Effective Missile Defense

The Christian Science Monitor has a report on Israel's "Iron Dome" rocket defense system that credits it with contributing to a cease-fire with Hamas.

A key factor supporting the cease-fire was a new weapons system that allows Israel to protect its citizens and thereby lessen public pressure for swift retaliatory strikes on Gaza.

Though not fool-proof, the "Iron Dome" missile-defense system shot down about 20 militant rockets in recent days before they landed in Israel cities. That provided a window for mediators from Egypt and the United Nations to step in and calm the situation.

Iron Dome achieved a 93% success rate even though it has only deployed two of the fifteen batteries planned for defense against the Gaza terrorist attacks. For once the U.S. is getting its money's worth from some foreign aid, since Israel is essentially field-testing missile defense technology applicable to U.S. systems under actual hostile conditions.

Experts say the technology of Israel’s anti-missile interceptors – which also includes the Arrow II missile for Iranian ballistic rockets – is based on the same concepts as the US-conceived Star Wars missile defense program.

The other benefit, as the article emphasizes, is that effective defense against rockets lessens the need for immediate Israeli retaliation. This is important, since alone among states, Israel is expected to absorb rocket attacks against its cities without taking any serious retaliatory measures. When it takes even minimal measures against Gaza, its actions are called "excessive force" by Israel-haters and their useful idiots worldwide, and it comes under tremendous pressure to refrain from doing things necessary to protect its citizens. Even though it should have the right to use whatever force necessary to eliminate the terrorist threat from Gaza, Israel's unique position makes this rocket defense system even more significant than otherwise -- at least until Gaza terrorists find a new preferred method for targeting Israeli civilians.

Laughable Propaganda From Turkey

The Turkish ambassador to the U.S., Namik Tan, wrote an editorial in the Washington Post actually demanding an apology from Israel. It takes quite a bit of nerve to stab  your former ally in the back, help sponsor a mission to break its naval blockade, openly support its enemies, misrepresent what happened and then demand an apology. But that's Turkey these days.

As we now know well, instead of the day ending with the delivery of humanitarian aid to ease the desperate lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, it began with the killing by Israel Defense Forces of nine peace activists and the wounding of about 30, all civilians.

Opening up with outright lies. The people killed were in no way "peace activists." And armed individuals attacking a boarding party gave up their civilian status by their own actions.

The Free Gaza flotilla was not an initiative by the Turkish government.

Oh please. It was organized by a Turkish terrorist support outfit, permitted and no doubt encouraged by the Turkish government, and included Turkish vessels. The only thing it lacked was a Turkish naval escort. It may not have been an official mission, but it clearly had the support of Turkey's government.

It was an international aid convoy made up of nationals of 32 countries taking food, toys, medical equipment and similar aid to the people of Gaza, who have been deprived of these basic commodities for years.

Nonsense. Gaza hasn't been deprived of those things for days, let alone years. The Israelis themselves deliver humanitarian supplies to their enemies.

Among the ships' 600 activists were Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, European lawmakers, journalists, business leaders and an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor -- hardly targets who could pose a threat to Israel's well-trained commandos.

Another lie, this time of omission. Let's not mention the armed individuals who ambushed the naval boarding party.

this was a humanitarian initiative.

No, actually it wasn't. Israel had already agreed to deliver the humanitarian supplies. What this was was an attempt to break the blockade, and to stage an incident to use against Israel.

Because the attack took place in international waters, 72 miles off Israel's coast, it was illegal.

No, it wasn't. It was legal in accordance with the rules of blockades. The ambassador knows this and is again blatantly lying.

this was the first such attack against civilian Turkish citizens by a foreign military force in our republic's 87-year history.

It wasn't an attack at all. The attack was against the Israeli boarding party. The ambassador goes on to whine about how great a friend Turkey was to Israel, and how horribly it has been treated, as if it hasn't been undertaking a campaign to delegitimize its former ally and support its enemies.

We cannot avert our eyes when the lives of our citizens -- innocents -- are lost during an illegal assault in defense of a blockade that is unfair, inhumane and unsustainable.

It was not illegal, not an assault, and the blockade is neither unfair, inhumane, nor unsustainable.

