Ceasefire Broken (Again)

Obama: Hamas Did Not Honor Gaza Cease-Fire

President Barack Obama said at a press conference on Friday: "I have unequivocally condemned Hamas and the Palestinian factions that were responsible for killing two Israeli soldiers and abducting a third almost minutes after a cease-fire had been announced. And the UN has condemned them as well."
    "I have been very clear throughout this crisis that Israel has a right to defend itself. No country can tolerate missiles raining down on its cities and people having to rush to bomb shelters every 20 minutes or half hour. No country can or would tolerate tunnels being dug under their land that can be used to launch terrorist attacks."
    "I think it's going to be very hard to put a cease-fire back together again if Israelis and the international community can't feel confident that Hamas can follow through on a cease-fire commitment....When they sign onto a cease-fire they're claiming to speak for all the Palestinian factions. And if they don't have control of them, and just moments after a cease-fire is signed you have Israeli soldiers being killed and captured, then it's hard for the Israelis to feel confident that a cease-fire can actually be honored."  (White House)

How Many Times Is Enough? By RABBI MARVIN HIER

World leaders are waxing their moral credentials at the terrorists and their constituencies while abandoning their friends with phony band aid solutions.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon make statements to reporters in Cairo Photo: REUTERS

The more I listen to the 'band aid solutions' proposed by some world leaders and diplomats reacting to Israel's incursion into Gaza, the more convinced I am that some of the ideas have been lifted right from the "Wise Men of Chelm."For the third time in a decade Israel was forced to call up tens of thousands of reserves to re-enter Gaza, the place they unilaterally withdrew from in 2005, to again respond to the hundreds of rockets being fired by Hamas' terrorists at their major population centers.No sooner did the operation begin than a chorus of voices combining leaders of the European Union, the Arab World, and editorials in the leading newspapers like theNew York Times began sounding the familiar alarm warning Israel of massive civilian casualties.
Even the United States, England, and France who unequivocally support  Israel's right to defend its citizens against rocket attacks, insist that the Israeli incursion into Gaza must be very limited in scope to avoid civilian collateral damage.
But now is the time to ask the uncomfortable question, even of our friends who support us. Why is there such a double standard when it comes to Israel? Why is it that world leaders never miss an opportunity to set their alarms and ask for a wake up call only when Israel hits back at the Hamas terrorists?
Where were those moral voices and wake up calls when it came to taking steps and adapting measures to prevent Hamas from stockpiling 10,000 rockets?  Why didn't UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, Secretary of State John Kerry and the Foreign Ministers of the EU rush to Israel to convene a conference on how to tighten the borders and close the tunnels in order to prevent the terrorists from smuggling arms and weapons into Gaza and to demand that no foreign aid ever be dispersed into neighborhoods housing any Hamas military personnel? Why is there never an emergency Security Council meeting on how to excise the malignancy and finally end Hamas' rule of terror in Gaza? Why do they only shuttle to the region to find a way to reign in the defenders and never on how to stop the perpetrators and their funders like Iran and Qatar?
Of course it's horrible to see the images of innocent children killed as a result of the incursion. But whose fault is it, if not the sick Hamas ideology of loving death and martyrdom and deliberately placing children in harms way. Now, once again, they may have taken a missing Israeli soldier hostage who is either dead or still alive to use as a bargaining chip in an attempt to force Israel to again release hundreds of terrorists with blood on their hands.
The legendary town of Chelm is famous in Jewish history for its collection of simpletons whose ideas never came close to solving the problem. Located on a mountaintop, the town faced a terrible dilemma when its citizens began falling off the mountaintop. Responding to the crisis, the city convened its 'Wise Men'  and came up with a 'perfect Chelm solution - they would build a hospital at the bottom of the mountain!
That is precisely what world leaders are again doing in Gaza.  They are waxing their moral credentials at the terrorists and their constituencies while abandoning their friends with phony band aid solutions that they all know can't work while forcing  Israel to relive the same nightmare every few years. No country in the world is subjected to such treatment that only strengthens and props up terrorists and makes greater the price we will all have to pay.
Meanwhile, while the world leaders shuttle to Jerusalem to end the incursion, 40 meters below the ground somewhere in Gaza, the Hamas terrorist leaders, confident as always, are already plotting how many civilian airlines they will be able to bring down when they take delivery of their first SA-11 surface to air missile.

