New debate rules as follows:
"The hosts will select a pool of ten moderators. They will choose which goes first and that person will begin the debate.
"All candidates will be armed. Should, at any time, the moderators ask irrelevant questions, blatantly lie, or otherwise act shamelessly as agents of the DNC, the candidate so subjected will be allowed to shoot the moderator.
"A moderator disabled in such a matter will be replaced from the pool. Should the pool be depleted, the debate will be terminated and scoring will take place based on substance of replies, audience responses, and the number of confirmed kills.
"Thank you for your interest in the GOP debates."
Back to the Constitution!"
===
Saudi Prince sides with Israel and not Palestinians.
http://unitedwithisrael.org/
http://unitedwithisrael.org/
Probably never reads the New York Times or knows Obama./Kerry (See 1 below.)
American plaintiff against Facebook assassinated by Palestinians. (See 1a below.)
====
Israel's military leader plans for the future. (See 2 below.)
While America downsizes and eliminates some of its best. (See 2a below)
===
A little humor:
"Government surveyors came to Ole's farm in the fall and asked if they could do some surveying.
While America downsizes and eliminates some of its best. (See 2a below)
===
A little humor:
"Government surveyors came to Ole's farm in the fall and asked if they could do some surveying.
Ole agreed, and Lena even served them a nice meal at noontime.
The next spring, the two surveyors stopped by and told Ole, "Because you were so kind to us,
we wanted to give you this bad news in person instead of by letter."
Ole replied, "What's the bad news?"
The surveyors stated, "Well, after our work here, we discovered your farm is not in Minnesota
but is actually in Wisconsin!"
Ole looked at Lea and said, "That's the best news I have heard in a long time.
I just told Lena this morning that I don't think I can take another winter in Minnesota."
===
Dick
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Saudi Prince: I Side with Israel – Not the Palestinians
Taking into account regional upheaval and changes throughout the Middle East, billionaire Saudi prince al-Waleed bin Talal says his country should work with Israel to contend with the Iranian threat. Significantly, and rare for a Saudi to admit in public, he emphasized that if the Palestinians launch another uprising, he will side with Israel.
Saudi prince al-Waleed bin Talal has stated that in the event of another Palestinian Intifada (uprising) against Israel he would side with the Jewish State, saying that “Saudi Arabia has reached a political maturity to constitute a durable alliance with the Jewish nation.”
“I will side with the Jewish nation and its democratic aspirations in case of outbreak of a Palestinian Intifada and I shall exert all my influence to break any ominous Arab initiatives set to condemn Tel Aviv, because I deem the Arab-Israeli entente and future friendship necessary to impede the Iranian dangerous encroachment,” Al Qabas quotes the Saudi media tycoon as saying.
The Saudi Prince and entrepreneur posited that his country must reconsider its regional commitments and devise a new strategy to combat Iran’s increasing influence in Gulf States by forging a defense pact with Tel Aviv to deter any possible Iranian moves in the light of unfolding developments in the Syria and Moscow’s military intervention, the Kuwaiti Al Qabas daily reports according to AWD News.
“The whole Middle-East dispute is tantamount to matter of life and death for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from my vantage point ,and I know that Iranians seek to unseat the Saudi regime by playing the Palestinian card , hence to foil their plots Saudi Arabia and Israel must bolster their relations and form a united front to stymie Tehran’s ambitious agenda,” Kuwaiti News Agency (KUNA) quoted Prince al-Waleed as saying on Tuesday , adding that Riyadh and Tel Aviv must achieve a modus vivendi, for Saudi policy in regard to Arab-Israeli crisis is no longer acceptable.
Iran seeks to buttress its presence in the Mediterranean by supporting the Assad regime in Syria, added Prince al-Waleed, but to the chagrin of Riyadh and its sister Gulf sheikhdoms, Putin’s Russia has become a real co-belligerent force in Syrian 4-year-old civil war by attacking CIA-trained Islamist rebels. Here surfaces the paramount importance of Saudi-Israeli nexus to frustrate the Russia-Iran-Hezbollah axis.
There have been several reports over the past years of secret Saudi-Israel relations, and specifically on military and intelligence issues. The recent nuclear deal with Iran has led Saudi officials and leaders to voice support of regional cooperation with Israel.
1a)For American-Israeli Teacher, Death Came on the No. 78 Bus
By JODI RUDORENOCT
BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — Richard Lakin’s funeral on Wednesday was touching in the tiny, usual ways. His grown son tearfully recalled a man who began every morning with a banana and a chuckle. His teenage granddaughter thanked him for teaching her to ride a bike and, barely able to get the words out, “for watching ‘Charlotte’s Web’ endless times with me.”
