@3 Well, be fair, arthur.
The IDF clearly won battles against real armies in 1948, in 1956, and in 1967.
It sorta won in 1973, but Operation Nickel Grass has a lot to do with that.
But from 1982 onwards, well, it’s been alllll downhill from there.

Posted by: Johnboy | Nov 18 2012 9:30 utc | 4

And don’t of course forget they won the war when they backed down the U.S. armed forces on June 8, 1967. But I guess that could be considered a collaborative victory as well.
Sixth Fleet Abandons USS Liberty Under Fire.
DoD Approves Of Their Action

Posted by: juannie | Nov 18 2012 11:40 utc | 6

Identified by whom? Dingbats with an urge to bomb?

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Nov 18 2012 12:25 utc | 8

In the Arab world, money can buy anything..

I think it is more probably blackmail.

Posted by: alexno | Nov 18 2012 13:17 utc | 10

Six journalists were moderately injured

I was just thinking, what a difference this time from 2009! In 2009, there were scarcely any journalists in Gaza (and only Arabs). This time two tower-blocks full, and the BBC at least elsewhere in Gaza City. Should have a significant moderating effect on Israel. That is why the bombardment of those buildings.

Posted by: alexno | Nov 18 2012 14:15 utc | 12

Two were killed in the 2nd media building. Total is 8 journalists.

Posted by: Forgetful | Nov 18 2012 15:41 utc | 14

The questions to ask your favorite Zionist:
If Israeli targets are positively identified in advance, and the bombs are precisely targeted, and journalists are killed, isn’t that admission of a war crime?
[Not that committing war crimes ever mattered to Zionists, because who’s to enforce the law?]

Posted by: JohnH | Nov 18 2012 15:46 utc | 16

The US and Israel recognize the importance of controlling the narrative, and they will stop an nothing to do it.
past news reports:
* Video shows U.S. attack that killed Reuters staffers in Iraq … In all, at least 16 journalists were killed by U.S. forces’ fire in Iraq,
* IRAQ Reporters Without Borders condemns the recent attacks on journalists
* more than 340 journalists have been killed since the US-led invasion in 2003,
Al-Quds (Jerusalem) TV in Gaza is such a dangerous news source, connected to “terrorists.” from a right-wing source:

The State Department, in a stunning act of sponsoring terror, has invited the propaganda television station of Hamas, Al-quds TV, to film propaganda here in the United States in your dime. Below is a cable of a proposal from the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem. Al-quds TV, the mouthpiece for Hamas, will film a documentary and miniseries about Muslims in America. All at US taxpayers’ expense. It’s really disgusting. Hamas comes to Washington.

It’s better for US/Israel that we get the news from reliable sources like the BBC: Three Israelis killed by Gaza rocket as violence escalates

Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 18 2012 16:13 utc | 18

@Noirette: They might be authorized to call the ICC in The Hague — finally.

Posted by: m_s | Nov 18 2012 16:45 utc | 20

The US and Israel have (of course) opposed the Palestine bid for status as a UN observer state, and the US has threatened penalties.
The Palestine application for observer state status “reaffirms the principle of universality of the United Nations” and “reaffirms the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their State of Palestine on the basis of the pre-1967 borders.”
The US, early in 2011, backed away from 1967 borders, making borders a subject for negotiation, a process described in the Palestine Papers which were leaked to Al Jazeera last year.

At a critical 21 October 2009 meeting, [George] Mitchell read out proposed language for terms of reference:
“The US believes that through good faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome that achieves both the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state encompassing all the territory occupied in 1967 or its equivalent in value, and the Israeli goal of secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meets Israeli security requirements.”
The Obama administration’s failure to press Israel to accept the international consensus that the Palestinian state would be established on all the territories Israel occupied in 1967, except for minor adjustments, dooms the two-state solution. It may well be that a US administration that came to office promising unparalleled efforts to bring peace, ends up clearing the path for Lieberman’s and Livni’s abhorrent ideas to enter the mainstream.

However this US position changed in May 2011.

NY Times, May 20, 2011
A day before the arrival in Washington of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Obama declared that the prevailing borders before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — adjusted to some degree to account for Israeli settlements in the West Bank — should be the basis of a deal. . .The Israeli government immediately protested, saying that for Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders would leave it “indefensible.”

