WarSclerotic

IDF begins to shift forces south as rocket fire continues – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Officials says Hamas behind rocket fire at Israel, claims attack is in retribution for death of Palestinian teen Wednesday; as IDF prepare for possible Gaza operation.

Yoav Zitun

The IDF has begun shifting forces to the Gaza area, in preparation of a possible escalation in the conflict with Hamas. Israel believes Hamas was directly behind the massive rocket fire at Israel Thursday morning which saw more than 11 rockets slam into Israel, with three hitting residential structures and causing damage.

According to an official source within the defense establishment, Hamas has begun firing rockets itself in retribution for what the death of Mohammed Abu Khder, a Palestinian youth who was found dead in a Jerusalem forest Wednesday.

Police are investigating the possibility he was killed by Jews as a revenge attack for the murder of the three Israeli teens who were presumed to have been kidnapped but were discovered dead Monday in a West Bank valley.

The IDF began preparing for an escalation in the south and artillery forces training in other regions were transferred to the Gaza area. Though the forces were not large in number, they give the IDF the ability to quickly respond and embark on a larger operation, should it decide to do so.

A senior IDF official said that the IDF was “preparing for a wider operation in Gaza,” and Palestinians have reported that Israeli warships across from Gaza’s shores also seem to be preparing. It is possible the shift in forces is intended as a warning to Hamas.

It is far from certain that the IDF is planning to undertake a massive ground operation. Though both sides have expressed a desire not to escalate the situation, should rocket fire increase in scope and range or exact heavy causalities, the military will be forced to lock horns with Hamas.

Hamas rockets

Last Monday saw the first rocket attack by Hamas since the end of Operation Pillar of Defense ended in 2012, with a wave of attacks overnight Sunday and early Monday emanating from central Gaza refugee camps completely under Hamas control.

There a number of Palestinian factions active in Gaza and though Israel views Hamas as responsible for any rockets fired from the Gaza territory, the group generally avoids such direct attacks on Israel.

Hamas men in Gaza (Photo: EPA)

Ynet’s senior national security corresponded, Ron Ben-Yishai, claimed the current round of escalation had yet to reach its zenith: “We can still stop the Gaza escalation, but it currently seems unlikely. The fear is that tensions will spill into riots in Jerusalem which will further spread out.

“The norm is that before you take things one step up – you give some form of notice. The IDF needs to send the Palestinians the message that they are preparing themselves for the next escalation, whether it is a large operation or even an incursion into Gaza.”

Since the Pillar of Defense ended, the majority of rockets fired at Israel – currently standing at over 200 in 2014 alone – have been launched by either the Islamic Jihad or the Popular Resistance Committees. At time, smaller Salafist groups have also fired rockets or carried out attacks at Israel.

The fact that Hamas – which recently signed a controversial reconciliation agreement with Palestinian President Abbas’ Fatah movement – is behind the attack could mean the group has chosen to escalate its response to Israel’s retaliatory attacks.

Over ten rockets slammed into Israel overnight Wednesday and Thursday morning, with four of them hitting homes in Sderot. The last two struck a house in the city which hosted a summer camp and another residence. The rocket that penetrated the structure used as a camp failed to explode and no one was injured.

Three rockets exploded in populated areas in Sderot overnight Thursday, while one of them hit a student’s apartment in the city and the other exploded adjacent to an apartment building. Yet another rocket slammed into a wall of an outdoor rocket shelter, fracturing it. Some four people suffered anxiety as a result of the barrage.

In addition, two rockets from the morning barrage were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system and the others landed in open areas in Sdot Negev and Bnei Shimon in the northern Negev, apart from one that hit a greenhouse in the area.

About two hours following the barrage of rockets, the IAF attacked 15 Hamas terror targets in the Gaza Strip, including concealed rocket launchers, training compounds and weapon-storage facilities.

The IAF also struck rocket-launching terrorist cells in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday. The attack was carried out after a volley of rockets was fired on Wednesday afternoon at western Negev communities, continuing a general escalation in tensions. Direct hits were confirmed on all targets.

Iraq and Iran: A plague on both their houses | JPost | Israel News.

By ZALMAN SHOVAL

07/02/2014 21:32

This is a death struggle between two competing forces for overall geopolitical superiority and hegemony in the Middle East.

There is a hard and fast rule in the Middle East: always expect the unexpected. The, so far, successful “Blitzkrieg” of the radical Sunni Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a case in point – but so were others before: the creation of al-Qaida and its ability to attack the US on its home ground, was one, the “Arab Spring” and its chaotic consequences for the whole region (though, to its credit, Israeli intelligence took a less panglossian view than most in the West) was another. And now it is ISIS and what looks like the rapid unraveling of Iraq, albeit the implications of the mayhem there and in Syria are unfortunately much wider.

