Ted Belman
The good news is that thousands Gazans have taken Israels warnings to heart and left the area.
The bad news is that Israel didn’t bomb within the time limit they set for doing so.
The good news is that neither side is ready for a ceasefire.
The bad news is that Israel prefers a ceasefire rather than an invasion.

DEBKA
[..]
Several thousands of residents in northern Gaza have heeded IDF warnings by leaflets to evacuate their homes temporarily for their own safety, ahead of an imminent major Israeli operation against the rocket launchers and weapons stores maintained by Hamas in residential areas. The IDF calculates that 40 percent of all Hamas-Jihad Islami rockets were fired from northern Gaza.

UNWRA in the Gaza Strip opened 10 schools to accommodate the refugees, who continued to pour in, in the face of insistent Hamas calls not to leave their homes.
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By Ted Belman

Early on in the game Bibi called for quiet for quiet. He got his cabinet to go along. Subsequently he expanded it to quiet for “long term quiet” which require something like the dismantling of the rocket capabilities inside Gaza, similar to the manner in which the chemical weapons were dismantled in Syria; developing a mechanism to enforce the cease-fire; and a restoration of Palestinian Authority – not Hamas – control over the area.

Right from the git go he should have demanded the demilitarization of Gaza. Nothing less would do. He should have said that we wouldn’t stop the the IDF until it had been achieved militarily or diplomatically.
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No to a Ceasfire – Destory Hamas Now!
 
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By: Cliff Kincaid,

Accuracy in Media

The “liberation of Palestine” is widely recognized as a euphemism for the destruction of Israel. But the term “Palestinians,” according to American-Israeli political commentator and journalist Sha’i ben-Tekoa, is itself a commonly used deception. The “Palestinians,” he argues, don’t really exist. They are an “invented” people whose purpose is to serve as the means by which the destruction of Israel and the Jews will ultimately be achieved.

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By Zvi November

The Gaza confrontation is very complicated because there are many players: Hamas, World Jihad, Fatah, the ISIS radical Salafi group now taking over large parts of Syria and Iraq that is threatening Jordan and has set up terror cells in Gaza, Iran, Hezbollah and Al Sisi next door in Egypt with Russia and the US in the background.  And Saudi, Iranian and Qatari funds are financing most of these combatants.

The Holy Koran with its harsh disdain of Jews and Arab lies about how the Jews have stolen “their” land form the basis of an immutable belief system.  The Palestinian/Arab media hammer away on this theme daily with hate propaganda that pollutes the Arab soul.  Observe any pro-Arab demonstration anywhere to see what I am complaining about. Read more…

Tanks being transferred to the Gaza border (Photo: AFP)
 

By MARTIN SHERMAN, JPOST

Israel can no longer enable its citizens to “live normal lives” without retaking Gaza. “Restraint” and “proportionality” have so degraded its deterrence that it can no longer dissuade enemies from attacking almost at will.

By Yossi Verter, HAARETZ   (Written the morning of Aug 10)

[..]

No cause for optimism

No one in Netanyahu’s close circle believes this government will last more than another year, 18 months tops. It’s clear to all the politicos that the 2015 budget will be the last one that this, the third Netanyahu government, will pass. Many believe the budget will encounter major obstacles, and that a general election will be held in the first quarter of next year. Be that as it may, Netanyahu cannot be free of political calculations as he manages the war, together with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz.

Netanyahu knows that the right wing, in both its ideological and militant branches, was disappointed in him even before the current period of restraint began. He went into Operation Protective Edge battered and bruised. His behavior during the presidential race damaged him badly – within Likud and on the right as a whole. At the same time, the center-left camp accuses him of not doing enough to preserve the peace process.
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The IDF has learned from bitter experience, but sending troops into the Strip will be neither a picnic nor a walk in the park.

By Ron Ben-Yishai, YNET

Friday night saw increased military traffic on the roads around Gaza. It was fairly obvious, even to those who just walking around the area, that this was the end or the near end of an amassing of forces for the first stage of a ground operation. The latest units are arriving at well-hidden meeting points and the military police are not letting anyone watch.

