.
"Lt.-Gen. Michael Flynn, who heads
the US Defense Intelligence Agency...told US lawmakers, “If Hamas were destroyed and gone, we would probably
end up with something much worse.” ...The US wishes to save Hamas from Israel."...
8/1/14, "Israel’s Endgame in Gaza," CarolineGlick.com, originally published in Jerusalem Post
"The fighting is still raging in Gaza. Each day the IDF destroys more
and more tunnels and other terrorist infrastructure. Each day, we
discover new facets of Hamas’s depravity.
The three soldiers from the Maglan commando unit who were killed on
Tuesday in the southern Gaza Strip, were buried in the rubble of a UN
clinic. They entered the building to seal a terror tunnel whose entry
shaft was located inside the clinic.
A Hamas terrorist was inside the tunnel waiting for them. He
detonated the building. Works out that Hamas had booby-trapped the
structure, hiding 12 barrels with 80 kg. of explosives each, in a wall.
In a press briefing following the bombing, the commander of the Gaza
Division reported that to date Hamas has used more than a thousand
improvised explosive devices. Its bombs have destroyed thousands of
buildings in the Gaza Strip.
OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Sami Turgeman told reporters that with
the amount of concrete Hamas used in its tunnels it could have built 100
kindergartens, two hospitals, 20 schools and 20 clinics.
.
Clearly Hamas’s priorities do not include economic or social
development projects for the residents of the area. Dual use materials
will always be used first for terrorist purposes. Concern for the
welfare of Gaza’s citizenry is at best a distant second.
.
Indeed, the terror group’s practice of using clinics, kindergartens,
schools, hospitals and mosques as weapons storage areas, missile
launching sites and command centers makes clear that the welfare of Gaza
residents doesn’t even rank in Hamas’s list of organizational goals. As
a consequence, the concept of providing “humanitarian aid” to Gaza with
Hamas in power is laughable. Every smidgen of aid it receives will go
to Hamas’s war machine.
.
And this brings us to the heart of the matter. Even in the midst of the fighting it is apparent that we are moving toward the endgame.
The question is, what is the desired end-state? How will we know if
we have won? Certainly following America’s lead is not an option.
Indeed, the Obama administration is the greatest constraint Israel faces
today on its road to victory.
.
From the actions and words of senior administration officials, it is
easy to ascertain where President Barack Obama wants this conflict to
end.
.
First, the administration wants Hamas to remain armed and in control
of Gaza. This point was made clear by Lt.-Gen. Michael Flynn, who heads
the US Defense Intelligence Agency. In congressional testimony Flynn
told US lawmakers, “If Hamas were destroyed and gone, we would probably
end up with something much worse.”
.
This of course is absurd. Hamas wants to kill every Jew in the world.
As a practical matter then, it is impossible for any successor regime
to be worse. But from Israel’s perspective, more important than
discovering that the head of the DIA is an idiot, is Flynn’s revelation that the US wishes to save Hamas from Israel.
.
The administration’s other positions have all been aligned with this
strategic goal of maintaining Hamas in power. Both the US draft
cease-fire agreement that Israel rejected, and the White House readout
of President Obama’s telephone conversation with Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu on Sunday night made clear that the US wants Hamas to be able
to prosper..
Secretary of State John Kerry’s cease-fire proposal was explicit on this issue.
A permanent cease-fire deal, it read, must include “arrangements to
secure the opening of the crossings, allow the entry of goods and people
and… transfer funds to Gaza for the payment of salaries for public
employees… ” The last component of the administration’s desired
end-state of the war is to use it as a means to force Israel to concede
land to the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, or at least use Israel’s
refusal to do so as a means for blaming Israel for continued Palestinian
aggression.
.
Obama made this clear in his conversation with Netanyahu. As the
White House’s summary of the conversation reported, “The president
stressed the US view that, ultimately, any lasting solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict must ensure the disarmament of terrorist
groups and the demilitarization of Gaza.”
.
In other words, the Palestinians will keep shooting until Israel
coughs up Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, and Obama is okay with that.
.
To summarize, the Obama administration wishes to end the war with
Hamas armed and in charge of Gaza, enjoying open borders to the world,
and rolling in the dough of international donor dollars and euros, and
so in a position to replenish its arsenals and rebuild its tunnels.
The US seeks as well to use this end-state as a means of reinstating
its pressure on Israel to surrender land in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem
to the Palestinians.
.
Israel’s end-state is of course entirely different. Indeed, if the US gets what it wants, then Israel will have lost the war.
.
