Isreal shells another school

[Interloper]

IDF captures Hamas manual that recommends storing and hiding bombs in civilian homes.
http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/08/25/ ... ian-homes/

[Interloper]

Hamas inflating civilian death tolls. Terrorist deaths counted as "civilian."
http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/08/25/ ... -casualty/

[Interloper]

Special website of the IDF with the facts on Operation Protective Edge.
http://www.idfblog.com/operationgaza2014/

[Ian]

Just for you, Interloper

Or would you rather mods just made a sticky for IDF Blog?

http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/you-happening-letter-israeli-friend/

“You know what is happening”: Letter to an Israeli friend

When Akkas Al-Ali's Israeli friend accused him of "siding with terrorists" in Gaza, he decided to write the following letter in response.

By now, I expect you are fully aware of the apocalyptic scenes that have been coming out of Gaza over the past few weeks. In case you are not, I hope the following will give you some idea of what the Israeli army – spurred on by the country’s government, by politicians, by journalists, by academics, by the lynch mobs in the streets – has successfully achieved in just six weeks.

From the beginning, we can now surmise, the Israeli military’s sight has been set on nothing but blasting Gaza, an area of land several times smaller than greater London, my hometown, back to the Stone Age. Yesterday, 26 August, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that 2,101 Palestinians have been killed. Of this dreadful figure, 1,460 (69%) are civilians, 493 (23%) are children and 253 (12%) are women. The number of casualties is even higher. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 11,066 (mostly civilians) have been wounded, including 3,374 children.

But this is still not the entire picture; a picture it is imperative for you, as an Israeli Jew, to know, because these crimes are being committed in your name. Whether you are aware of them or not, the Israeli state has already implicated you in its actions.

Since 8 July – in just 51 days – this regional superpower has bombarded Gaza by F16, helicopter, drone, artillery, tank, ship and other weaponry. It has dropped almost 20,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza, roughly equivalent to the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. It has displaced over 485,000 people with 240,000 fleeing to already overcrowded UN shelters. It has destroyed 16,000 homes. It has damaged 21 hospitals, 167 schools, 108 mosques, 52 fishing boats, 18 charities, five universities, five high-rise buildings, and eight water and waste plants. Electricity supplies have also been cut off after the bombing of Gaza’s only power plant. As a direct result of Israel’s destruction of basic and essential health services, the United Nations recently predicted an outbreak of serious diseases such as typhoid and cholera, not seen in Gaza for decades.

As I write to you, Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire to which, I must point out, half the Israeli cabinet remain opposed. And given Israel’s long history of breaking agreements with Palestinians, how long will it be before this one is also rendered meaningless? How long before Israel launches another war and Palestinians must resume counting dead bodies? Who, when the time comes, will answer for these crimes against humanity, for the children that lie dead in Shujaeya, in Rafah, in Khuza’a? Will it be you?

Yet for all the cruel force and unyielding power of the Israeli army, this tiny corner of the Mediterranean will always haunt you. For it is here that the stray wreckage of your national memory – the Nakba you choose to forget – lies buried.

Long before Israel was created, there were Najd and Huj, two Palestinian villages located fifteen and fourteen kilometres north-east of present-day Gaza City. On 13 May 1948, soldiers from the Israeli Negev Brigade’s 7th Battalion arrived in Najd, expelled the inhabitants to Gaza, and then looted and destroyed their houses. On 31 May 1948, Huj suffered the same fate; its inhabitants, too, expelled to Gaza. Four years later, the city of Sderot was founded on the site of these villages and populated by newly-arrived Moroccan, Kurdish, and Iranian Jews. More recently, their numbers have been swelled by Jewish immigrants from Romania and Russia.

As such, 1948 is directly connected to the rockets landing today on Sderot, this city built to erase hundreds of years of non-Jewish history. Try as they might to escape it, this year of rupture will always torment Sderot’s present inhabitants. They know – how can they not? – those rockets come from the children of the very people they displaced and then pretended had never existed. They also know that the children of Huj and Najd, whom you dismiss as ‘terrorists’, will always remember where their ancestors’ bones lie buried. Their memories of their homeland remain entrenched and immediate. As such, they will never relinquish them. And, indeed, why should they?

