Falling for Hamas’s media manipulation

By Michael Oren, Published: November 28, 2012

Michael Oren is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

What makes better headlines? Is it numbing figures such as the 8,000 Palestinian rockets fired at Israel since it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and the 42.5 percent of Israeli children living near the Gaza border who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder? Or is it high-resolution images of bombed-out buildings in Gaza and emotional stories of bereaved Palestinians? The last, obviously, as demonstrated by much of the media coverage of Israel’s recent operation against Hamas. But that answer raises a more fundamental question: Which stories best serve the terrorists’ interest?

Hamas has a military strategy to paralyze southern Israel with short- and middle-range rockets while launching Iranian-made missiles at Tel Aviv. With our precision air force, top-notch intelligence and committed citizens army, we can defend ourselves against these dangers. We have invested billions of dollars in bomb shelters and early-warning systems and, together with generous U.S. aid, have developed history’s most advanced, multi-layered anti-missile batteries. For all of its bluster, Hamas does not threaten Israel’s existence.

But Hamas also has a media strategy. Its purpose is to portray Israel’s unparalleled efforts to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza as indiscriminate firing at women and children, to pervert Israel’s rightful acts of self-defense into war crimes. Its goals are to isolate Israel internationally, to tie its hands from striking back at those trying to kill our citizens and to delegitimize the Jewish State. Hamas knows that it cannot destroy us militarily but believes that it might do so through the media.

One reason is the enlarged images of destruction and civilian casualties in Gaza that dominated the front pages of U.S. publications. During this operation, The Post published multiple front-page photographs of Palestinian suffering. The New York Times even juxtaposed a photograph of the funeral of Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari, who was responsible for the slaughter of dozens of innocent Israelis, with that of a pregnant Israeli mother murdered by Hamas. Other photos, supplied by the terrorists and picked up by the press, identified children killed by Syrian forces or even by Hamas itself as victims of Israeli strikes.

In reporting Palestinian deaths, media routinely failed to note that roughly half were terrorists and that such a ratio is exceedingly low by modern military standards — much lower, for example, than the NATO campaign in the Balkans. Media also emphasize the disparity between the number of Palestinian and Israeli deaths, as though Israel should be penalized for investing billions of dollars in civil-defense and early-warning systems and Hamas exonerated for investing in bombs rather than bomb shelters. As in Israel’s last campaign against Hamas in 2008-09, the word “disproportionality” has been frequently used to characterize Israeli military strikes. In fact, during Operation Pillar of Defense this year, Hamas fired more than 1,500 missiles at Israel and the Israeli Air Force responded with 1,500 sorties.

The imbalance is also of language. “Hamas health officials said 45 had been killed and 385 wounded,” the Times’ front page reported. “Three Israeli civilians have died and 63 have been injured.” The subtext is clear: Israel targets Palestinians, and Israelis merely die.

The media perpetuated Hamas propaganda that traced the fighting to Jabari’s elimination and described Gaza as the most densely populated area on earth. Widely forgotten were the 130 rockets fired at Israel in the weeks before Jabari’s demise. For the record, Tel Aviv’s population is twice as dense as Gaza’s.

Hamas is a flagrantly anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-feminist and anti-gay movement dedicated to genocide. The United States, Canada and the European Union all consider it a terrorist organization. Hamas strives to kill the maximum number of Israeli civilians while using its own population as a human shield — under international law, a double war crime. Why, then, would the same free press that Hamas silences help advance its strategy?

Media naturally gravitate toward dramatic and highly visual stories. Reports of 5.5 million Israelis gathered nightly in bomb shelters scarcely compete with the Palestinian father interviewed after losing his son. Both are, of course, newsworthy, but the first tells a more complete story while the second stirs emotions.

This is precisely what Hamas wants. It seeks to instill a visceral disgust for any Israeli act of self-defense, even one taken after years of unprovoked aggression.

Hamas strives to replace the tens of thousands of phone calls and text messages Israel sent to Palestinian civilians, warning them to leave combat zones, with lurid images of Palestinian suffering. If Hamas cannot win the war, it wants to win the story of the war.

Veteran journalist Marvin Kalb, writing for Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on the terrorists’ successful media strategy against Israel, warned that “the trajectory of the media, from objective observer to fiery advocate,” had become “a weapon of modern warfare.” Kalb quotes a U.S. military expert who describes how perception has replaced reality on the battlefield and that the terrorists know it.

Israel will take all legitimate steps necessary to defend our citizens. We know that, despite our most painstaking efforts, tragic stories can emerge — stories that the enemy sensationalizes.

Like Americans, we cherish a free press, but unlike the terrorists, we are not looking for headlines. Our hope is that media resist the temptation to give them what they want.

WaPo Ombud: Hamas Rockets Are “Like Bee Stings”

Alana Goodman  11-27-12

Last week, I wrote about the Washington Post’s decision to publish a large photo of a Palestinian toddler killed during Israel’s Gaza operation on the front page. The picture captures the most tragic aspect of war, the death of innocent civilians and the pain of the families they leave behind. But by not balancing this photo with an image of Hamas attacks on Israel, it also gave the impression that Israelis were fighting a war of aggression, rather than self-defense.

The Washington Post’s ombudsman, Patrick Pexton, responded to criticism on Friday:

Many readers asked why The Post didn’t balance the photo of the grieving father with one of Israelis who had lost a loved one from the Gaza rocket fire. That’s a valid question.

The answer is that The Post cannot publish photographs that don’t exist. No Israeli civilian had been killed by Gaza rocket fire since Oct. 29, 2011, more than a year earlier. The first Israeli civilian deaths from Gaza rocket fire in 2012 did not take place until Nov. 15, when Hamas, the group that controls Gaza, began firing more accurate and deadly missiles in response to the Israeli offensive that had begun the day before. There were no recent photos of Israeli casualties to be had on the night of Nov. 14.

Perhaps the Washington Post didn’t have photos of recent Israeli civilian casualties on Nov. 14, but that’s not because these casualties didn’t exist. On Nov. 11, southern Israel was pounded with over 100 Hamas rockets, injuring at least three. Perhaps WaPo didn’t think these casualties were worth documenting, or maybe it didn’t have a photographer nearby at the time. But they certainly existed, and it’s puzzling that Paxton doesn’t even mention them in his column.

Beyond that, three Israelis died in Hamas rocket attacks the night the WaPo front page in question was printed, yet the paper didn’t follow up with a front page photo of these casualties. In fact, it hasn’t printed any pictures of any Israeli casualties whatsoever on its front page since the start of Operation Pillar of Defense. So the argument that “balanced” photos would have been published prominently had they existed doesn’t hold up.

Pexton continues:

I think we can all agree that the Gaza rocket fire is reprehensible and is aimed at terrorizing Israeli civilians. It’s disruptive and traumatic. But let’s be clear: The overwhelming majority of rockets fired from Gaza are like bee stings on the Israeli bear’s behind.

These rockets are unguided and erratic, and they carry very small explosive payloads; they generally fall in open areas, causing little damage and fewer injuries.

“Bee stings on a bear’s behind”? Maybe Pexton can explain that to the children of Sderot, many of whom suffer traumatic stress disorders after being dragged out of bed night after night by the sound of air raid sirens. Or to the families of the Israelis killed by what Pexton refers to as “unguided and erratic” Hamas rocket attacks last week. Or to over a million Israelis forced to put their lives on hold to hide in bomb shelters, because, as effective as Iron Dome is, it can’t block every missile — and it just takes one.

The truth is, Hamas’s rockets don’t cause as many casualties as they otherwise would because Israel goes to great lengths to protect its people. It spends fortunes on bomb shelters and missile defense systems. In contrast, Israel’s military responses cause more Palestinian casualties than they otherwise would because Hamas goes to great lengths to endanger its people. It shoots missiles out of hospitals and schools, uses children as human shields, and tells Gaza civilians to ignore Israeli warning pamphlets that advise them to leave targeted neighborhoods.

Washington Post stories that give prominent coverage to Palestinian casualties and downplay Israeli ones — and columns like Pexton’s that compare Hamas missiles to bee stings and Israel to a bear — play into Hamas’s strategy of endangering its own people, and ensure that it will continue in the future.

 Gaza clash reveals Morsi's true colors

Joel Brinkley: Tribune Media Services

, November 20, 2012

The chameleon is finally showing his true colors.

Since taking office in June, Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's not-so-new president, has been equivocating, trying to balance Egypt's longstanding diplomatic and financial relationship with the West with his true self: a Muslim Brotherhood fundamentalist who is contemptuous of the West, hates Israel and wants to turn Egypt into a fully Islamic state.

"He speaks of moderation for the West," Perihan Abou-Zeid, a 28-year-old Egyptian officer for a media-production company in Cairo, told me. "But then when Salafists blow up churches, there are no arrest warrants." And Egypt experts agree: You can't be a Muslim Brotherhood officer without holding as your goal the imposition of Shariah law nationwide.

