Buffet The Consummate Capitalist or Just Another off The Rack Suit Crony? Krinsky Urges You Take Heed!

As I suspected! Surprise, Surprise (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
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Is Buffet the suit off the rack down to earth guy or a shrewd capitalist benefiting from cronyism? You decide. (See 2 below.)

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Only a matter of time. Western civiization should heed what Krinsky is telling you. 

Will it be only be a matter of time before America will come to look and be like Dearborn, Michigan? (See 3, 3a and  3b below.)

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Dick

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1) Kerry ‘completely capitulated’ to Hamas in ceasefire proposal, say Israeli sources

Israeli government sources on Saturday night accused US Secretary of State John Kerry of “completely capitulating” to the demands of Hamas and its champion Qatar in drafting the Gaza war ceasefire proposal that Israeli ministers unanimously rejected on Friday.

The unnamed sources, quoted by Israel’s Channel 2 TV, said Kerry “dug a tunnel under the Egyptian ceasefire proposal” — which Israel accepted and Hamas rejected last week — and presented the Israeli government with a text that accepted “most of the demands” raised by Hamas, the Islamist terror group that rules the Strip.

To the “horror” of the Israeli ministers, the Kerry proposal accepted Hamas’s demands for the opening of border crossings into Gaza — where Israel and Egypt fear the import of weaponry; the construction of a seaport; and the creation of a post-conflict funding channel for Hamas from Qatar and other countries, according to the sources. The proposal, meanwhile, did not even provide for Israel to continue demolishing the Hamas network of “terror tunnels” dug under the Israeli border.

Rather than provoke an open diplomatic confrontation with the United States, the report said, the appalled ministers chose not to issue an official statement rejecting the Kerry terms. Instead, word of the decision was allowed to leak out.

The cabinet was meeting again on Saturday night to discuss all aspects of the 19-day conflict with Hamas. Ongoing efforts were being made to reformulate the ceasefire terms, Israeli sources said.

The Channel 2 report said that some of those involved in the contacts with Kerry had suggested that “perhaps there was some kind of misunderstanding” or that Kerry “was only presenting a draft” of the offer, but the secretary himself gave no indication that this was the case when he expressed his disappointment that no ceasefire had been agreed during a press conference in Cairo on Friday night.

Israel and Hamas did maintain a humanitarian truce through Saturday, during which Israel continued to track and demolish some of the Hamas tunnels.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, in a TV interview just before the Saturday night cabinet meeting, said Israel needed to continue its ground offensive in Gaza until it was confident that what the IDF had achieved “can prevent a fourth round” of conflict with Hamas and guarantee the safety of the people of Israel. “We have to be sure, the day after a ceasefire, that Hamas cannot restart digging tunnels” and amassing better, more dangerous missiles. “If we haven’t achieved that…,” he tailed off.

Israel was also fuming Saturday over the tactics followed by Secretary Kerry since Friday night in his ceasefire quest.

Kerry flew to Paris and held talks Saturday without representatives of Israel, the Palestinian Authority or Egypt, but with Qatar and Turkey, which Israel’s Communications Minister Gilad Erdan said showed “we’re a long way from a political solution.”

Privately, Israeli sources signaled deep dismay that Kerry engaged in the talks in Paris with representatives of Turkey, whose leadership is openly hostile to Israel, and Qatar, whose leadership is seen by Israel to be representing Hamas’s interests. Egypt was also understood to be deeply dissatisfied with Kerry’s tactics.

Israeli government sources also privately contradicted Kerry’s assertion Friday that his ceasefire proposal was “built on” the Egyptian proposal from last Tuesday. Far from resembling the Egyptian proposal, which urges an immediate ceasefire followed by negotiation, the Kerry proposal leans heavily toward Hamas, the sources said, in tying Hamas preconditions to a cessation of hostilities.

Gilad Erdan on July 8, 2013. (photo credit: Flash 90)

Said Erdan, in a Saturday evening interview on Channel 2: “We will not end this operation and leave Gaza until the tunnels are dealt with.” Israel is also intent on drastically degrading Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure, he said. “The international community needs to understand that we are very open to the economic rehabilitation of Gaza” once the conflict is over, but that if Hamas remained in control of Gaza, and continued to build rockets and tunnels, Israel “won’t be able to tolerate that.”