There were also hints at the unusual circumstances of his death. The United States ambassador to Israel sitting in the chapel’s last row, the former member of Israel’s Parliament helping fill the grave with dirt. And the son, Micah Avni, asking in his eulogy, “How is it that such a beautiful person is struck down in such a brutal and horrific manner?”
Mr. Lakin, 76, was shot in the head and stabbed in the face and chest by Palestinian assailants on a public bus in Jerusalem at the height of this month’s violent uprising. An American who moved to Israel three decades ago, he died after two weeks in the hospital, where he had much surgery and a parade of visitors, including Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations and students from Hand in Hand, Jerusalem’s joint Arab-Jewish school.
He was one of nine Israeli Jews killed by Palestinians since Oct. 1. One of the two bus attackers was among more than 25 Palestinian suspects shot dead by Israelis during the same period; some 35 other Palestinians have been killed in clashes with security forces.
Each, undoubtedly, is a story in itself. Mr. Lakin’s is one of a teacher slain by young men who could have been his students, of a social media devotee whose family is now suing Facebook over posts they say incite violence, of a man who stood up for coexistence being felled by its failure.
“He was just a deeply optimistic and hopeful person, and refused to be deterred by the grim political reality here,” said Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman of Kol Haneshama, the Jerusalem synagogue where Mr. Lakin was a longtime member. “He wasn’t oblivious to the reality, but it didn’t affect his basic existential nature. He could not imagine a solution wasn’t possible and that people couldn’t learn to live together.”
A civil rights activist and Connecticut elementary school principal, Mr. Lakin moved to Jerusalem with his family in 1984. He taught English to Israeli and Palestinian children, performed in musicals and, according to Rabbi Weiman-Kelman, never missed a peace rally.
After a routine doctor’s appointment on Oct. 13, Mr. Lakin called his ex-wife (and still best friend), Karen, to say he was taking the No. 78 bus rather than walking home because he thought it would be safer amid the spate of stabbings on Jerusalem streets. When news broke that a No. 78 had been attacked, she and her son started frantically dialing Mr. Lakin’s number.
“Eventually, one of the nurses in the operating room answered his phone,” recalled Mr. Avni, 46, who works in finance and had walked out of a meeting in his Tel Aviv office to drive to Jerusalem. “She said, ‘Come to Hadassah Ein Karem as soon as possible.’ ”
Hadassah and Jerusalem’s other hospitals are rare oases of the Arab-Jewish coexistence Mr. Lakin promoted. A Palestinian nurse in the emergency room recognized him as he was wheeled in: Her two sons had taken his classes. The surgical team that struggled to stitch together his injured organs included Dr. Abed Khalaileh, an Arab from East Jerusalem, like the attackers on the bus.
“When I talked to the family, I had tears in my eyes — this is a man and he didn’t do anything. What did he do to deserve such a punishment?” Dr. Khalaileh said later. “I am not political here, my goal is not to judge, and I try and disconnect. But still, you live with a sensation that isn’t good, that after all, the person who carried out this attack is from your people.”
One of the attackers, Bilal Abu Ghanem, had surgery in the same hospital, at the same time.
“I had the auspicious pleasure of holding my father’s hand and looking that man straight in the eye as he woke up in the intensive-care unit,” Mr. Avni recalled. “And it sounds like he’s doing O.K. — as opposed to my father.”
Mr. Avni, who Hebraicized his last name, said he soon learned that the slain attacker, Bahas Alian, had announced his plans on Facebook. While sitting vigil in the hospital, the family was incensed to find on social networks a re-enactment of the bus attack “to encourage others to take the same action,” Mr. Avni said, and “specific instructions on how to slice someone’s chest open and cut their intestines like what was done to my
father.”
Mr. Lakin’s own Facebook page had as its cover a photo of a boy in a Jewish skullcap and one in a Palestinian kaffiyeh under a “Coexist” logo made from religious symbols. The morning of the attack, he posted an article about a long-ago discovery regarding diabetes, but the days before, his page was filled with links regarding the uprising. Mr. Lakin had also made 38,000 Twitter posts since joining in 2009, and had 4,634 followers.
“My father had been a great beneficiary of social media. He used Facebook and Twitter to express his thoughts on education and on peace,” Mr. Avni said. “He also became the victim of a tremendous amount of incitement and hate on those vehicles.”
Now, Mr. Lakin is the lead plaintiff in a suit filed this week in New York by a conservative Israeli antiterrorism group that seeks an injunction to force Facebook to block posts that call for violence against Jews.
