The Most Shelled City In The World

A couple of articles from The Most Shelled City In The World.

1 million Israelis are asking: "Who's next?"

Last night, Wednesday the 23rd of March, was the first time since Operation Cast Lead that an Iranian Grad missile exploded in Be'er Sheba, 40km from Gaza.

Arriving at the scene of the rocket strike Thursday morning, in the Northern neighborhoods of Be'er Sheba, brought me back to the terror scenes in Sderot of the past few years. For several years, rocket attacks were part of my daily routine living and working at the Sderot Media Center. When the Tzeva Adom (Code Red) sounded, I would go to the neighborhoods where the rocket exploded and film the scene. The next day, I would return, documenting the 'the day after, listening to the stories of residents on what occurred to them the day before.



In Be'er Sheba, I saw the same scenes I'd witnessed in Sderot: shattered car windshields; the shrapnel holes making "windows" on the homes; the radius of damage from where the missile exploded; the 'cover up' of the missile hole; like nothing happened and expecting the people to go back to normal; the holes in the iron doors; the Shabbat candles standing among shattered glasses; pictures of Rabbis hanging untouched on what remained of the walls; frightened and excited residents of the damaged or destroyed homes who just want to share their personal experience with the world; hearing story, counting the amount of times I heard the words; Luck, coincidence, and miracles.

Photo: Noam Bedein, Sderot Media Center

Be'er Sheba resident Chen Saban, a Sapir College student in her early twenties whose house was hit, described how she and her family were lucky enough to reach the secured room on time, saying she never expected her home to be hit. She said it was ironic because she goes to Sapir College, which is only a few km away from Gaza. Chen, who is supposed to get married in the next 3 weeks, is no longer certain about her future in Be'er Sheba and how she ill be able to plan her life living there.

Photo: Noam Bedein, Sderot Media Center

It was amazing to hear all this because it took me 45 minutes to drive from Sderot to Be'er Sheba, which is 40km from Gaza, with residents having 60 seconds to run for the shelter once the siren goes off. And still the same reaction and comments of the frightened and traumatized people.

Today, the more than 1 million Israelis who live in the range of 40km from Gaza are not feeling as secure as they did yesterday, asking themselves "who is next?"

Yitchak Akli a resident of the Be'er Sheba neighborhood said: "We should learn from

Photo: Noam Bedein, Sderot Media Center

the experience of 'cast lead'' that this would happen, they have (missiles) and hiding them, to launch and fire them at the right time, on any target in Be'er Sheba. It's a matter of time. They've learned our capabilities and they've learned us".


Since the last "cease fire" 530 rockets and missiles have been fired towards the South Western, past of Israel.

The Iranian Grad missile exploding in Bair-Sheba is a reminder how that a few months ago the Shin-Bet reported that there's a stack of over 5,000 Iranian missiles in Gaza, all of them having a range of 40 KM.

This is especially troubling because, in November 2009, Hamas test-fired a missile test towards the Mediterranean, reaching 60 KM, which is the distance from Northern Gaza to Tel-Aviv.

In November 2010, the ITIC reported that Hamas has missiles with an 80km range.

Almost everyone in the Western Negev knows not it's not "if'" but "when"' the next missile escalation starts, leading to the next Gaza war.

After living in Sderot for the past 5 years, watching the construction of 5,000 new bomb shelters, you don’t have to be a prophet to understand that the highest authorities in Israel know there has not been a permanent end to the rocket fire. Being realistic, Israel has to be prepared for many more years of conflict on the Gaza border.

Photo: Noam Bedein, Sderot Media Center

While Iran is certainly a threat for Israel, the biggest delegitimization threat for Israel, is with no doubt Gaza. Add to this the uprisings in Egypt and North Africa, bringing to power groups that have already declared they will end the "peace treaty" with Israel.

The harsh response that Israel received from the world media and many governments during and after Cast Lead, after the Flotilla incident, and right up to today is actually a modern-day version of a very old demonization of Jews and Israel. A tremendous effort is being made to delegitimize Israel, with the goal of eliminating the Jewish state. How Israel will deal with this threat?

How should Israel deal with this threat?  Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amatzia Chen believes that the current  policy has failed.

"In all of the previous wars, starting from the 1956 Suez Operation, through the Six Day War and in the Yom Kippur War as well, the IDF took the fight into enemy territory," Chen recalled. "The security concept was that of fighting the war we choose, and seizing the initiative. But since 1982, after that rally in Rabin Square, Rabin and Peres decided, for political reasons, that the strategy needs to be changed and that we should only go to war when there is no choice - i.e., when the sword is on our neck."

