Blogging the world around me.
Coverage of the meetings of the Macon County Board of County Commissioners.
Coverage of the meetings of the Franklin Town Board of Aldermen.
Coverage of the meetings of the Macon County School Board.
Photos from my photoblog.
During the night, the IAF attacked a vehicle in which Mamduq Jammal was driving. Jammal is a Hamas battalion commander who is also involved in rocket launching and is in charge of the rocket launching squads in the Gaza City area.
Other Hamas terrorist targets attacked by IAF aircraft during the night:
· A college building in El-Atatra used by Hamas for terrorist purposes. The college was a base for firing rockets at Israeli communities and was also used as a place of hiding and rocket assembly by Hamas operatives.
· The house of Hamas terror operative Ismail Renam in Bet-Lehiya, northern Gaza Strip, which functioned as a weaponry storage, specifically for rocket launching equipment. Renam has a central role in the launching of Grad type rockets against Israel.
· The house of Azadin Hadad, a Hamas terror operative in Gaza City, that was used to orchestrate terror activity and as a meeting place for terror operatives. Hadad is the head of the Hamas military group in Eastern Gaza city.
· A vehicle from which a Hamas operative loaded weapons into a storage place in Nuseirat.
The Israeli Navy also took part in the attacks, targeting a number of Hamas outposts, training camps and rocket launching sites.
Overall, more than 25 Hamas and other terrorist sites were attacked since yesterday evening. The forces reported accurate hits. All of the Israeli forces returned to their bases safely.
The IDF will continue to persistently strike any site used in Hamas’ terrorist effort and will not cease acting against all terror organizations and those who actively support them.
This is the gun camera footage from the recent hit on a mosque that was being used to store weapons. Note the large secondary explosion. To my knowledge, Korans don't blow up like that. Sure, the people who read it often blow themselves up...but that is another story.
This was a place where rockets were being stored underground.
...our doctrine is to target the enemies army, security services, and support apparatus. But it is known that Zionist society is a militarized society. Service in the army is mandatory; and reserve duty continues past the age of 40. ...we will not accept giving the enemy a free hand against our civilians.
I got there just in time to see a cop pinning the guy in the white shirt to the pavement.
So this guy and I are the only two who volunteered to be witnesses for him; So I scurried back down...I got there just in time to see a cop pinning the guy in the white shirt to the pavement.
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Over the past week, I have been monitoring the situation in the Middle East closely with the members of my national security team. Secretary Rice is actively engaged in diplomacy. And I've been in contact with leaders throughout the region -- including the King of Saudi Arabia, the King of Jordan, the President of Egypt, the President and Prime Minister of the Palestinian Territories, and the Prime Minister of Israel.
This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas -- a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel's destruction. Eighteen months ago, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup, and since then has imported thousands of guns and rockets and mortars. Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, but Hamas routinely violated that ceasefire by launching rockets into Israel. On December 19th, Hamas announced an end to the ceasefire and soon unleashed a barrage of rockets and mortars that deliberately targeted innocent Israelis -- an act of terror that is opposed by the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, President Abbas.
The United States is deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation facing the Palestinian people. Since Hamas's violent takeover in the summer of 2007, living conditions have worsened for Palestinians in Gaza. By spending its resources on rocket launchers instead of roads and schools, Hamas has demonstrated that it has no intention of serving the Palestinian people. America has helped by providing tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, and this week we contributed an additional $85 million through the United Nations. We have consistently called on all in the region to ensure that assistance reaches those in need. And as I told President Mubarak, America appreciates the role Egypt has played in facilitating the delivery of relief supplies in recent days.
In addition to reducing humanitarian suffering, all nations must work toward a lasting end to the violence in the Holy Land, and a return to the path of peace. The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful ceasefire that is fully respected. Another one-way ceasefire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable. And promises from Hamas will not suffice -- there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end. I urge all parties to pressure Hamas to turn away from terror, and to support legitimate Palestinian leaders working for peace.
