Tag Archives: Israel

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Cease-fire holds … now what?

They’ve stopped the shelling in Gaza, for now.

So might there be a more permanent solution on the horizon? No one’s counting on that just yet.

Obama: ‘I have no sympathy for Hamas’

President Obama made it quite clear Wednesday that the United States stands firmly behind Israel’s right to defend itself against the aggression launched by the hated terror group Hamas. He is right, of course.

The United States must stand foursquare with its primary ally in the Middle East and it must be fully aware — always — of Israel’s belief that the countries that surround it are not be trusted completely.

Hamas, let us remember, is nothing more than a terrorist cabal that started this fight with Israel by launching rockets into Israeli neighborhoods. Israel responded with extreme force. Yes, civilians have died and all civilized people mourn the deaths of innocent people.

Who’s responsible for that? Hamas.

Obama also is clear that any permanent peace must rely on Palestinian Authority involvement. The trouble with the PA, though, is that it has aligned itself with Hamas. It has included Hamas in a form of “unity government,” which enrages Israel — and understandably so.

So, the shooting has stopped for the time being.

My hope is that the voices talking to each other can be heard while the explosive noise remains silent.

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Go for it, Bibi

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made a solemn vow to destroy all the tunnels through which the Hamas terrorists transport weapons to use against Israeli citizens.

The completion of that mission is not to be negotiated, he said, to which I only can add: You go, Mr. Prime Minister.

http://news.msn.com/world/netanyahu-vows-to-complete-gaza-tunnels-destruction

Netanyahu’s mission is to destroy Hamas. How in a sane world can anyone dispute that goal? Hamas started the fight that has exploded into all-out war between Israel and the terror organization that has vowed to destroy Israel — as in wipe it off the map. To think that some folks, say, in the United Nations and even the White House believe Hamas is worthy of holding a place at a negotiating table is laughable on its face.

The Israelis see it differently, and with good reason.

The Israel Defense Force has responded with overwhelming power against Hamas. No one should accept the death of innocent victims. The Israelis say they are not targeting civilians. Yet the cost in civilian lives has been too great and no one should want to see it continue.

Hamas’s role as instigator, in my view, places the responsibility for the carnage on that organization. Hamas can end this conflict simply by standing down, by dismantling its rocket batteries and by ending its assault on Israeli neighborhoods.

And then it should renounce its intention to eradicate Israel.

As for the tunnels, they need to be destroyed. It is through those underground passage ways that Hamas is bringing its destructive weapons.

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I cannot pretend to be an expert on this conflict. I have, however, been to the sites of previous attacks launched by Hamas against Israelis living near the Gaza border. The people of Sderot and Ashkelon allowed us to look at homes damaged by rocket fire in late 2008 and early 2009. I’ve heard testimony from Israelis who told my traveling party and me about building codes that require every home in Israel to be furnished with reinforced bunkers that protect residents against future attacks.

Well, those future attacks have arrived.

Netanyahu and the Israeli military are getting hammered by critics who equate their response to what Hamas has started. They are wrong.

I wish for the fighting to stop as much as anyone else. However, let’s be sure to put the responsibility for it squarely where it belongs: on the terrorists who started this bloodshed in the first place.

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Terrorists must be destroyed

I shall now repeat this slowly.

Hamas … is … a … terrorist … cabal … bent … on … Israel’s … destruction.

There. Are we clear now?

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/mike-rogers-obama-benjamin-netanyahu-friction-109433.html?hp=l5

Accordingly, should Israel seek to negotiate with this organization as long as it remains dedicated to the eradication of the only democratic state in the Middle East?

Absolutely not.

Now, will someone please advise the president of the United States that Hamas has no place at any bargaining table until it lays down its arms and renounces its evil intention regarding Israel.

The fight goes on. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appear to be at odds over how to handle Hamas. The president wants Israel to extend its cease-fire; the prime minister won’t do anything until Hamas stands down.

I’m with the Israelis on this one.

I do not doubt for a second that the United States remains committed to supporting Israel’s security and to maintaining our ironclad alliance with that nation. The president has declared as much repeatedly since taking office nearly six years ago, just as all of his predecessors in the Oval Office have done.

However, he needs to demonstrate some appreciation of the heinousness of this group’s agenda. It is attacking civilians with missile attacks. Israel has as much right to defend itself as any country on Earth, which is precisely what it is doing. The only reason Israel hasn’t suffered more civilian casualties is because its sophisticated “Iron Dome” missile defense system works well in protecting the nation against hostile acts.

So let’s stop attaching some kind of moral equivalence to what’s happening in Gaza.

Hamas picked this fight. Israel is intent on finishing it.

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Hamas is the villain … period!

What in the world am I missing here?

Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. It launched missiles into Israeli neighborhoods, targeting civilians. Israel has responded with brute force. The Israeli counterattack has killed many Palestinians, including children — which, of course, is a tragic consequence of this action.

