January 5, 2009

Gaza and Barrage Balloons

When a war broke out between Israel and Hezbollah in South Lebanon in the summer of 2006, war fever in the America press reached frightening levels. For a few weeks, there seemed a very real threat that this frenzy would push America into war with Hezbollah's supporter Iran.

So, that month I spent a lot of time writing about how ridiculous this all was, how it's not 1938 again, how the Middle East is less a powder keg than a powder thimble, how America has roughly half the defense spending in the world, how Iran barely has an air force, how war is decliningly profitable, etc etc. In the indirect way my writing works, I may have helped deflate that dangerous war bubble.

This time around, fortunately, there doesn't seem to be as much media mania in the U.S.

I wonder why?

Perhaps it's just the even more extreme one-sidedness of the conflict; or the lack of a credible Muslim sponsor country for the enthusiasts to demand that America bomb; or the sense of deja-vu, the feeling that this is just depressing and boring business as usual. Weirdly, I have a vague hunch that the lack of insanity in the press is in some way connected to Bernie Madoff, ridiculous as that sounds.

All that said, Gaza is an important worst case stress test of the advantages of separatism. The Israelis built a fairly effective fence around Gaza that more or less prevents suicide bombers from getting into Israel. They've removed the Israeli settlers from Gaza. Now, their main problem is Gazans lobbing explosives over the fence into Israel. It's in everybody's interest to help them come up with an effective solution for that.

We know that the long term solution is, in the words of newspaper magnate Lord Copper in Waugh's Scoop, "the Beast stands for strong, mutually-antagonistic governments everywhere." Nobody in Jordan or Syria shoots stuff at Israel anymore because the governments of Jordan and Syria know that the Israelis will come and break the government's shiny war weapons, so the governments keep their hotheads under control. I'm not sure how they do it, and I'm not sure I want to know. But, they do it.

Unfortunately, that's a long way off in the case of Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. The problem is that the political process by which strong governments will eventually emerge in these lands will no doubt be through a long struggle with Israel in which various bravos demonstrate their courage and patriotic bona fides by attacking Israel, bringing about Israeli reprisals, which in turn stoke anti-Israeli fanaticism, etc.. Presumably, somebody will eventually come out so securely on top that he can then call it off and start living above ground again, but that could be a long, long way off.

So, I've been trying to think of a technical solution to the problem of people in the Gaza Strip shooting locally-made unguided missiles at Israeli towns nearby. From 2001 through 2008, 15 people have killed by Qassam rockets fired from Gaza.

This has not been a gigantic problem so far for Israelis, in part because most of the missiles are so short range that they can only reach a single Israeli town, which the government of Israel has been fortifying. The Israelis have the technology to track a rocket back to its launch site and place an explosive on that spot within a few minutes. This means that the Palestinians typically shoot and scoot, which in turn means that they can't calibrate their fire. With unguided high trajectory weapons, such as mortars, artillery, and the Gazans' rockets, to actually hit your target, you need to stay in one place and, taking guidance from forward observers, fire again and again, methodically walking the impacts up to the target. But the Gazans are terrified of dying from Israeli counter-fire, so they prop up their missile in an orchard, point it in the general direction of that Israeli town, and drive away. So, their accuracy doesn't improve.

If the Gazans were to get a guided missiles (with longer ranges), this could prove to be a much larger problem for Israel. On the other handed, those are expensive, and the Gaza Strip doesn't currently have the industrial base to make them so they'd have to be imported. But Israel's fear of Palestinians importing better missiles encourages Israel to keep a clampdown on Gaza imports, with much economic pain inflicted, which just encourages Gazans to fire missiles at Israel.

So, an effective Israel anti-missile defense system would be beneficial.

Israel intends to implement by 2010 in the Gaza neighborhood the "Iron Dome" anti-missile missile, but there are some drawbacks. First, it won't be able to protect the Israeli town closest to the border, since it takes 15 seconds to get launched and the total flight time to that local target is less than that. Second, each Iron Dome anti-missile missile costs about $100,000, so it's an expensive solution to use against home-made rockets.

I've long wondered if guns wouldn't be more cost-effective anti-missile weapons than missiles. The usual advantage of a rocket is that it continues to accelerate after launch, allowing it to achieve higher ultimate speeds, whereas a gun's projectile achieves its maximum speed as it leaves the barrel and subsequently declines. When you need very rapid response, however, perhaps guns are the better technology, perhaps combined with some sort of guidance system for the projectile? One downside of guns is that they tend to have high fixed costs, while missiles have high variable costs, but this kind of chronic situation seems ideal for a few fixed high-tech guns. Also, in the Gaza area, they could be aimed so that their projectiles that miss could come down in the sea harmlessly.

Anyway, I don't know whether current gunpowder guns would work at all, or whether this kind of anti-missile gun defense would be dependent on the final development of a practical railgun, which was one of those war-winning wonder weapons the Germans tinkered with way back in WWII instead of developing a tank with the cost-quality effectiveness of the Russian T-34.

However, there's another old defensive technology that might be updatable with modern electronics to be even an better solution: barrage balloons. During the Blitz in 1940, the British launched 1,400 balloons anchored by heavy cables to damage German airplanes flying under 5,000 feet who collided with their metal cables. They were modestly effective against the plague of V1 buzz bomb cruise missiles that Germans fired at London later in the war, destroying 231 of them. The Germans, however, cleverly built wire cutters into the wings of the V1.

My thought is that high-tech barrage balloons could defend Israeli towns against missiles in a different way than simply relying upon impact with the cable (a method that assumes the flying attacker has wings, which missiles don't). Instead, they could be used to pre-position anti-missile shrapnel charges at various altitudes. As a missile from Gaza is launched, Israeli radar could choose which of the floating charges to detonate.

Does that make any sense?

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

72 comments:

  1. I have wondered why the Israelies didn't deploy something like the Phalanx Gatling gun. This gun system used to be be deployed on US Battleships - see the Steven Segal movie Under Siege.

    The Phalanx has an automated radar fire control system to control a six 20 mm cannon. You probably don't need a 20 mm gun for the little Gaza missles. Gatlings are also available in 7.62 - see Schartzenegger's Predator or T2.

    http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/mk-15.htm

    This gun system is designed to shoot incoming missles out of the air at very short ranges. It would seem to me that mounting one of these between a village and the wall would be all that you would need.