In the days ahead, the United States will stay closely engaged with our partners in the region, in Europe, and in the international community. My Administration will continue to keep the President-elect and his team informed. And America's objectives in the Middle East will remain clear: We seek security and peace for our allies, the free people of Israel. For the Palestinian people, we seek a peaceful and democratic Palestinian state that serves its citizens and respects its neighbors. For all in the region, we seek an end to terror. And we seek an enduring peace based on justice, dignity, and human rights for every person in every nation of the Middle East.
Thank you for listening.
# # #
The past year has seen significant developments in the Long War. Pakistan teeters on a civil war and a potential war with India after Taliban gains and an attack launched on Mumbai from within Pakistan. India has emerged as a central battlefield in the war. Iraq has dealt major defeats to al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army, and is moving towards reconciliation. Afghanistan experienced the worst year since the US invasion to oust the Taliban in 2001. A “surge” in Afghanistan will take place this year. Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon, and the West has no plan to avert the crisis. Al Qaeda is poised to retake control of Somalia. Yemen remains an al Qaeda sanctuary.
The battles continue in lesser known theaters. The US struck a senior al Qaeda leader in Syria while Imad Mugniyah was assassinated in Damascus. The Philippines made progress against its Islamic insurgency and dealt blows to Abu Sayyaf and the radical Rajah Solaiman Movement. Indonesia has driven Jemaah Islamiyah underground. Algeria fought a low-intensity terror insurgency with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Source: The Long War Journal (read the entire article over there)
For previous editions, see:
It’s not about the land. It’s about the Jews. Former Prime Minister (and current Defense Minister) Ehud Barak, in 2000, offered the “moderate” Yasser Arafat (a man who was so “moderate” that he invoked the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah when discussing the Oslo Accords) the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a divided capital in Jerusalem, and billions of dollars to assist with the Palestinian refugees. Arafat just needed to declare once and for all that the conflict was over. What did Arafat do? Trash the negotiations, walk away without offering an alternative, and start up a new round of suicide bombings against innocent Israelis. President Bill Clinton, who had moderated the peace brokerage, was told by Arafat later that he was a great man. “The hell I am,” said Clinton, “I’m a failure, and you made me one.” Clinton had it coming for ever trusting Arafat. And anyone who thinks that Hamas can be negotiated with rather than crushed into the ground is even more naive. Because it’s not about the land. It’s about the Jews. It’s about Islam. It’s about jihad.
Fact: The defense agents of Hamas, the elected party of the Palestinian territories, were firing weapons into Israel from the Gaza Strip, culminating in the death of a civilian.
Fact: The agents of Hamas were targeting civilians.
Fact: Israel sent warnings beforehand to the civilians in the areas that they’d be targeting to get out if the areas they were in had any connections to terrorism.
Fact: Israel specifically targeted Hamas agents, and the majority of those killed by Israel have indeed been Hamas agents.
Fact: Israel is offering treatment of Palestinian civilians injured by the attacks in their own hospitals. Hamas would never do this, because the goal was to kill as many Israelis as possible.
Fact: Hamas will never recognize Israel’s right to exist, as stated in the group’s own charter.
Fact: Hamas cannot be negotiated with, because the Qur’an cannot be abrogated.
Israel is not responsible for the current-day plight of Palestine. The ruling class in Palestine, the one that restricts freedom of information, blocks liberalization, infects schoolbooks with anti-Semitic hatred, endorses the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and endorses intentional civilian-killing, is.
Source: Race 4 2012
Commentary
Laying the ground work in opposition of the lies of the terrorist-loving left.
Two Grad-type Katyusha rockets landed in a residential neighborhood, both scoring direct hits on two separate apartment buildings. Two more rockets landed in open areas.
According to Magen David Adom, one woman suffered shrapnel wounds and a number of other people were treated for severe emotional trauma in a two-story building. Several people were also being treated for emotional shock in a four-story building that was hit as well.
Two short-range Kassam rockets struck the western Negev city of Sderot during the same launch. One resident was slightly wounded in the attack. A third Kassam rocket also hit the Netivot area. No casualties were reported in that attack.
