It is very apparent now that the invasion to stop Hamas, has only elevated their support around the world.
Israel has made a grave mistake.
Re: A Decisive loss for Israel
These people expect sympathy for Nazi attacks that should now be consigned to history, yet they launch a holocaust on a defenseless country. They have made a concentration camp out of a strip of land, and expect the world, Hamas and palestinians to take it.
The only thing I have to say to the Palestinians is, ' In-Allah m-ah Sabereen', and indeed you will be rewarded.
Re: A Decisive loss for Israel
After Hizb-U-llah, Hamas has emerged one of the regional power, before Isreal and West were not ready to acknowledge any role of Hamas in the political arena, now they are known as power broker. so who win and who lost... it is evident
It is very apparent now that the invasion to stop Hamas, has only elevated their support around the world.
Israel has made a grave mistake.
The goal, which was stated, was to stop rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. Also stated was that Israel had no intention of toppling Hamas.
The rocket fire has stopped, Hamas has gained no further support (least you confuse international concern for Palestinians for support of Hamas) . Now you state this has been a grave mistake on Israel's part, could you explain why?
Hamas has indeed gained unprecedented popularity over the last few weeks. From Britain to Indonesia. Hamas is a democratically elected resistance movement. Resistance? Against the terrorist state of Israel. Created on land on which the blood of Palestinians has spilled.
There is a change of tactic from the USA administration, with Barack Hussein Obama's inauguration address clearly stated diplomacy and hand of friendship to Muslim nations. This ultimately means sitting down and dealing with Hamas.
The current economic climate makes it very difficult for the USA to keep pumping tax dollars into Israel or trying to prop up other nations. They are gonna call in their markers. As you may or may not recall from history lessons that Hitler's rise to power was fuelled by Americans wanting back their money from Germany. They stopped sponsoring the Weimar republic during the onset of the great depression.
Re: A Decisive loss for Israel
^ Israel is going to create another false-flag (that's what they're good at), and drag USA into war. Don't believe me? Just wait and see.
I doubt it.
Palestinian fighters have fired more rockets from Gaza despite the ongoing full-scale Israeli offensive against the coastal strip.
Israeli media says Palestinian fighters fired at least three Qassam rockets at the Eshkol region in the western Negev on Saturday.
^ Israel is going to create another false-flag (that's what they're good at), and drag USA into war. Don't believe me? Just wait and see.
I actually agree. I've been racking my brain as to when the next big war is going to be and between who. I guess I know who'll sponsor it but where will it be? India / Pakistan? Iran v Anonther?
Its a classic technique to get out of economic meltdown. e.g. WW2 built up and followed the 1930's depression. the napoleonic wars after a period of economic instability etc etc. And each time a select group of people profitted.
**
It was a horrible loss for Gazans.**
1200+ people perished and $billions worth of destruction occurred. Anyone trying to sell this as Israeli loss must be living in a green colored la la land.
** It was a horrible loss for Gazans.**
Just like Karbala was a horrible loss for Imam Hussain. Oh wait....
Just like Karbala was a horrible loss for Imam Hussain. Oh wait....
Do not try to derail the discussion.
How many rockets has Hezbollah launched since 2006 war?
So please, Israel has neutralized both Hezbollah in 2006 and now Hamas in 2009
They know that if they launch more rockets, they can expect another 1,000 casualties…
The rocket attack in the link is from 2 weeks ago. The message sent by Israel is that from this point on rocket fire will not be tolerated and that there will be a response to it. Thus far, since the operation has ended, no rockets have fallen onto Israel. This is a good development for all of those involved.
It is very apparent now that the invasion to stop Hamas, has only elevated their support around the world.
Israel has made a grave mistake.
Bhai mere, Jews, and Christians are closer to us, the muslims, than Hindus or Sikhs are- why are you so upset with Israel? The teachings of the Torah are similar to what we learn, hence we should be friendly with the yahudi quam.. Allah(swt) aapko aqal de.
Do not try to derail the discussion.
Quite a pathetic response expected from you.
So please, Israel has neutralized both Hezbollah in 2006 and now Hamas in 2009
And that's why Hezbollah has won elections in Lebanon and has the support of the majority of the population.
The myth of Israel’s strategic genius
Mon, 01/19/2009 - 12:00pm
Many supporters of Israel will not criticize its behavior, even when it is engaged in brutal and misguided operations like the recent onslaught on Gaza. In addition to their understandable reluctance to say anything that might aid Israel’s enemies, this tendency is based in part on the belief that Israel’s political and military leaders are exceptionally smart and thoughtful strategists who understand their threat environment and have a history of success against their adversaries. If so, then it makes little sense for outsiders to second-guess them.