When Hamas began firing hundreds of missiles at Israel last week, and Israel understandably responded, Morsi's deceptive duality fell away. He gave himself away.

He sent his prime minister to Gaza City. There, Prime Minister Hisham Qandil theatrically broke into tears at the sight of a boy injured in Israel's retaliatory bombing and said, "What I am witnessing in Gaza is a disaster, and I can't keep quiet. The Israeli aggression must stop."

Morsi also withdrew Egypt's ambassador from Tel Aviv, lectured Israel's ambassador to Cairo and publicly castigated Israel for what he called "wanton aggression on the Gaza Strip."

All of that is so typical for Muslim fundamentalists. Neither Morsi nor any other Egyptian official offered even glancing acknowledgment of the rocket volleys Hamas fired into Israel. That's what ignited this current crisis, not anything Israel did -- other than to exist.

This time, Hamas's arsenal included longer-range missiles, though they're still unguided. Several hit suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Find me a single nation on earth -- including Egypt -- that would not respond if terrorists fired missiles at its two largest cities.

"Shooting into the most important city is like shooting rockets into New York," said Tzipi Hotovely, an Israeli Knesset member.

Morsi's hypocrisy here is of the sort that has been on full display ever since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007. Before, when Israel and Hamas fought, we didn't hear much comment from Hosni Mubarak and other Egyptian leaders. But now, Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, said in a televised speech: "Today's Egypt is unlike that of yesterday." With that, he also thanked Morsi "for the quick and brave decisions he made."

Mubarak considered Hamas the enemy. The rest of the world still does, with the exception of some Arab leaders and Muslim extremist groups -- even though Hamas is nothing more than an unrepentant, unchanging terror group.

"From our ideological point of view, it is not allowed to recognize that Israel controls one square meter of historic Palestine," Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas leader, told me when I visited him 10 years ago. Then, just a few days ago, Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas's military wing, said: "We are sending a short and simple message: There is no security for any Zionist on any single inch of Palestine."

Obdurate, unredeemable, the leaders of Hamas can now rely on Morsi as their new best friend. The Arabian Business News, a Gulf-based publication, described the new relationship as "an unprecedented display of solidarity." Hamas was born of the Muslim Brotherhood, as were most leaders of al-Qaeda. So now that we can see the direction Morsi wants to take Egypt, it's a fearsome thing.

For one thing, he's on record disparaging Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. Almost two years ago, before he had any idea he'd be running for office, Morsi was a senior Muslim Brotherhood officer. He offered his view that a new parliament needed to review the treaty with Israel.

The treaty, he added, "talked about a just and comprehensive peace, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Where is that peace, and where is that state?" (That stated concern is fair, but until recently the Palestinians shared at least equal blame.)

Right now, some other Muslim Brotherhood leaders are openly calling for cancellation of the treaty with Israel.

Meantime, in Cairo and Alexandria last weekend, thousands of young Egyptians held riotous demonstrations, waving Palestinian flags and in some cases shouting "Death to Israel! Death to America! To Gaza we're going, millions of martyrs!"

Unlike during the Mubarak days, Egyptian police stood by and watched while, in Cairo the same day, Morsi issued another statement.

Egypt, he declared, "will not leave Gaza on its own," while warning "the aggressor to stop the bloodshed or face the wrath" of the new Egypt.

(Joel Brinkley, a professor of journalism at Stanford University, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent for the New York Times.)

Men Blinded by Their Brains

By Paul Johnson    Jewish World Review Nov. 27, 2012/ 13 Kislev, 5773

 The recent death, at age 95, of Eric Hobsbawm removed the last of the Stalinists. During his long life Hobsbawm remained true to his faith, not resigning from the Communist Party until 1991, by which time Stalin’s Soviet Union had ceased to exist.

Hobsbawm’s devotion prompts the question: What leads intellectuals, otherwise skeptical of most phenomena, to adore such monsters? Hobsbawm was by trade a historian. According to his left-wing admirers he was “brilliant;” in the opinion of the rest he was “unreadable.” He was also spectacularly ugly. The theory among cynics is that Hobsbawm was so angry with G0D for making him hideous that he was determined to back whoever was G0D’s most resolute opponent. And in Hobsbawm’s youth, that was Stalin.

A more serious suggestion is that intellectuals love power and the satanic figures who embody and exercise it. It’s amazing, looking back, to realize how many intellectuals supported Hitler long after he’d begun to display his evil nature. They included such pro-Fascist ideologues as Louis Ferdinand Celine, Oswald Spengler, Martin Heidegger, Ezra Pound and Charles Maurras, as well as a range of uncommitted figures who commented in his favor, such as W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Jean Cocteau, Benedetto Croce, James Burnham, Luigi Pirandello and Giovanni Gentile, along with such celebrities as Lloyd George, the Duke of Windsor and Lord Rothermere.

Stalin’s admirers were no less numerous. Of Stalin’s murders?he is now thought to be responsible for the deaths of 20 million people George Bernard Shaw wrote: “We cannot afford to give ourselves moral airs when our most enterprising neighbour … humanely and judiciously liquidates a handful of exploiters and speculators to make the world safe for honest men.” The American ambassador in Stalin’s heyday reported: “His brown eye is exceedingly wise and gentle. A child would like to sit on his lap and a dog would sidle up to him.”

Stalin worshippers were well rewarded for their idolatry, especially in academia. Hobsbawm was elected to the British Academy; made an honorary fellow of King’s College at Cambridge, a professor-at-large by Cornell University and a Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; and was also given an honorary doctorate by Columbia and a dozen other universities. Shortly after he again had refused to disavow his approval of Stalin’s empire, Britain’s Labour government made him a Companion of Honour.

Stalin and Hitler weren’t the only mass-murderers to receive ecstatic praise. Mao Zedong was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 70 million of his countrymen, yet Westerners were among his warmest admirers. One of them wrote: “[China is] a kind of benign monarchy ruled by an emperor-priest who had won the complete devotion of his subjects.” David Rockefeller praised the “national harmony” of Mao’s China, which produced not only “more efficient and dedicated administration” but fostered “high morale and community of purpose.” Another American visitor said “law and order … are maintained more by the prevailing high moral code than by any threat of police action.”

Similar praise was heaped on minor killers and dictators, such as Fidel Castro. Saul Landau found him “steeped in democracy”; to Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy, Castro was “a passionate humanitarian”; others praised his “encyclopedic knowledge.” He was “soft-spoken, shy, sensitive” but also “vigorous, handsome, informal, undogmatic, open, humane, superbly accessible and warm.”

Of course, intellectuals, whom I de fine as those who think ideas are more important than people, are notoriously bad at seeing the ordinary world and coming to moral decisions about it. I knew the two greatest intellectuals of their age, Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre, and whatever one might think about their writings, they were the last people one could appeal to for advice on anything practical, especially if it involved moral issues. I suppose Eric Hobsbawm fit into this category. Like them, he was a man so blinded by his own intellect that he was unable to see the evil and wickedness staring him in the face.

Has the West Given Up on Isolating Hamas?

Seth Mandel, Contentions  11=27-12

Last month, I wrote about the danger Hamas poses to peace in the Middle East on a second, and relatively new, front: its newfound diplomatic clout in the region. Saudi Arabia first began dumping cash into Gaza, and was soon followed by Qatar doing the same—between them the countries just pledged nearly $1 billion in investment in the Strip. And Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has figured out that he wields more influence with the West as a mediator between Hamas and the Western world.

Always clearly, though quietly, opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state, the Arab world is no longer hiding it, choosing instead to garishly empower and enrich the entity that will make peace impossible. And so, as Egypt mediated an Israel-Hamas cease-fire this week, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal also received a prime interview slot on CNN at the tail end of Operation Pillar of Defense. Did he use this time to feign moderation? On the contrary, Meshaal reads the support he’s getting from around the world as a signal that he need not moderate, nor claim to. Here is Christiane Amanpour asking Meshaal about a two-state solution and renouncing terrorism:

AMANPOUR: You say you would prefer the route that did not cause so much violence, so much death.

And yet, you say that you would accept a two-state solution, but that you will not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Is that still the case?

MESHAAL (through translator): First of all, the offer must come from the attacker, from Israel, which has the arsenal, not from the victim. Second, I say to you from 20 years ago and more, the Palestinians and Arabs are offering peace. But peace is destroying peace through aggression and war and killing.

This idea (ph), this touch failed experiences, we have two options. No other. Either there’s an international will, led by the U.S. and Europe and the international community and force Israel to go through the way of peace and a Palestinian state, according to the border of 1967 with the right to return. And this is something we have agreed upon as Palestinians, as a common program.

But if Israel can continue to refuse this, either the — either we force them or resist to — resort to resistance. I accept a state of the 1967. How can I accept Israel? They have occupied my land. I need recognition, not the Israelis. This is a reversed question.

