Arms Pouring into Gaza; Many Are Chinese Rockets
Here are two reports which follow-up on this blog's earlier post regarding continued arms smuggling to Gaza.
This Ynet report concerning the ramifications of the recent IAF mission in the Sudan further point out the fact that arms are pouring into Gaza despite whatever "monitoring mechanisms" the US, the EU and Egypt might have, or not have, in place:
Meanwhile, a Jerusalem Post report indicates many of the rockets flooding Gaza are Chinese-made:
This Ynet report concerning the ramifications of the recent IAF mission in the Sudan further point out the fact that arms are pouring into Gaza despite whatever "monitoring mechanisms" the US, the EU and Egypt might have, or not have, in place:
If the reports regarding the Air Force strike in Sudan are indeed accurate, this is bad news, and the reasons for the Israeli elation over the attack are completely unclear...
It means that we failed, both during and after Operation Cast Lead, to achieve international, diplomatic, or psychological-deterrence accomplishments that would prevent the continuation of arms smuggling to Gaza.
We are talking about immense quantities of missiles that poured and are still pouring into the Strip. These may be the missiles..., anti-aircraft missiles, missiles that can reach Tel Aviv, etc.
There is a great difference between the bombing of the Syrian reactor and the strike on the arms convoy in Sudan. In Syria, it was a strategic strike, as the establishment of a new reactor is an immense project, especially when the world is watching Syria. Meanwhile, dispatching another arms convoy is a piece of cake.
This... operation makes it apparent that arms are still flooding the Gaza Strip. Under guise of the temporary calm, a major military buildup is being undertaken there ahead of the next round of fighting; meanwhile, there is still no lull as Israeli communities are being bombarded every day.
Iran, the Palestinians, and other elements are very determined to transfer the arms to Gaza and threaten Israel’s population centers. After they realized that we have the intelligence capabilities to detect ships carrying arms – for example, the ship that was stopped in Cyprus – they switched to land shipments. By now you can be sure that they no longer use one convoy, but rather, smuggle arms in several stages and more secretly.
Can’t count on Egypt
Regrettably, we ended the Gaza operation without any agreement, while the Egyptians, whom we just celebrated 30 years of peace with, did almost everything to undermine our national security. That is, they have not stopped the flow of weapons into Gaza.
The implication of the bombing in Sudan is that our security coordination with Egypt is slim. After all, if this convoy was meant to reach Egypt, why would the Egyptians have any problems seizing it, just like the Cypriots seized the arms ship that entered their territory? Apparently, we indeed have no way of counting on the Egyptians on this front, and that’s a great pity.
It was important to bomb the arms convoy in terms of taking advantage of an opportunity, yet... not be overly impressed by the accomplishment: It has nothing to do with our ability to curb the weapons flow into Gaza or create deterrence. This merely attests to what Shakespeare already wrote before: “How my achievements mock me!”
Meanwhile, a Jerusalem Post report indicates many of the rockets flooding Gaza are Chinese-made:
Supt. Kobi Preger, deputy head of the Israel Police's national bomb disposal laboratory, identified three types of Chinese-made rockets at a press conference Tuesday: "The 107 millimeter rocket, often called a 'Grad,' and two types of 122mm rockets."
One version of the 122mm rocket had a range of 40 km. and had been used by Hamas to target areas such as Yavne, north of Ashdod.
"The rockets are going farther and getting more powerful," he warned.
| Add to: | |  | del.icio.us | | |  | BlinkList | | |  | blogmarks | | |  | Digg | | |  | Furl | | |  | | |  | YahooMyWeb | | |
Friday, April 3, 2009
Reversing the Myth of Israel's "Conditional Legitimacy"
The Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick presents her view that new Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government will work to reverse an evolving myth known as Israel's conditional legitimacy:
In the chanceries of Europe, the die has apparently been cast. The time has come to launch an all-out diplomatic war against Israel. That is, the time has come to begin to unravel EU acceptance of Israel's right to exist.