    Obviously since this idea is so obvious I must have missed something. Maybe someone who, unlike me, has military expertise from more than just the movies will tell me why this won't work.

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  2. The Phalanx gun does in fact use bullets (50 cal?) to shoot down incoming missiles and aircraft.

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  3. Nobody in Jordan or Syria shoots stuff at Israel anymore because the governments of Jordan and Syria know that the Israelis will come and break the government's shiny war weapons

    Don't worry, Steve you're hardly the only unbiased observer who has very little knowledge of even the most basic facts concerning Israel's various entanglements. In America, it is darn near impossible to find the truth.

    That said, it is quite obvious why Syria and Jordan don't shoot at Israel whereas Gazans do shoot at Israel: Israel doesn't attack Syria and Jordan, whereas Israel routinely bombs and invades Gaza. When I say "routinely", I don't mean once a year. I mean once a week or so. These rockets are retaliation against Israel's preiodic incursions and bombings of Gaza. It's that simple.

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  4. Did you by any chance play a lot of Missle Command back in the day? Anyway, the Nike Hercules was based on that concept - explode something near an incoming missle to destroy it. Only it used a nuclear warhead - which is fine if the incoming missles are over Manitoba, but not so great in the crowded Middle East.

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  5. Dear little Israel is always retaliating never provoking. How about it accepting the peace plan that has been on offer for years? The Gaza Strip is twice the size of Washington D.C. or slightly less than half the size of New York City. Israel's problem seems to be the Pali's won't stay quietly down on the rez. And before someone mentions how much land the Arabs have and how many countries. Ask yourself, would the U.S. willingly give up Deleware?

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  6. None of these defensive strategies make sense insofar as they imply a sovereign state's acceptance of being attacked by another power. The balloons or the iron dome more or less say, "You may shoot at us, but we will make your shooting less effective." Emphasis on "may."

    Furthermore, it makes no sense for Israel to get into an arms race like this, with no territorial depth. What happens when Hamas/Iran develops better or more powerful missiles?

    A better defense, an aggressive defense, would be to have hundreds of drones over Gaza 24/7, as soon as you see someone setting up a missile, never mind firing it, you bomb them. Doubtful if this is feasible in the near future, though.

    This little war is a mistake. Hamas is only able to taunt Israel because it's supported by Iran. Therefore Iran must be punished. My only hope is that this is basically a training exercise for Israeli military technology before an attack on Iran. Too bad that now the price of oil is going up, giving Iran some breathing room.

    Finally, Steve, your political analysis of Gaza is interesting, but it underplays the cultural factors behind Palestinian/Muslim aggression. You're so good on cultural differences in America, but you strangely overlook them in respect to Islam. You don't have to be a neocon to wonder how it is that the Muslims are always at war--in Thailand, in China, in the banlieus of Paris, in Somalia, etc.

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  7. > Weirdly, I have a vague hunch that the lack of insanity in the press is in some way connected to Bernie Madoff, ridiculous as that sounds.

    Well, it's not weird that *you* have that hunch. :)

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  8. Too late I just patented the idea.

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  9. Sure, it must be technically possible to build anti-rocket missiles, right.

    It seems like the idea behind Dr. Strangelove's doomsday machine: strike me and you automatically destroy yourself -- and the whole world with you. Well, let's leave out the doomsday part..

    OTOH, the Palestinians are doing this shit for a reason, it's probably effective for them, profitable in some sense. They have to get something out of it, right. Just teasing Israelis all your life ain't much of a life.

    So, I guess that when Israel stops home-made rockets from being effective, militarist Palestinians will find something else to annoy the Israelis with.

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  10. "Dear little Israel is always retaliating never provoking."

    Suicide bombers, rockets falling every day, constant death threats...Nothing to get worked up about...

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  11. Steve whenever you comment on the ME you are out of your depth and seem as clueless as ANSWER or Move On.

    First, nukes trump everything. Nukes negate Israel's conventional military advantage by allowing proxy (Hamas or Hezbollah) forces to nuke Israel.

    Second, Hezbollah demonstrated that tanks can be neutralized by prepared ground and fighting positions, like El Alamein. Israeli tanks were sitting ducks.

    Third, Hamas IS the cats paw of Iran, which is why Fatah (Arab backed) and Hamas fight each other more than Israel.

    Fourth, Obama and Dems and the Media and Europe are objectively pro-Hamas. Hamas raised money and phone banked for Obama, Obama is a man raised a Muslim, hangs out with Palestinian terrorists, and has said nothing in support of Israel.

    Fifth, there are no technical solutions to Israel's biggest fear, which is short range guided missiles, as you note, but loaded with nukes. As part of an Iranian operation designed to provoke war. Iran is falling apart and NEEDS a war to promote unity, sideline internal enemies, and create a new empire.

    Sixth, unless Israel defeats Hamas with a "Roman" type operation (basically clearing Gaza of everyone and dumping the inhabitants to Egypt or Lebanon) the tactic of dug in prepared fighting positions and missiles daily will be repeated in Egypt and Jordan and Syria.

    Seventh, Gaza shows that there is no "deal" short of every Jew leaving Israel with the Palestinians, particulalry since the Iranians goad them onward to more confrontation.

    Eighth, there is no possibility of a Assad or Mubarak or Hashemite strong man because the tribes in Gaza and the West Bank are too fractured. No Alawite base, or Military Cadre or various tribal forces that can simply obliterate internal opponents. Gaza is a gunman's paradise because of the fractures, and balance of forces.

    There is no "deal" because there is no one to take the deal, and any deal short of every Jew gone from Israel will be vetoed by gunmen who prefer being gunmen to peaceful pursuits.

    Finally, now that Israel is bereft of US protection guarantees under pro-Muslim Obama and Dems, it has no reason to be "moderate" and instead give Palestinians a REAL taste of war, ruined cities, military men age 14-45 killed at the rate of 45%, starvation, etc. Along the lines of the Allied Response to Germany or Japan.

