We seem to have another cease-fire.  Hope it lasts for a while. 

I?ll have a lot more to say tomorrow.  Tonight this is the fat & the skinny.

Life in Israel is a challenge worth fighting for.  Good people are dying for this country.  Everyone who lives here & everyone who is coming on Aliyah to stand with us thinks so, believes fervently that this is so.  We will keep Israel Jewish & free.   Anyone or country that messes with this Jewish country will regret it forever or for the rest of his life ? whichever comes first. 

Goodnight, Mrs. G. wherever you are.  Have a quiet, peaceful, happy night, 

All the very best,  Gail/Geula/Savta/Mom

WATCH THE VIDEO AT:    United with Israel [info@unitedwithisrael.org]

A shocking video that appeared on an Arabic-language Facebook page captures hundreds of Hamas followers rallying on the Temple Mount, calling to ?spill the blood? of the ?infidels? & to hit Tel Aviv.

Translated by Dr. Mordechai Kedar, an Israeli scholar of Arabic literature & a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, the chilling YouTube clip shows masked Hamas supporters chanting slogans of hate & violence, such as, ?Bless the cigarettes (code for rockets)? & ?Smash Zionist heads.?

The frenzied crowd proclaims allegiance not only to Hamas, but also to Seraya al-Aksa, the military wing of Fatah & Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, is chair of the Fatah party.

?There can be no doubt that a relentless second front in the existential war that Hamas & the like are waging against Israel has geared up on the Temple Mount,? stated Linda Olmert, deputy director of Haliba, the movement for freedom of worship on the Mount.

?Just as little four-year-old Daniel Tragerman, who was murdered by Hamas, breathed his last in Nahal Oz (southern community near the border with Gaza),? Olmert adds, a ?despicable terrorist proudly displays the ISIS flag? on the Temple Mount, which states: ?There is no deity by Allah. Mohammed is his messengers.?

Meanwhile, ?Jews & Israelis dare not bring an Israeli flag on to the Temple Mount, which is in sovereign Israel, yet this ISIS abomination is shown with impunity.?

Temple Mount is ?Critical Second Front? for Hamas

For Hamas, the Temple Mount is ?a critical second front,? she warns. ?Ignoring this reality will force us all to pay the price.?

The YouTube video ?demonstrates that there is no denying that ISIS & Hamas are one.?

The southern front is on the shoulders of the IDF,? Olmert continues. ?They battle like lions, & Israelis remain stoic & heroic in the face of over 100 rockets a day. Yet it is the Temple Mount front against Hamas & ISIS that will be the decisive one.?

Written by: United with Israel Staff  WATCH THE VIDEO AT:    United with Israel [info@unitedwithisrael.org]

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FREEMAN CENTER BROADCAST August 23, 2014For Zion?s sake I will not hold my peace &for Jerusalem?s sake I will not rest.? Isaiah 62.

FREEMAN CENTER FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES P.O. Box 35661 * Houston, Texas 77235-5661 * E-mail: bernards@sbcglobal.net OUR WEB SITE < www.freeman.org >

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Understanding the Israeli-Egyptian-Saudi alliance by Caroline Glick  Thurs. Aug. 21, 2014  JPost.com

Israel ?Saudi Arabia-Egypt

Hamas?s war with Israel is not a stand-alone event. It is happening in the context of the vast changes that are casting asunder old patterns of behavior & strategic understandings as actors in the region begin to reassess the threats they face.

Hamas was once funded by Saudi Arabia & enabled by Egypt. Now the regimes of these countries view it as part of a larger axis of Sunni jihad that threatens not only Israel, but them.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, & its state sponsors Qatar & Turkey, are the key members of this alliance structure. Without their support Hamas would have gone down with the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt last summer. As it stands, all view Hamas?s war with Israel as a means of reinstating the Brotherhood to power in that country.

To achieve a Hamas victory, Turkey, Qatar & the Muslim Brotherhood are using Western support for Hamas against Israel. If the US & the EU are able to coerce Egypt & Israel to open their borders with Gaza, then the Western powers will hand the jihadist axis a strategic victory.

The implications of such a victory would be dire.

Hamas is ideologically indistinguishable from Islamic State. Like Islamic State, Hamas has developed mass slaughter & psychological terrorization as the primary tools in its military doctrine. If the US & the EU force Israel & Egypt to open Gaza?s borders, they will enable Hamas to achieve strategic & political stability in Gaza. As a consequence, a post-war Gaza will quickly become a local version of Islamic State-controlled Mosul.

