By Daniel Greenfield

For the last hundred years the best and brightest of the civilized world have been engaged in the business of peace. In the days before the Nobel Peace Prize became a joke, it was expected that scientific progress would lead to moral progress. Nations would accept international laws and everyone would get together to replace wars with international conferences.

Instead technological progress just gave us better ways to kill each other. There have been few innovations in the moral technology of global harmony since Immanuel Kant’s “Perpetual Peace” laid out a plan to grant world citizenship to all refugees and outlaw all armies, invasions and atrocities with the whole shebang would be overseen by a League of Nations.
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By David Goldman , FPM 

Hamas fires 275 rockets at Israel and is rewarded with de facto acceptance as a legitimate negotiating partner in the Middle East peace process, as well as with a relaxation of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza coast. Israel is prevented from exacting a price for Hamas’ actions sufficient to deter future attacks or degrade Hamas’ capabilities. In one stroke, the Obama administration has overturned thirty years of American policy, which rejected negotiations with Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Secretary of State Clinton, to be sure, did not negotiate directly with Hamas, but rather with Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi, who supported Hamas unequivocally and encouraged its attacks on Israel. Morsi is the leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is the Palestinian chapter. It is astonishing that American officials and the world media have hailed Morsi simply because he first sicced his dog on his neighbor, and then called the dog off. Read more…

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis November 20, 2012, 10:28 PM (GMT+02:00)

Jerusalem, Cairo and Gaza were all waiting for US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to arrive Tuesday night, Nov. 20, for tying up the ends of a Gaza ceasefire accord. Until then, Israel held back from its approval and the Palestinians were hurling as many deadly missiles as they could.

DEBKAfile’s analysts say that by giving in to international pressure for a ceasefire, Israel’s leaders Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman would show they have failed to learn from their predecessors’ mistakes in ending the last two wars against terrorists inconclusively and prematurely.
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By Ted Belman

Everyone acknowledges Israel’s right of self-defense. How could they do otherwise. It is in the UN Charter. Article 51 provides:

“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”

Thus this right can only be relied upon and acted upon until such time as “the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security”. Such measures take the form of resolutions. But surely as long as such measures are intended to maintain peace and security, it matters not whether they have succeeded. And if they haven’t succeeded then surely the right of self defense may still be resorted to.
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Israel’s Ambassador in the United States, Michael Oren, told IDF Radio Tuesday that there is no American veto on a possible ground maneuver by the IDF in Gaza.

“Washington’s support in any step Israel takes is full,” he said. “Obama spoke twice with the prime minister and called our situation ‘unbearable.'”

According to a new survey published by Israel’s Dahaf Institute Institute, headed by Dr. Mina Tzemach, 43% of the public believes the best thing for Israel would be to overthrow the Hamas regime.

After witnessing the hundreds of rockets shot down by the Iron Dome, 88% of Israelis believe more Iron Dome systems should be put into place, enough to cover the entire country.

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The author of this article is Chairman of the Friends of Israel Initiative and was Prime of Minister of Spain, 1996-2004. He and his organization are great friends of Israel Please go to their site and learn about the great support they give Israel. Ted Belman

Hamas has caused this conflict through its continued bombardment of the Israeli people.

José María Aznar, THE TIMES
19 November 2012

Self-defence is a right of people and nations that is enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The war we are witnessing right now over Gaza was not initiated by Israel but by Hamas, well before the killing of its military commander, the well-known terrorist, Ahmed al-Jaabari.

After a quiet period following Operation Cast Lead at the end of 2008, rocket ttacks from Gaza have been steadily reassumed with increasing ferocity: 150 rockets hit Israel in 2010; 680 last year; and more than 800 were launched this year before al-Jaabari’s death. Hamas was not sending flowers to schools and homes in southern Israel, but destruction and terror.
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by Prof. Efraim Inbar and Dr. Max Singer
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 186, November 19, 2012

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Israel needs to send IDF ground forces into Gaza to destroy the military capabilities of Hamas and other Islamic terror groups. While Israel may pay a high diplomatic price for its actions, the longer it waits the greater the political obstacles will be to actions that limit future Palestinian and Arab attacks on Israel. If fears such as the changed political environment of the Middle East deter Israel from destroying Hamas’ military force now, the Arabs will only escalate their attacks on Israel. An immediate and strong Israeli response is necessary to ensure the Jewish state’s ability to stand against the rising tide of Islamist militancy.

For nearly a week, Israel has been under attack from terrorist elements in Gaza, primarily Hamas. As the Israeli air force and navy respond with surgical, targeted strikes on Hamas facilities, the government is weighing the possibility of ordering a ground offensive too.

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This is a complete defeat for Israel. What the hell is a guarantee? What are they guaranteeing or are they just witnessing which has no legal significance. Why is Israel making any concessions. Even if Egypt guarantees to stop smuggling , what will happen if they fail to do so? Nothing.

