Israel FM spokesman on Gaza chaos: Extremists uninterested in Pals' well-being (Podcast)

Entrance sign to Karni crossing, 'back-to-back' transfer of goods between Israeli and Palestinian loading bays. (Dave Bender)

On a recent visit to the Karni goods and cargo crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip, I asked Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev for his response to an Israeli Air Force strike that killed a busload of Islamic Jihad terrorists, foiling the firing of a barrage of 20-plus kilometer range Katyusha missiles into Israel, but that also killed and wounded several dozen Palestinians gathered around the smoking wreckage of the first vehicle.

At Level Ground Podcasts now at 'Odeo'

Just finishing porting the first podcasts over to Odeo from Tripod (which will likely remain an archive). Go take a listen, if you haven't heard them yet. There are also pictures and video of the podcast content: scroll further down. Drop me a line with feedback about how they sound, content.

New audio gets posted on the top right side of the page, just under the email list sign-ups. So, sign-up and listen. In the immortal words of the legendary Gashash Hachiver comedy trio: "Amru li lis-ten! Oz lisanu... (they told me - transliterated - lis-ten. So I lis-tened...).

Just came across this Jewish Arts and Culture blog. Looks interesting, but they seem to have a slow server (or I'm just up waaay too late), so I can't get to most pages. Go take a look. Come back here, and we can discuss it among ourselves.

Any other really - but really good blogs/pocasts/vlogs you know about? Let me know.

Oh, wait! Here's one now:

"(2006-06-07) — In what may be a major breakthrough in stalled talks over Iran’s uranium enrichment program, the United States has reportedly offered to give long-range nuclear weapons to the Islamic Republic in exchange for assurances that it will soon stop production of nuclear material."

Israel mayor's message to Americans (Podcast)

Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal talking with reporters at the town's city hall on Tuesday, June 13th. as Government Press Office Director Danny Seaman looks on. (Dave Bender)

Hear Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal compare US President Bush's military reaction to the 9/11 attacks to possible Israeli responses to the non-stop terrorism and rocket attacks emanating from the nearby Gaza Strip.

Sderot: 'Red Dawn' means run for cover (podcast)

Sderot school custodian Shlomo Halevy points to hole in classroom ceiling where Kassam rocket slammed in. Children had just left the room for morning prayers. (Dave Bender)

Hear Israeli National Service student Avital Morer tell about Kassam rockets and traumatized children in Sderot, where a lethal steel rain from Gaza keeps falling, and kids are terrified.

Film: IDF airstrike against Katyusha missile crew

(Communicated by the IDF Spokesperson)

Yesterday morning (Tuesday), 13 June 2006, the IDF carried out an aerial attack in the northern Gaza Strip against a vehicle loaded with rockets and carrying a Islamic Jihad terrorist cell en route to launch long-range Katyusha (Grad) rockets against Israel. Thirty-eight rockets have been launched at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours; over 100 rockets have been launched at Israel since Friday, 9 June 2006.

According to Palestinians reports three terrorists who operated in the cell were killed, as well as eight civilians. After the attack the terror cell was seen removing the rockets from the vehicle.

"I state clearly that we are saddened by the deaths of these innocent Palestinians but hold absolutely no responsibility for them. The responsibility lies entirely on the shoulders of the Palestinians," said the Chief of Staff Dan Halutz last night, who added that "the incident must be evaluated in its context, which is that Palestinians attempted to launch Grad rockets against Israel, and we acted with determination to prevent their firing."

This is the fourth time in the past two months in which terrorist cells attempt to launch Grad rockets at Israel. On Knesset election day (March 28) a rocket fell south of Ashkelon; about a month later another attempt was thwarted. On the third attempt, which occurred on May 15, the rocket hit an Israeli community north of the Gaza Strip, and damaged civilian infrastructure.

These rockets are capable of causing much more serious damage than the Qassam rockets, because they can reach a range of 15 to 20 kilometers and carry much more explosives. Since Friday morning terrorists have launched over 100 projectile rockets at Israel, 38 of these within the last 24 hours.

'Kossacks against Israel'

The (what seems pretty clear to me, at least) hard-left blog, Daily Kos (the "Alien" to hard right-wing Little Green Footballs' "Predator" More on the Alien vs Predator sci-fi film face off here) has a very interesting entry by an American-Israeli/Israeli-American member on the sheer maliciousness, and redline-the-meter hatred of Israel of many commentors shot throughout the Daily Kos site:

"Tue Jun 13, 2006 at 03:26:26 PM PDT

Why do so many on the DailyKos continuously attack Israel? Why is there no balance in the presentation of issues? What the hell has happened here?

"I support progressive politics. I support gay rights, oppose globalization, hope that unions will be reinvigorated. I've voted democrat every election that I could, write my congressmen, and live in one of the most liberal towns in the US. I'm an Israeli citizen, I served in the IDF, and I am proud to be Israeli-American. And I am disgusted by the daily vicious attacks on Israel that we see on this site.

"I am saddened and amazed to see how the "left-wing blogosphere" falls completely for so much anti-Israel propaganda. I am stunned at how so many Kossacks daily argue that Israel is fundamentally evil, that Israel must abandon its defenses, and that Israel takes glee at the death of its enemies."

Israel supporters, first take a dramamine and a shot of arak, and then read it all, and leave some comments - there and here.

