Tag Archives: Hamas

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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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Hamas inviting disaster

Try putting yourself into the heart and mind of an Israeli citizen.

Imagine living in a country surrounded by people who at one time or another have sworn to eradicate your country from the face of the planet. Imagine that those neighboring countries are so close to each other — let alone to your neighborhood — that a supersonic jet can go from point to point in a matter of a few minutes.

Think also of how you might react if one of your neighbors, governed by a known terrorist group that retains your country’s destruction as its main objective, begins firing missiles into your community. The missiles are targeting civilians, children and their parents.

How in the world would you react if you had the means to respond aggressively? You would use whatever force you had at your disposal to put down the attacks.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israels-netanyahu-world-pressure-wont-stop-gaza-offensive-n153671

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza. Why? Because Hamas — the governing authority in the Palestinian Authority — has launched attacks on his country.

Netanyahu has made no apology for the ferocity of his country’s response.

I do not blame him one single bit.

Hamas needs to end its campaign to eliminate Israel. Same for Hezbollah, which operates in Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border. How about ISIS, which is waging a civil war in Syria, yet another neighboring country?

They’re all deadly serious about their intent to eradicate Israel.

Should the Israeli government do nothing when its people are being threatened with ordnance falling from the sky from multiple directions?

Not for an instant.

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Israel preps for needed response

Imagine this scenario playing out.

A terrorist cell in, say, Toronto starts firing rockets and mortars across Lake Ontario into Buffalo, N.Y. The president calls on the Canadian government to stop the attacks. The government in Ottawa refuses to do anything.

The president issues an ultimatum: Stop the missiles or else. The ordnance keeps falling on your city. The president is forced to act. He or she sends in troops to put down the violence being reined on our cities.

Justified or not? I’d say we would support such an action.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/09/world/meast/mideast-tensions/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

That’s what is happening in Israel, which has been fighting for decades against forces bent on the country’s destruction. The missiles are coming from Gaza, which is governed by the Palestinian Authority … which has made a pact with the evil terror group Hamas.

I must add here that Hamas has declared its intention to exterminate Israel.

Israel’s response has been to launch air strikes against military targets in Gaza. Hamas has responded with attacks on Tel Aviv, the commercial and financial capital of Israel.

The Israelis say they now plan to send ground troops into Gaza to put down the violence. The PA has done nothing to stop these attacks.

Are the Israelis justified in applying this muscular response? Absolutely.

Just five years ago, I was given the privilege of visiting some cities near Gaza that had been struck by earlier rocket attacks from terrorists. The damage was frightening in the extreme. The Israelis managed to put that uprising down.

They should be given the world’s blessing to do so again.

“We warned them. We asked them to stop it,” Israeli President Shimon Peres told CNN. “We waited one day, two days, three days and they continued, and they spread their fire on more areas in Israel.”

No country should be forced to exist with this kind of terror lurking so closely.

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Israel vents its anger at Hamas

Can there be any doubt — any at all — as to why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke off peace talks with the Palestinian Authority?

Three Israeli teenagers have been killed by terrorists linked to Hamas, the monstrous group that helps govern Gaza, which is part of the Palestinian Authority. Israel in return has launched air strikes against the terrorists. Hamas is continuing its violent campaign against Israel, all the while joining the PA in some form of “unity government” arrangement agreed to by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

It was that unity government arrangement that angered Netanyahu enough to break off the talks. The PA cannot “have it both ways,” he said of Abbas’s agreement with Hamas and his desire to seek peace with Israel.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/west-bank-kidnappings/israel-palestinian-tensions-near-breaking-point-over-dead-teens-n145096

I cannot proclaim to be an expert on this subject, but I have had the honor of seeing Israel up close. I’ve seen some of the damage that Hamas terrorists have inflicted on Israeli cities close to Gaza. I’ve gotten a pretty good feel for how close Israel is to its sworn enemies and I understand fully how Israel must be on constant vigil against terrorist attacks from Gaza, the West Bank, Golan and Lebanon.

Five weeks touring Israel in the spring of 2009 gave my traveling companions and me a deeper appreciation for what the Israelis face every single day.

And now we have this latest tragedy involving the three teens who were captured in the West Bank.

Hamas comprises a lot of very bad actors. Those are the individuals with whom Israel must co-exist. If they have to bomb them to keep them at bay, then so be it.

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Can His Holiness work a miracle in Holy Land?

Pope Francis’s tour of Israel and Jordan is getting some hearts fluttering.

It’s not just that the head of the Catholic Church is making his first trip to the Holy Land. It is that this man who’s been dubbed a “rock star” on the world stage might be able to move Israelis and Arabs closer to a peace deal.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/great-expectations-can-pope-francis-bring-peace-middle-east-n112921

The Holy Father will deliver a Mass in Bethlehem on the West Bank. Just a hunch, but he’ll pack the place with worshipers. His predecessor, Benedict XVI, delivered a Mass in Nazareth in 2009. I had the pleasure of touring the amphitheater built for that event. He drew an overflow crowd in a city that is now 80 percent Muslim. Yes, they came from all over Israel to hear it, but I think you get my point, which is that the pope represents something quite special to folks of all faiths.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have broken down. PA President Mahmoud Abbas struck a deal that gave Hamas — a notorious terrorist organization — a role in governing the Palestinian Authority, which Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu said correctly was a non-starter for Israel.

Hope is emerging that Francis might be able in private talks to persuade the two sides to resume talks. Indeed, there must be a path to peace and it well might take someone with Francis’s global stature to help the two sides find their way toward that path.

He’ll be there only for a brief time but, hey, miracles can occur in an instant.

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Make peace or deal with Hamas?

Put yourself in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoes.

You govern a country of some 8,000 square miles surrounded by nations that at one time or another vowed to exterminate you and your constituents. Yes, you’ve made peace with a couple of those nations — Jordan and Egypt. The rest of the region remains iffy.

You’re in the middle of peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and then you learn that the leader of that government has brokered a deal with one of the world’s most ferocious terrorist organizations, Hamas. That organization has orchestrated terrorist attacks on your country from the Gaza Strip, which the Palestinian Authority governs.

The PA now wants to form a “unity government” that includes Hamas.

Do they want peace with Israel or not? Netanyahu has called off peace talks because the PA has formed that arrangement with Hamas, which still vows to exterminate Israel.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-calls-peace-talks-after-palestinian-deal-n88726

Can you really blame the Israeli prime minister? I cannot.

Netanyahu is furious with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for agreeing to the Hamas deal.

Having seen some of the damage that Hamas has inflicted on southern Israel myself, I understand fully why Netanyahu has called off the peace talks. I was part of a group that toured Israel in the spring of 2009 and we saw damage done by rocket fire in Sderot and Ashkelon, near the border with Gaza, which had erupted in violence prior to our arrival in Israel.

It’s a blow to Secretary of State John Kerry, who persuaded the sides to talk to each other after they didn’t speak for five years. Kerry still believes a path to peace is still open, but it’s now been littered by the presence of Hamas in this arrangement with one of the principals in the talks.

“He can’t have it both ways,” Netanyahu said of Abbas. “He has to choose: Peace with Israel or a pact with Hamas.”

Netanyahu is right to be angry.