The United Nations is now criticizing Israel because of the force it has used to seek an end to the terrorist rocket attacks?

Give me a break.

http://news.msn.com/world/hamas-agrees-to-24-hour-holiday-truce-in-gaza-war

I totally understand that the Palestinians are living in squalor in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas. I also understand their anger at the Israeli settlements going up there and along the West Bank, which is territory seized by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War.

However, don’t Israelis want to live in peace alongside their Palestinian neighbors? Haven’t the Israelis been included Palestinian Arabs in their society, even into the government?

I keep coming back to the question: How would the United States react if missiles started flying into cities along our borders with Canada and Mexico?

The world is watching the unraveling of a deeply complicated situation. It does, however, contain a relatively simple solution.

Hamas should lay down its arms, recognize that Israel is going to stay in the region, renounce its ancient hatred of Israel, and then it should get out of the way and let the Palestinian Authority negotiate in good faith a permanent peace treaty with Israel.

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Launch a tunnel offensive

Egypt has ratcheted up its campaign against the tunnels that burrow from the Sinai Peninsula into Gaza.

Now, finally, we might be getting somewhere.

http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-army-destroys-13-more-gaza-tunnels-093712884.html

The Egyptian army reports it has destroyed 13 more tunnels through which Hamas terrorists are transporting arms — such as rockets — from Egypt into the region governed by the Palestinian Authority. It’s also the origin of the rocket attacks that have resulted in the violence that has killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians and Israelis.

As Yahoo.com reports: “The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is the main power in Gaza, reportedly uses the tunnels to smuggle arms, food and money into the blockaded coastal enclave.”

Let’s look for a moment at a key element in this struggle.

Israel signed a peace agreement with Egypt during the Carter administration. As such, the treaty bound Egypt with Israel as a de facto ally in the Middle East. To my way of thinking, it then becomes incumbent on Egypt to do what it can to help Israel protect itself.

Doesn’t it make sense, then, for Egypt to do all it can to destroy these passages through which Hamas — one of the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations — wages war against Israel?

That the Egyptians haven’t yet declared their intention to destroy all the tunnels and to do what they can to prevent future construction of them speaks to my own distrust of Egypt’s commitment to the peace agreement it signed with Israel.

It’s good that Hamas’s ties to Egypt have worsened since the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, an ally of Hamas. Now that Morsi is out of power, the Egyptians will make good on that treaty that should help Israel protect itself against the terrorists who seek to do them so much harm.

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Ted Cruz: Texas-sized embarrassment

Ted Cruz is my senator. I accept that he’s one of two men who serve in the U.S. Senate on behalf of Texas.

I didn’t vote for him in 2012. I likely never will vote for him for anything. Still, he’s my senator.

And that gives me the right to declare that I am ashamed of him. Deeply so, in fact. His latest shameful attack has been leveled at the State Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and the president of the United States over his idiotic suggestion that the FAA ban on U.S. flights to Israel is somehow intended to do actual harm to our strong ally in the Middle East.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/ted-cruz-faa-ban-state-department-109322.html?hp=l21

This guy is a Harvard-educated lawyer, right? He’s supposed to be a bright guy, correct? What on God’s Earth is he suggesting here? It cannot possibly be that President Barack Obama actually wants Israel to be wiped off the map, which is what the Hamas terrorists want to happen.

Hamas launched the conflict in Gaza by firing rockets into Israel. The Israelis have responded with tremendous force to put down the uprising. The terrorists have ratcheted up their own response by landing a rocket near the major international airport outside of Tel Aviv.

The FAA suspended U.S.-carrier flights for less than two days. The ban has been lifted. Cruz, though, has suggested the FAA, the State Department and the White House are politically motivated, that they want to harm Israel.

Commentators on the left have compared Cruz’s fire-breathing rhetoric to the stuff that came out of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s mouth in the 1950s, when he accused the State Department of hiring communists.

I’m wondering now if Ted Cruz’s reckless implications today will produce the kind of response that McCarthy drew from his critics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1eA5bUzVjA

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No moral equivalency in this struggle

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A Democratic senator from New York tonight laid out with stunning clarity who are the bad guys in the latest eruption of violence in Israel.

Chuck Schumer said the bad guys are the Hamas terrorists. The Israelis who are defending their country against rocket attacks aimed at civilians are doing what they must to survive, Schumer said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” talk show.

I couldn’t possibly agree more with the senior senator from New York.

Yet we keep hearing from those who try to blame “both sides” of this conflict.

How can they say such things with a straight face?

Hamas is the terrorist organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction. The Palestinian Authority governs the Gaza Strip; Hamas is part of that governing authority. Hamas has been shelling Israel for several weeks now. They place their missile batteries among civilians. The Israelis must respond with its military might against the attacks. How, then, do the Israelis avoid inflicting some civilian casualties?

