Thursday: Pressure from Robert Gates on Israel and Missiles and Mortars

Nadene Goldfoot
On Thursday, when Israel was attacked by 10 missiles and mortars, Secretary of Defense Dr. Robert Gates was attending a meeting in Tel Aviv at the Defense Ministry urging Israel to work harder to achieve peace with the Palestinians to bring about a two state solution.  He hadn't visited Israel since April 2007.  He only attained this position in 2006.  Sec. Gates received his doctorate in Russian and Soviet History.  Prior to this position he was with the CIA for many years. 

Nobody has worked harder or cared more about peace than Israel, but they're not about to pick up and leave, and that's what the Palestinians seem to really be after, not peace.  I wonder if Gates has bothered to talk to the Palestinians in the same manner.  Have the Palestinians been told to get back to the peace table that they walked away from?  What is Netanyahu supposed to do?  Have Mossad kidnap Abbas and bring him back?

What several of us fear is that Obama and his group will attack Israel next on the pretense of defending Palestinians when Israel reacts to all their shelling, which she will have to do. This is especially possible after seeing what is happening in Libyia, which is not that far away on the west side of Egypt.     USA, England and France never seem to care that Israel is being attacked constantly and that their citizens suffer from shelling, even though Gates said that no country would stand for that.  This is a true statement but why did he say it?  Is he goading Israel into a reaction or is he just being sympathetic and understanding?  I really wonder being he is the one pressuring Netanyahu  to make the peace and not Abbas. 

Actions speak louder than words.  Obama said we would not have men on Libya's land yet today we just learned that we have had men there scouting out places to bomb.  It's all for humanitarian purposes, saving innocent lives that the countries have taken over the air space keeping the government of Libya out of it, but this could become a general pretext for going into certain countries and not others.  Obama said we're not going after Gadaffi yet his son may have been killed already and Gadaffi's building has been targeted.  We've heard a lot of promises in the last few years but the results have been something else.  Promises have not been fullfilled.  Case in point that I cite is the talk he and Hillary gave to AIPAC. 

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=213706
http://www.defense.gov/bios/biographydetail.aspx?biographyid=115

Palestinians Fly Flag in Washington While Compatriots Shell Southern Israel

Nadene Goldfoot

Hamas has asked other militant groups in Gaza to stop firing at Israel, but asking hasn't stopped them. Today terrorists set off a bomb on the border near IDF troops on a routine patrol. Then they were seen handling explosives. One was shot and killed and the other two were wounded.


Five more mortar shells were fired into southern Israel today from either the Popular Resistance committees or the Alliance of Militants from different Palestinian factions who claimed responsibility.


They seem to be getting their ammunition from the Egyptian border. Egypt patrols the 9 mile boarder with Gaza, but not very efficiently.


While southern Israel was being shelled, Palestinians were raising their flag with permission in Washington D.C. at their diplomatic mission amid applause from a small group of officials.

Florida's Ros Lehtinen is opposing the move to recognize Palestine. “Raising this flag in DC is part of the Palestinian leadership’s scheme to manipulate international acceptance and diplomatic recognition of a yet-to-be-created Palestinian state while refusing to directly negotiate with Israel or accept the existence of Israel as a democratic, Jewish state,” she charged in a statement.

This certainly is chutzpah to me. Here they are shelling Israel while flaunting their flag in the USA, buttering up the future voters to uphold their demand to become a state without having to go through any peace production with Israel. The USA held its ground once. I pray they will not allow this to happen at this time until an actual peace is not only stated in English but upheld in Arabic as well.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110118/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=204222

Daily Mortar Attacks from Gaza

Nadene Goldfoot

You never see this news in an American newspaper like the Oregonian, but mortar attacks have been going on daily all year from Gaza. Today a home was hit on a kibbutz. It's like living in the firing zone of someone playing Russian Roulette. You never know when or where somebody or something can be hit. It's something that you don't get used to, either. It just tightens up your nerves.

December 2, 2010 3 mortars and 1 Qassam rocket landed, then another rocket hit dairy and injured cows near Ashkelon, Portland's sister city.

December 3, 2020 7 mortar shells hit Israel

December 6, 2010: Qassam rocket landed near Ashkelon, Portland's sister city

December 7, 2010 2 mortars landed in the Eshkol region of southern Israel.

December 8, 2010 1 mortar landed in the Sha'ar Hanegia region of southern Israel.

All this has been going on all year and the US has at the same time been pressuring Israel to freeze building in Judea and Samaria, though they already had done so in the 10 month period before and no peace discussions came about. How can my country pressure Israel about peace, which is what Israel wants, when half the Palestinians are making constant war on Israel? Why doesn't our government pressure Hamas to cut out their shooting at Israel in the first place? How can there possibly be peace talks when Israel is being constantly attacked by a party that had even attacked Fatah? Gaza being occupied by Israel ended in 2005. Israel had to create a blockade in 2007 when Hamas terrorists threw out Fatah and took over Gaza.

The PA have had the chutzpa to demand that Israel stop building before they would even talk about peace making-and then they can only speak for their own Fatah group.

8:28pm 12/8/10 Israel just completed air strikes on Gaza after mortar shell fragments from a fired mortal shell wounded a man on an agriculture site near the border was hit. Israel bombed two training sites. The Israeli was taken to a hospital in Bersheba.

This was the first casualty since March when a worker from Thailand was killed by mortar shelling.

Reference: http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=198584

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2010

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/iaf-hits-gaza-targets-after-slew-of-rockets-strike-israel-1.325803

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101209/wl_nm/us_palestinians_israel_gaza