Operation Pillar of Defense: A Quick Evaluation
The Recent Israeli Operations (November 2012) in Gaza in the light of Biblical Prophecy
Duration: 45:42 To Read Text Please Scroll Down
Contents:
1. Background.
2. Disengagement Ideologically Motivated alongside Fear of prosecution for Graft!
3. Gush Katif. Was Vulnerability Another Factor?
4. Hamas Comes to Power
5. The Gaza War
6. Pillar of Cloud
7. Evaluation
8. The Negative Side
9. Transfer of Populations. The Prophesied Solution. Judah and Ephraim will work Together!
10. Humanity.
See:
The Gaza, Sinai, and Israel Conflict. Part One: Background Information.
Options for Survival: A Solution to the War in Gaza
The Gaza Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. ...The territory takes its name from Gaza, its main city.
The population is about 1.6 million people... The population is predominantly Sunni Muslim. With a yearly growth rate of about 3.2%, the Gaza strip has the 7th highest population growth rate in the world.
Gaza was part of the Promised Land that the Almighty declared should belong to Israel. The region of Gaza fell within the territory allocated to the Tribe of Judah. In practice Gaza was populated by the Philistines. The very name Palestine derives from a Latin pronunciation of Philistia i.e. Land of the Philistines.
Jews had always lived in Gaza until 1929 when they were forced out by Arab Riots.
Gaza was ruled by Egypt until the Six-Day-War of 1967 when Israel took over.
The Oslo Accords (1993) led to the creation of the Palestine Authority.
At first the so-called Palestinian Authority had autonomous control over the Gaza Strip as well as most of the West Bank. The PA ruled over the population but
Israel maintained control of the airspace, territorial waters and border crossings apart from the land border with Egypt. Israel also had settlements in Gush Katif. These settlements and the military presence they required enable Israel to more or less control the whole area from a military point of view. The Palestinians could not smuggle in weapons and rockets through border tunnels as they later did. They would have had great trouble organizing militarily if at all. Many Palestinians worked in Gush Katif and this supplied Israel with a day-to-day flow of information as well as immediate access to the Population. Israelis were in the area without being closely involved.
2. Disengagement Ideologically Motivated alongside Fear of prosecution for Graft!
Israel unilaterally disengaged from Gaza in 2005.
Yair Lapid is the son of a leading anti-religious politician and at that time a leading news commentator. He now (2012) heads his own political party. Yair Lapid said that the reason for the Disengagement was to degrade Religious Jews in Israel with whom the settlers of Gush Katif were identified. It was an extension of the ideological struggle between Religious and non-Religious factions. Arik Sharon was Prime Minister at the time. Sharon had long beforehand declared his intention to pull out from Gush Katif but because of his otherwise nationalistic views most people preferred to ignore this.
[At the time Yair Davidiy knew of a statement by Sharon to the above effect but (like most others) preferred to ignore it. We thought at the time that Sharon was good for Israel. Rabbi Avraham Feld who, apart from everything else he does, also serves as a political consultant giving insights (that he says are used) to journalists etc warned quite strongly that Sharon intended to dismantle Gush Katif.]
Concerning Sharon, another factor was the left-wing secular State Attorney Office which is an elite group with a long and consistent tradition of anti-Jewish and anti-Religious prejudice. The State Attorney Office had a tradition of concentrating its attention on leading politicians who did not follow the ideological lines they favored. Throughout Israeli history leading politicians have been prosecuted for bribery and other matters.
Israel in many respects is like a third world country. There is much bureaucracy. Business and tax regulations and laws are very complicated and often impractical. Most people ignore them. That makes for many potential criminals, or at the least, potentially difficult questions if scrutinizing investigations are to be carried out.
Sharon and his sons had been involved in a series of bribery affairs involving millions of dollars. A de facto agreement was reached whereby Sharon was not prosecuted and his sons were lightly treaded in exchange for going ahead with the Disengagement. Sharon received funds from several sources including Cyril Kern of South Africa and Martin Schlaff of Austria. Schlaff has links to German governmental and intelligence sources.
