Natanyahu Lowers the Boom

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

That was priceless.

First this:

Why Tony cannot ever speak in plain f ing English is beyond me.

Then this:

It's a matter of principle.

(Just ribbing you, Tony... )

Michael

[Jules Troy]

Haha Michael!

[BaalChatzaf]

May or may not be true, but Iran will still use the ceasefire to restock HAMAS. Other reports have stated that they are/were down to about 30% of their rockets.

This is a common practice, use "humanitarian aid" as a cover or bare minimum a lull in activity to re-trench.

If I were a smart Palestinian I would use the opportunity to extent my hand to the rest if the world that is constantly crying out and demonstrating "free Palestine " to move me and my family the hell out if there. At the very least at least the women and children that are willing to go.

If the women and children were gone, at least HAMAS could no longer use them as human shields.

[BaalChatzaf]

May or may not be true, but Iran will still use the ceasefire to restock HAMAS. Other reports have stated that they are/were down to about 30% of their rockets.

This is a common practice, use "humanitarian aid" as a cover or bare minimum a lull in activity to re-trench.

If I were a smart Palestinian I would use the opportunity to extent my hand to the rest if the world that is constantly crying out and demonstrating "free Palestine " to move me and my family the hell out if there. At the very least at least the women and children that are willing to go.

If the women and children were gone, at least HAMAS could no longer use them as human shields.

Iran shot down an Israeli drone taking pretty pictures of one of its uranium enrichment facilities last week. It has vowed to step up supplies of rockets to HAMAS as retribution.

This ceasefire is nothing more than a ruse to allow Iran to re stockpile HAMAS rockets. In 7-10 days the rocket attacks will begin again.

Here is the Islamic version of "cease fire".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudna

[Brant Gaede]

How do those rockets get into Gaza (and not the West Bank?)? Through Egypt? Hard to believe they come directly by sea. It would seem Iran to sea to land to Gaza.

--Brant

[william.scherk]

How do those rockets get into Gaza (and not the West Bank?)? Through Egypt? Hard to believe they come directly by sea. It would seem Iran to sea to land to Gaza.

Many of the rockets are homemade right in Gaza. Others are assembled from components smuggled in via Sinai and then through tunnels along the Gaza/Egypt border. Those tunnels have been mostly destroyed by Egypt since the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Gaza has no seaport. It cannot thus land large vessels. The three-mile limit imposed by Israel on Gaza fishers tends to restrict any transfers on the high seas.

Here's a few article excerpts that give a sense of the rockets' manufacture, and smuggling routes.

-from the Economist in July:

Israeli jets have targeted what the IDF calls “operational infrastructure”. That includes missile launchers (prioritising longer-range systems), command and control centres, stored missiles and missile-production sites. If the IDF's claims are accurate, about half of the Hamas/Islamic Jihad inventory may be left.

...

Before the current operation, Hamas was thought to be producing some 30 medium-range missiles a month using components smuggled in from Iran and Syria. That is quite a significant quantity given that Egypt in recent months has shut or destroyed around 95% of the tunnels on its side of the border, and little coming from the sea gets past Israeli patrol boats. However, under Israel’s bombardment it is likely that production has now been drastically slowed.

- from the World Tribune:

Egypt has reported the capture of Soviet-origin rockets from the Gaza Strip.

Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency said several BM-21 Grad surface-to-surface rockets were intercepted as they were being smuggled to the Gaza Strip.

MENA said the shipment consisted of 20 rockets and launchers, meant to be transported in the tunnels that connect Rafah, divided between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

“There was a battle with Palestinian Islamist militias at the opening of one of the tunnels,” MENA said on July 12.

- from the New York Times.

JERUSALEM — The rockets are smuggled via ship and tunnel from Iran, Libya, Sudan and Syria and, increasingly, manufactured from water pipes and household items in what a senior Israeli intelligence officer called Gaza’s “high-tech” sector — about 70 makeshift factories staffed by 250 men and overseen by a few dozen engineers and chemists.

Ely Karmon of Israel’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism said arms — and experts who trained the locals to use them — were imported from Hamas’s Shiite allies through the Mediterranean Sea and the Sinai Desert during the second Palestinian intifada in the early 2000s. Israel’s 2005 pullout from Gaza and Egypt’s subsequent closing of its Rafah border crossing spawned a network of underground tunnels, where, experts said, traffic reached its peak during the one-year presidency of Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Hamas ally who was ousted by the Egyptian military.

Though Egypt’s new government is hostile to Hamas and shut down hundreds of the tunnels, the Israelis say some smuggling continued, and local production picked up.

“Rocket production is one of the prosperous sectors of the Gaza Strip — there is a very organized array of research and development and production,” said the senior intelligence officer. “Technologically, we are speaking about very simple rockets. They are not accurate at all. They make them by using very simple raw materials, mostly.”