In the first instance, such a development will render life in southern Israel too imperiled to sustain. The Western Negev, & perhaps Beersheba, Ashkelon & Ashdod, will become uninhabitable.

Then there is Judea & Samaria. If, as the US demands, Israel allows Gaza to reconnect with Judea & Samaria, in short order Hamas will dominate the areas. Militarily, the transfer of even a few of the thousands of rocket-propelled grenades Hamas has in Gaza will imperil military forces & civilians alike.

          IDF armored vehicles & armored civilian buses will be blown to smithereens.

          Whereas operating from Gaza, Hamas needed the assistance of the Obama administration & the Federal Aviation Administration to shut down Ben-Gurion Airport, from Judea & Samaria, all Hamas would require are a couple of hand-held mortars.

Jordan will also be directly threatened.

From Egypt?s perspective, a Hamas victory in the war with Israel that connects Gaza to Sinai will strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood & its Islamic State & other allies. Such a development represents a critical threat to the regime.

And this brings us to Islamic State itself. It couldn?t have grown to its current monstrous proportions without the support of Qatar & Turkey.

Islamic State is obviously interested in expanding its conquests. Since it views itself as a state, its next move must be one that enables it to take over a national economy. The raid on Mosul?s central bank will not suffice to finance its operations for very long.

At this point, Islamic State wishes to avoid an all-out confrontation with Iran, so moving into southern Iraq is probably not in the cards. US forces in Kuwait, & the strength & unity of purpose of the Jordanian military, probably take both kingdoms off Islamic State?s chopping block for now.

This leaves Saudi Arabia, or parts of it, as a likely next target for Islamic State expansion.

Islamic State?s current operations in Lebanon, which threaten the Saudi-supported regime there, indicate that Lebanon, at a minimum, is also at grave risk.

Then there is Iran. Iran is not a member of the Sunni jihadist axis. But when it comes to Israel & the non-jihadist regimes, it has cooperated with it.

Iran has funded, trained & armed Hamas for the past decade. It views Hamas?s war with Israel in the same light as it viewed its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah?s war with Israel eight years ago.

Both in Iraq & Syria, Iran & Islamic State have shown little interest in making one another their primary target. Turkey & Qatar have often served as Iran?s supporters in the Sunni world.

This is the context in which Israel is fighting its war with Hamas. & due to this context, two interrelated strategically significant events have occurred since the war began.

         The first relates to the US.  The Obama administration?s decision to side with the members of the jihadist axis against Israel by adopting their demand to open Gaza?s borders with Israel & Egypt has served as the final nail in the coffin of America?s strategic credibility among its traditional regional allies.

         As the US has stood with Hamas, it has also maintained its pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran. The US?s position in these talks is to enable the mullocracy to follow North Korea?s path to a nuclear arsenal. The non-jihadist Sunni states share Israel?s conviction that they cannot survive a nuclear armed Iran.

Finally, President Barack Obama?s refusal to date to take offensive action to destroy Islamic State in Iraq & Syria demonstrates to Saudi Arabia & the other Gulf states that under Obama, the US would rather allow Islamic State to expand into their territory & destroy them than return US military forces to Iraq.

          In other words, Obama?s pro-Hamas-, pro-Iran- & pro-Muslim Brotherhood-axis policies, along with his refusal to date to take effective action in Iraq & Syria to obliterate Islamic State, have convinced the US?s traditional allies that for the next two-and-a-half years, not only can they not rely on the US, they cannot discount the possibility of the US taking actions that harm them.

It is in the face of the US?s shift of allegiances under Obama that the non-jihadist Sunni regimes have begun to reevaluate their ties to Israel. Until the Obama presidency, the Saudis & Egyptians felt secure in their alliance with the US. Consequently, they never felt it necessary or even desirable to consider Israel as a strategic partner.

Under the US?s strategic protection, the traditional Sunni regimes had the luxury of maintaining their support for Palestinian terrorists & rejecting the notion of strategic cooperation with Israel, whether against Iran, al-Qaida or any other common foe.

