Israel Matzav

Hamas spox: 'If we get what we want, so be it, if not, we will shoot you in the chest'

Hamas spokesman Husam Badran was interviewed by al-Jazeera Arabic last week. Part of the interview is shown below with English subtitles.

Let's go to the videotape.

Labels: al-Jazeera, Hamas, Hamas threats, terror tunnels

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:22 PM 0 comments

The media's role in Hamas' war strategy

Richard Landes has written a seminal piece on the media's role in Hamas' war strategy. It's required reading.

According to its critics, Hamas’ war strategy works like this:

1. Episodically attack Israel’s civilians in such as way as to provoke a counter-attack.
2. Hide behind Palestinian civilians (preferably in crowded neighborhoods, schools, and hospitals), while encouraging them, even forcing them, to stay, guaranteeing that the return fire wounds or kills civilians and damages civilian structures.
3. Encourage the Western news media to play up the civilian suffering, play down Hamas’ role in it, and accuse Israel.
4. Conjure a firestorm of outrage around the world that eventually pressures Israel into desisting from counteroffensive measures.
5. Survive to reap the propaganda victory and prepare the next round of hostilities.
6. Repeat, with each exchange hurting Israel more, and each round of international news coverage further savaging the Jewish State’s international reputation.

No matter what the Israeli response, the Hamas strategy is win-win. If the Israelis abort a strike to avoid civilian casualties (as they often do), then Hamas is spared the blow; if an Israeli strike causes civilian casualties, Hamas has dead babies to parade before the cameras. And eventually, the bloodletting will get so bad, the pictures so damning, that Israel will stop. Hamas’ endgame goals, at least at this stage of its asymmetrical war, are actually threefold: tie Israel down with constraints on its use of power, delegitimize and demonize it in the eyes of the world, and stir an aggressive “Muslim Street” in the West, where genocidal chants can lead to pogroms against the Jews worldwide.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: anti-Israel media bias, Gaza, Hamas, Hamas rockets, Hamas threats, Operation Protective Edge

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:18 PM 0 comments

Fear and loathing in the Gaza Strip

They may have 'thousands' of missiles that can strike Tel Aviv, but deep down, Hamas isn't quite ready to make themselves into martyrs just yet.

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar revealed on Sunday that his movement’s recent decision to enforce a cease-fire with Israel came after Egypt warned that Israel was planning a military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Zahar said that Hamas received warnings also from other “international parties,” but did not elaborate.

“Egypt and international parties warned Hamas that the Israeli occupation was planning to launch a new aggression against the Gaza Strip,” he said. “Hamas and the other resistance groups are prepared for such an aggression.”

Zahar warned that Israel would suffer a “painful blow” if it launched another war.

However, he did not rule out the possibility that Israel would still wage war against Hamas “in wake of Arab and international silence.”

The Palestinians should expect everything evil from the occupation, he added. Zahar nevertheless reaffirmed his movement’s desire to maintain the period of calm with Israel. He also denied that Hamas had deployed forces along the border with Israel to stop the rocket and mortar attacks.

Now would be the time to hit them rather than wait until they are ready.

Labels: Gaza, Hamas threats, Mahmoud al-Zahar

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:47 PM 1 comments

Hamas becomes more radical as calls to 'engage' with it increase

Jonathan Dahoah HaLevi reports that rather than moderating the group, calls from the West to 'engage' with Hamas are having the exact opposite effect. Hamas is becoming more radical.

* Over the last few years there has been a steady drumbeat of calls from leading figures in the international community for Israel to open a dialogue with Hamas.

* Unfortunately, there is no evidence of a new pragmatism among the Hamas leadership, but only greater indications of a much harder line, which is expressed by its adoption of expressions of genocidal intent in its war against Israel and the Jewish people.