None of this was mentioned at Wednesday’s funeral, where Karen Lakin read from Robert Frost and described her ex-husband as the grandson of a Yiddish-speaking socialist farmer.
One group among the hundreds of mourners recalled his roles in the Jerusalem English Speaking Theater’s productions of “The Music Man,” “Pajama Game,” “South Pacific” and “Annie.”
“He was a wonderful, warm, compassionate President Roosevelt,” said Brian Negin, who played Harold Ickes in that “Annie” back in 1998.
“Just like Richard,” added Mr. Negin’s wife, Susan Lazinger.
Shachar Boteach, at 16 the oldest of Mr. Lakin’s eight grandchildren, told the crowd it felt “like the air has been taken out of my lungs.”
“I know you would want me to always try to be a better person and do the right thing. You would want me to spread love and happiness everywhere I go,” she said, speaking directly to his body wrapped in a Jewish prayer shawl. “I think you wouldn’t want me to have not even one ounce of hate in my body, even though what has been done to you.”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)
| Interview: Maj. Gen. Guy Zur, Israel Ground Forces Command [IDF was clueless about significance of tunnels] | |
| By Dr. Aaron Lerner As Israel continues it's "quiet for quiet" policy that set absolutely no red lines on Hamas weapons deployments in the Gaza Strip one can only wonder if just as Maj. Gen. Guy Zur concedes the IDF was basically clueless about the significance of the tunnels and unprepared to deal with them, the IDF may be clueless today about the significance of what Hamas is preparing for the next round and unprepared to deal with it.] The gaps we discovered with regard to the subterranean threat....We underestimated the magnitude of the threat...We didn’t see that it was at the heart of the enemy’s CONOP. Interview: Maj. Gen. Guy Zur, Israel Ground Forces Command http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/leaders/interviews/2015/10/29/interview-maj-gen-guy-zur-israel-ground-forces-command/74801140/ TEL AVIV — Next month, the Israel Defense Forces General Staff will hold a series of closed-door deliberations to finalize its proposed Plan Gideon, an estimated 82 billion shekel (US $21 billion) modernization plan through 2020. Compared to previous plans, a larger share of funding — nearly 40 percent — is slated for upgrading combined arms maneuvering capabilities and combat readiness of ground forces. As the man responsible for organizing, training and equipping the Israeli Army, Maj. Gen. Guy Zur is designing the future force for at least a decade to come. He shared highlights from his strategic blueprint, dubbed Ground Horizon, which aims to render ground forces much more decisive than they were in the 2006 Lebanon war or in the most recent Protective Edge campaign in Gaza. Q. What major factors have you taken into account in your proposed blueprint for the IDF’s future ground force? A. We needed to look at the enemy and the changes he’s undergone, anticipate changes we’re likely to face in the future and determine the best way to apply all the lessons we’re learning. Based on all this, we have an understanding of what materiel, technologies and operational concepts are needed for a very strong and effective maneuvering force across a spectrum of scenarios. Q. Plan Gideon is for five years, but your blueprint, what you call Ground Horizon, extends further into the future, correct? A. Gideon will start from 2016 and run through 2020, but we’re all looking at least 10 years, sometimes 20 years ahead. My portion, which we call Ground Horizon, is a process that took about a year. With major modernization plans, like tanks, big guns and troop carriers, we need to think how they’ll develop over 20 years since such a huge investment is required. Q. Considering all the above, what is the goal for fortifying and crafting the future ground force? A. To be decisive over what we call disappearing enemies; forces that are often invisible and have largely learned to counter our methods of operations. The fact is that today, there is no enemy around us that can achieve his objectives against us. At the end of the day, when the IDF is required to achieve victory over the enemy, we will know how to do it through maneuvers and every situation. Q. Critics would say 75 Israelis killed in 50 days of fighting in the summer 2014 Gaza war was unreasonable. What’s your view? A. You always need to ask what you want to achieve and how. In Protective Edge, we wanted to achieve a certain end-state without vanquishing Hamas. … Everyone knew the game plan, and it required us to achieve this in a different way (by directly confronting the tunnels). In the end, Hamas is extremely weakened and won’t be ready for another round for a long time, and that was the objective we set for ourselves. But this question is a major lesson of Protective Edge, and a major driver of our Ground Horizon plan. Q. Would 50 days be considered reasonable for the next ground war in Lebanon? A. That’s too open a question. It must be considered in political, diplomatic and international context. It depends on what would motivate our government to go for this action in the first place. Imagine if the alternative was huge sustained casualties to the homefront. Under those circumstances, our government may be willing to pay costs associated with fully maximized, high-intensity ground maneuvering, and not just pinpoint, tactical objectives. Q. So what have you learned? A. We have to develop proper commanders at all echelons, from the smallest squad to corps commanders, and