Bush clears way for Israeli ground operation, updates Obama
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
January 3, 2009, 9:54 AM (GMT+02:00)
DEBKAfile’s Washington source report that in a telephone conversation with prime minister Ehud Olmert, US president George W. Bush gave Israel the final okay for a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He promised the US would veto a resolution condemning Israel at the UN Security Council meeting next Monday. Early Saturday morning, Jan. 3, Day 8 of Israel’s Gaza operation, US and British media described the Israeli invasion as hours away.
In his weekly radio address - brought forward by a day, the US president spoke with exceptional firmness: “Another one-way ceasefire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable,” he said. “This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas – a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel’s destruction.”
He noted that “Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup and routinely violated an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire…” and went on to define the exit point for Israel’s military operation:
“Promises from Hamas will not suffice,” he said. There must be “monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end.”
This left Israel the option of sustaining its military activity against Hamas until such a mechanism was installed. He implicitly criticized Egypt for failing to control the smuggling of rockets and other munitions through its territory.
In his radio address, President Bush noted that president-elect Barack Obama is being kept up to date on the latest developments. With just over two weeks left in power, the Bush administration is preparing to hand over the problem to his successor.
DEBKAfile’s military sources list 9 pointers to an imminent Israeli incursion:
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1. Israel’s three decision-makers, the prime minister, defense minister Ehud Barak and foreign minister Tzipi Livni, met Friday, Dec. 2, and resolved “to keep up the military pressure on Hamas” – a decision that gives the IDF a free hand.
2. Hamas’ conduct Friday: After 9 Grad Katyusha rockets were fired against Ashkelon, destroying two buildings and injuring five Israelis, the tempo slowed to 40 launchings the whole day - half the week’s daily average. The Palestinian terrorists were evidently reserving stocks for a grand climax when Israeli tank and armored infantry crossed into Gaza.
3. Hamas threats have mounted to a new pitch: Damascus-based Khaled Meshaal, who is in hiding, warned Israel (in a taped speech) of a “black fate” if it invades Gaza, including more kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Underlying his words was the threat of guerrilla action behind Israeli lines to snatch hostages.
4. Israeli air strikes against the empty homes of Hamas leaders continued early Saturday after 45 were destroyed Thursday and Friday. Their objective is to demoralize the Hamas command echelon and break its will to fight.
5. The Hamas military wing reported thwarting an Israeli special forces’ attempt to steal into the Sejaya refugee camp in Gaza City early Saturday. This is the third such claim in three days. The IDF spokesman denied knowledge of the incident.
6. DEBKAfile’s military sources report mass-desertions by teenagers who form the backbone of Hamas’ fighting rank and file. They are going home to their parents.
7. Early signs that former Palestinian security officers unaffiliated with Hamas are getting together to seize control of Gazan districts in which Hamas rule has collapsed.
Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets from Friday night advising people living in the northern and eastern neighborhoods of Gaza City to leave their homes. Defiance of this curfew directive carried the risk of being shot.
8. Cairo forwarded an urgent request to Hamas leaders in Damascus to make known their conditions for a ceasefire.
9. The arrival in Damascus of the chairman of Iran’s national security council and nuclear negotiator Said Jalili for urgent talks with Syrian president Bashar Assad and the leaders of Hamas and Jihad Islami.
Bush’s speech followed his conversations with Palestinian, Egyptian, Jordanian and Saudi leaders as well as Olmert. He said he was concerned by the humanitarian situation in Gaza and noted that “Hamas terrorists often hide within the civilian population which puts innocent Palestinians at risk.”
I think its clear that Hamas underground strategy is in tatters. Israel knows where the top leaders are hiding and this is not lost on Hamas leaders. Any sense of invulnerability they may have had are gone. For the moment, Israel can pick them off one by one at a time. In effect, Israel is seeking to decapitate Hamas’ head from its body so it will be paralyzed and unable to respond to Israel’s next move. And Israel intends to leave the enemy guessing as to what its next move will be - and when it will come.
Comment by NormanF — January 3, 2009 @ 3:40 am
Sweet justice and small blessings..
The family that terrorizes together dies together. They took their innocent children to Jihadist heaven. Real animals.
