I share with whoever reads this blog a certain war weariness when it comes to the Middle East. In fact, I’m reluctant to blog about the place because it’s like a broken record — has been before I was born and will be after I die. The Israel vs Arab conflict was well underway long before David slew Goliath with a rock launched from a sling (the earliest example of Iron Dome…
Israel acts based on its own interests alone. I don’t consider them an ally by choice, but they are an ally by need. Which is better? You can decide.
The Palestinians are upset because they’re Palestinians. Nobody can fix that accident of birth.
On 13 November, the Israeli military raised the alert level across the country. The move was a response to threats by the Gaza-based militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). PIJ vowed to avenge the deaths of 12 members who were killed when the Israeli army last month blew up a tunnel under the Gaza-Israel border. Demo-ing a tunnel makes perfect sense. The US needs to demo more drug tunnels under the US/Mexico border because that’s how the bulk of hard narcotics and high value people (Middle Easterners and Asians) are smuggled into the USA…but back to Israel.
Commercial Channel 2 TV reported that the Israel Air Force has finished deploying Iron Dome batteries throughout Israel, including in the north and center of the country.
Additional troops have been deployed to the south to reinforce the Gaza Division, which is on alert both to defend the southern communities and for the possibility of an attack.
Israeli official sources declined to state whether Israel had specific information about a PIJ attack. They never do comment, but their behavior in raising vigilance involved high cost physical precautions. Those usually imply a serious and reasonably credible, specific threat.
PIJ is more extreme than Hamas and usually makes good on its threats of revenge, using rocket and/or mortar attacks. PIJ has not been a party to the reconciliation talks between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority over control of the Gaza Strip. PIJ represents a wildcard that neither Hamas or Fatah control. PIJ’s top leaders are based in Damascus, Syria. The Sunni Arab terrorist group receives support from Iran and has close ties to Lebanese Hizballah.
Israel warned PIJ against attacking. On 11 November, the Israeli army warned PIJ that Israel would retaliate for any attacks and that the targets would include Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip.
On 12 November, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “There are those who still amuse themselves these days by trying to renew attacks against Israel. We will take a very firm stance against anyone who tries to attack us or attacks us from any area.”
PIJ replied that the Israeli threats amounted to a declaration of war.
Arab and Israeli experts state that PIJ is under pressure from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to take no action that disrupts the reconciliation between the main Palestinian factions.
They also judge that PIJ leaders will feel that they must avenge the deaths. If so, there will be attacks. The Israelis will not limit their targets to the Gaza Strip.
early Iron dome… good one.
As for the palestinians, they should move to Jordan and shut up because you don't have a real case for countryhood.
Thanks for all these insights on what is going on.
I was wondering, what is going on with Jordan? I don't think I've heard a beep about it since those SF guys got killed.
It's like bedbugs – NOBODY wants them. Such is the dilemma faced by the Palestinians. NOBODY including their Arab brethren want them. To most of us, it would call for introspection, but not, it seems, for the Palestinians.
Jordan usually handles its own problems as best it can. Tough gig given who its neighbors are and who drifts through the country. They're trying to keep Syrian refugees out, like everyone else in the area.
I can think of a number of places I would attack, but Israel is not one of them. Those boys and girls don't play around. They will sit back and let someone saber rattle all they want, but if you attack them, they go for the throat.
That's how it should always be. Walk softly, carry a big stick. And don't be afraid to beat somebody's head soft.
I just wish Israel would take the gloves off, and go to war with these Palestinian scumbags. I mean REAL war, where the bad guys get bombed despite hiding behind their women and in mosques.
Destroy them and their way of life. Like wars were fought in the good ol' days.
