27-Jul-18: A murderous Thursday night knifing attack in suburban Jerusalem; the killer, again, is a child

Image Source: CUFI

The Israeli community of Adam (also known as Geva Binyamin, recalling the name of the site on which it stands which is mentioned in the biblical Book of Joshua), located just a few minutes drive north of Jerusalem and 45 minutes by frequent Egged bus ride from the capital's Central Bus Station, is in stunned shock this morning.

As Times of Israel reports:

The Israeli man stabbed to death in a terror attack in a West Bank settlement on Thursday night was named Friday morning as 31-year-old Yotam Ovadia. His funeral will take place at 1 p.m. on Friday at the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem. According to Israeli authorities, suspect Mohammad Tareq Yousef climbed over the security fence of the West Bank settlement of Adam sometime before 9 p.m. Thursday. He walked deeper into the settlement, crossing a playground area, where he encountered [31-year-old Yotam] Ovadia, and stabbed him repeatedly in the upper torso...  father to a 2-year-old child and a 7-month-old baby. The Brinks security company announced on their Facebook page that he worked for them as a technician...
A second resident, 58, was also stabbed after arriving on the scene. He was rushed to a hospital in serious condition but it was upgraded to moderate after doctors managed to stabilize him.
A third resident, Assaf Raviv, 41, went outside to investigate the disturbance and, realizing that an attack was occurring, shot the Palestinian terrorist three times, killing him. He was stabbed and lightly injured during the incident, and on Friday morning it was announced he had been released from hospital. The settlement committee on Friday released a statement praising Raviv’s bravery... 

Haaretz captures some of the Arab world's blood-lusting reaction:

In response, the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza said it welcomes the attack, describing it as "the appropriate response to the crimes of the occupation." [PRC is aligned with Hezbollah and with the government of Iran.]

And

Hamas said in an official statement: "This is an act of heroism and a message to all the heads of the occupation that attempts to uproot the spirit of resistance from the heart of the Palestinian people have failed and today's heroic action proves the unity of the Palestinian people and its common destiny. Yesterday three fighters were killed in Gaza and today the response has come from the West Bank."

And from a different Hamas source quoted on a Jordanian news site, a supercilious, general-purpose, one-size-fits-all self-justification for the barbarism:

"The operation today is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation against our people, and an extension of the ongoing uprising of our people," said Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanoua

The terrorism-friendly editors of the Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency have not yet managed to report any of this in their English-language edition but it's already headline news in their Arabic version (they understand their market's needs). Via machine-translation, we see they name the killer as Ahmed Tarek Dar Yusuf Abu Ayouch, 17, and frame the news as "the death of a boy". Other reports say he was younger than that. We won't post his photo on our site, but it's over here.

Unsurprisingly Israel-hating social media posts (like this one and this) refer to the cold-blooded knifer as "martyr".

Times of Israel notes that he comes from

Khobar, a West Bank town near Ramallah. The village is the same village the killer of the Salomon family came from, exactly a year ago.

They are referring to the savagery we reported a little over a year ago in "22-Jul-17: Friday night carnage in Neve Tzuf". (Do the British citizens of the English Midlands town of Walsall understand what they got into when they entered a twinning relationship with Khobar?)

What they ought to have mentioned as well, but didn't, is that Khobar (or Kobar or Kaubar or Cobar), a dusty village of about 4,000 people located about 10 km north of the PA administrative capital Ramallah, happens also to be the pre-imprisonment home-town of another notorious murderer, Marwan Barghouti, convicted on terrorism charges and involvement in five counts of murder in a criminal trial which we attended ["21-Mar-14: Allegedly objective journalism"]. It prides itself on having 25 of its residents in Israeli prisons.

Unlike the #WeaponizedChild teen who was lethally stopped last night trying to murder Jews, the older villager ["Who is Marwan Barghouti?"] gets his op eds published in the New York Times where they disingenuously call him "a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian".

There's much more in our post "18-Apr-17: So what, in reality, is Marwan Barghouti?", almost all of it ugly in the most serious of ways. Admirers of a certain loathsome South African churchman ["Archbishop Desmond Tutu nominates Marwan Barghouti for Nobel Peace Prize"] may be interested in the supporting role he plays.

As often happens in the wake of lethal terror attacks inside Israeli communities, it's likely the IDF will enlarge (for a time) its visible presence in the communities and on the roads of Judea and Samaria and carry out very active investigations in places like Khobar.

This morning's reports suggest the possibility that the terror in Adam involved an accomplice and that a "suspicious vehicle" was seen leaving the community shortly after the killing. Ma'an reports (again - only in Arabic for now) that three villagers have already been taken into Israeli custody this morning in Khobar and names them as Nasrallah Yousef Mishal, 17, his brother Mohammed Mishal, 21 and a 42-year-old Barghouti male named Khaldoun.

A Friday morning Arabic news report says the knifer's home is being prepared for demolition by the IDF. On that issue, bear in mind that the perpetually-insolvent Palestinian Authority's Rewards for Terror scheme will be providing lifetime incentive payments to the family of the dead killer.

UPDATE 3:00 pm Friday July 27, 2018: If you're familiar with the nauseating, agenda-driven editorial skills of the Ma'an people, you won't be surprised with how they approach the terrorist attack in their slow-to-arrive English-language report on last night's unspeakable savagery in Adam:

"Israeli settler shoots, kills Palestinian teen after stabbing attack" is the nauseating headline they came up with. In the body of the report, they quote Arab sources who say the boy came with an axe and that was what he used to attack his victims, and to carry out the murder of Yotam Ovadia.

And with Arab culture being flexible in the way names change form according to circumstances, they now call the killer Muhammad Tareq Youssef Abu Ayyush. Being cautious in their customary way, Ma'an's editors don't call the high-school-age killer a "martyr", at least not in this shabby Western-funded outfit's English-language version. But for the less delicate consumers of Ma'an's Arabic version, martyr is of course what they call him. Ma'an's editors know their readership and its predilections.

