Humble Opinions

To my great disappointment, I was once again saddened this morning to read that at least 10 people were killed on the “free” Gaza Flotilla, and dozens injured, as Israeli Navy Commandos boarded their ships to prevent them from reaching Israeli territory. I place the word “free” in quotes because in my opinion, the practical results of this ridiculous adventure will only bolster the Hamas terrorist organization, whom control and oppress the Palestinian population living in the Gaza strip. Before I divulge further, here is some background:

The Gaza Strip is a small area of land located in the South Western part of Israel. Before 2005, the area was populated by both Palestinians and Israelis, and the Israeli army and police force were stationed throughout the strip, like the rest of Israel. In 2005, as a gesture toward making peace with the Palestinian people, Israel withdrew its presence from the Gaza Strip, and handed it over to the Palestinian Authority, whom are supported and trained by the United States (as seen by the $500 million dollars pledged to it by Obama for 2010, and the more than 10,000 US Army personnel training PA forces in the West Bank). Israel forced thousands of Israeli citizens from their homes, demolished thousands of homes/apartments, shut down Israeli businesses, closed down Israeli farms, and withdrew every single Israeli army and police personnel from the strip - and handed everything to the Palestinian Authority.

Upon Israel’s departure, the Hamas terrorist organization immediately began fighting the Palestinian Authority within the strip, in attempt to seize it. They kidnapped PA members, and as can be seen in videos on the Internet, tied them up, brought them to the top of buildings, and one-by-one pushed them off, blindfolded. By 2007, Hamas had gained full control of Gaza, turning it literally into hell on earth. From the very moment Hamas was able to, it began firing rockets daily into Israel, aimed at civilians. Some days saw as many as 30 rockets, and for several years consecutively, Israeli families living near Gaza slept in bomb shelters. They also began digging an endless number of tunnels underground into Egypt, to smuggle more weapons and rockets into Gaza, which were/are being delivered from Iran. When I say endless, I am literally talking in the many thousands.

Because of this new situation in Gaza, and the sheer brutality of the Hamas terrorists, Israel enforced a blockade on the Gaza Strip, closely monitoring all items entering and leaving the strip, from the Israeli border - while still supplying and paying for the strip’s water, electricity, and basic humanitarian needs (Israel has noted several times that literally thousands of tons of basic humanitarian aid enter Gaza on a daily basis, and there is no humanitarian crisis there). Between April 11th and April 17th alone, 700 truckloads containing 17,412 tons of aid entered the Gaza strip via Israel. In addition to this, Israeli statistics point out that many hundreds of Palestinians are granted entry into Israel monthly, for medical attention and surgical needs - also provided for free by Israel.

This next point is very important: Gaza is blockaded by Egypt as well. While Egypt does not supply Gaza with water, electricity, humanitarian aid, medical attention, or free surgery, they equally blockade all entry and exit to/from Gaza via the Egyptian border. Why? Simple: they don’t want maniac terrorists running around Egypt, trying to impose Sharia law, machine gunning women who walk around with their hair uncovered. Because the world has less of an erection observing the Egyptian blockade on Gaza, the subject goes virtually undiscussed compared to the Israeli blockade.

Now onto the Flotilla: Several months ago, a group of 700-800 activists decided it would be a great idea to sail a number of ships carrying humanitarian aid toward Gaza in order to try and “break the Israeli blockade,” regardless of the fact that from the beginning, Israel stated very clearly they would not be allowed to reach Gaza. But nonetheless, they sought a showdown with the Israeli navy, to try and give Israel some bad PR. Why? They claim it is to help free the Palestinian people, however this is very obviously not true to anyone with an ounce of a brain. If they wanted to help free the Palestinian people, why would they try to face off against the ones providing them with free medical attention and tons of daily humanitarian aid, as opposed to the terrorist thugs who roam around the strip masked, toting machine guns, who literally kill people for singing in public (no exaggeration).

If the “free” Gaza Flotilla activists truly wanted to benefit the Palestinian people, they would be out on the streets of the world campaigning against the Hamas terrorists in Gaza who seize aid sent for the Palestinian people by the United Nations itself! Furthermore, what connection do these activists have to the Palestinians living in Gaza? are they from Gaza? are they Palestinian? Why don’t they try and help the millions being slaughtered in Darfur first? No one is giving them free surgery or a free supply of water. And how come they aren’t trying to break the Egyptian blockade?