The Palestinian right of return Meshaal talks about is obviously the end of the state of Israel. And if Israel won’t agree to let the Palestinians control the land from the river to the sea, “we force them or… resort to resistance.”

Later, Amanpour asks Meshaal if the conflict in Syria and Bashar al-Assad’s support from Iran has caused Hamas to distance itself from Iran. Meshaal answers frankly: “No. You see, the relationship with Iran is present.” And not just Iran, and not just the Arab world, either. Meshaal adds: “Everyone giving us support, whether it’s from Iran or Europe.”

When George Mitchell stepped down as White House envoy to the Middle East in 2011, Walter Russell Mead wrote an essay about the failure to make any headway during Mitchell’s tenure. Mitchell famously tried to apply his experience as a negotiator in Northern Ireland to the Middle East, and Mead gave several reasons this was doomed from the start. But there were, as Mead noted, lessons to be learned from the situation in Northern Ireland. Among them:

The Irish weren’t secretly funding radical and rejectionist nationalist terror groups. Iceland and Denmark weren’t funding Irish terrorists to advance their own agendas. France wasn’t encouraging the IRA to fight on as a way of containing Britain. Catholics around the world weren’t demonstrating and raising money for Irish annexation of Ulster; the Pope wasn’t issuing encyclicals affirming the religious duty of Catholics to fight to kick the heretics out. (A few grizzled US-based Irish emigrants raised money for the IRA, but this is nothing compared to what groups like Hamas get from abroad.) The European Union wasn’t condemning British war crimes in Ulster and passing resolutions in favor of Irish grievances.

The EU, the US, Ireland, the Vatican and Britain all wanted the troubles to stop. None of them were willing to help troublemakers. All of them were willing to crack down on terrorist groups.

The international community wanted peace and the end of terrorism. But watching Meshaal preen on CNN, promising an unending war of terror against Israeli civilians while at the same time and in practically the same breath boasting of the support Hamas receives from around the world, it’s clear there is no such dedication this time around. Hamas’s isolation was always a key to bringing some measure of peace to the region. There is no isolation, and Hamas is promising that there will be no peace.

The Legal Case for Israel Professor Eugene Kontorovich

http://www.torahcafe.com/jewishvideo.php?vid=33fb484b5

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Hamas Left Israel No Choice but to Strike

By MICHAEL B. OREN

Washington

CRITICS of Israel’s campaign to defend millions of its citizens from deadly Hamas rocket fire claim that it lacks a clear objective. Israel has bombed Gaza in the past, they argue, and received only rockets in return. Is there any logic, much less an end, to the cycle of violence? Can it lead to negotiations and peace?

Such questions can be answered only by going back to the origin of the campaign that we Israelis now call Operation Pillar of Defense. It did not begin last week, after Hamas fired more than 700 rockets at southern Israel this year; nor did it start four years ago, as Israel acted to stop thousands of terrorist rockets striking its south. It did not even begin in 2005, when Israel uprooted 21 of its Gaza settlements, together with their 9,000 Israeli residents, to advance peace, and received only Hamas terrorism in return. Rather, the operation began on May 14, 1948, the day Arab forces moved to destroy the newly declared state of Israel.

There were no settlements back then, and the West Bank and East Jerusalem were in Jordanian hands. Yet the very notion of a sovereign Jewish state in the Middle East was abhorrent to the Arabs, many of whom were inflamed by religious extremism. They rebuffed repeated Israeli offers of peace, and instead launched a war of national annihilation. Israel had no choice but to defend itself, losing 1 percent of its population — the equivalent of 3.1 million Americans today — before achieving an armistice.

But few Israelis mistook that truce for peace. On the contrary, most assumed that the Arabs would eventually forget their defeat and seek a “second round.” Indeed, eight years later, in 1956, Israeli and Arab forces again clashed, and then fought again in 1967, 1973 and 1982. The periods in between were punctuated by Arab attacks and Israeli retaliations. Subsequently, in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel mounted major counterstrikes against terrorists dedicated to its destruction.

Throughout, Israelis never abandoned the vision of peace. Still, we came to understand that the cause of the conflict was not borders or even refugees but the same hatred of Jewish statehood that drove the Arabs to invade us in 1948. We understood that our enemies required periodic reminders of the prohibitive price they would pay for murdering our families. We also understood that defending ourselves incurred economic, diplomatic and human costs, yet there was no practical or moral alternative. The tactic is deterrence. Our strategy is survival.

Negotiations leading to peace can be realistic with an adversary who shares that goal. But Hamas, whose covenant calls for the slaughter of Jews worldwide, is striving not to join peace talks, but to prevent them. It rejects Israel’s existence, refuses to eschew terror, and disavows all previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements — the terms established by the United States and the other members of the so-called quartet of Middle East peacemakers for participation in the peace process. Bound by its genocidal theology and crude anti-Semitism, Hamas cannot be induced to make peace. But it can be deterred from war.

This was the case with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Like Hamas, Hezbollah is an Islamist organization committed to Israel’s demise. It, too, ambushed Israeli soldiers on our side of the border and rained rockets on Israeli towns. Then, in 2006, Israel struck back, destroying much of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, neutralizing its long-range missiles, and killing hundreds of terrorists. Hezbollah internalized the message, and since then its missiles have remained inert. The people of northern Israel, meanwhile, have enjoyed six of their quietest years ever.

This does not mean that the tactics of deterrence and the strategy of survival cannot result in peace. Egypt and Jordan tried more than once to defeat Israel militarily, only to recognize the permanence of the Jewish state and to sign peace accords with it. Similarly, the Palestine Liberation Organization, guided by nationalism rather than militant theology, realized it could gain more by talking with Israel than by battling us. The result was the 1993 Oslo Accords, the foundation for what we still hope will be a two-state solution. By establishing deterrence, Israel led these rational actors toward peace.

Unfortunately, Hamas is not rational. It targets Israeli civilians while hiding behind its own. During a campaign of murder and kidnapping in 2006 and 2007, it gunned down members of its rival, Al Fatah, in the streets. Its covenant says Christians and Jews “must desist from struggling against Islam over sovereignty in this region”; under its rule, militants firebombed a Christian bookshop. It celebrated 9/11 and mourned the death of Osama bin Laden. We hope some day to persuade its leaders to make peace with us, but until then we must convince them of the exorbitant price of aggression.

Back in 1948, we envisaged a future of security, prosperity and mutual respect with our neighbors. We still cling to that dream. But we must also remain vigilant and, occasionally, neutralize the rockets and combat the terrorists that target us. President Obama said Sunday in Bangkok that “we’re fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles landing on people’s homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians, and we will continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself.” Earlier in the trip, his deputy national security adviser, Benjamin Rhodes, said that Israelis would “make their own decisions about the tactics they use.” Those tactics, together with our survival strategy, have helped us to create one of the world’s most vibrant and innovative societies, while enabling us to pursue peace.

Michael Oren is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.

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The trap that Ariel Sharon built

By Caroline B. Glick 11-23-12

The marginalized commentators who dared to question the wisdom of the former prime minister's strategy have, sadly, been proven correct. So why, then, is Israel once again acting foolishly, if not irresponsibly? 

 The ceasefire agreement that Israel accepted Wednesday night to end the current round of Palestinian rocket and missile attacks is not a good deal for Israel by any stretch of the imagination.

At best, Israel and Hamas are placed on the same moral plane. The ceasefire erases the distinction between Israel, a peace-seeking liberal democracy that wants simply to defend its citizens from molestation, and Hamas, a genocidal jihadist terrorist outfit that seeks the eradication of the Jewish people and the destruction of Israel.

Under international law, Israel is not just within its rights to defend itself from Hamas. It is required to. International law requires all states to treat Hamas terrorists as criminals and deny them safe haven and financing. But the ceasefire agreement requires both the Israeli policeman and the Hamas criminal to hold their fire.

At worst, the ceasefire places Israel beneath Hamas. The first two clauses require both sides to end hostilities. The third suggests Israel is expected to make further concessions to Hamas after the firing stops.

Then there is the ceasefire's elevation of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood government to the role of responsible adult. Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi openly supports Hamas. Morsi sent his Prime Minister Hesham Kandil to Gaza to personally express the Egyptian government's support for Hamas's criminal assault against Israeli civilians.

Over the weekend Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood held what the media claimed was a stormy meeting. Its members were split over what to do about Israel. Half wanted to go to war with Israel immediately. The other half called for waiting until the Egyptian military is prepared for war. In the end, the voices calling for patient preparation for war won the day.

And for their patience, the Muslim Brothers received the plaudits of the US government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her boss President Barack Obama were effusive in their praise of the Egyptian government, and joined Egypt in placing Israel on the same moral plane as a terrorist group.

