The Dark Comedy of Yesterday’s Russian Attacks in Syria

UPDATES 

9:00 am Israel time, Thursday, October 1 2015

***Picture of the day . . .

This picture from a Palestinian website went viral yesterday. It shows a 19-year-old Israeli Border Policewoman hauling away a Palestinian terrorist in the Old City. The website commenters were aghast that a woman could “manhandle” a man like this Border Guard did. Israelstreet says “Bravo”!

***Quote of the day . . .

Following the the missile fire on Ashdod Tuesday night, a Haredi (orthodox religious man) made this precisely correct comment yesterday to the website Arutz Sheva:

“They keep telling us that those firing the missiles at us are unimportant organizations that are trying to embarrass the Hamas movement that rules Gaza. That is hogwash. It is Hamas that rules there and every launch is planned. What happened is that Israeli deterrence has been worn thin. They are not afraid. They know that in response, the IDF will destroy an empty structure or two but not before they tell Hamas they will do so.”

***The daily Palestinian terror report from yesterday . . .

Full scale riots took place in Hebron (5:00 pm), and in the Old City (11:30 am).

Molotov firebombs were thrown at Israelis at the Pharmacy Checkpoint in Hebron (8:05 pm and 7:45 pm).

“Rocks” were hurled at Israelis on a bus near Lod (9:32 pm), in Hebron (7:11 pm), on Road 443 near Ofarim (6:24 pm), and at Adora in the Hebron hills (5:55 pm).

A smashed window on the Lod bus:

The large white object protruding out of the lower left corner is part of the “rock” that smashed the window. Numerous people including children were traumatized on the bus (picture 0404).

One of the cars that was smashed yesterday:

Note the back window is smashed and the “rock” is on the back seat along with shattered glass. Imagine what would have happened if someone had been sitting there.

***Speaking of Palestinian terrorists, the surprise that wasn’t . . .

Mahmoud Abbas’ speech in the United Nations last night (Israel time) turned out to be a huge exercise in flatulence. Apparently, according to Palestinian sources, Abbas had been all set to declare the end of the Oslo Accords, but decided not to do so at the last moment.

Sure . . . and if you believe that . . .

There is no way that Abbas can afford to end the Oslo agreements because to do so would be to remove the security umbrella that the Israeli military has placed around the PLO leader. 

And so the speech devolved into the usual incitement about “settlements”, Al-Aksa, etc., etc., etc.

Unfortunately for Abbas and the Palestinians, the world currently has bigger fish to fry than the tired old story coming out of Ramallah.

***Follow-ups of previous israelstreet news . . .

–>Do you remember the videolink on israelstreet yesterday of the Arab kicking the baby stroller in the Old City? The Arab was arrested last night.

–>Do you remember that southern Israel was hit by 3 missiles and an unknown number of mortars on Tuesday night? And that the IDF responded by hitting empty buildings and sand dunes in Gaza?  The IDF never did admit what actually happened.

–>Do you remember the videolink on israelstreet two days ago of the Arab Knesset member Jamal Zahalka screaming at the Jewish woman on the Temple Mount? Zahalka was summoned for questioning yesterday by the police.

 –>Do you remember the “Tulip” story on israelstreet last week about the egregiously anti-Israel NGO B’Tselem being knocked out of the first tier of nominations for the Dutch “Tulip” award? As we surmised, even though it didn’t make the top three, B’Tselem remains in the running because it was announced yesterday that it was chosen as a “wild card” entry by the “human rights” jury that is evaluating the entries for the 100,000 Euro award.

TODAY’S BLOG:

If the situation weren’t so tragic, your humble servant would have to laugh at what happened in Syria yesterday.

Russian aircraft went on the attack in northern Syria–and whom did they attack? The Syrian rebels who have just been trained by the United States and who are likely being advised on the ground by American special forces.

These attacks came just days after we had Obama and Kerry waxing metaphorical about the new American relationship with Russia–a Russia that Obama said is still perceived as an adversary by some in the U.S. but a Russia that Obama says is now an American friend.  According to the Obama and Kerry of 72 hours ago, U.S. was going to work with Russia and Iran to stop Islamic State in Syria and gradually oust Assad from power.

What hokum.

The events yesterday once again underscore just how weak the U.S. has become and how delusional Obama foreign policy is. Russia, which still sits in Crimea despite American blustering, could care less about offending the U.S. in Syria. Russia’s alliance is with Iran and Assad.

And Iran and Assad are for the moment focused on just one thing: wiping out the opposition to Assad whether it comes from “Syrian rebels” or Islamic State or anyone else.

So the attacks yesterday should be no surprise to anyone nor should Putin’s warning to Obama yesterday to keep American planes out of Syrian airspace.

And what is America left with?

The same meaningless bluster that it used in the Crimea. Yesterday, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter warned the Russians that they were risking “taking on the whole rest of Syria”. He went on to rant: “Fighting [ISIS] without pursuing a parallel political transition only risks escalating the civil war in Syria, and with it the very extremism and instability that Moscow claims to be concerned about and aspire to fighting. That approach is tantamount to pouring gasoline on the fire.”

Say what?

Is it really possible that the Obama White House believes Russian pronouncements about fighting IS, pursuing Syrian political transition, and fighting extremism and instability?

Of course it is. The gullible Obama and his minions will believe anything anyone says. Just look at the Iranian Nuclear Appeasement Agreement.

Again, your humble servant can only sadly shake his head at how grossly naive Obama and his minions are (unless a Russian/Iranian takeover of Syria is what they planned all along) and how disastrously they are leading the United States to global insignificance.  

By the way, at least Netanyahu’s trip to Moscow a few days ago appears to have paid a small dividend. The Russians informed Israel that they were attacking the rebels one hour in advance.