Saturday’s “humanitarian truce” in Gaza, in contrast to the Kerry ceasefire terms, was regarded as meeting Israel’s interests, government sources said. Israel was able to continue work on demolishing the tunnels, they noted.

On Friday afternoon, The Times of Israel published what Arab sources said were the key terms of the Kerry offer, which indeed made no provision for Israel to be able to continue tracing and demolishing the cross-border tunnels.

An Army Radio report on Friday night highlighted that the US on Monday signed an $11 billion arms deal with Qatar, and noted that Qatar is championing Hamas’s demands in the ceasefire negotiations, and is also alleged by Israel to be financing Hamas’s rocket production, tunnel digging infrastructure, and other elements of its military infrastructure. The radio report also claimed that Ban Ki-moon “is flying around the region on a Qatari plane.”

Channel 2′s respected Middle East analyst Ehud Ya’ari said Saturday that Turkey and Qatar are “Hamas’s lawyers,” and that it was “very worrying” to see how Kerry was handling the ceasefire process.

Six Israeli soldiers have been killed by Hamas gunmen emerging from the Hamas tunnels in five incidents in the past 18 days, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Hamas was planning massive terrorist attacks via the tunnels on Israeli kibbutzim that would have had “catastrophic consequences.”

Israel’s relations with Kerry, strained for a long time, were not helped when he was caught on a hot-mic earlier this week apparently sneering at Israel’s insistence that it is trying to tackle Hamas terror targets in Gaza with “pinpoint” accuracy. Comments made by the secretary in the same incident also indicated that Israel had not invited him to embark on this ceasefire mission, presumably because Israel wanted more time to tackle the Hamas tunnels.

The Israeli army’s southern commander, who is overseeing Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza, confirmed earlier Friday that he felt the army needed more time, although it had located what it believes are most of the tunnels.

Netanyahu has said Operation Protective Edge will continue and expand as necessary until sustained calm has been achieved for the people of Israel and Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure has been significantly weakened. Israeli officials have spoken of the need to have Gaza demilitarized, and the EU earlier this week demanded the disarming of Hamas and other Gaza terror groups. Hamas has fired over 2,000 rockets at Israel over the past 18 days. The IDF launched a ground offensive last Thursday that has focused on finding and demolishing the network of Hamas tunnels. Gaza officials say 1,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive; Israeli military officials say hundreds of Hamas gunmen are among the dead. The IDF toll is 40 dead, six of them killed by Hamas gunmen emerging from tunnels in Israel. Three civilians have been killed by rocket and mortar fire from Gaza.

Avi Issacharoff contributed to this report.


1a)Israel refuses invitation to commit suicide, snubs the irrelevant Kerry
By Jennifer Rubin

Surely Secretary of State John Kerry knows of the extensive labyrinth of tunnels in Gaza. Surely he knows that far beyond the rockets these pose a mortal threat to Israel that no country would accept. And surely he knows that the Israeli military is meticulously searching and destroying the tunnels and that this will take time, perhaps weeks and not days. Then why in the world would he publicly offer a truce proposal, especially one purportedly dressed up with some pro-Hamas goodies from Qatar?

Secretary of State John Kerry, third from left, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, third from right, speak with delegations during a meeting in Cairo on Tuesday. (Pool photo by Charles Dharapak/Reuters)

One explanation is that he is foolish beyond our wildest imagination, entirely disconnected from reality. He maybe thinks Israel bluffs like his boss does, or maybe he does not understand that Israel’s “right to defend itself” must include destruction of the tunnels. Perhaps he is deluded to think Israel wouldn’t publicly spurn him.

Another possibility is that this is yet one more sign of President Obama’s antipathy toward Israel. He’d rather Israel not complete its task, not eradicate Iran’s agents and not demonstrate that hard power is not only available but also essential to defeat those who would destroy you. There might be some extended rationale for this, but it boils down to Obama’s determination to appease bad actors in the cause of a temporary cessation in violence.

In either case, Obama and Kerry have more egg on their faces, having just reinforced how irrelevant to the Middle East they have become. If anything, we’ve learned that the president is content to let events play out. His “policy,” whether with Iran or Russia, consists of wishful thinking and empty threats. And we’ve also learned that Israel will pay a great price in blood, treasure and diplomatic vilification to survive. No, the Jewish state is not going to commit national suicide. That is true when it comes to Hamas, and Iran is well. Israel is simply not going to allow itself to be bullied into surrender, which is what leaving deadly tunnels in place would amount to.