Now time to get them all.
Comment by Max — January 3, 2009 @ 4:29 am
Bush supports international monitors in Gaza
US Administration accepted Olmert’s solution of internationally “guaranteed” ceasefire in Gaza with UN troops monitoring the compliance. The solution is wrong, as seen in Lebanon, but there’s no reason why Bush should be more concerned with Israeli interests than Olmert.
Egypt pushes for ceasefire because of the pressure Arab countries exert on it to open the Rafah Crossing. Egypt cannot afford too long a collaboration with Israel. In any event, Hamas can easily wrest the Rafah control from Egypt which has very few troops in Sinai according to Camp David agreements.
Meanwhile on our home front that gives any rational reader here a clear idea of our schizoid leadership and national institutions like Israel Supreme Court,(may they all rot in hell).
Court permits PLO flags in Tel Aviv
The moronic High Court of Justice permitted ultra-left demonstrators in Tel Aviv to wave PLO flags at anti-IDF rally. Police initially demanded the absence of Palestinian flags pretending shamefully that they might cause confrontation with right-wingers - as if waving enemy flags during war is not a crime in itself.
The decision was too much even for leftists, and a left-wing attorney Guy Ofir organizes a counter-demonstration under Israeli flags. Police may eventually ban both rallies on the grounds of public security.
International leftists shield Gazans from Israeli attacks
ISM and Free Gaza activists accompany ambulance in Gaza to stem off Israeli attacks. The gesture is empty as Israel hadn’t so far blown up any ambulance.
Palestinians routinely use ambulances and medical supply trucks for terrorist operations in Israel and arms trafficking.
Technically, the court’ decision is perfectly correct: there are no legal grounds to ban PLO flags if Israel fights Hamas. But why did the Supreme Court take the case in first place? Instead as acting as the court of last resort, Israeli Supreme Court routinely takes legally mundane but politically charged cases. The PLO flag case should have gone to Tel Aviv court and perhaps wind up with the Supreme Court a couple of years after the demonstration. The judges’ willingness to expedite ultra-left cases contrasts their feet-dragging in pro-Jewish cases. More than that, the judges went so far as to press the police to permit PLO flags without the court order or even a proper hearing which they hadn’t enough time to stage.
The Supreme Court is all but consistent: in Marzel’s Umm al Fahm march’s case, the court permitted only Israeli flags in an Israeli (Arab) town. In the PLO flag case, the same court permitted even the enemy flags to be waved by Israeli (Arab) citizens.
Students protest Gaza operation
Hundreds of students of Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem universities, along with their professors protest IDF operation in Gaza. Jewish leftists joined Israeli Arabs to condemn the operation. The Arabs waived PLO flags and chanted anti-Israeli slogans, condemned Jewish occupation of Israel. Jews pay to educate the next generation of PLO leaders in Israeli universities.
Leftist professors threatened the students who, as IDF soldiers, were dressed in the military uniform. Haifa University president supported the demonstration as freedom of speech matter. No doubt, the leftist would be much less permissive toward right-wing demonstrators.
Smaller numbers of normal Jewish students demonstrated in support of the IDF operation and clashed with the Arabs. In Haifa University, Jewish students chanted refreshingly, “May your village burn!” and “Ishmael is the next!” which obviously referred to Israeli Ishmaelites but was charitably interpreted by Israeli media as referring to Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh.
Comment by yamit82 — January 3, 2009 @ 9:55 am
worth noting in passing:
this site’s worries about Obama and the Democrats seem very misplaced. Bush would not give approval without also getting ok from leaders of both parties and incoming president…they had been in consultation this week.
Hamas leader’s son denouncing Hamas from exile in United States…warning about Hamas and its efforts to destroy Israel.
Interesting question: since Israel seems to have known exactly where to go to get a tunnels, why have they waited this long to destroy them? seems they have approval from Egypt.
A number of sites are now posting a timeline that indicates that it was Israel that first broke the cease fire and thus Hamas “merely” responding with rockets to this failure to uphold the agreed upon cessation of hostilities. If this is Not True, then this critique needs to be answered and circulated.
