The truth about our next war is that it may not happen at all. It’s shaping up to be big enough and ugly enough to make all sides lose their appetite for it. It may not happen, even though it looks and feels like it is going to happen.
The truth about our next war is that if it does break out, there will be another war after it. Neither side is going to really win, win in the old-school sense of the word. And in the absence of closure, there will be another round, and another round.
Creative Commons. IDF Spokesperson's Unit
Voice of Israel from Jerusalem,
Shalom, the time is now 6 am and here is the news,
in the studio, this is Rivki Dangot, Continue reading
Anonymous, the hacking ‘movement’, has created a YouTube video declaring war on Israel. The form and content of the declaration are sinister, in a Hollywood type of way. The cyber war, after all, has been going on for quite some time already. But what’s new is that this movement has now formally called on like-minded people all over the world to join in on the attack against Israel. By the way, the Anonymous video could be a fake, nobody really knows.
In a video message posted on YouTube from an undisclosed location, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Israeli nation hours after Israeli Air Force warplanes launched an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Continue reading
Interior Minister and leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party Eli Yishai on Tuesday said something absolutely regrettable in its evil.
This is what he said:
“During the Six-Day War each and every Jew who went to battle raised his eyes to the Creator. But in the Second Lebanon War we said, ‘By my strength and the might of my hand, and then God said to us, ‘Let’s see the results of, ‘By my strength and the might of my hand.’”
In other words: The Israel Defense Forces lost the Second Lebanon War in 2006 because its soldiers didn’t pray enough, and the army wasn’t religious enough. Continue reading
With all the brouhaha about price tag attacks and the hilltop youth over the past few days I thought it would be a good exercise to get to know these people a little better, get into their minds, so to speak.
You want to know how the Hilltop Youth feel about Arabs? How they see secular Israelis who live in Tel-Aviv? How they feel about the media? Continue reading
The fact that 30 attackers could break into an IDF base in a military zone in Palestinian areas without the IDF having any prior intelligence, vandalize the base, damage IDF equipment, knock a few soldiers around, and walk out scot free, as if they had just won a battle, is not a scandal. That’s already happened before. Two attackers were arrested in the Epfraim Brigade attack. Only two. And one of them ‘escaped.’ That’s the scandal.
The fact that Jewish attackers can ambush an IDF vehicle carrying a Brigade Commander and a Deputy Brigade Commander, open the vehicle door, and throw a concrete block at the Deputy Commander’s head, is not a scandal. That’s also happened before. What’s a scandal is that these Israel Defense Forces officers didn’t put a bullet between the eyes of the man who dared to open the door of their armored car. Continue reading
Day 10, some observations:
Israeli forces seized sparsely populated areas in northern Gaza on Sunday and by Monday morning were dug in on the edges of Gaza City. Further movement into the heart of the built-up areas would mean deadly urban warfare, replete with house-to-house fighting in crowded streets and alleyways familiar to Hamas’ 20,000 fighters. This would mean sniper fire, hand-to-hand fighting, rocket propelled grenades, suicide bombers, booby traps, fighters disappearing through one tunnel and appearing out of others, and the use of civilians as cover. The IDF will be trying to coax Hamas fighters out into the open, but chances are Hamas won’t fall for the bait. Continue reading
Since the conclusion last week of the Goldwasser-Regev-Kuntar deal, several leading commentators have argued that the Israeli families’ campaigns to free their sons hampered the deal, setting a higher price for the Israeli side. They accuse the media of playing up the personal tragedy that has befallen the families over the strategic interests of the country. The commentators urge the media and the family and friends of captured soldier Gilad Schalit to learn the lessons of the Hizbullah swap, and to lower their profile. They say that the national-strategic interests of dealing with the Hamas terrorist entity in Gaza and its long-term effects on the region far outweigh the personal-private interests of a family wanting to get their son back from captivity. Don’t confuse the big picture with the family photograph, they say.
This view frames Gilad Schalit as an IDF soldier, captured in battle, and whose return should be negotiated within the larger strategic picture of the Israel-Hamas-PA matrix. He is not my brother, my son, my army buddy or the boy next door, they say.
To the Schalit family, their friends and Gilad’s army buddies, Gilad is first and foremost a son, a brother, an army buddy, whose negotiated release should be prioritized over the long-term plan of how to deal with Hamas. The Hamas problem is not going away so quickly, there is time to work out the bigger picture. They are against the framing of this issue as purely the personal versus the national. They see Gilad as part of the national, a part that can be dealt with easier and quicker than the bigger picture. The Gilad camp wants the Israeli government, who wants to make a deal, to make up its mind quicker. Continue reading
Seems like the message is finally starting to get through to the army, which has really let this thing go on for far too long. This is the first tangible thing to have happened since I published the original article exposing all this stuff.
A soldier serving in the IDF’s elite 8200 military intelligence unit was sentenced to 19 days in prison on Wednesday for uploading a picture onto the Facebook social networking site.
The IDF would not comment on the exact nature of the photograph, but said the punishment was in proportion to the committed offense. Military sources said an IDF directive prohibits photography on bases without official approval.
The sources said the soldier in question would be punished for taking pictures on a military base without permission. Continue reading
Got this response from the IDF Spokesperson’s Office today for both the Facebook and YouTube stories:
Regulations stipulate that it is not permissible to film or take pictures inside any IDF facility or during an IDF operation unless the photographer has express permission. These regulations are designed to prevent people without proper security clearance from accessing classified information and the appearance of such materials in the press or on the internet. The IDF is working to raise awareness among soldiers and reservists about operational and security dangers that maybe caused by classified information carelessly uploaded to the internet. The IDF is taking a broad response to the problem, which includes education, monitoring and disciplinary enforcement.
And now, on to the story:
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of photographs of classified Israeli military information are available freely for perusal on the popular Facebook social networking Web site. [PICTURES AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST]. Continue reading