The current US position? Anybody’s guess.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 18 2012 18:11 utc | 22

For all of you feeling literally sick to your stomachs when thinking about, reading about, realizing what the Israeli government is doing, yet again and with US compliance (connivance even?), here’s what’s posited as happening in your brains:

This Is Your Brain on Metaphors
Consider an animal (including a human) that has started eating some rotten, fetid, disgusting food. As a result, neurons in an area of the brain called the insula will activate. Gustatory disgust. Smell the same awful food, and the insula activates as well. Think about what might count as a disgusting food (say, taking a bite out of a struggling cockroach). Same thing.
Now read in the newspaper about a saintly old widow who had her home foreclosed by a sleazy mortgage company, her medical insurance canceled on flimsy grounds, and got a lousy, exploitative offer at the pawn shop where she tried to hock her kidney dialysis machine. You sit there thinking, those bastards, those people are scum, they’re worse than maggots, they make me want to puke … and your insula activates. Think about something shameful and rotten that you once did … same thing. Not only does the insula “do” sensory disgust; it does moral disgust as well. Because the two are so viscerally similar. When we evolved the capacity to be disgusted by moral failures, we didn’t evolve a new brain region to handle it. Instead, the insula expanded its portfolio.
Or consider pain. Somebody pokes your big left toe with a pin. Spinal reflexes cause you to instantly jerk your foot back just as they would in, say, a frog. Evolutionarily ancient regions activate in the brain as well, telling you about things like the intensity of the pain, or whether it’s a sharp localized pain or a diffuse burning one. But then there’s a fancier, more recently evolved brain region in the frontal cortex called the anterior cingulate that’s involved in the subjective, evaluative response to the pain. A piranha has just bitten you? That’s a disaster. The shoes you bought are a size too small? Well, not as much of a disaster.
Now instead, watch your beloved being poked with the pin. And your anterior cingulate will activate, as if it were you in pain. There’s a neurotransmitter called Substance P that is involved in the nuts and bolts circuitry of pain perception. Administer a drug that blocks the actions of Substance P to people who are clinically depressed, and they often feel better, feel less of the world’s agonies. When humans evolved the ability to be wrenched with feeling the pain of others, where was it going to process it? It got crammed into the anterior cingulate. And thus it “does” both physical and psychic pain.
(My emphasis)

The Insula Reaction. Moral disgust manifesting as physical disgust.
Israeli government = disgusting rot.
Fascinating piece, worth reading in its entirety.
(Since my friend who had the stroke in early September is getting better physically, the way his brain is functioning and not functioning is becoming clearer. And sadder. He now is rationalizing his deficits as simply being his version of reality, and thus is becoming, almost like a teenager, more resistant to suggestions and even therapy. I’m told that will improve when he gets the kind of cognitive rehab he really needs. His insurance company seems to want to send him to, putting it kindly, “custodial care.” Damn corporatist vampires.
Anyway, as I have time, I’m reading more to try to get a handle on what’s happening to him. And to do as much as I can to get him the help he needs. The insurance company is equally determined to cut what they see as its losses and are doing all they can to cut off his coverage for the care he needs. They have the power. What a world.)
Yes, to anyone who recognizes this NYTimes op-ed piece: I have posted it previously. But is, to me, so good at capturing how so many of react to what those in power do to us.

Posted by: jawbone | Nov 18 2012 19:21 utc | 24

@ 24 sorry about your friend – I impulsively replied to your thread b/c of that last part, for the horror of what is happening to the Palestinian’s almost shuts off from overload. So, I wonder then – are those humans who are on the dark side of mayhem and killing, sitting on an evolutionary branch that left them without the capacity to feel empathy? A natural selection of sociopaths as the new normal?

Posted by: thirsty | Nov 18 2012 19:47 utc | 26

When condoning Israeli actions Obama is merely being consistent, since the US has been conducting Obama-supported horror campaigns “to defend itself” many times worse than Palestine on tens of thousands of people including principally the aggressive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan-Pakistan.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 18 2012 21:33 utc | 28

One explanation of the present hesitation in the attack could be that Israel is “persuading” Western News sources not to film the events. Once achieved, the attack will go ahead.