UPDATE August 28, 2018: Haaretz reports today ["Israeli Military Demolishes West Bank Home of Terrorist Who Stabbed Settler"] that, last night (Monday), the Israeli military demolished the home of the stabber who killed Yotam Ovadia:

The Israel Defense Forces went into the village of Kubar in the West Bank and tore down the house of Muhammed Tarek Ibrahim Dar Youssef. During the demolition violent protests took place and dozens of Palestinians threw rocks and firebombs and set tires on fire, according to the military. The military responded with riot dispersal means, the IDF said. No injuries were reported. Israeli law allows the military to demolish the homes of terrorists who have killed Israelis. The policy has been a matter of some controversy, but is carried out on the argument that it serves as a deterrent against future terrorist attacks as it affects other family members living in the household...

The terrorism-friendly Palestinian Arab news outlet Ma'an covers the demolition extensively with photographs and video, editorializing that house demolitions "against Palestinians and not against Israelis, who have committed attacks or hate crimes against Palestinians, has only fueled more anger against the decades-long Israeli occupation. Israel has come under harsh condemnation over the past several years for its response to attacks committed by Palestinians on Israelis, which rights groups have said amounted to "collective punishment" on family members and entire communities in a clear violation of international law." Ma'an needless to say makes no mention of the lifetime stipends to which the parents of the stabber have recently become entitled under the PA's grotesque policy of incentive payments for the perpetrators of terrorism and their heirs.

21-Mar-17: Gaza's Hamas-driven terrorism: no longer just in Gaza

A mass of green: Not Gaza but Hamas supporters rally during
student elections on the campus of Birzeit University, near Ramallah
April 26, 2016 [Image Source: AFP]

Hamas along with some of its smaller terrorism counterparts in Gaza have been transferring much of their focus and energies to the West Bank and expanding their malign influence and operations there. This emerges from a reported delivered by the Shin Bet's head, Nadav Argaman, to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee yesterday (Monday). He was named to the post almost exactly a year ago.

These reports are a yearly event, and closely analyzed. From Times of Israel's summary:

Hamas has “significantly increased its efforts to advance terror attacks in the West Bank and Israel,” Argaman said, referring specifically to mass-casualty attacks. “Hamas has found itself in strategic distress and is interested in undermining the security situation in the West Bank through bombings,” he said. To thwart those attempts, Israel has stepped up its crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank, arresting 1,035 suspected members. Some 114 terror cells were also broken up in 2016, as opposed to 70 the year before — a 62 percent increase, Argaman said.
Some 184 shooting attacks, 16 kidnapping attempts and 16 suicide bombings were thwarted by the Shin Bet in 2016, as were 84 other assorted attacks, mostly stabbings and car-rammings, he said. These figures did not include attacks prevented by Israel’s other security services, like the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police.

Some additional sound bytes from yesterday's briefing:

• “We’re approaching the Passover holiday. There is no question that the terror networks, particularly Hamas, will try to escalate the situation and carry out terror attacks.” [Israel National News]
• "Since October 2015, the Palestinian Intifada has sacrificed 256 martyrs and claimed 40 Zionist occupation settlers. Most of the Palestinian martyrs were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, while others were killed during protests in clashes or Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip." [Al-Manar, a terrorism-friendly Hezbollah affiliate which broadcasts news by web and TV from Lebanon]
• "[D]espite the appearance of relative quiet, Hamas and jihadist groups are trying to mount terror attacks in Israel every day... Argaman said the region is undergoing geopolitical change that will reveberate for years to come, including the implications of the Iran nuclear agreement on terrorism in the Middle East [Haaretz, yesterday]
• “...the quiet that we’re now experiencing – the relative quiet – is deceptive, a false quiet. Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror infrastructures worldwide are working every day to commit terror attacks... [Israel National News]
• "Over the past two-and-a-half years, the terrorist group [Hamas] has been rearming in preparation for future conflict with the Jewish state..." [Times of Israel]
• Over the past year, 16 Israelis and one foreign citizen were murdered in terror attacks inside Israel. [Israel National News]

26-Jun-16: Confirmed: How US actions emboldened and empower the terrorists of Hezbollah

The foreign ministers of the Islamic Republic of Iran
and the United States of America, together at a gathering
in Oslo eleven days ago [Image Source]

In a public speech broadcast on Friday and reported the following day, ["In first, Hezbollah confirms all financial support comes from Iran", Al Arabiya, June 25, 2016], the supreme head of the Lebanon-based terror organization Hezbollah made several revelations that ought to have an impact on how the world views the Iranian menace.

Figuring out who the terrorists are and what to do about them is, as we keep saying here, not such a straightforward thing. 

Hezbollah illustrates the point: it is formally classified as a terrorist organization by the Arab League, all the monarchic Gulf states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), United States, France, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, and Israel. 

On the other hand, the European Union, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have decided they view only its so-called military wing as terrorist; the rest of they are presumably OK with. Russia says Hezbollah is legitimate and China "remains neutral" [source; Wikipedia]. 

It's hard not to be deeply cynical about how diplomats and politicians, aware and informed of what the terrorists are doing with their improbably vast arsenal - currently estimated at  an astounding 150,000 rockets and ramping up - play games with people's lives.

Key points made in Hassan Nasrallah's Friday speech:

• All its funding and all its arms come from the Islamic Republic of Iran...
• And therefore US and other Hezbollah-directed sanctions will have no impact. 
• "We are open about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, come from the Islamic Republic of Iran..."
• "As long as Iran has money, we have money..." 
• "Just as we receive the rockets that we use to threaten Israel, we are receiving our money. No law will prevent us from receiving it."

This is startling in its bluntness. (As far as we know, no one from the White House or the State Department has responded to it yet.) 

The Al Arabiya report reminds us that Iran was instrumental in creating Hezbollah - oriented, like Iran, to the Shi'ite strand of Islam - 1982. Iran’s financial, military, intelligence, logistical and advisory help to Hezbollah has "well known" in the years since. Iran's Revolutionary Guard along with its Quds "elite" force transformed Hezbollah to become one of Iran’s most important and powerful regional and international proxies. 

So now we have public confirmation from an unimpeachable source that Hezbollah terror is fully funded, fully enabled and fully equipped by the money and the arsenal of Iran. As the principal beneficiary of Iran's tender attentions, there's no room for doubt on the matter. For perfectly understandable Arab/Iran reasons, Al Arabiya makes some effort to clarify how the actions of the current United States administration play into this Iran/Hezbollah reality. 