Israel can start by bringing an end to its blockade on Gaza; by ending its inappropriate and disproportionate police actions toward the Palestinian civilians of that land; and by allowing a prompt, independent, impartial, credible and transparent international investigation into the incident.

Israel should maintain the blockade, which is there for excellent reasons. The disproportionality argument is ludicrous. If there is need for an investigation, it should be directed at the Turkish role in fomenting this incident.

Israel owes an apology to the Turkish nation

Turkey owes the apology for supporting a hostile act against Israel and then lying about it.

The United States should encourage Israel to become a genuine partner for peace in the Middle East.

The U.S. should encourage Israel by standing behind its reasonable and necessary actions, and making it clear to the Turks that we aren't impressed by their transparent propaganda. 

Obama Administration Says Helping Our Enemies is a Priority

In the aftermath of the Gaza blockade incident, the Obama administration has been relatively quiet, trying in its typical weak way to appease everyone, rather than taking a clear stand in support of our ally. The latest statement illustrates yet again that we have a foreign policy team that isn't particularly interested in advancing U.S. interests.

"We are working urgently with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and other international partners to develop new procedures for delivering more goods and assistance to Gaza," said Mike Hammer, spokesman for the White House National Security Council.

The last thing we should be doing is delivering goods to Hamas-controlled Gaza, a clear enemy of the United States. The Obama-administration is spending U.S. taxpayer money to help Hamas, a terrorist organization that hates the U.S. slightly less than it hates Israel.

"It remains a U.S. priority to provide assistance to the people of Gaza," Hammer said.

What have the people of Gaza ever done to deserve a single penny of U.S. assistance, let alone be a "priority" for U.S. aid? If a nuclear terrorist device took out a U.S. city tomorrow, there'd be rejoicing in the streets of Gaza. Rather than finding new ways to undercut the Israel blockade, the U.S. should stand aside, let Israel do the dirty-work, and shield it from any effective international response. It is clearly in the U.S. interest for the blockade to remain in effect, and for Hamas to be deprived of the weapons and resources it needs to resume attacking Israel. 

On the broader foreign policy front, the Obama administration continues the pretense that a state can separate the people of another state from their government, for purposes of policy. The Bush administration made a similar error, which reflects a lack of understanding of how states interact. It is simply not possible to make a clear distinction in most cases between the general population of a country and its government. For better or worse, a government represents the people to the outside world. No government can remain in power without the support of at least a substantial minority within its own country. And in the case of Hamas, it apparently has majority support in Gaza. The idea that we can help the people of Gaza, yet not help Hamas is ludicrous. By giving assistance to Gaza we are undermining the necessary blockade put in place by our ally Israel, and we are directly assisting a terrorist organization similar in nature to the Islamist enemies we are already at war with. By doing so we gain absolutely nothing. We aren't going to generate good will in Gaza, or a sense of gratitude. The Palestinians despise us. Look at any opinion poll. We will get no credit whatsoever for our efforts. The people of Gaza will take our aid, spit in our faces, and cheer the deaths of Americans whenever they fall to Islamist terrorist attacks. But the fools in charge of our foreign policy are more interested in appeasing international Israel-hating opinion than in U.S. interests.

Note: No HOT5 Daily today. It will return tomorrow.

What to Do About Turkey?

There has been much nonsense written regarding Turkey in the aftermath of the flotilla incident. Here's just one example from an Israeli no less.

Monday's botched commando raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla has proven disastrous for Israel. World public opinion has united in condemning the Jewish state and the U.N. Security Council has already demanded an inquiry. Closer to home, the strategic alliance that Israel had painstakingly forged with Turkey is in tatters.

The strategic alliance between Israel and Turkey has been dead for quite some time. The Islamist government of Turkey has for years now pursued a policy of using Gaza and the Palestinians as a weapon against Israel, and as a lever to advance its own power in the region at the expense of both Israel and the U.S.  This policy has included close relations with Iran to the extent of attempting to undermine even the mild sanctions advanced by the Obama administration. Yet from many pundits you still see a pretend view of Turkey, as if it were still the 1990s, with Turkey a solid ally of the U.S. and a friend to Israel.