Posted by: alexno | Nov 18 2012 22:54 utc | 30

I also believe that, with a certain mindset/mind set, it all becomes a lot easier to execute wanton murder of innocent civilians when the following thesis is adhered to properly and to the letter:
“The Bible finds no worse image than this of the man from the desert. And why? Because he has no respect for any law. Because in the desert he can do as he pleases. The tendency towards conflict is in the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence. His personality won’t allow him any compromise or agreement. It doesn’t matter what kind of resistance he will meet, what price he will pay. His existence is one of perpetual war. Israel’s must be the same. The two states solution doesn’t exist; there are no two people here. There is a Jewish people and an Arab population… there is no Palestinian people, so you don’t create a state for an imaginary nation… they only call themselves a people in order to fight the Jews.” [1]- Benjamin Netanyahu
Links

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Nov 18 2012 23:05 utc | 32

Don Bacon @ 28 —
Once upon a time, in different world, the US would condemn actons such as Israel’s…and their own…attacks on journalists and civilians.
Change, brought to us by…Bush II and Obama? Or even earlier, but not bragged about back then?

Posted by: jawbone | Nov 18 2012 23:48 utc | 34

@jawbone
When I Ctrl/U your comment I see “nofollow” in your links which are explained here. Beyond that I can’t go.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 19 2012 1:08 utc | 36

Stop the war co.uk headlines:
Time to break the taboo and say what Gaza is: a concentration camp
18 November 2012 Arthur Silber Palestine and Israel
It is as if everyone realizes, but will never state, that we are engaged in an elaborate charade, a pageant of gesture and indication, where substance and specific meaning have been banned.
more at link:
http://stopwar.org.uk/index.php/palestine-and-israel/2052-time-to-break-the-taboo-and-say-what-gaza-is-a-concentration-camp

Posted by: crone | Nov 19 2012 2:51 utc | 38

Q: It is as if everyone realizes, but will never state, that we are engaged in an elaborate charade, a pageant of gesture and indication, where substance and specific meaning have been banned.
R: Let’s boil that down to something easier to digest/comprehend – F*** Israel! Better?

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Nov 19 2012 3:01 utc | 40

Anonymous leaks personal information of 5,000 Israeli officials
Internet hacktivist group Anonymous has declared cyberwar on Israel, posting personal data of five thousand Israeli officials online.
The group used their Anonpaste.me site to address a message to the Israeli government before linking to the page with names, ID numbers and personal emails of 5,000 officials.
The message said: “It has come to our attention that the Israeli government has ignored repeated warnings about the abuse of human rights, shutting down the internet in Israel and mistreating its own citizens and those of its neighboring countries.”
etc
http://rt.com/news/anonymous-israel-officials-leaked-002/

Posted by: brian | Nov 19 2012 6:46 utc | 42

The real looser here are the Muslims brotherhood in the region (Turkey, Qatar, Egypt), who’ve now been exposed for their incompetence and complicity in the latest conflict.
They’re pretty much telling the Palestinians to lay down their weapons(ceasefire) and die. I suspect Obama’s pressuring Erdogan and Musrsi to do this or else!!!
Why isn’t Erdogan setting up a “FRIENDS OF PALESTINE” meeting in Ankara..Again, the bankruptcy of the Muslim brotherhood in the region’s been exposed for all to see.

Posted by: Zico | Nov 19 2012 8:14 utc | 44

Smart bombs miss ‘dumb’ target

Posted by: Daniel Rich | Nov 19 2012 11:21 utc | 46

Has anybody heard any news or comment by that weasel Khaled Mashal and his fatso friend?

Posted by: hans | Nov 19 2012 15:08 utc | 48

Israel is a terrorist state.
Hurriyet
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan described Israel today as a “terrorist state” in carrying out its bombardment of Gaza, underlining hostility for Ankara’s former ally since relations between them collapsed in 2010.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 19 2012 15:53 utc | 50

Turkey, the paragon of freedom and the righteous. A state born of genocide and murder form an empire that practiced kidnapping and murder. A state that to this day can not tolerate freedom of conscience. Yes yes this Turkey is the clean one to cast stones at the hebs. The Kurds can not eat the country of attaturk fast enough for my liking.

