RBO News & Views — The Rockets Bright Glare Edition

Update: Netherlands: “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas”: Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch passes along what can only be characterized as a revolting video:

This video (thanks to M.B.) depicts Dutch parliamentarian Harry van Bommel of the Socialist Party and other Leftist useful idiots calling for intifada against Israel during a Jew-hate, pro-jihad terror rally in Amsterdam yesterday — while the crowd behind them (at 1:05) chants “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.”

Every decent human being on the planet should be standing with Israel today.

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Gazitis: Victor Davis Hanson wrote January 2nd at NRO (emphasis added):

If Israel continues to decimate Hamas, gets its message out to the global public by circumventing and counter-acting AP, Reuters, the NY Times, Guardian, etc., and makes the case that there is a terrible, but moral connection between sending rockets into Jewish Kindergartens and not sleeping well in fortified compounds in Gaza City, then it may recapture much of its deterrence lost in the 2006 war where the opposite formula of talking loudly and carrying a small stick was the Israeli norm.

Note not just the relative silence of Fatah and the Arab community in general at the news of the settling up with Hamas, but the quiet from Hezbollah in Lebanon. One would think Hezbollah would now pile on by launching missiles in solidarity with their brothers in Hamas. For now almost everyone in the Middle East seems to be willing to forfeit their patronage of Hamas to Iran while hoping it is as costly for the cash-strapped mullahs as it is embarrassing.

When should Israel stop? When they think there is a good chance the rockets will stop — and not until then. That will happen only when the message seems to be getting through to Gazans that they might better jeer rather than cheer rockets launched from their empty lots and rooftops, given the retribution that will inevitably follow, despite the promulgation of phoney doctrines like proportionality and the tired old game of “hood on — I’m a scary rocket launcher”/ “hood off — I’m a scared civilian victim of Israeli aggression”.

Note likewise the growing silence from the incoming Obama administration and its supporters, who now have dropped much of the talk about the tragedy of not having an early ascension in November rather than January 20th. Gaza is a sore about which you cannot vote present, charm terrorists into disarmament, talk in platitudes of hoping and changing it, or simply keep blaming George Bush for not being “engaged.” Instead, Obama must face the hard choices of either alienating traditional liberal pro-Israel supporters, or the powerful anti-Israeli fringe groups that have galvanized much of the Obama candidacy, here and abroad. UNing an asymmetrical war with terrorists with ostensible blame for both sides as equally culpable won’t do either. The Middle East almost by definition requires an American President to be disliked as much as he is deemed necessary.

In such a context, it will be difficult for Obama, as many expected, to open no-preconditions negotiations with Iran, or start pressuring for surrendering Golan to Iranian-backed Syria. Instead, there are some atrocious scenarios on the horizon: Iran’s bomb, Arab counter-nuclear proliferation, a real Pakistan-India war at the outbreak of the next Mumbai, and Hezbollah’s next gambit to destroy constitutional Lebanon.

David Ignatius at RealClearPolitics opines:

The latest chain of events was dismally predictable: Hamas, pushed by Iran and its own extremist ideology, refused to extend a six-month cease-fire that expired Dec. 19, and resumed firing rockets. Israeli leaders, pushed by election politics and an angry public, responded with a furious assault on Gaza. The Israelis may have wanted to take their shot at Hamas while a supportive President Bush was still in office.

Then, alas, Ignatius falls prey like so many others to the Hope-i-ness and Change-i-ness (emphasis added):

Obama can’t wipe this slate clean. He inherits the legacy of hatred and suspicion. But that doesn’t change the essence of the challenge before him — to help the parties in the region turn a page and get on to a new one.

Obama should press ahead with the list of options that existed before the Gaza fighting — a Turkish-brokered agreement between Hamas and Fatah to extend the term of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, so that peace negotiations can continue under his authority in 2009; American support for peace negotiations between Syria and Israel, which were on the verge of moving to direct talks just a day before the Gaza battle began; and exploratory discussions with Tehran to see if it is possible to envision a new security framework for the region.

Above all, Obama has to find a way to maintain a clear and independent American vision of this zone of conflict. The self-defeating logic of war is destroying the Middle East; there has got to be a better path, and Obama’s task is to search for it.