1b) PM NETANYAHU is appearing shortly on Fox News Sunday which is on your local fox station

I don't expect ISI's article to affect domestic Jewish support for the president in the least bit

- Candidly Speaking from Jerusalem - http://wordfromjerusalem.com -

President Obama Abandons Israel

Posted By Isi Leibler 

In the midst of a bitter war – one that Israel sought to avoid – the statements and initiatives from U.S. President Barack Obama and his inept secretary of state, John Kerry, have convinced Hamas that if they maintain their campaign of terror against Israel and the civilians of Gaza, the international community will intervene on their behalf.

From Israel’s vantage, despite the continuing tragic losses, there can be no turning back until the weapons of destruction and the tunnels are neutralized. Failure to achieve this will doom us to a future and possibly even more dangerous confrontation with these genocidal barbarians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership has been exemplary. Despite extraordinary pressure from all sides of the political spectrum, he succeeded in charting a responsible policy. The initial restraint, his acceptance of the Egyptian terms of cease-fire and his avoidance of demagoguery, united the nation and even scored points among open-minded circles in the international community.

The most incredible aspect to this conflict was the almost total effectiveness of the Iron Dome, which neutralized missiles directed to our heavily populated cities, and thus precluded an otherwise much more extensive and costly ground operation.

Yet we suffered a profound shock at the discovery of the extent and sophistication of the underground city Hamas had constructed with prolific tunnels entering into Israel – even into public dining rooms of kibbutzim – creating a scenario for horrifying mass terrorist abductions and massacres of 9/11 proportions.

The Western media’s sympathy for Hamas, inciting hatred against Israel by their excessive display of gruesome images of children killed, was completely out of context. That Israel possesses the fire power to level Gaza to the ground, if it intended doing so, was ignored. Rarely did it acknowledge that Israel had accepted cease-fires which Hamas had rejected. Nor that Israel maintained a flow of humanitarian aid, electricity and water to Gaza and that terrorist casualties were treated in Israeli hospitals. In fact, Israel even established a field hospital for the sole purpose of treating Gazan civilians.

The media behaved unconscionably in failing to highlight the fact that most of the civilian casualties in Gaza were incurred because Hamas had ordered women and children to ignore Israeli early warnings to evacuate, obliging them to act as human shields at rocket launching sites and command posts. Schools, hospitals, mosques, and U.N. R.A. headquarters were used to stockpile armaments and launch missiles. By this behavior, Hamas is responsible for every civilian casualty, which is unquestionably defined as war crimes. As Netanyahu stated, “Israel employs missile defense to protect its citizens; Hamas uses its civilians to protect missiles.”

Whereas no army in history has ever gone to the extremes of the IDF to minimize civilian casualties, the obscene U.N. Human Rights Council dominated by dictatorships and rogue states, has launched an investigation of what it has already defined as “Israeli war crimes.” In what is clearly intended to be a repeat of the notorious Goldstone Commission, there is not even the pretense of objectivity and no call to investigate Hamas. The U.S. voted against this travesty but the Europeans, to their discredit, abstained. Predictably, this led to a global eruption of massive anti-Semitic demonstrations and violence, condemning Israel for allegedly targeting or being indifferent to the fate of Gazan civilians.

In this context, we appreciate that the American people and Congress have displayed overwhelming support for Israel and remain grateful for the financial support sponsored by Congress that enabled us to create and produce the Iron Dome.

Yet the diplomatic posturing of the Obama administration has been utterly deplorable at a time when we are entitled to rely on the U.S. to fully support its only genuine democratic ally in the region. Israel is confronting genocidal Hamas, the equivalent of al-Qaida, whose charter explicitly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, and enjoins its supporters to murder Jews whenever the opportunity arises. This same terrorist organization condemned the United States for the murder of bin Laden. Our current conflict is not between two states but against a barbaric genocidal terrorist organization which the U.S. itself regards as illegal. This is a clear case of good versus evil – surely something Americans unlike postmodernist Europeans, do instinctively appreciate.

