WarSclerotic

Kerry stumbles again, Israel Hayom, Prof. Ron Breiman, July 28, 2014

(Regardless of whether Hamas, et al, are insane, they are rationally pursuing courses that can lead to the demise of Israel. That, as they acknowledge, is what they want. Israel objects. The Obama Administration? What it wants is not entirely clear, but to the extent that it is aligned with Hamas, et al, it is not unreasonable to assume that their goals are similar. Please see also Obama’s peace processors: Brotherhood love — DM)

Kerry expects both sides in Gaza to show sanity, which is to say he is putting Israel and a terrorist organization on an equal plane, as if they are two countries, rather than a victim and an aggressor.

Like a blind person groping for the ladder to climb down from the roof but instead falling down the chimney, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the government he represents have not missed an opportunity to step in all the Middle Eastern potholes along their way. Kerry is imbued with good will, but this is not enough. Kerry and U.S. President Barack Obama suffer from a misunderstanding of reality in our region, as well as in other parts of the world.

Over the years, the policy of our best friend, the U.S., toward us has been characterized more by important common values — of which there are many — than by recognition of shared interests between the large superpower and its small ally. Hence the differences: Sometimes the U.S. treats Israel as a giant aircraft carrier representing democracy in a problematic region of the world, while other times it treats us as its “concubine in the Middle East,” as the late Professor Ezra Zohar put it. In practice, the U.S. has stolen victory from Israel’s hands every time it has been on the verge of decisively defeating its enemies on the battlefield. This was the case in the War of Independence, Sinai Campaign, Six-Day War, War of Attrition and Yom Kippur War, among others. It appears this will also be the case in Operation Protective Edge.

Kerry has traveled here time and time again over the past two years, in an attempt to find an impossible solution to an existential struggle that has gone on for a century already. There will be no solution in our generation, certainly not along the Oslo path, which is nothing but repeatedly banging our heads against the wall of reality on the basis of false premises and turning a blind eye to the risks involved. This brings to mind Professor Albert Einstein’s insightful definition of insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Kerry expects both sides in Gaza to show sanity, which is to say he is putting Israel and a terrorist organization on an equal plane, as if they are two countries, rather than a victim and an aggressor. By doing so, Kerry is mimicking Israelis who acted similarly two decades ago, putting Israel and the PLO terrorist group on an equal plane.

Making peace between a victim and a totalitarian aggressor has proved historically to be unachievable and disastrous. Ask Neville Chamberlain about the “peace” he brought back from Munich in 1938. The West has apparently not learned from its past mistakes and it is repeating them, at Israel’s expense. And, of course, those who are not willing to learn from history are destined to experience the same mistakes again and again.

It is not enough to make statements about Israel’s right to defend itself (which are correct) if the demand of the international community (a code phrase for those who regret the establishment of a Jewish state) is that Israel operate with its hands tied. Jewish minds created the Iron Dome, but Israel cannot win with its hands tied. Israel is not asking foreign armies to fight its battles. Israel just wants to be left alone as it acts to achieve its goals. Israel’s success will also serve the naive West, which is currently being taken over by a reverse “reconquista” (the reconquest of Spain by Christians from Muslims) process.

Israel aside, the U.S. is hurting its own interests with its policy. America’s status as the world’s sole superpower is eroding, and sometimes it merely looks like a tired reflection of the leader of the free world. Russia is returning to the arena as a re-emerging superpower, Iran is laughing all the way to a nuclear bomb, Syria is “dismantling” its chemical weapons (who knows how many remain in its warehouses?), Egypt is being hurt repeatedly by America’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, and Israel is suffering from the support given to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas by naive Washington.

Obama’s peace processors: Brotherhood love, Israel Hayom, Richard Baehr, July 28, 2014

Much as Obama facilitated a more prominent role for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and welcomed its subsequent electoral victory there, its cozy relations with Turkey and Qatar, Hamas’ closest allies, show how far American policy has shifted in the region. Nations that are aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood are America’s favorites. This new approach mirrors the American attempt over five years to begin a new strategic relationship with Iran that will enable that regime to continue to process uranium, and to get sanctions relief in exchange for sacrificing nothing from its nuclear program that cannot be quickly reversed.