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Pundita: The Hanukkah War: This morning on her blog Pundita reminds us of something that appears to have been overlooked by many, including the Tanning Bed Media: “the Hanukkah War, launched by Israel on December 27, on the sixth day of Hanukkah, with air strikes on Hamas strongholds.” Pundita then adds an excerpt from President Bush’s unequivocal January 3 speech:

[...] This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas — a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel’s destruction. Eighteen months ago, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup, and since then has imported thousands of guns and rockets and mortars. Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, but Hamas routinely violated that ceasefire by launching rockets into Israel. On December 19th, Hamas announced an end to the ceasefire and soon unleashed a barrage of rockets and mortars that deliberately targeted innocent Israelis — an act of terror that is opposed by the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, President Abbas. [...]

Pundita comments:

My only quibble with the wording is that Israel’s attack is not an “outburst of violence” but a legitimate act of war.

And I note that the fact that the war was launched during Hanukkah has been ignored by the news media and government spokespersons alike. I’m not sure why. Does no one in the press, no one in government, want to bring up a link between the Hamas vow to destroy Israel and the Seleucid sack of Israel, which occurred a very long time before the birth of Mohammed?

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Camp PEBO — and response: AFP reported last night on the few comments coming from Camp PEBO et al.

“The president-elect is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza,” his national security spokeswoman Brooke Anderson said in a statement after the ground assault got underway.

But she offered no further comment on the violence in Gaza and used a phrase repeated often by Obama and his aides: “There is one president at a time and we intend to respect that.”

Senior advisor David Axelrod said Sunday that Obama is “committed” to achieving peace in the Middle East, in the only extended comments from the president-elect’s team so far.

“Obviously, this situation has become even more complicated in the last couple of days and weeks… But it’s something that he’s committed to,” Axelrod told CBS television.

Obama transition team officials told AFP the president-elect would not comment publicly in the coming days on the Gaza offensive, and the future president will likely keep silent on the issue until his January 20 inauguration.

His muted response has already drawn the anger of some in the Middle East.

“The start is not good,” said Khaled Meshaal, leader of the Hamas Islamist movement that has ruled Gaza since June 2007.

“You commented on Mumbai but you say nothing about the crime of the enemy (Israel). This policy of double standards should stop.”

Chickens Coming Home to Roost?: Let’s step back to December 22, 2008, when WND’s Aaron Klein reported that former president Jimmy Carter, after having recently met in Damascus “with Hamas chieftain Khaled Meshaal [and] with the chiefs of the terror group”, wrote in a first-person report on his Carter Center website:

Like the Syrians, they (Hamas) are patient, relatively satisfied with the status quo, and putting all their eggs in Obama’s basket. We had to caution them about expecting too much of an immediate change in U.S. Middle East policy …

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Playing the Blame Game. Firing Up Jihad: In response to Hanson’s post, Andrew Stuttaford wrote at NRO:

We shouldn’t be in any doubt of the fact that the civilian dead of Gaza will be used as a recruiting device by Jihadists across the Islamic world, and we shouldn’t be in any doubt that America will be blamed almost as much as Israel for their deaths. You might argue (and I’d agree with you) that Hamas bears much of the responsibility for the lives that have been lost, but you can be absolutely sure that this is an argument that will be neither heard nor even made in, say, the madrassas of Pakistan or Indonesia, two countries that are also of critical importance to the security of the United States.

Muslim Brotherhood Calls for Jihad to the Maximum Degree: Right on cue, as just reported by MEMRI blog:

In his weekly sermon, Muslim Brotherhood General Guide Muhammad Mahdi ‘Akef (right) called to launch jihad for the Palestinians in Gaza in any way possible: military warfare, popular resistance groups, donations of blood and money, and comprehensive boycott.

He said that this fateful moment of the battle against Zionism is the time for jihad to its maximum degree, and that this is incumbent upon everyone.

In an [January 2nd] interview with the London daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, ‘Akef said that Israel’s operation in Gaza was planned and coordinated with Egypt, Palestine, the U.S., and Israel, and that all of them had agreed with the Zionist-U.S. agenda to assassinate the heads of the Palestinian resistance.