Aside from incanting mantras of Israel’s right to defend itself, Obama has yet to condemn Hamas for exploiting its civilians as human sacrifices. Instead, from the outset he has sought to restrict Israel’s military response, repeatedly urging restraint and “proportional response”. Obama set the pattern which the rest of the world followed, providing Hamas with expectations that with growing civilian casualties, Israel would be pressured to step down.

The hypocrisy of Obama and others in their condemnation of Israel is mind-boggling when reviewing the various military initiatives and drone attacks undertaken by the U.S., NATO, France, et al. The odious moral equivalence must also be viewed in the context of 180,000 innocent civilians literally butchered in Syria, and with the massacres of the ISIS in Iraq and the rest of the region.

As the Israel Defense Forces continue to eliminate the myriad of terrorist tunnels, Obama stepped up his calls on Israel to act more “proportionately,” expressing horror at the casualties and indicating that we are not doing enough to protect civilians. He even stated that once 1,000 Palestinian casualties have been reached, he would force an end to the conflict.

It is also widely believed that the Federal Aviation Administration decision to temporarily halt flights to Israel was a calculated political ploy by the Obama administration to further exert pressure.

Precisely what further steps does Obama suggest Israel should take to minimize civilian casualties without endangering its own citizens? Would the United States or any responsible government enable terrorists to maintain their operations from mosques, hospitals, schools and homes and continue indiscriminately raining thousands of missiles on its citizens?

It is ironic that in the present context, the Europeans, traditionally disposed to be hostile to Israel, passed a resolution not merely condemning Hamas attacks, but also demanding the demilitarization of Gaza — something that Obama, who merely calls for a return to the conditions governing the former “truce,” has yet to demand.

The uninvited presence of Kerry — who many Israelis now regard as an unguided missile — and who has been making off-the-cuff sarcastic remarks about Israeli failure to avoid Palestinian casualties, will only encourage Hamas to maintain the missile attacks.

Kerry undermined the Egyptian cease-fire initiative by inexplicably turning to Qatar and Turkey to act as mediators. Qatar, regarded by the U.S. as an important “ally,” with whom it recently signed an $11 billion arms deal, is a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated entity and the principal funder of Hamas and ISIS. Turkey’s demagogue Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an outspoken hysterical anti-Semite who accused Israel of engaging in “barbarism worse than Hitler.” Needless to say, Israel cannot be expected to engage with those who openly promote the Hamas agenda.

His final act of betrayal of Israel was his repudiation of the Egyptian cease-fire which Israel had accepted. Instead Kerry conspired with Qatar and Turkey (see photo) to seek to impose new cease-fire terms which would prevent Israel from destroying the tunnels it had discovered and he provided undertakings that the “blockade” of Gaza and release of Hamas prisoners and other concerns would be reviewed, with no reference to the demilitarization of Hamas. The Israeli Diplomatic-Security Cabinet unanimously rejected this offer placing Israel in direct conflict with the U.S.

The Netanyahu government is fully aware that Israel cannot accept a long-term cease-fire that would enable Hamas to again attack Israel with missiles or renew their building of terrorist tunnels into Israel.

The U.S. will also be committing another blunder if it seeks to recycle Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to resolve the impasse. While initially he had backed the Egyptian cease-fire and was happy to see his “partner” Hamas under pressure, he has now decided to throw his lot with Hamas and the radical jihadists. Israel can no longer contemplate negotiations with the PA so long as it remains associated with Hamas.

Defensible borders are now an absolute must. With the collapse of the artificial Arab nation states created by the Sykes-Picot treaty in the aftermath of World War I, no borders are sacrosanct, certainly not armistice lines that have never been formally recognized as international borders. Under no circumstances can we contemplate returning to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines. It is now also clear that should a Palestinian state emerge, it must be totally demilitarized with the IDF retaining security control.

We should also cautiously seek to engage with Egypt and other pragmatic Arab countries that are opposed to the jihadists and Muslim Brotherhood.

We still look toward the American people and Congress to support us in this struggle of good versus evil. We do not ask for Americans to shed their blood for us but we expect their full diplomatic and political support in this battle against a murderous global Islamic fundamentalist movement.

The writer may be contacted at ileibler@leibler.com.

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2)Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railroad and the rest of the story . 
. .