The American administration has discovered new peace partners (the “neutral parties”) to help end the Gaza conflict: Turkey and Qatar. Egypt is not on the list (though it was thrown a bone by being nominated to host cease-fire talks). Egypt, of course, borders both Israel and Gaza, and made a serious cease-fire proposal a week back that Israel accepted and Hamas rejected, apparently on the advice of Turkey and Qatar.

Secretary of State John Kerry met with officials from Turkey and Qatar in Paris this week and the three countries seem to be on the same page in pushing cease-fire terms that could have been drafted by Hamas.

Today comes news of Turkish approval of a new flotilla, the so-called “Freedom Flotilla II” that will sail to Gaza to provide “humanitarian” assistance with support from the Turkish navy. The organizers of the flotilla are the IHH, the same group that sailed to the shores of Gaza in 2010 in the “Free Gaza Flotilla” armed with pipes, sticks and guns and ready to rumble with the Israel Defense Forces as part of their “humanitarian mission.”

If the new flotilla sails, Turkey may have to negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and itself.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan burnished his credentials as a peacemaker this week blasting Israel for “barbarism worse than Hitler.” Erdogan also added: “Since [Israel’s creation] in 1948, we have been witnessing this attempt at systematic genocide every day and every month. But above all, we are witnessing this attempt at systematic genocide every Ramadan.”

In other words, Israel attempts systematic genocide every day for 66 years, but particularly during Ramadan. Erdogan’s comments seemed to echo the insights of Dean Wormer in “Animal House,” inventor of something called “double secret probation,” probably also in effect systematically every Ramadan.

Turkey’s government also saw fit to encourage wild mobs to congregate outside Israel’s embassy and consular facilities, in direct contravention of diplomatic rules, with members of Erdogan’s party leading the charge in some cases.

Kerry and President Barack Obama seem to believe that Turkey’s record since the current conflict began demonstrates the wisdom, skill, fairness, leadership, diplomatic ability and even-handedness necessary to work with both parties and help move a cease-fire forward.

Turkey’s new role should be no surprise since Obama has repeatedly praised Erodgan and applauded his “democratic”Islamic state

“When the two leaders met at the Seoul, South Korea, Nuclear Security Summit in March of 2012, Obama called Erdogan his ‘friend and colleague. … We find ourselves in frequent agreement upon a wide range of issues.’ Not content with this level of praise, Obama added that he considered Erdogan ‘an outstanding partner and an outstanding friend’ who has displayed ‘outstanding leadership.'”

Presumably that outstanding leadership included Erdogan’s calling Zionism “a crime against humanity,” another mark in his favor in the Obama playbook as a peacemaker for Gaza.

And then there is Qatar, which, this week signed an $11 billion dollar arms deal with the United States. Is it possible that some of the money that will be secured by arms manufacturers in the United States from the deal may find its way back to Democratic Party super PACs in time for the 2014 midterms? Would Obama be so cynical as to approve an arms deal seeking to achieve such a spin-off effect?

Qatar, which owns the Al Jazeera network that bought Al Gore’s Current network (presumably a deal made easier by Gore’s appreciation of Qatar’s history of green energy initiatives), has played a major role in funding and supplying arms to Hamas.

Former President Shimon Peres, hardly Israel’s leading hawk, bitterly condemned Qatar’s role.

“Qatar does not have the right to send money for rockets and tunnels which are fired at innocent civilians,” the outgoing statesman told U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Jerusalem. “Their funding of terror must stop. If they want to build then they should, but they must not be allowed to destroy.”

The Kerry cease-fire approach, unanimously rejected by Israel’s cabinet, amounts to American acceptance of Hamas’ demands:

“A) Establish a humanitarian cease-fire, ending all hostilities in and from the Gaza Strip, beginning in 48 hours, and lasting for a period of seven days.

“B) Build on the Cairo cease-fire understandings of November 2012 [that were reached, through American and Egyptian mediation, following Operation Pillar of Defense].

“C) Convene in Cairo, at the invitation of Egypt, within 48 hours to negotiate resolution of all issues necessary to achieve a sustainable cease-fire and enduring solution to the crisis in Gaza, including arrangements to secure the opening of crossings, allow the entry of goods and people and ensure the social and economic livelihood of the Palestinian people living in Gaza, transfer funds to Gaza for the payment of salaries for public employees, and address all security issues.”

Section C, of course is the critical section. First, send in the money to pay the bureaucrats (or to have the money stolen by Hamas officials).

