37 Comments

1. Bugs:

Iranian volunteers? The more the merrier. I’m sure the IAF will have enough bombs for everybody.

Dec 29, 2008 - 9:51 am 2. Promoguy:

Bugs, I was just going to say the same thing. Send them. The more target practice the more proficient.

Dec 29, 2008 - 10:58 am 3. ricpic:

Since the Palis can’t claim that the Gaza Strip is some kind of holy homeland why doesn’t Israel simply push them out of the strip and into the arms of their fellow Arabs in Egypt? It is eminently doable. This would leave the “homeland,” the west bank, to the Palis, from which they will, of course, launch attacks on Israel as long as there is breath in them to do that. Israel could then annex the Gaza Strip, leaving it with a mortal enemy to the east, but at least no longer surrounded by mortal enemies to the east and west.

Dec 29, 2008 - 11:15 am 4. NukemHill:

Bugs: ditto.

ricpic: The screams of genocide (not entirely unfounded; but certainly overstated) would be deafening. Israel simply can’t afford that kind of publicity

Dec 29, 2008 - 12:48 pm 5. davidingeorgia:

I hope you’re right, Mr. Simon, but as far as the current gov’t of Israel is concerned, I’ll believe they’re willing to fight “a war to the bitter end” when I see them doing it. Airstrikes alone, accurate or not, are NOT even in the neighborhood of what that sort of war against Hamas would look like.

See also, Hezbollah and Lebanon.

Dec 29, 2008 - 1:00 pm 6. Eric R.:

Nukemhill:

World opinion wants Israel and the Jews dead. Israel is going to have to tell world opinion to go f*ck itself, and go and either drive the Gazans into Egypt or (if the Palis stay and fight like the depraved, hate-crazed, suicidal/genocidal Nazi fanatics they seem to be) kill them.

After all, the Europeans - who dominate international media, the UN, and the NGOs - are nothing but a bunch of Nazis themselves, who hope Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran finish the work of their mutual great hero, Adolf Hitler.

However, at this point, Europe is so weak militarily, that apart from the UK or France launching nukes at Israel, there is nothing they could do to Israel militarily, not even a blockade, that Israel couldn’t smash in fifteen minutes.

Dec 29, 2008 - 1:01 pm 7. Mike_K:

I think it is interesting that Arab countries, not just Egypt, are condemning Hamas. The Arabs are scared to death of Iran. Iran and its ally Syria, are Shia governed. Assad is an Alawite, which is Shia. The Arabs defended Saddam for a long time because he was their shield against Iran and the Iranian Revolution. It might just be that provoking this confrontation after the Israelis evacuated Gaza may bring about a change in Arab attitude to Israel. It’s too much to hope for but I do think it interesting that they have condemned Hamas, a rare occurrence. What if Israel became the shield between the Arabs and Iran ?

Dec 29, 2008 - 1:54 pm 8. Michael Ledeen:

Iranians are not going to fight in Gaza. They will pose, they will scream, they will send money and weapons, they will provide training, but they will not fight…

Dec 29, 2008 - 3:33 pm 9. Lightnin' Hopkins:

Associated Press is all over the Palestinian body count as usual (currently at 364), which they dutifully feature in all articles on the conflict - not just this current fighting. They report that the useless U.N. is saying that 62 of the dead are civilians, including children - never once shining a light on Hamas’ use of such victims as human shields, that Hamas thinks it’s just fine to fire rockets from schools and hospitals, etc. Furthermore, much of this information is fed to the wire services by “medics” - much like the infamous “Green Helmet Guy” in Lebanon - so it’s often best to take these early numbers with giant boulders of rock salt anyway.

Not a lot of space gets filled on details about Israeli civilians killed by rocket fire; It’s better to keep those details to a minimum when you’re painting Israel as the “aggressor.” However, as this story (not AP) — http://tinyurl.com/97mz26 — from March of this year shows, the Palestinians crave credit where it’s due and then some when it comes to their terrorist handiwork. They’re quite PROUD of it, after all.