The question is, given that this is the US’s position, what can
Israel do to win? As the scandalous Federal Aviation Administration
flight ban last week made clear, the administration has effectively
limitless means to harm Israel.
The ban served to instill massive
uncertainty into Israel’s export- and tourism-based economy. As Israeli
leaders noted, it was the greatest gift to terrorists the US had ever
given. Moreover, it was unwarranted and prejudicial.
Whereas the FAA claimed that it acted out of an abundance of caution
after a Hamas missile landed a mile from Ben-Gurion Airport, the fact is
that such caution exists nowhere else. There is no FAA flight ban on
Pakistan, where a civilian aircraft was shot down last month, or in
Ukraine. There is no FAA flight ban in Afghanistan or Yemen. Clearly a
double standard was used against Israel.
.
And predictably, when US Sen. Ted Cruz stood up to the administration
and demanded an explanation of the FAA’s action and its use of a double
standard against Israel, the State Department accused him of lack of
concern for US air carriers and passengers.
It was a testament to Cruz’s moral courage that he was willing to
risk being wrongly accused of reckless indifference to the safety of US
airline passengers in order to decry the administration’s prejudicial
treatment of Israel.
.
And while Sen. Cruz played a central role in revoking the flight ban
after 36 hours, the act itself showed how easy it is for the US to hurt
Israel without openly attacking it. Other punitive actions have already
been undertaken.
.
While the administration acts in accordance with congressional will
and resupplies the IDF and increases the US investment in Iron Dome, it
has stopped providing visa services to Israelis interested in traveling
to the US. According to I24 News, the US Embassy in Tel Aviv is not
issuing travel visas except in emergency circumstances, due to staff
reductions during the war.
.
In light of the constraints Israel faces from the administration,
certain operational goals that might otherwise have been achievable must
be ruled out. Other actions that might have been reasonable, make no
sense, under the circumstances.
.
The government has determined that the ground operation will go on
until the tunnels are destroyed. Whether the operation takes days or
weeks or longer, Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel will continue
to operate on the ground – even in the framework of a cease-fire – to
destroy Hamas’s tunnels.
.
If we assume that Netanyahu and his ministers will continue to
withstand US pressure and continue the operation until it has been
completed, the question becomes, what happens then? To neutralize Hamas
as a military threat in the future, Israel only needs to secure one
goal: In any cease-fire arrangement, Gaza’s borders must remain sealed.
.
Egypt must continue to prevent smuggling from Sinai to Gaza.
Israel must maintain its naval blockade.
.
Gaza must remain cut off from the international banking system.
.
Hamas is fighting to open these borders. And if it makes any gains in
this area, Hamas will win. Assuming Israel destroys all or most of
Hamas’s offensive capabilities before the fighting ends, the only way to
keep Hamas from fighting again is to prevent it from resupplying.
.
To achieve its goal of keeping Gaza’s borders shut, Israel needs to
do two things. First, it needs to complete its operations on the ground
as quickly as possible. The faster the IDF removes our ground forces
from Gaza the more difficult it will be for Obama to demand that Israel
end its maritime blockade of the Gaza coast.
.
Second, Israel must avoid any cease-fire agreement that involves any
international supervision or presence in Gaza. The best option for
Israel would be a cease-fire in the form of a letter from Egyptian
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority
Chairman Mahmoud Abbas setting out broad conditions of a cease-fire
arrangement.
.
Any cease-fire that involves US guarantees or supervision or
international guarantees or supervision will be an invitation for
renewed pressure on Israel and Egypt to open the borders of Gaza and
allow Hamas to rebuild its machinery of murder.
.
The same is the case for international peacekeepers.
.
Any agreement that involves the deployment of foreign forces to Gaza
for any purpose is an agreement that imports human shields to Gaza. As
has been Hezbollah’s practice with UN forces in south Lebanon for the
past four decades, foreign forces will not interfere with any Hamas
operations, but through their very presence in on the ground, they will
impede the IDF’s capacity to fight Hamas in the event that such
operations becomes necessary.
.
Netanyahu has stated that Israel’s seeks the demilitarization of
Gaza. There are only two ways to achieve that goal – through the
reinstitution of Israeli military control over Gaza, and through
attrition.
.
In light of the Obama administration’s support for Hamas’s war goals
and actions it has already undertaken to undermine Israel’s war effort,
it is fairly clear that it would be unwise for Israel to reconquer Gaza
at this time. The price Obama would extract for such a move would in all
likelihood outweigh the benefits Israel would gain from physically
damaging Hamas directly.
.
The other option – demilitarization through attrition – is
consequently Israel’s strongest option for a victorious endgame today.