    The only constraints on Israel had been the small population which makes losses in combat very costly, and the American protection. Now that both are no longer a factor (Iran nuke threat and Obama) you can see Israel has far less reason to support the status-quo which is rapidly eroding.

    I'll note that none of the commenters here would tolerate Mexico being used to lob missiles into San Diego regularly. When Pancho Villa raided the US it provoked a US military expedition.

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  12. anseo and airtommy:

    I guess India provoked the Muslims in Mumbai too, right? As did the US on 9/11, the UK on 7/7, Spain during the Madrid bombings, Australia during the Bali bombings...

    Wake up, Muslims are blowing people up all over the world.

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  13. Israel always starts its wars. Israel always makes its own enemies, and then makes them angrier. 1947, 1956, 1967, 1982 are just the biggest examples of Israeli aggression. In between are many smaller examples.

    The solution is not better weaponry for Israel. It is better weaponry for the Palestinians. Israel only backs down when faced with a strong military foe. Israel only understands the language of force. That is most prominently seen in the case of Egypt. Israel turned down a full peace treaty in 1971 because Egypt looked militarily weak, but then after Egypt beat Israel back in 1973 (and baby Israel had to go crying to Uncle Sammy), suddenly Israel was willing to accept the same peace treaty (actually it was slightly worse for Israel).

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  14. I was an artilleryman in the Marine Corps for a number of years. While I didn't work directly with anti-air warfare, which might be somewhat more on point here, let me share a few points about ballistics that are relevant to the technical discussion here.

    The main issues are that the Qassam-type rockets are crude, simple, and fly along a high trajectory before their propellant burns out and gravity and momentum carry them toward the ground. They aren't much more than big pipe-bombs with a rocket motor. After the rocket motor burns out, you have a projectile even simpler than a mortar shell. The simplicity and relative sturdiness of design makes them much harder to disable than relatively fragile guided missiles, which require that their guidance and steering mechanisms remain in operation and that their frames remain relatively airworthy throughout flight. A lot of work has been done on intercepting guided missiles but I've never heard of any meaningful work on intercepting arty or mortar shells or free-flight rockets.

    Once the rockets reach the apogee of their flight, they either have to be destroyed outright (meaning that their casings have to be torn apart, or their very simple point-detonating fuzes, made of a nail and a bullet primer, have to be disabled) or else significantly deflected off target. That takes either a very large blast or a lot of high-velocity projectiles or fragments. Also, once the rocket has started falling towards its target, anything you detonate overhead is going to come down at lethal velocities, along with the debris of the rocket, over or very near the target (presumably a populated town or city). That's potentially even more dangerous than allowing the rocket to impact: steel rain over a wide area versus a point-detonated ground burst that dumps half of its energy into the ground.

    Regarding your specific solutions, with guns, the trajectory of the rocket is an issue. I don't know for sure the max-ord of a Qassam rocket, but I'd guess it at being at least 3000 meters. A gun would have to train on and hit (probably on the rocket's ascent over the Gaza strip) the rocket with enough energy to do the type of damage discussed above at an altitude up to and possibly greater than 3000 meters, all within a few seconds. Hitting a level-flying aircraft at 3000 meters is not that hard. Hitting a rocket that is both ascending and moving laterally is harder. That of course assumes that you even have detected and acquired the rocket in the first place, which is easiest (at least with radar) when it has reached its max ord. Thermal imaging from an aerial platform might work better at detecting the launch, and would give a few more seconds to act.

    The Israelis have made plans to purchase a CIWS-type system, like the Phalanx, based on the M61 Vulcan, but the range of such a system is only a few hundred meters. CIWS is a point-defense weapon, useful for protecting individual targets, not an entire city, and works within that range by shredding an incoming projectile with a high rate-of-fire (which might be effective against a Qassam within that range, again, if the system is able to intercept, and keeping in mind the caveat about falling debris).

    With balloons, the Israelis would have to have them all across the range between Gaza and Sderot and Ashkelon, again, 3000 or more meters up. Using balloons the way the British did works against low- and level-flying aircraft (including the Buzz bomb, an early type of cruise missile), but it's never been tried against ballistic rockets. Equipping balloons, or some other type of aerial-based platform, with their own projectiles, like missiles, might work.

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  15. The real factor is islam

    Per islamic ideology, islam is an ever-expanding force

    Israel represents a reversal for islam, islamic lands lost to the kafir

    Even more galling ,
    former dhimmis ruling muslims

    Most of the palestinians are migrants from Jordan and syria who moved in, when the jews reclaimed the desert

    Read Mark Twain
    Palestine was deserted when he visited it

    The biggest threat for israel is not Hamas, but the internal israeli muslims, already 25% by birth

    Israeli muslims have already demonstrated in favor of Hamas

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  16. I'd also point out, in addition to the technical issues with air defense (which I discussed), that the rocket attacks might be or might have been kept at an "acceptable" level to Israel, in terms of their actual threat. Qassams killing 15 people in the last 8 years in and near Sderot, a town of 19,000 mostly non-Ashkenazim, might have been tragic, but hardly a grave threat from the Israeli perspective. Russian-made Grad artillery rockets hitting Ashkelon, a city of 110,000, was a different matter but has only happened a couple of times (and Katyusha-type launchers, which is what the Grad is, are easier both to keep out of Gaza and to destroy once they are deployed than Qassams are). In either case, it's given Israel cassus belli, in addition to the reasons provided by their domestic politics and their potentially deteriorating international position, which Israel feels it might have needed anyway.

    I'm doubtful however, in contrast to claims by other commenters here, that Obama's election represents some grave shift for the US-Israel relationship, whatever the Israeli public may fear. Politically in the US, that is pretty much on autopilot, the possible weakening of the Jewish political funding machine by the Madoff scandal notwithstanding. That, and keep in mind who Obama's Chief of Staff is, and what his probable ongoing ties are to the Israeli government and intelligence apparatus.

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  17. Steve

    This insightful note -- and the way it pisses off the usual suspects -- triggered a suggestion. It has now become part of military etiquette to show how "unracist" you are by mouthing off a "never underestimate the enemy." Maybe you could investigate this further and write a column titled "Please Underestimate Them: For the Sake of Sanity and World Peace (and for the love of God)" or something.

