| Our World: Ending Israel's losing streak | ||
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| These words are being written before the dust has settled on Monday morning’s naval commando raid on the Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla of terror supporters. The raid’s full range of operational failures still cannot be known. Obviously the fact that the mission ended with at least six soldiers wounded and at least 10 Hamas supporters dead makes clear that there were significant failures in both the IDF’s training for and execution of the mission. The navy and other relevant bodies will no doubt study these failures. But they point to a larger strategic failure that has crippled the country’s capacity to contend with the information war being waged against it. Until this failure is remedied, no after-action investigation, no enhanced training, no new electronic warfare doodad will make a significant impact on Israel’s ability to contend with the next Hamas flotilla. IN THE space of four days, the country has suffered two massive defeats. A straight line runs between the anti-Israel resolution passed last Friday at the UN’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference and the Hamas flotilla. And in both cases, officials voiced “surprise” at these defeats. Given the months-long build-up to the NPT review conference, and the weeks-long build-up to the Turkish-Hamas flotilla, that surprise cannot be attributed to a lack of information. What it points to, rather, is a cognitive failure of our leaders to understand the nature of the war being waged against us. And it is this fundamental failure of cognition that has landed six soldiers in the hospital, the nation’s international reputation in tatters and its spokesmen searching for a way to describe a reality they do not understand. The reality is simple and stark. Israel is the target of a massive information war, unprecedented in scale and scope. This war is being waged primarily by a massive consortium of the international Left and the Arab and Islamic worlds. The staggering scale of the forces aligned against us is demonstrated by two things. The Hamas abetting Free Gaza Web site published a list of some 222 organizations that endorsed the terror-supporting flotilla. The listed organizations from the four corners of the earth include Jewish anti-Israel groups as well as Christian, Islamic and nonreligious anti-Israel groups. It is hard to think of any cause other than Israel-bashing that could unite such disparate forces. The second indicator of the scope of the war is far more devastating than the list of groups that endorsed the pro-Hamas flotilla. That indicator is the fact that at the UN on Friday, 189 governments came together as one to savage Israel. There is no other issue that commands such unanimity. The NPT review conference demonstrated that the only way the international community will agree on anything is if its members are agreeing that Israel has no right to defend itself. The conference’s campaign against Israel shows that the 222 organizations supporting Hamas are a reflection of the will of the majority of the nations of the world. This war is nothing new. It has been going on since the dawn of modern Zionism 150 years ago. In many ways, it is just the current iteration of the eternal war against the Jewish people. The red-green alliance’s aims are twofold. It seeks to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist and it seeks to make it impossible for Israel to defend itself. If these aims are met, Israel’s destruction will become an inevitability. UNTIL US President Barack Obama took office, Israel’s one steady asset in this war was the US. Until last year, the US consistently refused to join the red-green alliance because its leaders recognized that the alliance’s campaign was part and parcel of its campaign against US superpower status. Indeed, some US leaders recognized that the alliance’s animus toward Israel stemmed from the same source as its rejection of American exceptionalism. Dismally, what the US’s vote in favor of the NPT review conference’s final anti-Israel (and by default pro-Iranian) resolution makes clear is that under Obama, the US is no longer Israel’s reliable ally. Indeed, what the US’s vote shows is that the Obama administration’s ideological preferences place it on the side of the red-green alliance. No amount of backpedalling by the Obama administration can make up the damage caused by its act of belligerence. If Israel’s leaders were better informed, they would have recognized a number of things in the lead-up to the conference. They would have realized that Obama’s anti-nuclear conference in April, his