Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Support for Israel Is a Vote for Democracy and against Terrorism

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer succinctly summarized the current John Kerry Israel-Gaza ceasefire effort : "Look at the wreckage Kerry has done in intervening in the Israeli-Gaza fighting. A left-wing Israeli paper said Kerry had dug a tunnel under the Egyptian peace plan : "When you see what happens when America engages, you wonder if we shouldn't have more disengagement." ~~~~~ Krauthammer told Fox News that US meddling in Israeli-Hamas negotiations has strewn "wreckage" instead of ending the violent conflict. Krauthammer directly blamed Secretary of State Kerry. Speaking on Fox News, Krauthammer attacked Kerry for gate-crashing the negotiations uninvited and undermining Egypt's attempts to settle the war in Gaza. "The Israelis did not invite him. The Egyptians did not want him and he still says he advanced a peace plan that was sort of building on the Egyptian one. It didn't at all. It undermined it. Egypt wanted a cease-fire in place, which means no reward for Hamas starting this war by attacking civilians, which is a war crime. And that was proposed before the ground incursion. The casualties would have been infinitely lower. Israel accepted -- Hamas said no. Kerry goes over and then he negotiates in Paris with who? Qatar and Turkey [Hamas supporters] and returns essentially as the lawyer for Hamas and hands Israel a proposition that is so outrageous that the Cabinet votes 19-0 against it. Israeli Cabinets have never voted 19-0 on whether the sun rises in the east. It was unbelievable. It would have given Hamas all of its demands," Krauthammer concluded. ~~~~~ Danny Danon, former Israeli deputy defense minister, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer the Kerry plan was "an insult for us. I think what Secretary Kerry did last week was a mistake. It put Israel and Hamas on the same level. It is like I would tell you that the US and al-Qaida are on the same level." And the Jerusalem Post reports that Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said she told Kerry his proposal was "completely unacceptable" and "would strengthen extremists in the region." ~~~~~ Israel's goals in engaging Hamas militarily are modest -- destruction of the Hamas tunnels and demilitarization of Gaza leading to long-term peace between Palestine and Israel. Regarding the possibility of a ceasefire, Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Tuesday that the "ball is in Hamas' court." Regev told CNN that Israel is "ready for a period of sustained peace and security" but repeated several times that Hamas has consistently rejected truces, as well as rejecting an Egyptian initiative for a ceasefire. In Washington, Kerry defended the Obama administration's efforts to seek a ceasefire, saying that Netanyahu "consistently said he would embrace a ceasefire that permits Israel to protect itself against the tunnels" used by Palestinian militants in Gaza -- which is not quite Israel's position. It wants the tunnels destroyed so that Israelis can feel safe in their homes and so the Israeli military will not be killed or kidnapped on their own bases. Earlier Tuesday, a senior Israeli official told CNN that Israel is "prepared for a ceasefire" but no agreement had been reached. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that Palestinian West Bank leadership was offering a 24-hour truce, which could be extended to 72 hours, and that the idea had support from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant group in Gaza. BUT, in their latest refusal to seek a cessation of hostilities leading to negotiations, Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said the WAFA report was not true and "not related to the resistance," which "speaks for itself." "When we get guarantees from the Zionists for an international mediation regarding a humanitarian pause, then we can consider it." ~~~~~ If Israel's goals are rather simple and would lead to Israeli infrastructure and economic projects to help Gaza residents recover from Hamas occupation, the goals of Hamas are more far-reaching and sinister. Hamas seeks the destruction of Israel, a goal written into its founding document. Because Hamas knows it cannot defeat Israel militarily, it seeks Israel's destruction by other means -- *Terrorist attacks that are so ferocious that Israelis will abandon their country - not likely. *Scaling up of violence against Israel using Gaza Palestinians as shields so that Israel cannot legitimately defend itself without being condemned for killing ever more civilians. Hamas believes the destruction of Israel justifies this. *An end to the blockade and a release of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. These goals are more realistic and would undoubtedly be settled in a full negotiation. ~~~~ Dear readers, Michael Oren, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, recently said that Hamas is engaging in a public relations war. Americans should identify with that -- Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. And if we combine the Hamas PR war with the analysis often given by experts on Palestine and Hamas - that Hamas is losing support among Arabs, that it needs money and weapons and munitions (Hamas is again trying to buy rockets and other equipment from North Korea), that it is itself losing another PR war, against the West Bank PLO and Palestinian President Abbas - then we must realize that Hamas is in a podition where it sees little to lose by attacking Israel. It must also make us realize that active support of Israel is critical. Whenever and however. No contributions or votes for anyone who tries to find reasons to help Hamas. There is no excuse to smoothe over terrorist actions or goals in a false effort to be "balanced." Support Israel and you support America's ideals.

9 comments:

  1. Of course you have to support Israel or you are against everything America stands for....

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    1. Concerened CitizenJuly 29, 2014 at 3:57 PM

      I watched some network news from last night on my flight home this morning. Diane Sawyer on ABC Evening News actually criticized and blamed israel for purposely killing some young children in Gaza during this yet short war that has so much more to come.