    It could be the first step in de-escalating this madness.


    -- JD

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  18. Hamas is not driven by legitimate concerns, they are ideological fanatics. Israel completely and unilaterally left Gaza. The Palestinians can build a civilization if they choice to, instead they prefer to spend their resources and energy hating and fighting Israel. It’s that simple.

    I don’t want American involvement with Hamas or Iran. But that doesn’t mean I convince myself Iranian Mullahs or Palestinians are enlightenment rational actors.
    I could understand people saying the Palestinians were victims and only wanted land to live in peace before we saw what they did in
    Gaza.

    The Delaware comparison is quite flawed. Who Palestine belonged to 60 years ago is not obvious 1948 Israel was 65% Jewish, Palestine never existed as an independent nation, the Palestinians allied themselves with Hitler and lost land, like most of Hitler’s allies did. We don’t see German suicide bombers against Poland or Slovak Suicide bombers against Ukraine.

    To answer your questions: If a western people lost wars and as a consequence lost some of the land that they conquered a few hundred year ago went back to its inhabitant, would we transform our society into a suicide cult, the answer would be no.

    By the way, the Arabs have taken land or tried to take land from almost all their neighbors, including Kurds and the inhabitants of Western Sahara, without 1% of the outrage that Palestine has caused.

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  19. Apropos of Steve's actual suggestion (which I actually noticed, unlike most of you godda**ed experts), I am not sure if it would work. There's a lot of air up there in the sky. Land mines work because land is two dimensional; sea mines work because sea has a limited number of depths that anything interesting travels at, and the water-hammer effect makes explosives quite effective. Not so sure about the air. Right now most cruise missiles, salvo rockets, etc. have pretty low trajectories, but I'm not sure if it would be practicable for the attacker to just vary the height a little to leap over your barrage.

    In any case, the charges in the air mines wouldn't be shrapnel, which was pretty much obsolete by 1915. It would probably be some kind of prefragmented high explosive thingamajig, or maybe flechettes? I don't know.

    As far as projectiles from the Vulcan Phalanx ... 20mm is pretty big for bullets. Since they have effective high explosive versions I would call them shells.

    What we would fire at missiles, I don't know. 20mm is pretty short-ranged and altitude-limited. My guts tell me to deploy some sort of large-caliber weapon capable of using a really effective proximity-fused shells. Something like the old British 94mm or German 88. Put one in a nice quick-pointing turret ... actually, the Italians already solved this one. Use an OTO Melara 75mm with a good fire-control radar. That's my final answer.

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  20. The only and most succesful way for Israel to reduce rocket fire is to restore the cease fire. From July to October 2008 only 12 rockets where launched against Israel. Only when the Israelis broke the ceasefire in early November did massive rocket fire resume.

    See this excellent article by Paul Woodward :

    http://warincontext.org/2009/01/04/editorial-israeli-propaganda-campaign-downplays-the-success-of-the-truce/

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  21. I'll note that none of the commenters here would tolerate Mexico being used to lob missiles into San Diego regularly. When Pancho Villa raided the US it provoked a US military expedition.

    Americans are tolerating the Mexican colonisation of the US, which is far worse in the long term than missiles that rarely kill or even injure anyone. They are tolerating hundreds (thousands?) of Americans being killed each year by these Mexican colonists (especially DUI deaths). Americans are also tolerating occasional incursions by the Mexican military into US territory.

    Not only that but when Mexican citizens murder Americans, are denied consular advice, and the US is taken to the World Court, President George Bush sides with Mexico!

    And then there are the neocons like John Podhoretz, Bill Kristol and a dozen other pundits at Fox News and the Weekly Standard who think the real problem on the US-Mexican border is white American xenophobia.

    American patriots should give the Israelis the same level of support the Minutemen on the border got from Bush, the neocons, and hawkish pro-Israel liberals.

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  22. Sorry if I am a little dense, but why are any rational modern high IQ jews still living in Israel?

    There are dozens of generals in Pakistan with access to nukes. There are dozens of people in Saudi Arabia with more than $100 million in the bank each that would love to see Israel nuked. There are plenty of intermediaries flying between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan trying to broker a deal -

    $50 million in a swiss bank account in exchange for a nuke or two.

    Iran doesn't need to build nukes and North Korea doesn't have to sell nukes to Osama for Israel to get blown up.

    What am i missing?

    Seems like suicide to stay in Israel

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  23. Testing99, you are getting way too freaked out. You call one Persian nuke a "trump". To listen to you one one would think you Israelis don't have 150-250 of your own "trumps" right up your sleeve!

    And what does it matter if they have a nuke? Remember American history? Think "mutually assured destruction". You have to be tough, you have to have b@lls, but you Israelis can handle it. We Americans did for forty years.

    If not American history, remember your own history.

    Think way back. Remember the history of your race. God gave the Jewish nation the Promised Land. He told y'all to exterminate the inhabitants AND every creature that walked on the ground or flew through the air.

    So just tell the Arabs and Persians you are ready to go all Joshua on their @ss if they even dream of using their one nuke on you. They will get religion, believe me.

    Of course Olmert or Lipni making a threat like that will be the last straw for some of your more gutless brethren. They will no doubt bug out and run from Tel Aviv to New York City and Hollywood. But rest assured, we Americans will be happy to send them right back to you.

    You have more options than you imagine, so buck up. Think Joshua, repeat "it is good to die for our country" like your Mr. Trumpeldor, assure the Persians and Arabs of mutual destruction and stare 'em down.

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  24. its like iran iraq to me.... don't care for either one of them

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  25. If the Israelis were such horrible inhuman badasses that some posters here make them out to be, places like Gaza and the west Bank would have been 100% Jewish long ago. We'd be reading abut how the Jews kicked the muslims out.

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  26. They could also build in a larger secondary explosive charge that would explode when the anti-rocket missles land to earth. The point being that for every rocket Hamas sends over, a bigger one comes back. Sounds fair to me.

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  27. USMC artilleryman:

    Thanks for your expert comments. So, the issue with the Qassam rockets aimed in the general direction of that nearby Israeli town is that, since they aren't likely to hit anything in particular anyway, partly deflecting them in-flight won't do much good? Hamas could just aim them at the far side of the town and if they get a whole punched in them, hurting their aerodynamics, they'll fall on the near side of town.

