350,000 Grenades

Michael Yon calculates that HAMAS and its allies have bombarded Israel's southern communities with the equivalent of 350,000 military hand grenades. 

So much for HAMAS rockets being "harmless toys."

The latest Grad rocket, incidentally, was advanced enough to break into a fortified school building. 

HAMAS continues to target schools

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7916555.stm

Grads are accurate rockets. The attack on an Ashkelon school is no accident.

Why a One State Solution would Fail

Nahum Barnea calls the appeal of Muammar Gaddafi's call for a single state of "Isratine" a "mirage." He is correct. This is a fantasy, and a deadly one.

A one-state solution would result in a horrific civil war of unimaginable savagery, leading in the end to either the destruction of Israel by the neighboring countries and the subsequent slaughter of the Jews, or a very violent separation into two states and a flight by some Palestinians similar to 1948.

HAMAS and other Islamic supremacist and Arab supremacist groups are fundamentally unwilling to share even a centimeter of the land of Israel. They believe that it is "Muslim land" and that the Jews living there must be slaughtered. A one-state solution would bring these genocidal terrorists not just inside Israeli security lines but inside Israeli towns. The Jews would face constant and rapidly escalating terrorism. A one-state "solution" would thrust these groups together with Jews who are quite willing (unlike Palestinian Christians) to defend themselves, knowing the consequences of failing to do so. Escalating terrorism would require escalating responses. Violence would spiral out of control.

In addition, along with HAMAS terrorists, Israel would suddenly contain millions of Palestinians, many (though not all) brainwashed from birth to hate Jews. Add the fact that many Palestinians have been raised on a delusional vision: they expect to get a house back. But populations in the region have exploded. The house has been replaced by apartment blocks housing the descendants of Israelis who fled or were expelled from the Arab world, and who cannot, should not and will not move aside. There is no going back to 1920. When Palestinians who have been lied to systematically for decades encounter reality, the disillusion and anger will add to the explosive mixture of hatred and violence.

And let's face it: this is the middle east. Who actually thinks that the usual bunch of dictators, demagogues and terrorists will refrain from fomenting violence for their own gain?

A one-state "solution" would lead to a savage civil war which, on the Jewish side, would be a war for survival against the most horrific terrorists operating in the Muslim world today. It would make Black September look like a picnic. And it would (count on it) facilitate the invasion of "Isratine" by Syria and/or other regional powers, bent on dominating the territory (as Syria did in Lebanon and tried to do in Jordan in 1970) and on slaughtering as many Jews as possible. Arab propaganda would continue to blame the whole violent mess on the Jews, never on fellow Arabs, and would justify any level of violence against Jews.

In such circumstances, the only survivable outcome for the Jewish people would be that the Jews would win the civil war and fight off invading Arab armies. In such a scenario, it is inevitable that some Palestinians would have fled the violence. They would not be allowed to return. In other words, a one-state "solution" is a recipe for a reprise of 1948, this time with much more vicious weapons and much higher populations. Which means that the one-state "solution" is not a solution at all.

A two-state solution is the only way forward. It is time for dictators and demagogues, and the idiots who follow them, to accept reality.

Claim: Just Like Northern Ireland

The BBC's "Middle East" editor is Jeremy Bowen, a man who has confessed to a long-standing personal grudge against Israel and who does not let the world forget it. But since even dogmatic, heavily biased people can sometimes make good points, I try to read even Bowen's comments with an open mind.

Unfortunately, the result is that Mr. Bowen disappoints me a lot.

In a recent column, Bowen tries to compare Israel's responses to Gaza with the UK's responses to Northern Ireland. He tries to claim that compared to the UK, Israel's behavior is horrific and violent.

But think about this. For many years Britain faced an insurgency and at times a low-level civil war in Northern Ireland. Those sorts of terms weren't used all that much but that's what it was.

At different times the IRA planted bombs on the British mainland that killed people and did a lot of damage. The actions of the British security forces during three decades of the Troubles were very controversial, and still are today. Sometimes the British army killed innocent people.

But Britain never used heavy weapons, fast jets, air strikes and attack helicopters. Tracked armoured vehicles were very rarely seen

I am not as knowledgeable about Northern Ireland as I am about some other areas, but even to me this is utter tripe.