Dec 29, 2008 - 3:49 pm 10. Terrye:

It seems to me that the Palis are getting less sympathy than usual, from just about everyone..including Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Dec 29, 2008 - 4:00 pm 11. DavidN:

The Arab-Israeli controversy is one of the biggest and most knotty problems in history. Frankly, if the Israelis had *killed* every Arab within a thousand miles of Jerusalem in 1949, I don’t think they’d be in the same difficulties they are now. If they’d done it, and then Ben-Gurion had been executed for it, they definitely wouldn’t. Let me make clear I’m not advocating such draconian action, but the ability of the world to forgive such things is shown by its treatment of Germany and Japan after World War 2. Both nations committed a large number of very vicious atrocities. The Germans were more workmanlike and efficient in their genocidal nastiness, but the Japanese enjoyed it a lot more. Both nations now have issued what could be interpreted as half-hearted apologies for their behavior (older citizens of surrounding countries tend to disbelieve these statements) and are now pretty much fully rehabilitated. Ask the typical young American which country has a worse history of Civilian atrocities in wartime, Germany or Israel, and see what response you get. Japan won’t even be on the charts.

The problem is simple: no one has resolved the situation, because Israel doesn’t have the land to give the Palestinians (unless they wish to put their own survival in peril) and the rest of the Arab World, having the land, refuses to give it to the Palestinians because they insist that Israel should be the one to solve the problem, not them.

If you ask me, the solution to the problem is pretty simple: buy the Sinai peninsula (minus the east bank of the Suez) from Egypt, for something on the order of $20 or $30 Trillion, and then give it to the Palestinian people. Here’s your country, live here, and shut up. Israel gets the Gaza strip and West Bank, and any Arab who wishes to remain there does so under the Israeli government, with whatever rights and privaleges Israel chooses to grant them. If you look at a map, there’s no way the Israelis are ever going to allow the nation of Palestine to sit in the West Bank, and have all of the symbols of manhood that an Arab needs in order to feel proud of his country: tanks, rockets, a decent-sized air force, lots of soldiers in uniform, etc. If you have these things, the temptation to use them is too great, especially when an ancestral enemy is as vulnerable as Israel would be.

The problem with my solution is that the Arab world would probably reject it. Most Arab leaders, these days, are smart enough to mouth the proper platitudes for CNN, but they don’t really believe in the survival of the Israeli state. What they do instead of resisting its continued existence, however, is oppose any solution to the problem, feeling that over time the rest of the world will come to understand that the problem is Israel, and only Israel’s abolition can make the problem go away. Never mind that most of the radical Islamists in the world view Israel as merely a symptom, with the problem being worldwide heresy and the solution a global Islamic caliphate. Ignore the little man in the corner, and allow them to put on a show for you. Sooner or later, the world will grow tired of Israel, and it’ll go away somehow. When it does, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth and so forth, but no one will really mourn, because that will solve the problem–for now.

Dec 29, 2008 - 4:22 pm 12. Frank:

Here’s hoping this extends into WW3. The quicker the fight starts, the quicker we can end it.

Dec 29, 2008 - 5:20 pm 13. Scott:

Like to see those “hard line Iranian clerics” volunteer for martyrdom…remember how Sadr hightailed it out of Iraq when the going got tough?Heh.

Dec 29, 2008 - 5:52 pm 14. Ted G.:

Israel is finally acting decisively and world opinion be damned. Only the victors will have bragging rights. God bless Israel.

Dec 29, 2008 - 7:01 pm 15. lucklucky:

“Whatever one thinks of Ehud Barak as a politician, he certainly is a more than capable general and defense minister.”

Why you say that? Is appalling behavior in Lebanon with war from 9 to 5 and getting back next day then retiring then getting back, or the last rushed tank offensive of last 2 days of war that made impossible to clean Hizballah anti tank teams with infantry and artillery support incresing Israeli casualities are telling examples of his incompetence.

Dec 29, 2008 - 10:46 pm 16. lucklucky:

I apologise: “Is” should be read as “His”.

