Over at Jack’s place.
I am taking a break.
My traffic has quadrupled today. Frankly, I’d rather it quadrupled because I won the lottery or something like that. This, not so much.
And by the way, God bless John Bolton. He was just on Fox, doing what he always does, explaining how when the UN asks for a “cease-fire,” what they really want is for Israel to stop firing, because they won’t be concerned with rockets from Hamas into Israel.
Which is why Israel is in Gaza in the first place.
The EU president is still supporting Israel: France, of course, does not concur.
No more Ships of Fools: The IDF is implementing a 30km naval blockade on Gaza. I guess that Iranian ship of “humanitarian” supplies won’t be heading towards Gaza anytime soon. (Wish they would—I’d love to see it sunk.)
Britain doesn’t get it: Proof that the sun has completely set on the British Empire.
The IDF’s ground operation in the Gaza Strip highlights the urgent need for a ceasefire, Britain’s Foreign Minister David Miliband said, warning against further escalation.
If Hamas had stopped the rockets, there’d be no ground troops in Gaza.
Two foreign reporters betrayed Israeli operational secrecy: Get ’em. I believe that’s called “spying for the enemy.”
Police were searching Saturday night for a foreign reporter working for an Iranian TV network who reported the IDF incursion into Gaza before the military authorized the release of the information to the public.
Also Saturday evening, a reporter for the Lebanese LBC network who was broadcasting near the Gaza Strip said the IDF was moving from Nahal Oz towards the Nezarim junction. The reporter surmised that the military was planning to sever the Gaza Strip in half, effectively isolating Gaza City in an effort to minimize Hamas terrorists’ ability to exploit urban areas.
Jameel is on Twitter.
Time out for a smile: Fox News has the funniest kitchen item commercial I’ve seen in years: The Slap Chop. Click the link, watch the video. Almost as much fun as the Super Slicer, with the fake French accent. (I bought one of those at a flea market. Worked just fine until I got a genuine mandoline slicer.)
The London Times redeems itself a bit: Benny Morris in the Sunday Times, defending Israel.
No cell phones for the troops: Israel did learn the lessons of Lebanon. Hizbullah had equipment to listen to cell phone conversations. Hamas probably has it too, but it won’t do them a bit of good. (From Jameel.)
Arnold stands for Israel: The Governator says Israel is acting in self-defense.
UNSC to meet: US to veto. Watch for it. W. has nothing to lose, and only fifteen days left as President.
After watching Christiane Amanpour on and off for the past few hours, as well as the people she’s interviewed (fellow CNN reporters too), the CNN position is clear: Israel is bombing a densely-populated civilian area, and no matter what else happens, or why that occurred, that is the most important issue. She goes on and on about how many Palestinian casualties there are and then says “and only X Israeli casualties in X time”.
The CNN bias is clear and obvious: The poor, poor, pitiful Pals are being terrorized and brutalized by the Israeli war machine.
I think I’ll pass on any more CNN-viewing today.
Found this from the Lebanon war. It works just as well today.
Be strong and be brave.
With great big thanks to Sarah.
May G-d protect the IDF troops. and kol Yisrael. (Better, Jameel?)
(And Palestinian children. They didn’t vote in Hamas.)
Wow, you should see the comments I’ve been getting today. They’re coming in on this post, and leaving a fair amount of stupidity and bile. It may be time for another hatemail-mocking post.
Tim Butcher had what is now an absolutely side-splittingly wrong article in the Telegraph today.
Amid speculation of an imminent ground assault, the Israeli cabinet deliberated late into Friday night before reaching a consensus to prolong the air campaign rather than send tanks rolling into the tiny Palestinian territory. Late on Saturday Israeli army units entered the battle for the first time, using artillery to shell parts of Gaza City.
[…] Debate between Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, Tzipi Livni, foreign minister, Ehud Barak, defence minister, and military chiefs was intense with the meeting running much longer than expected and lasting over four hours. While discussions within the Israeli war cabinet have been increasingly protracted, there have been no signs of fundamental divisions emerging.
Looks like your sources need a little work, Tim. Wipe that egg off your face, you anti-Israel bastard.
Way to be an objective observer.
A request for Hamas: Please do.
Hamas operatives threatened Israel and said that “the Zionist enemy will pay a heavy price for its ground incursion.”
The statement from the group said, “Our men will fight until the last drop of blood and never give up.” (Ali Waked)
Granting them their wish: See above.
A number of terrorists have been killed in clashes with IDF troops in Gaza. Military officials told Ynet that a number of exchanges of fire have taken place already, just hours after the ground incursion began, in which terrorists advanced on forces.
Barak’s words: Some of them.
“The campaign won’t be easy and it won’t be short,” he said, emphasizing that the operation entails the risking of Israeli lives. “I know well the dangers that come with an offensive, and what the heavy price will be.”
