WarSclerotic

Rocket fire increases; IDF may deploy Iron Dome next week.

As missile fire from the Gaza Strip escalated on Thursday, the IDF is preparing for the possible deployment of the Iron Dome counter-rocket defense system along Israel’s border with Gaza.

In late February, the Israeli Air Force held a test of the counter-rocket defense system, Iron Dome, which was supposed to serve as the final stage before declaring the system operational.

While a month has passed since then, the system is nowhere to be found despite the recent escalation and daily rocket and missile attacks against Israeli towns and cities in the South.

Officially, the IAF claims that even though the system successfully passed the final round of tests in February, it is still not ready for deployment. On the other hand, some defense officials have accused the IAF of getting cold feet and of refusing to deploy the system due to a fear that it might not work.

Iron Dome is designed to defend against rockets at a range of 4-70 km and each battery consists of a multimission radar manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries and three launchers, each equipped with 20 interceptors named Tamir.

The main problem is that the Defense Ministry has so far only purchased and received two Iron Dome batteries, each of which can protect an urban area of approximately 100 square kilometers.

Since the escalation in hostilities in the South, Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh has held a number of discussions with IAF and Operations Directorate representatives in an effort to speed up the deployment and begin to use the system to protect Israeli civilians.

On Thursday, the IDF decided to speed up the deployment of the system, possibly as early as next Sunday or Monday.

On the other hand, some defense officials warned Thursday of the ramifications of deploying the system without the ability to protect all of the cities and towns that are under missile fire. As a result, until there are more systems, the IDF will likely use the existing Iron Dome batteries to protect IAF bases in the South to retain the air force’s operational freedom in the event of a larger-scale conflict.

“If the system is, for example, deployed outside of Sderot than the terror groups will figure it out and begin firing at other cities that are not protected,” one defense official said. “This could potentially cause more harm than good.”

PM in Moscow questions Abbas’ desire to end conflict.

Amid the worst violence Israel has faced since he came to power two years ago, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in Moscow Thursday that it was not clear whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas genuinely wanted to end the conflict with Israel.

“Abu Mazen [Abbas] speaks pace to the world, but domestically there is incitement and education toward hate,” Netanyahu said. “And who do they blame? The settlers. That is not the problem; The first thing that needs to be discussed is the root of the problem: that the Palestinians don’t recognize our existence alongside them.”

The prime minister said it was “nonsense” to think that the major problem in the region was the construction of two homes on a street where 100 homes already exist. “The settlement issue needs to be discussed and decisions made,” Netanyahu said. “But for that we need to sit and talk.”

Netanyahu’s comments came during his 24-hour visit to Moscow that included meetings with President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavorv, and top Moscow-based Russian journalists.

Regarding Abbas, Netanyahu said it was quite possible the person Israel wanted to make peace with today, could disappear tomorrow. The Prime Minister also said it was not clear with whom Israel was supposed to reach an agreement.

“The Palestinian population is divided into two,” he said, using a line first introduced last week during an interview with CNN. “There are those who say openly they want to destroy Israel, and those who don’ say that, but refuse to stand up against those who do say it.”

Referring to the visit to Moscow this week by Abbas, Netanyahu said he had no doubt that the Palestinian leader “spoke here about peace. . He did the same in Brazil, and also on Channel One on Israel Television. But on Palestinian television , and in the Palestinian textbooks, he is not prepared to say that.

“It is time to tell that man, ‘enough’,” he said.

Referring to Wednesday’s bomb attack in Jerusalem, Netanyahu told the Russian journalists that they know what terrorism is, because it has hit Russian theaters and airports.

“We are talking about the same irrational Islamic radicalism,” he said. He then told a story of the 4th grade classmate of one of his sons who was killed a few years ago in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem. On the same street where the family lived at the time — Gaza Street – there were two attacks at around the same period, he said.

“I told my children, you are not leaving the house,” he said. “They replied, ‘what, we are not going to live normal lives.’ And I said that the reality was not normal. Then we built the security barrier to prevent the terrorists from blowing themselves up in our cites, and the Palestinians took us to the court in The Hague claiming we were carrying out war crimes. That is the crazy hypocrisy of the world.”

During the meetings in Russia — where some 30 million solders and civilians were killed in World War II — Netanyahu also focused on Iran, drawing comparisons between Hitler and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and arguing to the Russians that a nuclear Iran could very well attack them as well.