Nothing in Section C specifically addresses any of Israel’s security concerns: the over 2,000 rockets launched at the Jewish state just in this latest encounter, the tens of thousands of rockets that remain under Hamas’ control, or the tunnels that were to be used for a Rosh Hashanah massacre. There is no mention of the need to demilitarize Gaza, the only step that would enable any cease-fire to be more than short-term. As long as Hamas remains in charge, and keeps its weapons, expiration of the next negotiated cease-fire will be at Hamas’ choosing, as has always been the case.

The implementation of a cease-fire on the terms in Kerry’s letter would lead to the passage of Hamas fighters into Sinai, and the passage of more weapons-making materials into Gaza. The so-called “blockade of Gaza” that Hamas is working so hard to end seems to have failed, based on the number of rockets and weapons that have been delivered to Hamas, or manufactured in Gaza with smuggled materials. The tunnels, built under the border between Gaza and Israel and Gaza and Egypt and under all of Gaza itself, also required enormous amounts of concrete.

An IDF summary suggests that 350 truckloads of building materials are required for each of the cross-border tunnels at a cost of about $3 million for each of the tunnels so far discovered (more than 30). What Hamas really wants is to facilitate the transfer of goods so as to bring down the cost of its weaponization program, and have it paid for by the West.

Much as Obama facilitated a more prominent role for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and welcomed its subsequent electoral victory there, its cozy relations with Turkey and Qatar, Hamas’ closest allies, show how far American policy has shifted in the region. Nations that are aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood are America’s favorites. This new approach mirrors the American attempt over five years to begin a new strategic relationship with Iran that will enable that regime to continue to process uranium, and to get sanctions relief in exchange for sacrificing nothing from its nuclear program that cannot be quickly reversed.

Just as the Obama administration gave a cold shoulder to Iran’s green revolution and to long-time ally Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israel has become an obstacle standing in the way of America’s new plan for the Middle East. It is certainly no longer an ally. The Obama team seems to be invested in Islamists, whether Sunni or Shiite, and has empowered these regimes, while signaling it has more important things to do than commit any more resources to the region than Kerry’s pathetic fly-arounds doing Hamas’ bidding.

The Obama team is certainly under pressure from Turkey and Qatar to ensure that Hamas is not soundly defeated, and its military threat incapacitated. But in reality, the Obama team might prefer that the war continue for a while. For if the Gaza war disappeared from the news, its other grand successes on the international stage — in Iraq,Afghanistan, Libya,  and the “Russian reset” — might receive the ridicule and scorn they deserve.

Take your pick for why the administration has wound up in its current posture — incompetence, consciously seeking to weaken ties with long-term allies, and build up new ones that better fit the president’s worldview (favoring Islamists), attempting to separate his political party from its historic ties with the Jewish state, ideological naivete, or all of the above. In any case, Israel has taken its measure of Barack Obama and John Kerry, and it knows it is on its own.

6 killed, 10 wounded after mortar fire on Eshkol – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Unofficial truce between Hamas, Israel ends in the afternoon after four rockets launched at Hof Ashkelon.

Itay Blumenthal, Yoav Zitun
Latest Update:     07.28.14, 18:28 / Israel News

At least six people were killed, while at least 10 were wounded, some criticially, by mortar fire on Eshkol near the Gaza border early Monday evening.

At 12:40 pm on Monday the unofficial ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was broken when Code Red sirens blared in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council as four rockets were fired from Gaza. It was reported that the rockets fell within the Gaza Strip.

Several minutes before 5pm, the Code Red rocket siren was sounded in Ashkelon and in Hof Ashkelon Regional Council. The rocket launched was intercepted by the Iron Dome. Some 15 minutes later, Code Red was once again sounded in Ashkelon, and the Iron Dome intercepted 2 more rockets, while a third hit an open area.

The political establishment, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, has attempted to reach a ceasefire with Hamas. A political source said that “the ceasefire will continue according to the situation on the ground.”

Up until the noon salvo, only one rocket was fired by Gaza militants. The IDF retaliated with a precise strike. Meanwhile, a soldier was wounded in light-to-moderate condition during clashes in Beit Hanoun. He was evacuated to Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer.
During the ceasefire, and before the air raid sirens sounded in southern Israel, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit released a video documenting the operations of special forces in the Strip.