Dec 29, 2008 - 10:48 pm 17. Roger L Simon:

Well, lucklucky, that’s your opinion. Here is the Wikipedia entry on Barak’s military career:

Ehud Brog joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 1959. At that time he decided to change his name to “Barak”, which means “lightning” or “shine” in Hebrew. He served in the IDF for 35 years, rising to the position of Chief of the General Staff and the rank of Rav Aluf, the highest in the Israeli military. During the Yom Kippur War, Barak commanded an improvised regiment of tanks which among other things, helped rescue paratrooper battalion 890 commanded by Yitzhak Mordechai who were suffering heavy losses in the Battle of the Chinese Farm.
During his service as a commando in the elite Sayeret Matkal, Barak led several highly acclaimed operations, such as: “Operation Isotope”, the rescue mission to free the hostages onboard Sabena Flight 572 at Lod Airport in 1972; the 1973 covert mission Operation Spring of Youth in Beirut, in which he was disguised as a woman in order to assassinate members of the Palestine Liberation Organization; Barak was also a key architect of the June 1976 Operation Entebbe, another rescue mission to free the hostages of the Air France aircraft hijacked by terrorists and forced to land at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda. These highly acclaimed operations, along with Operation Bayonet led to the dismantling of Palestinian terrorist cell Black September and a decline in international terrorism for over 20 years[citation needed]. It has been alluded that Barak also masterminded the Tunis Raid on April 16, 1988, in which PLO leader Abu Jihad was assassinated.
Later he served as head of Aman, the Military Intelligence Directorate (1983-1985), head of Central Command (1986 - 1987) and Deputy Chief of the General Staff (1987-1991). He served Chief of the General Staff between April 1, 1991 and January 1, 1995. During this period he implemented the first Oslo Accords and participated in the negotiations towards the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace.
Barak was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service and four Chief of Staff citations (Tzalash HaRamatcal) for courage and operational excellence. These five decorations make him the most decorated soldier in Israeli history (jointly with Nechemya Cohen). In addition he was awarded in 1993 the Legion of Merit (Commander) by the United States[1]
Barak is also an expert in krav maga, the official martial art of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Dec 29, 2008 - 11:14 pm 18. Don Kenner:

lucklucky,

I share your dismay with Barak’s performance in the Lebanon war: disgraceful. However, this may represent a failure of will, rather than a lack of innate talent for military operations. The tepid, political, half-assed war in Lebanon doesn’t necessarily reflect what Israel (or Barak) is capable of; but rather, what their defeatist ideology has led them to.

So when Mr. Simon says Barak is capable of orchestrating a successful military campaign, I think he is correct. However, this still leaves open the question of whether he WILL orchestrate such a military campaign. I just pray he uses Israel’s war-making tools effectively (and ruthlessly). Israel cannot afford another debacle like Lebanon.

Dec 29, 2008 - 11:17 pm 19. starlady7:

Why do you guys keep talking about Barak’s performance in Lebanon? In the Second Lebanon War (2006); Peretz was Sec’y of Defense, Halutz was Chief of Staff, Barak was out of the goverment. Are you talking about his time as Prime Minister?

Dec 30, 2008 - 12:35 am 20. whiskey:

Roger, the problem with Barak is that he’s a Special Forces guy.

And every problem to him seems like a Special Forces operation.

That’s why Lebanon was such a disaster under his leadership, and why the Israeli forces in general are so bad, so inept, so weak. As exposed in Lebanon.

Special Forces are very useful, but they are not built for, nor do they understand, the hard slog that combat infantrymen undertake, nor do they understand armor operations, or artillery, or combined arms. Because their whole means of operation is stealth, hit the target fast and with great force, get the hell out quickly. That was Entebbe.

Which is entirely different from the last real War Israel has fought, with any kind of effectiveness, which was the Yom Kippur War. Great tank and air engagements, the Egyptians nearly over-running the country, achieving great tactical surprise of the Israeli forces, but hampered by poor logistics (had they had better supply, they would have wiped Israel out to the last man and woman and child). Egypt nearly won, but their pause in operational tempo allowed Israel to regroup, rush defenders from Syria and Jordanian areas to the south, and re-engage with air superiority, routing the Egyptians as they had routed the Israelis days earlier.

In this, victory was won by not panicking during almost certain defeat, withdrawing in as much good order as possible, moving resources from less critical fronts, coordinating attacks over a broad front with artillery, tanks, and air assets, along with infantry. And in the end, Israeli tank gunners and infantry men killing the enemy at fairly close range. Bloody work more akin to Normandy than Entebbe.