So sequestered by the US, Israel became convinced that the only way it could enjoy any benefit from its shared strategic interests with its neighbors was by first bowing to the US?s long-held obsession with strengthening the PLO. This has involved surrendering land, political legitimacy & money to the terror group still committed to Israel?s destruction.

The war with Hamas has changed all of this.

          The partnership that has emerged in this war between Israel, Egypt & Saudi Arabia is a direct consequence of Obama?s abandonment of the US?s traditional allies. Recognizing the threat that Hamas, as a component part of the Sunni jihadist alliance, constitutes for their own regimes, & in the absence of American support for Israel, Egypt & Saudi Arabia have worked with Israel to defeat Hamas & keep Gaza?s borders sealed.

Most Israelis have yet to grasp the strategic significance of this emerging alliance. This owes in large part to the Left?s domination of the public discourse.

The Israeli Left sees this new partnership. But it fails to understand its basis or significance. For the Left, all developments lead to the same conclusion: Whatever happens, Israel must strengthen the PLO by strengthening Palestinian Authority Chairman & PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas.

Failing to recognize the basis for Israel?s emerging strategic partnership, led by Finance Minister Yair Lapid & Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, the Left is advocating using our new ties with Saudi Arabia & Egypt as a means of strengthening Abbas by organizing a regional peace conference.

What they fail to understand is that such a move would destroy the partnership.

Israel?s strategic cooperation with Egypt & Saudi Arabia owes to their shared interests. It cannot extend beyond them.   And they have no shared interests in regard to the PLO.

Threatened by the axis of jihad, no Muslim government can be seen publicly with Israelis. Asking Egyptian & Saudi leaders to have their pictures taken with Israelis is like asking them to sign their own death warrants.

Moreover, Israel?s required end-state in negotiations with the PLO ? defensible borders & recognition of its sovereign rights to Jerusalem ? is something that no Muslim regime can publicly accept ? especially now.

So far from building on our new cooperative relationship, if the government heeds the Left?s advice & uses our incipient ties with the Saudis & Egyptians to strengthen the PLO, it will highlight & exacerbate conflicting interests & so destroy the partnership.

Moreover, the fact is that the PLO can play no constructive role for any of the sides in weakening our common foes. As he has for the past decade, during the current war Abbas has demonstrated that he is utterly worthless in the fight against the forces of jihad ? both of the Sunni & Shi?ite variety.

At least for the duration of Obama?s presidency the interests that Egypt, Saudi Arabia & Israel share in preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons & defeating the Muslim Brotherhood/Islamic State as military & political threats can only be advanced through joint action.

The Obama administration would have forced Israel to bow to Hamas?s demands weeks ago if the Egyptians & Saudis hadn?t opposed a Hamas victory.

Without Israeli military action, Iran will become a nuclear power. In light of the US?s backing of Iran?s nuclear program, such an Israeli operation is effectively impossible without regional support.

As to Islamic State, right now the US is interested in cooperating with Iran in fighting the barbaric force. In exchange for Iranian cooperation, the US is liable to cede Basra & the Shatt al-Arab to Iran.

Effective cooperation between Israel, the Kurds & the Sunnis could contain, & perhaps defeat, Islamic State while reducing Iran?s chances of securing the strategically vital waterway.

Since the emerging partnership between Israel, Egypt & Saudi Arabia is a direct result of the Obama administration?s destruction of US strategic credibility, it is fairly clear that if properly managed, it can last until January 2017. Until then, in all likelihood, the US will be unwilling & unable to rebuild its reputation.

And until then, the parties are unlikely to find alternative means of securing their interests that are more effective than joint action.

Given the stakes, & the complementary capabilities of the various parties, Israel?s primary task today must be to work quietly & diligently with the Saudis & Egyptians to expand on their joint achievements in Gaza.

The Israeli-Egyptian-Saudi alliance can ensure that all members survive the Obama era. & if it lasts into the next administration, it will place all of its members on more secure footing with the US, whether or not a new administration decides to rebuild the US alliance structure in the Middle East.

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World sobering up to the threat  by Zvika Fogel

The brutality demonstrated by Hamas & the guerrilla warfare that has become the trademark method by which Islamic terrorism conveys its message will one day be taught in all military schools & leadership classes.

The difficulty in fighting an enemy that manipulates civilians on both side of the border to realize its radical ideology, the daily challenge to adapt the response to the threat, & the need to recognize tactical opportunities, reduce risks & avoid mistakes, are what affects Israel?s daily routine. Hamas is not a hot potato that can be passed to someone else to deal with ? it is an existential threat to Israel.