The Limits — and Danger — of Jihad: Andy McCarthy at NRO writes:

One can always say a robust response to radical Islam’s atrocities helps Hamas, al Qaeda, etc., to recruit. But recruiting is aided at least as much by successful terrorist attacks to which the response is too meek. The people sitting on the fence — the ones who are sympathetic to jihadi aims but ambivalent about jihadi methods — are attracted most of all by the prospect of being with a winner. Sure, a robust response that communicates the resolve to keep fighting until the jihadists are crushed may bring in a lot of new recruits; but it also scares off a lot of prospective recruits while killing off the experienced ranks of a terrorist organization — making the organization, on the whole, a less dangerous killing machine. That’s why it remains the right thing to do.

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Rocket Statistics: A blog calling itself IDF Spokesman, launched December 26, 2008, posted some astounding statistics last night. We’ll have to take their word for it. Not even detail-obsessed RBO is going to track down and verify all this data:

• Today, over 950,000 Israelis live within range of rocket and mortar attacks.
• There have been approximately 7,200 rockets (Grads, Qassams) and mortars launched at Israel since 2005.
• During 2008, there have been 1755 mortars shells, 1720 Qassams rockets, and 75 Grad missiles launched at Israel.
• Since Hamas’ election there has been a steady increase of these rocket attacks against Israel’s citizens:
• Between Israel’s evacuation of Gaza and the election of Hamas (Aug. 15, 2005 – Jan. 25, 2006), there was an average of over 15 rocket and mortar attacks a month.
• Between Hamas’ election and Hamas’ forceful takeover of the Strip (Jan. 25, 2006 – June 14, 2007), there was an average of over 102 attacks per month—an over 650% increase.
• Between Hamas’ takeover and the start of the Tahadiya (State of Calm), (June 14, 2007 – June 16, 2008), there was an average of over 361 attacks per month—an increase of an additional 350%.
• On Nov. 4 – 5, Israel launched Operation “Double Challenge”, targeting a tunnel Hamas was building as part of a plan to kidnap Israeli soldiers.
• From the end of Operation “Double Challenge” until the end of the Tahadiya, (Nov. 4 – Dec. 19, 2008) a period of only a month and a half, there were 170 mortars, 255 Qassams, and 5 Grads fired upon Israel’s civilian population centers.
• Since the end of the Tahadiya (Dec. 19, 2009) until the beginning of Operation “Cast Lead,” (Dec. 27, 2008) a period of little more than a week, there were approximately 300 mortars and rockets fired onto Israel.
• Since the begining of Operation ”Cast Lead”, there have been an additional 500 launches, 284 of which have been verified as rockets (both Qassams and Grads), and 113 as mortars.

Mere Rhetoric has an Overview And Map Of Israeli Ground Operation and Jack at Random Thoughts blog has been posting a series of status updates as does The Muqata here.

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Creepy Times. The pro-Hamas (anti-Israel) demonstrators: Again, we turn to Victor Hanson Davis, who provides excellent food for thought:

There is something especially nauseating about the latest Middle East war — scenes of worldwide Islamic protests with photos of Jews as apes, protesters (in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida of all places!) screaming about nuking Israel and putting Jews in ovens, parades of children dressed up with suicide vests and fake rockets, near constant anti-Semitic vicious sloganeering, Gaza mosques stuffed with rockets to be used against civilians — all to be collated with creepy Hamas rhetoric about the annihilation of Israel. This is the world in which we now live.

Almost no other issue in recent memory has illustrated the moral bankruptcy of much of the international community. Hamas has no pretensions, like the PA, of being a governing authority; it used violence to rout the PA and then bragged that its charter pledging the destruction of Israel remained unchanged. Israel evacuated Gaza; Gazans in response looted their own infrastructure, alienated both the PA and Egypt,and then sent off more than 6,000 rockets against Israeli civilians, while eagerly becoming a terrorist puppet of theocratic Iran.

Nothing could be more clear: either the fact that a constitutional republic was trying to avoid civilian casualties while a terrorist organization was intent on killing Jewish civilians as it used its own citizens as shields to protect mostly young male terrorists; or the world’s craven reaction to all this.

Again all very creepy — the stuff of Tolkien’s Mordor. It is now clear that the so-called and much praised “international community,” the hallowed U.N., the revered EU, all pretty much are indifferent to the survival of a democratic Israel, or are actively supportive of its terrorist Hamas enemy. Only the U.S. (for now) stands by a constitutional state in its war against a murderous terrorist clique, with annhilation its aim and religous fascism its creed.