Hardly anyone is left who understands this. Barak is a disaster and Israel as a practical matter DARES NOT to enter into Gaza because it is a death trap for unprepared forces as Israel’s really is.

Hamas has taken note of Hezbollah’s success and built fortified positions, for years, with concrete bunkers rivaling that on Okinawa or Iwo Jima. Fields of fire carefully prepared, from concrete fortified fighting positions. Tank traps and mines and booby traps and anti-tank positions prepared years in advance. The entire place is one giant Iwo Jima with human shields.

It is theoretically possible for Israel to take that place by using lots of high explosives, artillery, air assets, in combination with engineering teams and so forth, but tanks are fairly useless as anything but targets in Gaza.

Israel does not even have close to the equipment (basically, lots of ROVs in the form of armored bulldozers, machine gun platforms, etc. to take on the fortified fighting positions spread throughout Gaza). This means working closely with the Combat Engineers and there Barak failed completely. He can’t even conceive of an operation that is obvious, “Roman” i.e. Combat and Combat Engineer oriented, and that does not rely on stealth and speed.

Entebbe was daring and dangerous. But as a model for Israel’s real war-fighting needs about as far as you can get from Gaza.

If Israel wants to take Gaza, it will have to grind it out, yard by yard, with lots of remotely operated vehicles (to keep their own casualties down) and slowly press the Gazans into Egypt. Otherwise it’s a few impotent air strikes, bad publicity, and demonstrated impotence of Israel’s forces against well dug in enemies.

If Israel does not want this repeated on it’s Syrian and Jordanian and Lebanese and Egyptian borders, it better find an answer to the problem of dug in enemies fast.

I have zero confidence that a “romantic” Special Ops guy could even think one up, much less oversee anything of that nature. For that you’d need a Combat Engineer. Which Israel does not have in senior leadership.

[Israel should strike from the Sea also, it's likely that Hamas has not really contemplated a Normandy style landing and prepared lots of defenses there, and strike out in both directions to cut Gaza in half ala Iwo.]

Dec 30, 2008 - 3:01 am 21. BulgarWheat:

This reminds me too much of 2006. I’m not sure that the Israeli politician’s have the stomach to finish the job that ultimately will need to be done. The IDF is very capable, but the politician’s lack the will.

2009 is going to be a very interesting year. Not necessarily nice, but certainly interesting.

Dec 30, 2008 - 5:27 am 22. LarryD:

Egypt and Jordan originally created the “Palestinian problem” as a form of low-intensity, deniable, non-conventional warfare against Israel. But given what the Palestinians have become, you can’t blame them now for not wanting them back.

Dec 30, 2008 - 9:24 am 23. Barry Meislin:

Um, except that Ehud Barak was not the Minister of Defense in the 2006 war with Hezbullah.

Dec 30, 2008 - 9:32 am 24. davidingeorgia:

so much for the necessary will…this is the spineless, feckless Israeli gov’t that I know and have zero respect for ever since Sharon died:

FNC is reporting that Israel is considering a “temporary halt” to its military operations in (over) Gaza to give Hamas a chance to agree to a ceasefire…

perfect…what you’re doing is working so far, and you actually have some Arab leaders giving you a tacit green light to go ahead and finish the job, and what do you do? well, you quit…and give Hamas an excellent opportunity to rearm and redeploy (away from the areas that Israel has so painstakingly gathered intel on for the last 6 months or so)…

I repeat…see also, Lebanon and Hezbollah.

You won’t see Israel fight anything to the necessary “bitter end” until the current group of wussies get voted out of office…if the Israeli people are ever smart enough to do that. And, I’m beginning to have doubts about that, too.

Dec 30, 2008 - 9:35 am 25. cfbleachers:

Israel has a near mirror image of the “preemptive strike” problem we had with Saddam in Iraq. Only worse.

Our dilemma, especially after 9-11…(which served as merely as an alarm clock apparently, upon which we have sleepily pushed the snooze button), was whether to allow radical terrorists to have free reign to flaunt state sponsorship for their increasingly brazen malevolence.