This image of Israeli strategic genius has been nurtured by Israelis over the years and seems to be an article of faith among neoconservatives and other hardline supporters of Israel in the United States. It also fits nicely with the wrongheaded but still popular image of Israel as the perennial David facing a looming Arab Goliath; in this view, only brilliant strategic thinkers could have consistently overcome the supposedly formidable Arab forces arrayed against them.
The idea that Israelis possess some unique strategic acumen undoubtedly reflects a number of past military exploits, including the decisive victories in the 1948 War of Independence, the rapid conquest of the Sinai in 1956, the daredevil capture of Adolf Eichmann in 1960, the stunning Israeli triumph at the beginning of the 1967 Six Day War, and the intrepid hostage rescue at Entebbe in 1976.
These tactical achievements are part of a larger picture, however, and that picture is not a pretty one. Israel has also lost several wars in the past – none of them decisively, of course – and its ability to use force to achieve larger strategic objectives has declined significantly over time. This is why Israelis frequently speak of the need to restore their “deterrent”; they are aware that occasional tactical successes have not led to long-term improvements in their overall security situation. The assault on Gaza is merely the latest illustration of this worrisome tendency.
What does the record show?
Back in 1956, Israel, along with Britain and France, came up with a harebrained scheme to seize the Suez Canal and topple Nasser’s regime in Egypt. (This was after an Israeli raid on an Egyptian army camp in Gaza helped convince Nasser to obtain arms from the Soviet Union). Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion initially hoped that Israel would be allowed to conquer and absorb the West Bank, parts of the Sinai, and portions of Lebanon, but Britain and France quickly scotched that idea. The subsequent attack was a military success but a strategic failure: the invaders were forced to disgorge the lands they seized while Nasser’s prestige soared at home and across the Arab world, fueling radicalism and intensifying anti-Israel sentiments throughout the region. The episode led Ben-Gurion to conclude that Israel should forego additional attempts to expand its borders – which is why he opposed taking the West Bank in 1967 – but his successors did not follow his wise advice.
Ten years later, Israel’s aggressive policies toward Syria and Jordan helped precipitate the crisis that led to the Six Day War. The governments of Egypt, Syria, the USSR and the United States also bear considerable blame for that war, though it was Israel’s leaders who chose to start it, even though they recognized that their Arab foes knew they were no match for the IDF and did not intend to attack Israel. More importantly, after seizing the West Bank, Golan Heights and Gaza Strip during the war, Israeli leaders decided to start building settlements and eventually incorporate them into a “greater Israel.” Thus, 1967 marks the beginning of Israel’s settlements project, a decision that even someone as sympathetic to Israel as Leon Wieseltier has described as “a moral and strategic blunder of historic proportions.” Remarkably, this momentous decision was never openly debated within the Israeli body politic.
With Israeli forces occupying the Sinai peninsula, Egypt launched the so-called War of Attrition in October 1968 in an attempt to get it back. The result was a draw on the battlefield and the two sides eventually reached a ceasefire agreement in August 1970. The war was a strategic setback for Israel, however, because Egypt and its Soviet patron used the ceasefire to complete a missile shield along the Suez Canal that could protect Egyptian troops if they attacked across the Canal to regain the Sinai. American and Israeli leaders did not recognize this important shift in the balance of power between Israel and Egypt and remained convinced that Egypt had no military options. As a result, they ignored Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s peace overtures and left him little choice but to use force to try to dislodge Israel from the Sinai. Israel then failed to detect Egypt and Syria’s mobilization in early October 1973 and fell victim to one of the most successful surprise attacks in military history. The IDF eventually rallied and triumphed, but the costs were high in a war that might easily have been avoided.
Israel’s next major misstep was the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. The invasion was the brainchild of hawkish Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who had concocted a g*****ose scheme to destroy the PLO and gain a free hand to incorporate the West Bank in “Greater Israel” and turn Jordan into “the” Palestinian state. It was a colossal strategic blunder: the PLO leadership escaped destruction and Israel’s bombardment of Beirut and its complicity in the massacres at Sabra and Shatila were widely and rightly condemned. And after initially being greeted as liberators by the Shiite population of southern Lebanon, Israel’s prolonged and heavy-handed occupation helped create Hezbollah, which soon became a formidable adversary as well as an avenue for Iranian influence on Israel’s northern border. Israel was unable to defeat Hezbollah and eventually withdrew its troops from Lebanon in 2000, having in effect been driven out by Hezbollah’s increasingly effective resistance. Invading Lebanon not only failed to solve Israel’s problem with the Palestinians, it created a new enemy that still bedevils Israel today.