    But more sophisticated guided missiles are more vulnerable?

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  28. The CRAM (Counter Rocket/Artillery/Mortar) system already exists and is in use. You can even see some video of it in action.

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4a015fdb96

    Raytheon is also working on a laser version.

    http://defense-update.com/newscast/0208/news/news_080208_cram.htm

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  29. The Israelis should compensate the rocket victims using the Palestinian tax revenue. There is no need to figure out how to shoot down the rockets.

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  30. Bluntly. Not cost effective. The missiles are homemade and cheap. They can be fired by the dozens, hundreds, even thousands. Any countermeasure sophisticated enough to stop them is unlikely to be viable in comparison. Moreover, assuming it is intended to hit a missile in terminal descent, collateral damage from the charge would just add to the damage of the surviving missile debris, which won't be vaporized.

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  31. We use Phalanxes for anti-mortar work in Iraq. But sparingly. First, it is often ureliable, being a naval system adapted to ground use - especially in Middle East environment.

    Secondly, at the end of the day, those hundreds of rounds it fires in even a short burst have to come down somewhere. Can't use them anywhere near dense populations, which will be the targets of any smart missile targeter.

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  32. I guess India provoked the Muslims in Mumbai too

    Yes, obviously

    But that's a different situation. That's a sectarian war between two indigenous groups. Palestine is facing an invasion by foreign colonists.

    Israel completely and unilaterally left Gaza.

    No, Israel did not leave Gaza. Israel pulled out its civilians, but not the military.

    The Palestinians can build a civilization if they choice to

    Now I get it! When Israel cut off electricity, water, and food from Gaza, blocked all trade, and froze banking assets, that was really part of the plan to help the Palestinians build their own society. Thanks for clarifying!

    The solution to this problem is exceedingly simple: Give the Palestinians lots of great weapons. Within a very short time, Israel will no longer want to fight. It worked in Lebanon. It worked in Egypt. It worked in Syria. It will also work in Gaza and the West Bank.

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  33. If the Israelis were such horrible inhuman badasses that some posters here make them out to be, places like Gaza and the west Bank would have been 100% Jewish long ago.

    The Israeli leadership's decision to avoid an out-and-out Trail of Tears is quite rational. The country earns a massive amount of political capital and fairly large sum of financial capital (in the form of direct aid as well as juicy trade preferences) from the Holocaust Industry. To upset this dynamic would be a death knell to Israel's viability as a nation.

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  34. I think it would be much more effective to improve the counter-battery reaction time. Right now the rocket attacks are minimally effective because they must scramble away after firing or get hit by return fire. If you have drones or balloons constantly scanning for rocket launches or mortars (perhaps through acoustic triangulation) and near instant return fire, the problem would be quickly solved. If every time you launch a rocket, a missile blows up at your location 30 seconds later, there would be far fewer rocket attacks.

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  35. "albertosaurus said...
    I have wondered why the Israelies didn't deploy something like the Phalanx Gatling gun. "

    Subsequent to the Lebanon fiasco they apparently evaluated that gun in addition to Oerlikon's Skyguard. The latter is a better system and also safer because the rounds are pre-programmed to explode at a certain place in the trajectory. So you can prevent rounds falling on civilians. But the impact power of the rounds was not sufficient to stop the rockets. So they are working on improvements. Apparently Israel is developing a rocket-based protective system but it seems it’s really a measure to bolster the local arms manufacturers since such systems are already available, even though they may not be perfect or that well suited. I'm sure money is not a problem since the EU and US will foot any self-defence bill Israel tables. There must be a short-term solution along these lines, given the array of technology out there. I would be far more impressed with Israel if they would just implement such a solution and make the Palestinians pay for its acquisition and operation. That would be smart. But the current solution just makes me lose respect for them. Its so Third World. Its the kind of behaviour you expect from African war lords, except they don't have the quality and quantity of equipment and personnel.

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  36. Jason said...
    The CRAM (Counter Rocket/Artillery/Mortar) system already exists and is in use."

    Thanks, this is what I mean. There is a technological solution to this problem already. And implementing it in order to deescalates the situation and practically render HAMAS impotent would be the mart move. There is a flurry of development in high-tech armaments companies in Europe dealing with this type of situation. So there must be something lese at play here or Israel's are just as macho as Arabs?


    "Raytheon is also working on a laser version."

    This thing is a joke. Its SciFi. You need a huge amount of energy to shoot down one mortar at a time. There are much more cost effective systems already. Please also consider Oerlikon Contraves Skyguard.

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  37. "MlR said...

    We use Phalanxes for anti-mortar work in Iraq. But sparingly. First, it is often ureliable, being a naval system adapted to ground use - especially in Middle East environment.

    Secondly, at the end of the day, those hundreds of rounds it fires in even a short burst have to come down somewhere. Can't use them anywhere near dense populations, which will be the targets of any smart missile targeter."



    This is where the US obsessiveness with itself gets in its way.

    The well-known Swiss Anti-Aircraft company Oerlikon Contraves makes Skyguard which is meant to protect airports and military bases. So it’s adapted for ground operations. In addition it has pre-programmed rounds which explode at dynamically preset points along the trajectory. So you can just let them explode before they reach the ground and save those civilians the trouble.

    The same thing happened with the artillery program. Germany has been producing the Panzerhaubitz 2000 for 10 years now. It fulfils all the essential requirements of the US Army Crusader program but the US refuses to buy because it’s German. Its now fully automated and was resoundingly successful for the Dutch army in Afghanistan whilst the US system is just on the drawing boards.

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  38. I have to admit I was unaware of Skyguard, will need to look into it. I've heard good things of the Pz2000 as well.

    I tend to agree with the notion that the U.S. obsessions with buying and making American, and one-upping every foreign innovation in the meantime, often causes it to waste billions in development for systems that are easily available elsewhere. Of course, the U.S. DOD is the second largest planned economy in the world, if you count China as one, so of course efficiency often isn't the most important factor involved in R&D selection.