What has been conspiratorially hidden by a complicit press and forgotten so swiftly by an ill-informed and easily misled public, is that the whole defense aparatus of the Clinton administration (Clinton, Gore, Berger, Albright and Cohen) went not only public, …but MEDIA-BLITZ-PUBLIC…with their warnings about the dangers of Saddam and global terrorism forming an alliance that posed a clear and present danger to the US, our allies and civilization at large. Saddam’s willingness, even eagerness to assist global terrorism was the greatest threat to mankind, and they all…and each of them…said so.

They were telling the truth. And because they had liberal democrat bona fides, the press willingly complied with getting that message out…without any serious dissent or examination.

It was there position that Saddam needed to be stopped, before he implemented a plan or plans to unhatch, causing all manner of death and destruction against the West, our allies, but most especially….us.

This history and the media’s acceptance of it does not comport well with the current deconstruction of George W. Bush and the Republican’s defense aparatus “motives, maneuvers and manners” all of which the conspiratorial press sought and still seeks to destroy.

However, the point remains, that without state sponsorship and mullahfia “protection”, global terrorism is not the same beast.

The “Bush Doctrine” so famously used to ensnare Gov. Palin by Charlie Gibson of not waiting in our pajamas, holding a baseball bat in our upstairs bedrooms, while we listen to the sounds of burglars breaking and entering through a sliding glass door in the den…has taken on a sinister twist in the hands of a conspiracy-ridden leftist press. WE, of course, are the bad guys for bashing the head of the burglar before he raped, pillaged and plundered.

In the hands of a conspiratorial and dishonest leftist press, we attacked an unarmed innocent, whose past rap sheet is of no significance to whether he intended to commit a crime against us THIS time. We picked a fight with him, because we wanted his “goodies”, because we are “bullies”, because ….well, because “neo-cons” in general and Republicans in specific are simply Neanderthals who can only think with their fists. You know…jocks in high school being reported on by the drama club kids in the high school paper.

Israel has the mirror problem. “Post-emptive” strikes buy them no relief from the conspiracy of leftist drama clubbers. Hamas, an Iranian puppet of the mullahfia, gets provocative at their whim…or more likely…at the direction of their handlers, and Israel is forced to “take it in silence”…or suffer propagandized condemnation.

The “Putsch” Doctrine is imposed upon them by the same stench of conspiracy, only without the convenience of “the burglar didn’t do anything wrong”. In this instance, the argument goes to ridiculous extremes of illogic and sophistry. The burglar has blood on his hands, the silverware in a bag and is unhooking all the electronics, but bashing him in the head with a baseball bat was “excessive” retaliation.

Making him a spot of tea and calling in the crooked and bribed police is the answer. When they are not stealing food for oil, the constables (accent on the “con”) men will solve all the problems. Usually by looking the other way as the mullahfia build a bigger and bigger criminal enterprise and writing up yet another report or “resolution” condemning the victims of the crime.

Israel will ALWAYS be painted as aggressor and never as victim by the conspiratorial press. The same game of “hide the facts” will take place, as it does here. The relentless distortion of facts will operate in the exact same manner. The AP, Reuters, the BBC will conspire to “paint the picture” as they wish it to be seen, not as it is.

And therein lies the Hobson’s Choice. Suffer the Black Hand or suffer slander. The role of the press in this monstrous conspiracy should not be forgotten or excused. They have acted as active warriors in the promotion of global terrorism through their acts and deeds of distortion and deception. Had the condemnation of acts been focused on the perpetrators and not on the victims, it would have lost popularity and championing…and it would be easier to defang.

The media instead feeds the beast and makes it more deadly. And may they rot in hell for all eternity for that.

Dec 30, 2008 - 9:54 am 26. cfbleachers:

there position=their position

Dec 30, 2008 - 9:55 am 27. buddy larsen:

To fully understand his “war to the bitter end” comment, here’s a little info from the Ehud Barak wiki. The prose is pretty dry. I have no idea how many Americans remember much of these things –the tide-turn of the Yom Kippur War at the Battle of the Chinese Farms, the rescue of passengers at Lod Airport, the Raid on Entebbe, the tracking down and killing (one by one, over years, all over the world) of the Munich Olympics murderers, et cetera. That’s to scratch the surface, and Ehud Barak, that soft-spoken, humble little fellow, either led or officered –in combat –in ‘touch’ hand-to-hand with the enemy –every one of those mentioned plus many more. Go look at the wiki –then next time he comes on TV with his soft-spoken thick-accented English, you’ll know who’s talking.