In the late 1980s, Israel helped nurture Hamas – yes, the same organization that the IDF is bent on destroying today – as part of its long-standing effort to undermine Yasser Arafat and Fatah and keep the Palestinians divided. This decision backfired too, because Arafat eventually recognized Israel and agreed to negotiate a two-state solution, while Hamas emerged as a new and dangerous adversary that has refused to recognize Israel’s existence and to live in peace with the Jewish state.
The signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 offered an unprecedented chance to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all, but Israel’s leaders failed to seize the moment. Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Benjamin Netanyahu all refused to endorse the idea of a Palestinian state – even Rabin never spoke publicly about allowing the Palestinians to have a state of their own – and Ehud Barak’s belated offer of statehood at the 2000 Camp David summit did not go far enough. As Barak’s own foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, later admitted, “if I were a Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David as well.” Meanwhile, the number of settlers in the West Bank doubled during the Oslo period (1993-2001), and the Israelis built some 250 miles of connector roads in the West Bank. Palestinian leaders and U.S. officials made their own contributions to Oslo’s failure, but Israel had clearly squandered what was probably the best opportunity it will ever have to negotiate a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Barak also derailed a peace treaty with Syria in early 2000 that appeared to be a done deal, at least to President Bill Clinton, who had helped fashion it. But when public opinion polls suggested that the Israeli public might not support the deal, the Israeli Prime Minister got cold feet and the talks collapsed.
More recently, U.S. and Israeli miscalculations have gone hand-in-hand. In the wake of September 11, neoconservatives in the United States, who had been pushing for war against Iraq since early 1998, helped convince President Bush to attack Iraq as part of a larger strategy of “regional transformation.” Israeli officials were initially opposed to this scheme because they wanted Washington to go after Iran instead, but once they understood that Iran and Syria were next on the administration’s hit list they backed the plan enthusiastically. Indeed, prominent Israelis like Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu, and then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres helped sell the war in the United States, while Prime Minister Sharon and his chief aides put pressure on Washington to make sure that Bush didn’t lose his nerve and leave Saddam standing. The result? A costly quagmire for the United States and a dramatic improvement in Iran’s strategic position. Needless to say, these developments were hardly in Israel’s strategic interest.
The next failed effort was then-Prime Minister Sharon’s decision to unilaterally withdraw all of Israel’s settlers from the Gaza Strip in August 2005. Although Israel and its supporters in the West portrayed this move as a gesture towards peace, “unilateralism” was in fact part of a larger effort to derail the so-called Road Map, freeze the peace process, and consolidate Israeli control over the West Bank, thereby putting off the prospect of a Palestinian state “indefinitely.” The withdrawal was completed successfully, but Sharon’s attempt to impose peace terms on the Palestinians failed completely. Fenced in by the Israelis, the Palestinians in Gaza began firing rockets and mortars at nearby Israeli towns and then Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006. This event reflected its growing popularity in the face of Fatah’s corruption and Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank, but Jerusalem and Washington refused to accept the election results and decided instead to try to topple Hamas. This was yet another error: Hamas eventually ousted Fatah from Gaza and its popularity has continued to increase.
The Lebanon War in the summer of 2006 revealed the deficiencies of Israel’s strategic thinking with particular clarity. A cross-border raid by Hezbollah provoked an Israeli offensive intended to destroy Hezbollah’s large missile inventory and compel the Lebanese government to crack down on Hezbollah itself. However worthy these goals might have been, Israel’s strategy was doomed to fail. Air strikes could not eliminate Hezbollah’s large and well-hidden arsenal and bombing civilian areas in Lebanon merely generated more anger at Israel and raised Hezbollah’s standing among the Lebanese population and in the Arab and Islamic world as well. Nor could a belated ground attack fix the problem, as the IDF could hardly accomplish in a few weeks what it had failed to do between 1982 and 2000. Plus, the Israeli offensive was poorly planned and poorly executed. It was equally foolish to think that Lebanon’s fragile central government could rein in Hezbollah; if that were possible, the governing authorities in Beirut would have done so long before. It is no surprise that the Winograd Commission (an official panel of inquiry established to examine Israel’s handling of the war) harshly criticized Israel’s leaders for their various strategic errors.