From the beginning of this episode, this Flotilla has been supported by Israel’s greatest enemies; Turkey, Iran, Syria, + co. It is crystal clear this Flotilla has very little to do with the Palestinian people living in Gaza, and everything to do with unjust hatred against Israel. Some in the world see Israel as America’s spoiled child - as the country who does whatever it wants, and breaks whichever rules it sees fit. Perhaps this is why so many in the world have a subconscious hatred for the country - but I remind my readers that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and the only country in the region threatened with annihilation, while being surrounded by Arab countries totaling to over 650x its size.

The Israeli Navy contacted the “free” Gaza Flotilla before its arrival and gave them 2 options: Either hand us over your humanitarian aid to be checked from a security perspective, and delivered onto Gaza, or be stopped by the Israeli Navy, and deported. The Flotilla ignored these options, and regardless of the fact that for weeks, they have been claiming they will respond without violence, as the ships were boarded by the Israeli Navy, the Flotilla “activists” used rocks, knives, pipes, and stun grenades to attack them, and stole one of the soldier’s pistols - as can be seen in these videos. This unfortunately led to a violent clash, resulting in at least 10 dead, and dozens injured. Hamas, who has been happily sitting on their chairs in Gaza are now smiling ear-to-ear, calling press conferences, emergency meetings, and the likes. They will see a huge PR boost from this, and will thus be granted more leeway to continue oppressing and destroying the lives of the Palestinians living in Gaza.

Thanks, “Free” Gaza Flotilla. You really helped the Palestinians out!

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Over the last number of days, both Israel and Iran have announced significant items of news. In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced his country will begin enriching uranium in open defiance of a UN ban, up to a level of 20% enriched. He also signified the February 3rd inauguration of production lines for “advanced drones capable of precision bombing” in the Iranian military. However the announcement couldn’t be complete without his traditional exclamation of Israel’s elimination being “imminent.”

And the news from Israel? Sending stock prices soaring, and watering the mouths of venture capitalists / entrepreneurs worldwide, Israeli businessman Shai Agassi announced Sunday, plans for his company, Better Place, to release a country-wide electric car grid system in Israel, equipped with over 100 charging stations spread throughout the country. “Israel has taken on the problem (of oil dependency) and has decided independently to solve this for the entire world,” he said.

Better Place recharge pump

It continues to amaze me that while Israel, at its own will, takes world problems head-on, and is continuously looking at life in the framework of its future generations, building, improving, inventing, and solving, all toward a goal that can only practically be referred to as ‘a perfect world’ - its enemies continue to press onward in the many-century old religiously-driven fanatic crusade bent on destroying its existence.

How many field hospitals did Iran send to and manage in Haiti after its recent paralyzing earthquake? How many babies did Iranian doctors deliver in those field hospitals? And how many policemen and other security force agents did Iran send to Haiti to help keep peace & order during the aftermath of the disaster? The answers are 0, 0, and 0. Israel, on the other hand, set up the most advanced field hospital in Haiti, and delivered more than 7 babies, amongst performing many other types of specialized, critical surgery, on-site, while involved in round-the-clock search & rescue missions. Israel sent a taskforce of 210, compared with China’s 60 - not including the security personnel Israel sent after the initial days of the disaster.

Yet, the world continues to sit by idly, waiting for World War III to erupt in the Middle East, re: the Iranian nuclear crisis. If the US really wanted this problem solved, it could have been solved literally years ago, and would have disappeared from news headlines. But instead, in actuality, absolutely not a single thing has been done. Either world leaders are the most incapable people of implementing things they want accomplished, OR, they simply don’t really care about the outcome of this situation (not super wise for a world leader). Iran continues to fund and train terrorist organizations based primarily on Israel’s borders, but also throughout Africa, and other parts of the world, virtually without resistance. In fact, they actually receive quite a lot of funding from the Western world, via wonderful organizations such as the United Nations and The International Red Cross.

I was trying to wrap my head around how long this crisis has been going on without a single change in course. I took a quick scan at this very blog’s old posts, and I see that on November 28, 2008 I wrote an article emphasizing the importance of this crisis, stressing that something be done about it, and ASAP. It is now February 9, 2010, and can anyone tell me what has changed, aside from the larger # of enriched uranium centrifuges now in Iran’s possession + the many months they have had to further develop their missile delivery systems?

My true fear is one day sitting at my computer, writing the “I told you so” blog, after Iran announces its fully capable, deliverable nuclear warhead, and shocks the world by revealing its nuclear program actually WASN’T for nuclear power all along (gasp!). Only, that “I told you so” will be a bitter one, and not a ‘haha’ one, as I live just a short 1,000 miles from Tehran, and under 100 from its puppet terrorist organizations, Hizballah (to my North) and Hamas (to my South)… yeah, that’s gonna suck.