So, you will understand my surprise when I received your message congratulating me for ‘siding with the terrorists’. When, in all our discussions, did I give you this impression? When I told you that the discourse of ‘two sides’ is indefensible and false? When I laughed as you told me that Palestinians must also take responsibility for their own lives? When I told you that the ‘peace process’ is really an obstacle to peace? Or, was it when I told you – perhaps you heard it as a confession – that Palestinians, like Jews, have human rights? If this means that I have sided with terrorists, then I must tell you about another group of ‘terrorists’ I’ve also ‘sided with’; a group I first read about during a history lesson two decades ago.

It is spring 1943 and the residents of the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw are staging an armed uprising against the Nazi occupation. For four years, more than 400,000 Jews had been confined to an area of about one square mile, sealed off by walls, barbed wire and constant military surveillance. Anyone trying to escape was shot on sight. Just as the Israeli government’s blockade of the Gaza Strip controls what goes in and out, including Gazans’ daily calorie intake, the Nazis also maintained total control over what went into the Warsaw ghetto. Food was in short supply. Disease and starvation killed thousands every month.

Faced with the prospect of forced deportation to concentration camps, several Jewish resistance groups created two armed units, the Jewish Combat Organisation and the Jewish Military Union. At the time of the uprising, the total number of fighters was around 800. At some point, they established contact with the Polish Home Army and obtained guns and explosives. As well as these weapons, the Jews fought their oppressor with third-rate rifles, homemade grenades and Molotov cocktails.

As the Nazis began to destroy the ghetto – like Gaza, a densely populated civilian area – it was discovered that the fighters had stored their munitions in synagogues, private houses and underground tunnels. In fact, it was also discovered that residents of the ghetto had constructed underground bunkers in preparation for the uprising. So, when the Nazis entered the ghetto on 19 April 1943, the eve of Passover, with the intention of liquidating the inhabitants, they found it empty: everyone was hiding in the bunkers and tunnels.

During this time, the fighters issued the following manifesto to the people of Poland: ‘Long live the fraternity of blood and weapons in a fighting Poland! Long live freedom! Death to the hangman and the killer! We must continue our mutual struggle against the occupier until the very end.’ It took the Nazis almost a month to break the resistance. Just as Netanyahu boasts of the destruction of ‘terror tunnels’, SS general Jürgen Stroop reported that his forces had destroyed over 600 bunkers. For months after the ghetto’s liquidation, Jewish groups remained in hiding and continued to fight the Nazis. Theyweren’t about to relinquish their memories of homeland.

What would you say to Mordecai Anielewicz, who commanded the Jewish Combat Organisation? Would you be able to hold his gaze and call him a terrorist? Would you accuse him of using human shields because he hid his arsenal in people’s homes? Would you say that the destruction of the Great Synagogue on Tlomackie Street, one of the wonders of nineteenth century Polish architecture, was a legitimate target? Of course, your answer is no because, according to the logic of your Zionist posturing, the infinite humanity of the Warsaw jews is matched only by the abject inhumanity of Palestinians. So, while the former had every right to resist oppression by any means necessary, for the latter group – whom Zionism has stripped of their homeland and subsequently their place in history – even the possession of the most mediocre of weapons justifies brutal retaliation by their occupier.

Not long after the murderers of Mohammed Abu Khdeir were arrested, a reporter for one of Israel’s television networks asked a Jewish woman in Tel Aviv what she thought should be done with them. Her reply – ‘They should get two life sentences. One for murder. And one for bringing shame on the Jewish people.’ – demonstrates the extent to which Palestinians have always been absent from the Zionist imaginary. That woman was not merely a ‘voice on the street’. She captured perfectly the Israeli zeitgeist, namely that the kidnapping and brutal murder of a 15-year-old boy is only meaningful when it might disrupt Jewish honour. Palestinian suffering is not enough to call them into reality. As with all white supremacist ideologies, from Wounded Knee to Jallianwala Bagh, the Palestinians signify nothing other than an obstacle in your presence. And, so, you can blame them for making you kill their children – not just the 493 killed in the last month or so, but also the hundreds of thousands killed since the Nakba. It is entirely their fault.

And Zionism is a white supremacist ideology. Conceived in the nineteenth century as a result of, and in response to, the emergence of a range of European nationalist and colonialist ideologies, Zionism was manufactured by and for Askhenazi Jews. Zionism was never a liberation movement for all Jews, even though it has spared nothing to render the terms ‘Zionist’ and ‘Jewish’ interchangeable. The very soul of Israel has always been the property of the Ashkenazi. This is why Zionism’s colonisation of historic Palestine has not only been framed by a discourse that seeks to elide Palestinian presence and subjectivity but also by numerous attempts to separate Arab, Iranian and African Jews from their Arab, Iranian and African identities. Hence, the flag you wave will always be smaller than the one waved by your Mizrahi or Ethiopian neighbour; and Palestinians will continue to be arrested for wavingtheir flag. It is also why the woman in Tel Aviv will never be able to identify herself in this disaster, nevermind take responsibility for its outcome.