It has been the shift in the Turkish government, from secular and western-oriented, to Islamist and focused on regional power that has produced not only the rift with Israel, but its transformation from strong U.S. ally to neutral bordering on hostile. There is little Israel could have done to change this dynamic, and any Israeli still pretending that Turkey is some sort of strategic partner rather than a dangerous threat is a deluded fool. The idea that Turkey actually cares about the Palestinian self-determination and humanitarian issues is utterly laughable. All you have to do is look at its savage repression of the Kurds. The Turks have joined Arabs in using the Palestinians as a weapon against Israel, going so far as to help organize the latest blockade-breaking effort in support of Hamas.

So what should the U.S. do? First and foremost we need to recognize reality. And reality is that Turkey is no longer an ally, a strategic partner, or a friend to the U.S. Friends don't ally themselves with rogue states who are open enemies of America (Iran), attempt to destroy the legitimacy of the key U.S. ally in the region, and support anti-American terrorist organizations. Far from being a friend, Turkey is now a problem and a threat to U.S. interests in the region. It's time we recognized that situation and planned accordingly.

One of the main reasons Turkey has felt confident in acting against U.S. interests is the Obama administration's projection of weakness abroad. None of our enemies, rivals and potentially hostile states fears Obama in the slightest. They know his instinctive desire to appease, naivete, inexperience, extreme reluctance to act unilaterally, self-delusion and wishful thinking cripple U.S. power. The overwhelming power of the U.S. is useless without the will to wield it in the service of U.S. interests. Turkey, like many other states, has every reason to feel confident that it can do whatever it wants as long as Obama is in charge of U.S. foreign policy. Weakness breeds aggression, and U.S. weakness risks a Middle East war, something that is definitely not in our interests. There have been reports and speculation that Turkey might actually send a naval escort with another Gaza flotilla. Attempting to break the Gaza blockade with naval force would be an act of war against Israel. A war between Turkey and Israel, which would probably draw in Arab states as well, would be a enormous disaster for U.S. interests. It seems unlikely, but given the current conditions it is conceivable.

One way to avoid conflicts and all-out war is to establish clarity in foreign policy. If the possible reaction of a great power is unclear, an aggressive state might be inclined to gamble. What would happen in the event that Turkish naval forces clashed with Israeli over the Gaza blockade? What is the position of the U.S.? In the aftermath of the latest incident the U.S. should be holding high-level talks with Turkey, and making our position absolutely clear, so that there will be no misunderstanding or miscalculation. Most of this should take place behind the scenes, but it should be forceful and direct. Turkey should be told that regardless of our disagreements with certain aspects of Israeli policy, U.S. power stands firmly behind Israel. We recognize that a Turkish military attempt to break the Gaza blockade is an act of war against Israel, and it will be treated accordingly. Depending on the Turkish response, this message could be reinforced by sending a powerful U.S. naval force to the Eastern Mediterranean. There are all sorts of other issues that should be raised at such a conference between the U.S. and Turkey, but I'll leave it at that for the moment since this post is getting pretty long. Wars often begin through miscalculation and delusions about the possible actions of states with interests in the matter. It's time to for Obama to use his "let me be clear" line for something meaningful.

International Law, Blockades & Civilian Status

In the aftermath of the latest incident in the ongoing effort to delegitimize Israel, I thought I'd comment on a few issues that have come up. I rarely have much to say about international law, because -- if it isn't obvious by now -- I regard it as largely a myth, when talked about as if it were actual "law." International law is not binding on states -- unless they voluntarily bind themselves -- except on the weak facing a coalition of stronger states willing to enforce their interpretation. Greater powers not only make international law, they can interpret it to their liking, or ignore it altogether in many instances. Having said that, there are long standing customs & traditions, generally accepted, that form part of what is called international law. Two such areas that fall into that category are blockades, particularly the naval variety, and civilian status.

Blockades are a feature of naval warfare that have not faded into obscurity and disuse. Some may have forgotten, but there was a massive effort to blockade the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s during the NATO intervention. According to the LA Times, NATO naval forces stopped and inspected 74,000 ships during that period. There are two main requirements for a blockade under international law. First, the existence of a blockade must be public. And second, it must be "effective." Effective means that it must be enforced. You can't declare a blockade, not bother to enforce it, and then occasionally & selectively stop some ships. That's harassment of shipping, not a blockade. Israel's blockade of Gaza is public. Under international law it is required to enforce it. If it doesn't do so, and just allows ships to violate it, the blockade itself no longer has legal existence.