Moreover, Obama and Clinton compelled Israel to accept wording in the ceasefire that arguably makes Egypt the arbiter of Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the agreement. Aside from the administration's de facto support for the Hamas regime in Gaza, it is hard to think of a greater humiliation than Israel being forced to submit complaints to its sworn enemy about the actions of the sworn enemy's terrorist client.

And yet, for all of that, it isn't clear that Israel had a better option than to sign on the dotted line. Israel might have gotten better results if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak had ordered the ground forces poised at the border to take out a few Hamas ground installations. It certainly would make sense for Israel to end Gaza's electricity supply. But as it stands today, a full blown ground invasion in the mold of the 2002 Defensive Shield Operation, where Israel seized control of Judea and Samaria from Palestinian terror groups and reasserted its security control over the Palestinian areas so ending the Palestinian terror onslaught against Jerusalem and central Israel was not in the cards.

Israel is in a strategic trap. And it is one of its own making. Starting with the Rabin-Peres government's decision to embrace the PLO terrorist organization as a peace partner in 1993 Israel has been in strategic retreat. Each incremental retreat by Israel has empowered its worst enemies both militarily and diplomatically and weakened the Jewish State militarily and diplomatically.

In May 2000, following years of political agitation by the radical Left, then-premier Ehud Barak ordered the IDF to retreat from Israel's security zone in south Lebanon. Hezbollah immediately seized control over the border area. Within months it kidnapped and killed three IDF soldiers and held them for ransom — hiding the fact that they had been murdered. The same Barak-led government that withdrew the IDF from south Lebanon was loath to acknowledge the failure of its policy and so did nothing when the three soldiers were kidnapped.

Within six years, Hezbollah was strong enough to launch an all-out missile war against Israel.

Facing them was the government that had just carried out the withdrawal from Gaza. Ariel Sharon's heirs, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni's governing strategy was based on surrendering land and demonizing as warmongers those who opposed surrendering land. When Hezbollah attacked Israel in July 2006, Olmert and Livni were in no position to order a serious ground invasion of Lebanon. And since that was the only way to win the war, Israel lost the war, paving the way for Hezbollah's subsequent takeover of the Lebanese government.

As for that withdrawal from Gaza, just like the phony peace process with the PLO and the strategically demented withdrawal from south Lebanon, the withdrawal from Gaza was a self-evidently insane policy. It was obvious that it would lead to the strengthening of Palestinian terrorist groups and so put Israel's population centers in striking range of their missiles.

After both the Oslo process and the withdrawal from Lebanon left Israel strategically and diplomatically weakened, with its politicians, generals and its very existence brought before international tribunals and targeted by diplomatic pogroms, there was no basis for the empty claim that by withdrawing from Gaza, Israel would gain international legitimacy to defend itself.

By leaving Gaza, Israel was saying — as it had in Lebanon — that it had no right to be there. And if it had no right to be there, it had no right to return.

To force this mad initiative through, Sharon had to explicitly disavow the platform he was elected to implement. Sharon won the 2003 elections by pledging never to surrender Gaza. After he betrayed his voters, Sharon demonized and, when possible fired everyone in positions of power and influence who opposed him.

He called a referendum of Likud members to vote on his plan, and when his opponents won the vote overwhelmingly, he ignored it. He fired Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, then IDF Chief of General Staff. He fired his cabinet ministers. He castigated as "rebels" his party members who opposed his plan.

Moreover, with the active collusion of the legal system, Sharon violently repressed his political opponents. Young girls were thrown into jail without trial for months for participating in anti-withdrawal demonstrations. Privately chartered buses en route to lawful demonstrations were interdicted by police and prevented from travelling. Protest organizers were arrested in their homes at 3 am. And with the active collusion of the media, all debate on the merits of the withdrawal plan was stifled.

As bad as it was in Israel, the situation in the US was arguably even more devastating. Since Oslo, Israeli opponents of the Left's strategic insanity were intellectually and politically buoyed by their conservative counterparts in America. The latter helped legitimize political opposition and enabled the conceptualization and maintenance of alternative policies as viable options.

Despite government repression, some 45 percent of Israel's Jewish population actively participated in anti-withdrawal protests. In the US, virtually no one supported them. The absence of opposition owed to the fact that in America withdrawal opponents were boycotted, demonized and blacklisted by the American Jewish community and the previously supportive conservative media.

During the years of the fake peace process, conservative US Jewish groups and conservative publications led by Commentary, The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal forcefully opposed it. But when Sharon joined the radical Left by adopting its plan to withdraw from Gaza, these formidable outlets and institutions enthusiastically followed him.

Leading voices like former Jerusalem Post editor and Wall Street Journal editorial board member Bret Stephens, Commentary editors Norman Podhoretz and Neil Kozodoy, commentator Charles Krauthammer and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol not only lined up to support the dangerous planned withdrawal. They barred all voices of opposition from the pages of their publications. To greater and lesser degrees, their shunning of voices that warned against the Gaza withdrawal continues to this day.

So too, with the exception of the Zionist Organization of America, every major American Jewish organization supported the withdrawal. Like the editors of Commentary, The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal, they barred voices of opposition from speaking to their groups. All commentators who warned of the strategic calamity that would befall Israel in the aftermath of a withdrawal from Gaza were marginalized and demonized as extremists.

In a notable gesture, this week, Stephens along with Commentary's Max Boot, acknowledged their error in supporting the withdrawal from Gaza. Their recantations are noteworthy because most of their colleagues who joined them in pushing Israel down the garden path and cheered Sharon's "democracy" as 8,500 Israelis were thrown out of their homes and off their land in order to free it up for a terrorist takeover, continue to deny that they were wrong to do so. But Stephens' and Boot's belated intellectual integrity on Gaza is not enough to make a difference for Israel today.

Israel has only two options for dealing with the ever escalating threat from Gaza. It can try to coexist with Hamas. This option is doomed to failure since Hamas seeks the annihilation of the Jewish people and the eradication of Israel. Recognizing this state of affairs, in a public opinion survey taken on Wednesday for Channel 2, 88 percent of Israelis said that a ceasefire with Hamas will either not hold at all or hold for only a short time. 74 percent of Israelis opposed accepting a ceasefire.

The other choice is to destroy Hamas. To accomplish this Israel will need to invade Gaza and remain in place. It will have to kill or imprison thousands of terrorists, send thousands more packing for Sinai, and then spend years patrolling the streets of Gaza and arresting terrorists just as it does today in Judea and Samaria.

Whereas the first option is impossible the latter option is not currently viable. It isn't viable because not enough people making the argument have the opportunity to publish their thoughts in leading publications. Most of those who might have the courage to voice this view fear that if they do, they will be denied an audience, or discredited as warmongers or extremists. So they remain silent or impotently say that Israel shouldn't agree to a ceasefire without mentioning what Israel's other option is.

The millions of Israelis who opposed the withdrawal from Gaza do not seek personal vindication for being right. They didn't warn against the withdrawal to advance their careers or make their lives easier. Indeed, their careers were uniformly harmed.

They did it because they were patriots. They felt it was their duty to warn their countrymen of the danger hoping to avert the disaster we now face. They should be listened to now. And their voices should be empowered by those who shunned them because only by listening to them will we develop the arguments and the legitimacy to do what needs to be done and stop fighting to lose, again and again and again. 

Is Israel’s Response ‘Disproportionate’?

 A History Lesson  Rafael Medoff   11-21-12

The fact that the casualty toll from the first days of the Gaza fighting was three Israelis and 30 Arabs “underscores what critics of Israeli policy called Israel’s disproportionate use of military force,” the New York Times reported on Nov. 17.

If the body count determines whether an army’s actions are justified, then the historical record contains more than a few surprises.

In early 1916, Pancho Villa’s revolutionaries murdered 16 Americans in northern Mexico, and then 18 more in a cross-border raid into New Mexico. President Woodrow Wilson responded by sending American troops, led by Major-General John Pershing, after Villa. In a series of battles between March and June, the Americans lost 15 men, while Villa’s forces suffered about 200 dead.

Did anybody accuse Pershing of using too much force?

Fast forward 25 years. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, left 2,330 Americans dead. The United States responded not with a raid of similar size, but a full-scale war against the Japanese throughout the Pacific, culminating in the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese mainland. By the time the war was over, Japan had lost an estimated one million soldiers and two million civilians, including the approximately 200,000 civilians killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Was America’s response disproportionate?

President Harry Truman didn’t think so. Here’s what he said about using a nuclear weapon: “We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.”

The German blitzkrieg rained terror on London and other British cities every night for eight straight months from September 1940 to May 1941. About 40,000 British civilians were killed in those German bombings.

But in just three nights, the Allied bombing of the German city of Dresden claimed an estimated 20,000 lives. Other Allied bombings of Germany brought the civilian death toll there to far more than what the British had suffered.

The chief marshal of the British air force, Arthur Harris, had this to say about Dresden: “Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.”