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad owns all of the rail lines in the 
United States connecting to western Canada. They haul over 80 percent of 
the crude oil from Canada to the Midwest and Texas, or charge other 
short line railroads a fee to use BNSF tracks.  BNSF charges $30 per 
barrel to haul the oil.

The proposed “Keystone Pipeline” would cost $10 per barrel according to 
the U.S. State Department’s own estimates and perhaps a lower amount as 
reflected in other estimates.

BNSF is owned by Berkshire-Hathaway whose chairman is none other than 
Warren Buffett.  In the last two election cycles, Buffett gave 
extensively to Democrat causes and candidates--particularly Obama in 
2012.  He also bundled and hosted numerous fundraisers for Obama.

If anyone believes the Keystone Pipeline isn't being blocked by Obama on 
Buffett’s behalf, you are brain dead!  Buffett could stand to lose $2 
billion a year if the Keystone pipeline goes in--and he makes the same 
amount every year that it's delayed.


Is this “crony capitalism” at its finest or what???

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3)I feel like I weigh 500 pounds.

By: Julian Krinsky

Everyone I know feels like they are walking through water.

And sad. We are all so very, very sad.

This is what I know right now, today:

 

 The ugliness, the venom and sheer, violent hatred you are seeing in Paris, London, Berlin, LA, Boston, Denver…. this is just the beginning.

We Jews are the canaries in the coal mine for all of humanity. Today, they are throwing bricks at synagogues and smashing chairs and saying “Kill the Jews.”

Tomorrow it will be someone else. 

Do the French really think these people will protect and safeguard  the treasures of the Louvre? 

Do Londoners really think these people will cherish the symbols of the British Empire? 

Does anyone really think this is only about Israel and the disputed territories?

Today it is Israel, tomorrow it will be you. 

Maybe that is why everyone gets so disproportionately annoyed about this conflict. Because everyone knows after us it gets real personal…

 

Seeing these violent protests, hearing the sickening screams for death we Israelis understand better than ever we must fight for every square inch and with all we have. 

It matters not how much better our military is, how much more precise our targets can be. 

It only matters that when the smoke clears Hamas is disarmed, destroyed, disabled and defeated. Forever.

  

Hamas. NOT the people of Gaza. I feel so very sorry for them. Sorry they were misguided and elected these lunatics. Sorry that in their desperation they allowed Hamas to fill the empty bedrooms next to their children’s room with rockets. Sorry that their leaders have mansions and swimming pools and are sitting in air conditioning in  another city while they are sweating and  wondering where the roof over their houses went.  (If not their house itself.)  Sorry that they have been brought up with no inkling of who Israelis are nor what compromise is.

  

Defeating Hamas will be a big problem for the power brokers because shame and honor are all that matter in this part of the world. 

Honor in the Middle East does not come from whether your children are literate, how successful you are, how much money you make, how civilized your  community is, nor how many paved roads you have, and whether or not you have garbage collection and recycling. 

Here in this part of the world- for Hamas,  honor comes from getting revenge. 

For them revenge is everything. 

For them revenge is the only thing. 

Remember we left Gaza. There was no blockade. They were free to build a model democracy- the first successful shining, taste of the new, proud Palestine. But they didn’t want that kind of success…

  

We have nowhere else to go. And the rockets won’t stop.

  

The folks in Ashkelon cannot shower, get more milk or walk a dog without wondering if they are taking their lives in their own hands.

  

There is another Gaza underneath Gaza. 

Hamas could have built hundred of schools, paved thousands of roads, build hundreds of kindergartens with the cement and iron they have used to build these underground bunkers and tunnels. ( and you wondered why Israel put a blockade on bringing building supplies into the Gaza strip?) 

These tunnels to hell are filled with ammunition. 

And no women or children, not a single  elderly person is brought to safety there.

They want them on the street- on the roof,  standing right behind- nice and close to  the terrorist firing the rocket.

  

Hamas has refused to let journalists out of Gaza.Why?

 They need them to take pictures and record the carefully staged piles of bloody children and women. If the journalists leave they have lost the vehicle for distributing their bloody ad campaign.

Hamas asked for a cease-fire. And they broke it. They break every single one.

  

Israel is setting up a massive field hospital to treat our enemies. From 8 pm on tonight there will be a working maternity ward, an operating theater…a working hospital. For… our enemies.

  

We are going to lose more boys. With each day we are going to lose more. 

