Israel, Gaza and Syria

My thoughts.....this is the biggest news issue of the last several years.

We can blame the Palestinians, as they voted these creeps in. They deserve what's coming. And it is coming. Thankfully, Israel's reached the end of her rope.

But you are quite correct, this will drag several countries in, and we're spread pretty thin, now.

But if I didn't know any better, it would seem the world is lining up against Israel.

Oh yeah, the IDF don't read Paul Krugman, and we can predict the methods information retrieval they use will make Gitmo look like Romper Room. It won't be panties on the head in a chilly room for those poor jihadists. The UN, Amnesty International, and most likely CAIR will all go nuts, and Israel won't care.

 

It is all proof that you can't make deals with jihadists, like I've said all along. Israel was wrong to give up Gaza, to give up "land for peace" and recent events have proved that.

 

I agree they should not have given up the land, but for different reasons than you, I am quite certain. The Palestinians gave nothing in return. I would have demanded something tangible in return for the land. The problem is that they didn't make any deal with the Palestinians whatsoever. They just gave them land for nothing in return.

Joseph Botwinick

 

Phillip, most of the posters here tell us today's Israel has nothing to do with the Israel of Revelation. Also, a lot of posters here see no reason to keep Israel as an ally.

That's probably why no one posts the news about this war.

 

Curtis,

I see several reasons to keep Israel as an ally. None of them, however, have anything to do with my eschatology.

Joseph Botwinick

 

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150885868104&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull



In an unprecedented operation, the IDF arrested overnight Wednesday over 60 senior Hamas members throughout the West Bank, including ministers in the Palestinian Authority parliament.
Detainees included such senior figures as Finance Minister Omar Abdel Azek, Labor Minister Mohammed Barghouti, and parliament member Mohamemd Abu Teir.
PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh convened an emergency meeting of government members in Gaza early Thursday morning. An unofficial response said that, ""Israel is targeting Hamas' political wing, which wasn't involved in the kidnapping [of IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit]."
"Israel is heading in the wrong direction, and will pay for it," the response continued.
While the arrests were being carried out in Ramallah, Nablus, and Bethlehem, the IDF denied early Thursday Palestinian claims that IDF tanks and bulldozers moved into northern Gaza before daybreak, adding a second front to the Israeli incursion.

Witnesses also reported heavy shelling around Gaza's long-closed airport, and IAF missiles hit two empty Hamas training camps and an arms factory operated by the Fatah-affiliated Aksa Martyrs' Brigades. Warplanes flew low over the strip, rocking it with sonic booms and shattering windows. Troops in Israel backed up the assault with artillery fire.
No casualties were reported in the incursion, launched in southern Gaza. The area's normally bustling streets were eerily deserted, with people taking refuge inside their homes. Dozens of people living near the airport fled to nearby Rafah. Earlier Wednesday, backed by columns of tanks, troops from the Givati Brigade were poised to sweep into the northern Gaza Strip in the second phase of "Operation Summer Rains," launched earlier in the day with the goal of retrieving kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

 

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150885858552&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull



The IDF confirmed early Thursday a report the Popular Resistance Committees issued from Gaza that it had executed Eliyahu Asheri, 18, of Itamar, who was kidnapped earlier this week in the West Bank.

IDF combat engineers and Shin Bet agents, acting on intelligence, found Asheri's body Wednesday night in an abandoned car in an open field outside of Ramallah. The youth had been shot in the head, and initial findings indicated that he may have been killed as early as Sunday.
Asheri's family has been notified.
After a spokesman for the PRC in the Gaza Strip revealed an authentic copy of Asheri's identity card to the press Wednesday morning, confirming claims that he had been kidnapped, the police's elite counterterrorist squad raided a home in Ramallah in the afternoon hours and arrested a fugitive. The arrested fugitive may have provided the information on the location of Asheri's body.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Hamas-affiliated PRC told Al-Jazeera that Asheri would be "butchered in front of TV cameras" if the IDF operation in Gaza did not stop. "Our patience is running out," he said. "I am announcing for the first time that the kidnapped Zionist Israel is searching for is the same settler who is being held by us. He is aged 181⁄2... and is a soldier in a pre-military academy," said the spokesman, who identified himself as Abu Abir.

 

I wonder if that the unconditional withdrawal wasn't just setting a "tripwire." If Israel gives the carrot without strings and the Palestinians give the stick in response, then Israel has the ability to use the stick with much more moral authority.

I personally think that they were just waiting for something like this kidnapping to happen in order to "finish the job" in response. After all, it is just one soldier.

Nevertheless, I fully support Israel's actions because Hamas must be destroyed. Period.

 

I am quite sure someone like Poncho will heartily embrace that theory. I don't think it is that sinister, however. There was much pressure from within their own country to pull out of the Gaza from the Israeli citizens, and from without from Bush and Condi. I think the government probably thought things would be different this time and failed to use their brains.

Joseph Botwinick

 

It is also equally possible that they thought they couldn't buck the political pressure. I think the pullout was a colossal mistake on philosophical reasons, but pragmatically the result may be the overthrow of terrorist organizations.

Does anyone think war with Syria might be looming?

 

Not under the Bush administration, at least not as far as the US goes. "It is only one soldier" may just be the catalyst for Israeli leaders to get motivated to destroy their enemies instead of consistently turning the other cheek due to US and international pressure. At least Israel is taking definitive action. We had two soldiers mutiliated and beheaded and there was little outcry from the Bush administration or the American public. But our government long ago sold out to muslim terrorists and their sponsors.

 

Palestine is in dire straits now, it's economy shut down and the people on rations.

 

I sympathize with the plight of innocent Palestinians. It is absolutely unfortunate that they are suffering in this, but that is the nature of conflict. When you elect a terrorist government, you will get problems.

I would much rather have the Palestinians pursue a lasting peace alongside Israel.

 

Agreed. If you elect a terrorist government, you should expect this to be the consequences. Of course, Israel does share at least a small amount of the responsibility in this in that they continued to give Palestinians everything they wanted for nothing in return. IOW, they legitimized Hamas' terrorism by rewarding it. That is never good.

Joseph Botwinick

 

You are correct, Joseph. Israel demonstrated poor stewardship with their land, didn't they ?

We were all praying, against our own doubt, for this two-state thing to work, but will we now admit it's hopeless ? The only solution may be war.

May the best team win, and we all know who I mean.

 

Curtis,

I think you misunderstood what I said. I don't think it was wrong to give them the land in and of itself. What Israel did wrong was to not demand anything in return. I don't think it is hopeless even now. For the time being, it appears as if the only solution is war. Israel will win. After they win, I hope they take back Gaza, and then do some real negotiations with the Palestinians and discard the failed policies of Bush and Rice that call for them to appease terrorists and demand reciprocity instead. If they do this, I have no doubt that a better future can be attained.

Joseph Botwinick