Altogether, an estimated 3.2-million German soldiers, and 3.6-million German civilians, died in the war. Compare that to American and British losses. The U.S. suffered 362,561 military deaths in World War II. The British lost 264,433 soldiers, 30,248 merchant navymen, and 60,595 civilians, for a total of 355,276.

By the standards of today’s Mideast pundits, would that mean the Allies’ military actions were disproportionate?

More recent conflicts raise similar questions.

The Korean War, for example. Casualty figures are impossible to determine precisely, but there is no doubt that the North Koreans and their Chinese allies suffered many more losses than the U.S. and South Korea.

The U.S. lost 36,576 soldiers; the South Koreans, over 100,000 soldiers and some 300,000 civilians. By contrast, North Korean military losses were probably around 400,000, and Chinese fatalities were probably in the vicinity of 500,000. Together with North Korean civilian deaths, the casualty total on their side was well over one million. Does that indicate the Americans used disproportionate force?

In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. The U.S. and its allies came to Kuwait’s defense. About 25,000 Iraqi soldiers, and more than 3,000 Iraqi civilians, were killed. The U.S. suffered 294 losses; the other members of its coalition lost a combined total of 188. Did the Americans overdo it?

Consider Afghanistan. About 3,000 Americans were killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The U.S. and its allies responded by attacking Al Qaeda and its Taliban supporters in Afghanistan. As of this writing, more than 2,000 American soldiers, and more than 1,000 other allied soldiers, have died in Afghanistan, as well as some 10,000 Afghan soldiers. Estimates for Al Qaeda and Taliban casualty totals vary, but they certainly number in the tens of thousands—far more than the Americans and their allies. Should we conclude that the Bush and Obama administrations have used disproportionate force in Afghanistan?

Israel does not claim its army is perfect. It knows that when fighting a war in which terrorists station themselves in civilian neighborhoods, some civilians will be harmed. And the Israelis regret that. They simply want to be judged by the same standard that the international community has used in judging other conflicts in which the aggressors end up suffering more casualties than their intended victims.

Dr. Rafael Medoff is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and coauthor, with Prof. Sonja Schoepf Wentling, of the new book “Herbert Hoover and the Jews: The Origins of the ‘Jewish Vote’ and Bipartisan Support for Israel.”

NEW YORK TIMES AND THE HOLOCAUST  11-21-12 One day not long before Robert Bartley died, the long-time editor of the Wall Street Journal was honored at a banquet in Manhattan for the newspaper’s courageous support of Israel. The story was told about how Bartley was once asked how he managed to defend Israel with even more verve than some of the Jewish newspapers. “Oh, I had it easy,” Bartley was quoted as replying, “I’m not Jewish.” By our lights, his apology was unnecessary. What he had tweeted, after all, was the opposite of the anti-Semitic jibe about Jewish newspapers being beholden to Israel. What Mr. Murdoch is wondering is why Jewish newspapers don’t rise to Israel’s defense. This is a question that is usually raised in respect of the New York Times, which in the current crisis has packaged its acknowledgement of Israel’s right to defend itself in an editorial urging Israel to be more forthcoming in giving away parts of Judea, Samaria, and Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. If Mr. Murdoch was thinking of the Times, he wouldn’t be the first person to suspect that the paper has bent over backward to avoid being thought of as a Jewish newspaper. Several years ago, Cambridge University issued a history of the Times’ failure during World War II to front its coverage of the Holocaust. The author, Laurel Leff, made clear how uncomfortable the Times’s proprietors, the Sulzberger family, were with the Jewish issue. It led to journalistic error. People still talk about an editorial the Times issued in 1981, when Prime Minister Begin sent a flight of U.S.-made warplanes to destroy the atomic-bomb-making facility that Iraq was building at Baghdad. The Times’ editorial derided the action as a “sneak attack” and called the raid “an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression.” Years later, the Times’s former editor, Max Frankel, wrote in a memoir that the editorial was one of his “major mistakes.” Mr. Frankel also wrote of how it was “especially satisfying” to realize in America “the wildest fantasy of the world’s anti-Semites: Inspired by our heritage as keepers of the book, creators of the law, and storytellers supreme, Jews in America did finally achieve a disproportionate influence in universities and in all media of communication.” He wrote of how the publisher of the Times in his generation, Arthur “Punch” Sulzberger, “unconsciously abetted this movement” and “had none of his father’s hang-ups about being Jewish.” Even so, Mr. Frankel wrote, “I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert.” He wrote that he “had yearned for a Jewish homeland ever since learning as a child in Germany that in Palestine even the policemen were Jews!” But he wrote that “[l]ike most American Jews” he had “settled on a remote brand of Zionism, which rejected all importuning to move to Israel to share its hardships and dangers.” Few who held high office at a newspaper have addressed such questions so forthrightly. Surely Mr. Murdoch knows all this. He is ahead of his critics. When he was honored two years ago by the Anti-Defamation League, he warned that we are in a new phase of the war against the Jews. In the new phase, he said, the “[t]he battleground is everywhere,” including the press and broadcasting, multinational organizations, and non-governmental organizations. The aim, he said, was the same, “to make Israel a pariah.” At the time, The New York Sun called his remarks a “radical and newsworthy speech.” If the speech weren’t so long it would have made a terrific tweet.

ISRAEL IS AT WAR

 It must be emphasized to the world and to all Israelis that Israel is at war and that Israel is fighting for its very survival.

Although the Iron Dome anti-rocket shield has been  successful in largely protecting the major Israeli cities, there have already been tragic casualties and regrettably more are likely if hostilities continue . The high cost of Iron Dome ($40,000 per missile?) and it's limited number make it a ineffective weapon against low-cost missile saturated attack. Also, if a sufficient quantity of Iron Dome missiles are not held in reserve ,then later when  long-range missiles are  fired against Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, etc., they will go unchallenged. Iron Dome  is not an effective long-range strategy. Defense rarely is an effective long-range strategy.

THE MOST IMMEDIATE THREAT TO ISRAEL'S SURVIVAL is a nuclear armed Iran. (The recent  attack on Israel by Iranian proxy Hamas should disabuse anyone who hopes for the "rationality" of the Islamists.) Thus, Israel must maintain a capability to attack Iran's nuclear program if and when it deems it to be in Israel's interest to do so. Even a few years delay in Iran's nuclear progress might change the situation radically in the Middle East .To have  as free  a hand as possible ,interference from Hamas, Hezbollah or any other pro-Iranian entity must be squelched..

A 2ND IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE is to persuade Hezbollah that any attack on Israel (including kidnappings, over the border raids, explosive tunnels, missile and rocket assaults, etc. )would exact a catastrophic price from Hezbollah and from the Lebanese infrastructure. The expected retaliation should be so severe that the clear message to Hezbollah is: “don't even think of it”. This will free Israel's hands for action against Iran and for action against Hamas.

A 3RD IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE is to stop the current  Hamas' missile attacks and  to make sure that Hamas never again attacks Israel (through rockets and missiles, raids, kidnappings, explosive tunnels, etc.)

Anything less than accomplishing the 3 objectives identified above) is an Israeli defeat.

Israel has a limited time window. The US administration is already talking about slowing down Israel's resupply chain. The  US administration has already contacted Israel to “warn” Israel against conducting a ground offensive. (Interestingly, certain military analysts believe that a ground offensive is the only way of halting current and future missile attacks against Israel.) Soon the world will demand an end to Israel's military efforts. Whatever Israel does not accomplish during this period of time will remain a sword hanging over Israel's head which will be executed in the future.

Israel must recognize and clearly explain to the United States and to the rest of the world that in future conflicts, the terrorists will continue accumulating more effective and lethal weapons to employ against Israel (as well as against the United States and against the rest of the world). Israel must therefore endeavor to resist calls for a cease-fire until such time as Hamas, in conjunction with the Egyptians, undertake to cease their aggression.

There must be a clear understanding (by Israel, by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by the United States, by England, and by the rest of the world) that any breach would result in harsh “disproportionate” Israeli responses including the targeted killings of those responsible for initiating attacks. In the absence of such an agreement an enforced cease fire will be perceived as a major victory for Hamas and Israel's citizens will simply return to the life of terror they endured since the first Kassams were launched a decade ago.

Many of Israel's problems are self-imposed.It must be emphasized that Israel, by taking her usual“measured approach” is guaranteeing that the next round of assault by Israel's enemies will be more furious. This “measured” approach also substantially increases the probability of future attacks..

Israelis pride themselves on being restrained and utilizing “proportional response”; being the most humane army in the world; precisely targeted retaliation; minimizing civilian casualties of the enemy. These are are all losing strategies. Israel gets no credit for its high moral standing. Rather, this is used against them in terms of Israel's enemies placing rocket launchers in civilian areas, etc. They  then employ pictures and articles describing casualties, especially women and children and invoke claims of a "humanitarian crisis” to pressure the world to pressure Israel for a stand down.