An American law, the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act, went into effect on December 18, 2015. It ambitiously targets banks and financial institutions that facilitate money transactions for Hezbollah. Its existence is probably one of the factors that brought the Hezbollah fuehrer to make his speech.

But the reality is that a very different US foreign policy initiative, the JCPOA is achieving pretty much the exact opposite effect. In the words of the Al Arabiya article

the US is now seemingly playing a critical role in assisting and facilitating the ways through which Hezbollah receives this significant aid from the Iranian government. The Obama administration and Hassan Rouhani ’s government were two key players in getting the nuclear agreement signed. When the nuclear terms started being implemented, the Obama administration began immediately transferring billions of dollars to Iran's Central Bank. One of the payments included 1.7 billion dollars transferred, in January 2015. Two of the major primary beneficiaries of these sanctions reliefs and flow of money are Hezbollah and the IRGC. Iran also immediately increased its military budget by $1.5 billion... Nasrallah’s speech also indicates that the US money transfer to Iran’s bank and the sanctions reliefs appear to have empowered and emboldened both the Iranian government and the Hezbollah leader… Thanks to Washington, the money that Iran is receiving from the US or the market is again going on its way to Hezbollah, the major benefactor.

If you're not deeply concerned about what this means and how it happened, you might not understand what terrorism does to civilized societies. And if you think it's a problem that impacts only Israel, you might not understand the Iranian game-plan. Here's a little suggested homework:

• 21-May-16: Darker sides of the JCPOA, the agreement that never was, emerge
• 25-Aug-15: Hard to ignore how much Iran believes its old goals are the right goals
• 29-Jul-15: Built not on trust but on... verification [a key document]
• 29-May-15: Wary eyes on Hezbollah's Cyprus and Southern Lebanon battlefields
• 01-Apr-15: More under-reported aspects of the Iranian reality
• 8-Oct-13: Neither a state nor a government, Hezbollah has a phenomenally large missile arsenal and means to attack

18-May-16: A reminder of how today's Iran operates

Soleimani [Image Source]

The US is officially continuing with the charade that an unsigned agreement ["18-Jul-15: The Iran Nuclear Enablement Deal for Dummies"] with the Iranian regime brings the world closer to peace and further away from an Iranian nuclear adventure. [For a reminder of the road to here, see "09-May-16: How we got into this incredible mess with the Iranians and who engineered it".] 

The Iranians, meanwhile, are quietly pressing ahead with business as usual. 

Iran Orders Hizbullah to Target Saudi Arabia  

May 17, 2016 | Middle East Eye | David Hearst 

Hezbollah has been instructed by Iran to suspend operations against Israel and to target Saudi Arabia instead, in the wake of the apparent assassination of Mustafa Badreddine, its military commander in Syria. According to well-informed sources in Lebanon, the order was conveyed in person by Qasim Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, who came to Beirut to give his condolences. Soleimani also named Badreddine's successor and his two deputies. Badreddine's replacement is Fuad Shukr, 55, whose nom de guerre is al-Hajj Mohsen. Shukr comes from the core group which started Hizbullah along with Imad Mughniyeh, Badreddine, and Mustafa Sahadah. Shukr was responsible for operations against Israel, including the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers. His two deputies are Ibrahim Aqil and Talal Hamiah. The appointments are unprecedented, as previous appointments have been an internal matter for Hizbullah. 

Shukr's appointment contradicts an earlier report in Asharq al-Awsat that Badreddine's nephew Mustafa Mughniyeh would be named as his successor. Iran's order to Hizbullah appointing a successor confirms the significance to Iran of Badreddine's death.

Additional relevant background here: "02-Mar-16: Saudi and Gulf states announce they now view Hezbollah as terrorists".

05-Mar-16: For Iran's terror-centric rulers, the plan seems to be working really well

Towards a kinder, gentler Iran [Image Source]

To the people running Iran, this must be such an enjoyable time. One of them, a parliamentarian, was quoted six weeks ago, noting that Iran

needs to expand its operational fleet from 150 to about 500 commercial aircraft over the next five years. The buying spree will end decades of aviation-related sanctions enforcement by Washington, which deliberately shackled the sector over fears that Tehran uses its civilian fleet for military purposes... Iran’s President, Hassan Rouhani, is expected to agree an order for between 114 and 127 Airbus jets during this week’s state visit to France, where the European manufacturer is based... [and] with aircraft already flying off the shelves in Toulouse, Boeing executives are working tirelessly behind the scenes to schmooze Iranian officials and secure their slice of the pie. [An Iranian official] that Iran will “purchase planes from Boeing and Airbus in equal numbers” — a clear invitation for both companies to sweeten their discounts if they want to tilt the order-book in their favor... ["Quietly Does It: Boeing Keeps A Low Profile In Iranian Aircraft Bonanza", Forbes, January 27, 2016]

Yesterday things moved into higher gear:

Iran has invited U.S. plane maker Boeing to Tehran to discuss purchasing jetliners aimed at revamping its aging fleet hit by decades of sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic, state TV reported on Friday. In February, Iran’s deputy transport minister Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan told Reuters the country was ready to buy at least 100 jets from Boeing... ["Boeing Has Gotten an Invite From Iran to Talk Planes", Reuters, March 4, 2016]

Iranian forces: Considerably less kind and gentle [Image Source]

How can that possibly be bad? Jonathan Tobin, writing in Commentary Magazine today, seems to see what others don't and we fear he's right:

Once Boeing is established as a major partner with the Islamists, it will be that much more difficult for the West or any American government to rip up the deal even if Iran engages in blatant violations. Instead of just apologists for Iran working to oppose the re-imposition of sanctions or retribution for Iran atrocities and terrorism, the Boeing deal will create a new constituency for Iran appeasement that will be difficult to overcome.
Rather than cheering for Boeing, those who see Iran for what it is — a vicious, anti-Semitic tyranny bent on war against Israel and all its foes as well as ultimately the West — we should understand that this new Iran deal is the death knell to accountability and an assurance that Tehran is safe from retribution no matter what it does. ["Why Boeing’s Iran Deal Matters", Commentary Magazine, March 4, 2016]

If it goes through, this will be the first major business deal done by Iran with a US company since the Islamic "Revolution" of 1979. It's the sort of transaction that, as Tobin puts it, "was always the real purpose" of the JCPOA. We said our piece about that ["29-Jul-15: Built not on trust but on... verification"], at a time long before it became more widely noticed that the JCPOA is not and never was intended to be a signed and binding agreement.

