Iran: 2008 Archives

Iran supplies munitions to Hamas in Gaza as well as to Hezbullah in southern Lebanon. Iranian missiles fired from Gaza can now reach 20 to 25 miles into Israel, putting major population centers such as Ashkelon (pop. 105,000) and Ashdod (205,000) in danger.

The Hamas thugs know they are firing at civilian centers. The missiles analyzed by the Israli bomb experts contained

metal balls designed to act as shrapnel, and the intended effects were visible at a home situated just a few meters from where one of the rockets hit, which looked as if it had been sprayed with a machine gun.

Large, gaping holes peppered the front of the house.

Rocket and missile fire from Gaza has been a constant even during the so-called six-month truce which Hamas ended. Since the truce ended ten days ago the projectiles fired have been in the hundreds. Israel had warned repeatedly that the firing must stop or they would attack all Hamas security centers. Hamas often fires the missiles and rockets from mobile platforms in the middle of civilian areas, knowing that when the Israelis retaliate some of their civiilans will be killed, thus providing Hamas with pictures of "victims" for the gullible media.

Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, has not renounced terrorism and has not ceased terrorist operations against Israel's citizens. An American Muslim so-called charity the Holy Land Foundation was recently convicted in Texas of funneling money to a know terrorist organization Hamas. In that case CAIR (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) and the North American Islamic Trust, the owner of the new mosque in Boston's Roxbury district, were named as unindicted co-conspirators.)

Hizbullah-type rockets fired

Dec. 28, 2008
Yaakov Lappin , THE JERUSALEM POST
Two Katyusha rockets that Hamas fired deep into Israel on Sunday are the same type launched by Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War, an Israel Police source told The Jerusalem Post.

The two rockets were Hamas's deepest attacks into Israeli territory to date. The first Katyusha hit in Gan Yavne, 35 km. north of the Strip, and the second struck 20 minutes later in an undisclosed location near Ashdod, 40 km. from Gaza.

Police sappers who analyzed the projectiles said they carried six to seven kilograms of explosives each, and identified them as 122-millimeter PIPE type-81 Katyusha rockets, which have a range of 40 km.

The rockets contained metal balls designed to act as shrapnel, and the intended effects were visible at a home situated just a few meters from where one of the rockets hit, which looked as if it had been sprayed with a machine gun.

Large, gaping holes peppered the front of the house.

"This is our Hanukka miracle," said Avital, a mother of five who hid with her children and husband in a safe room in the house after hearing the air raid siren. Her family was one of the few in her community on Sunday morning - most of the moshav's families were away on an organized trip. Hours later, the families returned and examined the damaged home with stunned expressions.

Dozens of people lit a large hanukkia and sang holiday songs near the home, in a show of solidarity with the family.

"At 9:30 we heard the first siren. I was praying," Avital said. "My son woke his siblings up and we entered the safe room. Soon afterward, we heard a second siren."

Avital's husband, Eyal, was working in the garden outside their home. "I wouldn't be here now if I hadn't heeded that second siren," Eyal told the Post. "I would be dead."

"We entered the safe room [again] and 30 seconds later, we heard an enormous explosion and shrapnel flying," Avital said.

"My little girl cried, but on the whole we were calm," said her husband.

Police sappers quickly arrived and removed the rocket, which hit moist sand next to the home. The soil appeared to absorb much of the explosion.

"We're reciting psalms and thanking God," Avital said. "Property is replaceable, human lives are not," she added. "We are still in shock from what happened."

Avital expressed support for the current IDF operation in Gaza, saying, "This is a kind of war, and we are prepared to take this in order to win. In Sderot, they have this every day."

The Home Front Command added Yavne and Gadera to its list of communities under threat from Hamas rockets, telling residents there they had one minute to enter shelter in the event of an air raid siren.

However, unlike in Gaza-periphery communities, the Home Front Command said life in Gadera and Yavne could continue as usual.

Britain's Channel 4 TV network created some controversy by inviting Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver a message for Christmas Day. It contended that European viewers really didn't know Ahmadinejad and his positions and it was a public service to have him, in a sense, respond to Queen Elizabeth's Christmas message as head of the Church of England.

Caroline Glick, the most perceptive of all Middle East political analysts, believes Channel 4 did the right thing.

