Operation Pillar of Defense: What You Need to Know
November 15, 2012 14:05 by Simon Plosker
Israel is not interested in stoking the flames, but for the past five days there has been constant missile fire at Israel and mothers and children cannot sleep quietly at night … There is a limit to what Israel can absorb.
President Shimon Peres to President Barack Obama, 14 November 2012
Once again, Israel finds itself engaged in a military operation to end rocket fire from Gaza. The predictable media frenzy has begun. In this primer we will give you the background and information you need to respond to media bias against Israel.
BACKGROUND
For the third time in a month, the civilians of southern Israel are under continuous rocket attack from the Gaza Strip.
The current attacks began on Saturday night (Nov.10) when Palestinian terrorists fired an anti-tank missile at an army jeep traveling on the Israeli side of the border fence. Four IDF soldiers were injured. Since then, over 120 rockets have been fired at Israeli civilians.
The lives of 1 million Israeli civilians are being threatened and daily life in southern Israel has been totally disrupted.
The residents of communities near the Gaza border suffer constantly from rocket and mortar shell attacks. These attacks occur almost on a routine basis, as do escalations of other types of terrorist activities carried out by Hamas and the other terrorist organizations that operate under Hamas’ protection.
The pauses between the waves of rocket attacks are shortening. In the past month, Israel has been subjected to three separate periods of escalation. Since the beginning of the year, more than 800 rockets and mortar shells have been fired at Israel, a record amount since the end of Operation Cast Lead (January 2009). This peak is similar to the attacks that occurred in 2007-8.
HOW TO ANSWER ISRAEL’S CRITICS
Claim: “Israel rather than Hamas is responsible for this latest outbreak of violence.”
Response: The media have short memories. Rocket attacks have been a feature of everyday life for Israelis in the south for many years despite the lack of coverage in the international media. Israel has acted with enormous restraint but there is a limit to how much any country should be expected to tolerate.
It is Hamas and other Gaza terror organizations that have chosen to escalate the violence in the past few days, beginning with the attack on the IDF jeep, not to mention the many incidents that have occurred over the past month, virtually ignored by the mainstream media.
Below is a timeline summary of the past month’s events courtesy of the Jerusalem Post:
- October 23
An IDF officer is critically wounded by an explosive device while on patrol near the Gaza border fence. PFLP takes responsibility.
- November 6
An explosion along the Gaza border fence injures three IDF soldiers. Palestinians later fire a Kassam rocket into southern Israel. The same day, Palestinians detonate a massive tunnel along the border, causing no injuries but knocking an IDF jeep sideways.
- November 8
In a firefight with Palestinians, apparent IDF fire kills a 13-year-old Palestinian boy. Palestinian mortar shells lightly injure an IDF soldier along the border later in the day.
- November 9
Palestinians fire an anti-tank missile at an IDF jeep on patrol along the Gaza border, wounding four soldiers. Immediately afterwards, IDF tanks return fire into Gaza, killing five Palestinians and wounding at least 25. Palestinians later fire a number of Qassam rockets into southern Israel.
- November 10-12
Palestinian terror groups fire upwards of 100 rockets and mortars into southern Israel. Islamic Jihad and a Salafi Jihadist group claim responsibility for a majority of the rockets. At least eight Israelis are injured in the attacks.
- November 13
An apparent cease-fire is mediated between Israel and Hamas, with both sides conditioning their silence on the other side’s halting attacks. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warns of future strikes, saying “I am responsible for choosing the right time to exact the highest possible price – and so it will be.”
- November 14
Four rockets hit southern Israel in the morning; the IDF says it is looking into the possibility the rockets were fired from Sinai.
Later Wednesday, the IAF assassinates Ahmed Jabari, head of Hamas’s armed wing, the Izzadin Qassam Brigades in the central strip. The IAF hits an additional 20 targets throughout Gaza, mostly targeting long-range rocket storage sites and reportedly assassinating a regional Hamas commander.
Claim: “Israel’s response is disproportionate to the threat.”
Response: Palestinian rockets are not “home made” projectiles – they are deadly and threaten a large number of Israeli population centers. Gaza’s status as a terror base has also been enhanced as a result of quantities of upgraded weaponry smuggled from Sudan, Libya and Iran, which pose an even greater threat to the Israeli civilian population.
This article is continued on Page 2
Operation Pillar of Defense: What You Need to Know | Blogs about Israel aggregation
2:43 pm
Nov 15, 2012
[...] This article is continued on Page 2 [...]