Hamas has prepared for the current hostilities by studying Israel?s weak spots for over eight years. It knew how to prepare & use its underground infrastructure to avoid the consequences of Israel?s aerial superiority, & it has cunningly used psychological warfare to minimize clashes with the Israeli ground forces, which it equally fears. It has chosen instead to pressure the homefront as the means to its real goal ? establishing the beginnings of a Sunni Islamic state in Gaza Strip.

The art of war is not reserved solely for military leaders, but rather it is the primary concern of both civilian & military leaders. The concern for human life, the need to protect human values & the desire to remain a part of the international community of civilized nations, do not necessarily coincide with the need to protect the country?s public & borders from the threat of terror.

When a country?s daily routine is violated every day, & parts of it every day, for 14 years; when civilians must leave their homes for fear for their lives, & when parents are forced to mourn their four-year-old son, who was killed because he could not escape the horrors of mortar fire ? that is where you draw the line.

From that point on, the only thing that matters is eliminating the threat once & for all, without hesitation or apology.

The Western world, & with it significant parts of the Arab world, is seeing the meteoric rise of terrorist groups the likes of al-Qaida & the Islamic State (ISIS), & is finally sobering up to the fact that this is a growing threat to the free world.

Eliminating Hamas will do more than just ward off the threat to Israel, it would give the world an example of success to hold on to in the fight to reclaim our right to raise our children in peace.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Zvika Fogel is a former chief of staff of the IDF Southern Command.

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DON?T LET ISRAEL ADVOCACY FALTER BY ZALMAN SHOVAL

The impressive conduct of our political & military leaders during Operation Protective Edge stands in stark contrast to the lackluster performance of our international public diplomacy apparatus during the flare-up. This disparity is becoming more & more apparent with each passing day.

Public diplomacy efforts are part & parcel of every military strategy or foreign policy initiative. Although has always been the case, it is doubly true in the hybrid wars of our day & era. Everyone today is an active participant in the conflict, thanks to social media.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu & his spokesman Mark Regev have already proved their public diplomacy chops. So have the officers at the IDF Spokesperson?s Unit. & there are others like them. But what is missing is a comprehensive public diplomacy policy that would communicate Israel?s military objectives, the guiding rationale behind the operation, the events that led to the operation, & the international & regional climate Israel has had to deal with.

The National Information Directorate at the Prime Minister?s Office releases well-written statements. That is basically all it does. The ill-coordinated public diplomacy efforts have resulted in a bifurcated position on whether Hamas should be equated with other Islamist groups in the Middle East & whether it is part of the radical camp that includes the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization & al-Qaida. For whatever reason, the Foreign Ministry has tried to avoid this comparison, but other Israeli agencies tried to drive this point home.

The Foreign Ministry?s reluctance is surprising because ISIS atrocities constitute a common threat to Israel & the rest of the free world. That said, the lack of an over-arching mechanism to steer the public diplomacy ship had left each agency to its own devices, & as a result, this issues are not properly deliberated or honed.

Our public diplomacy needs to be more pro-active & it must evolve past its defensive character. Policy makers, who are incognizant of the role public diplomacy serves & how it should be carries out, are responsible for this. The fact that official & semi-official agencies are engaged in a brutal public diplomacy turf war does little to help the situation. Each agency wants to maintain control over its own little fiefdom & enjoy the funding it has received over the years, convinced that it has a relative advantage in its particular field.

Moreover, those who are in charge of Israel?s international advocacy efforts are constrained by their lack of real-time information, & are they usually not privy to information about Israel?s next move. Unfortunately, politicians are not bound by the same constraints & do as they wish.

There are some objective reasons why Israel has had a hard time getting its message across. TV viewers who see the physical destruction in Gaza Strip are often misinformed on issues like the Israeli strike or Hamas? ongoing aggression toward Israel. Nor are they aware of the inhumane conduct on the part of Gaza?s rulers, who force their own people to serve as human shields.

That said, the international media?s attitude toward Israel is also affected by other factors. At times, this may be because they have a vested interest in going against Israel. At other times the attitude reflects real anti-Semitism.

