7-Nov-07: Still raining destruction and terror

YNet says four mortar shells were fired from northern Gaza towards Israel Wednesday, landing near the beleagured, long-suffering community of Nativ Haasara. No injuries or damage were reported.

Israel's government decided two weeks ago to strategically reduce the amount of electricity it supplies to Gaza in response to the unceasing rockets and mortar attacks on Israel by terror forces in Gaza. Before that policy could be implemented, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz ordered it suspended until safeguards could be instituted to prevent humanitarian harm. That's still, as of today, what characterizes Israel's stance in this war against terror: a citizenry absorbing daily terror attacks, and the overpowering military might of Israel busy with constructing humanitarian checks-and-balances.

There's a price to pay for taking this moral high ground, fighting with the military equivalent of one arm tied behind its back. A background report by AFP this week points out that more than 3,000 Israelis living in Sderot, a town located five kilometres east of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, have left town during recent years. Its population stands today at 22,000 residents; so more than 10 percent of the local population has left. "The fact that people continue living here is a miracle," AFP quotes the town's mayor as saying. "More and more people prefer keeping their families safe by moving out."

Widely interpreted as a warning of impending action, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said two days ago that each passing day brings closer the prospect of a full-scale military operation in Gaza: "We are not happy about it and we would be happy if circumstances would prevent [military intervention], but the day is definitely nearing," he said. The JTA confirms this, writing this week that Israeli forces have been training and stockpiling equipment at a pace that would suggest a major Gaza action is weeks away at most.

But two days is a long time in the middle east. Yesterday he said: "What happens in Gaza brings us closer to a broader operation every day. But we should get to that point only after we consider and examine and exhaust all the other types of operational possibilities."

The exhaustion of possibilities is evidently in full swing.

7-Nov-07: Global jihadism, chapter 3,856

Three Qassam rockets struck southern Israel again today and this evening, reports Haaretz.

The first crashed into an open area with no damage or injuries.

The second damaged several cars in Sderot, a city that has never been occupied, never been contested, never been home to Palestinian Arabs, has no military installations and is under constant attack simply because it's within reach of the ever-growing arsenal of weapons installed by Pal-Arab terror groups under the active and watchful supervision of the jihadist Hamas regime. Three civilians were suffering from medically-treated shock in the wake of this evening's attack.

The third rocket hit an open area near Sderot, causing neither damage nor injuries.

Haaretz points out that Palestinian rockets scatter-shot into Israel have killed seven people in recent years and continue to disrupt life in western Negev towns on a daily basis.

There's something sadly obvious about today's attacks and yesterday's and last week's and last year's. The terrorists have no interest in who or what gets hit, little ability to guide their bombs, and zero interest in compromise painful or otherwise, or in a settlement or in peace. Just lobbing the explosives over the border is a complete fulfillment of their strategy... as it is for jihadist terrorists throughout the world.

Just how widespread is this hate-based religious perversion? Twenty jihadists were picked up by European police today in towns across Italy, and in Britain, France and Portugal. The initiative for the co-ordinated raids came from police in the Milan area. The initiative for the ongoing acts of terror came from pulpits and political platforms the length and breadth of virtually every country in the world. And that's before we speak of the carnage perpetrated in northern Afghanistan today and in Iraq almost daily. Saudi Arabia may be the hub of world terror as the headlines in yesterday's London Times assert ("Saudi Arabia is hub of world terror; The desert kingdom supplies the cash and the killers"). But the war of the terrorists is being pushed forward in almost every country on earth.

Does anyone imagine for a moment that today's police raids mean European terror is being defeated? The reality of the current stage in this ongoing war is illustrated by an intercepted conversation quoted in today's Independent newspaper (Britain): "Things are being done with extreme calm" says the British-based jihadist. "Haste does not bring the desired results".

Believe them.

It's deeply worrying that not enough people understand what the jihadists mean by 'desired results'. Or how all-encompassing, geographically, their target is. The ultimate root cause of terrorism (root causes are endlessly discussed in conferences on terror like the one we attended in Washington 2 weeks ago) is the astonishing apathy of the nations against whom it's being waged.

3-Nov-07: Mortars directed at Israeli towns again

Five mortars crashed into the southern Israeli town of Netiv Ha'asarah this evening (Saturday night). From where we sit, there's little doubt about the cynical agenda of the terrorists (we mentioned this in an earlier blog).

1-Nov-07: Firing 13 rockets today, the thugs' agenda is clear

Ynet is reporting that a barrage of at least 13 Qassam rockets was launched into southern Israel from Gaza this morning. Islamic Jihad has already taken open responsibility for the attack.

As of mid-morning, nine rocket landings had been located in beleaguered Sderot and vicinity. No injuries are reported but there has been property damage. One Qassam landed near Sapir College in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council area, just five meters from one of the campus's employees, but did not explode.

The Gazan terror gangs are aware that the Israeli media have been reporting calls in the last week by Israeli military commanders in the area for a wide-ranging operation in the Strip to eliminate the lethal sites. A broad Israeli response is just what they seem to invite.

The cynical manipulation of the lives and welfare of their own people continues to be the calling card of the Palestinian Arab terrorists. Israeli sources have been reporting for months that the Pal-Arabs embed themselves as deeply as possible within civilian populations, with or without their co-operation. The goal is plain: to provoke an Israeli strike that will cause the widest possible loss of life and property. Now there's film footage documenting how it works.

A video clip released yesterday by Israeli intelligence shows a cell of three Pal-Arabs launching mortar shells into Israel from the middle of a Gaza schoolyard. The video shows the boys school and a red circle that tracks the terrorists as they prepare to fire the mortars. Military officials said Israeli forces withheld fire, fearing civilians would be harmed.

They quote an IDF officer saying: "They don't think twice about firing Qassam rockets near crowded public areas, even though they're fully aware that they're endangering innocent civilians".

To which we would add: what makes them terrorists, and very far from the freedom fighters their apologists sometimes claim them to be, is their cold-blooded disregard for anyone else's life or property.

Being adherents of a death cult makes this a relatively safe option for the jihadists - they get ample theological support from the lunatic religious leaders of Gaza and elsewhere in the Islamicist world. Worse, they are actively aided and abetted by the hate-based polemics of political leaders in the Arab world and elsewhere. And by the idiot analysts of the terror-embracing margins of Western society who manage to subvert the plain meaning of events in order to advance an ideological narrative. Here's an example from many that have appeared in the past few hours: "Israel is exploiting the firing of Qassam rockets into Israeli territory as its pretext for this barrage of measures in Gaza, citing the lives of innocent..." blah blah.

What is it about unguided terrorist rockets fired randomly into someone else's home (not disputed, never "occupied", not military in any way) that these people don't understand?

UPDATE (3-Nov-07): The graphic Israeli reconnaissance video showing Palestinan terrorists launching mortars from a schoolyard is evidently too graphic for some of their apologists. It's reported that "Islamists at YouTube have succeeded in getting this video flagged as objectionable". Evidently there are aspects of terrorist random bombings of peaceful, Israeli civilian settlements that the Palestinian Arabs and their spinners find objectionable.