeli air traffic, or to Israel’s existence, from a Palestinian state. No, his main concern is that the danger of Hamas rockets hitting Ben-Gurion airport will harm the Palestinian statehood cause that he has been advocating since the 1970s.
Friedman has good reason to worry. Support for Palestinian statehood is unquestionably starting to slip away in the wake of the FAA suspension. Consider the position of Prof. Alan Dershowitz. Although a vigorous defender of Israel, Dershowitz has also long supported the creation of a Palestinian state under certain conditions. But the FAA incident has clearly left him shaken. He wrote on July 22: “Hamas’ actions in essentially closing down international air traffic into Israel considerably reduces the prospect of any two-state solution.”
Dershowitz is right. And he is not alone. Many Israelis who previously were willing to take a chance on Palestinian statehood are now reconsidering. They know that Ben-Gurion airport is less than five miles from where the elevated highlands of the Judea-Samaria (West Bank) region begin. That’s where a Palestinian state, and a Palestinian army, would be located. Even a lone Palestinian terrorist with a shoulder-fired missile would be able to target planes arriving at, or leaving, Ben-Gurion Airport. Air traffic would grind to a halt. Secretary Kerry’s dire prophecies about Israel being isolated in the world would come true.
So in a sense, the F.A.A. did Israel a big favor. Its brief suspension of flights to Israel vividly illustrated to the Israeli public how much damage a future Palestinian state could wreak. This was a sobering episode that Israelis will not easily forget.
Thomas Friedman will suffer no consequences if his advice to Israel goes awry. Hamas rockets will never strike the mansion and 7.6 acres of land in posh Bethesda, Maryland, where he resides. For Israel’s citizens, by contrast, this is a matter of life and death. They are understandably less than eager to gamble with their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
Lesson twenty-one of the Gaza war: One Hamas rocket is worth a thousand of Thomas Friedman’s words.
LESSON TWENTY-THREE OF GAZA WAR:
10 PALESTINIAN SITES GOV. CUOMO SHOULD VISIT
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is refusing to meet with Palestinian leaders during his visit to Israel this week. Maybe that’s a mistake.
The Palestinian Authority has invited him to visit the areas under its control, and the New York Times and others are quick to accuse the governor of bias for refusing.
In our view, the governor would actually be performing a great public service if he did visit certain PA-controlled areas — some of the ones they don’t want him to see. That would help clarify many of the issues that need to be considered before the Palestinian Authority is handed a more dominant role in Gaza in place of Hamas.
There are those who continue to believe that the PA is Israel’s trustworthy peace partner. Governor Cuomo could shed some light on that question — by asking to visit these ten sites:
* The studios of Palestinian Authority Television. Throughout the past week, PA TV has repeatedly broadcast an incendiary song about Gaza (and Israel) by Arab Idol winner Muhammad Assaf. A sample of the lyrics:
“Take my blood and give me freedom:
my country from the [Jordan] water to the [Mediterranean] water
O Gaza, sacrifice your men liberally; each of them is worth two …
It’s either victory or Martyrdom, her men said
Soil of the forgotten land, watered with precious blood
My land, sing your song, gather your strength for freedom.”
Governor Cuomo should meet with the officials of PA TV, who act on direct orders of their government.
* Any Palestinian school (with an interpreter). Let the governor see, first-hand, that the text books they teach are full of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred and incitement. The governor should especially ask his PA hosts to show him a PA school book that has a map acknowledging Israel’s existence.
* One of the Palestinian public parks named after “martyred” terrorists. There have been many reports of parks, streets and other venues named after Dalal Mugrabi, leader of a PLO death squad that murdered Gail Rubin, a niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Connecticut), and 36 others in the notorious1978 Coastal Road Massacre. Let the PA show Governor Cuomo their glorification of a terrorist who murdered a U.S. senator’s niece.