Comment by davidstill — January 3, 2009 @ 10:04 am
We have them here too, Yamit.
This morning a letter was published in our National Post newspaper, by an “Israel-Canadian Jew,” who, after telling the readers that “Israel has just missed an opportunity to broker a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza,” stated in the last line of his letter, that “… Israel is not a Jewish State, and will not be until it can embody Jewish tradition [of justice tempered with mercy].”
He must mean the 2000 year-old Jewish tradition of not fighting back, culminating in apologetically walking into the gas chambers.
We have our Israeli leftist loons here too.
Comment by keelie — January 3, 2009 @ 10:08 am
Hmm. self-declared and known terrorist spokesman demands answer to a “critique”!
Since the language of terrorists is bullets, a nice fat one up the butt is in order.
Terrorists have the right to be dead. Nothing else.
Comment by Max — January 3, 2009 @ 10:40 am
From Al Jezzera.net watch and weep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unMqm4xhwG8&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmNADmqd2Z4&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsZv1hm2ob8
Arab and leftist protesting Israel around the word:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=protests+agaist+Israel+today&search_type=&aq=f
Comment by yamit82 — January 3, 2009 @ 11:33 am
Most Israelis are not leftists and 90% of the Jewish public supports Operation Cast Lead. But its the treasonous 10% - the pro-Hamas, disarm Israel first Far Left Fifth Columnists who get the lion’s share of world media attention.
Comment by NormanF — January 3, 2009 @ 11:37 am
yamit
Gosh, you would think the world has a Jewish problem or something.
Comment by Charles Martel — January 3, 2009 @ 12:24 pm
War on Gaza: Annie Lennox ‘Shaken To The Core’
Added
01:44
War on Gaza: Annie Lennox
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52wipVOF2eo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxAST8QJlSA&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ceyIHaLXoA&feature=related LEFTIST AID BOAT RAMMED AND SUNK BY Israeli Navy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zofxte-9_RI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_t0sJ-N0qg Kill this fucking kapo Jew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKUuCakOxnw&feature=related
Comment by yamit82 — January 3, 2009 @ 12:32 pm
Gosh charles, I think you might have something there. Where are all those Zionist Joooos and Christians?
Norman I think it’s a bit more than 10%.
Max when are you going to join up?
davidstill, you are one pathetic excuse for a human being.
Comment by yamit82 — January 3, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
Yamit - they had a rally today in Tel Aviv. The 100 or so moonbats demonstrating against the war where overwhelmed by every one else. Heh. Every society has a bunch of people who think their country is always wrong. Israel isn’t an exception to that rule. Most Israelis understand what Hamas is and they are prepared to do all they can to defend their country, their weak government notwithstanding. Hamas made the cardinal error in thinking that Israelis would never come to the point where they decided they’ve had enough. That being said, its great to see the enemy on the receiving end for a change of what it dished out on Israel all these years.
Comment by NormanF — January 3, 2009 @ 1:04 pm
A military operation, no matter how successful, devoid of a subsequent BINDING negotiating process will be as useless as it has been in the past.
Emphasis on the word BINDING.
Possible end result, withdrawal, Hamas regroupment and rearmament-RINSE AND REPEAT.
Comment by h peskin — January 3, 2009 @ 1:32 pm
H Peskin, Hamas would settle for another hudna - but it will never make peace with Israel. No more than the scorpion could make peace with the frog.
Comment by NormanF — January 3, 2009 @ 1:35 pm
Peskin if we can send a few to meet and enjoy their 72 virgins it will at least be satisfying For both sides, they get their virgins and we get to haver fewer enemies.
Comment by yamit82 — January 3, 2009 @ 2:18 pm
Peskin,
Comment by yamit82 — January 3, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
Peskin your EU boogy man now under Czech Presidency has this to say:
Czech PM in Israel supports peace efforts,fight against terrorism
Jerusalem- Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek backed Israel’s fight against terrorism at a meeting with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem, and spoke in support of the Czech Republic’s stronger involvement in the Middle East peace process.
Topolanek also expressed sympathy to Olmert over the gunfire in a Jewish school in Jerusalem last Thursday that claimed the lives of eight.