Take CNN, for example. The network obviously has a vested interest in keeping its ad-buyers in the Arab world content, & this obviously impacts programming.

Of course, anti-Israeli reporting does not necessary reflect on the views of all the employees of a particular outlet. Sometimes the negative coverage is a result of an executive decision that has been implemented from the top-down. Perhaps the reporters have been told what to say; maybe they just fall in line with their superiors, who often drop hints on the position they would like them to take.

Western Europe has increasingly become an Arab subcontinent. This has affected its media, its economic landscape & its trade.

In Western countries, the Left often sounds anti-Israel & anti-Semitic rhetoric. It has also seized on the anti-establishment sentiment, falsely suggesting that if you go against the existing order, you must also express hatred toward the Jews. It has been encouraged by the statements coming out of the Israeli Left.

Israel has occasionally been treated fairly by the media. Balanced or even pro-Israel items can be found. Just recently Ronald Lauder penned an important op-ed in The New York Times where he faulted the mainstream media for its coverage of the Gaza conflict. He said news outlets chose to turn a blind eye to the Jihadis? atrocities against Christians, focusing on the plight of Gazans. The paper also ran an op-ed piece by Deborah Lipstadt, who described how the anti-Semitic rhetoric of contemporary Islamic radicals has helped foster anti-Jewish sentiment in Western Europe.

The Washington Post?s Richard Cohen, who is known for his liberal views, recently wrote that Israel was being discriminated against by the international media over the recent Gaza war. Unfortunately, though, the general public tends to read more news articles than opinion columns. In fact sometimes, readers do not read anything but the headline, which is often biased against Israel.

Every military campaign has a public diplomacy component to it, but we must keep things in proportion. Just like you cannot guarantee success on the battlefield, there is no such thing as a clear-cut victory in the field of public diplomacy. But there is always room for improvement.

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Khamenei has good reason to be optimistic, well beyond the violent Palestinian protests that appear to be the start of a Third Intifada.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Photo: REUTERS

On Thursday evening, Reuven Rivlin was sworn in as Israel?s 10th president. Due to incessant rocket fire into Israel & the war going on in Gaza, the event was held without the customary fanfare.

A somber, modest ceremony took place at the Knesset, in the presence of the upper echelons of Israeli society from across the political spectrum.

Conspicuously absent from the proceedings were the Arab members of Knesset. As they have shown in word & deed, the sympathies of these particular democratically elected officials do not lie with the country of their citizenship. & their boycott of the changing of the guard of the presidency was a statement of their identification with the enemies of their state.

Someone else who expressed solidarity with the terrorists in Gaza this week was Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. On Wednesday, the chief mullah whose government funds & arms the terrorists in Gaza called on the Palestinians to remain steadfast in their fight to destroy Israel.

?The only way to deal with this savage regime is to continue resistance & armed struggle,? he said in an address to students in Teheran. ?We believe that the West Bank should also be armed like Gaza & those who are interested in Palestine?s destiny should act in this regard.?

Nor was he paying mere lip service.

On Thursday, the Bazaaris? Basij (a militia connected to the Revolutionary Guards) opened a bank account precisely for this purpose, inviting donations for the cause of supplying West Bank terrorists with weapons.

Khamenei has good reason to be optimistic, well beyond the violent Palestinian protests that began at the Qalandia checkpoint Thursday night ? & which appear to be the start of a third intifada. Such incidents are small fry compared to the global goings-on that are working in his favor.       Last week, Iran received an extension from the P1+5 countries (the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France & Germany) to reach an agreement that would curb its nuclear program. The original deadline was July 20. Now the Islamic Republic has until November 24 to continue pulling the wool over the eyes of West, while its centrifuges spin unhindered.

In addition, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a Palestinian-drafted resolution against Israel, strongly condemning ?the failure of Israel, the occupying Power, to end its prolonged occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem; & condemns in the strongest terms the widespread, systematic & gross violations of international human rights & fundamental freedoms arising from the Israeli military operations carried out in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 13 June 2014 that may amount to international crimes??

This came on the heels of Tuesday evening?s ban on the bulk of international flights to & from Israel, following the landing of a rocket not far from Ben-Gurion International Airport.      Meanwhile, as part of the easing of sanctions against Iran, Boeing has sealed a deal to provide the Islamic Republic?s national carrier, Iran Air, with goods & services related to flight ?safety.? These include airplane parts, manuals, drawings, service bulletins, navigation charts & data.