commitment to a nuclear-free world, as well as his general ambivalence – at best – to US global leadership rendered it all but inevitable that he would turn on Israel. The truth is that Egypt’s call for the denuclearization of Israel jibes with Obama’s own repeatedly statedviews both regarding Israel and the US’s own nuclear arsenal. Armed with this basic understanding of Obama’s inclinations, Israel should have taken for granted that the NPT conference would target it. Consequently, in months preceding the conference, it should have stated loudly and consistently that as currently constituted, the NPT serves as the chief enabler of nuclear proliferation rather than the central instrument for preventing nuclear proliferation. North Korea exploited its status as an NPT signatory to develop its nuclear arsenal. Today Iran exploits its status as an NPT signatory to develop nuclear weapons. Unless the NPT is fundamentally revised, it will continue to serve as the primary instrument for nuclear proliferation. Had this been Israel’s position, it would have been able to undercut US arguments in favor of signing onto the final resolution. So too, such a position would have prepared Israel to cogently explain its rejection of the final resolution. And that is the thing of it. The red-green alliance’s aim at the NPT conference was to discredit Israel’s deterrent capacity while delegitimizing its right to take preemptive action against Iran. Now, due to Israel’s failure to make its case against the NPT in the months leading up to the conference, as our enemies use the US-supported final resolution to claim that our opposition to Iran’s nuclear weapons program is hypocritical, we lack a cognitive framework for responding. The fact that the government still doesn’t get the point is made clear by its response to the decision. Its denunciation of the resolution makes no mention of the fact that the NPT regime itself has become the chief enabler of nuclear proliferation. So too, disastrously, in a clear bid to pretend away Obama’s treachery, Israel actually applauded him for emptily criticizing the resolution he voted for. This response compounds the damage and ensures that the assault will continue. AS TO the flotilla, the challenge it presented was nothing new. Israel has been confronted by suicide protesters for a decade now. The fact that these pro-Hamas activists intended to commit suicide to discredit Israel on camera was made clear by the fact that the Turkish organizers named the lead ship Rachel Corrie. So too, the fact that IDF forces boarding the ships would be met by trenchant, violent opposition was knowable simply by looking at Turkey’s role in the operation. First of all, the Turkish government-supported NGO behind the operation is IHH. As the US government, the Turkish government in the 1990s, the Investigative Project on Terrorism and countless other sources have proven, IHH is a terrorist organization with direct links to al-Qaida and Hamas. Its members have been involved in terrorist warfare from Chechnya and Bosnia to Iraq and Israel. The notion that IHH organizers would behave like radical leftist anti-Israel demonstrators on university campuses is simply ridiculous. Moreover, there is Turkey’s behavior to consider. Since Obama took office, Turkey’s gradual slide into the Iranian axis has sped up considerably. Turkey’s leading role in the flotilla, and the Erdogan government’s ostentatious embrace of IHH – which just a decade ago Turkey banned from earthquake relief efforts in light of its violent, jihadist mission – made clear that the Erdogan regime would use any violence on board the ships as a way to strike a strategic blow at Israel’s international standing. In view of all of this, it is clear that the information strategy for contending with the flotilla was ill-conceived. Rather than attack Turkey for its facilitation of terrorism, and openly prepare charge sheets against the flotilla’s organizers, crew and passengers for their facilitation of terrorism in breach of both domestic law and international law, the information efforts were largely concentrated on irrelevancies. Officials detailed all the humanitarian assistance Israel has provided Hamas-controlled Gaza. They spoke of the navy’s commitment to use nonlethal force to take over the ships. And now, in the aftermath of the lethal takeover of the flotilla, Israel’s leaders stammer. Rather than demand an apology from the Turkish government for its support for these terrorists, Defense Minister Ehud Barak called his Turkish counterpart to talk over what happened. Rather than demand restitution for the terrorist assault against IDF troops, Israel has defended its troops’ training in nonviolent crowd control. These efforts are worse than worthless; they make Israel appear whiny rather than indignant. And more depressingly, they expose a dangerous lack of comprehension about what has just occurred, and a concomitant inability to prepare for what will most certainly follow. Israel is the target of a massive information war. For it to win this war, it needs to counter its enemies’ lies with the truth. The NPT has been subverted by the very forces it was created to prevent from acquiring nuclear weapons. Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization ideologically indistinguishable from al-Qaida. International law requires all states and non-state actors to take active measures to defeat it. Israel is the frontline of the free world. Its ability to defend itself and deter its foes is the single most important guarantee of international peace. A strong Israel is also the most potent and reliable guarantor of the US’s continued ability to project its power in the Middle East. This is the unvarnished truth. It is also the beginning of a successful campaign to defang the massive coalition of nuclear proliferation- and terrorism-abettors aligned against Israel. But until our leaders finally recognize the nature of the war being waged against our country, these basic facts will remain ignored as we move from one stunning defeat to the next. See also: http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=60266 AND OF COURSE THE ONE AND MISSING ELEMENT: TESHUVAH! RETURNING TO HASHEM; ONLY THEN WILL WE BE ABLE TO VANQUISH OUR ENEMIES. WITHOUT BLESSING, WHAT DO WE EXPECT??? Oh, and by the way, an afterthought - thinking about Lula: NOW WE KNOW WHAT TRANSFERRING IRAN'S NUKES TO TURKEY MEANS, DON'T WE??? ... Yes, I forgot... Peres's dear friend Lula of Brazil.... UPDATE: The last thing I would have expected is for YEDIOT ACHRONOT to agree with me! But this once, it seems there is a consensus: BARAK MUST GO! BARAK MUST GO! BARAK MUST GO! Domestic Israeli anger over botched raid will pass JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Despite uproar in Israel on Tuesday over a raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship that brought international condemnation, there is unlikely to be any shake-up in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government. The botched raid has led to a chorus of criticism at home, including a front-page call in the Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's largest-circulated newspaper, for the resignation of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a key member of Netanyahu's coalition. While international critics have accused Israel of using disproportionate force in the raid that killed nine activists, most domestic critics do not fault the marines for opening fire.Anger has instead been reserved for planners who conceived the raid, which saw Israeli commandos rappel to the deck into the thick of a crowd of hostile activists. Still, many Israeli political analysts expect calls for resignations to go unanswered because the incident is not seen as a big enough blow to the leadership. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange dropped on Monday, but experts saw that as a short-lived move on concerns Israeli companies and securities might suffer in international markets. They ruled out fears of domestic political uncertainty after the drama at sea. "There is not enough force here to affect any change in the government," said Tamir Sheafer, a political scientist at Hebrew University. Netanyahu said the activists were killed when commandos opened fire in self defense after storming from dinghies and helicopters onto a Turkish cruise ship headed to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli blockade. As the first pictures emerged of Israeli marines being beaten and clubbed by activists, it was clear there would be anger in Israel over the mishandling. It began with the lambasting of Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai on live television Monday night. "How did you let the Israel Defense Forces into this trap?" one Channel 10 commentator bellowed. He blasted the decision to send a handful of commandos aboard a ship filled with hundreds of people, many known to be hostile toward Israel. After a 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon during which about 150 Israelis and 1,200 Lebanese were killed, public pressure led to the resignations of Israel's defense minister and military chief. So far, Monday's incident does not appear to have led to that scale of domestic pressure. "We've had bigger failures without resignations," said Asher Cohen, a political scientist at Israel's Bar Ilan