(If that sounds surprising, please take a look at what we mean.)

So if it fit the Iranian purpose, who else had that interest? Here's Tobin again:

Iranian forces [Image Source]

Though little noticed at the time, the Iran deal contained a specific provision that the United States would permit “the sale of commercial passenger aircraft and related parts and services to Iran.” ...Congress has not lifted U.S. sanctions on Iran. Thus, while European governments and industries have been conducting a gold rush in Tehran doing their best to get a cut of the massive windfall that the end of international sanctions is creating, Americans are still standing on the sidelines. But by granting Boeing permission to do business with the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, the Obama administration is seeking to create a large exception that will work to unravel resistance to warm relations with Iran... [T]he real point of the effort wasn’t merely to postpone for a decade Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon. That paltry achievement that, even if the Iranians observe the terms of the deal, leaves their nuclear program intact and makes it possible for it to weaponize fairly easily once the deal expires. But the president has all along hoped that engagement intended to allow Iran to “get right with the world” would mean the regime would moderate during this period... ["Why Boeing’s Iran Deal Matters", Commentary Magazine, March 4, 2016]

That fantasy of a self-moderating Iran has surprising appeal in certain quarters. But to believe in it, a person would have to either ignore the following randomly-selected recent developments - or not care about their impact and where they are leading:

• "100 Iranian prisoners told to prepare for mass execution", March 5, 2016
• "Iranian Dissident: Idea That Moderates Won Election “Could Not Be Further From the Truth”", March 4, 2016
• "UNICEF concerned about its former official held in Iran prison", March 4, 2016
• "Iran denounces labeling Hezbollah as terrorist group", March 4, 2016
• "This Openly Gay Iranian Author Is Seeking Asylum in Israel", March 4, 2016
• "Clinton condemns Iran’s cash offer for Palestinian terrorists", February 26, 2016
• "Iran pledges thousands of dollars for Palestinian terrorists", February 24, 2016
• "Repressive plans for hijab and virtue implemented for young girls in Iran", February 21, 2016
• "Iran: We still fund Hamas, because fighting Israel is our policy", February 8, 2016
• "No, Iran is not ‘opening up’", January 22, 2016
• "Iran Executed 1,084 People In 2015", January 12, 2016
• "Nuclear Deal Fuels Iran’s Hard-Liners", January 8, 2016
• "'A new wave of repression is imminent in Iran'", November 2, 2015
• "Iran Wins World Record for Most Executions Per Capita", October 27, 2015
• "Boosted by nuke deal, Iran ups funding to Hezbollah, Hamas", September 21, 2015
• "Iran's reformists hope regime will temper its harshness", August 3, 2015

02-Mar-16: Saudi and Gulf states announce they now view Hezbollah as terrorists

The Gulf Cooperation Council members [Source]

Saudi Arabia, along with several of the Gulf oil states, today announced [via AP] that they are formally declaring Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

A statement from the Gulf Cooperation Council said Wednesday that it was taking the step because of hostile acts by the militant group within its member states. The group accused Hezbollah of charges including seeking to recruit members within the GCC and smuggling of weapons and explosives...

(The Gulf Cooperation Council members are the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.)

Should that be news? Yes, bearing in mind the background. Wikipedia, whose entry on Hezbollah is likely to change in the next 24 hours, currently says

Hezbollah's status as a legitimate political party, a terrorist group, a resistance movement, or some combination thereof is a contentious issue. There is a "wide difference" between American and Arab perception of Hezbollah. Since Hezbollah is a non-state actor that uses violence as a means of resistance to Israel, it is often associated with "terrorism" in West: several Western countries officially classify Hezbollah or its external security wing as a terrorist organization, and some of their violent acts have been described as terrorist attacks. However, throughout most of the Arab and Muslim worlds, Hezbollah is referred to as a resistance movement, engaged in national defense.

That entry lists these countries and organizations as having listed Hezbollah "in at least some part" as a terrorist organization. Australia, Bahrain, Gulf Cooperation Council, Canada, France, European Union ("Hezbollah's military wing"), Israel, Netherlands", New Zealand, United Kingdom ("Hezbollah's military wing"), and the United States.

In reporting this terrorism-related development, Gulf Today says today

Gulf nations have taken a series of measures against Hizbollah since Saudi Arabia last month halted a $3 billion programme funding French military supplies to Beirut.

Some additional small insight into the evolving view taken by the Saudis comes in an article by an influential columnist: "A company called Hezbollah", written by Abdulrahman al-Rashed, a former General Manager of Al Arabiya News. A brief extract:

How much is Nasrallah, who heads Hezbollah, bothered? 

 

To understand why Hezbollah has expanded beyond Lebanon into Syria and Yemen, we have to look at it as a limited-liability company that provides services to its owner, the Iranian regime... Iran has desires that it wants to impose on the West and Israel, such as allowing its nuclear program and extending its influence in the Arab Gulf countries and Iraq. This is what Tehran has achieved in part due to Hezbollah and other forces such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad... As a result of the Iran nuclear deal, Hezbollah’s main function - facing Israel - may expire. This is why the party is trying to reinvent itself as a company that offers other services."

Reuters noted just yesterday that

Relations between Lebanon and Saudi Arabia have been plunged into crisis since Riyadh halted $3 billion in aid to the Lebanese army - a response to the Beirut government's failure to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.

We have more to say, but meanwhile urge readers to see "Iran funding Palestinian terrorism", published yesterday, and authored by Dr Ely Karmon of Israel's International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.

20-Dec-15: Sunday evening rocket volley is fired into northern Israel

Following the demise of a notorious terrorist earlier today, there has just now been a rocket volley fired into northern Israel. Israel National News says:

At least three rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, the army has confirmed. Air raid sirens sounded in communities throughout the western Galilee in northern Israel, at 17:42 local time Sunday, including in Rosh Hanikra and Nahariya. Locals report hearing at least one explosion; three rockets struck within Israel. There are no reports of injury or damage. IDF forces are scanning the area. The strikes follow Hezbollah vowing revenge for the assassination of its notorious commander Samir Kuntar, in what is believed to have been an Israeli airstrike near Damascus.