As Professor Louis René Beres of Purdue University put it in a recent article, the ongoing turmoil in Iraq and Syria “signals potentially catastrophic regional transformations” which could lead to chaos all over the Middle East – with plausibly dramatic consequences for the security of all states in the region, or even beyond. ISIS, though similar in its Islamist ideology and outlook to other jihadist organizations around the Muslim world, is different in one important respect: its aim is not merely to supplant the regimes in various countries, but to erase national borders altogether and create a radical Sunni caliphate in their place, first in Syria and Iraq, then in the rest of the Middle East – and later in North Africa and parts of Europe.

ISIS’s next target could be Jordan which, in spite of its generally effective military capabilities, may be deemed especially vulnerable due to its own home-grown Islamist elements and because among the hundreds of thousands of refugees which have entered the country since the beginning of the Syrian rebellion, there may be more than a few who are sympathetic to ISIS’s cause. The threat to Jordan, among other things, once again underscores the importance of Israel as America’s only firm strategic ally in the region – and the significance to both, as well as to others in the region, of their defense-related ties.

In this connection, it is clear that Israel, of course, cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the turmoil in Iraq and elsewhere – not only because of ISIS’s ideological expansionist designs on itself, but more concretely, because Israel’s own optimal “strategic depth” is the eastern border of its Jordanian neighbor. It is in this context that one must also regard Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s announced plan for constructing a security fence all along the Jordan Valley. Though this may not be popular, it should be pointed out that this, whatever the outcome, is bound to have also financial implications, i.e. Israel’s defense budget will probably have to be increased again, above and beyond the recent NIS 1 billion increase – meaning that either taxes will have to be raised or other budgetary allocations cut.

Obviously, this new configuration of jihadism will also impact America’s efforts to combat Islamist terrorism; while up until now those efforts mainly focused on eradicating disparate terrorist groups in the not-always-coherent al-Qaida network, the US will now have to reckon also with the territorial aspects of jihadism, which may necessitate measures quite different from those employed until now, potentially including the kind of outright military steps which the Obama administration had been eager to avoid.

Be that as it may, the crisis in Iraq, and indeed the ongoing violence in Syria, are not the sort of civil wars the Middle East has known for ages, nor just a religious bloodbath between Shi’ites and Sunnis – but a “to the death” struggle between two competing forces for overall geopolitical superiority and hegemony in the Middle East as a whole – a struggle in which Shi’ite Iran is playing an increasingly important role.

One probable reason for the growth of ISIS was the West’s failure to sufficiently support, with arms and money, the non-Islamist rebels against the Assadists in Syria, as a result of which the Islamist rebels gained the upper hand. Turkey also must bear part of the blame. By allowing ISIS to proliferate across its border with Syria and allowing it easy access to all the battlefields there, Ankara now pays a steep price, including in economic terms, for the chaos it helped to create. Soli Ozel, a Turkish political analyst, has described the rapid fall of Mosul in Iraq to the ISIS insurgents as “the epitome of the failure of Turkish foreign policy over the last four years,” a failure which, not to forget, also included its strained relations with its natural allies, the US and Israel.

Though late, but hopefully not too late to cope with the rapidly expanding crisis, which the US now realizes, also affects vital American interests, including, but not only, oil – Washington is weighing different options regarding how to deal with it in both political and military terms.

Astoundingly, there are those who favor cooperating with Iran in order to bolster the disintegrating military forces of Baghdad’s Shi’ite rulers – or in the words of US Secretary of State Kerry: “the Obama administration is willing to talk with Iran…. And is not ruling out potential US-Iranian military cooperation in stemming the advances of Sunni extremists,” explaining that the US was “open to discussions if there is something constructive that can be contributed by Iran.”

There were also rumors that in his recent meeting in Geneva with the Iranian delegation to the nuclear talks, US Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns raised the possibility of cooperation with Iran on the Iraqi situation. For appearance’s sake the Iranians seem to be playing hard to get, though they better than anyone else realize that any role ascribed to them in Iraq by the Americans would be a significant boost to their geopolitical ambitions – not only with regard to propping up their client government in Baghdad, but more importantly also to their strategic designs in the region as a whole. In connection with this, Republican Senator John McCain has commented: “The reality is, US and Iranian interests and goals do not align in Iraq, and greater Iranian intervention would only make the situation worse – the United States should be seeking to minimize greater Iranian involvement in Iraq right now, not encouraging it.” Indeed, the idea of cooperating with Iran (!) must be deemed both illogical and immoral.