Barak earned his bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1968, and his master’s degree in engineering-economic systems in 1978 from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

Ehud Brog joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 1959. At that time he decided to change his name to “Barak”, which means “lightning” or “shine” in Hebrew. He served in the IDF for 35 years, rising to the position of Chief of the General Staff and the rank of Rav Aluf, the highest in the Israeli military. During the Yom Kippur War, Barak commanded an improvised regiment of tanks which among other things, helped rescue paratrooper battalion 890 commanded by Yitzhak Mordechai who were suffering heavy losses in the Battle of the Chinese Farm.

During his service as a commando in the elite Sayeret Matkal, Barak led several highly acclaimed operations, such as: “Operation Isotope”, the rescue mission to free the hostages onboard Sabena Flight 572 at Lod Airport in 1972; the 1973 covert mission Operation Spring of Youth in Beirut, in which he was disguised as a woman in order to assassinate members of the Palestine Liberation Organization; Barak was also a key architect of the June 1976 Operation Entebbe, another rescue mission to free the hostages of the Air France aircraft hijacked by terrorists and forced to land at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda. These highly acclaimed operations, along with Operation Bayonet led to the dismantling of Palestinian terrorist cell Black September and a decline in international terrorism for over 20 years[citation needed]. It has been alluded that Barak also masterminded the Tunis Raid on April 16, 1988, in which PLO leader Abu Jihad was assassinated.

Later he served as head of Aman, the Military Intelligence Directorate (1983-1985), head of Central Command (1986 - 1987) and Deputy Chief of the General Staff (1987-1991). He served Chief of the General Staff between April 1, 1991 and January 1, 1995. During this period he implemented the first Oslo Accords and participated in the negotiations towards the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace.

Barak was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service and four Chief of Staff citations (Tzalash HaRamatcal) for courage and operational excellence. These five decorations make him the most decorated soldier in Israeli history (jointly with Nechemya Cohen). In addition he was awarded in 1993 the Legion of Merit (Commander) by the United States[1]

Barak is also an expert in krav maga, the official martial art of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Dec 30, 2008 - 10:26 am 28. buddy larsen:

(i’m sorry –forgot to quote –all but my first para is straight from the wiki)

Dec 30, 2008 - 10:36 am 29. @Frank:

Here’s hoping WW3 extends into your backyard. The quicker the fight ends, the quicker you’ll shut up.

Dec 30, 2008 - 12:01 pm 30. davidingeorgia:

buddy…I remember all that stuff, thank you very much, and if this was Israel and the Israeli leadership of a generation or two back, I wouldn’t be doubting what they’d do in this situation…and I’m not questioning Barak’s personal heroism (actually, he’s one of my favorite Israeli lefties), but all the stuff you and his other defenders keep bringing up happened a LONG time ago…

and even if I bought into the idea of Barak being willing to do the bitter end thing, HE IS NOT THE BOSS over there…he’s taking orders from as spineless a bunch of politicians as has ever been in charge of Israel. And they’ll pull back before finishing the job. Count on it.

Dec 30, 2008 - 2:41 pm 31. lucklucky:

“except that Ehud Barak was not the Minister of Defense in the 2006 war with Hezbullah.”

I made a confusion, he retired the troops from Lebanon and was not Defense Minister. I apologise for my mistake.

Dec 30, 2008 - 8:55 pm 32. buddy larsen:

I dunno, david –it’s the same guy –you’re the same guy you were 20 years ago, right (i’d say 30 but you may be too young)? “Spineless” is a rough word –don’t buy that “Hez victory 2006″ –clearly Hez doesn’t want another taste or else they’d be throwing stuff by now. When you say the gov’t “won’t finish the job” i’d ask if you’ve thought that through. What you mean, that is.

Dec 31, 2008 - 3:45 am 33. Sam Gilon:

The Palestinians are faced with two alternatives: turn the Gaza Strip into another Hong-Kong or turn it into another Chechnya.
Apparently they have chosen the second alternative, something which we, Israelis, should be happily to oblige these days…

People who live by choice (theirs and their leadership’s) in squalor, and who by choice are permanent basket cases of UNRWA, need humanitarian aid in the form of an army of psychiatrists to cure them from their derangement, which within two generations has reached genetic proportions.