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pillar of defense :what you need to know | goingupandgrowingup
5:17 pm
Nov 15, 2012
[...] pillar of defense :what you need to know [...]
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Frank Adam
7:19 pm
Nov 15, 2012
*The point is that Arabs of any stripe should NOT be attacking Israel:
neither with 50′s fedayeen NOR with 2012 rockets.
*Whether Israelis are killed and wounded is not even in the basic tort which is the Arab aggression and refusal to recognise Israel since 1947 rejection of UN 181.
*The injuries and fatalities are a second tort ie breach of peace.
*As for justice – Balfour once told a bunch of petitioning Irish, “Justice? There isn’t enough to go round.” If the Arabs diversely reserve themselves rights to attack Israel under any of their variety of specious excuses they can hardly complain that Israel clocks them from time to time.
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Frank Adam
7:28 pm
Nov 15, 2012
FLYING PIGS alert. Today 15th Nov Wm Hague, British Foreign Sec BLAMED HAMAS for starting this round of violence with their foolish rockets campaign!
Jeremy Bowen BBC skewed that this is all an Israeli election ploy. He might be right for the wrong reason – apart from cockiness when Arabs think they have a weapon Israel can not parry. Consider Hamas judged if they set off a round of violence it will result in a right wing Israeli government and then they avoid pressure to talk peace because the Israelis will be blamed for refusing??? nice one Jeremy BUT all Israeli Labour governments have refused to have the 1948 refugees back and refused return to the Green Line without adjustment.
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Eddiej
8:32 pm
Nov 15, 2012
Israel, don’t hesitate, smoke ‘em. Nothing seems to satisfy the Palestinians, nothing.
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Operation Säule der Verteidigung: Was Sie wissen sollten « Medien BackSpin
10:05 pm
Nov 15, 2012
[...] Simon Plosker, HonestReporting.com, 15. November 2012 [...]
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Operación Pilar de Defensa: Lo que Usted Necesita Saber « Unidos x Israel
10:41 pm
Nov 15, 2012
[...] Artículo traducido por ReporteHonesto de HonestReporting, escrito por Simon Plosker. Israel no está interesado en avivar las [...]
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Jeffrey Kahan
11:13 pm
Nov 15, 2012
As far as targeted killings, the United States has also legitimized this method of killing terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden, in Afghanistan and Pakistan and elsewhere, especially through the use of drones. We are at war with terrorism. Terrorists have no country to attack. All terrorists are legitimate targets.
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Frank Adam
11:41 pm
Nov 15, 2012
Assassination is an Arabic word the only Arabic POLITICAL word to be taken up by Western languages without being self consciousness, because though there have been assassinations in all countries’ histories, it was the Arab “Old Man if the Mountains” who made a regular policy of it about the time of Saladin and Richard Lion heart.
The literally bloody nerve is that the Arabs have made policy of attacking civilians for over 60 if not over 80 years, and now complain! If Salafis and Jihadi Arabs deny the validity of non-Sharia law systems they are insolent to complain that others pursue Jihadis and Salafis as outlaws when they have declared our law to be outlaw.
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martin
1:22 am
Nov 16, 2012
Frank, Islamic slaughter of Jews is nothing new. Long before we had our country returned, Jews were massacred in the Islamic world, their worth as Dhimmis, meant their supposed protection was meaningless. Not for nothing was Lod Moses Montefiore a very busy man who tried to stop the slaughter in later years
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Operation Pillar of Defense: « A Lot Of Coffee and Sleepless Nights
1:26 am
Nov 16, 2012
[...] From Honest Reporting [...]
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Allan Sidio
6:39 pm
Nov 16, 2012
I couldn’t imagine having to live under such conditions as the residents of Southern Isreal or the residents of Gaza do. It seems like this is a reoccurring theme every few years. Rockets launched into Isreal, air strikes to take out the launchers death and destruction on both sides. A cease fire will be coming. Allowing both sides to return to a sense of normalcy (whatever that may be). Until the next round of fighting in a few years. I for one don’t believe killing a Hamas Leader, and taking out launch sites will stop the cycle of violence. There will be new leaders and more rockets as sure as the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. Children grow up believing what their parents teach them. So the children in Gaza will grow up hating Isrealis, and the children in Isreal will grow up hating the Palestinians if that’s what they’re taught. I’m sure there are good civilians on both sides that wish to live in peace. However the leaders really don’t seem to care about a few hundred or even thousand innocent lives lost, as long as they don’t appear weak. I often wonder what kind of human could walk onto a bus or into a marketplace and blow themselves up hoping to kill a few others also? That has to be a desperate person with nothing to live for, no hope of a better life or any future. I can’t imagine how bad life would have to be to prefer death to waking up tomorrow. Help me understand how the situation can get better in Gaza and Southern Isreal when the human issues are not addressed. I don’t see how killings and bombings on both sides will resolve anything. Maybe the leaders of Isreal and In Gaza don’t really want a permanent solution. Maybe this cycle of violence is “their” solution.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Frank Adam
6:59 pm
Nov 16, 2012
This returns to the 50′s from Nasser’s arrival to the 1956 Sinai/Suez Campaign. People survive.