* Any Palestinian prison. According to the Oslo accords, the PA is supposed to imprison terrorists. Are there any terrorists in Palestinian jails today? A tour of the prisons might be enlightening for the governor–and for us all.
* The PA’s Ministry of Prisoner Affairs. Under Minister Ziad Abu Eain (himself a convicted murdered who was released in a prisoner exchange), this PA office actually pays salaries to Arab terrorists who are in Israeli prisons. Governor Cuomo might want to ask Eain about payments to the terrorists involved in the kidnap-murders of three Israeli teens this summer; the two fugitives reportedly spent time in Israeli prisons. Did Eain send them checks during their incarceration?
* Palestinian Christians. Bethlehem, which once had a Christian majority, is today 80% Muslim. Surely the governor would be interested to learn more about why the Christians left the city, and how, in general, Christians are treated by the Palestinian Authority.
* The family of U.S. citizen Azzam Rahim, of Texas, who was tortured to death by the PA police during a 1995 visit to his native village, near the PA capital of Ramallah. Governor Cuomo might want to express his condolences and find out what steps have been taken to punish the killers.
* Al Quds University. Last November, Brandeis University suspended its partnership with Al Quds after the administration permitted a mass rally by pro-Hamas students dressed in military garb. The governor should speak with students and get a sense of what kind of attitudes toward Israel are being fostered at one of the PA’s most prominent institutions of higher learning.
* The Tomb of Joseph. This burial site of a biblical patriarch is also home to a yeshiva, both of which have been repeatedly desecrated by Palestinian attackers. Are Jewish students and worshippers being granted free access to their holy site? A visit from Governor Cuomo might clarify matters.
* Perhaps of greatest interest: The governor should visit the IT office at the central headquarters of Fatah, which is chaired by PA leader Mahmoud Abbas. Throughout the Gaza War, Fatah’s official Facebook page has been filled with praise of Hamas, photographs glorifying Hamas terrorists, vicious anti-Israel accusations, and boasts about Fatah joining Hamas in firing rockets at Israel. If the PA were to be given more power in Gaza on the presumption that it opposes to Hamas, we need to know why Abbas’s Fatah has been promoting and endorsing Hamas via their social media.
Lesson twenty-three of the Gaza war: Before the Palestinian Authority might be handed control of Gaza, we’d like to see the evidence that it actually wants peace with Israel, that it has actually given up terrorism and renounced its recent unity pact with Hamas. A PA that is something like “Hamas Lite” is not going to advance the cause of peace. We think a visit by Governor Cuomo might be just the thing to clarify matters.
LESSON TWENTY-FOUR OF GAZA WAR:
HILLARY PUT THE CEMENT INTO HAMAS’ HANDS
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
Much has been said and written about the terror tunnels that Hamas built in Gaza. But too little has been said about who it was that put the cement into Hamas’ hands, thus making the construction of the tunnels possible in the first place.
Until now.
In a bombshell revelation, Dennis Ross, the senior Mideast policy adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from 2009 to 2011, has admitted that it was he who was assigned the task of pressuring Israel to ease up on its military blockade of Gaza, in the events after Israel’s withdrawal from that region in 2005.
“I argued with Israeli leaders and security officials, telling them they needed to allow more construction materials, including cement, into Gaza so that housing, schools and basic infrastructure could be built,” Ross revealed in the Washington Post on August 10. “They countered that Hamas would misuse it, and they were right.”
Not that Hillary’s State Department had been acting independently of the White House on the issue of cement. For example, Vice President Joe Biden told interviewer Charlie Rose, on Bloomberg TV in 2010: “We have put as much pressure and as much cajoling on Israel as we can to allow them to get building materials” and other forbidden items into Gaza.
But now that Mrs. Clinton is attempting to distance herself from the president’s debacles in foreign affairs, Ross’s admission shows that it was she who sent her personal envoy to push for a policy that ultimately enabled Hamas to build the terror tunnels.