Dec 31, 2008 - 10:54 am 34. buddy larsen:

They probably had a chance to join the world of sane creatures –if only Arafat had died ten years sooner, when it had become clear to anyone looking that the UN had created such a perfect rifle-shot incentive for just the perfect sort of monster clique to fatten on the UN sea of moral hazard, that’s it’s hard to believe the vast squalor and turpitude exists to serve in the background of a distant & seemingly unconnected larger plan.

In fact it’s so outrageous that the only people who will ever admit believing it have to first stammer & blush “but please understand, i HATE Joe McCarthy” before they can own up to seeing all those threads leading back to 1917 Moscow and the Kremlin where a few thousand dedicated eastern illuminati keep the nightmare alive and the Lenin unburied.

Dec 31, 2008 - 4:52 pm 35. davidingeorgia:

buddy…”Hezbollah victory” to me equals Hezbollah still being around to cause problems at the end of the war, and the Israelis allowed that to happen…if anything, vis a vis the Lebanese gov’t, Hezbollah is in BETTER shape now than it was before 2006…yes, I’m sure Israel won the body count part of the war, but that means very little when you’re fighting people like Hez and Hamas.

and I’m afraid that I’ll stick with “spineless”…when you’re in charge of protecting the safety of your citizens and you let political pressure stop you from doing that, then that qualifies as spineless, gutless, feckless as far as I’m concerned (shrug)…I tend to be blunt, no offense intended…and no, I am most decidedly NOT the same person I was 20-30 (unfortunately plenty old enough for the 30 years to work…lol) years ago, not in many important ways, and I seriously doubt Ehud Barak is either…see link below…apparently he’s the one arguing FOR giving Hamas a breather to rearm and redeploy:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/31/israel-rejects-gaza-ceasefire-move

re: Arafat…the Israeli’s big mistake - the one that may well end in the nation’s destruction eventually - is that they let the Americans and Euros talk them into letting the bastard and his thugs back into the country in the first place…the Palestinian areas were a completely different - much better and improving - world until he was let back in to turn it into the terrorist disaster area it is today…this would be another good time for the Israelis to wake up and ignore what the Euros and Americans (as George W Bush continues his descent in feckless, unreliable ally land) are telling them to do about Hamas…stay the course, finish the job…it would be far better to have never bothered starting this if you don’t go all the way, just as it turned out with Hezbollah.

As for what I mean by finishing it?

Every…last…terrorist…dead. At least, every last one close enough to directly attack citizens of Israel in their own country. Why in the world Israelis insist on believing that stopping short of that - “showing mercy” as it were - will do them a solitary bit of good with the people and nations and media around the world who hate them, I have never been able to figure out. If you’re going to be hated by as many groups/nations as Jews and Israelis are hated by, then you damn well better make sure you are also feared if you want to survive. I’m not sure the Israelis have the stomach for that sort of thing anymore (and surely not the current political leaders), hence my skepticism about this new round of fighting accomplishing much of anything other than more bad PR for Israel. I hate to say it, but that’s my read. I would love for them to prove me wrong, but I ain’t holding my breath.

Jan 1, 2009 - 6:53 am 36. Boatbulder:

cfBleachers–well said!

Jan 1, 2009 - 7:53 am 37. buddy larsen:

That was well put David, and probably full of truth. Brings to mind tho that the big picture is a liberal democracy of a few million isolated citizens by all objective measures continues to thrive despite a relentless sixty year assault on its being by an enemy which in local form alone outnumbers it a hundred to one –and has the whip hand on global energy supplies to boot. So ya gotta see some success somewhere from at least that perspective. Can anyone know for certain that the “80% strategy” on repelling attack isn’t the only one that works –as maddening as it is? Israel broke the two largest attacks –67 and 73 –and had the roads to Cairo and Damascus wide open and a few hours away. But then what? What physical territory can tiny Israel occupy, pacify, deny? IOW, if time alone is the medium of victory –that is, waiting out the rampage, then rope-a-doping the Beast as it were may be the only way. Just for argument’s sake, of course, but look back into history and see the reach & fall pattern of nations.

Jan 1, 2009 - 3:48 pm

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