Posted by: Northern Observer | Nov 19 2012 16:04 utc | 52

After Israel attacked the Sudanese weapon dumps, the writing was on the wall that something like this would happen in Gaza. It was designed to limit the Palestinian’s ability to defend themselves.
But has anybody else considered linking the latest assault on Gaza to the mysterious events in Sinai all those months ago? It was certainly effective in bringing about the destruction of the vital tunnel networks into Gaza, along which weapons were smuggled.
Hezbollah looks likely to be next.
Syria’s disintigration, the declaration of a proxy war against Assad’s Government amongst Israel’s allies, and the installation of a new puppet Government will signal the severance of weapon flows into Lebanon.
Hezbollah will then be isolated and increasingly vulnerable. The result will be the almost complete erosion of Iranian influence in the middle-east.
I also have my suspicions that the Sunni monarchs are in on it. Their words of condemnation against Israel, contrasted with sending weapons to militants in Syria, is telling.

Posted by: Pat Bateman | Nov 19 2012 16:22 utc | 54

jawbone @ 25

I voted for Jill Stein of the Green Party as she was the only candidate to articulate issues and responses to them that I agree with. She got 441,751 votes, 0.35% of the popular vote. Yes, less than half a million.

FWIW, I did the same.
I worked hard for BO here last time, ran precincts and several of his offices here, last time. Had a few meetings statewide in which he looked us in the eye and, in response to very specific questions about his notions on Financial reform (“nationalizing” banks, letting TBTF $$ orgs goe toes up) he made very clear he was going to change things. He had, at that time, a number of prominent financial advisers (Volker) advocating for just that.
He… lied. He went w/WS insiders (Geithner) 100%, did not even make an attempt to change things funamentally by which financial crime here not only pays, but directs and misdirects US financial resources for *increasing* them, but not creating… *value*.
Anyway, voting for either of “Big 2′, after so many years (I’m 55). at this stage in time… I have concluded BO/Romney or their parties are, approximately 100%.. useless, towards bringing about any fundamental reconsideration of all we do here, so badly needed.
…
Thing about Stein, however… (and local GP, in our case New Mexico)… they talk a good game, but have no vision had to bring it about. I say that because, we (US) have huge, massive… water problems all over, canaries in the mine nobody is listening to. I have, for nearly a year now, joined with several others to fight for the massive effort needed to preserve our own Water supply (Albuquerque, NM), threatened ongoingly in real time by the largest toxic spill into a drinking water supply, in the history of the US, which nobody wants to do anything about, much less intelligent apprise and acknowledge. I described the situation a while ago here on MOA, briefly, in this comment.
We put considerable effort into contacting, providing very relaible hard data, timelines and much more… to both state and Stein’s own offices, offering both financial support and on the ground effort on her behalf, if… reither of them would talk to us, articulate any vision whatsoever wrt how they might do, for example… with our pollution event”, logistically or even generally… to bring about what they purport to stand for…
They never even… responded. The state party, through phone calls we made, when describing this fuel spill into our aquifer, professed utter ignorance that this situation even exists!!!
So for me, voting Green… AFAIC at best, a very minor symbolic event/choice which, really… has -0- chance of having meaningful effect, because… Stein does talk well I think, and does say things I like and agree with, but has not demonstrated any ability or an inkling of such, on how realizing what she talks about can be brought to bare.

But at least I feel good about my vote.

Frankly, I didn’t spend enough time thinking about mine, to have any feeling about it one way or another. I’m not even sure anymore that anything political is a useful avenue by which transformations in what people here do, will come ahout in sufficient mass and purpose, to change things meaningfully… whatsoever.
I think our political apparatus (and more) is just broken beyond repairs. Corrupt to the bone, approx. 100% ineffective, whatsoever/

Posted by: jdmckay | Nov 19 2012 16:42 utc | 56

BTW, has anyone been following the I/P threads on Reddit? The hasbara is hysterical. The sensible comments are buried under a blizzard of “downvotes”; the weaselly, platitudinous bilge bubbles to the top, like slag.