Three years ago, Israel attempted to create a peaceful situation by withdrawing every last Israeli from Gaza. It turned Gaza over to its negotiating partner, the Palestinian Authority. And then terrorists in Gaza began to launch rocket attacks against Israeli towns. Israel did nothing to defend itself at first. It demanded that the PA arrest the terrorists (the PA refused to take any action), but took no action of its own. But over time, realizing that its inaction was simply encouraging the terrorists, it began to strike back.

Last year, a violent coup in Gaza placed the entire Strip under the control of a terrorist organization headquartered in Syria. The terrorists' goal is not independence but rather the genocidal slaughter of Israeli Jews and the conquest of Israel, which they hope to turn into an Islamofascist dictatorship as they have done in Gaza.

Let's compare the situation in Gaza with that in Northern Ireland.

• Did the UK cede control of Northern Ireland to Sinn Fein and the IRA?
  
• Did the UK remove every Protestant settler from Northern Ireland?
  
• Following these nonexistent concessions, did the IRA launch thousands of rockets into British towns?
• Did the UK sit by for long periods, expecting the Catholics of Northern Ireland to stop the violence, only to find that it would never do so?
• Does the IRA have as its purpose the annihilation of all British Protestants in the UK and the return of the whole UK to Celtic and Catholic control (the British Isles were once Catholic. And they were once Celtic)?
• Was the IRA only the local spearhead of a vicious global terrorist war on non-Catholics?
  

Unlike Israel, the UK still occupies Northern Ireland. With Ireland proper supporting the UK's efforts against terrorism, and the Soviet Union dead, the IRA simply decided that it cannot win and looked for a graceful way to surrender. HAMAS, in contrast, is a genocidal terrorist organization that tries to murder as many Jews as possible.

Until the modern UK makes the kind of sacrifices made by Israel for peace, and fights enemies similarly committed to its annihilation with as much humanity as Israel has done, all comparisons with Northern Ireland are futile and stupid. Mr. Bowen's attempt to claim the moral high ground reveals him as a hypocrite of the highest order.

Human Rights Orgs and Attacks on Israel

Yesterday, the UN Human Rights Council voted to condemn Israel (yet again) for defending itself and to set up another so-called "fact-finding" mission to search for (or trump up) evidence of Israeli war crimes. There was no corresponding mission to document the widely visible evidence of HAMAS war crimes, which include everything from use of human shields to deliberate attacks on civilians, and many others besides. 

One thing that bugs me is that my initial response upon hearing this was to shrug. This body is supposed to carry considerable moral authority, not to mention legal weight, but the fact is that it it has turned itself into a travesty. It has condemned Israel numerous times and never once taken action against any other country in the world - and in particular, it has never condemned Sudan, which has killed 300,000 civilians in Darfur. 

But I shrugged, because nothing Israel will ever do will prevent these guys from attacking it. 

The reason for this blog post is not to defend Israel. It is to defend the rest of the world.

When human rights organizations such as the UNHRC are hijacked and become vehicles for launching official-sounding attacks against Israel, this is dangerous not just to Israel but to the entire international community.

The danger is that we will eventually stop expecting these organizations to be fair. We will eventually stop expecting them to use legal terms such as genocide and disproportionate force properly. We will eventually come to see them as mere sources of propaganda. And that's wrong. 

It's wrong because these groups were created for a purpose. They were created to improve human rights around the world, not to serve as attack dogs for a bunch of dictators. 

The UNHRC should be immediately disbanded and not replaced. Dictatorships have no place on a human rights body, and there is no way within the UN framework to prevent dictatorships from dominating a body like the UNHRC. And the extreme hypocrisy of the UNHRC actively undermines human rights around the world.

Disproportionate Reporting

In response to this post by Yaacov Lozowick, I was curious about the occurrence of the term "disproportionate force" as applied to the IDF vs. other countries' militaries.

Let me preface the results by saying that these are Google results, and may not reflect all content that exists or existed on the various web sites. For example, Guardian blogs may not be discovered by searches on site:guardian.co.uk, which would remove many of the biased commentators from the sample.