Materials like 6-, 9-, 10- and 12-inch water pipes. Filled with propellant mixed from fertilizer, oxidizer, ammonia perchlorate, aluminum powder and other ingredients. Capped by warheads shaped by ironworkers. Under the tutelage, in some cases, of moonlighting chemistry or physics professors. Instructions are also available on the Internet.

“You need to be an engineer, but it’s not too difficult to learn it,” said another military official. “After you have the basic design, after you have the specific plan, you can do it. You don’t need a huge factory to do it. You can do it in a garage, you can do it under a mosque.”

- from the Business Insider.

Hamza Abu Shanab, an expert on Islamist groups in Gaza, said Israel, which maintains a naval blockade of the territory and tight restrictions at its land border, faces a big problem.

"It cannot end Hamas rockets because Hamas does not depend on imported weapons and is making its own, so fighters may be engaged in combat and others are making them the ammunition," he said. "Israel cannot estimate the size of Hamas's arsenal because the tools are being made locally. So for every rocket fired, another ten are made."

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another more militant armed faction, have announced new grades of longer-range rockets delivering heavier payloads in the latest conflict and boast of "surprises" from other, secret ordnance.

...

Besides Israel's tighter curbs on Gaza-bound imports since Hamas took power there in 2007, Egypt has demolished hundreds of smuggling tunnels through which weapons and commercial goods had been brought. Hamas lost an important ally in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which was ousted by the military last year.

[william.scherk]

Here's an offer from Francois Hollande that the EU take part in the enforcement of ceasefire provisions -- notably restarting the Europeans border presence at the Gaza crossings. From Asssociated Press.

JERUSALEM (AP) - European nations are offering to help enforce the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, a scenario that could provide key international backing for maintaining the peace and step up the pressure on Hamas militants to relinquish power.

The European plan remains vague, and it is unclear whether Israel or the Palestinians will agree.

But a European presence in Gaza could go a long way toward meeting two key demands: the Palestinians' insistence on freer movement in and out of the territory, and the Israeli requirement that Hamas be kept in check.

French President Francois Hollande laid out the case for European involvement on Thursday, telling international diplomats that Europe could help oversee the destruction of tunnels used by Hamas militants and monitor the territory's border crossings with Israel and Egypt.

"It is necessary to move toward an end to the blockade and a demilitarization of the territory," he said, indicating that international supervision could help pave the way for a return of Hamas' rival, the Palestinian Authority, to Gaza.

President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the authority, is eager to regain a foothold in Gaza, seven years after Hamas violently overran the territory. With the international community shunning Hamas as a terrorist group, Abbas would be likely to operate Gaza's borders and oversee internationally funded reconstruction efforts

.

The French proposal, Hollande said, would "finally give the Palestinian Authority the means to respond to the humanitarian crisis and to begin reconstruction."

Earlier this month, while the fighting was still raging, the European Union expressed its readiness to contribute to a "sustainable solution" for Gaza, offering help in postwar reconstruction and monitoring efforts.

Among other things, it mentioned the possible revival of an operation that helped operate Gaza's volatile border crossing with Egypt.

[...]

Whether the sides are ready to accept external involvement is unclear.

Paul Hirschson, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said that the country is ready to consider any proposal but must be convinced that monitoring will work.

Israel's main concern, he said, is to prevent Hamas from smuggling more weapons through reopened border crossings. Europe's border-monitoring operation, EUBAM, halted its operations after Hamas overran Gaza in 2007.

"We're not saying no to anything. But it has to be something that's workable," Hirschson said.

Complicating matters is that the European Union, like Israel and the U.S., considers Hamas a terrorist group and has no direct contact with the organization.

At the minimum, an international presence in Gaza would require Hamas to allow Abbas' forces to help operate the border crossings - something it has expressed a willingness to do.

But it would also step up pressure on Hamas to give up its military capabilities, such as the network of tunnels used to smuggle weapons and stage attacks on Israel.

In Gaza, Hamad al-Rakeb, a Hamas spokesman, described Hollande's proposal as "mixing poison in the honey."

[Jules Troy]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/wap/Item.aspx?type=0&item=184512

So if 89% of the Palestinian population supports HAMAS firing rockets into civilian Israeli populations does it not stand to reason that if HAMAS attempts to use these same people as human shields they should in fact be considered enemy combatants? If they are WILLING shields and are not actually kidnapped that is.

[Selene]

Jules:

You make a good point.

I used to rely more on polls than I do now because they have become pure propaganda.

Selective use of polls can be helpful though.

This is the link to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research...to their "about us" page...

http://www.pcpsr.org/en/about-psr-page

A...

[moralist]

What it means is that Hamas will effectively denounce the use of violence...

[Brant Gaede]

@whyNOT

Now that they have a ceasefire, hopefully Hamas and the PA will be able to go through with the unity government agreement they made back in June. What it means is that Hamas will effectively denounce the use of violence, and the PA will become the legitimate government of the Palestinian people. This will allow Natanyahu to come to the negotiating table, and really this is the best chance that anybody may ever get for peace.

This is a wet dream--for you. It does nothing for me. I'm awake.