And attrition can only be secured if Gaza’s borders remain sealed.
.
War is an ugly thing. War with terrorist murderers who lack a shred of human decency is a very ugly thing.
.
There are no guarantees that Israel will not have to fight again. And
if Obama gets even some of what he is demanding, Israel will have to
fight again, and soon.
.
Under these circumstances, Israel’s best bet is to destroy the
tunnels quickly and secure cease-fire terms that keep Gaza isolated to
reduce to a minimum Hamas’s ability to fight again."
.
"The writer is the author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East. This article was originally published in the Jerusalem Post."
================
Comment: The Left running the US in 2014 are in a 1960's time warp. These "progressives" have mentally never left college campuses, haven't changed one syllable or emotion in 50 years. I was there for the whole thing including the "student strike" that closed down classes at Syracuse University and elsewhere for the last month or two of the spring 1970 semester. We were given "passes" for missed classes and received our diplomas anyway. I still can't believe it.
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Less than two months after his stunning primary upset and just hours after stepping down as House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor said Thursday that he will resign his seat in the House of Representatives effective Aug. 18.
“I want to make sure that the constituents in the 7th District will have a voice in what will be a very consequential lame-duck session,” Cantor said in an exclusive interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Thursday afternoon.
Cantor
said he has asked Gov. Terry McAuliffe to call a special election for
his district that coincides with the general election on Nov. 4.
By
having a special election in November, the winner would take office
immediately, rather than in January with the next Congress. “That
way he will also have seniority, and that will help the interests of my
constituents (because) he can be there in that consequential lame-duck
session,” Cantor said.
Cantor’s
resignation marks the end of a successful 14-year congressional run
that included his role as House majority leader for more than three
years and the prospect of becoming the next speaker of the House.
Cantor
had not faced a close challenge since he was first elected in 2000. But
Dave Brat, an economics professor from Henrico County, toppled the
incumbent in a Republican primary on June 10.
Brat was lifted to victory, in part, by a wave of dissatisfaction with Cantor among party activists and a sense among some voters that the congressman was inaccessible.
Brat
will face Democrat Jack Trammell, an associate professor and farmer
from Louisa County, who teaches at Randolph-Macon College, the same
school as his opponent.
Cantor on Thursday reiterated his support of Brat’s election bid. “I hope he will win,” he said.
Larry
Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of
Virginia, said Cantor deserves credit for making a “generous gesture” to
his district and eventual successor by resigning early.
“At
the same time, it’s highly probable that he has a very lucrative deal
in the works for his post-Congress life, and he’s eager to get started,”
Sabato said.
“The
Republicans are nearly guaranteed to retain control of the House of
Representatives after November, and a former majority leader with good
ties to most of his colleagues is a very valuable commodity,” he said.
On
the day after his defeat, Cantor announced that he would step down as
House majority leader July 31. He is being succeeded in this office by
Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, whom he calls a close
friend.
Earlier
on Thursday, Cantor used his farewell as House majority leader to
lament what he calls a diminished U.S. role in a world that he says is
rife with instability and terror. He also took a sentimental look back at his tenure as a member of Congress.
“Walking
into this building and walking onto this floor is something that
excited me every day since I was first elected to Congress,” he said.
“Not one of us should ever take for granted the awesome honor and
responsibility we have to serve our fellow Americans.”
Cantor
also touted his legislative accomplishments, including his efforts to
expand school choice, make higher education more affordable, advance
medical research and innovation, and job creation initiatives.
In the interview, Cantor voiced his frustration with the sometimes slow pace in Congress.
“There is a lot of business that is still to be done,” he said. “I wish that Washington would act quicker.”
McAuliffe
said Wednesday that he was “heartsick” over Cantor’s defeat, because
coupled with the retirements of Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-10th, and Rep. Jim
Moran, D-8th, it represents a significant loss of clout for the state’s
congressional delegation. But Cantor does not seem too concerned.
“We
have some very talented people on the Virginia delegation, and it (is) a
hard job to represent us and the interest of the commonwealth. I am
confident that my colleagues will be able to do that,” he said.
Cantor said Virginia has been “very prudent at the state level” in terms of its fiscal management. “I
think (Virginia) has a bright future ahead. Obviously, the defense part
of Virginia’s economy is extremely important, especially in areas like
Northern Virginia and to a lesser extent in our area. But I think it
does benefit our area and there is a very big focus on growing the
economy, not only in the defense arena, but we continuously diversify
that economy and create the environment for more jobs and opportunity.”
Cantor did not reveal specific plans for his life after public service.