There were four incoming rockets, according to Times of Israel. It quotes Lebanon’s Naharnet saying that

two rockets were fired at Israel from the al-Hinniyeh area and two others were fired from Tal al-Maaliyeh. Some reports suggest one rocket landed in the sea. There are also initial reports of IDF artillery fire into Lebanon following the attack. There is no official confirmation of a counterattack...[A]t least one rocket landed in an open area near Nahariya. It’s not clear where the other two landed. “Forces are searching the area,” the IDF says in a statement. There are no reports of injuries or damage.

We noticed at least one Western reporter, tweeting here, who said this morning that Syrian state media had blamed "a hostile terrorist missile strike," and not Israel, for the elimination of Kuntar. In any event, no government, and certainly not Israel, has owned up to any involvement at this stage.

UPDATE - Monday, December 21, 2015: Times of Israel says communal bomb shelters are now operating in several northern Israel communities following the Sunday night multiple-rocket attacks. The Israeli assessment is that three rockets were fired into Israel from Lebanon, with all three landing near Shlomi, a small town near the Lebanese border. Inbound-rocket sirens were heard across a broad swathe of the northern border area. UNIFIL radars detected three rockets being launched and one of them landing in the sea, according to the IDF. Credit for the attack has been claimed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a Syria-based Palestinian terror group. There are so far no reports of injuries or damage from the rocket strikes. A Lebanese source quoted by AFP says the rockets were Katyushas.

25-Aug-15: Hard to ignore how much Iran believes its old goals are the right goals

FARS News home page at this hour

While some parts of the US mainstream media drop heavy (and loaded) hints about Obama White House displeasure at

Netanyahu’s unprecedented interference in domestic U.S. politics... [McClatchy DC, August 18, 2015]

many of us over here in Iran's backyard and target zone are getting more than a little sick of how the unleashing of Iran's nuclear weaponization scheme has come to be sold to American voters as a matter of exclusive US domestic concern.

Israelis like us actually have some large pre-occupations arising from an unsigned agreement (deliberately unsigned, as we pointed out here) that claims to be all about verifying and neutralizing what the mullahs are up to but in reality seems much more about egregiously-misplaced trust and hope. 

We're aware of the

precipitous drop in support since the agreement was announced in July. Between a half to two-thirds of the American public currently reject the deal. Those numbers were flipped in reverse before the agreement was finalized... [Source]

But we're also aware of the voices that say this is all about finding the way to peace in a difficult time and place and so on. And how there was no better alternative anywhere to be found, none at all. And with rising despair we're reading advice from people who believe

• "...rejection of this deal would be a rejection of the historic progress our diplomats have made to make this world a safer place..." ["51 Christian faith leaders urge Congress to vote for Iran Deal", August 25, 2015]
• "...The pending nuclear agreement may offer an opportunity to reset relations with Iran after 35 years of hostility. We need to go forward and find out what is possible..." [Kansas City Star, August 23, 2015]
• "...an inclusive, interdependent awareness is essential in helping us initiate a dialogue between America and Iran which will establish the idea of transformative exchange as a paradigm for understanding and reshaping the world order..." [Huffington Post. August 21, 2015]

Here's a taste of the problem we have.

Britain's foreign secretary, with Iran's  president Rouhani
yesterday [Image Source]. Headline reads:
"I believe in Iran’s desire for better ties with the West,'
says Philip Hammond after Tehran trip"

Right now (Tuesday, 6:00 pm Jerusalem time), if you were to go the home page of the influential and somewhat authoritative Iranian government-mouthpiece website FARS News as we just did, you would get a sense of what is on our minds. There's a lead story there bearing this headline: "Parliament Advisor: No Change in Iran's Policy on Israel". (It's archived in full here.)

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Parliament Speaker's Adviser for International Affairs Hossein Sheikholeslam blasted British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond for his interfering remarks, and said Tehran's positions against Israel have not changed at all.
"Our positions against the usurper Zionist regime have not changed at all; Israel should be annihilated and this is our ultimate slogan," Sheikholeslam told reporters in Tehran on Tuesday. After reopening the British embassy in Tehran on Sunday following four years of strained relations between the two countries, Hammond claimed in an interview with the British media that the current Iranian government had displayed a more nuanced approach than its predecessor to a long-running conflict with Israel...
Relations between Iran and Britain hit an all-time low in November 2011, when the two countries shut down their diplomatic missions around Britain's key role in the imposition of a new set of western sanctions against Iran and its repeated meddling with Iran's domestic affairs. But after President Rouhani rose to power, he and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, pursued the policy of detente and started talks with London on the resumption of diplomatic ties and reopening embassies...

Does UK foreign secretary Hammond view "annihilation" as part of that more nuanced Iranian stance? If not, then what does he think it means?

Does he know that Iran says officially that it will simply not follow those parts of the nuclear deal that restrict its military capabilities? You can't just ignore this stuff - it's out there on public display via Reuters for anyone who wants to check.

Meanwhile back to Hossein Sheikholeslam, who brings some classically-Iranian qualifications for the job of adviser on international affairs. He was one of the so-called 'students' in the notorious Iran hostage crisis (depicted in the 2012 movie 'Argo') in which 52 American diplomats and civilians were held by force in Tehran between November 4, 1979 and January 20, 1981. They were let loose only on the day Jimmy Carter's presidency ended (the goal was to humiliate him), an illegal incarceration of 444 days.

Sheikholeslam then rose to become the Iranian Foreign Ministry's director for Arab affairs in the 1980's, a role that, according to this article on the website of Radio Free Europe (from 2004) put him in charge, as coordinator, of the

Islamic Revolution Guards Corps participation in Hizballah operations. He was Mohtashami-Pur's Foreign Ministry contact in connection with the April 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut.

You could say he's a well-accomplished terrorist with plenty of blood on his hands. And the designated bearer of a message his bosses have chosen to display on one of their most watched front pages.

