26-Nov-09: Notes from ground zero

Five days ago, the Hamas regime called a press conference to announce that the various terrorist groups under its jurisdiction had decided to bring an end to Gaza-based rocket fire into Israel. This statement was of course nonsense, created purely for its propaganda effect on people with little understanding or awareness of what goes on in this neighbourhood daily.

Today, Thursday, five mortars were fired by Palestinian Arab Gaza terrorists into Israel. Fortunately all landed in open areas in the Eshkol region: no reports of injury or damage, but that was not the intention of the barbarians (as we have written dozens of times in the past).

The last such bombardment in the area before today took place this past Monday. Then, the Gazan rocket landed near a kibbutz in the Negev (news reports here routinely keep the location of the landings a secret out of security considerations), and again, thankfully, no damage, no injuries and - as usual - no reporting.

Elsewhere in the neighbourhood today: Palestinian Arab got out of a taxi, carrying a knife and an ax, just next to a petrol station in Kiryat Arba this afternoon (Thursday). He stabbed two Israeli civilians, a man and a woman aged 52 and 49, and then fled the scene. He was pursued and then shot and seriously wounded by an IDF soldier.

And on our northern border today, Lebanon's newly formed cabinet announced agreement on a policy statement that acknowledges Hezbollah's right to use its weapons against Israel. The statement cites the right of "Lebanon, its government, its people, its army and its resistance" to liberate all Lebanese territory. We've heard liberation rhetoric like this before, usually just before a barrage of liberation-minded missiles directed at apartment buildings and schools comes crashing down on our cities.

Is it really called "siege mentality" when they're out to hurt you from every direction?

23-Nov-09: On freeing a monster

Earlier today, we sent a letter to the cabinet members of the government of Israel. The following is an English translation of what we wrote to them.

Like the rest of the Jewish nation, we yearn to see Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit back home with his long-suffering parents as soon as possible [and we have written about this in the past.]

But it is with indescribable pain that we read about the impending mass release of the convicted murderers of Israeli civilians and soldiers. Those of us who still personally feel the agony of the terror attacks of the last few years have failed to motivate our leaders to free Gilad Shilat via alternative means.

Among the prisoners to be released will be the convicted mass murderer Ahlam Tamimi.

And among the victims whose sacrifices will be denigrated is our precious child, Malki.

Tamimi is unique in several ways. As such, she should be treated differently from other convicted murderers.

While she is a woman, and for this reason accorded relatively compassionate coverage by the media, Tamimi is a far more prolific murderer than most of the men she will accompany. She slaughtered seven men and women and eight babies and children in cold blood. Tamimi personally led the suicide-bomber, Al-Masri, right up to entrance of the target she herself selected, Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant, made a hasty getaway to save her own skin, and then, in effect, "fired her weapon". Few of the prisoners on Hamas' demand list were so intimately involved in the terror attacks for which they were convicted and sentenced. Those who were, usually died in the attack.

Tamimi was sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences, and has been in prison for five years. Few of the murderers Israel has agreed to release have spent so brief a period behind bars.

She has enjoyed the notoriously comfortable conditions that Israel lavishes on female Palestinian prisoners, including: the freedom to dress in clothes of her choice - she swapped her secular garb for Muslim fundamentalist scarf and robe; the opportunity to grant interviews to writers and to a documentary film-maker, thereby gaining widespread international media coverage and air-time for her hateful values; the unfettered opportunity to practice her religion to the fullest extent; the option of higher education - she was a university student and part-time journalist at the time of the murders; the time to socialize and politicize with her fellow terrorist-prisoners. Few male Palestinian murderers enjoy conditions as generous as Tamimi's.

Tamimi has declared unequivocally that she has no regrets about what she did. In one of her media interviews, permitted by the Israel Prison Service, she is quoted saying: “I am not sorry for what I did. I will get out of prison and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence… Discussions will only take place after Israel recognizes that this is Islamic land”.