LL,
I can tell that Fredd isn't going to get an invite to Bernie's Christmas party
Re: "they should move to Jordan"
I don't think they can. After they tried to take over the country and overthrow the king by military force, they were declared unwelcome. See Black September
Not wanted in Jordan, but welcome as cannon fodder in Syria or — the largess of the German state will take care of them cradle to grave. They get a cell phone (paid service), free food, free housing, free buss pass, free medical, free dental and I don't know but what they don't get a "paid vacation" from not working, plotting, raping German women (or the pony at the zoo) of whatever constitutes occupying time for a military age Palestinian 'refugee' in Germany or France for that matter.
Saturation bombing works. Just ask the Germans and what few Japanese who survived WW2.
He's headed to Aunt Sally's for Christmas…and I think that Bernie lights the menorah…eight crazy nights and all that jazz.
;^)
This is interesting. Fredd's going to Bernie's, LL will have bought a ticket for Kwanza. What's left? Winter Solstice in Austin.
Don't forget your rocks and/or sandwiches…
"Israel acts based on its own interests alone. I don't consider them an ally by choice, but they are an ally by need. Which is better? You can decide."
They will look to their own interests, first, last, always. Anybody still remember the Liberty?
>Israel acts based on its own interests alone. I don't consider them an ally by choice, but they are an ally by need.
This, while quite possibly [oblig. disclaimer] entirely true, is badthink and heresy. And probably Defamation and certainly anti-Semitic. Incidentally, this last term used to annoy the bejesus out of a Palestinian friendly-acquaintance of mine in college: "I am also a Semite! If I criticize Israel does that make me against myself?" Ghassan was a pretty good dude, trapped in graduate TA hell by his PhD advisor who was using him as cheap (undergrad-lecturing) labor. He also used to say, "I have nothing against Jews, no more than I am for or against anyone else, but I do hate Israeli 'settlers' who are assholes." I tended to believe his claims of expropriated family property because, unlike all the others whose families apparently owned hundreds of hectares of lush and fertile olive groves, Ghassan's family had "a little house on maybe a quarter-acre lot, but it was our house!" The other Palestinian dude I knew in college looked to be 90%+ Frankish crusader by ancestry (6', blonde, blue-eyed) who tried like hell to avoid politics. Guy lived to windsurf, eventually became a successful restaurateur (his other passion), after getting a BS in electrical engineering to make his parents happy. Both good dudes, in their own ways. But as to many of the Palestinians in-country, the situation seems oddly familiar to me as an American. Here are a bunch of people who have in fact been shit upon (as has EVERY other group of people in the world, at one point or another, incidentally) but have decided to wallow in their victimhood, deny any responsibility for even a part of their problems, and elect hucksters and crooks as their leaders and representatives. This to the point where several generations now know nothing except resentment, gimme gimme gimme, eternal victimhood, and flat-out hatred. Oddly familiar, but I just can't quite put my finger on what that might resemble….
A sad situation and one for which I have no answers. I have amused myself with the thought that Egypt should, in the name of pan-Arab solidarity, yield the Sinai peninsula to the Palestinians. The Gulf Arabs and "world community" can pump money into the place, and hire the Israelis to set up desalination plants for the circa 4.5M Palestinians, after which they leave each other the hell alone. (Leaving aside the issue of how long those plants would work without first worlders to run them….) After all, Egypt (and their allies) screwed up badly in 1967 and had to be given back the Sinai in the first place. And if you believe THAT fantasy then I have a lovely bridge spanning the East River that you may be interested in.
The Palestinians must be encouraged to immigrate to Germany (much to the relief of Jordan, Egypt, Israel and everyone else in the Middle East. The problem that they'll find when they arrive in Deutschland is that they are not in the minority…but there are hard working Germans who will work tirelessly to support them. That's something. In time they'll vote out the hard working Germans and will turn the nation into a slum.
That's what the runes say.
I cherish Kwanzaa. It's one of those holidays that deserves to be celebrated. Who doesn't like chicken and waffles and watermelon?
I was when I wrote that bit.
It's only been going on for 2000 years… sigh….
Ever since Abraham had a disruptive and annoying son named Ishmael…
GAZA,
Nothing a few volcanoes couldn't solve.
What a splendid thought.
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