Saying that it is difficult for the world to understand the danger of a nuclear armed Iran, Netanyahu said it was also difficult in the 1930s for the world to understand the dangers of Nazism.

“That cursed government led to a disaster during which two-thirds of the Jewish people were killed, and 30 million Russian speakers. The madness is the same madness: for one it was race superiority, for the other religious superiority,” he said.

Netanyahu then compared Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei to Hitler, saying that while “‘Hitler first began conquering the world and then started to develop nuclear arms, Khamenei is going the opposite way.”

Understanding the Violence in Israel – By John Hannah – The Corner – National Review Online.

By John Hannah

One hopes that the Obama administration is connecting the dots in response to the sudden escalation of violence against Israel. Big Iranian weapons shipments seized off the coast of Gaza; an Israeli family of five slaughtered in their beds; a barrage of more than 90 rockets fired at Israeli population centers over the past few days. And yesterday’s horrific terrorist attack at a bus station in Jerusalem. These are not isolated events. Nor are they outbursts of random violence by otherwise peace-loving Palestinians driven to despair by a stalemated peace process.

On the contrary, these outrages are better understood as part of a strategic campaign by hardened terrorist groups, closely tied to Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, to divert attention from the popular uprisings that have targeted tyrannical governments across the Middle East. While feigning confidence in the face of Jasmine revolutions that have toppled pro-American autocrats, Iran’s mullahs know full well that the bell tolls for them, as the contagion of popular uprising now at work across Muslim lands threatens to reignite the Green Movement that in 2009 shook the Islamic Republic to its core.

Thousands of young people in Gaza and the West Bank have already taken to the streets in focused anger at the dueling despotisms of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. In Lebanon, the recently deposed prime minister, Saad Hariri, has rallied hundreds of thousands calling for Hezbollah’s disarmament. And most recently, of course, the tremors of the earthquake that is the Arab Spring have erupted in Syria, where the residents of a heretofore unknown border town named Daraa, are courageously calling their countrymen to challenge the Assad dynasty and bring an end to Syria’s long Baathist nightmare.

Add to all this a U.S.-led military intervention on behalf of a Libyan revolt that threatens to topple Moammar Qaddafi, one of the charter members of the Middle East’s league of terrorist-sponsoring totalitarians, and you’ve got an awfully compelling reason for Iran, Syria, and their allies to want to change the subject as fast as possible. The easiest way to do that, of course, has always been to trigger a major dustup with Israel, preferably one that leaves in its wake as many innocent Palestinian or Lebanese corpses as possible. It’s the oldest ruse in the playbook, a murderous attempt to draw the moths of the international media back to the light of Palestinian suffering, and redirect the anger of mobilized Muslim masses away from their current laser-like focus on the brutal and ruinous regimes that rule over them.

One fervently hopes that this transparently cynical gambit will fail. As many others have remarked, for all their individual differences, the dozen or so mass movements that have emerged across the Middle East over the past three months have all been distinguished by the near total absence of anti-American or anti-Zionist sentiment. Even in the Palestinian territories, the issue has been less Palestine and more the pathological inadequacies of their own governing structures that make normal civic life largely unbearable.

But relying on the political maturity and sophistication of angry young Arab protesters will likely not be enough. American leadership and a strong U.S.-Israeli alliance are also essential. The Obama administration should, of course, be loudly condemning the Palestinian attacks. But it should also be working tirelessly to condition world public opinion and the international media to the pattern, context, and aims of this terrorist campaign, especially as it relates to the sabotaging of the Arab Spring. The Syrian regime, in particular, should be put on notice privately that we’re wise to its efforts to use Palestinian surrogates to create a diversion, at the same time that we turn up the heat publicly on the atrocities being committed by Assad’s forces in Daraa. Such a public diplomacy campaign will also help establish the legitimacy and necessity of Israel’s inevitable effort to defend itself, preserve its deterrent, and degrade Palestinian terrorist capabilities.

For its part, Israeli retaliation should, to the extent possible, avoid playing into the extremists’ hands. Israeli strikes should aim to do as much damage as possible against terrorist targets, inflicting maximum pain with minimal civilian casualties in as brief a time as possible. Yes, I know, much easier said than done at a time when tens of thousands of Israel’s people are being targeted by rockets on a daily basis. That said, while it may eventually become unavoidable, it’s hard to see at this point how Israel’s interests would be best served by another long, drawn-out ground conflict in Gaza, especially given the larger strategic transformation at work across the broader region — which, there is no doubt, now has the biggest enemies of Israel and America across the Middle East scared. Very scared. The Obama administration should be doing everything in its power to keep it that way.