In addition, India ? among other of Israel?s allies that supported the anti-Israel UNHRC resolution ? paid a final installment of $550 million in oil revenues to Iran on Thursday.

In the background is the reconciliation between Hamas (predominantly Sunni) & Hezbollah (mostly Shi?ite) that has been taking place to ?confront the Zionist enemy.? Though the two terrorist organizations had a major split over the conflict in Syria ? with Hamas opposing the regime of President Bashar Assad & Hezbollah loyal to it ? Israel?s launching of Operation Protective Edge this month has brought the two together again.

What both groups have always had in common is backing by Iran, which views them as its proxies in the war to annihilate Israel & dominate the West. For Iran, having Hamas blitzing Israel from the south, & Hezbollah waiting in the wings to enter the fray from the north, couldn?t be better. When added to the mix is the solidarity of Israeli Arab politicians with the radical elements of the Palestinian Authority & Gaza, the Iranian leadership (including misnamed ?moderate? President Hasan Rouhani) is satisfied with the unfolding of its envisioned scenario.

In his inauguration speech, Rivlin ?deliver[ed] a clear message to our enemies: You cannot & will not defeat us. We are determined to protect the pillars of our polity, as well as the character of Israel as a Jewish & democratic state, even in time of war against terror?.Terror will not cause us to withdraw; it will not weaken our spirit.?      The newly instated president was referring to Gaza.

But what he & the rest of the West must not lose sight of for even a nanosecond, regardless of the results of the current war, is Iran. The writer is the author of To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, & the ?Arab Spring.?

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Iran claims to have shot down Israeli spy drone

Revolutionary Guard says it intercepted Israeli drone as it neared the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz ? ?This mischievous act once again reveals the adventurist nature of the Zionist regime,? it says, adding it reserves ?right to respond.?

Iran?s Revolutionary Guard claimed Sunday it shot down a stealth Israeli spy drone as it approached an Iranian nuclear site.  The Revolutionary Guard issued a statement on its website saying its forces fired a missile at the drone as it neared the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, some 240 kilometers (150 miles) south of Tehran. The statement did not say when the drone was shot down.

?This mischievous act once again reveals the adventurist nature of the Zionist regime & added another black page to this fake & warmongering regime?s file, which is full of crimes,? the Revolutionary Guard said, adding that it reserves ?the right to respond to this act.?

Revolutionary Guard spokesman Gen. Ramazan Sharif later told Iranian state television that officials believed it to be a ?new generation? drone used by Israel.

     ?Major parts of the devices of the drone are intact & have been received by our friends that can be used for further information,? Sharif said.

Sharif did not say when the aircraft was shot down, but said it was ?identified upon arrival in Iranian airspace.? He said authorities allowed it to fly for a short time to determine its destination.  According to Iranian officials, the drone flew over Saudi Arabian airspace before it reached Iran.  On Monday, Iranian state TV broadcast footage purporting to show the remnants of the drone.        Arabic-language Al-Alam aired a brief video filmed in a desert area showing what the channel said were parts of the drone. A TV scroll said the drone was downed on Saturday.        There were no visible Israeli markings on it.       Meanwhile, on Sunday, Iran unveiled a new generation of short-range marine missiles & aerial drones, as President Hassan Rouhani said Iran?s military doctrine was based on deterring & countering threats from unnamed foreign powers.

The official IRNA news agency said the Ghadir missile, with a range of 100 kilometers (62 miles), was designed to destroy marine targets. It did not give a range for the Nasr-e Basir cruise missile, but said it could ?operate in silence,? without elaborating.

?Iran also unveiled two new drones, the high-altitude Karrar-4 & the Mohajer-4. The latter can be used to generate maps for both military & civilian purposes,? IRNA said.  At a ceremony marking the inauguration, Rouhani claimed Iran was not seeking nuclear weapons, but said it would not ignore threats.

?We do not sit idly by with regard to threats. We do not remain calm towards plots by the enemy,? Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live by state TV, without elaborating.

Rouhani said Iran?s military doctrine is based on ?deterrence & effective defense.?   Iran regularly announces military advances that cannot be independently verified.

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Very few doubted the legitimacy of the need to vanquish the Nazis during WWII, or of the Cold War against communism.