It is clear that any warming of the US-Iranian relationship – and this would be the inevitable result of an America-Iranian synergy in Iraq – will grant the Ayatollah regime greater scope for its nefarious activities in the region, as well as against its own people, just as it would automatically strengthen its hand in the nuclear talks with the “five plus one” (US, Russia, China, Britain, France plus Germany) – and open the door to a permanent Iranian military presence in Iraq. This in turn would, among other things, result in a growing threat to the security and integrity of both Jordan and Israel- while Iran’s proxy in Lebanon and Syria, Hezbollah, which aroused a great deal of antagonism among Arab peoples around the region because of its involvement in the Syrian tragedy on behalf of President Bashar Assad – would get a new lease on life from Iran’s enhanced position. Furthermore, Washington’s traditional Sunni allies in the region, though alarmed by ISIS, would not look very favorably on the US aligning itself with a Shi’ite Iran whose ambitions threaten their basic interests, perhaps their very existence.

The threat posed by ISIS must, indeed, be stopped – and the US has the means to do this – but none of this justifies a counterproductive and immoral decision to join forces with Iran.

This isn’t a case of “good guys” and “bad guys” – both being equally bad in this case – but with one of them, Iran, racing towards attaining nuclear arms, threatening genocide against another country, making an all-out effort to undermine the interests of the US and its allies in the region – and directing and funding its own brand of terrorism around the world. If ever there was a case of “a plague on both their houses,” this is it.

There are no easy answers. One would, however, like to trust American policy makers to be sufficiently prescient to make the right decisions.

Though the situation in Iraq indeed seems increasingly chaotic, complete disaster may still be avoided by decisive American action – in fact, this would be precisely the sort of situation President Barack Obama referred to in his recent West Point speech, justifying unilateral actions where American vital interests were involved.

The author is a former Ambassador to the United States.

Gaza rocket salvo hits Israel’s south – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Morning barrage causes damages to apartment, greenhouse and rocket shelter in Sderot as IAF respond to ongoing rocket fire with air attacks in Gaza.

Ilana Curiel, Matan Tzuri

Over ten rockets and mortars slammed into Israel overnight Wednesday. Two were shot down by the Iron Dome missile defense system and the others landed in open areas; damage was caused and some four people suffered anxiety. A military source said Hamas is directly behind the attack.

The rockets came amid mounting tensions throughout Israel and the Palestinian territories. On Monday, the bodies of the three missing Israeli teens, presumed kidnapped by Hamas, were found dead in a West Bank valley, and ongoing rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled enclave has hit the south in the past week.

In wake of the discovery of the teens’ bodies, a possible revenge killing against an Arab teen took place Wednesday. The possible revenge

murder of Mohammad Abu Khdei, 16, sparked massive rioting in the West Bank. Tensions have further been strained by far-right Israelis who have called for exacting revenge for the missing teens.

Three rockets exploded in populated areas in Sderot overnight Thursday, while one of them hit a student’s apartment in the city and the other exploded adjacent to an apartment building. Yet another rocket slammed into a wall of a outdoor rocket shelter, fracturing it. Another rocket hit a greenhouse in the southern city. More than 20 rockets were fired at southern communities on Thursday.

Sderot Mayor Alon Davidi said: “The city suffered two attacks on its territory. One of the rockets fell in front of a building, hitting the road and sending shrapnel into cars and electricity poles, which resulted in a power outage in parts of neighborhood. Miraculously, there were no casualties.”

About two hours following the barrage of rockets, the IAF attacked 15 Hamas terror targets in the Gaza Strip, including concealed rocket launchers, training compounds and weapon-storage facilities.

Building Damaged in Sderot Rocket Attack – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva.

( 8:30 AM – more sirens in Sderot. – JW )

Aftermath of rocket attack (illustration)

Kassam rocket fire continued to rain down on southern Israel Thursday morning, as at least six rockets fired by Gaza Arab terrorists hit areas within Israel. Two of the rockets fired Thursday morning were deflected by Iron Dome missiles. The others fell in open areas. No injuries or damage were reported.

Overnight Thursday, several other rockets hit Israel, with one causing damage to a building in Sderot. No one was injured in that attack, and electricity was cut off to several buildings in the area. The Red Alert warning system sounded several times during the early hours of Thursday morning.

In response to the rocket attacks, IDF forces struck early Thursday in Gaza. Gaza sources reported several injuries in the IDF strike.

