Hamas attacks Israel
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Egypt warned Israel.
Egypt said as much a few days ago but now the chairman of the house foreign relations committee is saying it too.
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@bachophile said in Hamas attacks Israel:
Lots of stuff on “x” (formerly known as Twitter) but this guy gave me a smile
Shared with my son. Not that he’s said anything about the Israel and the Middle East, but he’s in college and probably being flooded with wrong impressions.
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David Frum:
It's not a very good plan, is it:
"Step 1: murder and torture hundreds of people, rape women, decapitate babies, abduct children."
"Step 2: beg the survivors of the murdered, tortured, raped, and abducted people to supply electricity, food, and water."
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@jon-nyc said in Hamas attacks Israel:
"Step 1: murder and torture hundreds of people, rape women, decapitate babies, abduct children."
"Step 2: beg the survivors of the murdered, tortured, raped, and abducted people to supply electricity, food, and water."
Goes in line with Andrea Mitchell's amazing interview.
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@jon-nyc said in Hamas attacks Israel:
David Frum:
It's not a very good plan, is it:
"Step 1: murder and torture hundreds of people, rape women, decapitate babies, abduct children."
"Step 2: beg the survivors of the murdered, tortured, raped, and abducted people to supply electricity, food, and water."
From the neocon who ballyhooed the invasion of Iraq. He may be right, but I don't pay much attention to Frum anymore...
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@jon-nyc said in Hamas attacks Israel:
David Frum:
It's not a very good plan, is it:
"Step 1: murder and torture hundreds of people, rape women, decapitate babies, abduct children."
"Step 2: beg the survivors of the murdered, tortured, raped, and abducted people to supply electricity, food, and water."
It would be simplifying to assume the agents who did step 1 are the same agents doing step 2.
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@bachophile That guy is my new hero.
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@jon-nyc said in Hamas attacks Israel:
David Frum:
It's not a very good plan, is it:
"Step 1: murder and torture hundreds of people, rape women, decapitate babies, abduct children."
"Step 2: beg the survivors of the murdered, tortured, raped, and abducted people to supply electricity, food, and water."
Sums it up quite nicely.
I rather like Frum and his brand of conservatism. Need more of it.
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Today, senior Hamas official Ali Baraka, in an interview on an Arabic-language TV station, boasted that the terrorist organization had been planning the attack for two years.
“The zero hour was kept completely secret. . . . Hamas leaders knew it. The number of people who knew about the attack and its timing could be counted on one hand.”
The fact that Hamas kept this secret is arguably Israel’s most serious failure. Israeli intelligence agencies—the Mossad, the Shin Bet, and the Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman)—are seen as world-beating institutions. Only a few years ago, they located and stole Iran’s nuclear archives right from under the noses of the ayatollahs. Israel invests billions in tracking every movement of every presumed terrorist in Gaza. But somehow they missed this.
One reason why is that Israel hasn’t had a physical presence or human agents in Gaza since its unilateral withdrawal from the region in 2005. Most of its tracking today is done by signals intelligence. So Hamas likely avoided using any electronic devices to communicate plans of their attack. And, as Baraka said, they kept the plan highly compartmentalized within Hamas ranks, with gunmen told only a small piece of the puzzle, to prevent a leak.
This shows impressive operational discipline on Hamas’s part, and it will require Israel to restructure its intelligence apparatus once this war is over. The fact that—as of Wednesday night in Israel—the IDF has still not entered Gaza shows they’re remaining cautious, because what else might they be missing?
The breakdown in Israel’s physical defenses was its second big failure. Over the years, Israel has invested billions of dollars in barriers—above and below ground—in addition to sophisticated sensors, cameras, radars, and remote-control guns that were supposed to stop anyone from entering Israel through the fence or via cross-border tunnels.
And yet, Hamas proved these defensive measures were not just penetrable, but nothing more than a nuisance. The terrorist organization released videos showing their gunmen breaking through with ease, cutting holes in the barrier so big that pickup trucks could drive right across. They sent in drones, paragliders, and navy forces under the cover of rocket barrages, while bombing Israel’s remote-control guns from above.
There are more analyses at the link.
Most telling: “The Israelis are known to love life,” he continued. “We, on the other hand, sacrifice ourselves. We consider our dead to be martyrs. The thing any Palestinian desires the most is to be martyred for the sake of Allah, defending his land.”
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