Israeli officials have long been justifiably concerned about the danger of dual-use items such as cement. On the one hand, cement could be used for innocent purposes such as home construction, in the hands of a peace-seeking, trustworthy government. But in the hands of untrustworthy elements — such as the Hamas terrorist regime that rules Gaza — it could also be used for other purposes. Such as terror tunnels.
President Obama recently remarked, in his much-discussed interview with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times: “Because Israel is so capable militarily, I don’t worry about Israel’s survival.” Secretary Clinton evidently shared that dismissive attitude when she sent Ross on his mission to put cement into Hamas’ hands.
It seems Obama and Clinton forgot that Israel is the only country in the world that is threatened with annihilation by a nearby regime rushing to build nuclear weapons. Israel is the only country in the world that, in the space of just 65 years, has been forced to fight four major defensive wars and five smaller ones, in order to survive. Israel is the only country in the world whose next-door neighbors have built dozens of tunnels into Israel to perpetrate massacres of civilians.
Today, at least thirty-two terror tunnels later, we know that Clinton, Obama and Ross have been wrong, while Israel is right.
Hamas spent between $1-million and $10-million to build each of those tunnels, using as many as 350 truckloads of cement and other supplies per tunnel, according a report in to the Wall Street Journal, quoting Israeli military officials.
And it is “likely that there are additional tunnels” that the Israelis have yet to uncover, according to the Journal’s report.
Instead of lethal purposes, the materials used for each tunnel could have built 86 homes, or 19 medical clinics, or seven mosques, or six schools. But Hamas had other priorities.
And Secretary Clinton consciously turned a blind eye. Just as she turned a blind eye to other aggressive and anti-peace behavior by the Palestinians, such as the Palestinian Authority’s sheltering of known terrorists, its payments to imprisoned terrorists, the anti-Israel and anti-America propaganda that fills the PA-controlled media, and the anti-Semitic hatred in the textbooks used in the PA’s schools.
What are the real-life consequences of ignoring such Palestinian actions? An entire generation of young Palestinians have grown up incited to hatred of Jews and Israel, and glorifying terrorists as heroes and martyrs.
What are the real-life consequences of Mrs. Clinton putting cement into Hamas’s hands? The tunnels into Israel were used to carry out the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit and numerous other attacks in which Israelis were murdered. They were being prepared to carry out a mass coordinated attack on Israeli towns and kibbutzim, this year on Rosh Hashanah.
Imagine a scenario in which a surgeon decided that she wanted to employ a controversial and risky technique. She was warned repeatedly that it was too dangerous, but proceeded anyway and in the process nearly killed the patient. Surely that would be deemed malpractice. The surgeon probably would be barred from ever again practicing medicine.
Secretary of Stated Hillary Clinton committed diplomatic malpractice. Her own top aide has revealed that it was she who put the cement into Hamas’ hands, even after Israel warned repeatedly that doing so was too dangerous. And Israel continues to suffer the consequences.
Lesson twenty-four of the Gaza war: Even as we condemn Hamas’ diversion of cement from the construction of housing to the construction of terror tunnels, let us not forget that it was Hillary Clinton who pushed through the policy that made those tunnels possible.
LESSON #25 OF GAZA WAR:
SYRIA CHEMICAL WEAPONS DEAL A MODEL FOR DISARMING HAMAS
By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn
(The authors are members of the board of the Religious Zionists of America. This is the 25th article in a series. To view previous installments, please visit http://www.phillyreligiouszionists.org/lessons-from-the-gaza-war/.)
The Obama Administration announced on August 19 that it has finished destroying all of Syria’s known chemical weapons. Those who are concerned about the conflict between Israel and Hamas should be paying close attention, because the Syrian model could be the key to bringing peace to Gaza.