See:
State attorney may close bribery case against Ariel Sharon
3. Gush Katif. Was Vulnerability Another Factor?
Gush Katif
Gush Katif (Hebrew: , lit. Harvest Bloc) was a bloc of 17 Israeli settlements in the southern Gaza strip. Gush Katif was specifically mentioned by Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who fell victim to an assassin in 1995, as essential to Israel's security border.[1] In August 2005, the Israeli army moved the 8,600 residents of Gush Katif to Israel. They were evicted from the area and their homes demolished as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip portion of the Palestinian Territories.
Gush Katif had been under constant attack by the Palestinians. The inhabitants were vulnerable. They suffered from,
#More than 6000 mortar bombs and Qassam rockets were launched into Gush Katif, causing mostly property and psychological damage with few fatalities, but heavy shock and fear.#
There were also ground attacks with infiltrations and shootings. At least 15 Israelis were killed and others injured and traumatized.
During the First Intifada (1987-1990), which broke out in nearby Gaza, the residents of Gush Katif were on the forefront of the violence and were subject to frequent stoning of traffic, among other incidents.
Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada (2000), Gush Katif settlements had been the target of thousands of violent attacks by Palestinian militants. More than 6000 mortar bombs and Qassam rockets were launched into Gush Katif, causing mostly property and psychological damage with few fatalities, but heavy shock and fear. Most of the ground attacks were infiltrations and shootings. There were also attempts to infiltrate by sea.
This was also one of the reasons for Disengagement. It was hoped that removing Gush Katif would remove one of the reasons for fiction between Israel and the Palestinians.
Although the Gush Katif settlements and the roads leading to it were guarded by the Israeli Army's Gaza Division, settlers were still vulnerable to attacks.
Hamas is an Islamic Nazi-Type Muslim-Brothers associated organization dedicated to the extermination of the Jewish People. That is its raison d'etre, its reason for existing.
In 2006 there were elections throughout the Palestinian Authority. Hamas received 42% of the votes and a majority (74 our of 132) of delegates
Israel, the USA, and EU refused to recognize Hamas rule. Hamas was prevented by force by taking control in the west bank even though it had received a majority vote.
Nevertheless, in 2006-2007 Hamas managed to forcefully take control of the Gaza Strip. There were about Arabs 1000 killed. Hamas was able to take over in the Gaza Strip (but not on the West Bank) due to the lack of Israeli proximity resulting from the Disengagement. Israeli forces and settlements were present in the West Bank and that is why Hamas did not succeed there.
The Hamas Charter calls for the extermination of every Jew in Palestine. This is written in black and white.
The Hamas Charter (1988)
Article 6 Hamas is uniquely Palestinian,[21] and "strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine" [13][18]
Article 7 of the Hamas Covenant provides the following quotation, attributed to Mohammed:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."[217]
Article 8 The Hamas document reiterates the Muslim Brotherhood's slogan of "Allah is its goal, the Prophet is the model, the Qur'an its constitution, jihad its path, and death for the sake of Allah its most sublime belief."[13][18]
Article 13 There is no negotiated settlement possible. Jihad is the only answer.[18]
Article 14 The liberation of Palestine is the personal duty of every Palestinian.[18]
Article 15 "The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem".It states the history of crusades into Muslim lands and says the "Palestinian problem is a religious problem". [18]
Article 20 Calls for action "by the people as a single body" against "a vicious enemy which acts in a way similar to Nazism, making no differentiation between man and woman, between children and old people".[18]
Article 22 states that the French revolution, the Russian revolution, colonialism and both world wars were created by the Zionists or forces supportive of Zionism.
Article 28 Conspiracy indictment against "Israel, Judaism and Jews".[18][22]
Article 32 of the Covenant refers to an anti-Jewish forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion:
"Today it is Palestine, tomorrow it will be one country or another. The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."[217]
After Hamas took over rockets were fired at Israel on an almost daily basis. Hamas received much of its funding from Saudia and Iran. It was supplied with missiles from Iran and elsewhere through tunnels connecting Gaza to Egyptian territory.
In December 2008 came the Gaza War in which Israel invaded, killed some of the Hamas militants, destroyed much of the military infrastructure and then withdrew though it left a partial blockade of Gaza in effect. There were attempts to break the blockade. One of these was the Mavi Marmara (31 May 2010) incident in which nine thugs from Turkey were killed after attempting to lynch Israeli soldiers.