The security cabinet met again Wednesday night to discuss the current security situation. The cabinet has yet to announce any decisions about the situation in Gaza or the fierce rioting in Jerusalem Wednesday in the wake of the discovery of the body of an Arab teen earlier Wednesday.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Message as Caliph, Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, July 2, 2014

“[F]ear Allah as he should be feared and do not die except as Muslims…. Go forth, O mujahidin in the path of Allah. Terrify the enemies of Allah and seek death…. for the dunyā [worldly life] will come to an end, and the hereafter will last forever.” — Abu Bakr al-Husayni al-Baghdadi, Caliph, “The Islamic State” [aka ISIS]

Marking the beginning of Ramadan, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of “the Islamic State” (formerly ISIS: the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) and declared Caliph Ibrahim, released a new audio message addressed to the Muslim world.

The new speech is most notable for being forthright about Baghdadi’s message on the global nature of the Islamic State’s struggle. Baghdadi touched on issues regarding the persecution of Muslims in Burma and the Philippines as well as the French restrictions on the wearing of the veil, and he responded to accusations that the Islamic State engages in ‘irhab [terrorism].

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Ominously, Baghdadi concluded his speech with aspirations for the Islamic State’s conquest of “Rome” and the whole world. Such emphasis on the transnational nature of the Islamic State’s project corroborates Baghdadi’s projection of himself as the caliph and sole representative of Islamic rule on earth to whom all Muslims must pledge allegiance.

While these explicit proclamations, however, may come across as new in the Islamic State’s messaging, the reality is that emphasis on worldwide ambitions has actually been a part of the group’s propaganda since at least last summer when it was still known as ISIS. This distinguished ISIS early on from its al-Qa’ida competitor Jabhat al-Nusra, which prefers a more gradualist approach of “hearts and minds” as advocated by jihadist thinker Abu Mus’ab al-Suri. This approach aims to have locals first become accustomed to the norms of Shari’a law, with ambitions for a global Caliphate not expressed openly except in unofficial videos primarily put out by members of Jabhat al-Nusra’s foreign contingent.

Only more recently, in response to the dispute with ISIS, has Jabhat al-Nusra in any of its official media outlets explicitly affirmed the Caliphate ambition, specifically in Shari’a official Sheikh Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir’sinterview featured this year by al-Basira media (an outlet set up by Jabhat al-Nusra to counter ISIS).

In contrast, in a video released by ISIS’ media wing al-Furqan Media in August 2013, an elderly native Syrian fighter for ISIS, who had participated in the ISIS-led takeover of Mannagh airbase in Aleppo province, affirmed that jihad is farḍ ul-ayn [an obligation on every individual Muslim] and that it is necessary for an “Islamic state” to be established “over the entire world,” beginning with victory in Bilad ash-Sham [Syria]. Also within the realm of official media, one of ISIS’ early slogans was “the promised project of the Caliphate,” featured on a billboard ISIS erected in the northern Aleppo town of Azaz, bordering Turkey, after seizing control of it from a rival group — Northern Storm — in September.

Elsewhere, one could observe long-standing ISIS billboards in Syria carrying statements like “Together we cultivate the tree of the Caliphate” and “a Caliphate pleasing to the Lord is better than democracy pleasing to the West.” Besides these explicit affirmations, Baghdadi was projecting himself as a de facto caliph, taking the names of “al-Qurayshi” (indicating descent from Muhammad’s tribe) and “al-Husseyni” (to indicate lineage from Muhammad’s family), enhancing legitimacy to claims of being a caliph.

The reference to Rome in Baghdadi’s latest message might seem odd at first sight too, but that has also been part of Baghdadi’s de facto caliph image for months, as was apparent in his imposition of the dhimmi [second-class, “tolerated” non-Muslim residents] pact on Christians in Raqqa in March. Dhimmi status, in traditional theology as expounded in the Umdat al-Salik manual, is to be imposed by a caliph. ISIS’ official Raqqa province news feed expressed hope that “tomorrow” (not literally, but at some point in the future) the dhimmi pact would be imposed in Rome.

While no one expects the vast majority of Muslims worldwide to migrate to Baghdadi’s state, or caliphate, in Iraq and Syria to build up from there to take over the whole world, the question does arise of what implications there are for Baghdadi’s project and how it plays out on the ground. The first implication is that these most explicit affirmations yet send a clear message to the other insurgent groups in Iraq in particular that there is no room for power-sharing, significantly increasing the prospect of wider fighting with groups like the Ba’athist Naqshbandi Army and the Islamic Army of Iraq, both of which have previously fought with ISIS’ predecessor, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).