Sheikholeslam also happens to be the Iranian regime insider we quoted anonymously a week ago [here] when his government

denied a request by Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas to visit Tehran... [and] dismissed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) officials' claims that Abbas will make a trip to Tehran in October. "They requested the visit more than once but we haven’t accepted it yet; they have recently repeated their demand once again but we have not provided them with a positive response," he said, according to the news website. Sheikholeslam also stressed Tehran's full support for the “resistance front”, adding that no one can destroy the friendship and strategic relations between Iran and Hamas. [Israel National News, August 20, 2015]

So just to re-state this: the Iranian official who today, at this very hour, is saying in his official capacity and in the most prominent and public of places that Israel must be annihilated is also the Iranian official who managed his country's strategic involvements with the terrorists of both Hamas and Hezbollah. And it's also he who supervised the Iranian part of the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut in which 63 people were murdered - mostly embassy and CIA staff members along with several US soldiers and a US Marine.

It was the deadliest attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission up to that time, and is thought of as marking the beginning of anti-U.S. attacks by Islamist groups... [Wikipedia]

Now tell us again why trusting the Iranians is going to bring peace. And why Israel's existential concerns amount to interference in domestic U.S. politics.

It's hard for us to ignore how openly and loudly Iran states that its old goals - those that earned it recognition as a pariah state - are today's right goals. Does making these points mean we're part of the group the president of the United States has taken to calling "the crazies"? Should it matter that most Americans, most Representatives in the House and a majority of the US Senate agree with us?

21-Jun-15: State Department's report on terror: Questions, and questions not asked

Ambassador Kaidanow

[This post, like a number of others before it, has been translated to Polish ("Raport Departamentu Stanu o terrorze") by courtesy of Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.]

Tina S. Kaidanow is the United States of America's Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism. This past Friday was one of the big days in her year. It's when she presented the State Department's annual Country Reports on Terrorism report for 2014. The latest report itself is online here. (And the reports for years going back to 2004 are here.)

The short version is that the twelve months since she presented the 2013 report have seen a stunningly dramatic increase in terrorism (but you won't see those words in the government report). We can see that by looking at such metrics as overall number of attacks, by people killed and kidnapped, and by number of "major" attacks in which 100 or more people were killed. It's a depressing litany.

How seriously should they be taken? In her remarks at the media briefing in which the report was launched [here], Ambassador Kaidanow seemed to suggest we ought to pause and think before we jump on top of the results:

While I cite these statistics, which are compiled by the University of Maryland and are not a U.S. ... Government product per se, I do want to stress again that in our view they don’t provide the full context. Aggregate totals or numbers of attacks are not really a particularly useful metric for measuring the aims of the extremist groups or of our progress in preventing or countering those activities. 

But the numbers she cites in a report with the State Department's name on the cover are worth absorbing. So is the slightly odd way she seems to walk away from any responsibility for them ("not a US Government product per se... their emphasis is a little different than ours..."):

• Number of terrorist attacks up by 35% over previous year to 13,463
• Number of deaths from terrorism up by 81% to 32,727. 
• Number of people kidnapped or taken hostage in a terror attack "increased three-fold" from 3,137 in 2013 to 9,428 in 2014
• No fewer than 20 attacks in which 100 or more people were killed. In 2013, there were 2 of them - a ten-fold increase.

If these incredible numbers and the trends they describe do not tell the whole story then, according to the Ambassador's way of seeing things, what is the story? That's not entirely clear from her remarks or the report itself. To us it actually seems that the numbers are sufficiently persuasive and articulate, moving in a clear direction, and describing a mortal threat that just keeps growing and spreading. Is there a fuller contact that would lead intelligent people to a different, less disturbing, view?

Without drilling down on this, one of the media questioners who spoke after the ambassador's presentation asked a couple of questions that seemed to get to the core of the issue. First this:

"Given the sharp rise in attacks, killings, and kidnappings, what does that say about this department and this Administration writ large, its effectiveness in fighting terror in 2014?" 

And then a few minutes later he moved on to this:

"Was the United States effective last year in fighting terrorism?" 

Then a few minutes after that, a pointed exchange from another reporter:

"Considering all of these objective metrics, how do you see a record of competence or success for this President in the area of counterterrorism? ...You keep talking about inputs and I’m asking about the outputs, the outcomes. 

AMBASSADOR KAIDANOW: Right, well, again, I’ve answered the question. If that’s not satisfactory, then we can have a conversation offline about other issues, but that’s what I would say.

And she moved on immediately to someone else's comment. But to us, those seem like precisely the kind of questions a report like this should be answering.

Iran comes in for some special attention. That's not at all surprising given the prominent role the Iranian regime takes in the field as a state sponsor of terrorism (on a vast scale), first designated as such by the State Department on January 19, 1984 and still on the list. (The others are Syria - an Iranian client - and Sudan.) Its impact comes via multiple channels,

mostly through its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force. Iran sponsors terrorist groups Hezbollah in Lebanon, several Iraqi Shia militant groups, Hamas and the Palestine Islamic Jihad... Kaidanow said the department's assessment of Iranian terrorist activity doesn't measure whether the country has increased or decreased its support, and the report also does not take into account any activity in 2015. "We continue to be very, very concerned about [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] activity as well as proxies that act on behalf of Iran," Kaidanow said. "[T]hey are continuing their pursuit of these activities … [W]hether it's expanding, not expanding – that's a little harder to judge, but the point is they're still doing it, we're still concerned." ...Reports that the Obama administration and its partners have whitewashed reports of Iranian sanctions violations to prevent derailing [nuclear talks that are supposed to end in two weeks] have also fueled skepticism negotiators can reach a deal without too many concessions, as well as skepticism Iran will comply with any such deal reached. [US News and World Report, June 19, 2015]

At the same time, the State Department report states, with no elaboration, that

Iran remains a state of proliferation concern. Despite multiple UNSCRs requiring Iran to suspend its sensitive nuclear proliferation activities, Iran continued to be in noncompliance with its international obligations regarding its nuclear program. Implementation of the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) between the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, coordinated by the EU), and Iran began on January 20, 2014. Iran has fulfilled the commitments that it made under the JPOA...