Several years ago, Tamimi spoke with Barbara Victor, author of  “Army of Roses: Inside the World of Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers” (London; Constable & Robinson, 2004). In her book, Victor writes that Tamimi “didn’t regret the deaths of all these children” and said “They should have returned to Poland, Russia or the United States, to the countries their parents came from”.

Of the other convicted terrorists to be freed, none – as far as we know – has made such egregious and documented statements of un-repentance.

Abdullah Barghouti, another mass murderer who prepared the bomb that slaughtered the Sbarro victims and who is also slated to be released in the Gilad Shalit exchange, publicized his lack of regret as well. But he qualified this by saying: "I do not accept responsibility for their deaths. I feel pain, of course. They are little children. But the government of Israel is solely responsible."

When, during the filming of a documentary, Tamimi was informed that the number of children she had murdered was higher than she had herself presumed, she smiled with pleasure into the camera.

The Sbarro bombing remains one of the most horrific acts of terrorism that Israel has ever known. It decimated an entire family, the Schijveschuurders; the father, mother and three of their young children died instantly, leaving behind four orphans. It robbed a couple of their only child, pregnant with her first baby when Tamimi murdered her. It sent a young mother into a coma from which she has never emerged; her ravaged life is never included in the tally of Tamimi's victims.

The evil that Tamimi embodies is special, and deserves treatment distinct from that of the other terrorists.

We recognize, as many observers have pointed out, that Israel has probably bungled the handling of Shalit's return. The damage has been done and there is no turning back the clock. We are resigned to the fact that releasing terrorists for Gilad Shalit's return means that Hamas will commit fresh kidnappings.

We also fear that Israeli soldiers, sent by their commanders to risk their lives in the pursuit of suspected terrorists, will now wonder whether they should die just so that another name is added to the next prisoner-release list.

Removing Tamimi's name from the list will enable Israel to demonstrate some vestige of strength, conviction and morality. This is a message which needs to be heard by its citizens,  its enemies and the world. Please support our efforts to bring this about.

Frimet and Arnold Roth
Jerusalem

18-Nov-09: Rocket incoming

In this ongoing war of the terrorists against our society, yet another Qassam rocket inspired (if you believe their self-serving propaganda) by the political aspirations of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip or alternatively (if you can grasp what terrorism is actually about) by hatred and a zeal for causing the widest possible harm to the enemy, landed in Israel this morning, Wednesday. Reports from the Shaar Hanegev region say no damage and no injuries but this was of course not the intent of those doing the rocketing. The previous Qassam attack was this past Friday; the same region was the target. The rocket before that was last Sunday; it landed on the outskirts of the Israeli community of Sderot.

Search and it is unlikely (we believe, after trying) that you will find any reports anywhere in the global news media that these rockets were fired, other than brief mentions in certain parts of Israel's news channels.

11-Nov-09: It's not called paranoia

It's not called paranoia when you really have enemies, and when those enemies have the ability, simply by deciding to do it, to bring chaos, destruction and death into your home at will.

A day after the [IDF] chief of staff warned against an increasing threat from the north, Hizbullah bragged, "All cities, military bases, factories, and settlements in Israel are within the organization's firing range."

Hizbollah's political bureau chief Mahmoud Qomati was responding to the statements made by IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi in the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday. Ashkenazi said that Hezbollah is armed with tens of thousands of missiles that can even reach Dimona. "Some of them reach a range of 300 km (about 185 miles)," he said. According to the chief of staff, the missiles are ready for use. "There is a paradox. On the one hand, there is quiet, but when you raise your head over the fence, you see strengthening and arming. If Hezbollah carries out an attack to avenge the death of Mughniyeh, this will obligate Israel to respond. This can lead to deterioration." 

For anyone who needs reminding, Hizbullah is financed, trained, equipped, ideologically inspired, and under the complete control, of the Iranian regime.