— John Hannah is a former national-security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Israeli alarm grows amid Arab upheaval – UPI.com.

TEL AVIV, Israel, March 24 (UPI) — Amid a surge of terrorist attacks in recent days, Israelis are bracing for an escalation in violence and possibly a new invasion of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

There are strong suspicions, and not just in Israel, that Iran is seeking to provoke a confrontation as the Arab world is battered by unprecedented political upheaval that has brought about the downfall of two presidents since January and now threatens others.

As it is, Israelis are becoming increasingly concerned that the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Feb. 11 could lead to the unraveling of their 1979 peace treaty with Cairo, the core element of the Jewish state’s strategic outlook.

The turmoil in the Arab world also threatens stability in Jordan and the 1994 peace pact it signed. If the Hashemite monarchy crumbles, Israel would find itself again bordered by hostile Arab states.

The peace treaties are widely reviled by the general population in both countries and new regimes could respond to that and shatter the political stability in those states that has helped keep the peace, however cold it may be.

“This is a reason for concern, primarily because of the potential for an epidemic,” said Oded Eran, director of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies and a former Israeli ambassador to Amman. “We cannot afford dramatic change in Egypt or Jordan.”

Israelis’ abiding fear is that the upheaval will result in Islamist radicals taking power, or at least produce unfriendly regimes that aren’t willing to tolerate Israel’s war against terrorism.

“This is not like Eastern Europe in the late 1980s,” cautioned Eyal Zisser of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies in Tel Aviv.

“This is not a region where stable dictatorships can be replaced with stable democracies. Here the alternative means chaos, anarchy and radicalism.”

Mubarak, who fought Islamist extremists tooth and nail, aided Israel by blockading Gaza, where Hamas militants unleashed rockets into Israel and carried out other attacks.

He looked the other way when Israeli forces invaded the coastal strip in December 2008 and fought a 22-day war against heavily outnumbered Hamas fighters, killing some 1,400 people, mainly civilians, in the face of intense international criticism.

If Israel is contemplating invading Gaza again, it is unlikely in the extreme that the transitional military regime in Cairo will be able to live with that.

The recent upswing in violence began March 11 when five members of an Israeli family were killed, apparently by Palestinians, in their home in the West Bank settlement of Itmar.

On March 19, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired 54 Grad rockets and mortar shells at the southern cities of Beersheba and Ashdod, the heaviest barrage since Operation Cast Lead, the 2008 invasion of Gaza.

No deaths were reported but the Palestinian media quoted the Islamic Jihad group, which has close links with Tehran, as saying the salvo signaled a new campaign of attacking Israeli population centers.

Israel retaliated with airstrikes that killed a Hamas official.

Then Wednesday, a bomb exploded in Jerusalem, killing a 60-year-old woman and wounding 39 other people. It was the first terrorist attack in the holy city since 2008, which for several years was battered by a relentless Hamas suicide bombing offensive.

Compared to earlier bombings Wednesday’s was relatively minor but it shook Israelis badly by rekindling the terror of the suicide attacks.

Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom declared the army “may have to consider a return” to a new operation into Gaza. “I say this despite the fact that I know such a thing would, of course, bring the region to a far more combustible situation,” he said.

Iran has been blamed for covertly inciting riots in Bahrain, a Sunni-led Persian Gulf state where the majority of the population is Shiite. There are fears the trouble will spread to Saudi Arabia itself, as it has to Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, all major oil producers.

Iran’s main proxy in the Levant, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, brought down the pro-Western government in Beirut in January and is now forming a new government that is ringing alarm bells in Israel.

Hezbollah fought Israel’s military to a standstill in a 34-day war in 2006. Both sides have been bracing for another bout.

Maan News Agency: Netanyahu plays up Iran threat in Russia.

Published today (updated) 24/03/2011 20:01

Should Israel Prepare for War in the Middle East?.

The violence in Gaza is escalating. In the wake of a terrorist attack in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Palestinian militants continued firing rockets into southern Israel. Israel launched new airstrikes in Gaza.

