idfblog.com on Aug 4 2014

IDF forces in the Gaza Strip found a Hamas manual on “Urban Warfare,” which belonged to the Shuja’iya Brigade of Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. The manual explains how the civilian population can be used against IDF forces and reveals that Hamas knows the IDF is committed to minimizing harm to civilians.

Throughout Operation Protective Edge, Hamas has continuously used the civilian population of Gaza as human shields. The discovery of a Hamas “urban warfare” manual by IDF forces reveals that Hamas’ callous use of the Gazan population was intentional and preplanned.
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This is similar to what I recommended namely, arrange for emigration of Arabs and annex Gaza. Whereas I wanted to get the international community to take it upon themselves to provide destinations for the emigrants to go to and to pay for same, Moshe Feiglin simply wants Israel to give financial inducements to Arabs to leave.  But they still need welcoming destinations.  Secondly I did not offer Blue cards to them.  The Arabs in Jerusalem still have the option to apply for citizenship. I prefer to offer them no alternative to emigration.  I presume, when he offers certain areas adjacent to the Sinai and the sea he means within Gaza.  Works for me. Ted Belman

By Moshe Feiglin To Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

The failures of Operation Protective Edge were inherent from the outset, because:

A.  It has no proper and clear goal and;

B.  There is no appropriate moral framework to support our soldiers.

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Many nations want Hamas to be disarmed, but the Israel Defense Forces will doubtless be left to do the dirty work. It is a task of paramount importance.

By Moshe Arens, HAARETZ | Aug. 4, 2014 | 1:32 AM |

There is a long list of countries that would like to see Hamas in Gaza disarmed. To rid this terrorist organization and its terrorist ally, Islamic Jihad, of the labyrinth of tunnels they have dug under the Gaza Strip, housing its command and control centers, its supply depots, and which serve as launching points for attacks against Israeli cities, towns and villages. To rid it of the thousands of rockets still in its possession, after having launched more than 3,000 rockets against Israeli civilians during the past four weeks, and of the manufacturing facilities for these rockets.

This list is obviously headed by Israel, which has had to deal with this arsenal of weapons in the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and will have to contend with it in the future unless Gaza is demilitarized.
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Op-ed: Fighting an enemy state with one hand while supplying food and energy to its residents with the other hand is absurd.

Giora Eiland, YNET NEWS

Regardless of how Protective Edge ends, this operation appears to have one clear lesson, which doesn’t have to do with the tunnel issue but with a more strategic question. Israel is repeatedly falling into the asymmetry trap.

The story we are telling in this conflict is similar to the one we told in Lebanon in 2006. In this story we are fighting a terror organization, and only a terror organization, while the population the organization is operating from is not the enemy. Moreover, during the fighting we even feel obligated to supply Gaza’s residents with food, fuel and electricity.
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I certainly don’t want to conquer Gaza for the benefit of Abbas. I don’t believe Israel should be an occupier of Gaza long term. Nor do I want to give anything in return for a ceasefire. Hamas shouldn’t be rewarded for inflicting this war on us. It remains to be seen who has the staying powers under the new rules.  And what kind of pressure will the Obama administration put Israel under in order to open the borders. Israel should insist on demilitarization including unlimited inspection and access as the precondition for opening borders. In the meantime we should try to sell the idea of the world taking in about 900,000 refugees in
Gaza and leave it to Israel to annex the land and rebuild it at its own expense.  Until such time such an option is available, I see no value in occupying Gaza. Sooner or later we will have to end the occupation. The present choice is much better for israel.  Ted Belman.

By Sarah Honig

Posted on August 4, 2014

This is no wholesale retreat – all options remain open after Hamas was dealt grievous blowsThe rule of thumb in gauging any public’s mood is that the higher the expectations, the deeper the let-down. Put differently, it may be argued that the more unrealistic the expectations, the more groundless the grumbles.

By Mort Klein and Daniel Mandel,  ALGEMEINER

Has President Barack Obama ‘got Israel’s back’? When policy is compared to rhetoric, the answer is no. Thus, when Hamas, a terrorist organization which calls in its Charter for the worldwide murder of Jews, launched a new round of rocket assaults on Israel, Obama declared, “We support [Israel’s] military efforts … No nation should accept rockets being fired into its borders or terrorists tunneling into its territory.”