Now we come to the always contentious issue of civilian status, which has been blurred by the prevalence of non-state, irregular combatants. Civilians have traditionally had protected status in warfare under international law -- even though that status is sometimes ignored in practice. But that protected designation rests on civilians as noncombatants. Civilians who take up arms against military forces lose their protection and become combatants. Until fairly recently, such civilians were actually labeled as illegal or unlawful combatants, and often subject to savage reprisal, such as summary execution. This is particularly true of civilians who abuse their protected status to ambush military forces.

There has been much howling from anti-Israel types, as well sympathetic bleating from their useful idiots who claim to support the Jewish state, about Israel killing "civilians" in the latest incident. Most of those making such assertions love to whine about international law, yet they ignore it completely as it relates to blockades and civilian status. To maintain a blockade, Israel is required to enforce it. The standard method of doing so is for naval forces to stop ships and inspect them. This requires that naval personnel board the ships in question, as was done 74,000 times by NATO in the 1990s. If the civilians aboard a ship which is stopped ambush or otherwise attack the boarders, they give up their protected status as civilians and become combatants. What weapons they have available or choose to employ are completely irrelevant.  This would be true even if the ship in question was truly neutral, and not filled with terrorist supporters. A legal case could even be made that the Gaza flotilla was not comprised of neutral blockade runners, but rather was an enemy force attempting to break the blockade. In other words, those on board were in fact belligerents on the side of Hamas, and could have been sunk without boarding and inspection. But in any event, by their own actions the occupants of that ship gave up their protected civilian status when they chose to take up arms. The killing was entirely justified under long-recognized principles of international law -- not to mention basic common sense.

The Idiocy of Andrew Sullivan - Israel Edition

Andrew Sullivan has a post up regarding the incident between the Israeli Navy and a ship full of Hamas-supporters & their useful idiots heading for Gaza. He links the video, and notes that the so-called "activists" attacked the Israeli commandos boarding the ship. After giving a mild condemnation of their violence, he then goes off the deep-end.

But the violence is not fatal to anyone and it is in response to a dawn commando raid by armed soldiers. They are engaging in self-defense. More to the point: theya r civilians confronting one of the best militaries in the world. They killed no soldiers; their weapons were improvised; the death toll in the fight is now deemed to be up to 19 - all civilians.

So in Sullivan-world, the fact that they didn't manage to kill any Israeli soldiers, and had "improvised weapons," means Israel is the bad guy here.

This is like a mini-Gaza all over again. The Israelis don't seem to grasp that Western militaries don't get to murder large numbers of civilians because they don't like them, or because they could, on a far tinier scale, hurt Israelis. And you sure don't have a right to kill them because they resist having their ship commandeered, in international waters. The Israelis seem to be making decisions as if they can get away with anything. It's time the US reminded them in ways they cannot mistake that they cannot.

It's a mini-Gaza alright, with clowns like Sullivan making the same illogical arguments all over again to attack our ally and excuse the actions of its enemies -- enemies that in most cases are also hostile to the U.S.

Let's dissect Sullivan's nonsense. First, he calls the attack on the Israeli boarding party "self-defense." As the video shows, the Israelis did not come in shooting. They were engaged in a standard naval action that involved stopping and boarding a civilian vessel that was trying to break a blockade. By attacking the commandos, the people on that ship immediately changed their status from civilian blockade runners to enemies. The "self-defense" here was Israeli commandos defending themselves when attacked. Killing enemies who attack you is not "murder," as Sullivan ignorantly asserts. Israeli forces have every right to protect themselves with deadly force, no matter what the type of weapons used against them. Sullivan is using the same ridiculously illogical argument about disproportionate force that was deployed by Hamas supporters during Israel's Gaza operation. If a police officer is attacked by a knife-wielding assailant, he doesn't have to pull out his own knife and fight on equal terms. He draws his gun and shoots to kill. That type of defense has long been justified in the U.S. and other countries, and I doubt even Sullivan would argue otherwise. But for some reason, he thinks Israeli military personnel should be held to a different standard.