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  39. Thanks MIR. I'm not suggesting the US arms industry does not make impressive things. But in certain departments, especially anything to do with ballistics, Scandinavian countries, Germany and Switzerland just have the edge which comes from traditional gunsmiths (all those years of making rifles and cannons for medieval wars). And often combining tried and tested traditional ballistics with modern electronic wizardry the US is renowned for makes for solid and meaningful systems.

    I'm always impressed with weaponry which really is defensive in the classical sense, such as the anti-ballistic system being developed by Ratheon, or Oerlikon Skyguard or PzH2000. This is the kind if weaponry which civilized people can comfortably live with.

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  40. "The Israeli leadership's decision to avoid an out-and-out Trail of Tears is quite rational. The country earns a massive amount of political capital and fairly large sum of financial capital (in the form of direct aid as well as juicy trade preferences) from the Holocaust Industry. To upset this dynamic would be a death knell to Israel's viability as a nation."


    Clueless as usual...

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  41. Of course, the tiny teritory of the Gaza Strip is stuffed with 1.5 millin Palestinians, and there most effective tactic has been to copulate heroically, as thir plan is to swamp the Israelis with sheer weight of numbers.
    It is for this reason that Isreal is doomed.
    Count on it.
    As sure as night follows day.

    A nasty by-product is that the self-same palestinians stuffed into a Malthusian nightmare, once they've beaten the Jews, will emigrate en masse to Europe and America, where the imbecillic, lick-spittle politicos will welcome 'the oppressed'.
    Count on this too.
    As sure as night follows day.

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  42. It seems like Israeli (and Western) money could be well-spent paying neighboring Arab states to offer attractive refugee resettlement to the Palestinians.

    I'm sure there's a reason why this proposal is retarded, naive, and absurd, but I would like to know what that reason is.

    While it wouldn't necessarily resolve the conflict, it could at least allow the Palestinians who wish to escape the conflict the opportunity to do so.

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  43. The Palestinians are kept on their knees by Israel. Israel's actions only serve to create a new generations of freedom fighters (or what Bush might call terrorists). It was interesting to hear Bush, last week, refer to Hamas's "coup" in the Palestinian territories. I was under the impression they had been freely elected, as per GWB's great blueprint of "democracy" for the Middle East.

    Israel is forging the nails of its own coffin. The moral blackmail of the Holocaust (which, incidentally, the Palestinians had nothing to do with although they are paying the heaviest price for it), won't wash much longer.

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  44. On the 4th January I read the following comments by Dr Paul Gottfried (a regular contributor) on Taki's Mag, in response to criticism he had received from fellow Jews about an article that had appeared on the site criticizing the Israeli assault on Gaza:

    "Larry Auster ... scolds even the Israeli Right for their timid Zionism. In his oft-stated view, the Jewish state should have already expelled or killed all of the Arabs under its control ... ".

    So what makes this any different from President Ahmadinejad's well publicized views on Israel?

    It may not be explicitly stated, but this is indeed what is happening.

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  45. The Phalanx on our ship was always broken.

    What about the German rolling airframe missile?

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  46. "It may not be explicitly stated, but this is indeed what is happening."

    If so Israel is doing a really shitty job of it. And as someone noted, they actually pay money to the palestinians. Odd for a bunch of Zionazis, to be sure.

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  47. Wait, it gets better

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090106/ap_on_re_eu/eu_europe_gaza_jews_attacked

    If this was about the occupied territories, how come this shit is going down in Europe?

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  48. "Now I get it! When Israel cut off electricity, water, and food from Gaza, blocked all trade..."

    How could Israel have done that, when it didn't control Gaza's border with Sinai (Egypt)? If Hamas made nice with the Egyptians, it could have shipped all the wonderful products Gazans produce out through Egypt.

    "Of course, the tiny teritory of the Gaza Strip is stuffed with 1.5 millin Palestinians, and there most effective tactic has been to copulate heroically, as thir plan is to swamp the Israelis with sheer weight of numbers."

    They can breed until there are 3 million of them in Gaza, what difference would it make? Gaza isn't part of Israel, and isn't claimed by Israel. If they stop shooting rockets at Israel, they could live there in peace. Or they can continue to provoke military responses like the current one. Their choice. But their numbers have as little bearing on Israel's longevity as the number of Palestinians in Jordan do.

    Bear in mind: people were predicting the imminent end of Israel 60 years ago. Sixty years later, Israel is more populous and wealthier by factor of 10. It's not going anywhere, absent a doomsday event that would kill as many Palestinians as Israelis.

    - Fred

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  49. Don't pay the Middle east much mind (Derb says it best that newspapers from the 50's say the same thing as today about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict)but I do have some pause when i see that upwards of 1000 Palestinians killed or injured after what 5 israelis died from the rockets...oh and i do hate Muslims-let me be clear about that

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  50. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5446519.ece

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  51. Eric Margolis on Gaza:

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis131.html

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  52. "Matt Parrott said...

    It seems like Israeli (and Western) money could be well-spent paying neighboring Arab states to offer attractive refugee resettlement to the Palestinians."

    I think the arab states prefer to leave the palestinians where they are, where they serve as a finger perpetually stuck in Israel's eye.

    I don't think anyone really cares too much about the palestinians. And given their predelicition for dressing up their kids in suicide bomber outfits, the better to prepare them for martyrdom, I don't find this too surprising. I don't give a flying f**k about them.

    "Danindc said...

    .....but I do have some pause when i see that upwards of 1000 Palestinians killed or injured after what 5 israelis died from the rockets..."

    And from where do we get those palestinian casualty figures? From the palestinians themselves. I would not be surprised to find out that they vastly inflated them. Even so, it does seem like a lopsided exchange ratio (40-to-1). Looks to me like they picked the wrong champions when they picked Hamas.

    Israel should have probably just turned Gaza back over to Egypt - they would have done a much better job at suppressing Hamas.

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  53. "...but I do have some pause when i see that upwards of 1000 Palestinians killed or injured after what 5 israelis died from the rockets."

    Bugs me as well...1,000 sure isn't enough. More fun video...

    http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/:entry:fivefeet-2009-01-07-0000/

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  54. John Derbyshire wrote a good article on National Review Online explaining why expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza is the best solution for everyone concerned.

    Personally, I stand with Israel.

