Israel responds to mortar fire from Syria

[GDS_Starfury]

what other game can Israel realisticly play?

[TheCommandTent]

Don't they also have an election coming up the beginning of next year in Israel?

[GDS_Starfury]

thats the point.

[son_of_montfort]

thats the point.

Yessir. Iran also has "elections." So the force is strong here.

[Martok]

Wow... That is playing the "long game" politically.

Well I was just reading that Israel used their just-concluded -- skirmish? -- with Hamas as a test run for their missile defense system in preparation for conflict with Iran.  So that does fit. 

[LongBlade]

Wow... That is playing the "long game" politically.

Well I was just reading that Israel used their just-concluded -- skirmish? -- with Hamas as a test run for their missile defense system in preparation for conflict with Iran.  So that does fit.

I wonder how that will play in the Arab press: Iranian missiles being blown out of the sky and falling into Arab lands.

[bayonetbrant]

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/11/22/2499220/why-there-was-war-in-gaza.html

Why there was war in Gaza
by CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER   NOV. 22, 2012

Why was there an Israel-Gaza war in the first place? Resistance to the occupation, say Hamas and many in the international media.

What occupation? Seven years ago, in front of the world, Israel pulled out of Gaza. It dismantled every settlement, withdrew every soldier, evacuated every Jew, leaving nothing and no one behind. Except for the greenhouses in which the settlers had grown fruit and flowers for export. These were left intact to help Gaza's economy – only to be trashed when the Palestinians took over.

Israel then declared its border with Gaza to be an international frontier, meaning that it renounced any claim to the territory and considered it an independent entity. In effect, Israel had created the first Palestinian state ever, something never granted by fellow Muslims – neither the Ottoman Turks nor the Egyptians who brutally occupied Gaza for two decades before being driven out by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israel wanted nothing more than to live in peace with this independent Palestinian entity. After all, the world had incessantly demanded that Israel give up land for peace.

It gave the land. It got no peace.

The Gaza Palestinians did not reciprocate. They voted in Hamas, who then took over in a military putsch and turned their newly freed Palestine into an armed camp from which to war against Israel. It has been war ever since.

Interrupted by the occasional truce, to be sure. But for Hamas a truce – hudna – is simply a tactic for building strength for the next round. It is never meant to be enduring, never meant to offer peace.

But why, given that there is no occupation of Gaza anymore? Because Hamas considers all of Israel occupied, illegitimate, a cancer, a crime against humanity, to quote the leaders of Iran, Hamas' chief patron and arms supplier. Hamas' objective, openly declared, is to "liberate" – i.e. destroy – Tel Aviv and the rest of pre-1967 Israel. Indeed, it is Hamas' raison d'être.

Hamas first killed Jews with campaigns of suicide bombings. After Israel built a nearly impenetrable fence, it went to rockets fired indiscriminately at civilians in populated areas.

What did Hamas hope to gain from this latest round of fighting, which it started with a barrage of about 150 rockets into Israel? To formally translate Hamas' recent strategic gains into a new, more favorable status quo with Israel. It works like this:

Hamas' new strength comes from two sources. First, its new rocketry, especially the Fajr-5, smuggled in from Iran, that can now reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, putting 50 percent of Israel's population under its guns.

Second, Hamas has gained strategic strength from changes in the regional environment. It has acquired the patronage and protection of important Middle Eastern states as a result of the Arab Spring and the Islamist reversal in Turkey.

For 60 years, non-Arab Turkey had been a reliable ally of Israel. The vicious turnaround instituted by its Islamist prime minister, Recep Erdogan, reached its apogee on Monday when he called Israel a terrorist state.

Egypt is now run by Hamas' own mother organization, the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is simply the Palestinian wing. And the emir of Qatar recently visited Gaza, leaving behind a promise of a cool $400 million.

Hamas' objective was to guarantee no further attacks on its leaders or on its weaponry, launch sites and other terror and rocket infrastructure. And the lifting of Israel's military blockade, which would allow a flood of new and even more deadly weapons. In other words, immunity and inviolability during which time Hamas could build unmolested its arsenal of missiles – until it is ready to restart the war on more favorable terms.

Yet another hudna, this one brokered and guaranteed by Egypt and Turkey, regional powers Israel has to be careful not to offend. A respite for rebuilding, until Hamas' Gaza becomes Hezbollah South, counterpart to the terror group to Israel's north, with 50,000 Iranian- and Syrian-supplied rockets that effectively deter any Israeli pre-emptive attack.

With the declaration of a cease-fire on Nov. 21, Israel seems to have successfully resisted these demands, although there may be some cosmetic changes to the embargo. Which means that in any future fighting, Israel will retain the upper hand.

Israel has once again succeeded in defending itself. But, yet again, only until the next round, which, as the night follows the day, will come. Hamas will see to that.

Washington Post Writers Group

[LongBlade]

Nice find, Brant.

I really appreciate the irony of Hamas smashing the greenhouses left to help them economically.

And yet, somehow the European press will still find sympathy for them. Too bad ComradeP isn't here to help us understand why.

[LongBlade]

Things are getting interesting over there.

Opponents and supporters of Mohammed Morsi clashed across Egypt on Friday, the day after the president granted himself sweeping new powers that critics fear can allow him to be a virtual dictator. At least 15 were reported injured.

In a sign of deepening polarization, state TV reported that protesters burned offices of the political arm of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group on several cities on the Suez Canal east of Cairo and in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, while Islamists engaged with fistfights with Morsi opponents in southern Egypt.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/23/opponents-egypt-islamic-president-clash-with-backers-over-new-powers/

Morsi suddenly seems as though he's more interested in the billion bucks the US sends his way than he is with jihad. His people, however, seem to have other ideas.

Gotta say, I didn't see that coming.

[Gusington]

^Just read about Egypt a few minutes ago.

I love the story about the greenhouses.

[Centurion40]

Things are getting interesting over there.

Opponents and supporters of Mohammed Morsi clashed across Egypt on Friday, the day after the president granted himself sweeping new powers that critics fear can allow him to be a virtual dictator. At least 15 were reported injured.

In a sign of deepening polarization, state TV reported that protesters burned offices of the political arm of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group on several cities on the Suez Canal east of Cairo and in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, while Islamists engaged with fistfights with Morsi opponents in southern Egypt.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/23/opponents-egypt-islamic-president-clash-with-backers-over-new-powers/

Morsi suddenly seems as though he's more interested in the billion bucks the US sends his way than he is with jihad. His people, however, seem to have other ideas.

Gotta say, I didn't see that coming.

Democracy is one hell of a drug!

[Windigo]

[besilarius]

Iron Dome out of bullets?

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlog/20121124.aspx
This is a real concern when planning a campaign.  If you run out of ammo, your artillery can't give support.
This was a real concern off of North Cape in the Cold War.
When the Russian Backfire bombers would launch their missiles out from hundreds of miles, using Phoenix and Terrier missiles, the USN could hold off the attack.  However, if the Sovs did it for three or more days, then we'd be out of defensive missiles, and they'd still be working from their land bases, and supposedly, be able to get unlimited missiles.

[LongBlade]

Interesting. They had enough to hold off all the missiles in Gaza and prove it worked. But not more. Hmmm.

My guess is that they will restock to levels which anticipate any future conflict(s).

[GDS_Starfury]

Ill take that news with a grain of salt.  if I were the IDF I would let it slip that Im almost out or out of missiles just to see in hamas tries to beak the cease fire.