Trending. #Social media is a terrorist’s best friend

Ana Maria Luca..
NOW Lebanon..
23 August '13..

A few years ago, journalists around the world used to wonder if they were the best friends of terrorists. And I remember a time when al-Qaeda linked brigades in Iraq used to send press releases by e-mail to the world’s news wires and television channels to claim credit for their attacks on various targets. It happened all the time in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I felt the same way a few weeks back, when two days after a road-side bomb targeted a Hezbollah convoy in the Bekaa Valley, we received an e-mail from, al-Qaeda linked, Abdullah Azzam brigades claiming that they were responsible for the bombing. The same e-mail was sent to all newsrooms in Beirut.

Yesterday, however, I realized that e-mail is completely obsolete. After four rockets were fired towards Israel from South Lebanon and the Israeli Defense Forces retaliated, no e-mail was sent to any newsroom. But ten minutes afterwards the claim was tweeted. Journalists are not a terrorist’s best friend anymore. Social media is.

Link: https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/newsandpolitics/a-terrorists-best-friend

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out!

Rockets from Lebanon crash into northern Israel, seeking civilian victims

Try to think of any other nation, today or in history, beset with this deadly combination of enemies on all its borders, enemies who are phenomenally well equipped, unfettered by having to play by any of the rules that are supposed to bind states (they're not states), and driven by religious zeal of an intensity that brings them to commit acts of savagery against their own people (think Syria and Iraq in particular) that may be among the most vicious in recorded history. Then reflect for a moment on the unceasing criticism poured onto Israel (total population: barely 8,000,000, far smaller than the population of Cairo alone) as it tries to fend off the barbarians.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
22 August '13..

Tonight's (Thursday night) main news headline on the Times of Israel website (see the screenshot left) expresses what most Israelis understood long ago: when the Arabs have problems, Israel can expect to pay a price.

Haaretz reports tonight:

At least three rockets were fired on Israel from southern Lebanon on Thursday afternoon, Israel Defense Forces confirmed, setting off air raid sirens in the Nahariya and Acre areas. One of the rockets was intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said. The army believes that global jihad operatives, and not Hezbollah, are behind the attacks. It was not immediately clear exactly how many rockets were fired. The IDF identified a barrage of either three or four rockets fired from the Klayaa area, south of Tyre, Lebanon.

And at Ynet:

It was cleared for publication that the Iron Dome missile defense system has successfully intercepted at least one rocket out of several that were fired from Lebanon at the Western Galilee region. Different media outlets in Lebanon have reported that two rockets were launched at Israel from the Al Kalila region in Tyre district in southern Lebanon... According to the Lebanese reports, the rockets were Katyushas. Lebanese network Al Jadeed TV has reported that the Lebanese military blocked the access to the area from which the rockets were launched... Police advised residents to remain close to shelters... Three people have reportedly suffered shock in Naharyia as a result of the rocket-launches. In addition, a car was damaged by what appears to be the shell of an Iron Dome missile which intercepted one of the rockets.

Over on the other side of Israel's northern and southern borders, there are terrorist forces, armed to the teeth with arsenals of rockets numbering in the tens of thousands, who can and will attack when the mood takes them. They have zero regard for any strategic goals or Israel-related causes, and even less regard for whatever negative consequences their actions might bring onto the heads of their compatriots.

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BTW, a rocket fired by terrorists was shot down in the skies over Eilat during the night

...Back in our world, where this morning's attack is far from being what the BBC calls a "separate event" but just the latest stage of an ongoing war, the reports are more sober.

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
13 August '13..

The lead story on the BBC News website at this hour, Tuesday morning 8:30 am Israel summer time, is "Kerry hopeful on Mid-East talks despite settlement move", a basically upbeat story based on an interview with the US foreign minister who is visiting Colombia and who took time out to "underscore" the importance of "getting to the table quickly". Happily underscoring, the BBC's editors quote multiple voices from the Palestinian side - including those of Hanan Ashrawi speaking in the name of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and Abbas regime "chief negotiator" Saeb Erekat "reacting" "angrily" for some twenty paragraphs of reporting critical of one Israeli move or another. Magnanimously, the Secretary State is said to have urged the Palestinian Arab side "not to react adversely". A man of generous spirit.