      How can any American be so stupid about Israel and Hamas, a lady who once worked in the Nixon White House, a person that some wrongly called a "conservative", a friendly face that goes into the homes of millions each and every night and fill the viewers empty brains with lies and erroneous information?

      People like Diane Sawyer is a danger to this country, a danger to herself, and a joke to her employer. or maybe her employer is just also stupid and bought a bill of goods!

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  2. John Kerry is an embarrassment to the world of diplomacy and America. He has no diplomatic relations with reality at all, nor does his state department.

    John Kerry for all his failures is only a symptom of Washington DC lack of coherent foreign policy and sense of mission.

    In his 17 months as Secretary of State John Kerry and his State department cohorts has shown a genuine capacity for mediocrity. These past 17 months have produced not one accomplishments
    creditable to John Kerry's leadership and initiative.

    Kerry often appears to be unsure and distracted with a sense that he would prefer to be elsewhere from where ever he may be. he displays a lack of policy information, little poise, a bad choice of words, and offering new positions on old issues.

    Obama and not John Kerry has created the present diplomacy situation. All Kerry has done is to add mirth to the funeral preparations.

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    1. The anti-Israel protest is Barack Obama’s Arab Spring come to nightmare life on the streets. The Arab Spring is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests (both non-violent and violent) riots and civil wars in the Arab world that began on Dec. 18, 2010.

      Proof of Obama’s links to the anti-Semitic mobs comes with his documented association to the anti-Semitic Code Pink, an anti-war organization that both participated in the Gaza flotillas and whose radical members offered themselves as “human shields” to a declining Hamas.

      Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, an Obama bundler, was personally thanked by Obama at the White House on January 8, 2010, days after Code Pink’s Hamas trip.

      It is becoming clearer on a daily basis that Obama wants the same legacy for Israel as he is leaving for America.

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  3. "The destruction of stones will not break our will and we will continue our resistance until we gain freedom” was recently expressed by a Gaza-Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Ismail Haniyeh worships and is willing to fight and die for this “freedom.” He is also willing to have all of Israel die for what the Hamas group of terrorists wants.

    ….but it is the SAME “freedom” that the Israelis are willing to fight and die for.

    A short while ago, President Obama warned Israel that the US would not be able to prevent an “international fallout” if peace would not be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

    But here and now has to be the end to this reoccurring war in Gaza. The people of Israel must be allowed lacking any outside involvement physical or strong armed diplomatic agendas to secure permanently the southern perimeter with the Gaza territory.

    It is not up to the United States, EU, Arab League of Nations, etc. to solve this problem. If invited the invitees should help. If uninvited everyone should stay home.

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  4. In the United States - as I would suspect exists in some EU countries- a growing verbal outrage against the State of Israel and therefore an anti-Semitic view from mostly organized news outlets is showing it's ugly head.

    In the United States there is an unquestioned sympathy for the radicle terrorists Islamic followers. Seems they can not be wrong no matter their crime.

    Seems right and wrong have been mislabeled.

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  5. De Oppressor LiberJuly 29, 2014 at 8:14 PM

    It’s most likely that the war we are now watching unfold in Gaza will end in some cease fire or another. But the war will be won or lost less in the streets and tunnels of Gaza this summer than when the fighting is over. Israel must not only damage Hamas on those battlegrounds, but seal its own gains in the terms of the cease-fire, and ensure that the aftermath of the war weakens Hamas’s hold on Gaza and its role in Palestinian politics.

    Israel had no other choice than to attack Hamas once it was apparent that Hamas was going full out after Israel by attacking their cities with rocket fire - a point that not only the United States but even our fickle European allies understood. The discovery—new to us in the West even if partially understood by Israeli intelligence agencies—of a vast attack tunnel system designed to enable Hamas to kidnap Israelis and to wreak havoc in Israeli communities near the Gaza border also justified the Israeli assault and meant that a ground attack was necessary.

    Right now the government of Egypt and that of Israel are aligned against Hamas and the Brotherhood, and tacitly most Arab governments are as well. We should be flexible about economic plans for Gaza and for the West Bank, and even flexible about Palestinian political coalitions, so long as they work toward weakening and defeating Islamist forces in Palestinian life.

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  6. Contemplate for a moment the effects on humanity without Israel sitting there when you wake up tomorrow morning.?

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  7. Thousands of miles away from Gaza, citizens live in fear. And that’s just the way Western leaders want it. With their people living in fear, Western leaders escape citizen wrath for their lack of leadership in failing world economies.terrorist-300x258

    The world is changing and rarely for the better. One of the biggest changes being that public policy is drafted not in parliaments, not by the European Union, the United Nations or a White House consumed with the destruction of America, but out on the streets with masked activists wearing balaclavas and traditional Arab keffiyeh, chanting “Israel must die”, “Long Live Palestine” and throwing rocks.

    Truth is still the first casualty of war. Virtually forgotten courtesy of screaming newspaper and website headlines, the word ‘defense’ (defense of Israel) is completely missing from what is taking place in Gaza.

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