Last Friday, in anticipation of the swearing in of the new Netanyahu government, EU foreign ministers met in Prague and discussed how they would stick it to the Jews.
According to media reports, the assembled ministers and diplomats decided that they will freeze the process of upgrading EU relations with Israel until Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu explicitly commits his government to establishing a Palestinian state and accepts that the only legitimate policy an Israeli government can have is the so-called "two-state solution."
On an operational level, the assembled ministers and diplomats decided to cancel the Israel-EU summit now scheduled for late May until Israel has bowed to Europe's demand.
Europe's decision to launch a preemptive strike against the Netanyahu government even before it was sworn into office on Tuesday came against the backdrop of its growing enthusiasm for opening formal ties with Hamas.
Since entering office, and increasingly in recent weeks, the Obama administration has been both directly and indirectly signaling that it will adopt a hostile stance toward Netanyahu and his government. Unnamed Democratic congressional and administration sources have been warning Israel through the media that the administration does not accept the Israeli voters' right to set a new agenda for the incoming government that rejects the Olmert-Livni government's subordination of Israel's national interests to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The administration itself has stated through both White House and State Department spokesmen that it is completely committed to the swift establishment of a Palestinian state - regardless of Israel's position on the issue.
Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the international hysteria over the Netanyahu government is its timing. The calls for Israel's international isolation, the decision to treat Israel as a beyond-the-pale-pariah-
nation far worse than Hamas, emerged even before the Netanyahu government was sworn into office. How did this foul state of affairs come about? Why is the Middle East's only democracy being treated worse than North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Hamas and Hizbullah?
THE RESPONSIBILITY for this horrendous state of affairs belongs mainly with Netanyahu's predecessors - former prime minister Ehud Olmert and opposition leader Tzipi Livni. During their tenures in office, Olmert and Livni effectively embraced Israel's enemies' view that unlike the PLO and even Hamas, Israel has no independent right to exist. Indeed, not only did they accept that view, they turned it into the official policy of the government.
Now, as Europe, the US and regional actors are all making clear, Israel must accept that its own right to exist is contingent on the establishment of a Palestinian state - regardless of its character or the identity of the Palestinian leadership. That is, if Israel doesn't accept the legitimacy of a Hamas or Fatah-ruled Palestinian terror state in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and Gaza, then it has no right to exist.
This reality, of course, was made clear by the outcry that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's official denunciation of the Annapolis formula on Wednesday induced. Lieberman.... made clear that the Netanyahu government remains committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
All Lieberman said was that the Netanyahu government will not accept a Palestinian terror state. That is, all he said was that Israel's support for Palestinian statehood is contingent on Palestinian behavior. Additionally, Lieberman correctly pointed out that Israel's own international position has been harmed rather than advanced by its willingness to compromise its positions and accept those of its Palestinian adversaries.
What the outcry at Lieberman's remarks - from both Livni and her domestic supporters, and the international community - makes clear is that it will be exceedingly difficult for the Netanyahu government to walk away from the anti-Israel positions adopted by its immediate predecessor. But it also shows how urgently those positions need to be rejected.
For the past 16 years, from Israel's first acceptance of the PLO as a legitimate actor to Israel's acceptance of the PLO's position that it is the Jewish state rather than the Palestinian state whose legitimacy is conditional, Israel's international position has become ever more tenuous as prospects for peace have become ever more remote. The Netanyahu government was elected to put an end to this disastrous trend. It is heartening to see that straight out of the starting gate, it is working to accomplish this essential task.
| Add to: | | | del.icio.us | | | | BlinkList | | | | blogmarks | | | | Digg | | | | Furl | | | | | | | YahooMyWeb | | |
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Axe-Wielding Terrorist Kills Boy, 14, Wounds 7-Year-Old in Bat Ayin
The Jerusalem Post is carrying reports that an axe-wielding terrorist infiltrated into Yishuv Bat Ayin, which is located in Gush Etzion, killing a 14 year-old boy and seriously wounding a 7 year-old boy with the axe before a Yishuv resident struggled with and disarmed the terrorist.