Israel should announce that it's retaliation/prevention  policy is “ strictly proportional”. Just keep announcing it and then the media will repeat it.

The PUBLIC logic is simple. You are obligating yourself to do enough but   no more (AND NO LESS) than is necessary. And, If  Hamas  does  not stop its attacks, then by definition, you have not exercised sufficient force. Therefore, under the doctrine of “proportionality” Israel must increase the intensity of the Israeli attacks until Hamas ceases its offensive actions.

Other Israeli self-limiting attitudes and actions include:

Recently, the IDF bragged that it aborted a mission attacking an Hamas missile launcher site since the pilot saw children playing in the vicinity of the rocket launcher (target). This missile was not attacked and later was fired against Israel. Had any Israelis and killed or injured by that missile, their blood would be on the hands of the Israeli pilot who did not complete the mission ,his IDF command and Israeli government that does not give highest priority to preserving the lives of their citizens. Sacrificing Israeli civilians and/or Israeli military in order to brag about how humane Israelis are, is criminal.

Hamas is no longer a terrorist faction. It is in every respect an independent state the majority of whose citizens enthusiastically support the terrorist initiatives and missile launches initiated by its leaders committed to in Israel's annihilation.

It's been publicized that 80 large trailer trucks of supplies or trucked into Gaza in one day. Also the electrical grid is still functioning supplying electricity to Gaza. If Israel wants to survive this is insanity, the various grids such as electrical, water, sewage, etc. should be immediately cut.

The missile fire from Gaza to Israel is applauded by the inhabitants. Should an Israeli school be struck and students injured or killed candies would be given out in celebration. The inhabitants of Gaza are complicit. They enthusiastically elected Hamas and serve as human shields. The inhabitants of Gaza should be made to feel the same shock and terror as the citizens of Israel. An Egyptian military associate said that it was incongruous to see the inhabitants of southern Israel in shelters and the inhabitants of Gaza nonchalantly shopping in the malls.

Bargaining theory is useful. In poker one objective is to  force your opponent  to abandon the game (or to lose all of his assets to you.). Gradual escalation sucks both you and him in deeper. Usually deeper then you have to go, if stead of escalating gradually, you escalate dramatically. In poker you would say “ I see your dollar and I raise you 10,000.” Another analogy is to imagine  exactly how a Mafia family   under siege facing the same circumstances would counter and neutralize their enemies. (“He puts one of my guys in the hospital; I put 2 of his guys in the morgue.”….) Then act as they would have  acted had they faced this hostile Islamic world which  is conspiring for their destruction.

If Israel does not start immediately Israel will be regarded as a pompous weakling and deterrence will have failed forever.

Israel must raise the price so high that the message is clear to Hamas: “don't even think about firing more missiles since our “proportionate response” would be immediate, fierce and  very costly to you and to the population that you represent. For  a specific example, announce that you have a list of 300  (or 500, or?) residential buildings and publicize your list.( This constitutes “ fair warning” having been given to the inhabitants of these buildings.}  Then announce that for each incoming missile you're going to destroy one of these buildings ….and if the Hamas attack continues, Israel must go ahead with these attacks. The residents  of all 300 (or the number you choose) buildings. will feel the panic. Having given adequate warning, Israel must go ahead with these attacks.

 Simultaneously, Israel should begin systematically destroying obvious and essential Gaza infrastructure. Examples include bridges over bodies of water. Key intersections. Shopping malls. Electrical and water grids.Also commercial properties and manufacturing properties should be on the target list and destroyed.

Electricity from Israel should be cut off.

 Food should be blockaded and Israel's new policy should be that for every missile over certain class that Hamas and its allies turns over to Israel, Israel   will let one truckload of food in. 

IN THE SHORT RUN THIS APPROACH MIGHT INCREASE PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES. …….IN THE LONG RUN IT WILL REDUCE PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES SINCE IT WILL END THE ATTACKS SOONER AND PREVENT FUTURE ATTACKS.

ISRAEL IS AT WAR.

 It must be emphasized to the world and to all Israelis that Israel is at war and that Israel is fighting for its very survival.

Although the Iron Dome anti-rocket shield has been  successful in largely protecting the major Israeli cities, there have already been tragic casualties and regrettably more are likely if hostilities continue . The high cost of Iron Dome ($40,000 per missile?) and it's limited number make it a ineffective weapon against low-cost missile saturated attack. Also, if a sufficient quantity of Iron Dome missiles are not held in reserve ,then later when  long-range missiles are  fired against Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, etc., they will go unchallenged. Iron Dome  is not an effective long-range strategy. Defense rarely is an effective long-range strategy.

THE MOST IMMEDIATE THREAT TO ISRAEL'S SURVIVAL is a nuclear armed Iran. (The recent  attack on Israel by Iranian proxy Hamas should disabuse anyone who hopes for the "rationality" of the Islamists.) Thus, Israel must maintain a capability to attack Iran's nuclear program if and when it deems it to be in Israel's interest to do so. Even a few years delay in Iran's nuclear progress might change the situation radically in the Middle East .To have  as free  a hand as possible ,interference from Hamas, Hezbollah or any other pro-Iranian entity must be squelched..

A 2ND IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE is to persuade Hezbollah that any attack on Israel (including kidnappings, over the border raids, explosive tunnels, missile and rocket assaults, etc. )would exact a catastrophic price from Hezbollah and from the Lebanese infrastructure. The expected retaliation should be so severe that the clear message to Hezbollah is: “don't even think of it”. This will free Israel's hands for action against Iran and for action against Hamas.

A 3RD IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE is to stop the current  Hamas' missile attacks and  to make sure that Hamas never again attacks Israel (through rockets and missiles, raids, kidnappings, explosive tunnels, etc.)

Anything less than accomplishing the 3 objectives identified above) is an Israeli defeat.

Israel has a limited time window. The US administration is already talking about slowing down Israel's resupply chain. The  US administration has already contacted Israel to “warn” Israel against conducting a ground offensive. (Interestingly, certain military analysts believe that a ground offensive is the only way of halting current and future missile attacks against Israel.) Soon the world will demand an end to Israel's military efforts. Whatever Israel does not accomplish during this period of time will remain a sword hanging over Israel's head which will be executed in the future.

Israel must recognize and clearly explain to the United States and to the rest of the world that in future conflicts, the terrorists will continue accumulating more effective and lethal weapons to employ against Israel (as well as against the United States and against the rest of the world). Israel must therefore endeavor to resist calls for a cease-fire until such time as Hamas, in conjunction with the Egyptians, undertake to cease their aggression.

There must be a clear understanding (by Israel, by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by the United States, by England, and by the rest of the world) that any breach would result in harsh “disproportionate” Israeli responses including the targeted killings of those responsible for initiating attacks. In the absence of such an agreement an enforced cease fire will be perceived as a major victory for Hamas and Israel's citizens will simply return to the life of terror they endured since the first Kassams were launched a decade ago.

Many of Israel's problems are self-imposed.It must be emphasized that Israel, by taking her usual“measured approach” is guaranteeing that the next round of assault by Israel's enemies will be more furious. This “measured” approach also substantially increases the probability of future attacks..

Israelis pride themselves on being restrained and utilizing “proportional response”; being the most humane army in the world; precisely targeted retaliation; minimizing civilian casualties of the enemy. These are are all losing strategies. Israel gets no credit for its high moral standing. Rather, this is used against them in terms of Israel's enemies placing rocket launchers in civilian areas, etc. They  then employ pictures and articles describing casualties, especially women and children and invoke claims of a "humanitarian crisis” to pressure the world to pressure Israel for a stand down.

Israel should announce that it's retaliation/prevention  policy is “ strictly proportional”. Just keep announcing it and then the media will repeat it.

The PUBLIC logic is simple. You are obligating yourself to do enough but   no more (AND NO LESS) than is necessary. And, If  Hamas  does  not stop its attacks, then by definition, you have not exercised sufficient force. Therefore, under the doctrine of “proportionality” Israel must increase the intensity of the Israeli attacks until Hamas ceases its offensive actions.

Other Israeli self-limiting attitudes and actions include:

Recently, the IDF bragged that it aborted a mission attacking an Hamas missile launcher site since the pilot saw children playing in the vicinity of the rocket launcher (target). This missile was not attacked and later was fired against Israel. Had any Israelis and killed or injured by that missile, their blood would be on the hands of the Israeli pilot who did not complete the mission ,his IDF command and Israeli government that does not give highest priority to preserving the lives of their citizens. Sacrificing Israeli civilians and/or Israeli military in order to brag about how humane Israelis are, is criminal.

Hamas is no longer a terrorist faction. It is in every respect an independent state the majority of whose citizens enthusiastically support the terrorist initiatives and missile launches initiated by its leaders committed to in Israel's annihilation.

It's been publicized that 80 large trailer trucks of supplies or trucked into Gaza in one day. Also the electrical grid is still functioning supplying electricity to Gaza. If Israel wants to survive this is insanity, the various grids such as electrical, water, sewage, etc. should be immediately cut.