--Brant

the last wet dream I had was in 1967 in Vietnam--when the mama-sans saw my bedclothes, they started laughing

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

You forgot about back in the good old days.

There was no violence. No disease. People were decent to each other. The ass and lamb laid down with the lion. Love ruled the long happy days. Milk and honey flowed from the very manna falling from the heavens. All was right and good.

It is so easy to resolve the present crisis in Israel. All we need is to get Hamas and Israel to want it again...

And look! Suddenly Hamas does!

Michael

[anthony]

I don't know if anyone's noticed that while the media was behaving in its typical knee-jerk response to Israel in the last month, IS was making its early moves on targets. Lucky timing? Or was Hamas primed as a feint? These aren't stupid people, and Western nations are predictable. Worth consideration.

[moralist]

I don't know if anyone's noticed that while the media was behaving in its typical knee-jerk response to Israel in the last month, IS was making its early moves on targets. Lucky timing? Or was Hamas primed as a feint? These aren't stupid people, and Western nations are predictable. Worth consideration.

Hey Tony... this might be a stupid question but... what's IS?

Greg

[Jules Troy]

I don't know if anyone's noticed that while the media was behaving in its typical knee-jerk response to Israel in the last month, IS was making its early moves on targets. Lucky timing? Or was Hamas primed as a feint? These aren't stupid people, and Western nations are predictable. Worth consideration.

Hey Tony... this might be a stupid question but... what's IS?

Greg

[Jules Troy]

IS= Islamic State

Formerly ISIS(or still ISIS but 4 letters is too hard for them to remember)

[moralist]

IS= Islamic State

Formerly ISIS(or still ISIS but 4 letters is too hard for them to remember)

Ah... thanks. What you said makes total sense. They're playing the West like violins.

Greg

[Jules Troy]

http://www.ammoland.com/2013/06/peace-through-pork-jihawg-defensive-ammunition/#axzz39v3N0VS2

? why didn't I think of that! Do'h!

[Backlighting]

IS= Islamic State

Formerly ISIS(or still ISIS but 4 letters is too hard for them to remember)

Ah... thanks. What you said makes total sense. They're playing the West like violins.

Greg

Getting played all right. But violins are little tough to play. I'd say a cowbell is more like it.

What a disgrace.

-Joe

[Frediano]

Violins, cowbells...like something, I suspect. They are all but -begging- the US to engage in some fashion, I suspect, because they know under the present regime that would be some inneffective gesture politics half measure. 'limited' bombing.' Making a few hovels bounce in the desert.

Because ... I suspect .. no matter what we do or won't do (within the present administrations preferred 'limited' range of options)... it will be inneffective in thwarting any actual attack on a US city; their purpose, beyond expanding into a power vacuum, is to add to their recruitment PR effort by poking a stick into the eye of the Great Satan, once the source of Magic Jinny Make Boom From Sky. By provoking the US into an inneffective 'limited action' of making a few hovels bounce for our petty internal political optics, they too, get to use the footage of hovels bouncing in the Squalor Caliphate as PR optics. They can and will claim, for their global PR purposes, that the next get lucky and manage to light the fuse this time in their own shoes crap fight over in US streets is a -response- to the bombings by the US in the Squalor Caliphate.

Respond or don't respond, they are still going to poke a stick in the eye of the Great Satan. Great Satan will run around madly for a few months/years and weather the pain, and the Squalor Caliphate will use the footage of Obama and Pelosi and Reid and the rest of those critters running around and making speeches as surefire recruitment videos. ("You are being held down by this dross?" Come join the Squalor Caliphate! Be sure to wipe with the left and eat with the right or off with your head."

At least Obama isn't using the word 'must' aimed at these Dark AGers like he once did at Putin. It just makes him look...well like he is. Either weak due to incompetence or weak due to malevolence. There isn't a third possibility.

Which weak would we prefer?

He's weak because he's clueless pampered Golden Passer Ivy Leaguer, or he's weak because he's closet commie silently cheering on the emergence of the Squalor Caliphate?

Now there's a difference in search of a distinction.

[Jules Troy]

And now it looks like the IDF is bracing for an attack by Hezzbolah. If this happens is the world going to then condemn Israel once again for defending itself? It is rumoured that Hezzbolah has over 100k long range Iranian rockets that they will be able to launch from deep within Lebanon. Israel will have no choice but to hit hard and heavy. There will be large unavoidable civilian casualties if Israel wants to survive.

[Selene]

It is rumoured that Hezzbolah has over 100k long range Iranian rockets that they will be able to launch from deep within Lebanon.

Rumored by whom?

[Jules Troy]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-preparing-for-very-violent-war-against-hezbollah-tv-report-says/

[Selene]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-preparing-for-very-violent-war-against-hezbollah-tv-report-says/

Of the "100,000 rockets," 5,000 are long range.

Still a problem of a different magnitude for the Iron Dome system.

A...

[Brant Gaede]

An act of war--by Iran?

--Brant