8-Nov-09: What the Goldstone report did not do

Here's the central question that the Goldstone commission needed to ask, and didn't. But Dr Moshe Halbertal did, in the current issue of the The New Republic:

"What should Israel do when Hezbollah’s more lethal and accurate missiles strike the center of Tel Aviv, causing hundreds of civilian deaths? It is a well-known fact that these missiles are in Hezbollah’s possession, and, when they are fired, it will be from populated villages in Lebanon."

It's a cogent, elegant and compelling read... just about the exact moral and logical opposite of what Mr Goldstone and his careless crew of partisans achieved. Shame on them. Or as Halbertal puts it so sadly and so well: "The Goldstone Report as a whole is a terrible document. It is biased and unfair. It offers no help in sorting out the real issues."

Amen.

If you know any thoughtful people who genuinely want to understand the fiercely important questions that societies like Israel have to grapple with every day while fighting the terrorists, you could do a lot worse than to point them to Halbertal's essay.

8-Nov-09: Mullahs' Gifts - Some snapshots

Further to yesterday's report: For readers who can't quite visualize what a shipload of terrorist armaments, intended to be launched into towns, schools, hospitals, powerplants, airports and kindergartens looks like when it's seized and dismantled, here are some images courtesy of the Jerusalem Post and the IDF.

 

 

 

 

Note in particular how the terrorists, acting under cover of Iran's official international shipping line IRISL and evidently with its active involvement, concealed the weaponry inside containers that were part-filled with ordinary goods like sacks of polyethylene, a thermoplastic substance that was meant to camouflage the deadly consignment. The polyethylene packs are clearly marked in English "NPC National Petrochemical Company" with a flame logo used by the company and Iran's Oil Ministry.

Haaretz points out that

IRISL is a state-controlled company with a fleet of 95 commercial ships, including 18 container ships. It plies routes to the Far East, the Gulf, Egypt and Europe. And it is one of the companies the UN Security Council listed in its sanctions resolutions against Iran, due to its role in transporting equipment for Tehran's nuclear and missile programs. The company's directors are fully aware of this problem, as are the commanders of the Quds Force - the branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that is responsible for shipping arms to Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah. They all know that ships with Iranian flags, or that have been leased by IRISL, are likely to draw the attention of western intelligence services and their navies.Therefore, in an effort to divert attention, they loaded hundreds of containers onto a single Iranian ship that sailed to the Egyptian port of Dumyat. The cargo manifest described the shipment as a civilian cargo of polyethylene, a common plastic. At the Egyptian port, the containers were loaded onto Francop, a German ship that flies the flag of Antigua. Its destination was Latakia, a port in Syria, from which the arms would be smuggled overland to Lebanon.

7-Nov-09: Gifts from our friends, the Mullahs

Friends outside Israel sometimes seem surprised by the pre-occupation we and many Israelis have about the role of Iran in our neighbourhood. But for us Israelis, all the lines connected to terrorist actions in our cities and public places seem to run back to Iran.

This past Wednesday 4th November 2009, an Israeli naval action exposed the ugly and almost-indescribably dangerous hand of the Iranian regime in sowing terror on a scale that people far away don't often grasp.

Naval commandos in an operation called Operation Four Species boarded a ship called the Francop in the eastern Mediterranean Sea without resistance, about 160 kilometres (100 mi) off the coast of Israel, near Cyprus. [There's IDF video footage here.] A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Force (IDF) says the ship was carrying "dozens of shipping containers, carrying numerous weapons, disguised as civilian cargo among hundreds of other containers on board". These originated in Iran and were to be directed to Hizbollah. After the boarding, the Israeli navy directed the ship to the Israeli port of Ashdod where the instruments of death were carefully inspected and inventorized. The ship was then released.

The final talley includes: 9,000 mortar shells, thousands of 107-mm. Katyusha rockets with a range of 15 kilometers, some 600 Russian-made 122-mm. rockets with a 40-km. range; and hundreds of thousands of Kalashnikov bullets.

This was the largest such intercept in Israel's history. It's said to be equivalent to the load of about ten cargo planes.

