Peres honors Bush, deifies Obama

Jan. 21, 2009

Israeli President Shimon Peres to outgoing President George W. Bush:

"You have made a historic contribution to the entire world and the Jewish people in particular. Your call for two states for two people living. Had the world acted against Hitler the way you did against Saddam Hussein, the lives of millions would have been spared."

To President Barack H. Obama:

"Today is a great day not only for the United States of America, but for the entire world. Obama was elected by the United States, but as a matter of fact, he was chosen by the whole of humankind.

...I pray here in Jerusalem that Barack Obama will be a great President of the United States. If he will be a great President of the United States, he will serve all humankind, all nations and all persons"

Iran rushing to Hamas' aid

Islamic state promises better missiles this time
Jan. 21, 2009

And what, pray tell, will be coming through those hastily repaired tunnels we are writing about? (Fox News, by the way, had a reporter there with video footage if you can catch it on TV). The Jerusalem Post reports:

Iran has renewed efforts to supply advanced weaponry to Hamas and the IDF is concerned that the terror group will try to smuggle long-range Fajr missiles into the Gaza Strip.

According to the latest intelligence assessments, Iran, which was responsible for writing Hamas's military doctrine, has already launched an internal probe to determine how the plan it had created for Hamas failed to cause more IDF casualties.

Iran also promises combatants as well, if you can believe the government-run news service. More than 70,000 Iranian students have volunteered to carry out suicide bombings against Israel. According to the official IRNA news agency, hardline student leader Esmaeil Ahmadi said the students want to fight Israel in support of Hamas.

US military analysts: Israel won the battle but not the war

Jan. 21, 2009

"Israel did not want to destroy Hamas. I believe you should have," said Lt.-Gen. Thomas McInerney, a 35-year veteran of the US Air Force and a Fox News military analyst.

"Your leadership is too sensitive about world opinion. I know why Israel didn't [drive deeper into Gaza] - you have an election coming up and a new [US] president taking office, but you need to gain the freedom of operation in Gaza that you have in the West Bank."

Tough words from two US military analysts visiting Israel this week. Both said Israel stopped too soon and should've gone deeper into Gaza.

Lt.-Col. Rick Francona, a former US Air Force intelligence officer in several theaters and military analyst for NBC News, said the cease-fire was "just the end of this round, and that seems to be Israeli policy right now. The best Israel can go for is to manage the conflict until Hamas can be made to go away."

Terror war shifts once again to civil war in Gaza

Hamas goes back to targeting fellow Palestinians rather than Israelis
Jan. 21, 2009

Hamas members have executed several Fatah activists who may have collaborated with Israel during Operation Cast Lead and has rounded up hundreds, according to a Hamas official. The Hamas crackdown was ongoing during the fighting, but intensified after the cease-fire went into effect Sunday morning.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of Hamas's political wing, told Al-Sharq al-Awsat that his organization had executed several people who they believe helped the Israeli air force bomb key targets.

"We will bring to justice those who were involved in helping Israel mark the location of Interior Minister Said Siam," he said.

Indeed, Israel’s ability to find Hamas weapons caches, hideouts, tunnels and bunkers points to the work of Israeli intelligence services and the information obtained from captured militants and from Fatah officials who escaped, with Israel’s help, from Gaza.

“Israel must win against Hamas for the sake of the civilian population, both in Gaza and in the south of Israel,” said a close aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. “We have not forgotten how Hamas threw Fatah members from the roofs of Gaza to their deaths [around the time of the Palestinian civil war] in 2007.”

“Hamas is the source of evil,” Yousef, a 39-year-old taxi driver in Ramallah, told us. “Since Hamas was elected the devil governs Gaza.”

A Fatah official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that at least 100 of his men had been killed or wounded as a result of the massive Hamas crackdown and some had been brutally tortured.

He said that at least three of the detainees had their eyes gouged out by their interrogators, who accused them of providing Israel with wartime information about the location of Hamas militiamen and officials.

A Fatah activist in Gaza City claimed that as many as 80 members of his faction were either shot in the legs or had their hands broken for allegedly defying Hamas's house-arrest orders.

"What's happening in the Gaza Strip is a new massacre that is being carried out by Hamas against Fatah," he said. "Where were these [Hamas] cowards when the Israeli army was here?"

The activist said that Hamas's security forces had also confiscated cellular phones and computers belonging to thousands of local Fatah members and supporters.

Preparing the way for The One

Jan. 21, 2009

Israeli troops kindly withdrew completely from the Gaza Strip before Tuesday's inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as US president.

No one said, but every speculated, that the decision was linked with Israel's desire to get off to a smooth start with the new US administration. Government spokesman Mark Regev would not confirm the timetable.