Shortly after 7am, a single rocket was fired on Asheklon and exploded in an open area. The IDF later attacked two concealed rocket launchers and a weapons manufacturing site in the north and central Gaza Strip – in retaliation for the rocket fire. The IDF had no casualties overnight.

Yoav Zitun contributed to this report.

Kerry’s mistakes strengthen Hamas’s resolve | The Times of Israel.

Has the US really forsaken Egypt and Israel to join forces with the Muslim Brotherhood, or is its top diplomat merely naive?

By Avi Issacharoff July 28, 2014, 3:10 pm

150 Palestinians surrender to IDF in Gaza
By Adiv Sterman July 24, 2014, 11:44 am

​ (‘Feel Good’ story of the day.-LS)

Dozens of operatives from southern Strip, mostly Hamas members, transferred to Israeli facilities for interrogation.
Dozens of Palestinian terror operatives, most of whom were said to be members of Hamas, surrendered Wednesday to IDF soldiers during raids in the southern Gaza Strip cities of Rafah and Khan Yunis.

The operatives, who came out of hiding spots with their hands raised above their heads, were taken into Israeli custody for further questioning.

In total, 150 Palestinians were arrested, but only 70 of them who were suspected of carrying out terror attacks were transferred under tight security to IDF Intelligence and Shin Bet facilities for interrogation, an IDF spokeswoman told The Times of Israel, adding to 28 operatives already captured. The remaining detainees were later released, Army Radio reported.

A picture of the Gazans posted on Facebook by Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz showed two rows of captives wearing only underwear and shoes, on their knees in the sand. They were stripped of their clothes in order to ensure they were not carrying weapons.

The IDF said no soldiers were injured during overnight operations in the Gaza Strip, but several were lightly hurt Thursday morning in the northern part of the Strip.

More than 100 targets were struck by the IDF Wednesday throughout the entire Gaza Strip, an army spokesman said. Since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge on July 8, the IDF hit more than 3,330 targets, including tunnels, rocket launchers, and several Hamas military headquarters.

On Wednesday morning, three Israeli paratroopers were killed in Khan Yunis, bringing the army’s death toll to 32 since the IDF began operating on the ground in Gaza last week, the army said. Two soldiers were seriously wounded and 10 more were moderately injured.

Additionally, the army on Wednesday bombed Al-Wafa hospital in Gaza City, calling it “a Hamas military compound.” The IDF said there was a command-and-control center in the hospital, a lookout post used to monitor IDF forces, and several access shafts to a tunnel network beneath the hospital.

On Tuesday ​the hospital was evacuated from patients and staff, the army said, but was still in use by Hamas gunmen, who continued to fire at the IDF forces. On Wednesday, prior to the airstrike, the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration confirmed that the hospital was empty of patients and staff.

The strike set off massive secondary explosions, supporting the army’s contention that there was an arms cache, perhaps of rockets, beneath the hospital.

Meanwhile, the Shin Bet announced that it had succeeded, along with the army, in either killing or incapacitate four mid-to high-level Palestinian Islamic Jihad commanders, all in the Khan Yunis area.

According to the Shin Bet, the officials included the group’s Khan Yunis commander Akram Shaar, who was behind a series of attacks against Israeli soldiers and was in charge of rocket fire from the area; Mahmoud Ziada, a resident of Jabalya, who had served as a battalion commander in the northern sector; Sha’aban Dahduh, of Gaza City, also a battalion commander, whom the Shin Bet referred to as “outstanding”; and Saeed Ma’amar, also a battalion commander, in the Rafah brigade.

According to the IDF, more than 210 terrorists were killed since the ground incursion began last Thursday night, among them several high-ranking Hamas officers, including the commander of the group’s surveillance unit.

A senior Israeli security source asserted Wednesday that Hamas’s rocket manufacturing capacity had taken a strong hit during the IDF’s operation in the Palestinian enclave.

