Gilad Shalit Prisoner Swap

Israel's deal with Palestinians to release kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, held for five years by Hamas, demonstrates the lengths the Jewish state will go to take care of its service members.

His release by the militant Palestinian group Hamas launched a prisoner swap that ultimately will include the release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. A total of 477 prisoners were freed Tuesday, after Shalit was returned to Israel.

Over a thousand prisoners released to free one soldier, including hundreds of terrorists who will probably kill more Israelis. Not everyone in Israel is happy.

Shalit’s father, Noam, appeared Monday before the Israeli Supreme Court, where he came face to face with relatives of victims of terrorist attacks who oppose the deal. Several relatives filed motions urging the court to annul the deal, and according to Israeli news reports, some angrily confronted the soldier’s father.

I understand how they feel. I'd have a pretty hard time supporting such a one-sided deal. According to the article, Hamas is celebrating the agreement as a great victory, for good reason. Kidnapping Shalit worked out really well for them. Plus, they now know that if they need to spring a bunch of their people from Israeli jails, they just need to kidnap another Israeli soldier.

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.

Can We Stop Giving Money to Our Enemies?

The revelation that Osama bin Laden had been living in luxury in Pakistan, in a resort town full of military families about a mile away from the nation's military academy, has already spurred some calls to cut, or at least reevaluate the massive aid we give to that country. But Pakistan is far from the only dubious recipient of U.S. money. For years it has been U.S. policy to support the Palestinian Authority, an entity made up of people largely hostile to America, whose greatest enemy is Israel, a major U.S. client state. Now our Palestinian "friends" have signed a unity agreement with the terrorist rulers of Gaza, Hamas. According to the BBC, the agreement "paves the way for a joint interim government ahead of national elections next year." As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu points out,

"When... the head of the Palestinian Authority embraces Hamas, an organisation that two days ago condemned the American action against Bin Laden, praises Bin Laden to the gills as some great martyr for emulation, when he embraces this organisation that is committed to Israel's destruction, fires rockets on our cities... this is a tremendous setback for peace, and a great advance for terror."

If we continue funding the Palestinians, at some point we will not only be providing money for Israeli missile defenses, but for the rockets those defenses are designed to stop -- if we aren't already.

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.

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. 

Britain Attempts to Reign In Rogue Courts

The British Foreign office has proposed that the UK Attorney General be given the power to approve arrest warrants for suspected war criminals. This comes in the wake of an embarrassing incident, where a British court actually issued an arrest warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livini for supposed "war crimes," causing her to cancel a visit to the UK. The government of Gordon Brown was forced to apologize for the idiocy of this court.

Things are pretty bad in the UK, but even the British government has to be appalled at the shameful behavior of one of its courts, trying to arrest a former minister of a civilized country on behalf of terrorist supporters. Naturally those terrorist supporters aren't happy that the government is interfering with their jihad against Israel.

News of the prime minister's intervention provoked a furious response from lawyers and pro-Palestinian groups.

"I feel honest revulsion at the idea of a case where a judge has granted an arrest warrant and a politician gets on the phone and apologises," said Daniel Machover, a solicitor. "They have got to stay out of individual cases and legal decisions."

Unlike here in the U.S., where we have terrorist rights supporters, over in the UK they have actual terrorist supporters, working diligently on behalf of Hamas. Hopefully the government will be able to put some regulations in place to squelch the activities of courts that issue ludicrous warrants for political reasons, particularly when they act in support of terrorist objectives.

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. 

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.