Google search: "disproportionate force"

(because of the quotation marks, search results should contain the exact term "disproportionate" rather than just some of the words)

59900 Google results

"disproportionate force" AND Israel

(i.e. must contain BOTH the exact phrase "disproportionate use of force" and the word Israel)

43400 results

"disproportionate force" -Israel

(i.e. must NOT include the term Israel)

17200 results

(that's 43400 for Israel, 17200 for the rest of the world combined)

First, some of the big orgs that often give credibility to these claims:

"disproportionate force" AND Israel site:amnesty.org

(i.e. constraints the Google search to the site amnesty.org)

193 results

"disproportionate force" -Israel site:amnesty.org

255 results

"disproportionate force" and chechnya site:amnesty.org

232 results

"disproportionate force" and darfur site:amnesty.org

48 results

"disproportionate force" and Israel site:un.int

20 results

"disproportionate force" -Israel site:un.int

1 results

Now some major news sites:

"disproportionate force" AND Israel site:bbc.co.uk

69 results

"disproportionate force" -Israel -burglar site:bbc.co.uk

60 results (Russia in Chechnya and Georgia, Turkish police brutality, US in Iraq, etc.;

the -burglar query term removes 30 hits associated with a bill allowing citizens to attack burglars).

"disproportionate force" AND Israel site:aljazeera.net

16 results

"disproportionate force" -Israel -Israelis site:aljazeera.net

2 results

"disproportionate force" AND Israel site:guardian.co.uk

(does not appear to search the Guardian blogs)

56 results

"disproportionate force" -Israel -intruder site:guardian.co.uk

44 results

"disproportionate force" AND Israel site:cnn.com

66 results

"disproportionate force" -Israel site:cnn.com

48 results

"disproportionate force" AND Israel site:foxnews.com

28 results

"disproportionate force" -Israel site:foxnews.com

20 results

news.google.com search for "all dates", though the news in Google's index is mostly from recent years:

========================

"disproportionate force" and Israel

509 results (most are about police brutality toward protesters;

in most wars, there are no widely covered hysterical

claims of DUOF)

"disproportionate force" -Israel

550 results

(that's 509 for Israel, 550 for the rest of the world combined).

Further breakdown:

"disproportionate force" AND american -israel

128 results

"disproportionate force" AND russia -israel

101 results

"disproportionate force" AND iraq -israel

90 results

"disproportionate force" AND afghan -israel

59 results

"disproportionate force" AND chechnya -israel

46 results

"disproportionate force" AND serb

43 results

"disproportionate force" AND turkey -israel

42 results

"disproportionate force" AND pakistan -israel

42 results

"disproportionate force" AND kosovo -israel

25 results

"disproportionate force" AND sudan -israel

20 results

"disproportionate force" AND congo -israel

10 results

"disproportionate force" AND algeria -israel

7 results

"disproportionate force" AND syria -israel

5 results

"disproportionate force" AND colombia -israel

5 results

"disproportionate force" AND hiroshima -israel

4 results

Update: fixed the font and a link.

Claim: HAMAS is only Attacking Because of the Siege

OlehGirl has an excellent response to the claim that "HAMAS is attacking Israel because the border crossings are closed."

In addition, I want to add a few things.

HAMAS claims that it is simply using the best tools at its disposal to force open the crossings. However, let's examine what it is, in fact, doing.

• It periodically attacks border crossings that are at least allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, but not with sufficient strength to actually take them. It does this, knowing that the Israelis (and Egyptians) must respond by completely closing these crossings.
  
• When Israel begins to allow more goods into Gaza, the Gazan terrorist gangs launch rockets and mortars into Israeli towns. They do this, knowing that the Israelis will respond by closing the crossings. 

If HAMAS and other Gazan terrorist groups are attacking Israel because of the closed borders, then why do they attack border crossing stations that are Gaza's lifeline, forcing them to close? And why do they specifically target Israeli border stations when these open further and allow more supplies into Gaza, but generally ignore them while they are completely sealed?

Unlike Israel's use of force against HAMAS, these pointless attacks on border crossings and on Israeli civilians do constitute disproportionate use of force as outlined in Dore Gold's column in JPost, because they have no possible military value, and are simply violence intended to cause misery to civilians (Gazan as well as Israeli).