Chen said that since that decision was made, Israel has lost its deterrent capability. "Our enemies understood the dramatic change in Israel's security concept as a position of weakness. In any case, they had ceased threatening us with regular armies and turned instead to the weapon of terror. They murdered hundreds of Jews inside Israel, but controlled the bloodletting so as to enable Israel's leaders to maintain the concept that one does not go to war as long as there is a choice."

"Every Israeli citizen knows that the Israel of today is not the Israel of pre-1982."

Chen said that artillery fire on Gaza is not a proper response to the missile attack on Be'er Sheva. "We are a nation that wants to live, and there is no point in fair play when it comes to terrorists. That is not how terror is defeated. The State of Israel is a sovereign state that needs to formulate a proper strategy. Unfortunately, the strategy today is that if you are fired upon you fire back. We are, in effect, signaling to the enemies that they can continue using the same method in the future, too."

There is great anger in Sderot, a city with more bomb shelters than playgrounds.

Speaking from the city of bomb shelters

By Dave Balson

Like everyone else on the planet, I have heard about the "complicated" situation in the Middle East my whole life: promises to fix it, hopeful negotiations that crumble behind closed doors, rockets, wars, treaties, stalemates, etc. Round and round it goes until, exasperated, I figure both sides are unwilling to reach the type of tough-but-straightforward agreements that brought peace to Ireland and South Africa, and I give up. "It's complicated" is a Facebook status, not a diplomatic agreement.

I spent the last two weeks in Israel. The trip was free, as it is to any Jew, through a program called "Taglit Birthright." To any students who come from a Jewish background, I suggest checking it out. It is a free trip to Israel, if nothing else.

Last Wednesday I visited Sderot, a town of about 20,000 people in the western Negev desert, less than a mile away from the Gaza strip.

Sderot has been the target of more than 10,000 rockets fired from Gaza since 2000. Gaza is controlled by the militant Islamic group Hamas. Sderot is the only town in the 21st Century where rockets are being continually fired at a civilian population.

To deal with the rocket attacks, the town has a siren that gives residents a 15-second warning to get into a bomb shelter.

Stop for a moment and consider how far you could get in 15 seconds. Could you get to the nearest bathroom? The nearest car? The nearest stairway?

Sderot is the bomb shelter capitol of the world. Every house has a bomb shelter. Apartment buildings have bomb shelters crawling up their sides. Every bus stop is a bomb shelter and others are spaced in between; there is a bomb shelter about 15 seconds away from most places.

If you are a child in Sderot, you should hope you are in school when the rockets come. Older schools have been retrofitted with huge steel shields on their outer walls and roofs. Newer schools are literally giant bomb shelters, their paltry playgrounds nothing but dust and three safe cubes awaiting the siren's call.

Other parts of town have the type of playgrounds we grew up on: ladder up, slide down, monkey bars and the wall with a clear bubble that never made sense. They have painted a castle a nice shade of purple, and made two long concrete snakes look so vibrant and fun, you could almost forget they, too, are bomb shelters. Between 70 to 95 percent of children in Sderot have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, according to Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.

So why are people still living in this god-forsaken place? There are a few reasons. For one, housing is much cheaper there (feel free to guess why). For another, Sderot has one of the most lively and productive music scenes in the Eastern Hemisphere. The town is home to more chart-topping bands than any other in Israel and rivals any in Europe.

But the real reason people stay is because they feel they must. Sderot is internationally recognized as part of Israel. If they leave, if they give up, what happens to the next town? And the next? Rockets from Gaza can hit Israel's economic and cultural centers - Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, respectively.

I saw all this from Israel's side of the border, so I cannot speak with objective moral authority on who is right or wrong, victim or oppressor. I know everyone I talked to in Israel wants peace more than anything, and would give up land if they thought it would achieve it. I also know that people suffer in Gaza and struggle for a homeland in the West Bank.

As a commentator, I am supposed to speak in shoulds and should nots.

No one should have to live like the people of Sderot. That's all I've got.

It's complicated.

Dave Balson is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-7942 or DENopinions@gmail.com

I always allow the people of Sderot to speak for themselves.  This is their story, their struggle, their battle. What is happening in Sderot, Beer-Sheva, Ashkelon, the Negev, is the price for living in Israel.  For Sderot's residents it is the price of living on the frontier.  If they surrender their city, it will only encourage Hamas to conquer the next city, then the one after it.  Until they have conquered the whole nation.

You are not on the frontier, the front line in this battle, but you can help. The small donation that you give to the Sderot Media Center goes to help the people, especially the children of Sderot. Just a bit of your spare change will help.  To donate click here.

Children of Sderot Just Want A Little Peace

I'm Taking The Ball And Going Home!

