An Israeli commando from the engineering corps Yahalom (“Diamond”) unit takes part in a tunnel-hunting drill in Sirkin special forces base, near Tel Aviv …

An Israeli army officer on Friday shows journalists a Palestinian tunnel that runs from the Gaza.

AS a native New Yorker – now living in Israel – the following thought experiment is highly germane. Apropo.

IMAGINE, if you will, living nearby the border between the east and west sides of NYC, somewhere in mid-Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue range, but your actual address is west of Fifth. Then, picture heavy-duty missiles flying out of the eastern demarcation into your western sphere, and for well over a decade. Hmm. Yet, in your mind’s eye, go a step further. Situate yourselves in another scenario: “wild west” east siders have upped the ante; digging tunnels into west side buildings, ever ready to cause more explosive terror! Which leader(s) in their rational mind would allow their citizens to “live” under such terrorizing conditions, ever fearful of becoming cannon fodder? Rhetorical.

Hamas’s Missiles.

NOW, as previously demonstrated, Israel’s top leadership – the buck stops with “Bibi” – commit double crimes. The first tier deals with an absolute ILLEGALITY;  negotiating – thus legitimizing – with Hamas, a designated terror group, even within Washington’s listing of terror groups! This is beyond dispute. Beyond the pale, even if masking such negotiations under political/diplo cover. Whom are they fooling? NOT the majority Zionist public, that’s for sure.

A demonstration in support of the war in Gaza in Tel Aviv.

SIGNIFICANTLY, time and again, Israel’s leaders negotiate “ceasefires/deathfires” with terror groups, be they Hamas, Fatah or Hezbollah. It makes no diff. And while said “ceasefires” aren’t worth the price of bupkes, the fact of the matter is not only are they worthless and exponentially dangerous – whetting their appetites for more of the same – they are ILLEGAL. Plain and simple….

International Law Precludes Ceasefires With Terror Groups

Professor Louis Rene Beres – {blogger’s mentor}

Any time there is an announced “cease fire” between Israel and Hamas, it wrongly and foolishly bestows upon that terror organization

(1) an expressly legitimate status under international law; and

(2) a clear and newly incontestable condition of legal symmetry between the parties.

This is never a tolerable jurisprudential arrangement for Israel.

Moreover, no proper system of law can ever permit any sort of compromise or accommodation by a government with criminal organizations, even, in the case of Israel and Hamas, one that might involve a somewhat less formal arrangement than the currently proposed cease-fire.

It follows that Israel ought never to unwittingly prop up its criminal adversary in Gaza by agreeing to a cease-fire or similar “armistice”; instead, it should proceed immediately to do whatever is needed operationally, while simultaneously reminding the world that the pertinent conflict is between a fully legitimate sovereign state (one that meets all criteria of the Convention  on the Rights and Duties of States, 1934) and an inherently illegal insurgent organization that meets none of these criteria, and that routinely violates all vital precepts of the law of armed conflict….

IN contravention of said illegality, Israel’s mentally besieged leadership charges forward; one “cease-fire” after another, in fact, feeding, fueling and supplying the enemy!

NEVER ENDING, like drunken sailors on a sinking ship they lumber hither and on, attempting to find a life raft to latch themselves onto, instead of executing what must be done – SMASHING Hamas’s top leadership and command centers!! Alas, here they go again, even as Netanyahu yanks Jerusalem’s negotiating team – like yo-yos – back and forth from Cairo.

BUT never mind…Hamasnicks have measured the mettle (tragically, quite correctly) of Israel’s leaders, as they barrage Israel with more missiles, even before the last “cease-fire” is due to expire at midnight on 8/19…and the next “cease-fire” is surely not far behind.

G-d have mercy…save us from our derelict leaders! You may rightfully inquire: are Israel’s leaders irrational? have they truly lost their minds?

DEBKAfile’s sources report an attempt by some Israeli officials to present the draft as incorporating a process which separates the humanitarian and security issues.
However, it may be that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ya’alon are looking for a pretext to explain the concessions that were made for the sake of a ceasefire for an indefinite period – or else they are trying to ward off Egyptian-Palestinian browbeating for a deal.

According to the disclosures so far, the draft agreement – if it is approved by the cabinet – will embody four major Israeli concessions:
—  Waiving demilitarization of the Gaza Strip and disarmament of Hamas’s rockets and terror tunnels at this point.
—  Lifting the  blockade of the Gaza Strip – economically and by the establishment of ports.
—  Reversal of a government decision to abstain from negotiating the release of convicted Palestinian terrorists from jail, which the Israeli public will never accept.
—  Rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip before any steps are taken towards disarming Hamas.

The danger of this waiver is already apparent in the announcement by the radical Popular Committees faction that it is not bound by any Hamas commitment to suspend rocket attacks. In any case, according to a Egyptian foreign ministry statement late Monday: Israel and the Palestinians have only agreed to a 24-hour ceasefire extension – i.e., until Tuesday midnight, for further negotiations.