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  55. As far as guns go, there is the electronically fired Metal Storm. I've heard some talk of it being experimentally deployed to knock out mortars. Provided it was combined with appropriate sensors, it might be able to take out crude missiles.

    Israel should have probably just turned Gaza back over to Egypt - they would have done a much better job at suppressing Hamas.

    Egypt wouldn't take Gaza at this point.

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  56. I'm really getting skeptical about this whole palestinian weapons thing. starting with all the pictures of recovered quassams - not only do they not damage anything, they evidently don't have have enough explosive to destroy themselves. The wiki article says the big ones have a ten pound sugar warhead. I guess they're counting on the Israelis getting wiped out by tooth decay. It hardly seems worth the effort, not even counting retaliation, but they would be quite dandy for a false-flag provocation. Also, where are all the smuggled in weapons? The only Israeli casualties have been by friendly fire, so far. What the pals need are the couple hundred Javelins gone missing in Iraq. Fire and forget, baby! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH4PkOhrSn0

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  57. I understand the US is full of Jews who live and breathe this stuff, but what is the US national interest in this conflict? Other than some of our tax money helping the aggressors?

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  58. "they actually pay money to the palestinians. Odd for a bunch of Zionazis, to be sure."

    Israel regularly withholds Palestinian tax receipts (which Israel collects as occupying power) as punishment. This alone is a breach of Geneva conventions. In addition most of the money keeping Gaza and West Bank afloat comes from EU, US (why I don't know) and UN plus some from Gulf states. I doubt the Pals are costing Israelis net money. That just ain't their modus operandi.

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  59. "John Derbyshire wrote a good article on National Review Online explaining why expulsion of the Palestinians from Gaza is the best solution for everyone concerned. "

    This approach may make political sense but it’s immoral and would cause an outcry in any other political setting. Most of the Pals there are the children and grandchildren of Pals who either were muscled out of their homes in 1948, or to believe the narrative "fled voluntarily". That narrative has been proven (by Jewish historians) to be mostly false, and it does not change the ownership issue either. Expelling the Pals from Gaza would be like covering up the tracks after the deed. Pals are no danger to Israel which is armed to its teeth and competes with European countries economically. There are intelligent means of dealing with pipe bombs filled with sugar and fertilizer, just like the wall solved the suicide-bomber problem. But I'm sure Israel doesn’t care much about Gaza. The place is isolated and can be dismembered easily even though there are no takers (Egypt does not want Lebanon 2.0 on its doorstep). The main problem is the West Bank. Here sits the demographic time bomb, in addition to the 20% Arab Israeli pop. The ethnic cleansing process there is more slow motion and under the radar but also more difficult to conduct. The demographic factor is what gets Israel’s elites to have conferences and planning sessions and work up a sweat, not the playtoys of the Pals.

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  60. Davis said...

    I understand the US is full of Jews who live and breathe this stuff, but what is the US national interest in this conflict?

    We benefit from seeing the global Muslim jihad derailed at least somehwere. Besides some people, like me, support Israel despite not being Jewish.

    Other than some of our tax money helping the aggressors?

    The Palestinians have been given their own government, have seen Israel expel its' own settlers from Palestine and have used the opportunity to...whine and fire cheap missiles at Israel.

    Israel needs to do to its' natives what we did with ours in the 1800's. Once the IDF has defanged the Palestinian's tribal warriors, they need to march the entire tribe to a new reservation.

    Liberal commentators keep saying this conflict could end badly and I agree. It could easily end in a Trail of Tears.

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  61. Israel regularly withholds Palestinian tax receipts (which "Israel collects as occupying power) as punishment. This alone is a breach of Geneva conventions. In addition most of the money keeping Gaza and West Bank afloat comes from EU, US (why I don't know) and UN plus some from Gulf states. I doubt the Pals are costing Israelis net money. That just ain't their modus operandi."

    Those jew bastards! How dare they prevent money from going to people trying to kill them! And that "violation" of the Geneva Conventions got you worked up? Sweet Allah, do you work for the AP?

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  62. twit said...

    In addition most of the money keeping Gaza and West Bank afloat comes from EU, US (why I don't know)...

    I don't know why we pay any foriegn aid.

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  63. (USMC Artilleryman here): Steve, a guided missile is essentially a pilotless aircraft of sorts (even a ballistic missile and certainly a cruise missile). The guidance is there to perform continuous course corrections and keep the missile on target across many miles of flight. The guidance system and control surfaces are subject to damage. The missile body itself has to act as a worthy airframe. Until a missile has completed its terminal course correction, compromising any of the above will fatally cripple the missile's accuracy. Also, the whole package has to be kept light enough for its fuel supply to get it to its target, thus making it relatively fragile. It's generally true that a higher-precision machine is more complex and thus has more things that can go wrong with it than a lower-precision one, in the same way that a BMW that costs $70,000 and can go 100 miles an hour can be taken out of commission by things that a bicycle wouldn't have a problem with.

    All versions of the Qassam are literally a step-down in sophistication even from a modern mortar shell in most particulars. As I said, we're talking literally about a flying pipe bomb. That simplicity acts to make them hard to kill.

    I'm not an expert on air defense per se, but other commentors have pointed out issues with some solutions. The Phalanx / CRAM approach is short-range, and has the problem of spitting 4000-6000 rounds per minute into the sky over a populated area. I don't know about the Oerlikon-type solution using timed or VT rounds, but I still wonder why that wouldn't spit out a bunch of fragments as well that could come down at lethal velocities. A weapon that's usually safe to use over a mostly empty battlespace in which everyone is spread out dozens of meters apart and is wearing kevlar helmets and flak vests isn't necessarily so safe to use over a city or town.

    If I were to come up with a technical solution, I'd focus on hitting the rocket teams either before they launch or at least shortly thereafter. That would mean for every rocket they lob which has only a small chance of killing anyone, they would probably lose people willing and able to launch them. Ideally, I'd put up a close air support platform that would be able to loiter and would have both high precision and the ability to monitor a suitably wide area. An AC-130 gunship would be ideal for this (Israel doesn't have any of these, and they don't come cheap: $120-$190 million each). They could be kept on station regularly, maybe constantly, over parts of the Gaza strip within range of Israeli towns. UAVs would be used in concert to extend the reconnaissance so the gunships could be directed to their targets. A cheaper but less reliable alternative might be to use UAVs to spot and track rocket teams and task helicopter gunships to chase them down, or possibly even to arm the UAVs themselves.