University. "Politically it's not at the same level." Instead, he pointed at Israel's failure to show the world its side of the clash until late in the day, while news channels broadcast for hours video taken by the activists on board. An article in Tuesday's Yedioth Ahronoth said: "Israel's public advocacy yesterday was hopeless, at times detached." "Already last night officials in the foreign ministry, the national advocacy campaign and the military spokesperson's unit were passing off on each other responsibility for the jarring publicity failure." (Editing by Peter Graff) Comment: NOT ENOUGH POLITICAL FORCE TO HAVE HIM FIRED? I WOULD THINK THAT CAN BE CHANGED - IF WE WORK HARD ENOUGH. HE SHOULD GO, AND MATAN VILNAI SHOULD LEAVE WITH HIM. THEY ARE JUST AS INCOMPETENT AS DAN HALUTZ WAS IN THE SECOND LEBANON WAR. THEY UNNECESSARILY ENDANGERED OUR SOLDIERS, THERE WAS A COMPLETE INTELLIGENCE FAILURE, OF ABOUT 10th GRADE LEVEL ( with an F). IT IS SIMPLY UNCONSCIONABLE THAT THESE SELF-SERVING, NEGLIGENT PEOPLE SHOULD BE IN COMMAND OF OUR SURVIVAL. THEY HAVE NO WILL, AND THEY HAVE NO WAY. Some comments: Jack says: Bibi.... should just resign. They should all resign and call elections. In my opinion, the Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, should be hanged for his incompetence and obtuseness. Stupidity and arrogance make a very bad combination. Caroline Glick has it right, as usual. "Once again the name of Ehud Barak comes to the fore,this time relating to the Flotilla incident. This guy is an agent of evil my friend, a dissembler working for the globalist order that seeks a two-state solution and the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. He is one of those described in Daniel 11:28 and 11:30 as "against the Holy Covenant" and "them that forsake the Holy Covenant". and ...Once again you are the only one asking the tough questions that have been running through my mind since I saw the videos. I had no idea this action took place in international waters. That is going to be very hard for Israel to counter. When one considers all the non-lethal hi-tech weaponry Israelis have, including if I'm not mistaken weapony invented by Israelis, this was an astonishingly poorly conducted operation. I guess the next question that must be asked is 'who in the Israeli political establishment benefits from making Nethanyahu look so bad and so out of touch?' I mean going to Canada when this action was planned to occur, what kind of leader would do that? A simple guess would be Livni. Will this be the final insult to American-led efforts to bring "peace", forcing further illegitimate American interference in Israeli politics. I don't trust the US administration in anything and removal of Nethanyahu for a more malleable Livni would satisfy Obama greatly. What say you?....The more I think about this the more I think that this debacle of planning, intelligence and timing in international waters was planned by those wanting to drive Nethanyahu from power to be replaced by Livni or someone of her ilk. " | |
Aryeh comments:
Any effort to evict the coward of Lebanon from politics is good.
BARRY CHAMISH COMMENTED:
and listen to my interview. Barry
Mark said:
I believe they are all Freemason, Illuminati, CFR and anything else that bonds them together. They're watching each others own hide and they won't be moved until the One World Order is up and running. All monies are failing and one year is left for the worlds various currencies. And I'm not even a doomsdayer!
- URGENT UPDATES HERE: VERY IMPORTANT!
- JUST AS YOU HAD PREDICTED, JOEL! This is so disgusting, there are no words. Next thing you know they'll send Tsippi Livni to negotiate instead of Avigdor Lieberman, and she'll agree to everything.... at least that is the hope - things always falter at the end, thank G-d.
Kadima MK Calls to Join Government
Sivan 20, 5770, 02 June 10 08:59
"I call on the Prime Minister to build unity amongst the people of Israel, and join together all the Zionist forces in the Knesset to cooperate and work together to improve Israel's standing abroad as well as internal unity within the people of Israel," he said.
Kadima Presents No Confidence Motion Over Flotilla Affair
Sivan 25, 5770, 07 June 10 11:59
(Israelnationalnews.com) Opposition leader, MK Tzipi Livni, will present to the Knesset a motion of no confidence on Monday under the heading: "The attempt by the government to escape responsibility and redirect criticism of the Gaza flotilla affair against IDF soldiers and commanders."
SEE HERE TOO:
ISRAELI SOLDIERS WON'T BE ALLOWED TO TESTIFY IN TH...
SEE HERE TOO:
ISRAELI SOLDIERS WON'T BE ALLOWED TO TESTIFY IN TH...
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