Schumer also noted that Israel has accepted two cease-fire deals brokered by Egypt. Hamas has rejected both of them.

The senator also spelled out that it’s Hamas that started this conflict and that Hamas has never backed away from its desire to see Israel eradicated.

The Israelis are doing what they must.

I believe Sen. Schumer has spelled out where our national allegiance must rest in this conflict. It belongs squarely with Israel.

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Hamas bears full responsibility for violence

The Hamas terrorists who are part of the Palestinian Authority government bear all the responsibility for the violence that has erupted in Gaza.

All of it. Every last ounce of it.

http://news.yahoo.com/scores-dead-first-major-ground-battle-gaza-202146112.html

It amazes me to the max that so many world observers actually are critical of Israel for its heavy response to the violence that Hamas instigated when it began launching rockets into Israeli neighborhoods — targeting civilians.

Now the Israelis have sent troops into Gaza, the most densely populated region in the world. Casualties have been great, particularly on the Palestinian side. Why is that? Because Hamas started this fight.

I listened on CNN this evening to James Woolsey, a former CIA director, who offered an important piece of wisdom to the question: Can there ever be peace in the Middle East between Palestinians and Israelis?

Woolsey said they’ve been living together for centuries. He noted that one-sixth of Israel’s population comprises Palestinian Arabs. He mentioned that they serve in local and national government; an Arab once held a cabinet position; another Arab sits on the Israelis supreme court. They are part of life in Israel.

Hamas, though, won’t accept that. Neither will other terrorist organizations that populate other countries that border Israel.

Woolsey’s answer to the question was this: As soon as Hamas recognizes that Arabs have lived peacefully in Israel for many years, that’s when we can find peace in the region.

A follow-up question ought to be: How do you persuade madmen to think rationally?

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Hamas testing the limits of hope

The fighting in Gaza between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization that has picked a serious fight with our nation’s strongest Middle East ally is testing my once-unshakeable optimism that there can be a peaceful solution to this ancient conflict.

It’s Hamas’s fault.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/israel-warns-gazans-of-new-attack-1405406785?tesla=y&mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

Hamas has rejected an effort led by Egypt to broker a ceasefire. It has fired more rockets into Israeli neighborhoods, killing an Israeli resident overnight. Israel has responded with more air attacks. It is threatening now to invade Gaza with ground troops and armor.

It baffles me beyond my belief that Hamas would pick this fight. I am acutely aware of the ancient tensions and the dispute that goes back almost to the dawn of recorded history between Arabs and Jews in the region.

While other Arab nations and political groups have declared a sort of peace with Israel, Hamas and some others have continued to insist that Israel has no place in the region. They are fundamentally wrong in both a political and historical sense.

I don’t proclaim to be an expert on Israel, but I’ve had the high honor of spending five weeks in that country. I have spoken with dozens of Israelis about this on-going war with Arab terrorists. The only conclusion I can draw is that Israelis — on the left and the right — simply want to live in peace with their neighbors.

Hamas sees it differently. They want Israel wiped out. They contend the land occupied by Israel is Arab land. Hamas wants it for Arabs and will fight for it.

I won’t argue here what I understand to be God’s view of who belongs in the region.

Israelis and Arabs can live side by side in this place. Indeed, they do so within Israel’s territorial borders. Nazareth, one of the holiest cities in the Holy Land, is now 80 percent Muslim. Mosques and churches stand next to each other, on the same block as synagogues.

Yet the fighting continues. It has flared again because Hamas has launched rockets into Israeli neighborhoods.

The Israelis say they’ll do whatever it takes to put down this violence, even if it takes more violence. That’s the nature of the place they call home.

My hope for an eventual peace remains. However, it’s getting a little shaky.

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Israel needs to strike back

How much clearer does Israel have to make it for the world to understand its predicament?

Terrorists in Gaza are launching missiles into Israeli cities and towns. They have injured Israeli citizens. Their targets are civilian neighborhoods, houses where families live with their children. Is the Israeli military supposed to let the attacks go without response? No.

http://news.msn.com/world/israel-says-its-downed-drone-along-southern-coast

Now it comes out that Israel shot down a drone launched from Gaza. It was downed near the city of Ashdod, just a few miles from the Israeli border with Gaza.

The United Nations is upset because of what some have called a “disproportionate response” from Israel to the attacks launched by Hamas, the terrorist organization that helps govern Gaza alongside the Palestinian Authority.

The response does not upset me in the least. Of course, I have the comfort of living thousands of miles away.

Still, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a hardliner’s hardliner — makes no apologies for the air attacks his military has launched against the Gaza militants.

It falls on Hamas to stop the provocation. Immediately. Hamas started this conflict. The terrorists who run the organization do not want the Israelis to finish it.