Islamic Jihad, a Middle Eastern terrorist group, claimed responsibility for Thursday’s rocket fire. However, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the nation holds Hamas, a Sunni Muslim extremist group that won free elections in the Gaza Strip in 2006, responsible. Hamas said it wants to “restore calm” and would not attack. And Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it clear that the nation will not be passive about terrorism.

Terrorism is nothing new to David Rubin, former mayor of Shiloh, Israel. Rubin was driving home from a dentist appointment with his three-year-old son, Ruby, when Palestinian terrorists opened fire on the vehicle just outside Ramallah many years ago. One tracer bullet hit Rubin in the leg. Another hit little Ruby in the back of the head. Doctors said surviving the drive-by shooting was a miracle.

Charisma magazine caught up with Rubin, author of the Islamic Tsunami, to get his perspectives on what these new attacks against Israel mean in light of the unrest in the Middle East and whether or not Israel should prepare for war.

Charisma: What’s your reaction to Wednesday’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem?

Rubin: It was bound to happen sooner or later. The Israeli army reserved the right to enter all of the Palestinian autonomous cities whenever necessary and has been doing that. Therefore, the Palestinian’s ability to create bomb and weapons factories has been greatly reduced. As far as launching terrorist attacks, that makes it a lot harder.

Charisma: But that has changed with the revolution in Egypt. The border between Egypt and Gaza is no longer as secure. So what’s the reality?

Rubin: Israel is a little country the size of Delaware. We can’t afford to look at situations through rose-colored glasses. We have to recognize the reality for what it is. What we see all around us is a continuation of the Islamic revolution. The question in the Islamic world is, who is going to head the Islamic tsunami? Will it be the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia or the Shiites as represented by Iran? That is really what is going on in the Middle East today.

Charisma: How much of the timing of the terrorist attack in Jerusalem is connected with the Egyptian revolution?

Rubin: It’s a continuation of the extremism in the Islamic world. The Islamic terrorist groups in the Islamic world gain popularity by how many terrorist attacks they are able to carry out. So the efforts are clearly going to be there more and more.

It didn’t make the news in a lot of places around the world, but there was an Israeli family in Samaria that a little over a week ago, on Sabbath night, had terrorists come into their home and kill three of the children—all under 11 years of age—and both the parents. There were three other children who survived the attack.  After the attack, their bodies were cut up into pieces. They were totally butchered.

This is very common in the Islamic world. People don’t like to face up to this barbarity because the implications are too unpleasant, but that is what we’re facing here. The so-called Palestinians, who are basically the Muslims of the land of Israel, look at the world very differently.  They don’t look at things through Western eyes.

For a while the terrorists were keeping kind of quiet partially because, as I said, the Israeli army was preventing it, but also because it was in their interest. They felt they were going to get an independent Palestinian state, which would be a terrorist state in the heartland of Israel.

Recently, it seems like those chances have been diminished. Israel is starting to wake up to the fact that there is no real partner for peace there and, as result, the terrorist groups are starting to compete again to see who can launch the most attacks.

I predict that there is going to be an increase in terrorist attacks against Israel in the days to come.

Charisma: Do you expect a war in the Middle East?

Rubin: Absolutely. There is not a question. It’s certainly coming. There has been a pattern in recent years. It used to be that when terrorist launched attacks, Israel would respond—and respond disproportionately so the terrorists would know immediately that you just don’t do that. In the recent years since the so-called peace process started, Israel has been very wary about attacking and responding in a strong way. That’s a big problem because it’s hurt our deterrence.

Instead of letting the Palestinians launch 50 mortar attacks and then just respond with a few rockets, Israel needs to respond twice as hard. Every time they attack, we attack twice as hard. It’s just basic common sense. But up to this point, it is not happening. And because of that, the terrorists are encouraged. They continue. They raise the ante. They increase the terrorism. As result of that, it’s going to lead to a war because ultimately we’re going to have to fight back and hit back hard.

Israel’s war and peace – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Shaul Mofaz says Israel needs to end Hamas rule in Gaza, strive for real peace process

Shaul Mofaz

In recent days, the State of Israel has been under a murderous terror offensive. This reality of bombs and missiles at our cities is intolerable. We shall never reconcile ourselves to a reality where children are murdered while sleeping. We shall never reconcile ourselves to a reality where missiles, rockets and mortar shells are fired at our territory and threaten our citizens and children. We must not accept a reality where schools in Eshkol, Beersheba and Ashdod remain closed.