But everyone here now understands this is a fight to the death. It is them or us.

They cannot compromise and they don’t want peace or to share or to negotiate. They want revenge even if it means killing their own people. 

So we have to go in there and do things none of us want to do, but we have to.

  

So this is why we are all so sad. Israelis want peace. 

But we also desperately want to live. We love life and we are not about to let anyone, let alone a bunch of deranged thugs  take it away from us.

So yes, this is a fight to the  death for both sides.

Remember,  if they win, you are next. 

If we win those symbols of civilization that everyone takes so for granted will remain standing and everyone will criticize and complain about disproportionate responses and war crimes and all kinds of  other irrelevant nonsense, but secretly I think everyone will be heaving s sigh of relief.

3a)

Israel resumes Gaza offensive after Hamas rockets break cease-fire By JPOST.COM STAFF IDF announces resumption of attacks on terror targets in Gaza from the sea, land and air, after rockets are fired from coastal enclave; rocket lands in open area of metropolitan Tel Aviv; Iron Dome intercepts several rockets.

Israel resumed its Gaza offensive on Sunday morning after Hamas rockets broke a humanitarian cease-fire that Israel had agreed to extend. The order came from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon after some 25 rockets  were fired from Gaza Sunday despite Israel's agreement to extend a UN humanitarian cease-fire. "Yet again Hamas is cynically exploiting the residents of Gaza in order to use them as human shields. Hamas first rejected the Egyptian cease-fire initiative and afterwards violated last week's UN humanitarian truce. It later violated the Red Cross humanitarian truce and has rebuffed the UN request for a humanitarian truce in order to allow the residents of Gaza to prepare for Eid al-Fitr," a government statement said. The IDF announced it would be resuming attacks on terror targets in the Gaza Strip through the air, sea and on the ground. In light of the decision, the IDF called on civilians in Gaza to avoid areas where fighting was taking place. Prior to the announcement, rocket sirens wailed in southern and central Israel on Sunday morning as Israel's Gaza operation entered its twentieth day.  Rocket alert air raid sirens were sounded in the Shfela and Sharon regions on  Sunday morning around 8:25 a.m. One rocket landed in an open area in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area.  In addition, the police reported a barrage of rocket fire on villages in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council late Saturday night and early Sunday morning. Rocket alert sirens sounded in the Ashdod and Ashkelon regions Sunday morning around 8:10 a.m. Interceptions were heard over the cities.   The security cabinet on Saturday night had decided to accede to a UN request and agree to a 24-hour extension of a  humanitarian cease-fire until midnight Sunday. Diplomatic officials said Saturday that despite the cease-fire, the IDF would act against any violation of the truce by  the other side. In addition, during the lull in the fighting, the IDF said it would  "continue to neutralize the terror tunnels  inside Gaza. Four terror tunnels were neutralized in Gaza on Saturday, despite the cease fire that was in place from 8:00 a.m." The security cabinet will meet again on Sunday. There appeared to be little progress on the diplomatic front and in international efforts to secure an end to the conflict. US Secretary of State John Kerry flew back to Washington overnight after meeting in Paris with foreign ministers of France, Italy, Britain, Germany, Turkey and Qatar. 3b)

Into the fray: Why Gaza must go By MARTIN SHERMAN The only durable solution requires dismantling Gaza, humanitarian relocation of the non-belligerent Arab  population, and extension of Israeli sovereignty over the  region.