The IDF says the ship picked up its cargo in Damietta, Egypt where it had Bandar-Abbas, Iran on October 25. The Francop was then set to sail to Limassol, Cyprus and on to Latakia, Syria from where it was to be transferred to Hizbollah. In the interests of full disclosure, Hizbullah says it "categorically denies" any connection to the weapons "that the Zionist enemy claims to have confiscated from the ship." And we know they would never lie.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 forbids the shipments of arms to Hezbollah. This Res. 1701 was a major issue at the end of the Second Lebanon War, and prohibits the delivery of weapons to any entity in Lebanon but the Lebanese government. It was meant to keep Hizbollah from rearming itself with long-range rockets but Hizbollah, according to every Israeli source we know, has about doubled its rocket arsenal since the war, mainly with the help of shipments from Iran and Syria.

For the curious (dare we say naive?) there's also a UN resolution that specifically (Res 1747) prohibits Iran from exporting weapons:

Iran shall not supply, sell or transfer directly or indirectly from its territory or by its nationals or using its flag vessels or aircraft any arms or related materiel, and that all States shall prohibit the procurement of such items from Iran by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, and whether or not originating in the territory of Iran...

Israel has filed a complaint with the UN. Before we hold our collective breaths waiting for a meaningful response, note that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a report to the UN Security Council two days before the Francop seizure saying the UN takes Israeli allegations about weapons smuggling to Hizbollah seriously, but lacks the ability to independently verify the information. Explaining this, Mr Ban says the government of Lebanon [not a misprint - Lebanon] has not informed the UN of a single incident of weapons smuggling to its territory, whether by land, sea or air. Astonishing but evidently true.

For any of our friends wondering why most Israelis tend to place more trust in their military's intelligence than in international forums, a brief and selective list of past instruments-of-terror seizures:

• 2002, January: In the Karine A seizure, IDF commandoes took over a 4,000-ton freighter captained by a high-ranking Palestinian Authority naval policeman without a single shot being fired, 300 miles south of Eilat in the Red Sea, between the coasts of Saudi Arabia and Sudan. The Iranian and Russian-made weapons on board included long-range Katyusha rockets with a 20-kilometer (12-mile) range, LAW anti-tank missiles, Sagger anti-tank missiles, long range mortar bombs, mines, sniper rifles, ammunition and more than two tons of high explosives. The Palestinian Authority, led at the time by Araft, was reported to have spent more then $100 million on the arms shipment.
• 2009, January - While Operation Cast Lead was underway, IAF fighter planes and drones (according to non-Israeli sources) flew 1,000 miles to Sudan to bomb a convoy of trucks smuggling Iranian weapons to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
• 2009, January: US naval vessels near Cyprus stopped a ship called the Monchegorsk, chartered by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISIL), and headed for Syria, carrying artillery and tank shells, as well as raw materials to make rockets.
  
• 2009, September: During the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, US President Barak Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy exposed another Iranian terror undertaking when they announced together the existence of a secret uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom which Western intelligence agencies believe was to be used to enrich uranium to illegal military levels for a bomb.
• 2009, October: Another ship, the Hansa India, which left Iran flying a German flag, was caught by the US military carrying eight containers filled with bullets and industrial equipment that could be used to manufacture weapons. These containers were also intended for Syria, and from there, to Iran's clients in Lebanon, the Hizbollah. One positive aspect of this: the British Treasury on October 12 ordered financial services companies to cease all commercial relations with the Iranian ocean carrier IRISL "amid concerns it has been involved in helping Tehran to develop nuclear weapons.... The order, issued under the Counter Terrorism Act 2008, also applies to Iran's Bank Mellat."
  

Being sensitive (over-sensitive? hyper-sensitive?) to what the Iranian regime is doing doesn't necessarily make a person anti-Iranian, a war-mongerer or even paranoic. But ignoring what these religiously-inspired fanatics are doing in broad daylight - which is what we see so many individuals and governments doing - is simply beyond our comprehension. Not to mention bordering on the suicidal.