Obama Demands Israel Agree to Immediate Unconditional Ceasefire, Canada Free Press, Joseph A. Klein, July 28, 2014

(The United States may well be among Israel’s few friends and allies. The Obama Administration, currently in charge of American foreign policy, is not. To yield to advice from the Obama Administration would be suicidal. — DM)

If Prime Minister Netanyahu does not give in to the Obama administration pressure, it is quite possible that the administration will back a UN Security Council resolution along the lines proposed by Jordan as a follow up to the Presidential Statement the Security Council has already issued. In addition to directing that there be an unconditional immediate ceasefire, such a resolution would likely call explicitly for Israel’s forces to be immediately removed from Gaza and for the border crossings to be opened, without addressing the remaining tunnels or rockets other than vague references to security concerns. Israel will then be forced to choose between doing what it has to do to protect its citizens and bowing to the so-called “international community’s” edict. The Jewish state has no choice but to follow its own course for its survival. [Emphasis added.]

President Obama is seeking to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into agreeing to an immediate unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. In a phone call on Sunday, Obama reportedly told the Israeli prime minister that such a ceasefire was “a strategic imperative.” Obama specifically referred to the ceasefire proposed by Secretary of State John Kerry, which Israel’s security cabinet rejected unanimously last Friday.

Very early Monday morning, in an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, the Council issued a unanimously adopted “Presidential Statement” expressing “strong support for the call by international partners and the Secretary-General of the United Nations for an immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire.” The Presidential Statement went on to commend “the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for their efforts in this regard.”

Security Council Presidential Statements do not have any binding legal effect under international law as resolutions do. However, they sometimes serve as the first step towards such resolutions.

Israel has been willing to observe several humanitarian pauses, primarily on a unilateral basis. Hamas went along with one 24-hour pause during the first part of the weekend and then resumed its rocket firings. After Hamas proposed its own additional 24-hour pause on Sunday, which Israel was willing to accept, Hamas nevertheless kept firing its rockets. Nothing in the Security Council Presidential Statement acknowledges that fact. Nor do Obama or Kerry for that matter.

Kerry’s ceasefire proposal was inadequate to protect Israel’s security concerns. It would have left the remaining tunnels used by Hamas to infiltrate Israel in place, which Israel simply could not accept. According to a leaked draft document of the proposal that both Aljazeera and Haaretz were reported to have obtained, Kerry’s ceasefire proposal skirted the specific concerns raised by Israel about allowing the tunnels to remain intact and letting Hamas keep its weapons stockpiles. Instead, it focused on opening the border crossings, with no specific security monitoring plan in place to ensure that Hamas would not build up its military capabilities even further. It called for the “withdrawal of IDF from Gaza Strip” and the end to any “military or security targeting of each other.” With the IDF gone and no more “security targeting,” that means the tunnels and remaining rockets would stay put for Hamas’s later use.

Moreover, under the Kerry proposal, the parties would begin discussing, within 48 hours of cessation of fighting, much of the Hamas agenda:

“arrangements to secure the opening of border and non-border crossings, allow the entry of goods and people and ensure the social and economic livelihood of the Palestinian people living in Gaza, including fishing rights up to 12nm, transfer funds to Gaza for the payment of salaries for public employees, and address security issues.”

After Kerry continued his discussions in Paris with foreign ministers from two of the leading Hamas supporting countries, Turkey and Qatar, President Obama tried to put the squeeze on Prime Minister Netanyahu to effectively leave the Israeli people exposed to more rocket fire and Hamas infiltration into Israel from their remaining intact tunnels. Obama and Kerry are so eager to seek peace at any cost that they evidently did not include representatives from Egypt or even from the Palestinian Authority in the high level Paris discussions. As a result, even the Palestinian Authority is disgusted with the Obama administration. Walid Assad, one of the spokespersons of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, complained of Kerry’s “appeasement” of Qatar and Turkey.

The Obama administration’s deference to Qatar, home to a major U.S. air base, is no doubt motivated in part by all the money that Qatar has committed just recently to spend on purchasing Apache attack helicopters, Patriot missile defense batteries and anti-tank Javelin missiles. An $11 billion deal was announced on July 14^th. Qatar provides support to Hamas and other jihadists threatening peace and security in the region. Apparently, the Obama administration is not worried or does not care that some of those missiles and helicopters could well find their way to the wrong hands.

As for Turkey, President Obama considers its Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to be his “personal friend.” Obama’s buddy is the same guy who just a few days ago said that “You can see what Israel does to Palestine, to Gaza right now, surpasses what Hitler did to them. We do not accept this persecution, the massacre, the genocide by Israel.” Obama let this scurrilous remark pass without a word of rebuke in defense of America’s closest ally in the Middle East. And it comes from the leader of the same country that committed genocide against the Armenians and has illegally invaded and occupied northern Cyprus.