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind.... You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny... That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory; victory at all costs, victory in spite of all  terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. – Winston Churchill, May 13, 1940  We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them. – Albert Einstein  At the time of writing this column, ground operations in Gaza were still going on and reports of increasing casualties were coming in with depressing frequency. This should, therefore, be a time for national cohesion and solidarity, with unity and support for the war effort, and criticism of the government suspended. Sadly, however, the government has given the public little coherent indication of its aims, or of the realities it is striving to create. Ill-defined and inadequate objectives  Worse, not only is there no clear indication of where the country is going, there seems to be little willingness to recognize how we got here. In the third week of Operation Protective Edge, the government is still waffling on its objectives. These keep morphing from one vague, vacuous formulation to another, as developments on the battlefield make each succeeding definition of the operation’s goals appear abysmally inadequate and ineffectual. Initially, the government declared that all it aspired to was to “restore calm” – i.e. to reinstate the status quo – and if Hamas would cease fire, so would Israel. Just how myopic that would have been is starkly underscored by what has become chillingly apparent during the operation – the devastating potential of an elaborate tunnel system developed by the terror organizations in Gaza. Had a cease-fire been implemented in such circumstances, Hamas would have been free to continue developing its deadly subterranean potential, which it could activate at a moment of its choosing. This appalling prospect makes deeply disturbing questions, regarding the competence and/or judgment of the nation’s  leadership, unavoidable, even as the battles rage on. Unless the reasons for the current predicament are understood,  no effective remedy can be found. Deeply disturbing questions We must weigh the only two possibilities before us: (a) either the government was aware of the deadly menace posed by the network of tunnels; or (b) it wasn’t. If it was, then willingness to agree to a cease-fire before the danger was eliminated reflects a disturbing readiness to reconcile itself to the dangers and expose the country’s civilian population to murderous consequences in the future. If it was oblivious to these dangers, this reflects a grave ignorance of deadly threats facing the country, a sign of just how out of touch the leadership of the nation has been with the ominous reality we inhabit. Although I rarely find occasion to quote Haaretz as a corroborating source, my eye could not help catching the pungent  title of a piece written by veteran defense correspondent Amos Harel: “Hamas’ terror tunnels – a national strategic failure  for Israel”. Harel points out: “A week ago, Israel announced its willingness to accept a cease-fire in Gaza... This means one of two  things. Either the ministers and generals were willing last week to let these tunnels, every one a ticking bomb, tick softly  under kibbutz dining rooms until the next escalation, or they weren’t aware of the seriousness of the risk.” He continues: “So either they were taking a calculated risk of unusual [read “gigantic” – M.S.] dimensions, or they didn’t have enough intelligence [information] before the operation (which doesn’t quite square with a senior officer’s claim... that ‘never before has the army had such quality intelligence before an operation’).” Prescient prediction It is difficult to accept that the government was totally unaware of Hamas’s tunneling endeavor. As early as 2006, Hamas used a tunnel to abduct Gilad Schalit and kill two of his comrades near Kerem Shalom, eventually attaining the liberation of 1,027 convicted terrorists. Last October, the discovery of an almost 2-km.-long tunnel near Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha was widely reported, and according to several sources, its objective was a kindergarten, located close to its exit point, 300 meters inside Israel. The threat imminent in Hamas’s burrowing enterprise, and the conditions under which it might be employed, were presciently predicted 10 months ago by Harel. In an article, carrying the ominous headline: “Hamas’ strategic tunnels: Millions of dollars to spirit kidnapped Israelis into Gaza” (October 13, 2013), he warned of the likely reaction of Hamas should it feel weakened, precisely what Israeli politicians were crowing about just prior to the current round of violence. He cautioned: “... if Hamas decides to try to overcome its present distress by reigniting the front against Israel, using the  tunnels to launch an attack could be one of its main options.” His prediction proved chillingly precise. Figuring the flaccidity factor: Impotence not ignorance  Given that it is highly implausible that the government was unaware of the danger looming under its very nose (or  rather, feet), how are we to account for the flaccidity of its response – which, but for good fortune, could have precipitated  outcomes of unthinkable tragedy. Former Jerusalem Post Editor in Chief Bret Stephens, in a recent Wall Street Journal piece (July 14), provides a partial explanation for the phenomenon, suggesting that Israel’s “real weakness is a certain kind of vanity that confuses stainlessness with virtue, favors moral self-regard over normal self-interest, and believes in politics as an exercise not  in power but in self-examination.” For all its admirable eloquence, Stephens’s diagnosis relates more to the symptoms of the malaise, rather than its causes. In numerous columns, I have been at pains to explain the roots of this enervating phenomenon (which I have designated “The Limousine Theory of Israeli politics”) and warned of the ruinous