Following the Gaza War the war supplies of Gaza were replenished by Iran and also by Egypt using stocks transferred from Libya. Israel was subjected to daily attacks.
6. Pillar of Cloud
Operation Pillar of Defense (2012) was a sequel to the Gaza War (2008).
Operation Pillar of Defense in Hebrew was called Amud Ha-Anan i.e. Pillar of Cloud.
Wikipedia. Pillar of Cloud
A pillar of cloud was one of the manifestations of the presence of the God of Israel in the Torah. According to Exodus, the pillar of cloud guided the Israelites by day during the Exodus from Egypt ... The pillar of cloud is traditionally paired with the manifestation of the divine presence by night as the pillar of fire, which provided light. This was so they "could travel by day or night".
Exodus 13:21-22. By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.
Numbers 14:14. And they will tell the inhabitants of this land about it. They have already heard that you, O LORD, are with these people and that you, O Lord, have been seen face to face, that your cloud stays over them, and that you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
Deuteronomy 1:33 Who went in the way before you, to search you out a place to pitch your tents in, in fire by night, to shew you by what way ye should go, and in a cloud by day.
Nehemiah 9:12. By day you led them with a pillar of cloud, and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light on the way they were to take.
Nehemiah 9:19. "Because of your great compassion you did not abandon them in the desert. By day the pillar of cloud did not cease to guide them on their path, nor the pillar of fire by night to shine on the way they were to take.
The Pillar of Cloud represented Divine Protection and Guidance.
See [and read the entertaining responses. The writer appears to be anti-Jewish but his readership is not.]:
Israel Names Its New War After Biblical Story About God Terrorizing Egyptians by John Cook
Operation Pillar of Cloud was a response to constant daily provocation and rocket bombardment against Israel.
People were killed, people were injured. Schoolchildren were traumatized. Whole Israeli cities lived in fear. The Arabs were firing dangerous rockets at Israeli settlements often trying to deliberately target schools etc.
My friend Arnold Roth from Australia, now living in Israel, runs a daily report service giving details of rocket attacks from Gaza as they occur. These attacks are often ignored by the Media.
See:
This Ongoing War: A Blog
#7. The Arnold and Fribet Roth (Keren Malki) Item - a Personal Note
Operation Pillar of Defense
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Operation Pillar of Defense (Hebrew: , Amod Anon, literally: "Pillar of Cloud")[17] was an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in the Gaza Strip from 14 to 21 November 2012. It started with the killing of Ahmed Jabari, chief of the Gaza military wing of Hamas.[18][19][20] The stated aims of the operation were to halt the indiscriminate rocket attacks originating from the Gaza Strip[21][22] and to disrupt the capabilities of militant organizations.[23]
The IDF stated it targeted more than 1,500 military sites in Gaza Strip, including rocket launching pads, smuggling tunnels, command centers, weapons manufacturing, and storage buildings.[32]According to Palestinians sources civilian houses were hit and[33] Gaza Health officials state that 167 Palestinians had been killed in the conflict by 23 November.[34] Eight Palestinians were summarily executed by the Hamas military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades for alleged collaboration with Israel.[35][36] The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that, as of 21 November, 219 Israelis and 1,202 Palestinians had been wounded.[37]
The Palestinian militant groups fired over 1,456[40] Iranian Fajr-5, Russian Grad rockets, Qassams and mortars into Rishon LeZion, Beersheba, Ashdod, Ashkelon and other population centers; Tel Aviv was hit for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War, and rockets were aimed at Jerusalem.[41] The rockets killed four Israeli civilians , three of them in a direct hit on a home in Kiryat Malachi , two Israeli soldiers, and a number of Palestinian civilians.[18][36][42] By 19 November, over 252 Israelis had been physically injured in rocket attacks.[43][44] Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system had intercepted about 409 rockets, another 142 rockets had fallen on Gaza itself, 875 rockets fell in open areas, and 58 rockets hit urban areas in Israel.[40][32] A bomb attack against a Tel Aviv bus that wounded over 20 civilians received the "blessing" of Hamas.[45]