Our children in Jerusalem, Beersheba, Itamar and Gaza-region communities deserve the same level of security enjoyed by our children in Tel Aviv. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda cannot divide Israel along boundaries determined by missile ranges.The continuation of this terror offensive must prompt us to undertake strategic action to end Hamas’ rule in Gaza. This is not about directing meaningful fire at open spaces, and we must not only focus on the rocket launching cells.

We must carry out methodical, ceaseless operations against anyone affiliated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Terror group members cannot be divided into operatives and a “back office.” The lives of anyone associated with Hamas and terrorism must become an inseparable part of the equation involving attacks on Israeli communities.

Should the State of Israel fail to root out terror hotbeds in the Gaza Strip, terrorism will only grow. We must not allow Hamas to drag us into a war of attrition. We shall not be hostages in the hands of terror and we shall not let those who fire missiles determine our daily routine. Israel has the means to curb this terror. This is what we did at the height of the suicide bombing wave in 2002. Under the lead of then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, we struck the terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria. The results of Operation Defensive Shield are apparent to this day. We have now reached the moment of decision in the Gaza Strip as well.

Time working against us

Since the early days of Zionism, the State of Israel has been facing three major theaters. The first one is the terror front, which hit us this week. This terror is brutal, unrestrained and lacks morality and humanity.

The second front is the international theater. There too we’ve been contending, for more than 100 years now, with arguments that undermine our very right to live and exist in this country. On this front, we are facing an unprecedented nadir. In the past two years, the Israeli government has been prompting growing international isolation. It is a government that adheres to the notion of “sit and do nothing.” Unequivocally, the diplomatic impasse facilitates international isolation and a difficult, painful confrontation. Our ability to contend with terror effectively is decreasing in the face of a deep de-legitimization process. The third front is domestic, and here we see the conspicuous inability of our leaders over the years to take a decision on Israel’s permanent borders. Here too, for more than two years now, the Netanyahu government has done nothing. Speeches are not enough and plans are insufficient. A government must execute, lead and make difficult decisions. Prime Minister Netanyahu is an utter failure in this respect. This failure is tying the defense establishment’s hands in its war on terror. Netanyahu’s inaction is prominent, yet he is not alone. Past Israeli governments partly attempted to contend with these issues and failed. In the early 1990s, we saw the failure of the diplomatic process, because the terror infrastructure was not thoroughly addressed simultaneously. In recent years we are experiencing the opposite process – a war on terror that is not accompanied by a diplomatic horizon. These two processes are destined to fail if they are not integrated.The time has come to show responsibility and say in a clear voice that only a combination of an uncompromising war on terror alongside the start of a genuine diplomatic process will ensure our existence as a Jewish democratic state. On one hand, we must strike the terror groups that wish to exterminate us and fight them mercilessly, without hypocrisy or doublespeak.

On the other hand, we must raise the banner of peace, embark on a diplomatic process with the Palestinian Authority and with the Syrians, and secure Israel’s final-status borders once and for all. The need to take such action is growing in the face of the current Mideastern earthquake.

The Netanyahu government lacks the will, intention and political ability to take us there. Time is working against us, and our security and diplomatic situation is worsening every day.

Enough of this; the time has come to take action. This is the only way to secure our nation.

Knesset Member Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) is the chairman of the Knesset’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee

Candidly Speaking: Get tough with Hamas now.

These are indeed difficult times requiring painful decisions over issues such as how to placate the Obama administration in order to forestall a breakdown in US-Israel relations and avoid international efforts to force us to revert to the 1949 armistice lines.

But when it comes to matters of defense, there are clear lessons to be learned from the past.

Yet, in addition to Wednesday’s monstrous attack opposite the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, there is a horrible sense of déjà vu as we observe the rapid escalation of Hamas missile launches which had been reduced as a byproduct of Operation Cast Lead.

One is even tempted to compare the current situation with what happened 10 years ago when the crude and limited-range Kassam rockets were first launched against us and contemptuously dismissed by leaders as primitive missiles with little capacity to incur serious damage or casualties.

In a Jerusalem Post column at the time, I predicted that if we avoided tough measures to curtail these “primitive” rocket attacks, the international community would become accustomed to regarding Palestinian missile launches against our civilians as the norm.

When the government would ultimately be obliged to act, a world accustomed to Israeli passivity against such attacks, would accuse us of over-reacting.

Unfortunately, that is precisely what happened. Each time we responded, we were accused of disproportionality.