Marty Peretz wrote January 1st at The New Republic:

As it happens, jihadism has less deadly manifestations than murder. As the Ku Klux Klan had less deadly manifestations than lynching. This morning I watched a frightening episode in the public life of America. It was a demonstration by, say, 200 Muslim immigrants in Fort Lauderdale against the Israeli air strikes over Gaza. Now, the first amendment protects such demos, and I would not for a moment want to curb them. But I ask each of you to pay attention to the details of what was being shouted. Especially by the young women screaming, “Jews to the ovens.” No jihad in America, huh? Do we want such immigrants in our country?

Stan Goodenough of Jerusalem Newswire has more here; Scott Wyman from the Florida Sun-Sentinel here; Donald Douglas at American Power here; and Richard L. Cravatts of American Thinker asks whether this is Protesting Against Israel or Hating Jews? Watch:

Ft. Lauderdale: Tom Trento on the pro-Hamas demonstration, 12/30/08:

From Zomblog’s “I’m a little spooked”: Palestinian protests bring Gaza fighting to San Francisco we learn what the following shouted Arabic slogans mean:

• “Itbach al Yahud” (slaughter the Jews)
• “Falastin balad’na w’al Yahud qalab’na” (Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs)
• “ba ruh, ba dam, nafdeek ya Falastin” (with our soul, with our blood, we will cleanse you oh Palestine)
• “al mawt al Yahud” (death to the Jews)
• “Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud, jaish-Muhammad saya’ud” (Khaybar Khaybar oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return)

For more about the protests, see:

• Gateway Pundit.
• John Hinderaker, More Useful Idiots, Power Line, January 3, 2009.
• London march ends in embassy standoff, JTA, January 3, 2009.
• Massoud A. Derhally and Mahmoud Kassem, Arab Leaders Call for End to Israeli Attacks, Protests Continue, Bloomberg News, January 4, 2009.

Here is a sample of the worldwide protests, with more video coverage on the next page.

RT: Worldwide protests continue, 01/03/09:

Just the headlines
Gaza, Israel, Hamas

• Weasel Zippers.
• Gerard Baker, Don’t expect Obama to get tough with Israel. The President-elect has much more important priorities than a radical change of direction on the Middle East, The Times (UK), January 2, 2009.
• Aaron David Miller, If Obama Is Serious. He should get tough with Israel, Newsweek, January 3, 2009.
• Victor Davis Hanson, The Gaza Rules. Completely at odds with the past protocols of war, NRO, January 3, 2009.
• Michael J. Totten, Gaza and the Law of Armed Conflict, Commentary, January 3, 2009.
• Baron Bodissey, Ground Action in Gaza, Gates of Vienna, January 3, 2009.
• Daled Amos, Israel’s Ultimate Goal And What Lies Ahead To Achieve It (Updated), Daled Amos Blog, January 3, 2009.
• Khaled Abu Toameh, Hamas moves on Fatah ‘collaborators’, Jerusalem Post, January 4, 2009.
• Yaakov Katz, Palestinians: IDF divides Gaza Strip into two segments, Jerusalem Post (via Israpundit), January 4, 2009.
• Yossi Klein Halevi and Michael B. Oren, In Gaza, the real enemy is Iran. Israeli attacks must not stop until Iran’s proxy, Hamas, is defeated, LAT, January 4, 2009.
• Europe backs IDF incursion. EU President Czech Republic: Israeli ground incursion defensive, not offensive action, Reuters, January 4, 2009.
• Shlomo Shamir and Barak Ravid, U.S. quashes Arab-backed Gaza cease-fire resolution in UN Security Council meet, Haaretz, January 4, 2009.
• A.J. Strata, Israel Takes On Terrorism Before US Appeasers Take Control Of Congress, The Strata-Sphere, January 4, 2009.
• Aaron J. Klein, Gaza Ground War: Day One and Israel Enters Gaza: Negotiating With Extreme Prejudice, TIME, January 4, 2009.
• Scott Johnson, Does anybody really know what time it is?, Power Line, January 4, 2009.

Speaking of creepy things — The One

• The New Parenting Tool: Barack Obama, MichelleMalkin.com, January 3, 2009.

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Disclaimer: RBO does not necessarily share nor endorse the views expressed by those whose writings and opinions are highlighted here. On many occasions, these views are presented for enlightenment and/or comment.

Check back often for updates and new brief articles.

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See next page for video links.

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