Optimists, however, who are hoping that the infighting might roll back the Islamic State are likely mistaken: the insurgency is significantly different from the days of the Iraq War, precisely because the insurgency is much more dominated by the Islamic State, which has vastly superior financial and arms resources spanning borders.

The second implication is that, internationally, existing trends will most likely be strengthened: those already sympathetic to ISIS will be the ones most likely to heed Baghdadi’s call, including jihadists in Gaza, Sinai, Libya and most notably Tunisia. In contrast, the ever pro-Nusra Maldivian fighters and Hizb-ut-Tahrir, the latter of which has its own affiliated armed contingents in Syria, are predictably in opposition. At the same time, the Islamic State’s project, in actually existing on the ground with a network of contiguous strongholds and the workings of an actual state, can have wider ideological appeal, in contrast to an al-Qa’ida in the Afghanistan-Pakistan area that lacks the showings of real strength.

If the “Islamic State” ultimately goes into decline, it looks as if it will happen only in years, not months.

Israeli cabinet’s inaction opens door to surge of violence in Jerusalem and Gaza rocket fire, DEBKAfile, July 2, 2014

Clashes in Shuafat, Palestinian district of Jerusalem

The match which kindled the flames was the kidnap and murder of a 16-year old Palestinian boy Muhammad Abu Khdeir from the Palestinian district of Shuafat in Jerusalem. Since his body was found early Wednesday in the Jerusalem Forest, Jerusalem’s Palestinians have been in violent uproar demanding vengeance against Israel.

The prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu urged the police to hurry up the investigation of this “abominable crime.” But it soon turned out that the motive and the police investigation no longer mattered. The Palestinians had decided “Jewish settlers” had slain the Arab boy, and foreign observers treated the murder without further ado as tit-for-tat by Jewish extremists for the slain Israeli teenagers.

Wednesday night, July 2, Israel’s security cabinet held its third special session in two days to map out a response to the kidnapping and murder of Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel, who were laid to rest in mass funerals Tuesday. Despite the impression of indecision, the select group of senior ministers conveyed, DEBKAfile’s sources report that they did in fact decide to hold back from a major military operation in the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minsiter Moshe Ya’alon abd Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz decided that instead of smashing Hamas infrastructure at its home base in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army would continue to pound its networks on the West Bank.

This decision was the outcome of heavy arm-twisting on the part of Egypt, Qatar and Jordan. They urged Israel to continue to smash Hamas in Mahmoud Abbas’ West Bank domain, but to leave the Islamist organization be in the Gaza Strip.

By heeding Arab advice on how to respond to the tragedy of three murdered young Israelis, the government found within hours that it had opened the door to unbridled violence both in Jerusalem and against the communities who have the misfortune to live within range of Gazan rockets.

The match which kindled the flames was the kidnap and murder of a 16-year old Palestinian boy Muhammad Abu Khdeir from the Palestinian district of Shuafat in Jerusalem. Since his body was found early Wednesday in the Jerusalem Forest, Jerusalem’s Palestinians have been in violent uproar demanding vengeance against Israel.

The prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu urged the police to hurry up the investigation of this “abominable crime.” But it soon turned out that the motive and the police investigation no longer mattered. The Palestinians had decided “Jewish settlers” had slain the Arab boy, and foreign observers treated the murder without further ado as tit-for-tat by Jewish extremists for the slain Israeli teenagers.

Tons of rocks and explosive devices were hurled during the day at Israeli police and security forces attempting to restore order in Jerusalem’s Palestinian districts.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas and the Jihad Islami leaders, knowing they were safe from Israeli retribution, let loose with volley after volley of rockets and mortars – 30 in a single day – against Ashkelon, Netivot, Sdot Negev, Sderot, Kerem Shalom and the Eshkol District. Three were downed by Iron Dome interceptor. But no defense system is proof against a missile blitz on this scale.

The three cabinet sessions not only failed to come up with ways to deter Hamas terror or cut its armed capabilities down to size, but reached a decision that opened the gates of violence in two arenas – Jerusalem and Gaza.

Read DEBKAfile’s earlier report of Wednesday.

The discovery of the body of a brutally murdered Palestinian boy in the Jerusalem forest early Wednesday, July 2, unleashed violent disturbances in the Palestinian districts of Jerusalem, which climaxed in mid-morning with three pipe bombs hurled at security forces in the northern district of Beit Hanina at security forces attempting to maintain order.  One exploded, injuring a Palestinian. Enraged Palestinians then set fire to three light train stations that serve the northern districts.

Jerusalem has not seen this level of tension and Palestinian violence, including the use of explosive devices, since the suicide bombing uprising of 2000-2004.