we cannot compromise on our training regime. It must be consistent and not be subjected to budgetary-driven halts and restarts as we’ve done in the past. And we must tailor force training to specific challenges. Q. Are you referring to the tunnel threat, which I assume was a major lesson of the last Gaza campaign? A. The gaps we discovered with regard to the subterranean threat were pretty much across the board in terms of technology, operational concept and training. We underestimated the magnitude of the threat. Our training was a matter of too little, too late. When we asked ourselves what was our certified capability for this mission, we realized we were deficient, but we didn’t realize to what extent. We didn’t see that it was at the heart of the enemy’s CONOP. Gaza is an entire city on top of a city. Q. But capabilities exist in other industries, for example, the energy exploration industry, no? Couldn’t they be adapted for the sands of Gaza, or the mountains along the Lebanese and Syrian borders? A. In the Gaza context, we suffered from the fact that the technology is not yet developed for threats 20-30 meters deep. It doesn’t really interest the industry. We looked at what we could take from other industrial sectors, but the truth is, they are not readily adaptable for our particular threat. And anyone who claims otherwise is being misleading. During Protective Edge, we were able to improvise; to take things that weren’t developed for this purpose and adapt them for the mission. Q. So where are you today? We’ve seen an MoD program called Snake Pit, growing proficiency of your Combat Engineering Corps, use of robotics, canines, etc. A. We’ve advanced a lot, but still, the subterranean threat demands solutions. We have answers for part of the problems, but I can’t elaborate. Suffice it to say there is no magic solution. But the most important progress is that we’ve adopted a certain technique that we can use to fight this threat. We now have a validated, formal CONOP that was codified into manuals immediately after Protective Edge. Q. What’s next with regard to the tunnel threat? A. We understand that it’s not enough to have a unique capability entrusted with a small number of forces. We need to give these means and methods to all of our forces, and to train accordingly. Now we’re building the infrastructure to train in, and as we train, we’re discovering we have very creative and resourceful commanders who have been able to improve on operational methods. The best thing to happen to us will be to turn these tunnels into death traps. Once we know how to do this, we’ll be in a very different place. Q. What other lessons inspired your future force blueprint? A. With regard to combined arms battle, we are emphasizing the need for every battalion to transform itself into a hybrid unit when necessary. We decided not to do this organically, since our forces are busy with routine operations and we need to preserve the traditional, professional chain of command. But our training is such that our combat missions are no longer single service. There’s no longer armor without infantry, combat engineering, intel and artillery capabilities, which is something we couldn’t say about the second Lebanon war or even Cast Lead [the December 2008-January 2009 operation in Gaza]. And it’s all connected through the net. Q. Your people often speak of cross-service interoperability and joint force combat. This has been a priority for several years now, no? A. Absolutely. When I look a decade or two ahead, I don’t know if the term interoperability with air and sea forces will still be relevant. That’s because it’s clear there needs to be a single force fighting in the same domain, all of which must be supported by a robust integrated C4I network. We understand that even if we’re not organized like this in routine operations, the need to operate in wartime against disappearing enemies is a basic need. Q. Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, IDF chief of staff, recently announced his decision to stand up a commando brigade. What was the rationale? A. Because we’re not a rich Army, we needed to prioritize in a way that the improved capabilities, and lethality of a few can influence larger combat goals. We need to entrust a good part of our qualitative edge to those units that can rapidly deliver added value in complex operations, whether they are in the urban theater, against subterranean threats or in other conditions. We understood that once we optimize special forces for these missions and give them everything they need in terms of weaponry, resources and training, we can strengthen ourselves with a certain center of gravity that was previously diffused. So we’re merging elite units from infantry, combat engineering, artillery and technological specialists and grooming them for high-end, elite missions. Q. What about active protection systems (APS)? Are these prerequisites not only for tanks, but for troop carriers and other ground vehicles as well? A. Even before Protective Edge, the [Rafael-developed Trophy] APS deployed on Merkava Mk4s has proven to be an enormous success. Now we’re equipping Namer heavy APCs with this capability, the first of which will probably go to our Golani infantry brigade. Our APS is performing beyond expectations. It will be the Iron Dome for our infantry. But it’s expensive. Every platform must be equipped. So we’ll have to prioritize and outfit only those units facing more complex threats such as the disappearing enemy I’ve spoken about. 2a)
|
No comments:
Post a Comment