Khaled Mashaal Photo: REUTERS

As Operation Protective Edge was winding down, I was invited along with a group of journalists to visit the Kerem   Shalom border crossing between Israel & the Gaza Strip. There, hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian goods were being transferred into the Strip ? a scene repeated every day during the war, as it is throughout the year ? containing hundreds of thousands of tons of food, medical supplies & other basic staples.

With some 2,000 people killed, thousands more wounded, & hundreds of thousands displaced, Israel was affording some much needed relief to Gazans, who undeniably suffered greatly during the conflict.

While widespread criticism has been directed at the Israeli government over said death toll, the Jewish state?s concern for the wellbeing of civilians was apparent when visiting Kerem Shalom ? which, perhaps not by coincidence, translates into ?vineyard of peace.?

But the good-will is entirely lost on Hamas.

Aside from military installations, the crossing was one of the most dangerous places to be within Israel during the latest round of hostilities. Hamas targeted the Kerem Shalom crossing multiple times daily during the war with mortar & even sniper fire.        While we were on-site, a Color Red alert was sounded followed by an audible explosion nearby. The head of our tour made clear that those working at the crossing were risking their lives.

It is difficult for the Western mind to conceptualize Hamas? ideology; these types of tangible examples, however, demonstrate the terror group?s barbarism, tantamount to outright depravity.

How could Hamas target, almost more than any other location during the war, the very place where aid was being delivered to its citizenry? How is it that when Israel went so far as to set up a field hospital to treat wounded Palestinians, Hamas went to great lengths to prevent Gazans from receiving the medical care they so desperately needed? The answer is that Hamas wants its people to suffer, which it uses as leverage in its war against Israel.

The effect is two-fold: First, it creates a humanitarian crisis that not only contributes to the ongoing effort to delegitimize Israel, but also brings about tremendous international pressure on the Israeli government to limit its tactical, military options.

Second, it deflects blame onto Jerusalem for Hamas? gross failure of governance & the usage of its people as sacrificial lambs.

Concisely, the more the people of Gaza suffer, & the more of them that die, the closer Hamas gets to achieving its terrorist and, indeed, genocidal goal. This twisted reality is perhaps best understood when considering that Hamas uses its funds, not to invest in schools & hospitals, but rather to develop weaponry & other elaborate terror infrastructure, most notably its vast maze of underground tunnels, built purposely in civilian areas from which it launches its attacks.

Gazans will never know freedom under such circumstances, while living under the iron fist of a bloodthirsty organization that values the murder of Jews more than life of its own people.

From Israel?s standpoint the reason Hamas must ultimately be destroyed is equally clear.

As Israeli troops were unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza after having supposedly achieved their operational goals, Defense Minister Moshe Ya?alon stated that, ?Hamas had been set back five years.?

It is worth noting that Operation Cast Lead, Israel?s last ground incursion into the Strip, ended in 2009 ? five years ago.

Is achieving a few years of relative ?quiet? truly a legitimate military objective? Have thousands of people on both sides of the conflict been killed & wounded over the past four weeks so that this cycle of events may be repeated every half-decade? The question, then, becomes one of politics; namely, can a durable, long-term truce actually be forged with an organization like Hamas? It clearly viewed the 2012 ceasefire agreement, ending Operation Pillar of Defense, as worth less than the paper it was written on.       It seems, therefore, that only one logical conclusion can be drawn; that there is a fundamental flaw in the Israeli government?s logic. That in the absence of a major & highly unlikely breakthrough, all roads lead to the same place, & just as Protective Edge was more costly, on a human level, than was Cast Lead, so too will the next round of fighting extract more blood & treasure that did its precedents.

The answer is to begin viewing Hamas for what it truly is ? pure, unbridled & senseless evil, a terrorist group that preaches death & destruction, rather than justice & morality.

There were earlier periods when much of the world understood that ideologies like those expounded by Hamas pose a mortal threat to humanity & had therefore to be eliminated, & not negotiated with.

Very few doubted the legitimacy of the need to vanquish the Nazis during WWII, or of the Cold War against communism.

But as society has increasingly adopted a morally relativistic view of the world, the line between good & evil has been progressively blurred, to the contemporary point of willful blindness.

It is high time to refocus.

So long as Hamas exists, the relationship between Israelis & Palestinians will continue to be plagued, precluding the possibility of them together ever sowing the seeds, or perhaps one day even growing real vineyards, of peace. The author is a correspondent for i24News, an international television network broadcasting from Israel. 