According to the Palestinians, the boy, since identified as Muhammad Hussein Abu Khdeir aged 16 from Shuafat, was kidnapped and murdered by “settlers.” They report a car with three men wrestled the boy into the vehicle and drove off. The Palestinian boy’s body showed stab wounds. It was found charred.

The Israeli police, after imposing a gag order on the investigation and the outbreaks in the Palestinian neighborhoods of north Jerusalem, said only that they are initially exploring several motives for the crime, including the boy’s family’s long history of disputes. Internal Security Minister Aharonovich reported that police reinforcements have been imported to the capital and the police were on high alert in other parts of Israel.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that large IDF, Jerusalem Police, Border Police and Shin Bet agency contingents are concentrated around the three restive Palestinian neighborhoods of Beit Hanina, Sheafat and the neighboring refugee camp. They appear to be waiting outside the centers of the riots, before interfering,  in the slim hope that the violent unrest will subside of its own accord.

These forces have blocked the main roads of North Jerusalem from the French Hill junction to Shuafat and Bet Haninah, virtually cutting off the Palestinian neighborhoods from their eastern exits.

The troubles first erupted Tuesday night, July 1, in downtown Jerusalem, immediately after the three Israeli teens, who were abducted and murdered by Palestinians, were laid to rest in a mass funeral in Modiin. Hundreds of rowdy Jewish youths set upon Palestinians employed at places of work there. The police stepped in to arrest 50 Israeli rioters and rescue their victims.
In its first comment, the Palestinian Authority’s spokesman Abu Rodeina held Israel fully responsible for the death of the Palestinian boy and the outbreaks of violence in Jerusalem.

Rockets Rain on Israel as Hamas Vows Revenge – Defense/Security – News – Arutz Sheva.

Barrage hits Israel hours after Hamas threatens action over murder of Arab teen. Reports emerge that IAF may be retaliating.

First Publish: 7/2/2014, 7:15 PM / Last Update: 7/2/2014, 9:06 PM

A total of twenty rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza since early Wednesday, with fifteen fired in the past three hours.

Hamas terrorists have fired 18 mortar shells and two Kassam rocket into the Eshkol and Sha’ar HaNegev regions Wednesday. No damage and no injuries have been reported.

Two additional rockets were fired on Israel close to 8:00 pm IST; both were shot down by the Iron Dome.

Additional explosions have been heard throughout the day. It is possible that additional rockets have been fired, but fell short of Israeli soil.

A continuous rain of rockets have been fired on Israel this week.

Fifteen rockets were fired over Sunday night and Monday morning from Gaza, prompting Israeli security forces to announce that Hamas was directly behind the rocket fire – the first official announcement since the end of the counter-terror Operation Pillar of Defense in November 2012.

Last week, several rockets caused a massive fire at a plastics factory in Sderot. Four workers managed to escape the factories before they were set ablaze.

Hamas has not taken responsibility for the rocket fire.

Wednesday’s rocket fire increased just hours after Hamas vowed revenge on Israel, after international media and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas accused Israelis of taking “revenge” on a Palestinian Arab teen following the horrific murders of teenagers Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Sha’ar, and Eyal Yifrah.

According to Walla! News, the IAF has begun responding to the rocket fire, and have eliminated one terror target. The IDF has not confirmed this retaliatory strike yet.

Tensions escalate

16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khder was found in the Jerusalem Forest earlier Wednesday after allegedly being forced into a black car outside Beit Hanina.

Israeli leaders – including the mayor of Jerusalem and Prime Minister Netanyahu – rushed to condemn the murder, after rumor circulated that it was the work of Jewish extremists looking for “revenge” over the abduction and murder of three Israeli teens Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Sha’ar and Eyal Yifrah.

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, as well as some in the international media, have since repeated those claims as fact. But Israeli police have said it is far from clear at this point whether the attack was “nationalistic” or “criminal” in nature, and urged “responsibility” over reporting on it. without specifying further.

One retired police officer familiar with the family involved and the Beit Hanina area who spoke to Arutz Sheva on condition of anonymity Wednesday afternoon stated that in his opinion the murder is most likely the work of internal clashes within the boy’s family.

But those claims remain unconfirmed as well, and the police investigation into the killing is still ongoing.

Meanwhile, the news has led to an immense show of violence, with Israeli Arabs rioting throughout Jerusalem and lobbing bombs and projectiles at police officers.