Then in paragraph 21, at the very tail end of the Kerry story, the BBC's editors mention this:

In a separate development on Monday, Israeli police said a missile fired towards the Red Sea resort of Eilat had been successfully intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defence system. Residents had reported hearing a loud explosion and a siren. [BBC]

leaving its readers to infer, quite reasonably, that a rocket attack worthy of Israel firing off one of its super-expensive high-tech anti-missile missiles might or might not have happened, depending on how willing you are to believe what the Israeli police say about this "separate development".

Naturally, given the doubtful nature of whether anyone really and truly would have fired something at Eilat, there's not a mention of it anywhere on the BBC News home page or in the news flash section. Because, you know, perhaps it's real, and perhaps because it's just a Zionist invention (though, as the BBC's even-handed editors are so fond of saying, "Israel disputes this").

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out!.

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Sometimes it is not imperative to tell everyone of your exploits.

The outcome was unequivocal: four dead terrorists and one foiled attack, according to foreign reports. No need to push the button that activates the early-warning rocket siren.

Zvika Fogel..
Israel Hayom..
11 August '13..

It's complicated. Whoever made the decision over the weekend to launch the reported attack on a jihadi rocket squad in the Sinai needed to take the following into consideration: Israel's peace agreement with Egypt, which prohibits Israel from taking military action inside Egyptian territory; the pressure exerted by the Muslim Brotherhood, the forefather of Hamas, and its involvement in the yet-unfinished anti-military revolution currently underway in Egypt; and terror elements like al-Qaida and Islamic Jihad that are trying to pull the entire region into all-out war.

For the last four and a half years, ever since Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in Gaza (in December 2008), the territory of the Sinai Peninsula has been used to launch terror attacks against Israel, to avoid compromising Hamas' government and military infrastructure in Gaza. The various terror organizations rely on the Egyptian army's desire to avoid confrontations with them, and on the knowledge that Israel is barred from taking any military action in the territory, which is under Egyptian sovereignty, protected under the Camp David peace agreement.

The terrorists built training camps there, and filled weapons depots with arms and ammunition smuggled from countries surrounding Egypt. They rely heavily on the smuggling and intelligence networks set up over the years by Bedouin tribes, which are currently without any sources of income now that the 270-kilometer (170-mile) fence has been erected along the Sinai-Israel border. Those tribes have now opted to help the terror groups and to sell their know-how and expertise for profit. To them, drug-smuggling profits are no different than profits made from smuggling rockets and explosives.

Ever since Operation Cast Lead, and especially since the security fence along the Sinai border has been completed, the Israel Defense Forces and the Egyptian army, with the encouragement of their respective governments, have been wise enough to set up a coordination mechanism to jointly combat the terror that threatens both countries. If the details of this weekend's incident, as reported in the foreign media, are true, the time for action was the moment that the rocket fuse was lit.

Eilat - Almost always sunny, occasionally attacked liked this morning

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
17 April '13..

The terrorists who are building up men and material resources in the chaos of today's Egyptian Sinai struck again this morning. Two GRAD rockets were fired into - and struck - the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat.

Memo to those lacking historical, geographic or political background: Eilat is not and never has been claimed by Palestinian Arab terror apologists as 'occupied territory'... other than by the many extremists who see all of Israel as the territory that is occupied. The readers of the Lebanese Al Manar news website for instance, are seeing a report at this moment headlined "Rockets Hit Occupied Town of Eilat"; Al Manar is a mouthpiece of Hezbollah. The semi-respectable Palestinian Maan News Agency has called Eilat occupied too, though never in the English language.

Times of Israel is reporting that one of the two missiles crashed into a residential neighborhood; the other in an open area on Eilat's outskirts. Reuters says both hit open areas. Ynet says there were three rockets, and two landed in residential areas. Israel's Army Radio, which is broadcast throughout the country, is quoted saying that a rocket

had also hit the nearby Jordanian city of Aqaba, but a spokesman for the Jordanian Civil Defence denied the suggestion.

Fortunately, and this is a matter of divine intervention and human failure, no injuries are reported, at least not so far. Damage is said to be light.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook.

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Roth - Behind Friday's rocket attacks on the Negev

Sinai Bedouin: Playing a growing role in terrorist
attacks on Israel as Egypt sinks into chaos

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
17 June '12..

The security threat posed to Israel by the terror-group build up and increasing chaos in Sinai moved to a new plateau this weekend.