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Sides agree to open Gaza crossings for aid and building supplies; US backs deal, announced by Abbas in Ramallah, later confirmed by Jerusalem; Israeli death toll rise to 70; 12 said killed in last Israeli strikes

BY LAZAR BERMAN August 27, 2014, 12:36 am 1

Lazar Berman is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

A Palestinian gunman brandishes his weapon as he fires rounds into the air after joining hundreds of Gazans gathered at an intersection in Gaza City 26, 2014 to celebrate a ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Hamas (photo credit: AFP/ROBERTO SCHMIDT)

Residents and emergency services gather at the site of a damaged house in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon after it was hit by a rocket launched by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip on August 26, 2014. (photo credit: Palestinians look up at the remains of an apartment tower block, that Israel said was used by Hamas as a command center and that was destroyed by an Israeli air strike overnight in Gaza City on August 26, 2014. (photo credit: AFP/MAHMUD HAMS)

An apartment building that was damaged by the explosion from a rocket, fired in the Gaza Strip, which hit a neighboring house in Ashkelon, southern Israel, early morning on August 26, 2014 Edi Israel/Flash90)

Residents look on in shock after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a house in on August 26, 2014. (Flash90)

A Palestinian woman takes some of her belongings from her partially Lazar Berman is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

t from where a high rise

The Times of Israel is live-blogging events as they unfold through Wednesday, August 27, the 51st day of the Israel-Hamas conflict, and the first since an open-ended truce was agreed by the sides. Hamas killed two Israelis in a mortar attack just before the truce took effect Tuesday evening, bringing the Israeli death toll in Operation Protective Edge to 70, and Israel struck targets in Gaza including several high-rises where it said Hamas had command centers. Hamas hailed victory in the conflict; Israel?s cabinet was divided on the truce terms, but was not asked to vote on the deal. .

 New Israeli alliances allow it to defy US? ? Indyk  

In an interview with Foreign Policy, former US special envoy for the peace process Martin Indyk says that Israel feels it is less dependent on the US because of new alliances with other countries.

?I think that something?s changing on the Israeli side too that all the things that you mentioned reflect, which is that Israel is not anymore the weak and small and dependent state that for so long characterized its position in its relationship with the United States.  Now it has a strong army. It has a strong economy. And it has developed relations with world powers that it didn?t have before.  Few people noticed that the Indian government came out in support of Israel in this war; social media in China was pro-Israel. It has developed strategic relations with both countries, and with Russia as well, that led Israel to absent itself from the vote of the UN General Assembly condemning Russia?s annexation of Crimea.?

Secretary of State John Kerry & Envoy Martin Indyk. (photo credit: AP/Charles Dharapak)

?I think there?s a sense in Israel, particularly on the right, that they can afford to be defiant of the United States. Israelis also sense a potential for a new alignment with Gulf Arab states that didn?t exist before that is generated by their common interest in curbing Iran?s nuclear program and countering Iran?s efforts to dominate the region, opposing if not overthrowing Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and combating Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, with its stepchild Hamas in Gaza. Israel shares this array of enemies with the Sunni Arab monarchs and the Abdel Fattah al-Sisi regime in Egypt. You can see it in this Gaza crisis quite clearly, where the Saudis and the Egyptians in particular wanted Israel to take down Hamas.?

?I saw this once before, before the 1973 war, when Israelis felt they were the superpower in the region and so didn?t have to worry about support from the United States. And it turned on a dime once Egypt and Syria attacked Israel by surprise on Yom Kippur in 1973, and suddenly Israel found itself totally dependent on the United States. So it may be that the bubble of illusion will burst here too and Israeli politicians on the right will come to understand that for all their bravado, the United States is not just Israel?s most important friend but in a real crunch its only reliable friend.?

00:50 More from Kerry on the US role post-truce In a statement, Secretary Kerry says that the US and the international committee are ?fully committed? to an acceleration of ?the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza must be accelerated.?

John Kerry speaking on June 19. (photo credit: US State Department)

He also says that the US and its partners ?are prepared to work on a major reconstruction initiative, with appropriate measures in place to ensure that this is for the benefit of the civilian population in Gaza, not Hamas and other terrorist organizations.? Kerry emphasiz