Screen shot from the State Department report [On-line here]

How accurate is that? The Obama administration has made repeated claims that Iran has halted progress on its nuclear program. But many analysts see it differently, including a New York Times report ["Iran’s Nuclear Stockpile Grows, Complicating Negotiations"] on June 1, 2015, just three weeks ago:

With only one month left before a deadline to complete a nuclear deal with Iran, international inspectors have reported that Tehran’s stockpile of nuclear fuel increased about 20 percent over the last 18 months of negotiations, partially undercutting the Obama administration’s contention that the Iranian program had been “frozen” during that period. But Western officials and experts cannot quite figure out why. [NYTimes]

How to understand that? Consider the views of an expert published three months earlier:

It is time for the Obama administration to more accurately describe the impact of the JPOA on Iran’s nuclear program... If Iran is in fact in violation of the JPOA, what steps does the administration plan to take to bring Iran into compliance? By continuing to ignore this apparent violation, the administration will be setting a bad precedent. If violations of the JPOA are ignored, what hope do we have that any violations of any follow-on nuclear agreement will be acknowledged and dealt with? Source: “In Iran, Distrust and Verify | Has the Iranian nuclear program violated the Joint Plan of Action?” [Gregory S. Jones, National Review, March 2, 2015]

Iran itself takes a robust view of such things which it has no hesitation trumpeting: 

Iran rejected Saturday US claims that it was a sponsor of global terror attacks, saying instead it is a victim of terrorism. On Friday, the US State Department said the Islamic Republic "continued to sponsor global terror" attacks last year and supplied arms to the Syrian regime even though it was engaged in talks to rein in its nuclear programme. But Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said those accusations were "worthless." "For three decades, Iran has been the great victim of terrorism and considers international cooperation to combat terrorism a priority," she said, without elaborating. [AFP, June 20, 2015]

So whom are we to believe? Are the Iranians terrorists or victims of terror? Is the US comfortable with Iranian "compliance" with the Joint Plan of Action (and so we can all move forward to a June 30 agreement with Teheran)? Or is the US trying to sound better informed than in reality it is?

Ambassador Kaidanow's ailing boss, Secretary of State John Kerry, has very recently gone to energetic lengths to claim the US knows everything it needs to know about Iran. Michael Gordon from the New York Times asked him whether ongoing concerns about "suspected nuclear design work and testing of nuclear components" by the Iranian regime had to be "fully resolved before sanctions are eased or released or removed or suspended" and whether that was "a core principle" or negotiable:

SECRETARY KERRY: Michael, the possible military dimensions, frankly, gets distorted a little bit in some of the discussion, in that we’re not fixated on Iran specifically accounting for what they did at one point in time or another. We know what they did. We have no doubt. We have absolute knowledge with respect to the certain military activities they were engaged in. What we’re concerned about is going forward. It’s critical to us to know that going forward, those activities have been stopped, and that we can account for that in a legitimate way. That clearly is one of the requirements in our judgment for what has to be achieved in order to have a legitimate agreement. And in order to have an agreement to trigger any kind of material significant sanctions relief, we would have to have those answers. [Source: State Department Briefing, June 16, 2015]

If only. 

Here's what the people from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who have been carrying out a frustrating program of site inspections in Iran for years, now say - and it tells a very different story. This is Yukiya Amano, director general of IAEA

[W]hat we don’t know whether they have undeclared activities or something else. We don’t know what they did in the past. So, we know a part of their activities, but we cannot tell we know all their activities. And that is why we cannot say that all the activities in Iran is in peaceful purposes... And our information indicates that Iran engaged in activities relevant to the development of nuclear explosive devices. We do not draw conclusions. But we are requesting Iran to clarify these issues... I think it is very important that Iran engage with us to clarify these issues. [From a PBS interview with Amano on March 23, 2015]

And here, as the deadline for an agreement rapidly approaches, Amano is again, saying that the IAEA:

is not in a position to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities... [Statement to the IAEA Board of Governors, June 8, 2015]

So the man with the on-the-ground inspectors says he doesn't know. But the State Department says it has "absolute knowledge"?

Smarter people than we have pointed out that what the US and the world don't know about Iran's nuclear activity makes for a serious list. For instance:

• There's persuasive evidence that North Korea helped jump-start Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. How long that partnership been in place, and what is its status today? [Washington Post, March 29, 2015]
• How far has Iran gotten with testing nuclear detonators [note]
• When the Iranians paved over their Parchin complex, which IAEA said was a possible location for testing explosive triggers for a nuclear blast, what did they hide? [Fox, August 22, 2013]

Do we have the full context? And if the Administration keeps saying what it's saying about Iran's compliance, including as a part of this terrorism report, does say something meaningful about the rest of the report? It's not as if these issues don't matter. Being wrong on terrorism has huge consequences.

08-Jun-15: The banality of defending our lives from the terrorists

Street scene in Be'er Sheva. (Yes, Be'er Sheva) [Image Source]

This is a note about the unappreciated challenges of making your home in a small country, one that's roughly the size of Hawaii.

Unlike Hawaii, Israel is surrounded not by the blue Pacific Ocean but by entrenched, armed-to-the-teeth, religious fanatics: Hamas and PIJ in the south; Hezbollah in the north; the highly mobile and phenomenally aggressive ISIS just beyond the river that is our eastern border, and talking about rolling westwards.

Very few people outside the circle of Israelis and friends of Israel really care to know

1. how small this little country of ours is
2. how astronomically well-armed the fanatics of Hamas and Hezbollah are, especially with rockets
3. how difficult it can be to conduct ordinary life while tuning in to hourly news bulletins and to incoming-missiles sirens.

In which airport was this endless line of people waiting to go
through security? It hardly matters - could be anywhere [Image Source]

No sane person wants to obsess over life-threatening dangers. So most of us find ways to deal with the tensions. It's easier, in some ways, when everyone around you is in the same pot with you.

With that in mind, here's the full text of a news report that went up on the Ynet site a few minutes after 8 this evening (Monday):

An Iron Dome missile battery was deployed near the southern city of Be'er Sheva Monday as a precaution after three recent rocket attacks by ISIS supporters in Gaza.

That's the whole piece. The most worrying thing? That news of the overnight placement of millions of dollars worth of advanced anti-missile technology, along with the soldiers who man it 24/7, on the outskirts of Israel's seventh largest city gets one-line, at most.

Very few news outlets beyond this country's borders will even note it.

And in Europe, North America, Australia, and those other places where anti-terrorism security at airports, train-stations and parliaments has become a sink-hole for untold millions of whatever currency, they mostly don't even realize that we are all in this together.

29-May-15: Wary eyes on Hezbollah's Cyprus and Southern Lebanon battlefields [UPDATED]

The bomb-making materials were found in this Larnaca residence
[Image Source]

Reuters (via Lebanon's Daily Star) says today that some 400 boxes - two tons, 67,000 packages - of ammonium nitrate stashed away in the basement of a private home in the coastal town of Larnaca, Cyprus, led police there to suspect and then arrest an unnamed Canadian and detain him in connection with terrorism charges. The few published facts include that he is 26 and born in Lebanon.

Ammonium nitrate is a fertilizer but in large quantities can be mixed with other substances to make a powerful explosive... [P] police suspected Israeli interests were the target, and one said that authorities believed the ammonium nitrate had been amassing at the residence for some time... Cyprus is a popular holiday destination for Israelis and the island hosts an Israeli embassy in Nicosia... The suspect arrived in Cyprus in the third week of May and had been staying at the two-storey house in a residential suburb... [Reuters, today]

Reuters does not get around to mentioning it but the suspect had €10,000 in cash on him [Cyprus Mail, May 28, 2015] when arrested.

And this:

The Phileleftheros newspaper [Cyprus' major news source] said the 26-year-old man, who was remanded in custody on Thursday, belonged to the Lebanese organisation's military wing and had personal links to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

How involved with terror is Cyprus? Here's what Reuters writes:

Despite its proximity to the Middle East, Cyprus has seen little militant-related activity in recent decades. Its last major security incident was a botched attack on the Israeli embassy in 1988, which killed three people. In 2013 a Swedish citizen of Lebanese descent was jailed in Cyprus on charges of plotting an attack on Israeli tourists. He said he had been asked by Hezbollah to track the movements of Israeli tourists on the island, but denied he was planning any attack. [[Reuters, today]

Though they call it "little militant-related activity", Cyprus does have some sense of what might be going on under its noses. In that 1988 attack

a car packed with explosives exploded on a Nicosia bridge, killing three. The car was meant to target the Israeli Embassy. [CBC News Canada, yesterday]

Then just over two years ago (as we reported here: "21-Mar-13: First conviction of Hezbollah terrorist in a European court"), another Lebanese, this time with a second Swedish passport, was convicted in a Cypriot court of "membership in a criminal organization", meaning Hezbollah. The charges had originally included terrorism; they were reduced a year before the trial to merely criminal matters.

The offences then (and as seems likely this time too) involved preparing to attack Israeli tourists on Cyprus. The accused happily admitted that he has was with Hezbollah, had been since 2007 and that he did "relatively simple tasks", like hand-carrying packages between European cities, observe Jews (!), watch Israeli flights land in Cyprus, go to and from Dubai, and record the activities of buses carrying Israeli tourists. He also admitted to having been trained to use RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47 assault rifles and machine guns: "I work for my party. Whenever they asked me to do something, I delivered."

The murderous Hezbollah attack on Israelis in the airport car park of the Bulgarian Black Sea resort Burgas in the summer of 2012 seems to been executed by people with just that sort of training and rather similar goals.

At the time of the March 2013 criminal conviction, Hezbollah was not classified as a terror organization by the EU. Then four months later, the EU governments finally acted, deciding in the wake of the Cyprus court decision

to list the armed wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist group because of concerns over its activities in Europe... The US and Israel have spent years urging the EU to outlaw Hezbollah outright... But the EU ignored pressure... to ban the Lebanese organisation outright... [The Guardian, July 22, 2013]

[Here's a link to our commentary at the time: "22-Jul-13: One of Hezbollah's "wings", the terrorist one, is finally outlawed in Europe"]

From an Israeli standpoint, the issues go way beyond pressure or politics. We saw a memo earlier this week, authored by Omri Ceren at The Israel Project, reflecting some of the current thinking about what Hezbollah stands for (whether outlawed or not). A handful of relevant highlights:

• [T]here's a lot of chatter in the Middle East about a summer war between Israel and Lebanon... On one hand the Israelis and Hezbollah are saying the same thing: all of southern Lebanon is now one big military compound. But only the Israelis are pointing out that Hezbollah has made sure that in that compound there are tens of thousands of civilians. 
• The Israelis can't afford a war of attrition with Hezbollah. The Iran-backed terror group has the ability to saturation bomb Israeli civilians with 1,500 projectiles a day, every day, for over two months. They will try to bring down Tel Aviv's skyscrapers with ballistic missiles. They will try to fly suicide drones into Israel's nuclear reactor. They will try to detonate Israel's off-shore energy infrastructure. They will try to destroy Israeli military and civilian runways. And - mainly but not exclusively through their tunnels - they will try to overrun Israeli towns and drag away women and children as hostages. Israeli casualties would range in the thousands to tens of thousands.
• Hezbollah is counting on the resulting deaths of their human shields - and they've guaranteed to that the body count will be significant - to turn Israel into an international pariah...
• [Iranian-backed Hezbollah] has built a sprawling underground array of tunnels, bunkers and surveillance outposts along the border with Israel, which it is manning at peak readiness for battle... highly-advanced, with durable concrete, a 24-hour power supply via underground generators, a ventilation system to prevent damp from damaging military equipment and a web of secondary escape shafts in case of attack... housing tens of thousands of rockets ready for launch...

In Europe, they deal with such issues via lawyers, judges and prosecutors. Here, the urgency, lethality and scale of the potential consequences demand a much broader, sharper and more expensive approach - one that most people on our side wholeheartedly would have preferred to see avoided.

UPDATE Friday July 3, 2015:

Cyprus jailed a member of the armed wing of Hezbollah for six years on Monday after he pleaded guilty to charges of stockpiling explosives to attack Jewish targets abroad. Hussein Bassam Abdallah, 26, who has dual Canadian and Lebanese nationality, was arrested in late May after Cypriot authorities found 8.2 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, a potential explosive, in the basement of a house in the coastal city of Larnaca. Abdallah pleaded guilty to charges of possessing explosives, conspiracy to commit a crime, aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation and participation in a terrorist group, the state Cyprus News Agency (CNA) reported. Authorities believe that the ammonium nitrate had been stockpiled in Cyprus since around 2011 and held in the basement of a home in a residential neighbourhood of Larnaca. In a statement to police, Abdallah said the fertiliser would have been used to attack Jewish or Israeli interests in Cyprus, CNA reported. [Reuters]