Showing posts with label Iron Beam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iron Beam. Show all posts

Monday, December 05, 2022

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The Peace Processors Turn Against Peace
The purportedly "pro-peace" diplomats' most revealing recommendation related to Israel's Abraham Accords peace partners.

"The Biden administration," they wrote, "needs to inform the Abraham Accord countries—the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan—that their evident lack of interest in the plight of the Palestinians will undermine their relationship with Israel and damage their credibility in advancing other regional objectives with the United States."

So to advance their anti-Israel agenda, the two men who built their careers through their supposed efforts to build Middle East peace, call for scuppering Middle East peace.

This tells us something very basic about the true nature of their work—and that of their like-minded colleagues—across the decades, and still today. It was never peace that they were after. "Peace," for them, was a fig leaf behind which they hid their true goal. That goal is clear, given that their noxious policy prescriptions are the same today as they have always been.

In the name of the vaunted "peace process," for more than 30 years Miller, Kurtzer, and their colleagues in the Washington foreign policy establishment pressured Israel to appease the Palestinians despite their anti-Jewish bigotry and terrorism. "In the interest of peace," they threatened and coerced Israel to concede its national and strategic interests in unified Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. The goal wasn't peace. The goal was to get the U.S. to implement anti-Israel policies.

Likewise, they aren't demonizing Israel's incoming government because they actually believe that any of the terrible things they attribute to Netanyahu and his colleagues are true. They are demonizing them because the utter failure of the "peace process" they helped orchestrate and oversee is now indisputable. They, like their friends in the Biden administration, openly admit the "peace process" is "moribund."

The intense demonization of Israel is the new fig leaf. It is also a way to justify capsizing actual Arab-Israel peace. If Israel is evil because it elected a fascist, racist, homophobic government, then everyone who supports Israel or lives in peace with it is also evil, fascist, racist, etc.

The Miller/Kurtzer op-ed is a conclusive demonstration that the so-called "peace process," which never led to peace, was a complete sham. They knew it all along, and they didn't care.

Peace is not the goal of the "peace processors." It never was. Their singular aim, for the past generation of fake "peace processing," has been to undermine and end the U.S.-Israel alliance and replace it with a set of hostile policies toward Israel. The natural end of their policies has always been clear: to promote Arab wars on Israel, delegitimize the Jewish state, and legitimize the Palestinian terrorists that seek its destruction. Their demonization of Israel's yet-to-be-sworn-in government is both instrumental and as insincere as their former love for "peace." Without the guise of a "peace process," the Washington poobahs have fabricated a new failing of Israel to serve as a new fig leaf. Supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance should be wary of falling for their cynical act.
Reclaiming the Narrative: It was never about the territories - opinion
To be clear - in 1964, there was nothing “occupied” to be “liberated,” but that didn’t stop the formation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The false narrative of occupation and liberation began to spread well before there were disputed territories in Israel. The fact is, the antisemites who loathe Jews and Israelis simply do not believe in Israel’s right to exist at all, territories or not.

Facts are always important, and context is as well. The territories are disputed land. They were not “taken” or “stolen,” as some wish to falsely portray. In 1967 Israel was forced to fight a defensive war to stave off annihilation once again. It was from precisely those lands that Arab armies were massed in order to annihilate and put an end to the world’s only Jewish state.

Of course, today those territories have become a de facto impediment to peace, due to the false narrative that has now been shamefully accepted in the capitals of western Europe and certainly in the Democratic party in the United States. I am not naive; today, they are an impediment. That does not change the “fact” that they are not the reason for the lack of peace.

It is past time for liberals and progressives in the United States and Europe to acknowledge the historical and present-day realities. The Palestinian narrative of victimization has been all too easily accepted, and the facts have been ignored.

The fact that the Arabs rejected the United Nations partition in 1947. The fact that the PLO was chartered in 1964 precisely because they never accepted the UN, making Israel a sovereign Jewish state in the first place.

It would have been nice had President Obama stated in his 2009 speech at Al-Azhar University in Cairo before the entire Arab world that Israel was legitimately remade sovereign once more, because of its historical roots, and not as he implied as some sort of “colonial implant” resulting from the guilt of western nations because of the Holocaust. With one line, this presumed brilliant President could have deconstructed the big lie. He chose not to.

The lack of peace has never been about the territories. Make no mistake; the West Bank and Gaza (which has been relinquished), along with the Golan Heights, are not the reason for the lack of peace in the region. This is what needs to be stated boldly and frequently. Israel should not be afraid to ruffle feathers. Israel should not be afraid to justify what took place in 1948 or 1967.