Rabbi Hier is the Founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center

Israel Matzav: Emergency Committee for Israel blasts Obama call for cease fire

President Obama appeared in the White House Rose Garden on Monday to call for a cease fire in Gaza. 

US President Barack Obama said on Monday the world must focus on a cease-fire in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to put an end to the rising number of civilian casualties.

The Palestinian death toll in an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip rose above 500 on Monday. Hamas, which killed 13 Israeli soldiers in Gaza on Sunday in the biggest one-day toll in eight years, continued to fire rockets deep into Israel.

Obama repeated that Israel had the right to defend itself against onslaughts from Hamas militants but said he had serious concerns about the growing number of civilian deaths resulting from the conflict.

"As I've said many times, Israel has a right to defend itself against rocket and tunnel attacks from Hamas. And as a result of its operations, Israel has already done significant damage to Hamas's terrorist infrastructure in Gaza," Obama told reporters at the White House.

"I've also said, however, that we have serious concerns about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives, and that is why it now has to be our focus and the focus of the international community to bring about a cease-fire that ends the fighting and that can stop the deaths of innocent civilians," he said.

The Emergency Committee for Israel blasted Obama's call.  

Israel does not need a mediator. Israel needs an ally. Pressuring Israel to agree to a cease-fire that rescues Hamas from defeat and leaves it in possession of its missiles, tunnels, and terror infrastructure is foolish and wrong. If President Obama and Secretary Kerry want to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East, they should support Israel and its campaign to end the terror threat from Gaza.

That's been the problem since Day One of this administration. Obama does not see himself or the United States of America as Israel's ally.  

For those who have forgotten, as one of Obama's first acts even before becoming President, Obama forced Israel to stop Operation Cast Lead before his inauguration. After Operation Pillar of Defense, which was stopped before there was a ground invasion, Hamas started making threats before the ink on the cease fire was dry. There too, an inauguration was about six weeks away. Obama is about Obama - and nothing else. Counting the days until his term is over.

Gazan killed - by celebratory gunfire

From Reuters:

With gunshots, sweets and cries of victory, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip poured into the streets to celebrate a ceasefire deal on Wednesday which ended eight days of deadly fighting.

Firing a deafening burst from his Kalashnikov rifle, Mohammed al-Ghazaleh boasted: "(Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu will mourn tonight,while the people of Gaza are steadfast in their resistance and have triumphed."

They already have their first triumph. 

Ma'an reports that one Gazan was killed and three more wounded by gunshots - fired during this very celebration.

For Gazans, happiness really is a warm gun.

The image was snapped from the broadcast of Ehud Barak announcing the ceasefire taking effect. As you can see, at the same time Barak made his announcement, across the bottom of the screen flashed an announcement of sirens indicating incoming rockets to Be'er Sheva...

"Ana B'coah:" Ancient Hebrew Melody - With Rockets

"Ana of B'coah:" Ancient Hebrew Melody - With Rockets

This morning (Wednesday, Nov. 21), Israel Army radio, as part of a break in their regular news-talk programming, played a haunting version "Ana of B'coah," an ancient kabbalistic plea for God's might to intervene on behalf of the Jewish people, sung at the onset of the Sabbath. 

But in a wrenching, heartrendingly chilling note, from 2:16 until the end, the song is punctuated over and over by an announcer breaking into the broadcast to read off incoming rocket alerts, as Gaza terrorists fire into Grad and Kassam projectiles into cities, towns and homes across southern Israel, again and again. 

If that wasn't enough, this took place about three hours before the Hamas bus bombing in Tel Aviv, that wounded close to 30 passengers. 

Devastating. 

Lyrics in English and Hebrew below. 
"WE BEG THEE" 

We beg thee with the strength and greatness of thy right arm- Untangle our knotted fate. Accept your people's song, elevate and purify us (x2) 

Please, heroic one, those who pursue your uniqueness- guard them as the pupil of an eye.

Bless them, purify them, pity them, may your righteousness always reward them. Powerful and Holy One, in goodness lead your flock.

Unique and proud one, to your people turn, who remember your holiness. 

Accept our cries, and hear our screams, oh knower of mysteries. 

(Blessed is the name of his noble kingdom forever and ever.) 