“I don’t want to fool anyone. The residents of southern Israel will also undergo some tough times,” Barak continued.
MSNBC: The Media Super Bias Company. Here’s a tip: Don’t bother watching.
Yeah, but W.’s going to veto the UNSC resolution: Ehud Olmert said that Israel didn’t need permission for the Gaza operation.
If you haven’t seen it yet, read it now: President Bush called Hamas terrorists in his weekly radio address. I think he’s feeling guilty because he knows that forcing Israel to give up the Philadelphi Corridor is what caused the current situation.
Fox News Channel: The palate cleanser to CNN and MSNBC.
I’m sorry, but who is this utter moron interviewing an Israeli ambassador? Because she’s an effing moron. I know that the news channels are choosing their anchors for their pretty power, but can’t they at least find some of them that are both pretty and smart?
“So what are all the options that Israel looks into to say ‘We want to cripple, behead Hamas completely, stop the missile attacks.’ What are all the options before deciding on this one, air assault, ground assault—what were the other things to consider to help bring about the same objective?”
You mean, bimbo, negotiating with Hamas? What Israel did in the last year or so?
“Does it seem like there’s any real resolution? ‘Cause it kinda seems like it all is cyclical. It all goes back to the same thing over and over again, where you got two sides who say “We don’t see it the same way and so let’s resort to, you know, firing at one another and, you know, how is anyone gaining anything? Lives continue to be lost, destroyed, where’s the hope here?”
Kudos to Reda Mansour for not laughing.
We can stop calling it an “operation” now, I think. Hamas has 15,000 fighters, many of them trained in Iran, or by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, waiting for the Israeli ground troops. Who are now inside Gaza.
Omri has some awesome liveblogging going on, and since he and I are trading information via GoogleTalk, your probably want to check us both.
I think it’s time to list the surprises that Ehud Barak, the former special ops commander, has finally revealed:
Israel is calling up tens of thousands of reserves: This is going to be a full-scale toppling of Hamas and the other terror groups. That makes sense. Iran has been building up Hamas as its proxy army for years; Israel will not be safe until she clears out the danger on her southern flank.
Further to the above:The objective seems to be the end of Hamas rule over Gaza.
The IDF stated that the objective of its ground incursion into the Gaza Strip is to strike Hamas’ foundations and to take control of the areas from which rockets are being fired.
“The objective is to destroy the Hamas terror infrastructure in the area of operations,” said Major Avital Leibovitch, a military spokeswoman, confirming that incursions were under way. “We are going to take some of the launch areas used by Hamas.”
Omri is listening to Barak on Israel radio. He says the objective is “quiet.” WTF? WTF?
Striking from all sides: The Navy bombed Hamas’ general intelligence headquarters, located in Shati refugee camp in Gaza.
It’s a very big operation:
Large numbers of forces are taking part in this stage of the operation including infantry, tanks, engineering forces, artillery and intelligence with the support of the Israel Air Force, Israel navy, the Shin Bet security service and other security agencies.
Meanwhile, the cabinet has authorized an emergency call up of tens of thousands of IDF reservists.
More to come.
Omri and I were talking about a division of labor, but the devil is in the details. So just go visit his blog when there’s nothing new on mine, and vice-versa.
Also, when Shabbat ends in Israel, which is, uh, now, Dave and Jameel will be liveblogging.
I have things to do today. And I will be in NorVA tomorrow, getting my guns back from a friend who kept them safe for me during all the move hoopla, and learning how to clean them. (And how to shoot them better.)
Couldn’t be a better time for American Jews to be armed.
Read the entire thing, but here’s an excerpt:
The first and most important consquence of Israel’s military victories was the peace agreement with Egypt. It was the Egyptian army more than any other which posed an existential threat to Israel’s existence. Once it was taken out of the picture, an Arab victory in the long war was no longer possible.
This was followed a decade later by the PLO decision to embrace a two-state solution, which lead directly to the Oslo accords. Israel now finds itself in the extraordinary situation of having its former worst enemy, Fatah, as its strategic ally.
It is in this context that Hamas’ weakness and isolation must be understand. They are weak because they are the last redoubt of what was once a mighty enemy – an enemy that could deploy divisions across several fronts, and whose tanks and aircraft once threatened to reach Tel Aviv.
The defeat of Hamas and the re-insertion of Palestinian Authority control over Gaza – possibly enforced by a pan-Arab peace-keeping force including Egyptian troops – would the best possible outcome of the current fighting.
Once again, thanks to Ami Iseroff.
Anti-Israel marchers in London—all 5,000 strong—took to the streets to protest the Gaza war. Of course, CNN isn’t depicting the more hateful, anti-Semitic signs, but you have to love their choice of people to quote.