Finally, a similar strategic myopia is apparent in the assault on Gaza. Israeli leaders initially said that their goal was to inflict enough damage on Hamas so it could no longer threaten Israel with rocket attacks. But they now concede that Hamas will neither be destroyed nor disarmed by their attacks, and instead say that more extensive monitoring will prevent rocket parts and other weapons from being smuggled into Gaza. This is a vain hope, however. As I write this, Hamas has not accepted a ceasefire and is still firing rockets; even if it does accept a ceasefire soon, rocket and mortar fire are bound to resume at some point in the future. On top of that, Israel’s international image has taken a drubbing, Hamas is probably more popular, and moderate leaders like Mahmoud Abbas have been badly discredited. A two-state solution – which is essential if Israel wishes to remain Jewish and democratic and to avoid becoming an apartheid state – is farther away than ever. The IDF performed better in Gaza than it did in Lebanon, largely because Hamas is a less formidable foe than Hezbollah. But this does not matter: the war against Hamas is still a strategic failure. And to have inflicted such carnage on the Palestinians for no lasting strategic gain is especially reprehensible.
In virtually all of these episodes – and especially those after 1982 – Israel’s superior military power was used in ways that did not improve its long-term strategic position. Given this dismal record, therefore, there is no reason to think that Israel possesses uniquely gifted strategists or a national security establishment that consistently makes smart and far-sighted choices. Indeed, what is perhaps most remarkable about Israel is how often the architects of these disasters – Barak, Olmert, Sharon, and maybe Netanyahu – are not banished from leadership roles but instead are given another opportunity to repeat their mistakes. Where is the accountability in the Israeli political system?
No country is immune from folly, of course, and Israel’s adversaries have committed plenty of reprehensible acts and made plenty of mistakes themselves. Egypt’s Nasser played with fire in 1967 and got badly burnt; King Hussein’s decision to enter the Six Day War was a catastrophic blunder that cost Jordan the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Palestinian leaders badly miscalculated and committed unjustifiable and brutal acts on numerous occasions. Americans made grave mistakes in Vietnam and more recently in Iraq, the French blundered in Indochina and Algeria, the British failed at Suez and Gallipoli, and the Soviets lost badly in Afghanistan. Israel is no different than most powerful states in this regard: sometimes it does things that are admirable and wise, and at other times it pursues policies that are foolish and cruel.
The moral of this story is that there is no reason to think that Israel always has well-conceived strategies for dealing with the problems that it faces. In fact, Israel’s strategic judgment seems to have declined steadily since the 1970s – beginning with the 1982 invasion of Lebanon – perhaps because unconditional U.S. support has helped insulate Israel from some of the costs of its actions and made it easier for Israel to indulge strategic illusions and ideological pipe-dreams. Given this reality, there is no reason for Israel’s friends – both Jewish and gentile – to remain silent when it decides to pursue a foolish policy. And given that our “special relationship” with Israel means that the United States is invariably associated with Jerusalem’s actions, Americans should not hesitate to raise their voices to criticize Israel when it is acting in ways that are not in the U.S. national interest.
Those who refuse to criticize Israel even when it acts foolishly surely think they are helping the Jewish state. They are wrong. In fact, they are false friends, because their silence, or worse, their cheerleading, merely encourages Israel to continue potentially disastrous courses of action. Israel could use some honest advice these days, and it would make eminently good sense if its closest ally were able to provide it. Ideally, this advice would come from the president, the secretary of state, and prominent members of Congress – speaking as openly as some politicians in other democracies do. But that’s unlikely to happen, because Israel’s supporters make it almost impossible for Washington to do anything but reflexively back Israel’s actions, whether they make sense or not. And they often do not these days.
Bhai mere, Jews, and Christians are closer to us, the muslims, than Hindus or Sikhs are- why are you so upset with Israel? The teachings of the Torah are similar to what we learn, hence we should be friendly with the yahudi quam.. Allah(swt) aapko aqal de.
Israili zionist Jews aren't even closer to Orthodox Jews.
Israili zionist Jews aren't even closer to Orthodox Jews.
The picture is not clear cut as you say sis.
Even among zionists, there are people who in 2008 believe in using force, and there are others who believe in using tolerance and acceptance.
Just like we don't want others to paint every Muslim as terrorist, we too should not label every Israeli or Jewish person as zionist.
A Bibi-Barack Collision? - Yahoo! News
A Bibi-Barack Collision?