The missile fire from Gaza to Israel is applauded by the inhabitants. Should an Israeli school be struck and students injured or killed candies would be given out in celebration. The inhabitants of Gaza are complicit. They enthusiastically elected Hamas and serve as human shields. The inhabitants of Gaza should be made to feel the same shock and terror as the citizens of Israel. An Egyptian military associate said that it was incongruous to see the inhabitants of southern Israel in shelters and the inhabitants of Gaza nonchalantly shopping in the malls.

Bargaining theory is useful. In poker one objective is to  force your opponent  to abandon the game (or to lose all of his assets to you.). Gradual escalation sucks both you and him in deeper. Usually deeper then you have to go, if stead of escalating gradually, you escalate dramatically. In poker you would say “ I see your dollar and I raise you 10,000.” Another analogy is to imagine  exactly how a Mafia family   under siege facing the same circumstances would counter and neutralize their enemies. (“He puts one of my guys in the hospital; I put 2 of his guys in the morgue.”….) Then act as they would have  acted had they faced this hostile Islamic world which  is conspiring for their destruction.

If Israel does not start immediately Israel will be regarded as a pompous weakling and deterrence will have failed forever.

Israel must raise the price so high that the message is clear to Hamas: “don't even think about firing more missiles since our “proportionate response” would be immediate, fierce and  very costly to you and to the population that you represent. For  a specific example, announce that you have a list of 300  (or 500, or?) residential buildings and publicize your list.( This constitutes “ fair warning” having been given to the inhabitants of these buildings.}  Then announce that for each incoming missile you're going to destroy one of these buildings ….and if the Hamas attack continues, Israel must go ahead with these attacks. The residents  of all 300 (or the number you choose) buildings. will feel the panic. Having given adequate warning, Israel must go ahead with these attacks.

 Simultaneously, Israel should begin systematically destroying obvious and essential Gaza infrastructure. Examples include bridges over bodies of water. Key intersections. Shopping malls. Electrical and water grids.Also commercial properties and manufacturing properties should be on the target list and destroyed.

Electricity from Israel should be cut off.

 Food should be blockaded and Israel's new policy should be that for every missile over certain class that Hamas and its allies turns over to Israel, Israel   will let one truckload of food in. 

IN THE SHORT RUN THIS APPROACH MIGHT INCREASE PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES. …….IN THE LONG RUN IT WILL REDUCE PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES SINCE IT WILL END THE ATTACKS SOONER AND PREVENT FUTURE ATTACKS.

ISRAEL IS AT WAR.

 It must be emphasized to the world and to all Israelis that Israel is at war and that Israel is fighting for its very survival.

Although the Iron Dome anti-rocket shield has been  successful in largely protecting the major Israeli cities, there have already been tragic casualties and regrettably more are likely if hostilities continue . The high cost of Iron Dome ($40,000 per missile?) and it's limited number make it a ineffective weapon against low-cost missile saturated attack. Also, if a sufficient quantity of Iron Dome missiles are not held in reserve ,then later when  long-range missiles are  fired against Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, etc., they will go unchallenged. Iron Dome  is not an effective long-range strategy. Defense rarely is an effective long-range strategy.

THE MOST IMMEDIATE THREAT TO ISRAEL'S SURVIVAL is a nuclear armed Iran. (The recent  attack on Israel by Iranian proxy Hamas should disabuse anyone who hopes for the "rationality" of the Islamists.) Thus, Israel must maintain a capability to attack Iran's nuclear program if and when it deems it to be in Israel's interest to do so. Even a few years delay in Iran's nuclear progress might change the situation radically in the Middle East .To have  as free  a hand as possible ,interference from Hamas, Hezbollah or any other pro-Iranian entity must be squelched..

A 2ND IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE is to persuade Hezbollah that any attack on Israel (including kidnappings, over the border raids, explosive tunnels, missile and rocket assaults, etc. )would exact a catastrophic price from Hezbollah and from the Lebanese infrastructure. The expected retaliation should be so severe that the clear message to Hezbollah is: “don't even think of it”. This will free Israel's hands for action against Iran and for action against Hamas.

A 3RD IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE is to stop the current  Hamas' missile attacks and  to make sure that Hamas never again attacks Israel (through rockets and missiles, raids, kidnappings, explosive tunnels, etc.)

Anything less than accomplishing the 3 objectives identified above) is an Israeli defeat.

Israel has a limited time window. The US administration is already talking about slowing down Israel's resupply chain. The  US administration has already contacted Israel to “warn” Israel against conducting a ground offensive. (Interestingly, certain military analysts believe that a ground offensive is the only way of halting current and future missile attacks against Israel.) Soon the world will demand an end to Israel's military efforts. Whatever Israel does not accomplish during this period of time will remain a sword hanging over Israel's head which will be executed in the future.

Israel must recognize and clearly explain to the United States and to the rest of the world that in future conflicts, the terrorists will continue accumulating more effective and lethal weapons to employ against Israel (as well as against the United States and against the rest of the world). Israel must therefore endeavor to resist calls for a cease-fire until such time as Hamas, in conjunction with the Egyptians, undertake to cease their aggression.

There must be a clear understanding (by Israel, by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by the United States, by England, and by the rest of the world) that any breach would result in harsh “disproportionate” Israeli responses including the targeted killings of those responsible for initiating attacks. In the absence of such an agreement an enforced cease fire will be perceived as a major victory for Hamas and Israel's citizens will simply return to the life of terror they endured since the first Kassams were launched a decade ago.

Many of Israel's problems are self-imposed.It must be emphasized that Israel, by taking her usual“measured approach” is guaranteeing that the next round of assault by Israel's enemies will be more furious. This “measured” approach also substantially increases the probability of future attacks..

Israelis pride themselves on being restrained and utilizing “proportional response”; being the most humane army in the world; precisely targeted retaliation; minimizing civilian casualties of the enemy. These are are all losing strategies. Israel gets no credit for its high moral standing. Rather, this is used against them in terms of Israel's enemies placing rocket launchers in civilian areas, etc. They  then employ pictures and articles describing casualties, especially women and children and invoke claims of a "humanitarian crisis” to pressure the world to pressure Israel for a stand down.

Israel should announce that it's retaliation/prevention  policy is “ strictly proportional”. Just keep announcing it and then the media will repeat it.

The PUBLIC logic is simple. You are obligating yourself to do enough but   no more (AND NO LESS) than is necessary. And, If  Hamas  does  not stop its attacks, then by definition, you have not exercised sufficient force. Therefore, under the doctrine of “proportionality” Israel must increase the intensity of the Israeli attacks until Hamas ceases its offensive actions.

Other Israeli self-limiting attitudes and actions include:

Recently, the IDF bragged that it aborted a mission attacking an Hamas missile launcher site since the pilot saw children playing in the vicinity of the rocket launcher (target). This missile was not attacked and later was fired against Israel. Had any Israelis and killed or injured by that missile, their blood would be on the hands of the Israeli pilot who did not complete the mission ,his IDF command and Israeli government that does not give highest priority to preserving the lives of their citizens. Sacrificing Israeli civilians and/or Israeli military in order to brag about how humane Israelis are, is criminal.

Hamas is no longer a terrorist faction. It is in every respect an independent state the majority of whose citizens enthusiastically support the terrorist initiatives and missile launches initiated by its leaders committed to in Israel's annihilation.

It's been publicized that 80 large trailer trucks of supplies or trucked into Gaza in one day. Also the electrical grid is still functioning supplying electricity to Gaza. If Israel wants to survive this is insanity, the various grids such as electrical, water, sewage, etc. should be immediately cut.

The missile fire from Gaza to Israel is applauded by the inhabitants. Should an Israeli school be struck and students injured or killed candies would be given out in celebration. The inhabitants of Gaza are complicit. They enthusiastically elected Hamas and serve as human shields. The inhabitants of Gaza should be made to feel the same shock and terror as the citizens of Israel. An Egyptian military associate said that it was incongruous to see the inhabitants of southern Israel in shelters and the inhabitants of Gaza nonchalantly shopping in the malls.

Bargaining theory is useful. In poker one objective is to  force your opponent  to abandon the game (or to lose all of his assets to you.). Gradual escalation sucks both you and him in deeper. Usually deeper then you have to go, if stead of escalating gradually, you escalate dramatically. In poker you would say “ I see your dollar and I raise you 10,000.” Another analogy is to imagine  exactly how a Mafia family   under siege facing the same circumstances would counter and neutralize their enemies. (“He puts one of my guys in the hospital; I put 2 of his guys in the morgue.”….) Then act as they would have  acted had they faced this hostile Islamic world which  is conspiring for their destruction.

If Israel does not start immediately Israel will be regarded as a pompous weakling and deterrence will have failed forever.