Moreover, the situation deteriorated to such an extent that we were left with no alternative but to mount a full scale war against Hamas in Gaza for which the international community condemned us.

IT IS thus alarming to observe the government again prevaricating, issuing empty threats and bombing primarily empty buildings in Gaza in response to increasing attacks.

This has climaxed in recent weeks, with 50 missiles raining down over the Negev over the weekend and the deployment of lethal Iranian grad rockets. Israelis living in the southern region were destabilized and a few were even injured.

Moreover, this is the first time that instead of trying to blame “unauthorized groups,” Hamas felt sufficiently confident to brazenly accept direct responsibility for the missile launches.

Yet, according to media reports, the security establishment relates to these outrageous breaches of international law and attacks on Israeli civilians as “low level confrontation” and reassures us that Hamas was not seeking a “major” conflict. And when civilians located adjacent to rocket-launching areas became casualties we once again apologize rather than condemning those responsible.

Obviously, the deterrent established in the wake of Operation Cast Lead “is eroding rapidly and we are again reconciling ourselves to large areas of Israel being subjected to “low level” missile attacks without reacting with tough military responses.

We should be under no illusions. Limiting our responses in order to meet Western expectations of “proportionality” serves no purpose. The lesson learned from Cast Lead was that any action we undertake to defend ourselves will at best be condemned as disproportionate but more likely as war crimes. One need only compare the absence of international criticism to the innocent casualties from Western bombardments in Libya in contrast to the cynical and hypocritical condemnations of Israel during Cast Lead, despite the far greater efforts of the IDF to minimize civilian casualties.

A MAJOR motivation for the attacks by the Iranian proxy Hamas is undoubtedly to divert attention from Iran’s internal problems and its ongoing nuclear project. There is also the desire by Hamas leaders to deflect domestic public opposition to their rule. But above all, Hamas is testing our resolve and seeking to identify to what extent we will remain restrained because of our concern not to antagonize or embarrass the Americans who are pressuring us not to be “spoilers” during this period of turmoil sweeping the Arab world.

This is surely one time when we must demand that our prime minister display decisive leadership, gather his cabinet and insist this will be one of the rare occasions when all ministers must display unity and speak with one voice, proclaiming to the world that failing to employ deterrence is a prescription for disaster.

The opposition should be co-opted to create a united front and there is little doubt that Kadima supporters will demand that the party support such a policy.

Our embassies must be instructed to inform all nations that we will remain neither passive nor act with restraint. If Hamas continues launching lethal missiles against our civilians, we will severely punish them. We should emphasize that we seek quiet and stability on our borders. But if our citizens are targeted once again, not by terrorist splinter groups but by Hamas, which has exclusive jurisdiction over Gaza, it will be made to pay a bitter price. We will resume targeted assassinations and, while endeavoring to minimize civilian casualties, will be obliged to inflict massive reprisals on its infrastructure.

WE MUST make it clear in advance that Israel will no longer adhere to the tit-for-tat formula and that we will respond with overwhelming force, not because we seek revenge but in order to deter future attacks. This is not behaving disproportionately but is rather striving to employ deterrence to protect our civilians and avoid a new full-scale conflict. Such behavior is fully consistent with international law and our obligation to defend our citizens from outright aggression.

The time to bite the bullet is now. If we fail to reinforce deterrence immediately, the long-term price may be far more severe than any worldwide condemnations that will result.

We will be adopting a moral position which will undoubtedly be condemned by those with no love for Israel. But any country seeking to deny our government the right to protect its civilians will stand exposed as malicious hypocrites.

Ideally, this strategy may serve to stabilize the borders and avoid another war. On the other hand, if Hamas has a desire for martyrdom, we will be obliged to once again confront them full on. I am no military strategist, but it would surely be preferable for us to face this situation now, before Hamas manages to acquire more deadly weaponry that will undoubtedly reach Gaza under a future Egyptian regime.

We would also be in a better position to confront the terrorists today, prior to the stabilization of the new Arab governments – which are likely to be even more hostile to us than their predecessors.

A short response to Rabbi Marc Schneier

Contrary to Rabbi Schneier’s assertion, I support Muslim-Jewish dialogue – with the caveat that the Muslim partner is willing to unequivocally condemn terror and global Islamic excesses.

Yet Schneier’s principal partner and sponsor is Russell Simmons, the hip-hop mogul who idolizes Louis Farrakhan, the vile anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam.