The Caliphate Restored, Front Page Magazine, Robert Spencer, July 2, 2014

[A]lthough it is by no means clear, of course, that The Islamic State will be viable or long-lasting. If it is, however, the world could soon be engulfed in a much larger conflict with Islamic jihadists even than it has been since 9/11. For in Islamic law, only the caliph is authorized – and indeed, has the responsibility – to declare offensive jihad against non-Muslim states.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has declared itself a caliphate, renamed The Islamic State, and named its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph, and demanded that all Muslims worldwide pledge allegiance to him. Al-Baghdadi has called upon all Muslims to relocate to his caliphate to wage war against non-Muslims. Many have ridiculed and denigrated this declaration; few have realized its implications.

The restoration of the caliphate has for decades been the central goal of jihad groups worldwide. The caliphate (khilafa) was from the beginnings of Islam until the early twentieth century, at least among Sunnis (who constitute eighty-five to ninety percent of Muslims worldwide), the center of the supranational unity of the global Muslim community (umma). The caliph, who was theoretically chosen from among the most pious and capable men of the community, was considered to be the political, military and religious successor of Muhammad as the leader of the Muslim community. He ruled according to the dictates of the Sharia (Islamic law), implementing Allah’s decrees of justice on earth.

The caliphate was abolished by the secular Turkish government in 1924. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 partly as a reaction to the end of the caliphate, and from the beginning a central part of its program has been the need to work toward restoring it and then recovering lands that had been lost to Islam. Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna explained:

We want the Islamic flag to be hoisted once again on high, fluttering in the wind, in all those lands that have had the good fortune to harbor Islam for a certain period of time and where the muzzein’s call sounded in the takbirs and the tahlis. Then fate decreed that the light of Islam be extinguished in these lands that returned to unbelief. Thus Andalusia, Sicily, the Balkans, the Italian coast, as well as the islands of the Mediterranean, are all of them Muslim Mediterranean colonies and they must return to the Islamic fold. The Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea must once again become Muslim seas, as they once were.

The kind of government that would then be established would not be a pluralistic democracy by any stretch of the imagination. Hamza Tzortzis of the Britain-based Islamic Education and Research Academy has stated this plainly:

We as Muslims reject the idea of freedom of speech, and even the idea of freedom. We see under the Khilafa [caliphate], when people used to engage in a positive way, this idea of freedom was redundant, it was unnecessary, because the society understood under the education system of the Khilafa state, and under the political framework of Islam, that people must engage with each other in a positive and productive way to produce results.*

The desired results, obviously, have nothing to do with freedom as it is understood in Western societies. Abu Mohammad al-Julani, leader of the Syrian jihad group Jabhat Al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front), has expressed a desire to establish a caliphate in Syria, explaining: “Being Muslims, we do not believe in political parties or parliamentary elections, but rather in an Islamic regime based on the Shura (advisory council) and which implements justice … Our heading towards the establishment of Islamic law is jihad in Allah’s way.”

Ahmad ‘Issa, commander of another Syrian jihad group, the Suqur Al-Sham Brigades, interviewed on Al Jazeera network on June 12, 2013, joined Barack Obama in praising Islam’s imperative for justice, which he said the caliphate had always manifested: “We have been providing the minorities with their rights ever since the establishment of the state of Islam, since the beginning of the Caliphate in the days of the Prophet Muhammad, and in the days of the Righteous Caliphs, and to this day. Throughout history, nobody has suffered injustice under the state of Islam – the state of truth and justice.” Nobody!

However, his idea of justice did not involve non-Muslims having the right to equal participation in the nation’s political life. “Islam,” he said, “must be the single source of authority of the state…We demand that the president and parliament speaker be Sunni Muslims, and that the state’s sole source of authority be Islam.” He said that his group would “not accept” a Christian as the head of the Syrian state. And this would not be a democracy, but a state ruled by Islamic law: “We are talking about a state of justice and truth. We want the people to be ruled by an infallible law – the law of Allah. We do not want people to be ruled by man-made laws….”

On June 21, 2013, Al Jazeera aired a speech of Professor Mohammed Malkawi, the founder of the Chicago-based organization Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) America, which is dedicated to non-violent implementation of Sharia in the U.S. and around the world. The speech illuminated the Islamic supremacist perspective on the abolition of the caliphate and the necessity for its restoration. Malkawi blamed non-Muslims for Islam’s decline and the fall of the caliphate: “After Islam had reached the peak of glory and the Muslims were masters of the world, there came a time when the infidels conspired against the Muslims, who were in a deep slumber. Britain conspired against them, along with Arab and Turkish collaborators and traitors, and ended the Islamic Caliphate and its glory.”

