Swarm! Swarm! Swarm!

Israel PM Netanyahu accepts Egyptian ceasefire proposal

Many Arab-wise analysts look on this as  nothing more that a Hudna, a muslim trick to stop the fighting when they're getting their tails handed to them. This allows them to regroup and make better preparations for the next round of fighting.

... "As for Hamas, they have proven time and again their commitment to a tactical hudna — replenishing their strength during the quiet periods, then returning with increased deadliness. As recently documented by The Washington Institute, Hamas agreed to no less than ten ceasefires in the past ten years, and after every single one returned freshly armed for terror. Hundreds of Israeli citizens have paid for these hudnas with their lives." ...

Legal Insurrection   "Egypt has offered a cease fire proposal, as reported by Haaretz at its live blog (times are Israel time):" ...

10:29 P.M. Sources in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry say Egypt has proposed a cease-fire outline to Israel and Gaza: The cease-fire will start at 9 A.M., meaning Israel will stop aerial, naval and ground operations against the Gaza Strip and promise not to engage in a ground offensive or harm civilians. At the same time, all the Palestinian factions will hold their fire...
...

"This presents an obvious problem for Hamas.

"There are differing assessments of how much pressure its leadership is under, hidden beneath apartment buildings and hospitals it knows Israel will not bomb. Regardless, Hamas will have failed to score any damaging blows to Israel, but will have caused the deaths of almost 200 Palestinians dead and a thousand terrorist locations destroyed.

"Also, Hamas made demands for a ceasefire, including the release of terrorists released in the Shalit deal but subsequently rearrested. If those demands are not met, Hamas’ inevitable claims of victory will be hard to play."  
...
"For the ceasefire to take effect, all the Palestinian terrorist groups would have to hold their fire. Who even knows if that could happen.

"What’s in it for Israel?

"For one, it avoids a ground invasion which almost certainly would have brought international condemnation upon it. For the first time the international community mostly sat this one out for the past week — remarkable actually. It reflects the understanding that Hamas and other terrorist factions started the conflict, and the isolation of Hamas from Egypt and other Arab countries.

"Israel didn’t achieve it’s goal of crushing Hamas, but it inflicted serious damage. Invading and holding Gaza again really is not an option.

"But no one should think this is the last of it."

The Conservatives Who Deserve Blame for the Border Breakdown

I believe the motives of those who passed this law in 2008 were un-sordid and more honorable that I feel today's Democrat objectives are. Nevertheless:

John T. Bennett   "The conservative commentators who advocated a “path to citizenship” after the 2012 election bear partial blame for the current wave of illegal immigrants from Central America. Many of those who advocated for amnesty following the 2012 election are now complaining that people indeed came expecting that amnesty. But there is also an unbelievably bad policy at the root of the problem.

"The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 is the awful piece of legislation that is allowing tens of thousands of illegal aliens to be released and remain in America while awaiting “deportation hearings” that we all know are a sham.

"It is not ironic at all that that a law intended “to combat human trafficking” has facilitated human smuggling. It is
not ironic because this is precisely the outcome we should expect from immigration policy designed by multicultural elites. Our inept and corrupt political class, with their utter disregard for our sovereignty, simply does not seem to care about the consequences of the laws they pass.

John Bennett is a writer whose work has appeared in The Daily Caller, Townhall.com, World Net Daily, Human Events, Liberty Unyielding, Accuracy in Media, and FrontPage Magazine, among others.  He has appeared as a featured guest on the Laura Ingraham, Jerry Doyle, and Lars Larson programs

Having said all that, Michael Barone's point is "that was then, this is now":

Obama pays price for inaction on immigration law   ... "The second thing that led to the flood of underage illegals was Obama’s declaration in June 2012, five months before the election, that he would not enforce immigration laws against so-called “dreamers,” young adults brought over the border illegally as children who also met certain conditions." ...

Gaza Situation Report

STRATFOR  ... "From a purely military standpoint, the issue has been Hamas's search for a deterrent to Israeli operations against Gaza. Operation Cast Lead in late 2008 and early 2009 disrupted Gaza deeply, and Hamas found itself without any options beyond attempts to impose high casualties on Israeli forces. But the size of the casualties in Cast Lead did not prove a deterrent. 

"Hamas augmented its short-range rocket arsenal with much longer-range rockets. The latest generation of rockets it has acquired can reach the population center of Israel: the triangle of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. However, these are rockets, not missiles. That means they have no guidance system, and their point of impact once launched is a matter of chance. Given these limits, Hamas hoped having a large number of rockets of different ranges would create the risk of substantial Israeli civilian casualties, and that that risk would deter Israel from action against Gaza.

"The threat posed by the rockets was in fact substantial. According to senior Israeli Air Force officers quoted on the subject, Israel lacked intelligence on precisely where the rockets were stored and all the sites from which they might be launched. Gaza is honeycombed with a complex of tunnels, many quite deep. This limits intelligence. It also limits the ability of Israeli airborne munitions from penetrating to their storage area and destroying them. " ...Read more: Gaza Situation Report | Stratfor
 

"Gaza Situation Report is republished with permission of Stratfor."

Yes, I know the fear and the panic, but I also know that while I was scared for a while in Israel, I am frightened in Sweden, all the time.

Fear not, Israel; take comfort in knowing that millions of Muslims and peace groups around the world are demonstrating against the murderous attacks on Israeli families being done in the name of Islam.

Jerusalem Post

Bomb shelter in Beersheba

 

... " '15 seconds," I said. "15 seconds to make sure that you and the people you love are safe. Imagine the terror, imagine the fear, and imagine not knowing the outcome.' "...

 

... "We run into the street and I see hordes of people running in the same direction. A group of men from the shul down the street, an old woman carrying a pink bag, heavy with vegetables, a small family just coming back from a day at the beach. They disappear into the building across the street, so I grab the kids by the hand and I follow them. The room is cool, or maybe it’s just me, shaking with chills. Children are sitting on the floor, a young man is on the phone with his mother, my own children are quiet, and the oldest is fighting back tears- watching my face as to see how scared he is supposed to be. I am just about to try and tell them something when I hear the boom. It’s so much louder than I had expected. I feel it in the floor, the impact traveling through my entire body." ...

 

Annika Hernroth-Rothstein is a political adviser, writer and activist. An alumni of the Young Jewish diplomatic seminar (organized by the Mizrad Hahutz) and Tikvah seminars in NYC. She lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with her two children.