I am tired of Israel’s poor public relations posture and how this false narrative has permeated into some twisted sense of truth used to condone antisemitism. The Jewish people should not be afraid to engage in this debate to set the facts straight. We should not be afraid to offend sensibilities. I believe Israelis are ready for peace, but a peace that must be based on facts.
US Funds Arabs Who Want to Destroy Israel
What is disturbing is that a large portion of this incitement is coming from Arabs whose governments signed peace treaties or other agreements with Israel: Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians.

What is even more disturbing is that the hate against Israel is coming from Arabs who continue to benefit from unconditional US financial aid.

The Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, continues to spearhead the Arab campaign of incitement and delegitimization against Israel. In addition to the incendiary rhetoric, the Palestinian Authority does not hide its vehement opposition to any kind of peace with Israel.

In its latest tirade against Israel, Abbas's ruling Fatah faction claimed that the Israeli counter-terrorism measures, designed to save the lives of Jews and Arabs alike, are acts of "terrorism and war crimes." According to the logic of the Palestinian Authority, a terror attack against Israel is legitimate and the perpetrator is a hero and martyr, but an Israeli action to stop terrorism is illegitimate.

This is the same Palestinian Authority that maintains good relations with the Biden administration, which recently decided to upgrade US relations with Abbas and his associates....

[T]he allegation that Israel is committing "war crimes" can be seen as a direct call to Palestinians to engage in violence against Israelis. The "war crimes" libel is also intended for Western audiences as part of the campaign to delegitimize Israel and pave the way for prosecuting its leaders before international courts.

It is worth noting that since April 2021, the US has provided more than half a billion dollars in assistance for the Palestinians.

If the US thinks that showering money and concessions on the Palestinian leaders will lessen the tension, you heard it here first: this approach definitely will not work. All that will happen is that the hostilities will increase so that the bribes will increase. Giving hard, concrete gifts in exchange for soft promises is inevitably doomed from the start.

Sunday, March 20, 2022



Defense Update reported on Thursday about Israel's Iron Beam laser-based air defense system:

Israel’s Minister of Defense Benny Gantz has approved allocating a significant budget to develop and produce a high-power solid-state laser system designed to intercept rockets, mortars, and UAVs. Rafael, the system developer, expects to sign the full-scale development contract with the Ministry of Defense in the coming days; the initial investment amounts to hundreds of millions of NIS.

The system’s production and deployment will cost hundreds of millions of NIS more, and the funding approved will cover the system development, procurement, and initial deployment. As Iron Beam becomes operational, it will be integrated into Israel’s multi-tier air and missile defense system, providing a cost-effective and operationally efficient lower-tier defense against missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, rockets, and mortars.

In the latest example of bizarre magical thinking, Palestine Today - which is run by Islamic Jihad - has an article about this plan, claiming that it shows that Iron Dome doesn't work. 

They interview an "expert" who says that the war last May proved that Iron Dome was ineffective, and Israel is forced to spend hundreds of millions to come up with a replacement. 

Some 90% of the Gaza rockets that were headed towards populated areas were intercepted during the May war. 

Iron Beam is designed to hit projectiles that Iron Dome is not good at - short range mortars and drones. It is not a replacement.

But the Palestinians need to find reasons to celebrate, and - like children - when their actions prompt any reaction from Israel, they are happy that they are not being ignored. 






Read all about it here!

Sunday, January 16, 2022


Is the US Holding Israel’s Iron Dome Hostage to an Iran Nuke Deal?

While President Biden, Senate, and Congress slow-walk and bicker over replenishing Jerusalem's dwindling defensive missile shield supplies, PM Bennett says his country won't be bound to any rickety renewed nuke deal - nor stand idly by to Iran's increasingly genocidal threats

By Dave Bender, northern Israel

Administration and Capitol political horse-traders and ideologues are holding hostage the lives of some two million Israelis -- specifically the Gaza Envelope and northern border areas. Their domestic foot-dragging endangers Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Bedouin citizens, alike.

This, while P5+1 group (US, UK, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the EU) reps wrangle with Iran in Vienna through - so far - no less than eight contentious sessions over terms of restarting the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

But Jerusalem doesn’t trust the Viennese diplomatic waltz nor Iranian double-crossing promises; they’re preoccupied with Tehran’s ruling and military leaders’ incessant, bellicose threats to “turn Tel Aviv and Haifa into dust,” “wipe Israel off the map,” and taking note of videos of simulated strikes against Israel’s cities, military targets, and reputed nuclear facilities.

“...the Zionist regime has forgotten that Iran is more than capable of hitting them from anywhere,” the Tehran Times histrionically boasted in a December 2021 front-page article, entitled, “Just One Wrong Move.” https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/tehran-times-publishes-targets-iran-will-attack-in-israel-688785

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, told the Knesset parliament’s crucial Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee that, “Israel is not a party to the agreements,” and warned that the Jewish State “is not bound to what will be written in the agreements if they are signed,” according to a JNS report. https://www.jns.org/bennett-sends-message-to-iran-vienna-talks-wont-tie-israels-hands/

And so, Israel is “investing in security rearmament,” to the tune of an immense NIS 60 billion ($19.2 billion) due to what Bennett called an “[Iranian] octopus that constantly threatens Israel.”

Military analyst Seth Frantzman at The Jerusalem Post breaks down the tentacled threat matrix:

“Both Hamas and Hezbollah maintain large stockpiles of ballistic rockets, in addition to mortars, anti-tank missiles, and other munitions. While Hamas does have Iranian-made weaponry, a significant amount of its arsenal has historically been indigenously made, as a result of the ongoing blockade against the Gaza Strip. Hamas has produced several types of rockets, notably the Qassam series. Hezbollah’s stockpile has in the past consisted of former Soviet models, including Grads and Katyushas, but, like Hamas, now has Iranian-made heavy and long-distance rockets like the Fajr series.

“Estimates of Hezbollah rocket stockpiles vary from 150,000-200,000, while Hamas’ is estimated to be around 10,000.”  https://www.jpost.com/tags/rocket-attack-on-israel

Additionally, the Alma Research and Education Center, reports that Iran has deployed a wide array of medium-range and long-range surface-to-surface missiles inside fortified shafts,” at a site near Palmyra, in eastern Syria. https://israel-alma.org/research/

The missiles we mentioned above can threaten almost the entire territory of the State of Israel: Northern Israel (distance of about 186 miles, about 300 kilometers, from Mount Muhammad Ben Ali by air), Haifa area (distance of about 223 miles, about 360 kilometers), Tel Aviv area (distance of about 261 miles, about 420 kilometers) and even threaten the area of ​​the city of Beer Sheva and south of it.

But while last summer's unfulfilled promises to resupply crucial defensive measures remains a vital concern to Israelis, the regional conflagration the delay could yet ignite apparently remains - seriously and serially - misjudged and maybe even selectively ignored by the US Administration and its cohorts.

The May conflict with Gaza saw over four thousand rockets fired at metropolitan areas, and some 16 Hamas-Hezbollah rockets fired south out of southern Lebanon into civilian areas later in the year, with the Iron Dome successfully downing some 90 percent of them.

However, 12 Israeli civilians and an IDF soldier were killed, and over 300 wounded, and millions of dollars in economic damage was sustained in the 11-day operation, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Terrorism/Palestinian/Pages/Operation-Guardian-of-the-Walls-10-May-2021.aspx

In Gaza, the IDF said some 460 misfired rockets fell short within the coastal enclave, killing and maiming an unclear number of reported non-combatants. Hamas-affiliated medical officials reported some 260 deaths to the UN and Human Rights Watch, although Israeli researchers say almost 50 percent of them were affiliated with terror groups.

So without freeing up funding (which is invested in American jobs to design and construct the strictly defensive interceptors), recalcitrant US lawmakers need to plainly know: your foot-dragging is likely to get many more people killed.

We in Israel see you and we hear you, and the results, if not intent, of your deeds - and misdeeds - are clear to us:

If the State of Israel is hit in any future conflict by volleys of even more thousands of incoming rockets or payload-carrying UAVs and cannot respond sufficiently due to a lack of Tamir interceptors, the government and IDF will have no other choice but to respond with far more kinetic firepower than anything seen so far - and at targets very near and very far - in order to suppress and stop the deadly salvos aimed at heavily-populated civilian areas and strategic facilities.

And even at that, despite the “standalone measure that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support,“ but still withheld in the Senate, rebuilding the supply of interceptors takes time, due to the relatively slow manufacturing process, with cost (and likely Covid) being an inhibitor.

On the other hand, Hamas and PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] use less sophisticated - but no less deadly - rockets that are manufactured quickly, at a much lower cost.

In order to stop them before they are even launched, the sanctimonious caterwauling over previous IDF pinpoint strikes on terror targets on and cross-border will be deafened into silence by the unleashed fury out of Zion.

Speaking as a nearly-two-decade IDF artillery NCO and infantry grunt (St.Sgt.- ret.) who served in and around Gaza, and as a two-decade reporter in Israel please understand: the howling existential threats uttered by Iranian-financed, trained, and led regional proxies and their determination to eradicate us will not deter us, but the countdown to the next steel rainstorm is ticking very loudly in our ears these days.

So forgive us for being distracted by the growing chorus calling for our demise; beyond the virtuous, virtual moral Disneyland of “knowing what's best for us" hectoring, "America first!" jingoism, and unrequited "tough love" missives penned from six thousand miles away - we’ll bleed real blood and treasure due to those withheld projectiles.

And so, in order to defend our families and the sole Jewish homeland against sworn foes bent on our collective destruction - despite an unspoken defensive arms embargo - don’t be too surprised by the justified ferocity and extent of Israel’s response.

And our lack of apology for stopping our would-be killers and their murderous plans.

---

Dave Bender is a US-born, four-decade Israeli immigrant and self-described, two-decade “ever-recovering reporter,” in Israel, and was an award-winning reporter at two NPR affiliates in the States. Since then, he’s developed a photography/videography career and would, mostly, just as soon be beekeeping with his wife, and enjoying his kids and grandkids.







Wednesday, January 08, 2020

From Ian:

Netanyahu: I won’t let settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan
Settlements will not be evacuated in any peace plan while Benjamin Netanyahu is prime minister, he vowed on Wednesday amid talk that the Trump administration may present its peace plan within weeks.

“I will not let any settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan. This idea of ethnic cleansing...It won’t happen,” Netanyahu said at the Kohelet Forum’s conference on the US decision that settlements are not illegal.

His remarks came as diplomatic sources say the Trump administration is strongly considering releasing its plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming weeks, before the March 2 Knesset election.

“There is a window of opportunity. It opened, but it could close,” Netanyahu added, warning of “weak leadership” that will “hit rewind,” in an apparent reference to his election rival Blue and White leader Benny Gantz.

Netanyahu expounded on Jewish rights to live in Judea and Samaria, pointing to its anchoring in legal documents from the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations.

“There was no West Bank separate from the rest of the land. It was seen as the heart of the land. We never lost our right to live in Judea and Samaria. The only thing we lost temporarily was the ability to exercise the right,” Netanyahu explained.
PM Netanyahu: "Israel is Completely Beside the United States"
Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised US President Donald Trump for authorizing the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran's Quds force. In his speech at a summit in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Soleimani was behind deaths of "countless" innocents and sowed "fear, and misery, and anguish" -- and was planning to do even worse.


Pompeo 'disavows' Carter-era anti-settlement policy
The US rejects a 1978 memo determining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday in a video statement to the Kohelet Forum’s conference on his settlement policy.

Pompeo said the US is “disavowing the deeply flawed" the Carter-era memorandum, written by then-State Department Legal Adviser Herbert Hansell, which called all Israeli settlements beyond the 1949 armistice lines to be illegal.

This goes a step further than Pompeo’s statement in November that the US “no longer recognize Israeli settlements as per se inconsistent with international law.”

“It’s important to speak the truth that the facts lead us to, and that is what we have done,” Pompeo said in his video message. “We are recognizing that settlements do not inherently violate international law.”

As such, he added, the US is returning to a more “balanced” policy, “advancing the cause of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Kohelet Forum said: “For decades, the obscure Carter-era memo was used as justification for anti-Israel policies...Secretary Pompeo’s statement makes clear the US’s wholesale rejection of the legal theory that holds that international law restricts Israeli Jews from moving into areas from which Jordan had ethnically cleansed them in 1949.”




Bennett: Area C of West Bank belongs to us, we’re waging a battle for it
Israel is waging a “real battle” against the Palestinians for control of Area C of the West Bank, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said on Wednesday, as he declared “officially" that the territory belongs to Israel.

“Our objective is that within a short amount of time, and we will work for it, we will apply [Israeli] sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another,” Bennett told the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem.

Bennett, who heads the New Right party, added that he intended to make that demand part of his coalition agreement to enter the new government after the elections.

The second goal, Bennett said, was to ensure through the promotion of settlement construction to ensure that within a decade a million Jews will live in Judea and Samaria.

In the interim, Bennett said, “We are embarking on a real and immediate battle for the future of the Land of Israel and the future of Area C. It started a month ago and I am announcing it here today.”

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