THE FACT of the matter is that Channel 4 is right. There is a great deal of ignorance in the West about what the likes of Ahmadinejad and his colleagues in Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas stand for. But this isn't their fault. They tell us every day that they seek the destruction of the Jews and the domination of the West in the name of Islam. And every day they take actions that they believe advance their goals.

The reason that the West remains ignorant of the views and goals of the likes of Hamas and Iran is not that the latter have hidden their views and goals. It is because the leading political leaders and foreign policy practitioners in the West refuse to listen to them and deny the significance of their actions.

As far as the West's leaders are concerned, Iran and its allies are unimportant. They are not actors, but objects. As far as the West's leading foreign policy "experts" and decision-makers are concerned, the only true actors on the global stage are Western powers. They alone have the power to shape reality and the world. Oddly enough, this dominant political philosophy, which is based on denying the existence of non-Western actors on the world stage, is referred to as political "realism."

Glick rightly denounces this "realism" as fantasy, whether it involves dealing with Iran, Syria, the Hezbollah-dominated Lebanese government, Hamas or North Korea.

These foreign policy realists maintain that talking and appeasement are the way to bend these actors to the will of the West, even though years doing that have not produced the desired Western results. The age-old definition of a madman applies: Doing the same thing that failed over and over again expecting a different result.

It's disturbing that Obama has so many aides who are anti-Israel. It's disturbing that Obama aides met with leaders of terrorist, Iran-supported Hamas during the campaign and told the Hamas leaders to keep quiet about the meeting so as not to cause upset before the election. It's disturbing that one of Obama's most virulently anti-Israel advisors went to Damascus to meet with Syrian leader Assad.

But there's even more.

This week, Middle East Newsline reported that President-elect Obama recently sent "senior foreign policy adviser" Malley to Egypt and Syria where he "relayed a pledge from Obama that the United States would seek to enhance relations with Cairo as well as reconcile with Damascus." According to an unnamed aide, "The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests."

Are we entering a new era of accommodation of jihad terrorists bent on Israel's — and the West's — destruction?

Diana West says, "I'm very afraid."

Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

By Diana West, Syndicated Columnist
November 17, 2008

How dumb does President-elect Barack Obama think we are?

Let me rephrase the question: Are we as dumb as Obama thinks?

The Middle East's preeminent political analyst Caroline Glick, who writes for the Jerusalem Post, says her fears of Obama's true intent with respect to the Middle East are being realized. To win Jewish votes he seemed to shun his anti-Israeli advisers as the election neared, but it now appears that the two most virulent opponents of Israel's right to exist are deeply involved in Obama's foreign policy. The signals emanating from the Obama campaign suggest that the first target of Obama's new foreign policy will be Israel, forcing it to give way to Palestinian demands. Closely related is what appears to be Obama's desire to "reconcile" with Iran's ayatollahs.

As Glick logically asks, what wil Obama offer up to Iran for renewed relations and a supposed end to its nuclear weapons program?

As for direct talks with Iran itself, the question immediately arises, what could Obama offer Teheran in exchange for an end to its nuclear program that Bush hasn't already offered?

What it can offer is Israel.

We predicted exactly that before the election, but enough of the electorate was so giddy with the idea of electing what some call the first affirmative action president to not care much about who he was or what he stood for.

Therefore, Israel finds itself in a deadly race for survival: Iran is feverishly pushing ahead with its nuclear weapons program, which is an existential threat to Israel. Israel has two dates of urgent consequence ahead -- January 20th when the new Obama policy can begin to be implemented and February 10th, when Israel elects a new government. If Israel elects a Netanyahu govenment it can save itself. If not, Israel will be at the mercy of Iran and Obama.

Prominent American Jewish supporters of Israel now rightly fear Obama will "throw Israel under the bus." That possibility was quite obvious before November 4th, yet 78% of American Jews voted for Obama.

Some hope that Obama's Jewish chief of staff Rahm Emaneul will prevent that from happening. But Emanuel was a chief aide to President Clinton when he forced Israel to offer virtually all of Judea and Sumaria and East Jerusalem to Arafat in his last minute push for a peace agreement. Fortunately for Israel, Arafat refused (showing he really didn't want peace, he wanted all of Israel gone, as does his successor Mahmoud Abbas.)

Update:

Did we say "giddy?"

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post says the press on Obama is showing "a giddy sense of boosterism." Will honest reporting every return?