Yesterday, JoshuaPundit reported on a Palestinian attack inside Israel at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Gaza and Israel. Apparently,the Palestinians got an added bonus: a hostage.
Corporal Gilead Shalit from Mitzpe Hila was taken hostage, apparently after being wounded in the attack. The Palestinian faction holding him claims he is `safe and has received medical treatment'.
The Israeli military incursion into Gaza has been halted immediately.
At least one of my sources faults the Israeli commanders on the spot- Major General Yoav Galant and Brigadeer General Aviv Cochavi for slow reactions to the raid, and for not heeding what apparently was the Shin Bet's warning of tunneling in Gaza.
I don't think that's entirely fair, as Israeli military responses to Palestinian attacks are hampered by ridiculous rules of engagement and political handcuffs dictated by the Olmert government. The IDF is understandably reluctant to act independently without deferring to the politicians in Jerusalem masters...to a greater extent then ever before in its proud history.
That's why the IDF didn't immediately set out full bore after the terrorists and kidnappers. If they had, chances are that Israel might have gained the initiative and been in a position to force the kidnapped soldier’s release by trapping the terrorists.
Instead, an Israeli helicopter was detailed to do recon and shoot at empty ground and the defense minister Amir Peretz, upon learning that an Israeli naval Dabur missile-ship had opened fire, ordered the vessel to cease and desist, in case of repercussions to the abducted soldier.
Needless to say, the Palestinians took all this as a sign of weakness. Look for more attempted kidnappings of Israeli civilians and military.
Israel has given the Hamas government 24 hours to release Shalit unharmed.
The Israelis have only two options: bargaining with Hamas for Shalit's release or hoping that the missing soldier can be located through its intel and rescued by the IDF.
One rumour floating through the ozone from JoshuaPundit's sources says that Shalit is being held in Rafah and will be freed shortly...at the price of an Israeli guarantee to halt its targeted attacks on Palestinian terrorists. I personally think the price will be much, much higher...release of impounded funds to Hamas and/or the release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli custody.
(As a side note, I'm sure at least one idiot will e-mail me to try and draw an equivalence between, say, imprisoned terrorist Marwan Barghouti and Corporal Shalit... `hey they're both POW's, right?' W R O N G: Barghouti, like the vast majority of Palestinian terrorists was convicted of murdering civilians and had a trial. And the conditions the terrorists are imprisoned under are humane and open to scrutiny (too humane, if you ask me). Shalit is being held incognito, without trial and has not killed any civilians we know of.)
In another related story Abbas’ own Fatah group, the al Aksa Brigade, has threatened that if Israeli forces raid the Gaza Strip, they will release “20 kinds of chemical and bacteriological substances” which they have developed in the last three years.
This is just a day after Abbas was sitting down with Olmert at breakfast in Jordan, planning peace talks!. As the Qu'ran says, `War is deception.'
This is the same scenario we saw in the October 2000 kidnap by Hezbollah of three Israeli soldiers, Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omar Sawad, on Israel’s northern border....right under th eeyes of the UN peacekeeping force. Prime minister Ehud Barak held back then from military retaliation. Four years later, Israel was forced to pay dearly for their remains.And the Lebanon border is now a Hezbollah stronghold, with missiles aimed at Israel.
Both Israeli Prime Ministers refused to order a strong military response to attacks on Israel's soldiers, admit that the `evacuations' were a major strategic mistake and send troops back into evacuated territory – South Lebanon then, the Gaza Strip now.
The results look like turning out the same as well...just substitute Hamas for Hezbollah.
I don't fault the Palestinians for this in the slightest, by the way. This was a military attack done in the context of a war. The Palestinians realize they're at war, even if the Olmert government doesn't.
Olmert is sitting on a ticking bomb, and is in the middle of a war for Israel's very existance.. I wonder how long it's going to take before he realizes it?