“It’s shocking and it’s terrible,” one woman told CNN, referring to the Israeli airstrikes. “I feel that even though I’m so far away, these people are human beings, and we have to look at what’s going on, and we can’t just sit by and watch it happen without doing anything.”
I am absolutely flummoxed at the intellect behind a quote like that.
And then there’s the brilliance of Annie Lennox:
Lennox said at a news conference Friday that television footage of the airstrikes in Gaza had disturbed her. “It shook me to the core,” she said, according to a video posted on the BBC’s Web site. “I was thinking as a mother, and as as a human being, how was this going to be the solution to peace?”
I think I can boil that down to two words: “War bad.”
Yes, Annie. Yes, it is. Especially when it’s being deliberately waged on civilians—which is what Hamas has done for years, and which you never saw fit to protest.
If anyone can find me a single protest against the massacres that are going on in the Congo, perhaps we can send a letter to Annie and friends and see what they think of that.
I am not absolutely sure that Tom Carew is the author of this excellent text, but it comes from him, it doesn’t appear (for now) anywhere else in the e-space as seen by Google, and in any case many thanks to Tom. Here we go:
I listened to a once highly reputable Irish broadcaster and author, Brendan O’Brien on Newstalk 106 FM this Saturday morning, a man who has contributed probing, insightful and courageous work on NI, deal with Gaza, aided by ex-Irish Army Junior Officer and Irish Times *Security correspondent*, Tom Clonan, with only Susan Philips to inject a note of sanity and balance and objectivity.
I was amazed to hear O’Brien indulge in uncritical and partisan broadcasting, systematically siding with the anti-Israeli view, and even frequently *leading the witness* in his interviews.
I began to reflect on this widespread phenomenon, which seems to have sunk to new lows in Irish media since the recent Israeli operations in Gaza from Sat, Dec 27, 2008.
But this is not merely about ongoing bias against Israel, or bias on just this occasion, or sloppy, sub-professional media operations. There is, it now seems to me, a terrifying, but unspoken and unexamined set of assumptions lurking behind all this, a deep, ongoing and long-festering Western cultural crisis, an undeclared, subversive re-definition of what it is to be human, and of history, ethics, politics, and of truth itself, which might be outlined as follows:
Continue reading
It’s begun.
For the first time since the operation in Gaza got underway, IDF artillery cannons started to shell targets in the Strip Saturday, witnesses on both sides of the border said, heralding a possible escalation to a new tactic in more than a week of fighting.
There’s no other reason to use the mortars.
One of the things that bothers me the most about this is not just that Israeli soldiers will die, but that I know innocent Palestinians will be killed. I feel especially bad about the children. And yes, I know Hamas has put them in harm’s way—but the children did not bring Hamas on themselves.
I hope they find a safe shelter until this war is done.
Hard-line Iranian student groups have asked the government to authorize volunteers to go carry out suicide bombings in Israel in response to the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.
But there seems to be a hitch:
The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had not responded to the call by Wednesday. Volunteer suicide groups have made similar requests in the past and the government never responded to their calls.
An the AP man adds a disparaging remark:
The groups’ activities appear to be mainly for propaganda purposes, and there has been no sign of Iranians carrying out suicide attacks in Israel.
If I were an Iranian student (which I am not for a reason that escapes me at the moment), I would have been insulted by this remark and would have found a way to blow self up in the writer’s office (or cubicle, whatever the case may be).
Anyway, that AP man doesn’t know what he is talking about. According to FARS, the number of volunteers exceeded 20,000, and (although FARS doesn’t come out straight with the truth, out of sheer embarrassment), there is a purely financial issue: how to train, equip and, especially, transport all the willing youth to the fields of martyrdom? Nowadays, what with the price of oil being in the low forties, Iran, with its economy already in a precarious state, cannot allow itself the expense of this endeavor.
So I have a suggestion to make: why don’t Mahmoud the Mad and Ayatollah Khamenei who gave his blessing and support to the brave students, organize the martyring (martyrizing? whatever) directly in Tehran, somewhere in a big public square, with a lot of cheering public, two of them in the middle of that team of martyrs?
As an ex-sapper, I volunteer to procure the explosives and other paraphernalia necessary for the act.
On a purely personal note: I have found that picture on a FARS site:
Not only do I feel deeply and sincerely moved by the lady on the left (as a person of female persuasion), I admire her steadfastness and determination to sign up for martyrdom, even faced by the shoe* that an unknown person (most probably a grieving hubby) is threatening her with.
Atta girl!
(*) That steadily rising wave of shoe-throwing in the Middle East should be encouraged by all means. I only wish Hamas would understand the wisdom of it and stick to this habit. Maybe then IAF could also, you know…
Cross-posted on SimplyJews.