    Of course, this all has to be kept in perspective. These rocket attacks are a loser tactic, and have killed fewer people in more than three years than a singe reasonably lucky suicide bomber could expect to do. They don't justify in and of themselves all the extravagant solutions that might be spun out to combat them or for that matter do they explain this war. This is going on in part because of the symbolism, Israel showing a commitment not to tolerate any ongoing attacks (especially with an upcoming election and a new administration in Washington) versus Hamas showing its willingness to keep attacking Israel any way it can. It's also because of Israel's concerns that the longer things go on the way they are, eventually other and more dangerous weapons: Katyushas, a nuclear weapon, or just the Arab birthrate, will raise the stakes.

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  64. Israel should announce a new policy: for every rocket fired, roughly 10,000 Palestinians will be killed in aerial attacks.

    Specify that civilians will be targeted, especially hospitals and schools.

    The rest of the world could then take bets on how many Palestinians would have to die before the entire population decides to stop firing rockets and live in peace. I would bet on about 25 rockets (quarter million dead).

    Sound cruel? Not really. If not one rocket is fired after the new policy goes into effect, not one Palestinian dies. It's all up to them. Live in peace, or die 10k at a time.

    I'm that sick and tired of Muslims and their religion. If they want violence then shove violence down their throats until they vomit it back up and vow to Allah that they will NEVER engage in violence again, regardless of what their stupid book (koran) says.

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  65. I'm really getting skeptical about this whole palestinian weapons thing. starting with all the pictures of recovered quassams - not only do they not damage anything, they evidently don't have have enough explosive to destroy themselves. The wiki article says the big ones have a ten pound sugar warhead. I guess they're counting on the Israelis getting wiped out by tooth decay. It hardly seems worth the effort, not even counting retaliation, but they would be quite dandy for a false-flag provocation. Also, where are all the smuggled in weapons? The only Israeli casualties have been by friendly fire, so far. What the pals need are the couple hundred Javelins gone missing in Iraq. Fire and forget, baby!


    I'm with you on this. I'd give it maybe a 50/50 chance that Hamas is actually firing these Qassam rockets. Quite possible that they're either an outright hoax or else Hamas has been put up to it by Israeli agents provocateurs. (But I confess: I'm also skeptical of the tales of Palestinian suicide bombers who take out buses full of Israeli Arabs and Romanian and Thai guestworkers.)

    Has Hamas actually admitted to firing these missiles (i.e. is there a source directly from Hamas that can actually be independently checked, or do we just have US and Israeli reports that Hamas has fessed up to this)?

    In general, how is it that Islamic terrorists can supposedly take out the WTC, crash a jet into the Pentagon, hit trains in London and Madrid, etc. etc. but can never seem to kill rich Israeli Jews, who would presumably be their prime targets?!?

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  66. We benefit from seeing the global Muslim jihad derailed at least somehwere.

    Like Homer Simpson's beer, Zionism is the cause of and solution to all problems, apparently.

    Besides some people, like me, support Israel despite not being Jewish.

    Why? Are your relatives Jewish or do you find World of Warcraft boring by comparison? It couldn't be because you believe all that jazz about the uniquely humanitarian cultural values of Israel:

    Israel needs to do to its' natives what we did with ours in the 1800's.[...]march the entire tribe to a new reservation

    You'll need someone to wish you good luck with that, but it won't be me.

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  67. I support Israel because I feel bound to do so as a Christian.

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  68. "racketmensch said...

    I'm really getting skeptical about this whole palestinian weapons thing. starting with all the pictures of recovered quassams - not only do they not damage anything, they evidently don't have have enough explosive to destroy themselves."

    I'm getting real skeptical about this whole communist nuclear weapon thing. We've never been hit by a Soviet or ChiCom ICBM, so they must not exist. I say we should just unilaterally give up all of our nuclear weapons.

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  69. "Quite possible that they're either an outright hoax or else Hamas has been put up to it by Israeli agents provocateurs."

    Fatah has an obvious motive, with or without Israeli agents, to discredit/eliminate their competition and have their sources of funding restored. Why should they care if innocents are destroyed? That's what they get for voting the wrong way.

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  70. There's probably not a useful technical solution here, because the problem is political, not technical. Humans (voters) are very bad at thinking about risks from very rare but spectacular stuff like shark attacks or missiles. That's especially true when media outlets and politicians (each for their own reasons) play up the threat.

    I am glad it's not my problem to solve. I hope to God the new president knows (though of course he won't say so) that it's not our problem to solve. If I were Israeli, I'd be worried sick about where this was going. Shed too much Palestinian blood, and maybe popular support for military aid to Israel in the US takes a hit. (What happens the day it becomes apparent that The Lobby is not invincible?) Shed too little blood, though, and the genuinely nasty thugs all around you may decide you're not too scary to mess with, after all. (After the war with Lebanon a couple years back, that could be devastating, like the biggest, meanest bully in the class suddenly being discovered to have no idea whatsoever how to fight.)

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  71. Ronduck said...
    "I support Israel because I feel bound to do so as a Christian."

    Ronduck,
    I know where you're coming from and can sympathise. But I've been there, done that and come to the conclusion that Christian Zionists are just useful idiots for powers that be. Once you realise the level of disdain for Christians in the ME you just forget about this stuff. Unless you're directly on the take from interested parties, as some pastors unfortunately are, the only motive for a Christian would be the age-old temptation of beefing up your salvation a little, i.e. justification through works. It’s such a subtle ploy. Paul talks at length about this in Galatians. Unfortunately many Baptists and Charismatics in the Christian Zionists camp fall for this. Please bear in mind that we are miles away from really considering Israel's demise. That just is not going to happen militarily, perhaps only demographically and that ain't our problem to solve.
    The only other reason a Christian would act like an Israbot is the t99/FreeRepublic variant of playing armchair strategic games, something akin to playing computer games.

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  72. if t99 is a christian i'm a kwanzaan

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