This lesson was learned during Operation Pillar of Defense, when troops were crowded in, unprotected in staging areas that visible to all. Then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the IDF very much wanted those in Gaza to know that there were many troops and reservists in the field.
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By Victor Sharpe, CFP

The irrevocable Islamic and Koranic injunction upon all Muslims is to wage relentless war against any non-Muslim nation state that exists within what Islam decrees as the Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam). Wherever the Muslim foot has trod triumphal in the name of Allah, that territory is considered eternally Islamic land. If it is lost, then it enters the Dar al-Harb (the House of War) and must be retaken and the population either forcibly converted to Islam, forced into dhimmi degradation, or exterminated.

According to Abraham I. Katsh, who wrote the following as far back as 1954 in his book, Judaism and the Koran:

“The duty of Jihad, the waging of Holy War, has been raised to the dignity of a sixth canonical obligation … To the Moslem, the world is divided into regions under Islamic control, the dar al-Islam, and regions not subjected as yet, the dar al-harb. Read more…

And that’s because it doesn’t even try.   Read more…

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative”
“Israel Hayom”, July 11, 2014, http://bit.ly/1oKq3pn

The goal of Israel’s war against Hamas’ terrorism – which has systematically and deliberately launched missiles at civilians – must not be another ceasefire, but the devastation of the entire infrastructure of Hamas’ fire – logistically, operationally, financially, educationally and politically.

The goal of Israel’s war against Hamas’ terrorism – which has grown in power following each round of clashes and ceasefire – must not be an end to the current cycle of violence, but ending the cyclical pattern of violence, by destroying Hamas’ terrorist capabilities. Read more…

JPOST

[..] Artillery fire was directed at the area from which the rocket was fired, a senior army source said.

Over the past 24 hours, the IDF hit 81 underground rocket launchers, 21 command and control centers, 15 attack tunnels, and ten training centers. Seven Hamas regime buildings were also hit.

Since the start of the operation, the IDF has struck 600 underground rocket launchers, 95 command and control centers, 61 underground tunnels, and 22 regime buildings.

The IDF struck 1,100 targets belonging to Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip since the start of an operation launched Monday to end Gazan rocket attacks, and 210 targets over the past 24 hours, a senior security source said.

Fifty targets belonging to terror organizations were destroyed overnight between Thursday and Friday

By Caroline Glick, JWR

Hamas isn’t going to defeat Israel.

It isn’t going to gain any territory. Israel isn’t going to withdraw from Ashkelon or Sderot under a hail of rockets.

So if Hamas can’t win, why is it fighting?

Why rain down destruction and misery on millions of Israelis with your Iranian missiles and your Syrian rockets and so invite a counterassault on your headquarters and weapons warehouses, which you conveniently placed in the middle of the Palestinians on whose behalf you are allegedly fighting?
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By Avi Dichter, ISRAEL HAYOM.

[..] The time is ripe to switch from tactical operations (Pillar of Defense, Cast Lead, Protective Edge) to a strategic campaign which will dramatically diminish the terrorists’ ability to hurt us. This campaign is not something that should last for just a month or two — rather a year or two. There is absolutely no reason to abandon the Israeli public to more years of living under fire. We defeated suicide terrorism and we will be able to eradicate rocket terrorism. Arresting thousands of terrorists in Gaza and continuing the airstrikes will produce the intelligence required to reformat terrorism in Gaza. This is what our civilian and military leaders need to do.

Avi Dichter is a former internal security and homefront defense minister?, Shin Bet security agency director, and Knesset member.

Sultan Knish (Daniel Greefield)

“War is peace,” entered our cultural vocabulary some sixty-four years ago. Around the same time that Orwell’s masterpiece was being printed up, an armistice was being negotiated between Israel and the Arab invading armies. That armistice began the long peaceful war or the warring peace.

The entire charade did not properly enter the realm of the Orwellian until the peace process began. The peace process between Israel and the terrorist militias funded by the countries of those invading armies has gone on for longer than most actual wars. It has also taken more lives than most actual wars.
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JEWISH PRESS

PM Netanyahu told the Foreign Affair and Defense Committee in a meeting yesterday that the lawyers won’t allow Israel to shut off the water and electricity to Gaza.

He said this in response to a request by the committee chairman, Minister Ze’ev Elkin, for Israel to take a more harsh response against Gaza, including shutting off the water and electricity.

Netanyahu said he will bomb them a little harder.

We’re glad the lawyers permit that.

Still, one wonders, if we moved the lawyers to Sderot, would they come up with a different legal opinion?