It was discovered during Saturday that two powerful Grad rockets were fired into southern Israel on Friday. Israeli sources say they originated in the Egyptian Sinai peninsula. One rocket landed north of Eilat in an open area of the desolate Elot region. The second landed near Mitzpeh Ramon in Israel's Negev region. No damage or injuries were reported in either explosion. Terrorist rockets have previously been fired into Israel's Red Sea resort Eilat from Sinai: five rockets were fired at Eilat in 2010, with several overshooting Israeli territory. A Jordanian was killed in the neighboring city of Aqaba in one such attack.

Terrorists’ Goal Is Not “Foiling Peace Process”

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
04 August '10

After Monday’s rocket attack on Eilat and Aqaba, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mouthed the de riguer platitude: the attack was perpetrated “by terrorist groups who want to foil the peace process.” Eliot Jager of Jewish Ideas Daily echoed this yesterday. Yet the sequence of events that Jager himself described — and of which Netanyahu is surely aware — strongly suggests the opposite: that the recent spate of attacks on Israel’s south are meant not to keep Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “from pursuing genuine give-and-take bargaining with Israel,” as Jager put it, but to help him in wringing concessions from Israel.

That Abbas has no interest in direct talks with Israel is impossible to miss. He himself has said so repeatedly, as have other senior PA officials: he begged the Arab League (unsuccessfully) to back him in refusing direct talks just last week, and PA officials have complained bitterly of the pressure they are under to begin the talks. So if Hamas’s recent escalation — and whether or not the Eilat/Aqaba strike came from Hamas-controlled Gaza, as Egypt claims, the weekend’s Grad and Qassam rocket strikes on southern Israel definitely did — provoked an Israeli retaliation that Abbas could paint as an “atrocity” and use as an excuse for nixing talks, nobody would be happier than Abbas.

But why would Hamas, which is embroiled in vicious rivalry with Abbas’s Fatah faction, want to cooperate with him? Because despite their mutual loathing, they have a common interest in wresting more concessions from Israel. Hamas has proved this over and over.

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Obama’s Backing of Israeli Rocket Shield: Charm Offensive or Harbinger of More Pressure?

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
14 May '10

The White House’s charm offensive toward Israel’s supporters continued this week with a nice dividend for the Jewish state: financial backing for the country’s “Iron Dome” anti-missile system designed to protect Israeli towns against Palestinian rocket attacks. Haaretz reported yesterday that the Pentagon informed Israel’s Defense Ministry that the president had approved the transfer of $205 million for the purchase of 10 Iron Dome batteries that could help shield southern Israelis towns such as Sderot that have been battered in the past by Katyushas and Qassam missiles from Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Iron Dome has, of course, been in the works for years, and the decision is merely a continuation of U.S. support for the project that began during the Bush administration. But to Israel’s great frustration, approval of the money for these purchases had been held up for the past couple of years. Obama’s critics could well point out that he deserves the blame for stalling the Israelis for the past 16 months as well as the credit for the final approval. That said, if the weapons system works as well in practice as it did in tests, it has the potential to minimize the missile threat from Gaza in the future.

The timing of the decision may have been dictated by the administration’s desire to walk back from the hostility its stands on Jerusalem and insults to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu provoked from friends of Israel. The charm offensive belies the left’s claims that most American Jews back Obama’s Israel-bashing. The White House’s clear desire to undo the impression it had previously sought to foster of America distancing itself from the Jewish state is an indication that it doesn’t believe most American Jews support a policy of further pressure on Israel.

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Israel's Child

Paula R. Stern
A Soldier's Mother
14 April '10
Posted before Shabbat

This isn't about Shmulik or Elie, Chaim or Yaakov and yet...it is about a child in Israel - one they all love.

My youngest daughter (if you've been reading this blog for a while, you met her here in A Candle and a Wave and A Child's Alarm) is learning something that I don't know how to translate - basically Medical Care, First Aid, Human Care or something like that - its the rudiments of first aid at a fourth grade level. She has a test today and so spoke of what she knows on the way to school.

"ABC" she said.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"Air waves, Breathing, and Circulation"

"They teach you that in English?" I asked her.

"No, but they tell us ABC because it isn't the same in Hebrew." Okay. It was cute and I went along with it as she spoke and then my mind stopped and I heard not the cute tone of her voice, that I love listening to, but the words. I asked her to explain it again and then asked if this was the teacher's explanation or hers.

"The teacher. He's really funny. He told us 'If a doctor says a patient doesn't have a pulse, but he does, what does that mean?' "

She giggled and then answered, "it means it's a bad doctor."

But it was the analogy that she told me before that stuck with me. This ABC thing is: "It's like a missile hitting a building," she explained. It took me a while to get the image and understand what she was saying...

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