In the Sdot Negev region, one short-range rocket scored a direct hit on a greenhouse in an agricultural community. Two other rockets landed in open areas. Firefighters raced to the scene to extinguish any blaze ignited by the explosion.
A 27-year-old Danish Palestinian denies attempting to kill two young Israeli men, but he has been remanded in custody for four weeks. However, the 27-year-old acknowledges that he had a gun.
The violent events in Gaza are probably why the two young Israeli men were shot down in Rosengårdcentret in Odense.
This can be deduced from a preliminary interrogation this evening, where a 27-year-old man held in custody — who was born in Lebanon — was brought in.
Prosecutor Bo Hjeds asked for a closed-door session in consideration of Denmark’s relations with foreign powers — including Israel. And he justified the demand with respect for the victims’ safety, since he believed that a case that was open to the public could hamper police investigative work.
There is a difference in Just War theory between proportionality and discrimination. The latter means that a belligerent must identify enemy locations, personnel or facilities that are valid military-related targets and which are not. A command headquarters is valid. A schoolhouse is not. Yet a combatant does not gain immunity from attack of its headquarters by locating it inside a schoolhouse. The Geneva Conventions specifically forbid the militarization of protected facilities and also state that once they are militarized they are no longer protected.
That's discrimination - taking the necessary steps to minimize (not eliminate) noncombatant casualties. Proportionality means using the violence necessary to achieve the just end of the campaign, but not more violence than necessary. It does not mean trying to make a calculus of violence where Israel cannot use more than Hamas.
As I pointed out in "Intentional Lethality," Israel's attacks are intended to do four main things:
1. Kill as many high-level Hamas figures as possible. 2. Reduce the ranks of Hamas rank and file by causing casualties among them.
3. Provide disincentives for Gazans' support of Hamas' control of their political future and hence,
4. Delegitimize Hamas' authority.
This is to say, Israel's objective is not simply to stop the rocket attacks for now, but permanently. Is that objective a just aim of its warfare against Hamas? Most certainly. Hence, Israel's obligation to the principle of proportionality is twofold: One, not to use more violence than necessary to achieve that end, but second - and this is critically overlooked by critics - to employ the level of violence necessary to attain the end. In other words, Just War theory says that if the aim of the war is just, then it is waging unjust war to stop short of attaining the just end or to fail to use the measures necessary to attain it.
Thursday marked the sixth day of Israel's Cast Lead Operation against Hamas. The IAF aimed to hit twenty Hamas targets the night prior, after Israeli civilian areas were attacked on Wednesday night with five rockets from Gaza. Three of the rockets landed as far at Batsheeba (30 miles from Gaza) and two landed in Netivott. Batsheeba's alarm system was malfunctioning, but no deaths resulted from either attack.
In the meantime, thousands in the US took to the streets to protest on both sides of the conflict. In some cities like Dearborn, Michigan, a hotbed of Islamic radicalism, the protests were staunchly pro-Palestinian. In other major cities like NY, Boston, and LA there were more pro-Israel rallies.
Since Saturday, Israel has hit hundreds of Hamas-affiliated sites from the air as well as navy vessels. She is targeting Hamas' military facilities, administrative buildings (where they plan terrorist operations), tunnels created for weapons-smuggling, and the homes of Hamas terrorists. The number of estimated deaths is 369 Palestinians, around 300 of whom were Hamas-affiliated, and 4 Israelis. Amongst those who died is Sheik Niza Rayyan, who was considered a possible successor of the Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin. Two of his four wives, and four of his twelve children were also killed. Prior to the attack, his family was warned to leave the building, but they refused. Still, most of the Hamas leaders remain alive, hiding in underground bunkers. Approximately 20,000 Hamas fighters also remain unscathed and likely possess anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft guns.
What struck my eye was a posting in the English section of the site. It contains an interview with Hamas' English-language spokesman, Abu Obaida, from a year ago. Here's one Q&A:
What is the justification behind the martyrdom operations against the " Israeli" civilians?
