So You Want to End the Israel-Hamas War? Here’s How To Do It

Barry Rubin  "A lot of people have asked the purpose of Israel’s defensive war against Hamas. Some, including those supposedly expert on the region, have been mystified. They cannot seem to figure out what is going on or what the goal of this Israeli operation could be.
"The answer is simple. Given the premise that Hamas is in a permanent state of war with Israel and will attack Israel whenever it can get away with it, Israel needed to do three things.
"First, Israel had to show Hamas that it cannot daily attack Israel and Israeli civilians without a cost.
"Second, Israel had to show Hamas that the cost is unsustainable and that it needs to keep the peace or suffer massive losses to its governmental, economic, and military infrastructure. This includes a personal cost to those who have taken the lead in attacking Israel and especially to those who have organized terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
"Third...."

...."So far, Hamas has been turning down the efforts by Egypt and Qatar to broker a ceasefire, making huge and ridiculous demands. Hamas is banking on the idea that the suffering of Gaza’s people–a suffering that it adds to and fictionalizes–will bring enough Western sympathy to force Israel to stop fighting without conditions. It is not in anyone else’s interests to let this happen."

Read this next article and tell me if you expect courageous backing for Israel from the Democrats now in power:

'Mainstream' Muslim groups back Hamas in latest Mideast mayhem

"A statement issued Thursday from the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) illustrates this point. Israel "has escalated air and ground attacks against the Gaza Strip, killing Palestinian men, women and children," it says. "Israel is claiming these attacks are about going after militants, but in reality it's about assassination of Palestinian leaders, destruction of Gazan infrastructure and the gross killings of Palestinian civilians, including women and children."
"The statement offers no information to substantiate such a claim. Israel military officials, in contrast, have posted videos of one of their strikes, which targeted the longtime head of Hamas's military wing."
 Jewish World Review

Remember in the coming days that Obama said Israel had the right to defend herself

Bosch Fawstin

Obama Backs Israel's 'Right To Defend Itself'   "Speaking in Bangkok on November 18, U.S. President Barack Obama blamed Palestinian militants for the "precipitating event" of the Gaza crisis -- a series of rocket attacks on Israeli territory.

" "[T]here is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders," he said. "So we are fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself from missiles landing on people's homes and work places and potentially killing civilians." "
However he left himself wiggle room with these words:
"However, Obama also suggested it was "preferable" for the crisis to be resolved without "ramping up" Israeli military activity.

"Those who champion the cause of the Palestinians should recognize that if we see a further escalation of the situation in Gaza then the likelihood of us getting back on any kind of peace track that leads to a two-state solution is going to be pushed off way into the future," he said.

So Obama tells Israel, "we can and will throw you under the bus if it suits our needs".
And it just may if what Netanyahu says he will do, he does...  " “We will force Hamas and other terrorist organizations to pay a high price,” Netanyahu told a Cabinet session on Sunday. “The Israeli army is ready to significantly expand its operation.” "

Benjamin Netanyahu: Leader of the Free World  "Whether due to naiveté, foolishness or pure dishonesty, President Obama’s bungling of the Middle East crisis – let alone his unprecedented attacks on our constitutional freedoms stateside – has disqualified him to lead the free world."

But Obama will get some resistance from Congress if he does. Not that it will bother this weasel-in-chief. "Appearing on the U.S. television program Fox News Sunday, [Republican Senator Saxby] Chambliss voiced no opposition if Israel opted to use ground forces.
"“Israel has a right to protect itself. And if sending ground troops in is the only way they can clean out these nests of rockets being fired at them, you cannot blame them for doing it,” he added.
"Similarly, Republican Congressman Peter King of New York gave Israel the benefit of the doubt, saying, “I think Israel should do whatever it has to do to defend itself. I am not in a position, nor do I want to second-guess what Israel has to do.” "

CBS News

The clueless reelected president  "Hamas. Does. Not. Want. Peace. Hamas wants only the destruction of Israel and the death of every Jew living there. Read this. Then all this. The only peace Hamas wants is the peace of the grave for every Jewish Israeli."

Speaking of weasels, here come the calls for Israel's "restraint"  "Yes, restraint. After months of hundreds of missiles raining down on Israeli heads – murdering, injuring and destroying – Israel finally decided to do something serious. They killed a top Hamas terrorist, best known for orchestrating the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. Oh, it was then that the world decided to finally take notice of Israel’s “aggression”.
"Rather than cheering on the Israelis and complementing them on a job well done – we hear calls for Israeli restraint, even from the United States."

The Heritage Foundation ; The Escalating Conflict Between Hamas and Israel "Over the last four days, militants in Gaza have fired more than 840 rockets at Israel. Hamas rockets have reached the outskirts of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the first time, thanks to the smuggling of Iranian rockets into Gaza. The increasing range and sophistication of Palestinian rockets has expanded the reach of terrorists, who now can threaten up to half of Israel’s population."

I'd say we should back Israel as we did America after Pearl Harbor, but he fact is that many American supporters of Hamas likely feel that America had it coming in 1941.

And the lucky winners are...

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Hitler's Secret Archive of Holocaust Victims

CBS News  From Dec, 2006; "In Full: Scott Pelley brings three Holocaust survivors to examine a recently-opened archive of Nazi atrocities. The records were kept secret for decades."

Revisiting The Horrors Of The Holocaust  "For the first time, secrets of the Nazi Holocaust that have been hidden away for more than 60 years are finally being made available to the public. We're not talking about a missing filing cabinet - we're talking about thousands of filing cabinets, holding 50 million pages. It's Hitler's secret archive.
"The Nazis were famous for record keeping but what 60 Minutes found ran from the bizarre to the horrifying. This Holocaust history was discovered by the Allies in dozens of concentration camps, as Germany fell in the spring of 1945."  The transcript of the video below: 

Video

Hat tip to Don Standlee, Arlington, TX

shamash.org/holocaust/photos  from Holocaust Home Page

Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust didn't happen  "At the September 2009 Quds Day ceremonies in Tehran, Ahmadinejad stated Israel was created on "a lie and a mythical claim," that the Western powers "launched the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews" – what the New York Times considered his "among his harshest statements on the topic," and one immediately condemned by the US, UK, French and German governments." Wikipedia

Encountering Holocaust Denial

"The SS guards took pleasure in telling us that we had no chance of coming out alive, a point they emphasized with particular relish by insisting that after the war the rest of the world would not believe what happened."

-- Survivor of Dachau, quoted in Terence DesPres,
The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps