Israel to Hizbullah: Next Time We Fight to Win

...That conflict, which lasted 34 days, ended with Hizbullah somewhat shaken by the prowess shown by Israel’s air force, mainly in the war’s opening days when it took out Hizbullah’s long-range rocket launchers in Beirut.

But it also ended with Hizbullah still essentially in control of southern Lebanon. Since then—despite halfhearted efforts by a beefed-up UNIFIL—Hizbullah has only tightened its grip not only over the south but over Lebanon as a whole.

And most problematically, it has kept importing Iranian rockets, missiles, and other weaponry via Syria, and now—UNIFIL or no UNIFIL—has over 50,000 rockets and missiles that, as Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah boasts, can hit any part of Israel.

Those considerations—the inconclusive results of the 2006 war and the power Hizbullah has amassed since that time—are undoubtedly what leads the senior military official to tell AFP that another conflict would be “much shorter, much faster…. The most important mission today is to win decisively in any kind of war in Lebanon. If you win, you win—everybody sees it.”...

World Opinion – A Surmountable Obstacle

World opinion should not deter Israel from enhancing Jewish roots and national security, expanding the Jewish presence in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights and pre-empting Palestinian and Hezbollah terrorism.

Adverse world opinion and Global pressure have always been an integral part of the Jewish People and the Jewish State. The aim of this global campaign has been to eliminate the unique national, religious, cultural and territorial features of the Jewish People, including Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel.

The bolstering of Jewish sovereignty, while deflecting world opinion, generates negative world opinion (except in the USA and a few other countries), but enhances respect towards a conviction-driven Jewish State.  On the other hand, retreating Jewish sovereignty, while submitting to world opinion reflects weakness, never satisfy world opinion, and therefore fuels global pressure, eroding respect towards the Jewish State....

The Illness of 'Israel Apartheid Week'

...My first experience with Israel Apartheid week came back in 2000 at UCLA, when I was greeted on campus with pamphlets openly fundraising for Hamas and Hezbollah.

It was a spectacle I’d see repeated year after year. Just before September 11, the Muslim student newspaper Al-Talib ran a story joking about changing the name of the magazine to Al-Taliban and making Osama Bin Laden editor-in chief.

Every year, I’d ask the editorial team at the UCLA Daily Bruin to run a column on the association between the Muslim Student Association and terror groups; each year, they’d turn me down. Finally, after they decided to run a piece I’d written on the subject, they submitted it to the MSA directly for vetting. The piece never ran.

That was over ten years ago. But nothing has changed.

The University of California system is dominated by Israel Apartheid Week at least once per year per campus; in a not-coincidental correlation, anti-Semitic incidents on campuses seem to be rising....

'Khamenei told me that Israel must be burned to the ground'

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to worshippers in Feb. 2012.  (Photo credit: AP)

Israel has, for years, cautioned against Iran's intentions and the dangers of its nuclear ambitions, but on Wednesday former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar gave the world yet another reason to heed those warnings. Aznar, speaking to a crowd in Jerusalem, recalled a meeting with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in which he expressed his intention to destroy Israel.

"In a private discussion we held in Tehran in October of 2000, Ali Khamenei told me that Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth," Aznar told the audience. The former Spanish prime minister went on to say that Iran's spiritual leader also said that "Iran's war against the United States and Israel is inevitable."

Aznar was in Israel as a guest of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, currently headed by former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dr. Dore Gold.

Gold asked him, "When Khamenei was talking about wiping Israel off the map, was he referring to a gradual historical process involving the collapse of the Zionist state, or rather its physical-military termination?"

Aznar answered, "He meant physical termination through military force." The former Spanish leader also told the crowd that Khamenei described Israel as "an historical cancer, an anomaly," and said that he was "working toward Iran defeating the United States and Israel in an inevitable war against them."...

US envoy to Israel: US ready to strike Iran

JERUSALEM (AP) — The U.S. has plans in place to attack Iran if necessary to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, Washington's envoy to Israel said, days ahead of a crucial round of nuclear talks with Tehran.

Dan Shapiro's message resonated Thursday far beyond the closed forum in which it was made: Iran should not test Washington's resolve to act on its promise to strike if diplomacy and sanctions fail to pressure Tehran to abandon its disputed nuclear program.

Shapiro told the Israel Bar Association the U.S. hopes it will not have to resort to military force.

"But that doesn't mean that option is not fully available. Not just available, but it's ready," he said. "The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it's ready."...

IDF to boost intelligence efforts on Jordanian border

An advanced observation system is set to be deployed along the border with Jordan as defense officials fear growing infiltration attempts. Officials are concerned that efforts to seal the Egyptian border will motivate infiltrators to access Israel via Jordan.

The advanced multi-sensor system allows high-quality observation deep into Jordanian territory. Defense officials hope the system will help thwart terror smuggling. The IDF is planning to considerably enhance the field intelligence collection effort in the Dead Sea region.

The system, which incorporates observation, photography and radar capabilities, is currently being deployed in the Egyptian border area. The Southern Command's Combat Intelligence Collection Corps will track the Sinai region....