Posted by: yes_but | Nov 19 2012 17:15 utc | 58

There are huge differences between the West Bank and Gaza.
Obviously I am not the best person to post about this. (Only visited Israel once.)
Gaza has sea front, but is basically an open air prison, that is now a cliché. It’s ppl are pretty much locked in, oppressed, starved, sitting ducks, subject to many horrors. No need to detail more. The border with Egypt is of no help whatsoever.
Ramallah is low-key boom-town times. Its students travel and study abroad, Palestinian or ‘Arab’ entrepreneurs can make piles of money, Int’l cos. establish franchises there. Benetton, Starbucks, etc. Music festivals take place, building looks like Spain, heaps of concrete being used, flash structures all over the place. It is the capital of the PLO and most foreign missions are there. Restaurants, theatre, good atmosphere.. Investment opportunities. Reportedly (??) taxes are extremely low, or so say PR sites. It is close to being an ‘in place’ prized by artists and pretend radical types. Young ppl go there to meet – other young ppl, and find jobs.
Not to paint a rosy picture of the W bank….just one aspect.
Perhaps the W bank will be ‘normalized’ through Biz and collaboration with Isr. Money talks. I’m *guessing* that hot biz deals already ignore the ethnicity / legal status etc. of the participants. Or will soon. (?)
That leaves the ppl of Gaza as the final, sacrificial, target.
Bankers call the W bank ‘Palestine autonomous area’: e.g.
http://www.hsbc.com/1/2/about/network/mea/palestinian-autonomous-area

Posted by: Noirette | Nov 19 2012 17:19 utc | 60

59 sure, Morsi, being Egyptian Brotherhood would support the Syrian Brotherhood. In the case of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are stuck with a secular ally with a socialist USSR sphere of influence tradition, in terms of ideology Iran shares much more with the Muslim Brotherhood
When the subject is switched from Syria to resistance to Israel, Iran, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood share the same values though different interests depending on geography.
Iran’s and the Muslim Brotherhoods vision of the ideal state is a democracy limited by clerical power which pits them against any Gulf monarchy

Posted by: somebody | Nov 19 2012 17:59 utc | 62

yes_but @ 58–
Like…slag? Looks like decaying, aereated solid waste, aka turds, at a sewage treatment plant…. Thoset and a foamy, indeterminate colored…something… are on the top. Heh.

Posted by: jawbone | Nov 19 2012 20:49 utc | 64

Brian @ 42 —
Anonymous is also claiming is stymied Karl Rove’s attempts to have an IT company change votes in three states, that the reason Rove was so certain OH should not be called for Obama was that Rove was expecting the magic numbers shifting seen in 20004. Only this year, Anonymous had closed off the access to the allow the vote count changes.
True? Who knows, but good story. And quirky letter.

Posted by: jawbone | Nov 19 2012 21:13 utc | 66

brian, also from Wikipedia Muslim Brotherhood and Iran

Although Iran is a predominately Shia Muslim country and the Muslim Brotherhood is Sunni in doctrine, Olga Davidson and Mohammad Mahallati claim the Brotherhood has had influence among Shia in Iran.[68] Navab Safavi, who founded Fada’iyan-e Islam, (also Fedayeen of Islam, or Fadayan-e Islam), an Iranian Islamic organization active in Iran in the 1940s and 1950s, “was highly impressed by the Muslim Brotherhood.[69] From 1945 to 1951 the Fadain assassinated several high level Iranian personalities and officials who they believed to be un-Islamic. They included anti-clerical writer Ahmad Kasravi, Premier Haj Ali Razmara, former Premier Abdolhossein Hazhir, and Education and Culture Minister Ahmad Zangeneh.[70]
At that time Navab Safavi and Salar Golestanian now based in the UK where associates and allies of Ayatollah Khomeini who went on to become a figure in the Iranian Revolution of 1979.[70] Khomeini and other religious figures in Iran worked to establish Islamic unity and downplay Shia-Sunni differences.[citation needed]

and this is The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs deeply interested in any religious split in Egypt between Sunnis and Shiites but nevertheless stating that

At its core, the Brotherhood’s basic ideological doctrine is pan-Islamic and religiously inclusive. Since the movement’s creation in 1928, Brotherhood leaders have emphasized the political importance of Islamic unity and have sought to downplay religious differences among various Islamic legal schools, including between Sunnism and Shiism.
Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna considered all of Islam’s many sects – except for the Bahais and Qadianis – as belonging to the worldwide Muslim nation (umma). In this spirit, Banna additionally took part in 1948 in the establishment of the Association for Rapprochement between the Islamic Legal Schools (Jamiyyat al-Taqrib bayna al-Madhahib al-Islamiyyah). This organization was designed to bridge the religious divides between Sunni and Shia, and due to this organization’s leadership and influence, Shaykh al-Azhar Mahmud Shaltut declared Twelver Shiite worship to be valid, and recognized it as a legal tradition to be taught in Al-Azhar. As such, Banna and the organization he created originally adhered to an ideological outlook for which the “Shiite question” did not exist.27

Posted by: somebody | Nov 20 2012 12:52 utc | 68