The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and other Western countries expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself, and/or[clarification needed] condemned the Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel.[46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56] Iran, Egypt, Turkey and several other Arab and Muslim countries condemned the Israeli operation.[57][58][59][60] The United Nations Security Council held an emergency session on the situation but did not reach a decision.[61] On 21 November a ceasefire was announced after days of negotiations between Hamas and Israel mediated by Egypt.[62][63][64] Both sides claimed victory. Israel said that it had achieved its aim of crippling Hamas's rocket-launching abiliity,[65] while Hamas stated that "The option of invading Gaza after this victory is gone and will never return" and thanked Iran and Egypt for their help.[66][67]
Israeli casualties
Four Israeli civilians and one soldier have been killed in Palestinian rocket attacks.[10] Three of the civilians died in a direct hit on an apartment building in Kiryat Malachi, while the fourth Israeli civilian death was an Israeli-Arab who died in a rocket strike in the Eshkol Region.[313][314][315][40] By 20 November, almost 250 Israelis had been injured in rocket attacks,[18] including at least 10 soldiers.[11] Another 21 people were injured in a bus bombing in Tel Aviv.[316]
A Bedouin civilian was killed in rocket fire that struck the Bedouin village of Rejwan in the Negev.[238]
The IDF credited the low Israeli casualty rate to a number of factors, both offensive and defensive: its preemptive targeting of launching pads and rocket arsenals; its ability to strike militants in the act of launching rockets; the 80%+ success rate of Israel's Iron Dome missile interception system; the existence of bomb-proof rooms in every Israeli house; the implementation of the Red Color alarm system; and public outreach efforts by its Home Front Command.[317]
The Almighty continues to look after the Jewish People. God seems to want the world to know that Israel is being looked after. The State of Israel suffers from numerous problems. Sometimes disasters do occur.
Four people were killed and this is a tragedy. Nevertheless it could have been a thousands times worse.
They fired 1400 rockets at us and hardly any of them hit.
One exploded in a school ground but there were no children there. Another hit a car in Tel Aviv but there was no-one in it at the time.
Also During the Gulf War (2 August 1990 - 28 February 1991 i.e. Operation Desert Storm) 42 scud missiles were fired at Israel. This left ca. 4000 Israelis homeless but only 2 were killed. Here too miracles occurred.
Israeli put into operation its defensive systems against missiles. These worked on the whole. Improvement will be made for the future.
The Israeli public responded very well. Civilian soldiers who were called up all reported for duty. Some who had not been called up also presented themselves.
The system seems to have worked.
Leading Hamas commanders were killed. The Hamas in Infrastructure suffered a severe blow and much damage. Its rocked supply was either used up or destroyed on the ground the Israeli Air Force. Now they will need new supplies. These they will probably obtain from Iran and Egypt but it could take time and may be made difficult.
The international Media and Diplomacy was against us but less so than in the Gulf War.
Britain and Canada supported Israel with demonstrative alacrity.
So did the USA.
We do not know what happened behind the scenes but in the open the Obama Administration helped Israel.
The Israeli Economy suffered losses with people not working, factories closing down, etc, etc, but hidden benefits may also accrue.
New investments may come to Israel as a result of the war.
8. The Negative Side
Four Israelis were killed. Three of these were religious Jews of the Chabad movement and one was an Israeli-Arab.
A Peace Agreement brokered by Egypt has been reached whose clauses are not certain.
The whole of the Third World is against Israel.
The Vatican is also against the Jewish State.
The problem has not gone away.
9. Transfer of Populations. The Prophesied Solution. Judah and Ephraim will work Together!
Prophecy indicates that the Ten Tribes headed by Ephraim together with Judah will transfer the Arab inhabitants of Gaza and other Palestinian areas to the west.
We identify the Ten Tribes with Western Nations. The Tribes of Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) are represented by English-speaking peoples. The USA is dominated by Manasseh, Ephraim by Britain and her offshoots.
Physically there may more of Ephraim in the USA than anywhere else though the dominant force there is Manasseh.
The term Ephraim will normally apply to Britain and Austrlaia, Canada, New Zealand, etc and to some degree even South Africa.