9 comments:
in response to your views on palestine vs. israel, please read "Blood Brothers" (i forget the author but it might make you realise that the palestinians are humans too and are only trying to regain what they see as rightfully theirs).
also, i quote: "As a side note, I'm sure at least one idiot will e-mail me to try and draw an equivalence between, say, imprisoned terrorist Marwan Barghouti and Corporal Shalit... `hey they're both POW's, right?' W R O N G: Barghouti, like the vast majority of Palestinian terrorists was convicted of murdering civilians and had a trial." which is ironic really, seing as the israeli soldiers who shell and shoot palestinian civilians, and halt AMBULANCES carrying WOMEN IN LABOUR for unnecessary checks dont get imprisoned. they dont even get tried most the time. and in case a palestinian life doesnt seem of equal value to you as any other human, we should bow our heads for one minute's silence in memory of Tom Hurdnall (UK), Rachel Corrie (US), James Miller (UK), Rafaelle Ciriello (IT), all decent people who made the mistake of trying to defend a race who have no rights, land or posessions left of their own but the keys to their old (and now demolished) houses.
while i know that what i have said is a very one-sided view and that the palestinians dont exactly smell of roses, i just wish you would see that they're not a nation of terrorists and murderers and kidnappers, and the minority that are have been raised that way within a cycle of self perpetuating violence for which they cannot see any cause apart from the jewish emigration. Remember, the holocaust happened in europe and, just like us in the west had no interest in Pol Pot's regime, why should palestinians see the holocaust as any sort of justification for what they view as the robbery of their land?
apart from this minor dispute with your views, i enjoyed your post. thanks.
"it is better to die for an idea that will live than to live for an idea that will die"- steve biko
I disagree with you, but I appreciate the way you conducted yourself. A reasoned response always gets one from me.
Let's examine what you've said.
`..the palestinians are humans too and are only trying to regain what they see as rightfully theirs.'
Of course the Palestinians are human. And as such they SHOULD BE HELD TO CERTAIN NORMS OF CIVILIZED CONDUCT. When you show me Israelis or Jews making heroes out of people who deliberately target and murddr civilians or praising it as a holy act, I might be more amenable to your POV.
As for trying to regain what they see as `rightfully theirs'... just because they SEE it that way doesn't make them right.
I suggest you read Joan Peters book `From Time Immemorial' and do some research on the almost one million Jews who were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948..especially from Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. Do some research on the history Gush Etzion by the way...a place you might refer to as a `West Bank settlement'.
As for the `Holocaust happening in Europe', the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world, BTW, are directly culpable for the death toll in the Holocaust.
Please read this:J O S H U A P U N D I T: Ahmadinejad hits out at Israel ..again. But raises a legitimate point for discussion
That connects, by the way, to your point about ambulances. Are you aware of how many times Palestinian Red Crescent Ambulances have been used to transport explosives, weapons and terrorists?
The IDF and the Shin Bet have caught the Palestinians doing this numerous times. They even tried to use ambulances to assasinate Colin Powell.
On one occasion, they had 250 kilos of high explosives wired under a three year old child in an ambulance on a hair trigger, to the point that the IDF's demolition experts couldn't defuse it safely, so they detonated it...after informing the ICRC and showing them the bomb.
I personally wrote to Dr. Kellenberger in Switzerland, head of the ICRC after that and got a response from his assistant that they were `aware of the problem' to the point that they were distributing leaflets asking the Plaestinians not to compromise the ambulances.
Please don't give me any Leftist propaganda about the IDF interfering with ambulances.
Likewise, before you attempt to regale me with tales of the poor Palestinians carrying keys to their houses from 1948, remember WHY they took the keys with them..they expected to be able to return after the jihad, when the Jews would be massacred. 100,000 Arabs stayed in Israel, and have more freedom than any Arabs in the Middle East.
See, here's the central issue in the Middle East, Banzai...the inability of Arabs, for the most part, to live in equality and peace next to Jews and Christians. If that weren't true, it wouldn't matter where the borders were.
Take Gush Katif, for example, and amazingly prosperous farming community. If the Palestinians were truly interested in building a state, they would have encouraged those Jews to remain and help their economy.
Instead, they insisted on ethnic cleansing, and looted and destroyed everything the Jews had built there, that COULD have been theirs. Now, once prosperous communities like Neve Dekalim are nothing but terrorist training camps and missile launching sites.
And frankly, after seeing the election results, I also don't buy your premise that `it's only a small minority'. The numbers don't bear you out.
Frankly, I think you've been hoodwinked.
Thanks for weighing in.
Interesting. didn't know about the ambulance tricks...
All true, as I can personally testify.And yet, the ICRC refused to discipline the Palestinian Red Crescent and recently let them in as full members, as you may know.
The Palestinians only got one thing correct since 1948..they picked the right enemy.
I'm just not as well informed as you. That's why my jaw often drops when reading your blog...Reading more about middle east history is on that long to do list....
By the way, why do Israelis forget the Jewish terrorists who were happy to car-bomb to establish Israel? It can't be about the principle of terrorism if you forgive these people just because of their particular justification. Wanting a homeland justifies doing that when it's Jews and not Palestinians? Remember I'm under no illusion regarding the hate fuelling both sides' atrocities.
