UPDATES 8 am Israel time, Friday, September 19 2014:
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There are no such things as false alarms. This picture taken yesterday at noon shows an explosion that has just taken place–in the background to the left of the telephone pole in the foreground.
After claiming that the five separate missile and mortar attacks that occurred in southern Israel yesterday around noon were “false alarms”, the IDF spokesman last night came up with still another excuse for doing nothing by saying that the alarm system–which detects “high trajectory” launches–was accidentally set off by “small arms fire” from Gaza.
Hmm. So now we are supposed to believe that some terrorist standing in the middle of Gaza can shoot his pistol or rifle in the air and this can trigger incoming missile sirens in southern Israel?
If this latest explanation wasn’t so pathetic, it would be funny.
In each of the five attacks yesterday, residents on the ground reported hearing multiple explosions–explosions that were not caused by “bullets” falling to earth in Gaza.
The two that rocked our house here in Ashdod certainly were not caused by small arms fire. At the same time, MADA reported that numerous Israelis were treated for shock from the alarms and explosions.
**You may remember, dear reader, that it was discovered during the course of the recent war with Hamas that the terrorists were going to use the tunnels to perpetrate a “Rosh Hashana massacre” in the communities of southern Israel.
Yesterday, in the midst of its “false alarm” statements, the IDF announced in advance of the holiday that it was bolstering our Iron Defenses and placing all army forces along the border on full alert.
The joke of course is that many of the Iron Dome batteries have quietly disappeared from the South (we haven’t had one in Ashdod for the last two weeks), and there are few IDF forces to be seen anywhere (your humble servant saw none on his trip to the Erez Crossing last week).
**Back to those tunnels that our vaunted IDF General Command says no longer exist . . . According to the Maan Palestinian News Agency, Ahmed Riad Haddad, 21, from Tel al-Salaam neighborhood in Gaza City died yesterday in a “work-related” accident in a tunnel under Gaza.
More specifically, the Al-Qassam Brigades said that Haddad died in a “resistance tunnel”.
**In the same vein as the IDF General Command which seeks to hide what is going on along the Gaza border, Nir Barkat, the Mayor of Jerusalem, actually suggested in a Jerusalem City Council meeting yesterday that the media stop publicizing the constant, daily attacks of Arabs on the Jerusalem Light Rail system.
Barkat’s reasoning is that there have been no “casualties” on the system despite the millions of shekels of damages caused by “rock” and Molotov cocktail throwers who have shattered windows and burned down stations. Barkat ranted: “We are aware of the problem, but media publication of the attacks does not help the city of Jerusalem and its merchants, businessmen, and cultural institutions.”
What Barkat fails to mention, however, is that there have been numerous “casualties” to riders on the Jerusalem Light Rail–particularly PTSD to women and children who have been sent screaming to the floor of the light rail cars when attacks have taken place.
**There are new reports from Kurdish sources in northern Syria (where ISIS/DAAS overran 21 villages yesterday) that the weapons being used by the Islamists are coming from Turkey.
As has been reported on israelstreet before, Qatar provides the money for the weapons which are then purchased on the open market and then funneled through Turkey into Syria and Iraq.
And it is Qatar and Turkey that the Obama Administration has ridiculously allied itself with in the war against the same ISIS/DAAS and in the future negotiations with Hamas in Gaza set to take place in Egypt in the coming weeks.
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TODAY’S BLOG:
All of which leads me to today’s brief blog.
So, let’s see:
–the U.S. is becoming increasingly chummy with viciously anti-Israel Qatar and Turkey even as these two countries have become leading sponsors of terrorism in the Middle East, Africa, and Gaza.
–the U.S. policy to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program is a resounding failure (Iran said yesterday, while its centrifuges continue spinning and deadline after deadline is broken, that Western terms for ending its program are unacceptable).
–the U.S. policy toward Egypt is laughably contorted: first Obama threw Hosni Mubarak under the bus, then he supported Islamist Mohammed Morsi the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood and increased U.S. aid to Egypt, then he condemned General Sisi for overthrowing Morsi and virtually stopped U.S. aid to Egypt, and now he has seemingly embraced Sisi and is trying to supply more U.S. aid to Egypt.
And what are we to say about Libya? Iraq? Saudi Arabia? and virtually every other country in the region?
Your humble servant mentions all of these obvious Obama failures by way of pointing out one more that came up yesterday.
It turns out that the U.S. policy to rid Syria of its chemical weapons is also a failure. Israeli sources reported yesterday that to no one’s surprise, Bashir Assad still has much of his most advanced chemical arsenal.
As reported in the Jerusalem Post this morning, a senior Israeli official says that Israeli intelligence shows that Syria has kept “missile warheads, air-dropped bombs, and rocket-propelled grenades primed with toxins like sarin.”
Of course, we all knew this would happen the second that Obama found himself unable to pull the trigger on Syrian stockpiles and willy-nilly handed over what had been an American sphere of influence in the Middle East to Vladimir Putin and Russia.
As the U.S. continues to flounder in this region (and in the world) under President Obama, one can only wonder what will be the ultimate effect of his foreign policy–or lack thereof–on Israel.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.