* In a December 2010 booklet marking the 23rd anniversary of the establishment of Hamas, Mohammed Def, head of the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, wrote: "We say to our enemies: you are going on the path to extinction, and Palestine will remain ours....You have no right to even an inch of it."

* Ahmed al-Jaabari, the acting supreme commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, wrote: "Our eyes will...not be confined to the borders of Gaza. Our plan of struggle shall extend as always, sooner or later, to our entire plundered country....As long as the Zionists occupy our lands, only death or exile await them."

* Senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Haya told al-Hayat on November 11, 2010: "We retain our Islamic, Arab and Palestinian faith that Palestine will be returned to its inhabitants and Zionist existence will conclude....The Jews will have no right there, save for those who lived on Palestinian land prior to the First World War" (meaning that only Jews above the age of 96 will be permitted to live in Islamic Palestine).

Read the whole thing.

So far, the Obama administration has not called for 'engaging' Hamas. But if he sees himself on his way out, I would bet on that happening too.

Labels: Hamas threats

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:20 AM 1 comments

Iran adds guidance systems to Hamas, Hezbullah rockets

Lest you think that the only way Iran can be a menace to peace is through nuclear weapons, the Iranians have now provided guidance systems for the unguided missiles of Hamas and Hezbullah, enabling them to do a 'better' job of killing Israeli civilians (God forbid).

“We are facing a significant leap in the projectile capability,” said Israeli Brig.-Gen. Doron Gavish, chief of the Air Defense Command.

Uzi Rubin, former head of the Israel Missile Defense Organization, said, “The enemy has achieved aerial supremacy without even having aircraft.”

Rubin said Iran’s Fateh-110 rocket, which has an enhanced range of 300 km. and has been exported to Hizbullah and Syria, has become fully-guided.

This would enable Hizbullah and Syria to strike critical Israeli facilities with dozens rather than hundreds of rockets.

Syria was also said to be enhancing the guidance system on its Scud-D ballistic missile, tipped with a chemical warhead.

Rubin said Hizbullah and Syria have 1,500 warheads could strike the Tel Aviv area. “This is a revolution,” he said.

How did they do all this equipping without anyone here knowing about it until now?

This changes Hamas (yes, they got them too) and Hezbullah into a military threat and not 'just' a terror threat.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Hamas threats, Hezbullah, Iran, missile guidance systems, Syria

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:21 PM 1 comments

UNRWA allowed to take four submachine guns into Gaza

UNRWA, which enables the 'Palestinians' to maintain the myth of being 'refugees' after four generations, has been allowed by the IDF to take four submachine guns into Gaza. The weapons will be used to protect UNRWA director John Ging and UNRWA's commissioner general Fillipo Grandi. Ging has been complaining for three years that the handguns used by his security guards are not enough.

The UN body asked for German Heckler and Koch submachine guns for UNRWA's commissioner general, Filippo Grandi, and for Ging.

The organization told Israeli security officials that its personnel are being threatened by Hamas representatives. UNRWA operates 221 schools in Gaza and dozens of medical centers, employment centers and women's help centers.

More than a million refugees and their descendents are registered with UNRWA, which operates eight refugee camps in Gaza.

In March 2007, gunmen fired at Ging's convoy and he escaped without injury. In the summer of 2007, armed men again attacked him, in Rafah, killing one. After previous assurances by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories that authorization was forthcoming, in July, Interior Minister Eli Yishai said he would not approve the request.

Ya'akov Imut, in charge of weapons registration at the Interior Ministry, said the ministry turned down the request because it is authorized only to license handguns. Only last week, after pressure from the UN, was the request approved.

The COGAT office said "the delay was because UNRWA received authorization from the Germans only five months ago."

UNRWA's representative in Israel said it does not issue responses on security matters.

I would never have agreed to give them these weapons. If the people he's supposed to be helping are threatening his life, then Ging should leave and leave them to rot.

Labels: Hamas threats, John Ging, submachine guns, UNRWA

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:15 PM 2 comments