My grandfather narrowly escaping one of those Jewish bombs might be the reason he apparently had something against certain (militant) Jewish factions - hypocrisy is universally disliked in the world, remember that.
The Phalange militia massacred the inhabitants of the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila (in occupied Lebanon, 1982). Israeli forces were deemed indirectly responsible by the The Kahan Commission (which was accused of whitewash anyway). Similar to moderate factions in the Palestinian 'government' being held responsible for Hamas militant actions?
If the USA didn't exceptionally fund the IDF, then perhaps there'd be a little more parity between weapons and tactics used by the IDF and Palestinian militants? I think both sides should have the same weaponry ratio versus area of land held. It won't happen, but it WOULD be interesting to have the playing field levelled, and see who's tactics become desperate then... Also, the 9/11 perpetrators might not have had such reason to hate the USA... So who do you think the 9/11 dead really died for?!
If the Palestinians were less duplicitous it would be better for their credibility. The ambulances? Well, underground terrorists WILL use any deception possible. See above note on weapons for a clue as to why - they don't have Apache helicopters and Hellfire missiles, paid for by US tax. If they DID have these and then continued to use underhand tactics, then that might say more than the current situation does.
Anyway, if everyone cared enough about humanity to choose a day to just all sit back and disarm, and let someone else enforce the borders and themselves prepare for peace, then both sides might get a lot more respect. As it is, the whole thing stinks of a spiritually-bankrupt victim mentality that BOTH sides have strong elements of...
"Only when the power of love is stronger than the love of power will the world know peace" - Jimi Hendrix.
Isn't it cute the way they're always `anonymous'?
Frankly, anonymous, if you're so deficiant morally and intellectually as to equate Israel's actions with Hezbollah's and the Palestinians, there's not a whole lot I have to say to you.
Suffice it to say that if the jihadis laid down their arms, there would be peace. If Israel did, they would be massacred down to the last infant.
Of course, certainly nothing I could write change your mind..which I think has a slightly different agenda than `peace and love', especially when it comes to Israel and the Jews.
The words 'chicken' and 'egg' come to mind. I didn't equate Israel's actions with Hezbollah's and the Palestinians. They're completely disproportionate. Israel have killed civilians (and I don't mean men of fighting age claiming not to be terrorists, I mean WOMEN AND CHILDREN) just like the anti-Israel militants. In fact, they kill more of the opposition than the opposition kills of them - in the most recent actions by TEN TO ONE. Even if I was Israeli, I'd be thinking that was a little disproportionate in figures. THREE soldiers kidnapped and two civilians killed or so - that justifies 70-odd mostly civilians killed does it? Criticise THAT morally - it's a tad more deficient than I am. Unfortunately, morality isn't convenient! I make no excuse for radical Islam's pathetic moral standards either. You probably expect me to, just because I have time to see certain things from the Palestinian view. I'll repeat myself - morality isn't convenient!
You fail completely to counter my arguments and points - instead just putting me down quickly as it suits you. Your post at the top looked more promising than that. BTW: I'm not anonymous because I've anything to hide (like your profile reveals anything anyway) - I'm just sick of signing up to hundreds of different sites when I'm not sure they contain enough intellectual stimulation to be worth it...
First of all, Anonymous..nobody has to `sign up' for this site.
Trolls get 86'd but any reasonable person,no matter how off base gets a hearing and a reasonably polite answer if they're respectful...as you have seen.
My point was very simple..you obviously DO equate the activities of Israel and people like Hamas and Hezbollah.
(`Chicken and egg'? Jewish `terrorists' from 50 years ago who never targetted civilians in the way Hamas and Hezbollah have? AT least be intellectually honest.)
If your moral compass is that skewed, anything I could tell you would be to no purpose. If you chose to take that as a putdown..well maybe it is.
And speaking of not countering arguments, here's one YOU failed to address in the least:
`Suffice it to say that if the jihadis laid down their arms, there would be peace. If Israel did, they would be massacred down to the last infant'
Any comment, Anonymous? Do you disagree?
As for the toll of human life, IF you read the site, you will discover that the Palestinians you admire use civilians as human shields for terrorists.
See, there's a difference between deliberately TARGETING civilians and killing some in the process of taking out some very evil people who are hiding behind them.
I simply don't think you see the difference....which is why I see no purpose in `countering your arguments'.
I prefer clarity to agreement.
Thanks for dropping by.
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