There is no justification for targeting civilians. It is against Islam to deliberately kill unarmed civilians during jihad. In addition, our doctrine is to target the enemies army, security services, and support apparatus. But it is known that Zionist society is a militarized society. Service in the army is mandatory; and reserve duty continues past the age of 40. Our determined stance is that unarmed persons on both sides of the conflict should be left out of the fighting. However, we will not accept giving the enemy a free hand against our civilians.
2 January 2009: Doug Hagmann will be a guest on The Pat Campbell Show today at 7:35 AM ET, 6:35 AM CT, on AM 1170 KFAQ in Tulsa, OK for discussion about the events taking place in Gaza as outlined in an exclusive interview with a high-randking U.S. Intelligence official.
Pat Campbell, hard-hitting, no-nonsense host of The Pat Campbell Show can be heard on AM 1170 KFAQ in Tulsa, OK, Monday through Friday from 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM CT. The program is also available on Pat's PODCAST Page if you miss it live.
Pat is a frequent guest on Fox News and his BLOG is a must read every day.
Things are heating up. "Gaza rockets put Israel’s nuclear plant in battle zone," by James Hider in the Times, January 2 (thanks to Sr. Soph):
There were growing fears in Israel last night that Hamas missiles could threaten its top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona.
Rocket attacks from Gaza have forced Israelis to flee in ever greater numbers and military chiefs have been shaken by the size and sophistication of the militant group’s arsenal.
In Beersheba, until a few days ago a sleepy desert town in southern Israel, there is little sign of the 186,000 inhabitants. Schools are closed and the streets of shuttered shops echo with the howl of sirens warning of incoming rockets....
Israeli officials say that Hamas has also acquired dozens of Iranian-made Fajr-3 missiles with an even longer range. Many fear that as the group acquires ever more sophisticated weaponry it is only a matter of time before the nuclear installation at Dimona, 20 miles east of Beersheba, falls within its sights. Dimona houses Israel’s only nuclear reactor and is believed to be where nuclear warheads are stored.
That is why Gaza exists: because the Palestinians who lived in Ashkelon and the fields around it – Askalaan in Arabic – were dispossessed from their lands in 1948 when Israel was created and ended up on the beaches of Gaza. They – or their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren – are among the one and a half million Palestinian refugees crammed into the cesspool of Gaza, 80 per cent of whose families once lived in what is now Israel. This, historically, is the real story: most of the people of Gaza don’t come from Gaza.
But watching the news shows, you’d think that history began yesterday, that a bunch of bearded anti-Semitic Islamist lunatics suddenly popped up in the slums of Gaza – a rubbish dump of destitute people of no origin – and began firing missiles into peace-loving, democratic Israel, only to meet with the righteous vengeance of the Israeli air force. The fact that the five sisters killed in Jabalya camp had grandparents who came from the very land whose more recent owners have now bombed them to death simply does not appear in the story.”
And from the comments come these gems of stupidity...
fighting fire with fire hasn’t worked yet…but maybe this time!…What’s the definition of insanity again?
and
The problem with this approach is that American Exceptionalism has left us barely able to imagine being in other people’s shoes. So we explain the world to ourselves through ridiculous platitudes like we’re good and they’re evil, that actually explain nothing and leave us as confused as when we started. We just don’t do empathy very well.
Uptown:
The third paragraph states a lie about Ashkelon. From Wikipedia:
In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Arab village of Majdal in the Ashkelon region was the forward position of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force based in Gaza. The village was occupied by Israeli forces on November 5, 1948 and the Arab population fled to Gaza together with retreating Egyptian Army.
My response is here.
(IsraelNN.com) Magen David Adom was put on its highest state of alert nationwide Wednesday by MDA Israel Director-General Eli Bin. This is the first time that MDA is on top alert throughout Israel, and not just in specific regions.
Several reasons were given for the high alert:
• The growing number of communities under threat of missile attack by Hamas.
• The concern that violence will get worse on Friday, which the Muslims often use for rioting, and that Arab citizens and residents of Israel will take part in riots.
• Specific intelligence warnings regarding terror attacks that are being planned by Arabs in Judea and Samaria and elsewhere.
• The civil New Year’s Day which is often accompanied by drunken driving accidents and violence between celebrants.
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