SO, now that the legalities are squared away, as well as their Pavlovian responses to “cease-fires”, Israelis (this blogger included) and onlookers are left in a dizzying state of suspension, incessantly wondering: when will their madness end?and where are they leading the nation of Israel? To PROLONGED war, that’s where!

Most Israelis were stunned Tuesday afternoon, Aug. 19, when rocket fire suddenly erupted from the Gaza Strip against Beersheba and Netivot, after they had been lulled into a sense of false security by the suspension of Hamas attacks for 135 hours. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon sent the air force straight back into action to bomb “terror targets’ across the Gaza Strip, and recalled Israel’s negotiators from the indirect talks taking place with Hamas in Cairo through Egyptian intermediaries.

After a month of tough fighting and painful losses, Israelis were aghast to find themselves dumped back in the same old routine, which their leaders had vowed Operation Defensive Edge would end once and for all.

By midnight Hamas had fired around 50 rockets in a steady stream across most of Israel, including Greater Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

So what went wrong?
DEBKAfile reports that, as recently as Monday, Aug. 18, a senior intelligence source asserted that Netanyahu and Ya’alon were satisfied with the Cairo talks, because their outcome would refute their critics, ministers and security chiefs alike, by bringing Hamas to its knees.
Asked how this would come about, the source repeated the mantra heard day after day during the fighting: Hamas is looking for a way out of the conflict and wants to end hostilities, he explained. That is what we are banking on.

AMAN chief Maj.Gen. Aviv Kochavi is believed by some cabinet sources to be the author of this prescription, to which the prime minister and defense minister have stubbornly adhered, against all the evidence to the contrary. They therefore held back from inflicting a final defeat on the Palestinian fundamentalists.

ON this investigative journalist’s worst day, the above outcome could have been predicted. Clear as a bell.

STILL yet, it is not as if a certain segment of Israelis residing on the southern border – particularly within the “Gazan belt” – don’t possess special standing in this life and death struggle to “cease”, or not, Israel’s “firepower”. Why? Well, having been terrorized with missiles for over a decade, for the most part, they relied upon the political leadership to do the right thing, whatever that meant. How did THAT work out? Truth be told, an unfathomable patient response.

BE that as it may, that was then and this is now. Now that tunnels are under some of their bedrooms, kindergartens and what not…hmm…their patience has worn thin, to say the least. In this regard, over 60% of said residents FLED the area, declaring that they won’t return, unless the leaders SMASH Hamas’s terror apparatus for good!   

DEAR readers, juxtapose the spectacle of many thousands of Jewish residents of Israel’s southern belt fleeing for their lives – within the Jewish homeland, no less! – to the return of the scourge of anti-semitism throughout Europe (Islamic-Nazis gaining the aid of radical leftists and far-right fascists…video linked), as Europe’s Jews flee for their lives! Is this American-Israeli the only one who sees the craziness, the irony, of said dual flights?

 

IN other words, while France’s Jews (and others) are running for their lives into the arms of the Jewish homeland – a land this blogger would give her life for – Israel’s leaders not only fail to protect Jews already living here, but, by dint of odds, will fail those who are fleeing into her arms! Orwellian. For the record, some of these French Jews (and other new immigrants) are encouraged by Israel’s Absorption Ministry to move to areas not far from Gaza!  

France’s politicians and community leaders have criticised the “intolerable” violence against Paris’ Jewish community, after a pro-Palestinian rally led to the vandalizing and looting of Jewish businesses and the burning of cars.

It is the third time in a week where pro-Palestinian activists have clashed with the city’s Jewish residents. On Sunday, locals reported chats of “Gas the Jews” and “Kill the Jews”, as rioters attacked businesses in the Sarcelles district, known as “little Jerusalem”.

Manuel Valls, France’s prime minister said: “What happened in Sarcelles is intolerable. An attack on a synagogue and on a kosher shop is simply anti-Semitism. Nothing in France can justify this violence.”…….

More than a thousand Jews have made aliyah (the term used when Jews immigrate to Israel) in the past 10 days, according to the Israeli government.

“I came because of anti-Semitism,” said teary-eyed Veronique Rivka Buzaglo, one of 430 immigrants who arrived from France the day before. “You see it in the eyes of people. I see it in everything,” she told HuffPost.

Buzaglo says nothing would have stopped her from becoming an Israeli citizen this week – not even the rocket sirens frequently blaring in the south of the country, where she plans to live.

BASICALLY, one has to peer into ones heart of hearts and decide: are the words of Israel’s leaders meaningful, or just over-bloated hot air? Moreover, it must be recognized that not all bullsh-t is equal. Life and death.

IN this regard, listen carefully to their words and see if they match their actions! Then, decide for yourself: what order of manure are they shoveling?

MEN without chests…feet of clay…

UPDATE: Let’s just assert that public pressure helps…Zionists, the majority public, are getting restless…and this is one such indicator…may their heads roll…faster…faster…but it won’t happen without blowing up SHIFA…and Deif is just one of MANY top level targets still to blow up!!  Hammering Hamas Chiefs With Pinpointed Intelligence New War Effort.