In hindsight, it was a mistake to mobilize troops and threaten to invade. Now Israel feels the pressure to invade or accept a lousy deal. So if Israel had simply contended itself with trading bombing for rockets, she would feel no pressure to accept a ceasefire. As long as the rockets keep coming she keeps bombing. For that matter we could use less expensive artillery. There is an equivalence to firing rockets and firing artillery. She could give notice to the residents in a certain block of the city, then lay waste to it and so on.

By Elad Benari, INN

A ceasefire between Israel and Gaza could go into effect “within several hours”, according to a Monday night report by the Al-Arabiya network.

The report said that the forum of nine senior Israeli ministers was expected to approve an initial outline for a ceasefire with Hamas.

According to the outline offered by Egypt and described in the report, Israel will stop the air strikes on Gaza and stop the targeted killings of senior members of Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza, in exchange for a complete cessation of the rocket fire into Israel.
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Israel has right to proportional self-defense and both sides must respect international law. So says the EU.

Thank you very much but no thanks. There is confusion here. Of course we have the right of self-defense.

We are way beyond self-defense. We are at war and being at war we have the right to win on our terms.

Bibi is between a rock and a hard place. He doesn’t want to invade yet he can’t let Hamas dictate terms. Hamas want them to invade so that deaths go up on both sides. Israel’s greatest concern is international condemnation. So apparently Hamas has established deterrence, not Israel.

From Israel’s point of view either accept a ceasefire now that she doesn’t like or accept one after invading that she doesn’t like or going in to stay.

My suggestion to Bibi is to invade with the goal of occupying the northern part of Gaza and the Philidelphi Corridor rather than to destroy Hamas. This would greatly reduce the death toll on both sides and will not be seen as a humiliating defeat of Israel. Then Israel should demand an agreement to their liking as the cost of vacating. Res 242 all over again. Ted Belman

Instead of settling for achieved goals, government tormented by how to emerge from Gaza op with sense of victory

By Nahum Barnea, YNET

Of all the merits of the Iron Dome system, my favorite is its ability to distinguish between a malignant missile and a benign missile, between a dangerous enemy and an insignificant enemy, between the wheat and the chaff. Had the Americans been required to develop such a system, they would have programmed it to fire at anything that flies, regardless of the cost. They go for quantity; we go for quality. They go for destruction; we go for distinction. In short, Israeli pride.

During one of my long nights in Beersheba, between one Color Red alert to another, I thought to myself: It’s a shame that Netanyahu isn’t an iron dome. He has learned so many important things throughout his many years in politics, but he hasn’t learned to separate the wheat from the chaff, to distinguish between a dangerous enemy and an insignificant one.
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Excellent article about Gov.Palin’s record of accomplishments.

‘Who Is the Real Sarah Palin?’

by WHITNEY PITCHER, Breitbart,

From the article:

Executive Authority and Success

Palin was the first female and youngest governor to be elected in Alaska, which is tied for the second most powerful governorship in the United States, according to Thad Beyle, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina.

Budgeting and Spending

Palin cut state spending between 2007 and 2010 by 9.5% while also reducing federal earmark requests by more than 80% during her tenure. She used her line-item veto to cut more than a quarter billion in superfluous spending in both 2007 and 2008. In 2009, she instituted a temporary hiring freeze, while at the same time reducing spending by more than 33% between FY2009 and FY2010.
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How Arab Forces Expect to Launch Losing Wars and Still Win

By Barry Rubin,

One of the most important things to understand about how the Middle East works is what I’ll call the suicide strategy. It can be described as follows:

I will start a war that I cannot win in order to create a situation where the other side wrecks my infrastructure and kills my people. Then I will lose militarily but win the battle. How? By the following means:

–I’ll kill some people on the other side and do some damage to it. Since they are weaker and less brave than I am they will give up. The longer the war, the more likely they are to look for a way out even if that involves many concessions on their part. Using terrorism against their civilians reinforces this tactic.
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By Pinhas Inbari, WJC

The current round of hostilities between Israel and the Hamas government in Gaza is rooted in an internal struggle within Hamas. The organization is embroiled in a leadership struggle pitting the Iranian-backed Ismail Haniyeh against the Qatar and Egypt-supported Khaleed Mashal and his deputy Musa Abu Marzuq.

Signs of the internal conflict were already visible during the visit of the emir of Qatar in Gaza, where he delivered a clear message: should Hamas cease its terror operations and rocket offensive against Israel and engage in reconstruction, it would receive US$ 400 billion from the Qatari government. At the same time, Qatar attempted to convince the Hamas leadership in Gaza to forgo its ambition to serve as the organization’s official global leadership.
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