results it will inevitably wreak upon us. The underlying reason for the inadequate responses to clearly apparent dangers is that Israel’s leaders have been cowered into this moralistic masochism by an aggressive and intolerant triad of left-wing civil society elites (in the legal establishment, the mainstream media and academe), who, through their unelected position of privilege and power, have taken control of the political discourse in the country. The political discourse determines the elected political leadership’s perception of policy constraints and policy possibilities. Through dominance of the discourse, these elites can control the parameters of Israeli policy-making and impose  their worldview of political appeasement and territorial concessions on it. Sacrificing lives for a ‘two-state deity’ These elites have, to a large degree, mortgaged their personal prestige and professional positions, and much of their  livelihood, to the two-state concept and the land-for-peace doctrine on which it rests. Were this doctrine to be discredited, all these benefits – material and otherwise – would be jeopardized. They, therefore,  have a vested interest in preserving a perception that it is valid – no matter how incongruent with reality and rationality  it proves – and must endeavor to prevent the adoption of any policy measures that put paid to the two-state formula. Since the attainment of strategic victory in Gaza calls for measures that preclude any agreement on a Palestinian state, the policy-relevant discourse, which these elites mold, has been devoted to ridiculing such measures as impractical or infeasible, and to promoting measures that can only bring about a temporary respite to the fighting. These respites have always been exploited by the enemy to enhance its capabilities for the inevitable next round – and the nex t inevitable batch of casualties. Oblivious to facts, and impervious to reason, in a desperate attempt to sustain an unworkable paradigm, Israeli left-wing elites perpetuate bout after escalating bout of violence, callously sacrificing ever more lives on the altar of the false deity of two states- for-two-peoples. ‘Mowing the lawn’ won’t cut it  The reluctance to face unpalatable realities has spawned new terminology to paper over intellectual surrender, and mask unwillingness to accept the need for regrettably harsh but essential policies. First, we were told that since there was “no solution” to the Israel-Arab conflict, we should adopt an approach of “conflic t management” rather than “conflict resolution.” Now we have a new term in the professional jargon to convey a similar perspective: “mowing the grass.” This is the  name for an approach that entails a new round of fighting every time the Palestinian violence reaches levels Israel finds unacceptable. Its “rationale” – for want of a better term – was recently articulated by Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, as: “The use of force, not intended to attain impossible political goals, but rather [as a] long-term strategy of attrition designed primarily to debilitate the enemy capabilities.” Sadly, what we have seen is that far from “debilitating the enemy capabilities,” because said enemy keeps reappearing, spoiling for a fight, ever bolder with ever-greater capabilities. It is an open question just how many more rounds of “mowing” the residents of southern Israel will endure before losing confidence that the government will provide adequate protection and choose to evacuate the area. No, periodically mowing the lawn is not a policy that can endure for long – it simply will not cut it. The grass needs to be uprooted – once and for all. Gaza: What would Einstein say?   Albert Einstein famously said that one could not solve a problem with the level of thinking that created it. Clearly, the problem of Gaza was created by the belief that land could be transferred to the Palestinian Arabs to provide  them a viable opportunity for self-governance. Equally clearly, then, the problem of Gaza cannot be solved by persisting with ideas that created it – i.e. persisting with a plan for Israel to provide the Palestinian Arabs with land for self-governance. The problem can only be solved by entirely abandoning the concept that Gaza should be governed by Palestinian Arabs.  Any effective solution must follow this new line of reasoning. Any other outcome will merely prolong the problem. If Hamas comes out stronger from this round of fighting, it will be only a matter of time before the next, probably more deadly, round breaks out. If Hamas comes out weaker from this round of fighting, it is only a matter of time before it will be replaced by an even more violent extremist-successor – and thus, once more, only a matter of time until the next, probably more deadly, round breaks out. The only durable solution requires dismantling Gaza, humanitarian relocation of the non-belligerent Arab population, and extension of Israeli sovereignty over the region. That is the only approach that can solve the problem of Gaza. That is the only approach that will eliminate the threat to Israel continually issuing from Gaza. That is the only approach that will extricate the non-belligerent Palestinians from the clutches of the cruel, corrupt cliques who led them astray for decades. That is the only approach that will preclude a need for Israel to “rule over another people.” Gaza: What would Herbert Hoover say?  Former US President Herbert Hoover, dubbed the “Great Humanitarian” for his efforts to relieve famine in Europe after WWI, wrote in The Problems of Lasting Peace: “Consideration should be given even to the heroic remedy of transfer of populations...the hardship of moving is great, but it is [still] less than the constant suffering of minorities and the constant recurrence of war.” How could anyone, with any degree of compassion and humanity, disagree? Martin Sherman (www.martinsherman.org) is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.www.martinsherman.net
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