Sderot Mayor on Kassam barrage: "We stopped counting"

Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal talks about what the constant barrage of Kassam rockets has done to his town, its residents, and demands that the government take action.

Sderot: Coping with Kassam-terrorized kids

Interview with Israeli 19-year-old National Service youth counselor about coping with Sderot's children, terrorized by near-nonstop barrages of Kassam rocket attacks against their town. First of a series.

Gaza blast probe nixes IDF shelling allegation (update)

Ok. Lets's have a show of hands, all you out there who saw this one coming...

"An Israel Defense Forces committee investigating the deaths of seven Palestinians at a Gaza beach last Friday is close to concluding that the IDF was not responsible.

"Its tentative conclusion is that the deaths stemmed from a bomb that Hamas planted on the beach in order to ambush Israeli naval commandos operating in northern Gaza."


Read more at Haaretz.

Personally speaking, after two decades serving as forward recon in a IDF reserve 155mm towed Howitzer unit - that's one of our guns up there, that I caught at the instant it fired - all the Palestinian reports seemed more and more unconvincing, especially the testimony of one supposed "eyewitness" on the beach who alleged that he actually saw the shell coming while it was still in flight.

Mighty good eyesight, you got there, fella, especially since such shells travel at several times the speed of sound. See any shell in that image?

Oh, and thanks once again to the IDF Spokesman's Office, the Prime Minister's Office and the host of sychophantic mea maxima culpa idjits who beat the Palestinians to the punch in blaming ourselves.

Sheesh.

Now, go convince the world that, no, Israel is innocent of the family's death.

GAZA: CHORUS OF HYPOCRITES

(From the Government Press Office: a scathing op-ed on international coverage of the tragic death of the seven members of a Gazan Palestinian family, by Ma'ariv Hebrew-language daily Editor in Chief Amnon Dankner, 12.6.06, p. A1,18. A bit long, but worth reading closely)

And Palestinian Media Watch has, what they charge is a falsified PA TV broadcast of the evacuation.

"It is still not at all clear what caused the deaths of seven members of the Palestinian family on the Gazan beach. They may have touched an old shell; they may have also stepped on a mine prepared by the Palestinians themselves against a seaborne infiltration of Israeli forces.

Yet, already, even before the matter has been fully clarified, that well-known international chorus is bewailing that moral image of Israel is in decline by these very acts that it has yet to be proven to have committed. This joy for self-flagellation and simultaneous dragging of the IDF through the mud alongside the hypocritical choir of condemnation by the Arabs' and their automatic supporters is daunting and reprehensible.

Even if it is eventually proven that that which killed and maimed on the Gazan beach was an Israeli shell, that was fired - of course - without the intention of attacking innocents, there is still no place for the moral indignation that represents - in actuality - a very faulty position, precisely from a moral point-of-view.

The State of Israel has every right in the world to aggressively defend its citizens from Kassam rocket fire. This right must permit it that which the IDF is doing - to shell open areas from which the Palestinian cells are launching the Kassam rockets. The Palestinians in Gaza can only make claims on themselves: We withdrew from the Gaza Strip, down to the last centimeter, in a painful, wrenching step; we shattered communities and families and we are entitled to demand complete quiet from the Palestinian side in Gaza. We are also entitled to respond with force when the lives of Israeli residents are put at risk and to try to remove the harrowing nightmare that is hanging over our heads day and night.

It is very easy to claim, as [Israeli author] David Grossman did here yesterday, that all of these military efforts are in vain because the Palestinian fighting continues. But if we do not take the steps that we are taking in the face of this aggression, would it be better? Will the Palestinians not be encouraged to continue with greater impetus and thereby claim many victims? The call to declare a ceasefire and sit down to unconditional negotiations without preconditions no longer sounds as good since the experience of those blood-soaked years after the Oslo accords. It has an anachronistic and irrelevant taste, certainly after the Palestinians crowned themselves with an extremist and uncompromising Hamas administration. To think that this would lead to quiet and bring a halt to the killing of Israelis is surprising in both its naivete' and its non-learning from experience. Once, my lot was with those who thought that if we would only be nicer, show more goodwill, be more humane and offer more concessions - everything would be just fine. But the lesson that we learned, and which cost us so much blood, is that this 1960's-flower-children-who-have-not-really-matured approach which thinks that if we just give peace a chance, it will crown us with garlands and we will be borne by white Hamas doves; if only we do not respond with force and do not stand for our lives, a warm sun of marvelous tranquility will shine upon us - is so stupid in the perspective of what we have gone through, that the brain bubbles with astonishment at hearing such things.

We are living on our swords in the face of a tangible threat that is being heard loud and clear from Gaza, Ramallah, Damascus and Tehran. We are fighting against those seeking our souls, who are killing and maiming us. As is the way of war, the defending sword, as it is being swung, does not always strike those who are actually guilty. But if we exaggeratedly flagellate ourselves due to a shocking television photo and if our hearts soften due to a pointed article in The Guardian or the moral condemnation of the Quay D'Orsai, we will also undercut both the will and the ability to defend ourselves.

There are no magic military solutions; this is true. But the conclusion that David Grossman drew here yesterday that in place of a non-existent military solution, there is a magic diplomatic solution, is also incorrect. There is the hard work of assertive self-defense replete with the military measures without which even David Grossman would not feel safe in his home. The perspective of time requires forbearance, restraint, determination and patience. And it is also not worthwhile to hastily cast guilt upon ourselves because we dare to stand up for what is ours and for our lives.