But Obama’s policy is entirely different –– imposing what he calls “an immediate, unconditional humanitarian cease-fire that ends hostilities now.” Moreover, Secretary of State John Kerry informed Hamas via Qatar that Hamas’ demands for weakening the Israeli blockade would be met. In attempting to reach this cease-fire, Obama has bypassed the Palestinian Authority and Egypt –– Hamas antagonists–– and worked closely with Qatar and Turkey –– both munificent Hamas supporters. Read more…

– Amos Yadlin (Institute for National Security Studies-Tel Aviv University)

• Israel chose an alternative that, at least in the short term, places Hamas in a difficult strategic position. Israel regained international legitimacy for its actions; Hamas was again cast as a terrorist organization lacking all credibility that for the sixth time violated a cease-fire that Egypt and the international community initiated and Israel accepted.
• Israel decided to deny Hamas veto power over cease-fires and took the initiative back into its own hands, clarifying that it was not negotiating with Hamas and not granting it any achievement, neither in terms of a cease-fire nor in terms of an agreement.
• By its action, Israel establishes four premises that present Hamas with a new strategic situation:

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El Medio-Spanish

A letter by the former presidents of Peru (Alejandro Toledo), Uruguay (Luis Alberto Lacalle), and former government officials in Europe opposes the actions of Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil in recalling their ambassadors to Israel, saying “the manipulation of information in Latin America regarding the current conflict in Gaza…intoxicates the citizens” and “inspires wrong and reprehensible policies.”

“Israel didn’t start this war. The Jewish State is responding to the constant barrage of rockets and mortars from Gaza falling in Israel.” “Hamas is…a terrorist organization designated as such by the U.S. State Department and the European Union and Hamas’ foundational charter…calls for the annihilation of the State of Israel and the death of all Jews.”
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By Stephen Brown, FPM

The violent, anti-Semitic nightmare Europe thought it would never see again after the Nazi Holocaust is raising its ugly head once more, this time on French soil.

Jew-hatred, mostly among France’s six and a half million Muslims, is reaching such threatening proportions that an increasing number of the country’s 500,000 Jews feel forced to leave their native land to ensure their safety. At one Jewish agency that assists French Jews to emigrate to Israel the telephone, it was reported, “does not stop ringing.

“For 2014, one will have to register a record number of departures of French Jews for Israel since its creation in 1948,” the agency’s director told the French newspaper Le Figaro. “It will safely exceed 5,000 people. In 2013, there were already 3,300, an increase of 73 percent compared with 2012.”
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Pamela Geller

Hamas Tunnels Used To Target and Blow Up Israel’s Kindergartens, “An Israeli 9/11? Planned with Tens of Thousands of Casualities

Multiple media outlets report that Hamas’s offensive tunnel network – now known to have been composed of over forty attack tunnels dug underneath Israel’s border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip – was set to be activated during the Jewish High Holidays (September 24^th) as a mass terror attack.

The attack was meant to generate as many as ten thousand casualties, men, women and particularly children and hundreds of captives.  Explosives were particularly placed underneath kindergartens to make certain that these “institutions” would be the first struck, even before any thing else.
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After earlier effort alarmed both Israel and PA, new plan may undermine Egyptian initiative

BY AVI ISSACHAROFF, TOI

Palestinian sources in Cairo revealed on Monday that the United States and Qatar have again renewed their attempts to reach an understanding on a ceasefire in Gaza, even as Palestinian factions meet Egyptian officials in Cairo to forge their own proposal.

Representatives of the US administration are in Cairo at the same time as a Palestinian delegation that includes senior officials from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah.

The Palestinian sources suggested that the US-Qatari initiative slows and undermines the Egyptian efforts. Read more…

By YAAKOV LAPPIN, JPOST

08/04/2014 03:32

It would take a week to take Gaza, and up to two years to destroy terrorist infrastructure,” the source said.

Had the IDF been ordered to, it could have seized the whole of the Gaza Strip in a week, and spent up to two years taking apart Hamas’s guerrilla army, but this has not been the goal of the operation thus far, a senior military source said Sunday.

“Had we been ordered to defeat Hamas, we would have done it. We would have drafted four divisions, evacuated the Gazan population from battlegrounds, conquered the area and scanned it thoroughly.

