Friday, August 10, 2007

IDF ready to battle Hamas at sea

From Ynet, 10/8/07, by Hanan Greenberg...

Israeli navy given new instructions in light of Hamas' establishment of naval forces in Gaza...

"The new situation in the Gaza Strip obligates us to act differently at sea. There are threats that did not exist in the past. We recognize this, and are ready in accordance," a military source said Thursday night, responding to the report that Hamas had established a naval force in Gaza.

Hamas' navy is headed by senior Hamas commander Jamil al-Dahashan, who previously served as a Hamas special forces commander in south Gaza City. The force is aimed at securing the shores from IDF marine operations as well as criminal activity of drug dealers. Although the force does not as yet own any marine vessels, Israel is responding to the matter with the utmost gravity.

The Israeli navy suffered a difficult hit during the Second Lebanon War, when an anchored navy gunship was directly hit in a missile attack, killing four soldiers, and thus is taking no risks regarding Gaza.

According to military sources, new instructions have recently been handed down to Israeli patrol ship crews on how to deal with the threat of an attack by terror organizations using various marine vessels currently in their possession.

These instructions were given in light of intelligence information verifying the possibility of an attack on an Israeli Navy ship. The sources said the Navy’s activity, which is aimed mainly at preventing the smuggling of arms from Egypt into Gaza and intercepting terrorists attempting to infiltrate Israel by sea, has not been hindered.

“The security fence in Gaza serves as a serious barrier against terrorists, so it is only natural that they would try to reach Israel by sea,” an IDF official told Ynet. He admitted that there has recently been an increase in “incidents” off the Gaza coastline.

The military sources added that Hamas may also attempt to open fire at Israeli ships from the Strip itself, use a booby-trapped fishing boat or even a diver with an explosive device.

“We are not taking these threats lightly,” one officer said. “We cannot determine whether the terror groups have established a navy or not, but they definitely intend to attack any Israeli target, including naval forces positioned the area.”

New Al Qaeda threat of attacks naming New York, Los Angeles, Miami

From DEBKAfile August 10, 2007....

The threat was picked up by DEBKAfile’s monitors from a rush of electronic chatter on al Qaeda sites Thursday, Aug. 8. The al Qaeda communications accuse the Americans of the grave error of failing to take seriously the videotape released by the American al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gaddahn last week. “They will soon realize their mistake when American cities are hit by quality operations,” said one message.

Another said the attacks would be carried out “by means of trucks loaded with radio-active material against America’s biggest city and financial nerve center.”

A third message mentioned New York, Los Angeles and Miami as targets. It drew the answer: “The attack, with Allah’s help, will cause an economic meltdown, many dead, and a financial crisis on a scale that compels the United States to pull its military forces out of many parts of the world, including Iraq, for lack of any other way of cutting down costs.”

There is also a message which speaks obliquely of the approaching attacks easing the heavy pressure America exerts on countries like Japan, Cuba and Venezuela.

DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources and monitors say there is no way of gauging for sure how serious these threats are, how real, or whether they are part of a war of nerves to give the Gaddahn tape extra mileage. But it is important to note that the exchange of messages took place over al Qaeda’s internal Internet sites and that they contained the threat of radioactive terror and specific American cities for the first time after a long silence on these subjects.
In addition, a growing number of clips has been disseminated of late over al Qaeda sites instructing the faithful how to design remote-controlled gliders, pack them with explosives and launch them against predetermined targets.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Israel judged by double standard

From The Calgary Sun, August 5, 2007, by EZRA LEVANT ...

Lebanese attack Muslim guerrillas with no concerns about Western public opinion

TEL AVIV -- A Western ally in the Middle East, armed with U.S. weapons, attacked Muslim guerrillas in a Palestinian refugee camp last week, killing seven.

Is that big news? The answer, this time, is "no".

No Western newspaper has run a banner headline about a "massacre," no emergency meetings of the United Nations have been convened, and Canada's deep thinkers on human rights, Michael Ignatieff and Louise Arbour, have not declared the military action to be a war crime.
That's because the Western ally rooting out terrorists was Lebanon, not Israel.

Since May 20, Lebanon has been engaged in a mini-civil war against Fatah al-Islam, which is just what it sounds like -- a Muslim terrorist group, holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp called Narh el-Bared. Killing Palestinians, including Palestinian terrorists, is normally fodder for at least half a dozen UN resolutions, investigations and accusations, and plenty of harrumphing from the CBC, BBC and Globe and Mail.

But only if the ones rooting out the terrorist are Israelis -- that is, Jews.
Lebanon's army is no different in any respect, other than that one fact.
Like Israel, it is a democratic state that is threatened by Muslim terrorists.
Like Israel, Lebanon is backed by the West.
It has recently received military aid from the U.S.

Lebanon's military action has been less careful than Israel, which would never have used artillery to root out terrorists from populated areas like refugee camps as Lebanon has done.
The Lebanese are not as concerned about the niceties of Western public opinion -- and the yawning silence of the West's scolds in the face of 200 casualties shows that Lebanon's assessment of the fickle nature of the media and the UN is accurate.

.....So, why the double standard?

Why are military strikes by Israel news, but not those by Lebanon?
Why is an Arab killed by a Jew news, but not an Arab killed by an Arab?
Why did the UN intervene to save Hezbollah from Israel, but the world shrug in apathy -- no, actually send arms -- to support Lebanon against another terrorist group?

There can be no other explanation beside an anti-Israel bias in the newsrooms and diplomatic salons of the world. This is no revelation; reading the speeches of Arab diplomats at the UN, or the official press of a dozen Muslim dictatorships is like reading old Nazi propaganda.

That explains the bias of the UN, Arabia and its shills.

But it surely cannot explain the double standard here at home of a hundred Canadian newspaper editors and TV producers.

Can it?