Why can’t someone just tell Iran to chill the chill out? Maybe if someone hooked them up with a cappuccino machine and XBox 360, they’d see there is more to life than trying to ruin everyone else’s short time on this earth. Leave us be, yo, we’re busy perfecting the world, and spending time with our families and friends! Get a life (preferably one that has nothing to do with us)!

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Today, Israel and Jordan celebrate 15 years of official peace between them. I think analyzing the history, and circumstances of this peace reveals a lot of insight into the general situation in the Middle East, and also shows how overall peace in the region could be obtained. Also, this morning, Israel told the UN it would continue gathering intelligence in Lebanon as long as the Lebanese government was not in full control of its country, after the UN questioned Israel about potential wire tapping machinery discovered in Southern Lebanon the other day. I think these two things can be related in an interesting way. Let’s see how much smarter we can get:

On October 26, 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin and Jordanian Prime Minister Abdelsalam al-Majali signed a peace treaty that ended almost 50 years of warring between the two countries. The main points of the treaty were that the two governments agreed on (1) Official borders between their two countries, (2) Normalization of relations (opening of embassies, granting of tourist visas), and (3) Respect of sovereignty and territories. What caused this, and what took so long?

Since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, Jordan consistently subscribed to an anti-Israel policy, and participated in multiple attempts to destroy it. They did so especially in the Israeli War of Independence (1948), and Six Day War (1967), however the entire time the Jordanians controlled East Jerusalem (1948 - 1967), they made it exceeding difficult for Jews to live in Jerusalem. They would snipe at Jewish mothers shopping for their families, and would pour garbage onto those who came to worship at the Western Wall, among other things. So if Jordan was not down for having Jewish neighbors, then why the peace treaty?

I believe Jordan agreed to peace for a few reasons. The first is that their anti-Israel position was costing them bigtime. For starters, they kept losing wars. Particularly during the Six Day War, Israel sent a message to the Jordanian government on the morning the war broke out, and told them Israel would not attack them if they stayed out of the war. Instead, Jordan decided to try and capture West Jerusalem, and failed miserably. Israel not only stopped them, but was forced to take over East Jerusalem, causing many Jordanians to flee. This also gave Israel complete control over the Western Wall. Was that worth it?

Additionally, Israel consistently offered the possibilities of trade between the two countries, as well as other forms of economic development that the Jordanians simply refused to acknowledge. But things changed during the 70s and 80s. In 1970, Jordan waged the war of Black September against the PLO who were based in Jordan at the time. In response, Syrian troops entered Jordan to fight on behalf of the PLO. In an attempt to try and contain the situation, Israel flew fighter planes over Syrian airspace, to indicate they should stop - and they did. In the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Jordan did not participate in the joint surprise Egyptian-Syrian attack on Israel, perhaps indicating they had learned their lesson.

Eventually, Jordan caved. They realized they could not beat Israel militarily, and that they were losing out by not embracing a relationship with Israel where both countries could capitalize on economic opportunities, and could benefit from the sharing of certain intelligence. So what does this have to do with what Israel said about Lebanon?

Last week, the Lebanese military uncovered machinery buried underground in Southern Lebanon. Upon their discoveries, the machines were immediately blown up, seemingly remotely by Israel. The general theory is that during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israel planted wire tapping devices in the ground, to keep a good eye on the Iranian backed terrorist organization, Hezbollah. When confronted about it by the UN, Israel did not confirm or deny it had planted anything in Lebanon, but told the UN it would continue gathering intelligence there while Hezbollah still controlled part of Lebanon.

The underlying theme, as it seems to me, is that Israel does what it needs to in order to ensure its own security and defense capabilities. As soon as it is no longer threatened by one of its enemies, Israel is more than happy to embrace a two-way relationship with them. Israel did not only not hold a grudge against Jordan for the previous 50 years, but also did not hesitate to sign a peace treaty with even Egypt, who tried MUCH harder than Jordan to destroy Israel. Meaning, if the Middle East would finally recognize a tiny Jewish state in their midst, and decided to work with them instead of against them, all countries would benefit. Perhaps the 21st century could finally be the one where the Jewish nation for the first time doesn’t have an attempt made for its complete destruction? Maybe? But then again, Iran’s nuclear program is probably for peaceful purposes.

P.S. If you think Israel is going to sit back and let Iran school the world while obtaining a nuclear weapon, you gotta be out your mind. Crack a history book.

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