This is a war against innocent civilians. It is Israel’s culture of death. It is a continuation of the Nakba. The aim is to cleanse the land of its non-Jewish inhabitants, to eradicate the next generation of Palestinians, in preparation for a Jewish lebensraum. Like every other Israeli Jew, you know this is what is happening.

The racism that has swept across the country is devastating to behold: Israeli Jews march through the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv chanting ‘Death to Arabs’ with no consideration of the evil inherent in this statement. A renowned Israeli scholar argues that the sisters, mothers and wives of potential Palestinian terrorists should be raped as a method of deterrence. Knesset members call for a war against all Palestinians, and the deputy speaker outlines his plan for the expulsion of Palestinians out of Gaza and into concentration camps in the desert. The Palestinian deputy mayor of Haifa is almost beaten to death by a Jewish lynch mob. A Palestinian teenager is burnt alive. These are not simply the misdeeds of rogue anti-social elements. This is a wave of hatred and violence that is supported by large numbers of the Israeli public.

Most disquieting is the celebration of Palestinian death and suffering, whether it be cheering from the hilltops of Sderot as bombs fall upon Gaza, or joyous outbursts on social media. One day, your leaders and heroes will stand trial for all their crimes, and the statement ‘I am a Zionist’ will be as loathsome and reprehensible as ‘I am a Nazi’.

This has nothing to do with ‘siding with terrorists’. It is about human rights. It is about an illegal occupation and a mediaeval blockade. It is about checkpoints, house demolitions, resource theft, four different IDs for Palestinians and one for Jews. It is about the illegal Wall that cuts through Palestinian land. It is about the everyday racism against non-Jews. It is about Israeli militarised nationalism and the rise of the far right. It is about Jewish politicians calling for an anti-Arab holocaust, lynch mobs, price tagging, young Jews radicalised by their political and religious leaders, political activists held in Israeli prisons, children kidnapped from their families by soldiers in the middle of the night, the destruction of Palestinian infrastructure, the difference in public spending between East and West Jerusalem, separate and better roads for Jewish colonies in the West Bank.

It is about the Nakba and the refugees. In time, even you will realise that terrorists are not made in Gaza. They sit in the Knesset in Jerusalem.

[Fubo]

http://www.countthekids.org

[Interloper]

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/who-won- ... -question/

[Ian]

Haha

[Interloper]

Rise in global anti-Semitism since the Hamas-Israel war is connected to Israel and world Jews being considered one entity.
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-are-a ... -israelis/

[Interloper]

Jordanian sheikh on Israel and Palestine.
http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/08/15/jo ... -the-jews/

[leifeng]

The problem is that as history and genetic studies also confirm many people(if not most)who we call Palestinian Arabs are also the Children of Israel.

[Interloper]

How many rockets?!
https://www.facebook.com/idfonline/phot ... =1&theater

[Interloper]

Two teenage Muslim girls planned suicide bombing of a synagogue in Lyon, France. Because a Jew is a Jew, whether an Israeli or in Diaspora...

http://www.timesofisrael.com/french-tee ... synagogue/

[Fubo]

http://www.countthekids.org

[Interloper]

http://www.jpost.com/Features/Front-Lin ... nce-372692

As a war-fatigued Israel begins its return to ordinary life after an extraordinarily long conflict, many wary residents of towns and villages near the Gaza Strip remain uncertain whether rocket and mortar attacks, which have made their lives a misery, will really come to a halt.

Their skepticism is understandable, and the question of whether Hamas will hold its fire will be the primary test of the IDF’s accomplishments in Gaza.

The goal of Israel’s war effort was modest: To remove the desire from among Hamas’s leadership to continue attacks on Israelis.

To be sure, Hamas’s offensive capabilities have been very badly damaged – from rockets to tunnels to command and control centers, with large numbers of casualties among the terror movement’s ranks.

But the goal of the defense establishment was not to fully destroy the ability of the Izzadin Kassam Brigades to launch rockets.