Under certain circumstances the term Ephraim may also be used for the USA or for the Ten Tribes in general.
Isaiah 11:
11 It shall come to pass in that day
That the Lord shall set His hand again the second time
To recover the remnant of His people who are left,
From Assyria and Egypt,
From Pathros and Cush,
From Elam and Shinar,
From Hamath and the islands of the sea.
12 He will set up a banner for the nations,
And will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
And gather together the dispersed of Judah
From the four corners of the earth.
13 Also the envy of Ephraim shall depart,
And the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off;
Ephraim shall not envy Judah,
And Judah shall not harass Ephraim.
14 But they shall fly down upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west;
Together they shall plunder the people of the East;
They shall lay their hand on Edom and Moab;
And the people of Ammon shall obey them.
15 The Lord will utterly destroy[a] the tongue of the Sea of Egypt;
With His mighty wind He will shake His fist over the River,[b]
And strike it in the seven streams,
And make men cross over dry-shod.
16 There will be a highway for the remnant of His people
Who will be left from Assyria,
As it was for Israel
In the day that he came up from the land of Egypt.
Isaiah 11:12 speaks of ingathering THE OUTCASTS OF ISRAEL meaning the Lost Ten Tribes
and gathering THE DISPERSED OF JUDAH FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH
and this refers to the ingathering of the present-day Jews.
After that Ephraim and Judah will; be reconciled with each other:
[Isaiah 11:13] THE JEALOUSY OF EPHRAIM SHALL DEPART, AND THOSE WHO HARASS JUDAH SHALL BE CUT OFF; EPHRAIM SHALL NOT BE JEALOUS OF JUDAH, AND JUDAH SHALL NOT HARASS EPHRAIM.
[for more details on these matters see the Brit-Am Commentary to these verses of Isaiah:]
After this the combined forces of Judah and Ephraim shall fly the Palestinians (referred to in Scripture as "Philistines")
to the west while putting other heathen nations that oppose Israel in their place.
The KJ renders the first part of Isaiah 11:14 as:
# they shall fly down upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west #
in the Hebrew original this in fact reads:
"THEY SHALL FLY THE PHILISTINES AWAY WESTWARD".
We have a commandment to expel all the heathen nations from the Land of Israel. The Arabs of Gaza are no exceptions and they are amongst those who will be so transferred. This ultimately will be for their own good as well as for ours.
Numbers 33:
50 Now the Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho, saying, 51 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: When you have crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their engraved stones, destroy all their molded images, and demolish all their high places; 53 you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land and dwell in it, for I have given you the land to possess. 54 And you shall divide the land by lot as an inheritance among your families; to the larger you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the smaller you shall give a smaller inheritance; there everyone's inheritance shall be whatever falls to him by lot. You shall inherit according to the tribes of your fathers. 55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell. 56 Moreover it shall be that I will do to you as I thought to do to them.'
See also:
Movement of Arab Populations (MAP)
The commandment to expel the Palestinians and exigency of so doing should be well known. It is the humane thing to do. The Israeli Jews are not up to killing people all the time. They are often too humane for their own good. Hamas hides its rocket launching sites and explosive arms manufacturing works in heavily populated areas. Even hospitals are not exempt. It knows that the Israelis will not attack them from such areas. If by chance the Israelis were to attack sites located amongst civilians then Hamas would actually exult in the fact and use it as propaganda against Israel. Video Clips exist of Hamas operatives in action picking up children and carrying them when they make their get-away. They take advantage of the innate human kindness and mercy most Jews have.
Colonel Richard Kemp (Former British Armed Forces Commander in Afghanistan and Senior Expert in the Wart Against Terror) has testified that during the Gaza War (Operation Cast Lead) the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. The Pillar of Cloud Campaign is no exception. If anything the care to avoid unnecessary harm to civilians has been intensified.
They want to exterminate the Jews and have an almost suicidal determination to do so at all costs. The Israeli Jews do not want to kill them and especially not their women and children whom they (Hamas) hide behind. So in order not to see the Jews exterminated or being forced to defend themselves against extermination let us move the would-be exterminators away.