Meanwhile, the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) is planning another effort to break Israel’s lawful sea blockade of Gaza. The last one back in 2010 led to a violent confrontation with the Israeli Defense Force. This time, according to the IHH, it will have the protection of the Turkish navy.

While Obama was on the phone Sunday pressuring Israel’s leader to cave in to the demands of Hamas’s Turkish and Qatari protectors, Hamas’s political leader Khaled Meshaal, living in luxury in Qatar, received a phone call of assurance on Sunday from Hamas’s main arms supplier, Iran. Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, is reported to have told Meshaal not to worry about depleting Hamas’s stockpile of weapons. More will be on the way.

DebkaFile has advanced a very plausible theory as to why Obama and Kerry are tilting towards the Qatar-Turkey axis, which is trying to protect Hamas’s ability to live and fight another day. At the same time, Obama and Kerry are tilting against the Israel-Egypt-Saudi Arabia triumvirate, who are united in their resolve to severely curtail the threat that Hamas poses in the region once and for all. It is all about Iran. According to DebkaFile’s analysis:

“So why is the Obama administration shoving this powerful coalition out of his way and building a rival alliance to counter it?

Its primary motive is fear that if this group is allowed to make the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip a success, it will become the springboard for its next move, a victorious assault on Iran.

This sequence of events would totally derail current US Middle East policy, which hinges on détente with Tehran, Obama’s advisers warn him, and even jeopardize his strategy for bringing the nuclear negotiations between the six world powers and Iran to a successful conclusion.”

The Obama administration just last week agreed to a four month extension of the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. It does not want anything to possibly get in its way of making a deal with Iran.

If Prime Minister Netanyahu does not give in to the Obama administration pressure, it is quite possible that the administration will back a UN Security Council resolution along the lines proposed by Jordan as a follow up to the Presidential Statement the Security Council has already issued. In addition to directing that there be an unconditional immediate ceasefire, such a resolution would likely call explicitly for Israel’s forces to be immediately removed from Gaza and for the border crossings to be opened, without addressing the remaining tunnels or rockets other than vague references to security concerns. Israel will then be forced to choose between doing what it has to do to protect its citizens and bowing to the so-called “international community’s” edict. The Jewish state has no choice but to follow its own course for its survival.

Ashkelon mayor: The formula ‘calm will be met with calm’ is a deception – Israel News, Ynetnews.

 IIlana Curiel and Matan Tzuri
Published:     07.28.14, 16:09 / Israel News

Ashkelon Mayor Itamar Shimoni said Monday that if the government won’t exhaust this operation, it will be a disaster for the Israeli public.

“There is a difficult feeling within the Israeli public that once again the government intends to back down and not go all the way with
the operation in Gaza, which is a disaster to us. I understand there are diplomatic considerations, but I don’t understand why we need to apologize for defending ourselves and operating to eliminate those who are trying to harm us,” said Shimoni.

“Should the operation end this way, it would be a political failure as well as a security failure and we will pay for it dearly. The formula ‘calm will be met with calm’ is unacceptable to us. It’s a deception that allows the enemy to accumulate more power.

Report: Hamas Used Child Labor to Build Terror Tunnels; Hundreds Killed
by Joel B. Pollak 27 Jul 2014

Hamas killed hundreds of children in the construction of its extensive tunnel network, built partly to carry out attacks on children across the Gaza border in Israel. That report–confirmed by Hamas itself–emerged in 2012, not from the Israeli government, but the sympathetic Journal of Palestine Studies, in an article that otherwise celebrated the secret tunnel system as a symbol of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli “siege” of the Gaza Strip.

The article, “Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon: The Unintended Dynamics of Israel’s Siege,” was published in the Summer 2012 edition of the Journal by Nicholas Pelham, who writes for the Economist and the New York Review of Books, according to his bio. It is receiving new attention thanks to Myer Freimann of Tablet, an online journal of Jewish affairs, whose post about Hamas’s use of child labor has gone viral in social media.

Pelham wrote that despite the economic success of the tunnels underneath the Egyptian border, which enriched Hamas through a thriving black market as well as arming it with new weapons, there were a few drawbacks. One of these was a “cavalier approach to child labor and tunnel fatalities,” he noted. “During a police patrol that the author was permitted to accompany in December 2011, nothing was done to impede the use of children in the tunnels, where, much as in Victorian coal mines, they are prized for their nimble bodies. At least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels, according to Hamas officials” (emphasis added).