One report indicates:
A further Jerusalem Post report indicates:
Israel National News also reports on the attack and about the two boys assaulted:
One report indicates:
The initial assumption, that the terrorist was an Arab laborer and had therefore not aroused suspicion...
The IDF said the possibility that the terrorist was holed up in one of the houses in the settlement had not been ruled out...
A further Jerusalem Post report indicates:
...A Bat Ayin resident who saw the younger boy running from the terrorist stepped in and disarmed the man.
"I saw a boy, aged 7 or 8, running past my house, and then I saw a 20-year-old man running after him," a man who identified himself as Avinoam told Channel 10. "I approached him, and he turned to me and tried to attack me with the axe."
"I grabbed his hand, we struggled, and I yelled for people to call for help and the police," he continued.
"At a certain point, I managed to get the axe out of his hand," Avinoam said. "I was on the ground, and at that point the man managed to escape.
"I heard a little later that somebody tried to shoot him but missed," he said. "I saw in his eyes the lust to kill. I didn't see what happened before I got outside, but I saw the wounded boy screaming, yelling to his mother that he was hurt."
Israel National News also reports on the attack and about the two boys assaulted:
Magen David Adom officials who rushed to the scene said that despite desperate attempts by paramedics to save his life, the soul of 13-year-old Shlomo Nativ slipped away shortly after the terrorist attacked him...
A second, younger boy who was also attacked suffered serious head wounds and was evacuated by helicopter to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center. A spokesperson for the hospital said that Yair Gamliel, who arrived fully conscious despite his grievous wounds, would soon undergo surgery to repair his broken skull. He is listed in serious, but stable condition...
Gush Etzion Regional Council head Shaul Goldstein denied that the terrorist was an Arab worker in the community. "No Arab workers are allowed in Bat Ayin," he explained, pointing out that the residents prefer to support Jewish labor.
| Add to: | | | del.icio.us | | | | BlinkList | | | | blogmarks | | | | Digg | | | | Furl | | | | | | | YahooMyWeb | | |
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Iran Is the Terrorist "Mother Regime": Prime Minister Netanyahu
The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens interviewed Benjamin Netanyahu in January, after the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead and before Israeli elections which resulted in Netanyahu's assent to the Prime Ministership. Stephens recorded these quotes in the context of the interview, including Netanyahu's assertion that Iran is the "mother regime" both of Hamas... and Hezbollah:
- "I don't think Israel can accept an Iranian terror base next to its major cities any more than the United States could accept an al-Qaeda base next to New York City."
- "Notwithstanding the blows to Hamas, it's still in Gaza, it's still ruling Gaza, and the Philadelphi corridor [which runs along Gaza's border with Egypt] is still porous, and... Hamas can smuggle new rockets unless it's closed, to fire at Israel in the future."
- Iran is the "mother regime" both of Hamas, against which Israel has just fought a war, as well as Hezbollah, against which it fought a war in 2006. "The arming of Iran with nuclear weapons may portend an irreversible process, because these regimes assume a kind of immortality....[This] will pose an existential threat to Israel directly, but also could give a nuclear umbrella to these terrorist bases."
- "Most of the approaches to peace between Israel and the Palestinians have been directed at trying to resolve the most complex problems, like refugees and Jerusalem, which is akin to building the pyramid from the top down. It's much better to build it layer by layer, in a deliberate, purposeful pattern that changes the reality for both Palestinians and Israelis."
- "We're not going to redivide Jerusalem, or get off the Golan Heights, or go back to the 1967 boundaries....We won't repeat the mistake...of unilateral retreats to merely vacate territory that is then taken up by Hamas or Iran."
- "Peace is purchased from strength. It's not purchased from weakness or unilateral retreats. It just doesn't happen that way. That perhaps is the greatest lesson that has been impressed on the mind of the Israeli public in the last few years."
No comments:
Post a Comment