Israel is for all intents and purposes in a state of war with the pseudo-state of Gaza. Gaza's rulers do not even recognize Israel's existence, and indiscriminately launch rockets at civilian targets within Israel. Far from "making decisions as if they can get away with anything," Israel has in my opinion been incredibly restrained in its actions in dealing with Gaza, and this incident is no different. Israel would have been within its rights to have simply withdrawn its commandos after being attacked, and sent that ship to the bottom, killing everyone aboard. But of course it didn't.  

For various reasons (good ones in my opinion), Israel has imposed a blockade of Gaza. There is no point in having a blockade if you allow ships full of enemy supporters to run the blockade and deliver contraband merchandise. Israel had a simple choice: let its blockade be violated, or intercept the ship. There was little reason to think that Israel would not intercept that ship, and it is quite possible that the attack on the boarders was pre-planned in order to create an international incident. Andrew Sullivan isn't a Hamas supporter, but he's a typical useful idiot for anti-Israel propaganda, even more valuable to Israel's enemies than voices that can be quickly dismissed as rabidly anti-Semitic or as known enemies of Israel.

So what should the U.S. do? Nothing. The U.S. should downplay this incident as much as possible, point out that Israeli forces came under attack first, and block any sort of meaningful international action against Israel. The people on that boat, a collection of terrorist supporters and useful idiots, are for the most part as hostile to the U.S. as to Israel. They are the same type that are quick to call necessary U.S. actions "war crimes," and who would like nothing better than to cripple U.S. operations with the same sort of restrictions they think Israel should operate under. 

EU Terrorist Supporters in Gaza

A group of European terrorist supporters is calling for the prosecution of Israeli officials for so-called war crimes. At first glance this is nothing new, just a bunch of left-wing European nuts who hate Israel and support Hamas. But these people are actually members of the EU parliament.

The high ranking delegation which includes 60 parliament members of 12 European countries

Their spokesman is a member of the British Labour Party. He described their visit to Gaza as

"a message of solidarity with Gaza to end the Israeli siege."

Here in the U.S. we have terrorist rights supporters, who believe that the U.S. constitution applies to foreign terrorists. That's bad enough. But at least here we don't have too many people, at least in prominent positions, who are outspoken supporters of terrorist organizations. There aren't any delegations of U.S. congresspeople visiting Pakistan, hanging out with the Taliban, and calling for prosecution of U.S. "war criminals."

The reason Gaza is under siege is because it is ruled by Hamas, a terrorist group devoted to, among other things, anti-Semitism and the destruction of Israel. Unlike Israel, Hamas deliberately targets civilians, glorifies the death of any Israelis, and does their best to perpetrate acts normally considered war crimes. Yet for some reason, a group of Europeans is in Gaza supporting Hamas, spreading their propaganda, and attacking Israel. Not surprisingly there were no calls for prosecution of Hamas war criminals, or condemnation of Hamas for launching rockets at Israeli cities. 

The UN Anti-Israel Council

The laughably misnamed UN Human Rights Council has just approved a report accusing Israel of "war crimes" in its Gaza operations. The text of the resolution reluctantly admits to some war crimes by Hamas also, but only because an additional clause was added after their omission came under criticism. 

Many of the UN operations are little more than an international joke, and the so-called Human Rights Council is no exception, as the following quote illustrates:  

The council, led by a coalition of Arab states, voted 25-6 to approve the report

The mere fact that there are Arab states on something called a human rights council renders any report it produces meaningless. What Arab states have ever exhibited the slightest concern for human rights? That's not even considering their incredible bias against Israel and support for Hamas. Most Arab states don't even recognize Israel's mere right to exist. Having them judge it is beyond ludicrous on many levels. Noted human rights paragons China and Russia are also on the council, and voted for the resolution.

When a country is forced to fight a terrorist organization that obeys no rules of warfare, deliberately targets civilians, blends into and hides amongst its own civilian population, and does everything humanly possible to maximize the number of civilian casualties, atrocities and events that appear to be war crimes are bound to happen. Unlike Hamas, which celebrates atrocities and attempts to create them, Israel investigates its own forces, has an open society based on the democratic process, an independent judiciary, a free press, and everything necessary to deal with situations in which elements within its military may have crossed the line. Rather than attacking Israel, human rights organizations should be congratulating it on its incredible restraint. There are not many countries in the world that would tolerate a weak, hostile, terrorist-ruled country on their border that regularly launches rockets at their cities and commits all sorts of other provocations. Many countries, probably the vast majority, would react with an all-out invasion, doing whatever was necessary to crush resistance, and simply rolling over the piles of bodies and rubble.