The Real Threat to the Two-State Solution

The EU accused Israel yesterday of endangering the two-state solution, inter alia via such crimes as failing to allow more Palestinian construction in parts of the West Bank under full Israeli control. How this threatens a two-state solution is never explained, for the simple reason that it obviously doesn’t: Israel’s refusal to authorize certain Palestinian construction now in no way prevents a Palestinian government from authorizing it later if that land becomes Palestinian under a peace deal.

But focusing on such non-problems allows the EU to ignore the real threat to the two-state solution: the ongoing Palestinian refusal to talk to Israel – not only among the official leadership, but among civil society as well.

Last week, for instance, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in the West Bank announced that any journalist who dared meet with an Israeli colleague would be expelled from the union, and perhaps even from his job, for the crime of “normalization” with Israel. Because many Israeli journalists (unlike the Israeli mainstream) vocally support the Palestinian Authority’s stated preconditions for resuming negotiations – a complete settlement freeze and an upfront Israeli agreement to a final border based on the 1967 lines – one would think Palestinians would want to encourage them. Instead, the journalists’ union has just declared that even Israelis who fully support Palestinian demands will be treated as bitter enemies. And then the “international community” wonders why mainstream Israelis fear that ceding the West Bank would result in yet another enemy state rather than a friendly, peaceful neighbor....

Hezbollah's Newest Threat

Pictured above - Sayyed Muhammad Hassan al-Amine sits next to a poster of Sheikh Hassan Mchaymech, once a part of Hezbollah’s leadership and now imprisoned. (Wael Hamze)

Hezbollah’s goal, in the words of its senior officials, has always been to create a society of resistance among Lebanese Shiite Muslims—one that would share in the setbacks as well as the victories of the militia’s fighters. So, why is Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah now complaining that Israel committed war crimes against civilians? In a culture of total resistance, surely no one is an innocent bystander.

Yet at a celebration this past Friday for the rebuilding of portions of Beirut’s southern suburbs destroyed in the 2006 war with Israel, Nasrallah asked his followers: “Why wasn’t [Israel] content with the killings in the battlefield, or with bombing military bases? Why did it expand its aggression to destroy homes and schools?”

Nasrallah apparently wants it both ways. He runs a guerrilla organization that stores its arms in homes and schools and hides among a civilian population that supports Hezbollah’s brand of asymmetric warfare. At the same time, he seeks to prick the conscience of the international community in order to have Israel sanctioned for crimes against the same population that his group uses as human shields....

Hamas as Violent as Ever, EU and Left as Clueless as Ever

In February, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh reiterated that Hamas would never give up trying to militarily destroy Israel, declaring while in Tehran that the “gun is our only response to the Zionist regime.” A month later, senior Gaza-based Hamas leader Mahmud Zahar, also visiting Tehran, made functionally the same statement. He also announced that the “principles and strategy of the Palestinian Islamic resistance will not change.”

Soon afterward, the two war advocates squared off in a secret election for placement on, and leadership of, Hamas’s 15-member Gaza politburo. Haniyeh rose above Zahar and is now the institution’s head.

Meanwhile, elections for Hamas’s overall central committee – as opposed to its Gaza politburo – are in the process of wrapping up. Official results should be up in the next 10 days, and in the meantime, somewhat conflicting rumors have emerged. Those reports are about the margins however, and it’s probably safe to assume that paid Iranian stooges Khaled Meshaal and Mussa Abu Marzuk are more or less leading the pack. Meshaal enjoys what counts as an incumbency advantage in that world, and Marzuk just declared unending war against Israel.

No one in charge of Hamas at any level, in other words, is pushing anything but a permanent campaign of violence against the Jewish State. Just this morning Hamas spokesman Hammad al-Ruqab called on Palestinians to kidnap Israeli soldiers, which is a call for Palestinians to start another war....

The Main Goal of the Palestinian Government

At a time when many Western governments, the World Bank and various international organizations are continuing to heap praise on the Palestinian Authority for implementing reforms, the deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament, Hasan Khreishah, announced that financial and administrative corruption was now more widespread than ever.

Khreishah, who is an independent parliamentarian, made it clear that the Palestinian government of Salam Fayyad, which has been hailed for combating corruption and implementing major reforms, was continuing to squander public funds.

One of the charges the deputy parliament speaker makes is related to the Palestinian government's claim that it is facing severe financial crisis.

Khreishah says that the Palestinian government is in fact lying when it talks about a financial crisis; its main goal is to get Western and Arab donors to channel more funds to Ramallah: "Corruption in the Palestinian Authority is more widespread than in the past," he said. "We hear about the suffering and hunger of the poor and the difficulties facing the unemployed, farmers, villagers and civil servants," Khreishah said. "At the same time, we hear about the luxurious life of senior and influential officials and the involvement of some in money laundering."

What Khreishah is saying is that Western donors, specifically the US and EU, are continuing to pour billions of dollars on the Palestinian Authority without holding its leaders fully accountable....