The IDF’s commanders and the government did a poor job of relating their fundamental goal to the public – of convincing Hamas it was a bad idea to go on shooting rockets. Military and political leaders did state from the outset that their aim was only to achieve quiet, and consistently reiterated this limited objective. But the gap between their perception of the war’s aims and that of the public was large, and the gulf between decision-makers and most ordinary Israelis, only grew as the conflict continued.

As the war dragged on, becoming one of the longest in Israel’s history, Hamas too achieved one of its primary goals: To maintain the ability to continuously terrorize millions of Israelis with rocket fire, despite being under heavy Israeli counterattack.

In fact, the ability to continue firing rockets for a protracted period of time formed the central tenet of Hamas’s guerrilla-terrorism doctrine, and it has succeeded in realizing it.

NEVERTHELESS, THIS was the only success Hamas can boast of.

The rest of its objectives remain unfulfilled, and Hamas agreed to the same truce it had rejected on several opportunities at the start of the war. This fact forms undeniable proof that Hamas’s leaders felt compelled to end the war due to Israeli military pressure.

Driven by the uncompromising line that was pushed by Khaled Mashaal, head of Hamas’s overseas wing, the movement plowed on in a senseless war that failed to secure any of its core demands, before agreeing to a truce it could have secured at the beginning of July.

Today, it has no guarantees of a seaport or an airport (utterly fanciful demands that stood no chance of being met due to Hamas’s large arms program).

It has not secured the release of Hamas members arrested in the West Bank as part of the fallout from the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by members in Hebron; and it was forced into accepting Egypt as a mediator, thereby falling under the influence of a government in Cairo that is as hostile to Hamas as Jerusalem.

In Israel, 4,600 projectiles fell, and 3,600 of them exploded in open territory; 224 rockets and mortar shells fell in built-up areas and Iron Dome intercepted 740 rockets, including around 10 long-range mortar shells, that were heading to populated areas – projectiles that would have undoubtedly caused widespread carnage and mass casualties, in the absence of effective air defenses.

Seventy Israelis were killed in the war – 64 soldiers and six civilians, including two members of Kibbutz Nirim who lost their lives in a Palestinian mortar attack in the last minutes of the war on Tuesday.

The damage in Gaza is enormous, and difficult to fully comprehend. Of the approximately 2,000 Gazan casualties, the IDF estimates that a little more than half are combatant members of terrorist organizations, most of them from Hamas.

More than 300,000 Gazans are internally displaced persons, and thousands of buildings used by Hamas as operational bases have been destroyed.

The Israel Air Force struck 5,263 targets throughout the course of the war, destroying most of Hamas’s rocket production facilities, many of its rocket storage sites, surveillance centers, command and control centers, military offices used to coordinate attacks, training camps and terrorist infrastructure in mosques and multi-story apartment buildings.

Hamas planted its offensive assets deep within Gaza’s civilian population center. Yet it is doubtful the movement knew the extent of the destruction it would bring to Gaza at the start of the war, meaning that the Gazan regime badly underestimated Israel’s determination to reinstate its deterrence and not allow itself to be extorted into concessions by acts of war and terrorism.

On the Israeli side, too, IDF Military Intelligence underestimated Hamas’s determination to continue the war for a lengthy period – one of the reasons IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz and OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Sami Turgeman mistakenly called on residents of Gaza border communities to return to their homes in the first week of August, three weeks before a real truce was reached.

Military Intelligence did a phenomenal job of mapping out Hamas’s military assets, and in guiding the air force, ground forces and navy to those targets. But its reading of the intentions of Hamas leaders to stay in the ring for 50 days was flawed, and it will need to examine itself to determine why that was the case.

From the perspective of the IDF, both defenses and offenses worked well on the whole. The home front was largely spared from the destruction of the rockets by Iron Dome. The ground offensive left a Hamas cross-border tunnel network, which took five years to construct, in ruins after two weeks of ground operations; the air force, guided by intelligence, inflicted heavy damage on Hamas’s various tentacles.

At no time in the operation did Israel aim to topple Hamas or destroy its military wing, guided by the reasoning that a weakened, single regime is preferable to all-out chaos and a power vacuum that could be filled by a plethora of Islamic State-like militias that cannot be deterred under any circumstances.

“We do not deceive ourselves. We live in the Middle East. It is possible that we may have to return and act against Hamas and the other terror organizations,” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon warned on Wednesday during a press conference.

His comments reflect a sobering truth; no one yet knows if Israel has succeeded in convincing Hamas to hold its fire.

[Fubo]

http://www.countthekids.org