It is necessary to fight against terrorism but also secure peace that people wish for, Topolanek said.
He emphasised the readiness of the Czech Republic, a country with good relations with both Israel and its Arabic neighbours, and a country that will preside over the EU in the first half of 2009, to help a peace arrangement in the Middle East.
Topolanek said he would welcome the EU’s much more closer cooperation on the Middle East peace process, according to a press release issued by the Czech Government Office.
The EU is not much active for the time being, “we must correct this,” Topolanek said.
He said the enemy is not Palestinians, but terrorists intimidating both Israelis and Palestinians. Not even at the helm of the EU [during the Czech presidency] would he seek a change in the approach to the Palestinian radical movement Hamas, he said.
“We don’t view it as an organisation to conduct negotiations with,” Topolanek said.
Olmert said the Israelis continue fighting because their enemies keep fighting against them. After the terror is gone, Israel will have no reason to fight, Olmert added.
He said he is determined to continue fighting against Palestinian terrorism until the danger threatening Israeli citizens is over.
Topolanek said “Israel actually reacts to attacks. The fact that its reactions often meet with a stronger response in the world than the attacks of terrorists is rather a question for the world community [to answer] as I naturally agree with Israel’s role as a defender,” he said.
Most people wish peace, safety and prosperity. It is up to the Czech Republic and the EU to help the peace process as accelerators of changes to the better, Topolanek added.
Another area the Czech-Israeli talks in Jerusalem focused on was bilateral scientific and technological cooperation.
Topolanek and Olmert signed an agreement on cooperation in running the Czech-Israeli fund in support of science and research.
“We simply haven’t managed it due to time shortage,” Topolanek said in reaction to a remark that European officials usually visit not only Israel but also Palestine.
At the weekend, nevertheless, Topolanek visited Jordan, which plays the role of a stabiliser in the region.
“I’ll undoubtedly also visit other countries of this region, including the Palestinian self-rule,” he pledged today.
At the close of his visit to Israel Topolanek saw the Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust victims.
While departing for Prague, Topolanek wanted to invite a young Palestinian who studies in Prague to join him aboard the government plane. However, the plan fell through as the student had got stuck in the Gaza strip blocked by Israeli soldiers.
Comment by yamit82 — January 3, 2009 @ 4:27 pm
con’t Peskin:
Finding Gaza ceasefire ‘main EU role’ - Czech PM
01 Jan 2009 15:40:38 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Fixes typo in ‘update’)
PRAGUE, Jan 1 (Reuters) - The European Union’s ‘main role’ is to seek a ceasefire in Gaza, the Czech prime minister said on Thursday as he took over the bloc’s rotating presidency and announced a diplomatic mission to the Middle East.
Mirek Topolanek said the EU should not be deterred by lack of progress towards a political solution and the absence of any major U.S. initiative, as President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take over from George W. Bush on Jan. 20.
“It must not mean that the European Union … will give up on organising a ceasefire,” Topolanek told Czech TV. “I think it’s our main role in the coming days and weeks.”
In taking over the EU presidency from France, the Czechs assumed a key role in tackling the crisis in Gaza. In a bid to halt rocket attacks from the coastal strip, Israel launched an offensive last week that has so far claimed more than 400 Palestinian lives.
Topolanek said he was organising a diplomatic mission to the Middle East that would include the EU’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana, its External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt would take part and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner would also be invited. The mission will go to Cairo, Tel Aviv, the West Bank city of Ramallah — where the Palestinian Authority is based — and the Jordanian capital Amman, Czech officials said.
The trip will coincide with a visit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the area on Jan. 5, the first by a major power since Israel launched air strikes on Gaza last week.
“It is overlapping with the trip of Nicolas Sarkozy to Syria and Lebanon … I spoke with (Sarkozy) for a long time yesterday and we dealt with the problem in detail,” Topolanek said.
He said that, with Bush not taking a leading role on the conflict, it would fall to Europe to lead efforts.
Writing by Michael Winfrey; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Comment by yamit82 — January 3, 2009 @ 4:31 pm
Let’s send Peskin into Gaza tommorrow to negotiate a peace!
Comment by Ed D — January 3, 2009 @ 8:08 pm