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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2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, previously feared kidnapped, declared dead

A delegation of several Palestinian groups arrived in Cairo on Saturday for talks on how to end the fighting in Gaza.

On the eve of the visit, a senior Palestinian official in Ramallah claimed the Palestinians received “assurances” from the US that the blockade on the Gaza Strip would be removed once a cease-fire is reached.

The Egyptian authorities had refused to receive any Hamas official in Cairo unless he’s part of a Fatah-led delegation.

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By: Meir Halevi Siegel, JP
Published: July 31st, 2014

Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh and Erdogan. Haniyeh is the terrorist on the left.
It’s been a great month for US arms manufacturers: Just two weeks after the United States and Qatar – “the world’s largest funder of terror”, according to former President Shimon Peres – signed an $11 billion arms deal, the IsraelDefense website said Thursday that Washington has inked another multi-billion dollar deal for American firms, this time to provide Turkey with an advanced air defense system.

The deal comes at a time when Turkey appears to have re-defined its identity as a Muslim-majority democracy, as well as its role in the Middle East and the Islamic world. Although the Turkish republic, founded by Kamel Attaturk in 1923, has existed as a democracy for 90 years (with three military coups to restore democracy when the country teetered, in 1960, 1971 and 1980), Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has directed the country towards an Islamist path since coming to power in 2002.
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HAARETZ LIVEBLOG

9:28 P.M. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says in a press conference that IDF forces have “destroyed thousands of terror targets,” and that after the tunnels inside the Gaza Strip are destroyed, the IDF will continue in its mission to restore security to Israel’s citizens. “All the options are on the table to restore security,” he said.

The prime minister said Operation Protective Edge is complex, due to fighting in densely populated areas, and said Israel regrets the death of every Palestinian civilian. Netanyahu also said the operation has the support of the United States and of Europe. “The U.S. has been terrific and has given us tremendous support during the Gaza crisis,” Netanyahu said during the question time of the press conference.
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After a five-hour meeting Friday, cabinet decides against further cease-fire negotiations, relying instead on restoring Israel’s deterrence.

By Barak Ravid | Aug. 2, 2014 | 6:00 PM HAARETZ

By Ted Belman

Israel decided that an agreement with Hamas isn’t worth the paper it is written on. So no cease fire is being sought. That means that Israel is ending Operation Preventive Edge. The IDF has already started pulling out and Israel has told Gazans to return to their homes in certain neighborhoods.

It also means that Hamas get nothing for its troubles. That won’t stop them from claiming they won because Israel backed away. Hamas and Gaza have suffered great destruction and many deaths and received nothing in return.

Israel gets its quiet for quiet but not before destroying the tunnels. Their decision may have been based in part in the US agreeing to resupply Iron Dome. Thus Israel can continue to shoot down missiles and can use artillery to hit back at launching pads.
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THE DAILY SABAH, PAKISTAN

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq is pressing the Obama administration for sophisticated weapons it says Kurdish fighters need to push back the militants threatening their region, Kurdish and U.S. officials said.

A Kurdish official said the request was discussed during a Kurdish delegation’s visit to Washington in early July, and U.S. officials said Washington was considering ways to bolster the Kurdish defenses.

The Kurds say U.S. help is critical to enable the Peshmerga, the Kurds’ paramilitary force, to repel fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), an al Qaeda spinoff that seized a wide swath of Iraqi territory in a stunning advance in the last few months.
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31 July 2014 – 11:01pm

The SUN DAILY, MALAYSIA

DAMASCUS: The jihadist Islamic State (IS), which has taken over large swathes of war-torn Syria in just a few months, was today engaged in fighting Kurds and members of a Sunni tribe.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the well-equipped Kurds, who started fighting IS soon after it emerged in Syria in spring last year, had yesterday taken back several hills surrounding the city of Ain al-Arab (Kobane in Kurdish) in the north.

The IS has been trying to take over Ain al-Arab — Syria’s third Kurdish city — and incorporate it into the Islamic “caliphate” it proclaimed last month.
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By Moshe Feiglin

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As the 72 hour ceasefire is declared, read why Israel must continue.