Pat Buchanan Pat Buchanan Tue Jan 27, 3:00 am ET
Creators Syndicate – “Where there is no solution, there is no problem,” geostrategist James Burnham once wryly observed.
Ex-Sen. George Mitchell, the latest U.S. negotiator to take up the Palestine portfolio, may discover what it was that Burnham meant.
For Israel’s three-week war on Gaza, where Palestinians died at a rate of 100 to one to Israelis, appears to have been, like Israel’s wars in Lebanon, another Pyrrhic victory for the Jewish state.
In 1982, after an attempted assassination of their ambassador in London, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon drove through Lebanon to Beirut, shelling the city for weeks until Arafat agreed to pull out the PLO and depart for Tunisia.
The Israelis’ triumph quickly turned to ashes in their mouths.
Weeks of bombarding Beirut turned world opinion against Israel. Defense Minister Sharon was savaged for enabling a massacre in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps. Most critically, as future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin ruefully observed, in invading a quiescent south Lebanon, Israel “let the Shia genie out of the bottle.”
South Lebanon became Indian country. Hezbollah, born of Israel’s invasion, would, 18 years later, force a bleeding Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and its Lebanese allies out of the country, turning Israel’s once-friendly northern border into a new battlefront in the Arab-Israeli war.
Moreover, the Americans, persuaded to send Marines to train the Lebanese Army, were punished with terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks at Beirut airport, with 241 U.S. dead. (justifiably)
President Reagan would withdraw, and the Americans never came back.
In 2006, Ehud Olmert used the border ambush of an Israel patrol and the kidnapping of two soldiers to launch a second Lebanon war.
Hezbollah lost hundreds of fighters, but its stature soared as it became the first Arab force to fight Israel and emerge unbroken and unbeaten. And the thousands of Hezbollah rockets that rained down on the Galilee destroyed forever the myth of Israeli invulnerability.
Now, in the aftermath of the war on Gaza, which almost all in Israel supported, come the second thoughts. Of 1,400 dead from air strikes and invasion, one-third were Palestinian children. Al Jazeera video of the dead and dying civilians, juxtaposed with video of Barack Obama enjoying a round of golf in scenic Hawaii, were devastating for the U.S. image, as U.S. weapons had been used by Israel to deliver the death and destruction.
Like Hezbollah, Hamas has emerged more entrenched, while the moderates like Mahmoud Abbas are portrayed as Quislings. Now, a rift has appeared between Obama, who has called for a lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza to allow aid and commerce to flow freely, and an Israel determined to maintain its chokehold on Hamas.
In none of these three wars was the Israel Air Force challenged or the IDF defeated. In casualties, Hezbollah and Hamas, Lebanese and Gazans, all suffered many times more dead and wounded.
Yet, looking back, were any of these wars necessary? Did any make Israel more secure than when the Lebanese border was quiet? Does the future look brighter today than in 1982, after the peace with Egypt and withdrawal from Sinai, before the war on Beirut?
Three months before launching the Gaza war, Olmert told two journalists that Israel, to achieve lasting peace, would have to return the Golan Heights to Syria and almost all of the West Bank to the Palestinians, and give East Jerusalem back to the Arabs who live there.
“In the end, we will have to withdraw from the lion’s share of the territories, and for the territories we leave in our hands, we will have to give compensation in the form of territories within the state of Israel at a ratio that is more or less 1:1.”
“Whoever wants to hold on to all of (Jerusalem) will have to bring 270,000 Arabs inside the fences of sovereign Israel. It won’t work.”
No, it won’t.
**Like Rabin in 1994 and Barack in 2000, two of the most decorated soldiers in Israel’s history, Olmert had concluded, late in life, that it is either land for peace, with all its risks, or endless war for Israel. **
Yet, after that interview, he launched the December blitz and invaded Gaza, killing and wounding 5,000 Palestinians, making of the Strip a zone of permanent hatred and making Hamas, whom he sought to dethrone and undeniably wounded, even stronger.
Enraged that Hamas was not destroyed or disarmed, Israelis are leaning toward the Likud Party of “Bibi” Netanyahu, who opposed the withdrawal from Gaza, opposes a withdrawal from the West Bank, will never share Jerusalem and calls Gaza “Hamastan.”
Should he win, a Bibi-Barack collision appears inevitable. Backing Bibi will be the Israeli lobby, the Evangelicals, the neocons and a Congress that could find only five members to oppose a resolution endorsing all the Israelis had done and were doing to the people of Gaza.
Where there is no solution there is no problem.