If only Israel would prepare the way for the real Messiah as readily. Oy vey.

Hamas not sharing international aid? UPDATE: No patients showing up at medical help tent

In latest incident, armed men seize Jordanian aid in Gaza Strip
Jan. 21, 2009

A Jordanian news service reported that armed men seized a Jordanian aid convoy after entering the Gaza Strip on Tuesday. This is one of many reports that have come out during the past month of Hamas' pilfering of supplies.

Palestinians have complained about products meant to be distributed for free, being sold instead at sometimes three times the price. Again from Der Spiegel:

"A cylinder of natural gas used to cost 45 shekels (more than $10) before Hamas took power," says Uday Sakariya, an unemployed engineer. "Nowadays it costs 120." The price of a liter of diesel has risen by four shekels to 15 shekels, a can of chickpea paste from two shekels to 3.50, he says. "This is no life anymore."

The anger is directed not only against the Israelis, who imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip after the Hamas coup against the rival Fatah movement in 2007, but increasingly against the radical Islamists themselves. "Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been sending flour, sugar and milk powder, but the government is not distributing it -- they sell it!"

In the latest incident involving Jordanian aid, the armed men allegedly opened fire at drivers after crossing Kerem Shalom crossing point and forced them to head to their own warehouses.

Israel is also providing medical aid for wounded civilians and terrorists in Gaza. A facility has been set up at the border for the wounded. And civilians are pitching in too. As Operation Cast Lead drew to a close, hundreds of Israelis, including those from rocket-battered communities in the Gaza periphery, mobilized to help suffering civilians on the opposite side of the border with food and clothing collections.

UPDATE: However, no patients are showing up for free treatment at the hands of Israeli doctors.

"I spent the whole day there [Monday] and not one person came to us for help," said one doctor, who preferred to remain anonymous. "The people there are scared, scared of us and scared of Hamas. The clinic is an amazing thing but I can't blame them for not wanting to come to us. It is just very frustrating."

Tunnels: One man's cease-fire is another's rearmament

Jan. 21, 2009

No sooner did a cease-fire come into effect then Hamas went to work preparing for the next round. Der Spiegel reports on how some militants went to work clearing out the tunnels used for weapons smuggling:

It's clean-up time in the southern Gaza Strip. In the Brazil refugee camp, right on the border with Egypt, the operators of the infamous tunnels used to smuggle goods and weapons in from Egypt have come to assess the damage caused by the Israeli bombardment. A woman sits and wails in front of a pile of rubble which once must have been a four or five-story house. Her husband and children carry debris on to the street.

"Sure, there was a tunnel which started in the basement of this house," says Hassan, 28, who is employed as a tunnel digger four houses further on. ...

Before the Israeli offensive in Gaza started, a large proportion of the weapons being smuggled to Hamas came through the 200 to 400 tunnels along the 12-kilometer (7.5-mile) border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. It's true that the Israeli bombardment was massive, one of the tunnel diggers says, but only half the tunnels were destroyed at most.

..."Everything's okay," he gasps and lies down on the ground, breathing heavily. "A lot of sand has got in, it'll take us a while to shovel it all out. But I managed to get across to the other side. Our friends in Egypt send their regards."

Let the games begin.

Benjamin Netanyahu, a frontrunner in Israel's upcoming elections, provided a dour assessment on a job not done:

“The IDF has dealt Hamas some very hard blows on the head, but regrettably the job has not been finished,” he said. "Hamas still controls Gaza and it will continue to smuggle new missiles in through the Philadelphi Route. I believe that in the face of Hamas' terror and its Iranian backing, we must show no weakness and we must show a resolute, iron fist, until the enemy is vanquished.”

Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Yuval Diskin confirmed that some tunnels used for weapons smuggling remain intact and that Hamas would be able to rebuild the other tunnels within a few months.

Small tremor felt in central Israel

I'm baaaaaackkk!
Jan. 21, 2009

I'm no sure if it was the "immaculation" (Inauguration of the Immaculate One); Israel's army withdrawing from Gaza and then the mortars that chased them out; me starting to blog again after a long hiatus; or simply, actually just an earthquake, but a small tremor was felt throughout Israel on Wednesday morning.

The Geophysical Institute of Israel said that the epicenter of the 3.7-quake was in the Mediterranean, 25 miles off the Hadera coast.

I guess this small tremor does mark a shift of sorts. For one, there's a new president in the world's most powerful democracy. Secondly, Israel is completely out of Gaza now. Third, the rearmament of Hamas is well underway already.

Oh, and fourth, after a vacation in NY, a death in the family, and then the war in Israel and my job surrounding that war, I've neglected this section of cyber space. But I'm back with some wrap up of the war and what we can expect in the coming season.