Human issues do not deal with the causes of the war (in the Arab case AMDG=ad magnam dei gloriam).
Incidents have to be countered like chess moves till the mainsprings can be grasped and war ends because it is no longer paying booty, or because the causes have been dispersed.
“For some of us of a certain age we have been here before,” as the Queen said the evening of the London bus and tube bombs. The Second Lebanon War similarly, in the French jibe, calmed Hizbollah’s nerves.
Jabari possibly started this war to divert all from Syria so as to save Iran’s springboard in its West.
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Allan Sidio
7:44 pm
Nov 16, 2012
Martin, you have to agree, the killing on both sides is wrong and needs to end. I would think the Isrealis, and Arabs would be sick and tired of living with the possibility of war breaking out at any time. Until both sides are ready to make real concessions and abide by them, there will continue to be this cycle of violence every four, ten, or twenty years. Then there’s always the chance it will draw into the conflict, other powers, like the U.S., Iran, Egypt, and who knows who else. I hope I am wrong but eventually, something will spark a major war, and the Middle East is a powder Cache just waiting to explode.
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martin
1:41 pm
Nov 17, 2012
Alan, I ticked agree, beacuse the killing must stop. However, the shelling od Sderot and the neighbouring area has been going on since 2001 and now runs to over 16,000 missiles.
I have said here that the daiily shelling of southern Israel will continue and that the Israel establishment will do nothing until Tel Aviv is target. Today, I have proven to be correct.
Israel had intelligence that Gaza now has Iranian rockets capable of hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and as has since proven, those rockets have hit the greater Tel Aviv area and Jerusalem. Israel attempted to put an end to the daily war crime of targeting innocent civilians in southern Israel by Hamas controlled Gaza.
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martin
1:47 pm
Nov 17, 2012
Hamas is also guilty of a second war crime by placing these armaments inside or very close to civilian areas such as mosques, schools, playgrounds and probably again, even within UN controlled areas. During Cast Lead, the Israeli air force did not attack Gazan targets because of low lying cloud, which meant that civilians could not be seperated from the terrorists.
Hamas increased the firing of missiles into Israel because the Israel igovernment did nothing, despite several warnings and threats.
Alan, wherever you live, would your government and indeed you, accept the situation of being targeted with schools being shut, living in shelters and having 15 seconds warning to seek shelter?
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Frank Adam
1:52 pm
Nov 17, 2012
Try history: the Anglo-French “Hundred Years War” faded when France got Anglo-French barons out or the families who were barons both sides of the Channel rearranged their fees for a branch either side to hold all on that side eg the de Montforts, which evaded conflicts of interest from the King of England being a French duke …
Similarly from William and Mary till Trafalgar/Waterloo the string of Franco-British wars evaporates as France leaves naval supremacy to Britain which leaves the European balance to France.
Eventually Arabs will twig that if they leave Israel alone nobody will mind how they play with themselves – especially when the US returns to energy independence & isolation.
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martin
1:54 pm
Nov 17, 2012
Certain sections of the Israel hating “experts” have suggested that the reply to this onslaught by Gaza, is because of the forthcoming elections in Israel. Either they are totally ignoorant, or just blatantly misrepresenting actuality.
Previously we heard of proportionate response to the firing of missiles. Now I srael is asked to be mindful of civiliands. Maybe they are now aware of the real slaughter of civilians if Israel; responded to Hamas by using their methods of brazenly and blatanty in order to murder as many Arabs as possible. Perhaps, these international pundits, experts, world leaders should spend a week in Sderot
How did Iranian missiles come to Gaza, who turned a blind eye?
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Operation PILLAR OF DEFENSE er navnet på den seneste krig imellem Gaza og Israel « Semiten's Blog
3:11 pm
Nov 17, 2012
[...] Israels baggrund for PILLAR OF DEFENSE er uddybet her. HAMAS’ charter kan læses her. Like this:LikeBe the first to like this. [...]
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Nov 17, 2012
[...] Reporting???????Elder of [...]
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