Schneier boasts of his association with the Islamic Society of North America [ISNA]. He fails to mention that it was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, has a long history of promoting fundamentalism and anti-Semitism, and remains an unindicted coconspirator for financing Hamas.

Of late, ISNA portrays itself as moderate, and occasionally issues statements condemning terrorist excesses. Yet at its conference it featured speakers spewing anti-Semitism, supporting Hezbollah and endorsing books which compared Israelis with Nazis, backed Hamas and promoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

This body essentially represents a component of the Wahhabi lobby in the US. It should not qualify as a body with which any reputable Jewish leader should be associated, and it is thus a disgrace that Schneier lends his name to legitimizing such an organization.

Schneier alleges that he enjoys the support of the World Jewish Congress. Yet the WJC secretarygeneral Michael Schneider informs me that Schneier was notified that he could not speak on behalf of the WJC at the New York demonstration against Peter King’s proposed public hearings on radicalization of the Muslim community in the US. The WJC also declined to join his board, and does not fund him.

When Schneier proclaims “today I am a Muslim too,” the least he should do is call on his Muslim associates to condemn the anti-Semitism, persecution, murder, religious cleansing and denial of human rights to non-Muslims that prevail in many Islamic states.

ileibler@netvision.net.il

Iran Announces Launch of Its Unmanned Flying Saucer | Before It’s News.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 6:21

 

Break out the foil hats: Iran has built a UFO.

This photo accompanies an actual news release from Iranian news service Fars, which claims the Islamic Republic has built a flying saucer.

Of course, it’s possible Iran’s news agents chose to illustrate their announcement with a screen shot from a 1950s B movie. But the Fars News Service does not explain the photo’s origin, simply stating that the flying saucer was unveiled in a special ceremony.

The ship is called Zohal — Saturn in Persian — and is designed for aerial imaging. Zohal has a data downlink and can fly in both indoor and outdoor spaces, according to the Fars News Service. The Daily Mail points out that Fars is a hard-line state-run news service. But with this photo, we can’t help but think of the homophone farce instead.

The news release states that “the flying machine is equipped with an auto-pilot system, GPS (Global Positioning System) and two separate imaging systems with full HD 10 mega-pixel picture quality and is able to take and send images simultaneously.”

But is Zohal actually a little “cuadrotour” drone? Another news release, from the perhaps more reliable Iranian Students’ News Agency, shows a picture of a quadrocopter grasping what looks like an old-school Pentax. The news release says that this, instead, is Zohal.

But again, this photo’s origin is unclear. SUAS News, which covers the UAV community, says this is a DraganFlyer X6. “We doubt very much that the Canadian company has sold airframes to Iran knowingly,” reports SUAS’ Gary Mortimer.

So which one is it?

IEEE Spectrum’s Automaton blog points out that Iran may indeed have built a Coanda-effect UAV, which looks like a flying saucer. The plate-shaped UAV has a rotor at the top that thrusts air downward, providing lift and thrust.

Assad mulls lifting state of emergency amid Syria protests – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Assad’s adviser accuses Israel and the United States of indirect and direct interference with Syria’s internal affairs, warns against the interference by exterior forces.

By Jack Khoury and News Agencies

The Syrian government said it will consider lifting a state of emergency in place since 1963 and is moving to allow greater political freedoms in response to days of unrest in a southern city.

Presidential adviser Buthaina Shaaban, speaking in a press conference Thursday, said the government is drafting a law that would allow political parties besides the ruling Baath party. She told reporters that President Bashar Assad’s government will begin studying a possible ending to the emergency laws and put in place mechanisms for fighting corruption.

	Syrian President Bashar Assad at a news conference in Sofia on Nov. 9, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

At the press conference, Shaaban warned against the interference by exterior forces with Syria’s internal affairs. She accused Israel and the United States of indirect and direct interference with Syria’s internal affairs and firm support for “resistance groups.”

Shaaban firmly rejected publications that claimed Hezbollah and Iran are supporting the government in coping with “the rioters,” as she defined them, describing the publications as ridiculous.

In an additional effort to appease the public, Shaaban said President Assad ordered the formation of a committee to raise living standards, and promised higher salaries for public servants.

The pledges appear unlikely to satisfy protesters in the southern city of Daraa after a violent crackdown that killed what many say are dozens of demonstrators.

Shaaban said Assad did not order security forces to fire at the protesters.