Attacks on Israel by the UN, various human rights groups, and the pack of useful idiots that support them, serve no productive purpose. Their anti-Israel bias of condemning a democratic, civilized state trying to defend itself, while downplaying the crimes of a barbaric terrorist regime is blatantly obvious to anyone not automatically hostile to Israel. The only thing those attacks will do is to convince more people in Israel to ignore outside criticism, and give credence to those who advocate loosening restraints on military operations. Why put your own forces at greater risk with restricted rules of engagement when you get no credit for it anyway? Why stop at limited objectives out of concern for civilian casualties, when lunatics start screaming "genocide" when you kill less than 1500 people? Eventually a Sri Lankan-style operation is going to look much more attractive. 

Funding Our Enemies

The Obama Administration will give 900 million dollar to "help rebuild Gaza," according to the New York Times.  Administration officials claim that none of the money will go to Hamas because it will be sent through nongovernmental organizations. Well, that's a relief. The fact that Hamas actually controls Gaza is incidental. There's no way all or most of the money intended for Gaza could possibly find its way into Hamas' hands. Of course not.

There's no other way to describe this policy other than as complete insanity. Obama, who is now claiming to be worried about the deficit -- despite sponsoring an unprecedented massive spending bill -- wants to send almost a billion dollars to help a terrorist pseudo-state that hates the U.S. That's on top of the money we are already wasting on the Palestinian Authority.

According to Daniel Levy, an analyst quoted by the Times,

“It’s a good effort, but the money can’t be spent unless materials can get into Gaza,” Mr. Levy said. “The next step is opening the border crossings, and that requires more than just signing a check.”

If that's the case, let's hope Israel keeps those border crossings tightly closed, and blocks as much of our idiotic contribution to Hamas as possible.

The Tale of Ham & Izzy

Once upon a time there were two families who both claimed the same small piece of property. One was the Paul family, the other Jude. Their claims to this property were ancient, going back thousands of years. Ironically enough, for much of history, neither family owned the property. Richer, better-connected investors controlled the land and members of the two families lived there as tenants. 

About sixty years ago things changed. The property owner at the time was a rich real estate magnate named Britney. For various reasons, Britney decided to divest herself of the property, and to split it between the Paul and Jude families. This is where Izzy enters the picture. The Jude family accepted Britney's arrangement, and a young member of the family, Izzy, took possession of his slice of the property. But the Paul family rejected this situation outright. They claimed all of the property and were unwilling to tolerate Izzy as part-owner. The other neighbors backed the Paul family. Like the Pauls, the neighbors, especially Egbert, Sy, and Jordie, were strongly prejudiced against Izzy and didn't want him in the area. They and the Paul family initiated a violent property dispute with Izzy. But young Izzy was surprisingly resiliant. He turned the tables on everyone, and in the course of the dispute, he seized part of the property controlled by the Paul family. The rest of the Paul family property was grabbed by Egbert and Jordie.  Even though Egbert & Jordie supposedly supported the Paul family, they didn't trust them.

The Paul family couldn't get over this loss. They vowed vengeance on Izzy and refused to get on with their lives. In the meantime, Izzy did an amazing job improving his property, and making it the finest piece of land in the area, despite its small size. He won yet another property dispute with his neighbors. Then, nineteen years after he had first taken ownership, Izzy saw that all his neighbors were plotting against him yet again. He decided to strike first. This time he won a spectacular, lasting victory in the dispute. He took control of multiple adjoining properties, two of which are particularly relevant to this story. One was the West Riverfront section, taken from Jordie, and the other the G Block, formerly held by Egbert. The Paul family lived in these areas, so now the Pauls became unwilling tenants of Izzy.