This was, he said, a great tragedy, for also like Barack Obama, Malkawi believed that a state based on Islamic law embodied justice: “Ever since the Caliphate was destroyed, the world has lost an exemplar of justice, a model for humanity in its entirety. Since then, the world has been held hostage by wolves, who do not respect the honor of a man or a believer. Two world wars cost the lives of over 70 million people, yet they accuse us of terrorism. They killed over 70 million people, and dropped atomic bombs on Japan, yet they level accusations against us.”

In contrast, Malkawi said, “We demand a state ruled by the Koran,” and led the crowd in chanting that phrase. Another speaker added: “We reject secularist rule. We reject the rule of Satan.”

Malkawi asserted that the U.S., and Barack Obama in particular, had made people “terrified of the word ‘caliphate.’” He continued:

They say to you: “You can say anything except that you want Islamic law.” For them, Islamic law is something unimaginably harsh. For them, Islamic law prevents usury. It prevents them from exploiting the peoples. Islamic law and the caliphate bring about the rule of justice, which will make all those rulers face piles of garbage— for garbage is all that they are worth.

This is not really why people think Islamic law is harsh. People think Islamic law is harsh because of the stonings, the amputations, the institutionalized oppression of women and non-Muslims, the denial of the freedom of speech, the death penalty for apostasy, and so much more. But as far as Malkawi is concerned, those things and the other elements of Sharia are what constitute justice.

All these other rulers are dwarfs— from Obama, the master of the White House, to the rulers of those palaces in the lands of the Muslims. They are all dwarfed by the Islamic caliphate and law, and that is why they try to make us scared of it. They scare the Muslims. They say to the rebels in Syria: “Do not demand a caliphate out loud, because the US will deny you equipment and aid.” They say to the Egyptian people: “Do not demand to instate Islamic law, because America will not be happy about that.”

They say that the caliphate makes the infidels angry. Don’t we want to make the infidels angry? Isn’t this Islam?

Let America and Britain hate the caliphate. Let Britain, America, and the entire West go to hell, because the caliphate is coming, Allah willing.

And now it is here, although it is by no means clear, of course, that The Islamic State will be viable or long-lasting. If it is, however, the world could soon be engulfed in a much larger conflict with Islamic jihadists even than it has been since 9/11. For in Islamic law, only the caliph is authorized – and indeed, has the responsibility – to declare offensive jihad against non-Muslim states. In his absence, all jihad must be defensive only, which is why Islamic jihadists retail laundry lists of grievances when explaining and justifying their actions: without these grievances and a caliph, they have to cast all their actions as responses to Infidel atrocities. With a caliph, however, that obligation will be gone. And the bloodshed in that event could make the world situation since 9/11, with its 20,000 jihad attacks worldwide, seem like a harmless bit of “interfaith dialogue.”

*Update: Hamza Tzortzis contacted me via Twitter on Wednesday, asking that I clear up my “misrepresentation” of him in this piece. He offered this quite equivocal affirmation of free speech at http://www.hamzatzortzis.com/clarifications-and-responses/clarifying-my-views-on-freedom-of-speech/:

Hamza upholds freedom of expression and asserts that to reject this  liberty is a self-defeating position. However, since he is a student of Islamic thought and philosophy he raises questions on the limits of expression including: since all nations have some restrictions limiting expression, where do we draw the line? What framework of law and values to we use to establish the limits to expression?

Thus Tzortzis clearly wants restrictions on the freedom of speech, and as a Muslim who believes in Sharia, those would no doubt be to restrict the legality of criticism of Islam and negative characterizations of Muhammad.

Iron dome intercepts Gaza rocket over Ashkelon | JPost | Israel News.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN

LAST UPDATED: 07/02/2014 20:19

Rocket come after IAF strikes Gazan mortar launcher used to fire shells at Kibbutz Kerem Shalom; IDF reports that nine mortars in total were fired on southern Israel from Gaza Wednesday; all landed in open areas.

The Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip over the southern city of Ashkelon on Wednesday evening, the IDF confirmed.

Earlier in the evening the Israel Air Force struck a mortar launcher in the southern Gaza Strip that was used to fire shells at Kibbutz Kerem Shalom.

In total on Wednesday, nine mortars from the coastal enclave landed in southern Israel, the IDF Spokesperson reported.

The mortars landed in open areas in the Eshkol Regional Council.

On Tuesday evening, five mortar shells were fired from the Gaza Strip toward southern Israel with two landing in the Eshkol Regional Council.

The Tuesday attack came as the funeral was underway in Modi’in for the three slain Israeli teenagers.

Early on Tuesday morning, the Israeli Air Force jets struck 34 targets in the Gaza Strip in response to a barrage of rockets that pounded Israel’s South on Monday.