By Dr. Joe Tuzara, INN
(The writer was clinical research-physician-general surgeon for Saudi Arabian,.)

The launching of two-thousand plus Iranian and Syrian-made rockets of various ranges raining throughout Israel at the same time that Iran’sleadership was sitting with the P5+1 in Vienna to negotiate a deal over its nuclear programhas exposed Iran as the root cause of instability in the Middle East.

The ongoing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) large-scale counter-terror operation in the heavily populated Palestinian enclave leading to the discovery of massive underground tunnels was indeed a blessing in disguise.

The subterranean terrorist empire built by Hamas is estimated to run to more than 5,000 tunnels and sub-passages under the surface of the Gaza Strip, according to military sources and cyber experts. Read more…

By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST
07/31/2014 23:02

To prevent an even more brutal and extreme successor from taking over, Gaza must be dismantled and the non-belligerent population relocated. The navy patrols off the coast of Gaza on Monday

The navy patrols off the coast of Gaza on Monday Photo: YAAKOV LAPPIN

Our neighbors want to see us dead. This is not a question that leaves much room for compromise. – Golda Meir, cited in The New York Times, December 9, 1978

We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow. – Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons, March 1, 1848

If only Israeli strategic policy were founded on the enduring, down-to-earth wisdom embodied in the two preceding quotations. They convey the essence of Israel’s international and regional environments – the cynical self-interest that characterizes the former, and the unbridled brutality that characterizes the latter.

In recent decades, any understanding of these basic precepts seems starkly absent from the formulation – and certainly, the implementation – of Israeli strategic plans. Read more…

By Caroline Glick Friday, August 1st, 2014

As often happens in war, plans are overtaken by events. Following Hamas’s attack this morning on Givati forces in Rafah during the US-UN ceasefire, I realized that my assumption that a ceasefire is possible, on which I based my latest column was no longer supported by evidence. 

I wrote the following column in light of what I now realize about Hamas’s rationale for fighting. I urge the US citizens reading this column to contact their Congressional representatives and ask them to take action, as set forth below. CAROLINE GLICK

Why did Hamas attack the Givati forces, kill two soldiers and capture 2nd. Lt. Hadar Goldin Friday morning in violation of the US-UN brokered 72-hour cease fire?

Hamas acted as it did, because it thinks it can get away with it. And Hamas thinks that it can get away with it because Hamas is convinced that it will win this war.

And as long as Hamas is convinced that it will win this war, it will continue to attack, no matter what its situation is on the ground in Gaza. It will continue to attack Israel no matter what Israel does.
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by Naomi Ragen  TABLET MAGAZINE

I’m not sure the people who need to hear this will ever hear it, but I want my conscience to be clear that I said it to them.

Dear Human Rights Activist, Leftist Liberal, Crying-for-the-poor-children, Israel-hating, Hamas-forgiving, marcher, celebrity, news anchor, journalist, writer, media star, politician, head of state. We have seen you marching along the streets of Europe, America, and the Middle East with your signs and kafias and Palestinian flags. We have heard you screaming to whoever will listen that Jews and Israelis are murderers, war criminals, and baby killers.

You think you are telling us who we are. But actually, you are telling us who you are.

You are telling us that you are ignorant.

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By Caroline Glick
Friday, August 1st, 2014

David Weinberg, ISRAEL HAYOM

It is hard to win a war when you’re fighting with one hand tied behind your back. It’s even harder to win a war when you tie that hand back yourself. It’s harder yet still when you’re wearing ideological blinders and fail to see the full contours of the enemy.

In going to war against Hamas, Israel is indeed handicapped in so many ways.

Firstly, the IDF has frighteningly handcuffed itself in order to avoid excessive civilian casualties among the civilian population in Gaza, within which Hamas is purposefully embedded.

What army that is truly dedicated to crushing the enemy tells enemy forces which targets exactly it is about to attack, warning the civilian population in particular neighborhoods to flee on very specific days and at specific hours?

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