The Pauls were horrible tenants for Izzy. They caused constant trouble and finally Izzy had enough. The biggest problems were on the West Riverfront section. Although he wouldn't release the section entirely, Izzy decided to let the Paul family run it, albeit with restrictions. The Pauls placed one of their members, Fatima, in charge. Some years went by and Izzy continued to have problems with the smaller G Block part of his holdings. The Paul family there was a constant source of irritation. So finally, just a few years ago, Izzy decide to try a simliar arrangement as with the West Riverfront. This is where Ham enters the story.

The Paul family couldn't agree on who should control G Block, but the G Block branch decided on Ham. Now Ham was a particularly obnoxious, violent member of the Paul family, who hated Izzy and the entire Jude family even more than most of the Pauls. So naturally Izzy decided that if Ham were going to run the G Block, there would have to be very tight restrictions and limitations. Ham of course found this intolerable. Rather than try to make the best of a bad situation, Ham decided on violence. His problem was that he didn't have any really effective weapons. But he found a solution. He came right up to the property line with Izzy's main land and started throwing rocks. All he had were small rocks and most of them missed. But a couple of them hit Izzy and stung him. Ham started digging for more rocks and found some heavier, more threatening ones. He also improved his strength so that he could reach Izzy from further away. And he hid his best rocks all through the G Block, so Izzy couldn't find them. Then one day he assembled a collection of his best rocks, moved up to the property line, and started raining rocks on Izzy. Izzy ducked and dodged and most of them missed, but one or two hit. Izzy decided he could take this no longer. At some point one of Ham's rocks would do serious damage. So Izzy pulled out his pistol and shot Ham.

Ham's now in the hospital in critical condition, and Izzy is searching the G Block. Despite the fact that Izzy clearly acted in self-defense, most people in the neighborhood and in other lands think Izzy should be arrested. They ignore Ham's actions, the entire history of the property, and blame the whole situation on Izzy. A minority support Izzy and think Ham got what he deserved, and feel that he's lucky to be alive at all. There is not yet an ending to this story.

Myths About Gaza & the Misuse of "Disproportionate"

Georgtown professor Robert J. Lieber's article in today's Washington Post should be required reading for anyone commenting on the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict over Gaza. The author attacks at least three myths.

1. Israel is indiscriminately killing civilians. Lieber notes that UN observer reports, hardly a pro-Israel source, indicate that 80%+ of the Palestinian casualties have been "Hamas security personnel or other militants." This is a high rate of precision given the conditions in Gaza, and the terrorists deliberate policy of hiding amongst civilians.  Hamas is deliberately targeting civilians. Israel is not.

2. There is no "cycle of violence." Israel is defending itself against constant rocket attacks from Gaza.  If there were no  attack s on Israel from Gaza, Israel would not be  launching air strikes.

3. Hamas and Israel both want peace. Hamas is not interested in peace. They want Israel destroyed. No concessions by Israel will ever satisfy them.

Read the entire article. It's one of the best pieces on the situation I've seen in a mainstream outlet. 

There is one other thing about the conflict that Lieber doesn't specifically mention: the misuse of the word "disproportionate." Just about every critic and enemy of Israel has been calling the Israeli military action disproportionate. Such a use of the term is completely illogical and frankly just plain stupid. Many of the people using it are simply being intellectually dishonest, or allowing their dislike/hatred for Israel to remove their ability for logical reasoning.

Military forces of countries have not and do not respond proportionately to attacks on their homelands. Superior forces in general do not respond proportionately when attacked by inferior force. If you poke a lion, do you expect him to just poke you back? If someone attacks a police officer with a knife, is he expected to pull out a knife of his own, or will he use the superior force of a firearm? When the twin towers were destroyed on 9/11, should the U.S. have responded by destroying a simliar civilian target in Afghanistan? That would have been a proportionate response.

The entire nature of military operations involves bringing superior force to bear against your opponent, to overwhelm him as efficiently as possible, with minimal casualties to your own forces. It is not about giving the enemy a fair fight. Any article about the Gaza situation that accuses Israel of a disproportionate response reveals that the author is either illogical, ignorant of military affairs, intellectually dishonest, an enemy of Israel, or all of the above.

Israel and Gaza

I was going to write something about the current situation, but this post at Say Anything summed it up pretty well:

Finally: Israeli Warplanes Pound Hamas Targets In Gaza