Syrian dictator Bashar Assad did not surrender his chemical weapons out of the goodness of his heart. He agreed to do so only after he was cornered and completely isolated by the international community. The Obama administration and its allies were (belatedly) threatening military action. Russia was no longer willing to stand with Syria against the world on this issue. Assad realized he had no choice.
Over the past year, the Syrian government handed over 1,300 tons of chemicals that it was going to use to manufacture sarin and other poison gases. Some of the chemicals were shipped to facilities in England, Germany, and Finland to be destroyed. About 600 tons were loaded onto a Danish vessel, which brought them to an American ship, the USS Cape Ray, where they were destroyed in the titanium reactor on board.
Obviously when one is dealing with dictators or terrorists, one cannot assume that they can be trusted. The U.S. and its allies will have to be extremely vigilant to make sure that Assad did not stash away any more chemicals. But in the meantime, it is clear that a very significant step has been taken so far.
All of which can teach us a great deal about Gaza.
Since the beginning of the current conflict, Israel has insisted that the only way to achieve a meaningful and enduring peace in Gaza is to disarm Hamas and demilitarize the territory. If weapons are left in Hamas’s hands, it’s only a matter of time before they will use them against Israel again.
Those tens of thousands of rockets, rifles, land mines, bombs, and other weapons – including all Hamas factories to manufacture them – must be surrendered, no ifs, ands, or buts.
In recent weeks, numerous important voices around the world have joined the call for demilitarization of Gaza.
On July 15, Tony Blair –Middle East envoy of the Quartet and former prime minister of England– said that action must be taken to remove Hamas’s “military infrastructure.” On July 22, the European Union declared: “All terrorist groups in Gaza must disarm.”
On July 24, a bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced a resolution calling on the Obama administration to make the disarming of Hamas a central part of any cease-fire proposal.
On July 24 and again on July 30, the Washington Post, published lead (unsigned) editorials calling for “the disarmament of Hamas.” The Post specifically challenged the Obama administration’s preference for putting off demilitarization until some far-off day. The Post proposed that any economic aid to Gaza be linked to Hamas surrendering its missiles.
Some pundits have tried to pour cold water on the demilitarization proposal. They say it’s an “unrealistic” demand. But it’s unrealistic only if the international community refuses to show a little backbone. When the Free World unites and stands strong, killers back down.
The nay-sayers probably thought it was unrealistic to demand that the Irish Republican Army lay down its weapons. But the British government insisted. It did not withdraw its last soldiers from Northern Ireland until nearly two years after the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning confirmed that the IRA had been disarmed.
And who would have thought, as recently as two years ago, that Syria would voluntarily surrender its chemical weapons? But international resolve forced it to. And a similarly strong stand can bring about the demilitarization of Gaza as well.
The 25th lesson of the Gaza war: Disarming Hamas is the only realistic path to peace.
By LESSON ELEVEN OF GAZA WAR: ABBAS SLAPS U.S. AGAIN | The 5 Towns Jewish Times July 25, 2014 - 4:16 PM
[…] (The authors are members of the board of the Religious Zionists of America. This is the eleventh in a series. To view previous installments, please visit http://www.phillyreligiouszionists.org/lessons-from-the-gaza-war/.) […]
By LESSON TWENTY-THREE OF GAZA WAR: 10 PALESTINIAN SITES GOV. CUOMO SHOULD VISIT | The 5 Towns Jewish Times August 13, 2014 - 9:37 PM
[…] (The authors are members of the board of the Religious Zionists of America. This is the twenty-third in a series. To view previous installments, please visit http://www.phillyreligiouszionists.org/lessons-from-the-gaza-war/.) […]
By Hillary’s Hand in Hamas’ Terror Tunnels By Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn | RUTHFULLY YOURS August 26, 2014 - 9:45 AM
[…] [Moshe Phillips and Benyamin Korn are members of the board of the Religious Zionists of America. This article is part of a series. To view previous installments, please visit http://www.phillyreligiouszionists.org/lessons-from-the-gaza-war/. […]