It would take a week to take Gaza, and up to two years to destroy terrorist infrastructure,” the source said. Read more…

DEBKA

August 4, 2014, 7:10 AM (IDT)

After withdrawing the bulk of its ground troops from the Gaza Strip in a “new phase” of its counter-terror operation, Israel declared a unilateral humanitarian ceasefire for seven hours starting 10 a.m. Monday, Aug. 4 to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid and for displaced Palestinians to return to their homes. Eastern Rafah was not included. The IDF would respond to any attacks during that time.

But on the quiet, the IDF was on the process of conducting a major strategic operation, carving out a buffer strip or cordon sanitaire just inside the Gaza border, designed to be controlled from outside by special forces and armored units on round-the-clock alert, to bar hostile infiltrations. They are equipped with a battery of firing posts, sensors and drones.
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The cost of not destroying Hamas will be enormous. Much as Israel would like to end the matter by just pulling out, she won’t be able. The rockets will keep coming and Israel will have to keep returning fire. So quiet will not have been achieved. As much as Israel prefers NOT to have a ceasefire agreement (she says that Hamas is not trust worthy) in reality the world will force an agreement on her and she will have to give in the the demands of the Palestinians to some extent. My guess is that the Palestinians will be tough negotiators and will not settle for less than their demands. It will be Israel who will be begging for a ceasefire on better terms for her, namely demilitarization. The way I see it, Israel is on the hot seat. Israel is the loser because she is not the winner. Ted Belman

By Moshe Feiglin, JEWISH LEADERSHIP

Two things have become clear tonight, after Netanyahu’s announcement on IDF redeployment outside Gaza.

One: Israel is incapable of defeating its enemies from within the Oslo mentality.
Two: Israelis are still not able to shake free of this mentality. Not yet.
For these reasons, the PM’s decision is a given.
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Livni is proposing a dangerous course. She is playing into the hands of the two staters. I am sure Israel will be asked to make concession in the peace process as part of the cease fire deal. That’s what Livni wants. The truth of the matter is that Hamas will keep firing. Whether Israel likes it or not, she simply cannot turn her back on the problem hoping Hamas will stop firing rockets. And the US will put enormous pressure on israel to enter negotiations. Israel is far from home free. Ted Belman

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni is behind Israel’s decision to embark on a different diplomatic approach to Gaza, one that will strengthen more moderate forces and leave Hamas in the cold.

By Barak Dvid, HAARETZ

Unless something dramatic happens, most of the Israel Defense Forces troops will be leaving the Gaza Strip in coming days. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet ministers are hoping that, after almost three weeks of being battered in Gaza, Hamas will be sufficiently deterred to stop launching missiles at Israel.

But the cabinet decision to embark on a unilateral cease-fire is only the first and relatively easy part of ending the war in Gaza.
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By Yossi Verter, HAARETZ

[…] The disturbing truth for Netanyahu is that ending the fighting in a way the public perceives as weakness, concession or fatigue could very well cost him his position. The surveys that indicate tremendous public support for continuing the operation – 85 percent of those polled – are sowing the seeds of political disaster for him. That was the prevalent feeling among the political establishment this week.

When the leader of the right is in danger of losing the support of the right-wing electorate, it will take just one more setback to end his career. The prime minister and Likud chairman’s claim to fame, since his earliest days in politics, has been the way he defines himself – as interested first of all in security, and only then in diplomacy. He might emerge from the fighting in Gaza as the person who failed to deliver the goods – neither security nor diplomacy.
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How can monitoring hundreds of trucks daily manage to detect contraband material especially if it is secreted in large containers that include non contraband material. Monitoring is not good enough. The US or Egypt must have unlimited access to everything and all place in Gaza before agreeing to rehabilitate it. Anything less is bullshit. The international community demands inspection and access rights in Iran. They should similarly demand such rights in Gaza. Ted Belman

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 3 August 2014

“US and European support of the need to demilitarize the terrorist organizations is an important achievement for the State of Israel. It will strengthen our demand to link the rehabilitation and development of the Gaza
Strip with its demilitarization from rockets, tunnels, etc.”

PM Netanyahu’s Statement at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv 2 August 2014

This morning the talking heads on the Israeli news programs are referring to Israeli plans to act on the international scene to influence inspection arrangements that will apply to goods entering the Gaza Strip.
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