Ana becho'ach, g'dulat yemincha, tatir tz'rura Kabel rinat amcha sagveinu, tahareinu nora (x2) 

Na gibor dorshei yichudcha, k'vavat shamrem 

Barchem taharem, rachamei tzidkatcha Tamid gamlem, chasin kadosh 

Berov tuvcha, nahel adatecha 

Yachid ge'eh le'amcha p'neh, zochrei k'dushatecha 

Shavateinu kabel ushma tza'akateinu, yode'a ta'alumot 

(Baruch shem k'vod malchuto le'olam va'ed)

Alan Dershowitz: Why a Cease Fire Will Not Last

A cease fire between Israel and Hamas may end the immediate exchange of rockets, but it is not likely to be of long duration.  That is because every time Hamas fires rockets into Israel, it creates a win-win-win situation for itself.

The first win is that it terrorizes Israeli civilians, killing some, wounding others and creating panic among millions of Israelis who fear being hit.  This show of strength enhances Hamas’s standing within much of the Muslim world.

The second win is that by firing these rockets from densely populated areas in Gaza City, rather than from the many open fields outside of the populated areas in the Gaza Strip, Hamas provokes Israel into targeting the rockets and the terrorists who fire them.  As soon as the terrorists fire the rockets, they run to special underground bunkers that are open only to the terrorists, thereby leaving civilians above ground and vulnerable to Israeli rockets.  This is a deliberate tactic employed by Hamas over many years and designed to bring about international condemnation of Israel for inadvertently killing Palestinian civilians.  Israel’s only other options would be to allow Hamas rockets to be fired unanswered into Israel, or to conduct a ground war which would result in even greater international condemnation.

The third win for Hamas is that every time it fires rockets into Israel and provokes Israel into returning fire, it weakens the Palestinian Authority—its arch enemy in the West Bank.  The Palestinian Authority has renounced violence, but it has no choice other than to support Hamas’s violence against Israel, which is popular among many Palestinians.  The end result is a strengthened Hamas, which is seen as doing something and a weakened Palestinian Authority, which is seen as doing nothing.

The proof that this win-win-win strategy is working for Hamas can be seen on television, in the newspapers, at the United Nations and among the chattering classes.  Virtually everyone acknowledges that Israel has the right to defend itself, but that Israeli military actions—particularly if they are tough enough to achieve a modicum of success—do more harm than good to Israel’s standing around the world.  That is precisely the reaction that Hamas has been counting on—and with repeated success.

They attack Israel, thus committing the double war crime of using Palestinian civilians as human shields and targeting Israeli civilians.  Yet it is Israel that is criticized for engaging in entirely lawful activities, such as conducting a military blockade of Gaza designed to prevent new rockets and rocket material from reaching Hamas terrorists, and targeting Hamas terrorist leaders and Hamas fighters who fire rockets at Israeli civilians.

So long as this dynamic continues, it will be in Hamas’s interest to do precisely what it did in 2008 and again now:  start a new battle by firing rockets at Israeli civilians from behind its Palestinian human shields, provoke Israel into responding, and calling on the international community to condemn Israel for killing its babies.

This “dead baby strategy” has been acknowledged by Hamas leaders, who refer to the victims as “martyrs” and proclaim that Palestinian children and women “have formed human shields…in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine.”  This strategy always works with an international media that cannot resist showing pictures of the dead babies who are brought to them by Hamas leaders (even when, as in one case, the baby was killed a misfiring Hamas rocket.)

The real victims of this gruesome strategy are the Palestinian civilians who are cynically used as human shields.  Hamas leaders refer to them as martyrs, because they are being used to implement this win-win-win strategy.  There is growing evidence that at least some Gaza civilians are fed up with the Hamas strategy.  They complain that too few Hamas fighters are being killed and too many Palestinian civilians are dying.  They complain that Hamas has deliberately built underground bunkers only to protect its fighters but not its civilians.

Unfortunately, the Gaza Strip is not a democracy.  It is tyranny ruled by Hamas killers, who have no hesitation in murdering Palestinians who express disagreement with their strategy.  It is unlikely, therefore, that the views of the dissatisfied Palestinians in Gaza will have any impact on the Hamas strategy.

What we can expect, therefore, is a relatively short truce—Hamas calls it a “hudna”—that will last until Hamas decides it is time to invoke its strategy once again.  Israel will respond, as it has in the past.  In Israel this is called, “mowing the lawn”—cutting down Hamas periodically with no real expectation that the deadly grass will not continue to grow.

The only solution to this recurring problem is for the international community and the media, once and for all, to expose the Hamas strategy, to condemn it, and to deny Hamas the diplomatic and media victory it seeks to achieve by its double war crimes.