Though some children likely worked voluntarily, the fact that there were public complaints about child deaths, to which Hamas felt compelled to respond at least superficially, is evidence of some amount of coercion. The number of deaths since 2012 has yet to be reported, but almost certainly exceeds the number Pelham reported.

To sum up: Hamas is not only using child labor, but likely child slavery, in building its terror tunnel network. While the world worries obsessively over the child casualties of Israeli attacks on Hamas targets in Gaza, it has ignored Hamas’s deliberate killing of hundreds of Palestinian children, over the objections of the local populace.

The knowledge that Hamas used children to dig tunnels for smuggling and terror up to 25 meters below ground changes the moral calculation of the war significantly. Not only does Hamas show extreme indifference to the lives of Palestinian children by using them as human shields, placing rockets in UN schools and the like, but it actively destroys those lives by sending Palestinian children to die underground in 19th century conditions.

Those defending the Palestinian resistance to Israel–and, equally, those demanding a ceasefire that would leave the Hamas tunnel network in place–are effectively defending a slaveholding regime more odious in moral terms than any the world has seen since the child soldiers of Joseph Kony’s brutal Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, or the forced labor camps of the Nazis in the Second World War, who set children to work for the war effort.

It is rather ironic that President Barack Obama, who touted his own election in 2008 as an answer to the moral stain of slavery in America, would insist today on shoring up a Hamas administration that demonstrably uses child slavery. The Israeli government was reportedly shocked at how closely Obama’s ceasefire terms reflect the Hamas position. The American public ought to be shocked at how cynically Obama has cast morality aside.

Photo: Adel Hana/AP

Israel disputes US account of Kerry’s ceasefire effort | The Times of Israel.

( The word is that Obama called Netanyahu and threatened to withdraw US support unless Israel ceased fire.  This will preserve Hamas and guarantee continued conflict throughout the Middle East by the Moslem Brotherhood.  This goes way past incompetence. Following Kerry’s menage a trois with Turkey and Qatar, as well as Obama’s desperate support for Mursi, it’s now hard to dismiss the stories that Obama is a MB shill. – JW )

While US says document conveyed to cabinet on Friday was just a draft, didn’t require a vote, and didn’t help Hamas, sources tell ToI that ministers were asked to vote and did so 8-0 to reject a proposal that gave Hamas specific gains

By Times of Israel staff and Raphael Ahren July 28, 2014, 1:41 pm

‘Freedom Flotilla II’ set to sail for Gaza from Turkey
By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON, HERB KEINON
LAST UPDATED: 07/28/2014 03:20

Amid Israel’s Operation Protective Edge to stop Hamas attacks from Gaza, a “Freedom Flotilla” is being organized in Turkey to bring humanitarian aid to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian coastal enclave with the protection of the Turkish military, according to an unconfirmed media report.

The flotilla, called “Freedom Flotilla II,” is being organized by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), the same organization that was behind the Mavi Marmara flotilla that sought to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip in May 2010.

Israel Navy commandos boarded the ship, were attacked, and killed nine of the attackers.

IHH chairman Bulent Yildrim was quoted by The Middle East Monitor as telling Gulf Online last week that the activists would set sail as soon as they receive the necessary permit from the authorities in Ankara and that the Turkish military would provide protection to the ship.

Diplomatic officials said Jerusalem was following the reports carefully, but stressed that it was not clear whether the flotilla would ultimately set sail.

So far there has only been a declaration of intent, with no firm date set, one official said.

Harold Rhode, a senior fellow at the New-York-based Gatestone Institute and a former adviser at the in the office of the American defense secretary on Islamic affairs, told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Sunday that the real issue in the ongoing conflict is that Turkey and Qatar are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in their goals.

“[Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan has been associated with the Muslim Brotherhood long before he was prime minister,” Rhode said.

It should now be clear to all that Erdogan “is now out of the bag,” Rhode said, adding that US President Barack Obama does not speak to the Turkish leader anymore despite previously describing him as one of his closest friends among the world’s leaders.

“Erdogan is doing whatever he can to help Hamas,” he said, asserting that it will only hurt the Palestinian people in the end.

Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.