Israel must raise the price so high that the message is clear to Hamas: “don't even think about firing more missiles since our “proportionate response” would be immediate, fierce and  very costly to you and to the population that you represent. For  a specific example, announce that you have a list of 300  (or 500, or?) residential buildings and publicize your list.( This constitutes “ fair warning” having been given to the inhabitants of these buildings.}  Then announce that for each incoming missile you're going to destroy one of these buildings ….and if the Hamas attack continues, Israel must go ahead with these attacks. The residents  of all 300 (or the number you choose) buildings. will feel the panic. Having given adequate warning, Israel must go ahead with these attacks.

 Simultaneously, Israel should begin systematically destroying obvious and essential Gaza infrastructure. Examples include bridges over bodies of water. Key intersections. Shopping malls. Electrical and water grids.Also commercial properties and manufacturing properties should be on the target list and destroyed.

Electricity from Israel should be cut off.

 Food should be blockaded and Israel's new policy should be that for every missile over certain class that Hamas and its allies turns over to Israel, Israel   will let one truckload of food in. 

IN THE SHORT RUN THIS APPROACH MIGHT INCREASE PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES. …….IN THE LONG RUN IT WILL REDUCE PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES SINCE IT WILL END THE ATTACKS SOONER AND PREVENT FUTURE ATTACKS.

 ISRAEL IS AT WAR.

 It must be emphasized to the world and to all Israelis that Israel is at war and that Israel is fighting for its very survival.

Although the Iron Dome anti-rocket shield has been  successful in largely protecting the major Israeli cities, there have already been tragic casualties and regrettably more are likely if hostilities continue . The high cost of Iron Dome ($40,000 per missile?) and it's limited number make it a ineffective weapon against low-cost missile saturated attack. Also, if a sufficient quantity of Iron Dome missiles are not held in reserve ,then later when  long-range missiles are  fired against Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, etc., they will go unchallenged. Iron Dome  is not an effective long-range strategy. Defense rarely is an effective long-range strategy.

THE MOST IMMEDIATE THREAT TO ISRAEL'S SURVIVAL is a nuclear armed Iran. (The recent  attack on Israel by Iranian proxy Hamas should disabuse anyone who hopes for the "rationality" of the Islamists.) Thus, Israel must maintain a capability to attack Iran's nuclear program if and when it deems it to be in Israel's interest to do so. Even a few years delay in Iran's nuclear progress might change the situation radically in the Middle East .To have  as free  a hand as possible ,interference from Hamas, Hezbollah or any other pro-Iranian entity must be squelched..

A 2ND IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE is to persuade Hezbollah that any attack on Israel (including kidnappings, over the border raids, explosive tunnels, missile and rocket assaults, etc. )would exact a catastrophic price from Hezbollah and from the Lebanese infrastructure. The expected retaliation should be so severe that the clear message to Hezbollah is: “don't even think of it”. This will free Israel's hands for action against Iran and for action against Hamas.

A 3RD IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE is to stop the current  Hamas' missile attacks and  to make sure that Hamas never again attacks Israel (through rockets and missiles, raids, kidnappings, explosive tunnels, etc.)

Anything less than accomplishing the 3 objectives identified above) is an Israeli defeat.

Israel has a limited time window. The US administration is already talking about slowing down Israel's resupply chain. The  US administration has already contacted Israel to “warn” Israel against conducting a ground offensive. (Interestingly, certain military analysts believe that a ground offensive is the only way of halting current and future missile attacks against Israel.) Soon the world will demand an end to Israel's military efforts. Whatever Israel does not accomplish during this period of time will remain a sword hanging over Israel's head which will be executed in the future.

Israel must recognize and clearly explain to the United States and to the rest of the world that in future conflicts, the terrorists will continue accumulating more effective and lethal weapons to employ against Israel (as well as against the United States and against the rest of the world). Israel must therefore endeavor to resist calls for a cease-fire until such time as Hamas, in conjunction with the Egyptians, undertake to cease their aggression.

There must be a clear understanding (by Israel, by Hamas, by Hezbollah, by the United States, by England, and by the rest of the world) that any breach would result in harsh “disproportionate” Israeli responses including the targeted killings of those responsible for initiating attacks. In the absence of such an agreement an enforced cease fire will be perceived as a major victory for Hamas and Israel's citizens will simply return to the life of terror they endured since the first Kassams were launched a decade ago.

Many of Israel's problems are self-imposed.It must be emphasized that Israel, by taking her usual“measured approach” is guaranteeing that the next round of assault by Israel's enemies will be more furious. This “measured” approach also substantially increases the probability of future attacks..

Israelis pride themselves on being restrained and utilizing “proportional response”; being the most humane army in the world; precisely targeted retaliation; minimizing civilian casualties of the enemy. These are are all losing strategies. Israel gets no credit for its high moral standing. Rather, this is used against them in terms of Israel's enemies placing rocket launchers in civilian areas, etc. They  then employ pictures and articles describing casualties, especially women and children and invoke claims of a "humanitarian crisis” to pressure the world to pressure Israel for a stand down.

Israel should announce that it's retaliation/prevention  policy is “ strictly proportional”. Just keep announcing it and then the media will repeat it.

The PUBLIC logic is simple. You are obligating yourself to do enough but   no more (AND NO LESS) than is necessary. And, If  Hamas  does  not stop its attacks, then by definition, you have not exercised sufficient force. Therefore, under the doctrine of “proportionality” Israel must increase the intensity of the Israeli attacks until Hamas ceases its offensive actions.

Other Israeli self-limiting attitudes and actions include:

Recently, the IDF bragged that it aborted a mission attacking an Hamas missile launcher site since the pilot saw children playing in the vicinity of the rocket launcher (target). This missile was not attacked and later was fired against Israel. Had any Israelis and killed or injured by that missile, their blood would be on the hands of the Israeli pilot who did not complete the mission ,his IDF command and Israeli government that does not give highest priority to preserving the lives of their citizens. Sacrificing Israeli civilians and/or Israeli military in order to brag about how humane Israelis are, is criminal.

Hamas is no longer a terrorist faction. It is in every respect an independent state the majority of whose citizens enthusiastically support the terrorist initiatives and missile launches initiated by its leaders committed to in Israel's annihilation.

It's been publicized that 80 large trailer trucks of supplies or trucked into Gaza in one day. Also the electrical grid is still functioning supplying electricity to Gaza. If Israel wants to survive this is insanity, the various grids such as electrical, water, sewage, etc. should be immediately cut.

The missile fire from Gaza to Israel is applauded by the inhabitants. Should an Israeli school be struck and students injured or killed candies would be given out in celebration. The inhabitants of Gaza are complicit. They enthusiastically elected Hamas and serve as human shields. The inhabitants of Gaza should be made to feel the same shock and terror as the citizens of Israel. An Egyptian military associate said that it was incongruous to see the inhabitants of southern Israel in shelters and the inhabitants of Gaza nonchalantly shopping in the malls.

Bargaining theory is useful. In poker one objective is to  force your opponent  to abandon the game (or to lose all of his assets to you.). Gradual escalation sucks both you and him in deeper. Usually deeper then you have to go, if stead of escalating gradually, you escalate dramatically. In poker you would say “ I see your dollar and I raise you 10,000.” Another analogy is to imagine  exactly how a Mafia family   under siege facing the same circumstances would counter and neutralize their enemies. (“He puts one of my guys in the hospital; I put 2 of his guys in the morgue.”….) Then act as they would have  acted had they faced this hostile Islamic world which  is conspiring for their destruction.

If Israel does not start immediately Israel will be regarded as a pompous weakling and deterrence will have failed forever.

Israel must raise the price so high that the message is clear to Hamas: “don't even think about firing more missiles since our “proportionate response” would be immediate, fierce and  very costly to you and to the population that you represent. For  a specific example, announce that you have a list of 300  (or 500, or?) residential buildings and publicize your list.( This constitutes “ fair warning” having been given to the inhabitants of these buildings.}  Then announce that for each incoming missile you're going to destroy one of these buildings ….and if the Hamas attack continues, Israel must go ahead with these attacks. The residents  of all 300 (or the number you choose) buildings. will feel the panic. Having given adequate warning, Israel must go ahead with these attacks.

 Simultaneously, Israel should begin systematically destroying obvious and essential Gaza infrastructure. Examples include bridges over bodies of water. Key intersections. Shopping malls. Electrical and water grids.Also commercial properties and manufacturing properties should be on the target list and destroyed.

Electricity from Israel should be cut off.

 Food should be blockaded and Israel's new policy should be that for every missile over certain class that Hamas and its allies turns over to Israel, Israel   will let one truckload of food in.

IN THE SHORT RUN THIS APPROACH MIGHT INCREASE PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES. …….IN THE LONG RUN IT WILL REDUCE PALESTINIAN CASUALTIES SINCE IT WILL END THE ATTACKS SOONER AND PREVENT FUTURE ATTACKS.