By Findalis

Today the Palestine Authority under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen is having a Temper Tantrum over last Friday's veto by the United States.  It seems that Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen believes he is the leader of a superpower instead of a want-a-be nation dependent on foreign aid from the United States and the European Union.

Organizations associated with the Palestinian Authority in east Jerusalem announced on Wednesday that they are boycotting the local U.S. consulate.

The reason for the boycott is to protest last Friday’s U.S. veto at the United Nations Security Council meeting that torpedoed an anti-Israeli resolution.

PA and Arab leaders had submitted a request to the Security Council to vote to condemn Israel for allowing Jews to build homes within Jewish cities in Judea and Samaria. President Barack Obama had attempted to prevent the PA from submitting the resolution to the Security Council in a phone call to PA head Mahmoud Abbas in which he reportedly offered a benefits package, but all the suggestions for a compromise were rejected. This lead to the U.S. placing a veto on the resolution, which would have otherwise passed as all the other 14 members voted in favor of it.

The resolution condemns construction for Judea and Samaria Jews as “illegal” and “a major obstacle to peace.” In addition, it would state that the UN is prepared to send envoys to the region “to examine the realities on the ground.”

Senior Fatah official Hatem Abdel Kader, who holds the Jerusalem portfolio for the PA, told AFP on Wednesday that the newly announced boycott against the U.S. would see the 28 Arab local councils in Jerusalem cutting ties with the consulate.

“The Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem have decided to boycott the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem in protest against the U.S. veto,” Kader told AFP. “We will cut our relationship with all American institutions, including with USAID and we will not take any help or money from them.”

According to AFP, approximately 28 local councils have agreed to join in the boycott, which would include political meetings and contact with U.S. officials.

Kader said that “The boycott will continue until the U.S. administration changes its stance on the Palestinian issue, especially towards the settlements [the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria – ed.].”

Kader added that the PA also expects an apology by the Obama administration for using the veto.

Full Story

“We will cut our relationship with all American institutions, including with USAID and we will not take any help or money from them.”

Is this a promise?  Will they return the $1.2 BILLION that has already been sent?  Will they stop our arming their Police Force?  What do you think they would say or do if the US were to cut them off completely?

President Obama is many things but in the game of politics he is no fool. There are only 2.5 million Muslims in the US and 6 million Jews with large voting populations in key Electoral College states of New York, Florida, and California.  Not to mention the millions of Christians who are deep supporters of Israel.  Yes the veto in the Security Council last Friday had more to do with November 6th, 2012 than with any resolution of the problem with the Palestinians.  In fact it had a lot to do with trying to convince Jews to support him in his re-election bid than any thing else.

Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen really doesn't have anything to worry about.  Give Barack Hussein Obama a few weeks and will bow down before him the way he has done before:

Next to be done to Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen!

Let Your Prayers Ring Out!

By Findalis

For the People of Christchurch, New Zealand. As of writing this at least 65 people are dead, hundreds maybe thousands wounded.  Destruction on a massive scale.

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand – A powerful earthquake slammed New Zealand's already-bruised city of Christchurch on Tuesday, killing at least 65 people, and sending rescuers scrambling to help people trapped under collapsed buildings.

The 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit the country's second-largest city around lunchtime, collapsing buildings and sending bricks and other heavy debris toppling into busy city streets. It was the second major quake to strike Christchurch in the past five months.

Prime Minister John Key told reporters that the death toll was at least 65, and was expected to rise further.

Video footage showed some multi-storey buildings collapsed in on themselves, and others with walls that had collapsed into the streets, strewn with bricks and shattered concrete. Sidewalks and roads were cracked and split, and thousands of dazed, screaming and crying residents wandered through the streets as sirens blared. Groups of people helped victims clutching bleedings wounds, and others were carried to private vehicles in makeshift stretchers fashioned from rugs or bits of debris.

Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker declared a state of emergency and ordered people to evacuate the city center. Troops were deployed to help people get out and to throw up a security cordon around the stricken area, Deputy Prime Minister Bill English said.

Full story

 

The first quake of 6.3 hit 6 hours ago, followed by 5.6 20 minutes later, a 5.5 aftershock hit 4 hours later.

Major Earthquake has hit Christchurch, New Zealand



The damage is massive, as is the loss of life.  But unlike Haiti, the people of New Zealand are luckier. New Zealand is a rich nation, with good hospitals and a support service ranked at one of the best in the world. To be injured or homeless there is less of a hardship than those in Haiti went through and still have to endure.

Remember to say a prayer or two for these people.  And hope that the death count stays low.

Cutting Off Their Noses To Spite Their Faces!

By Findalis

That is what the unions in Wisconsin are doing. Instead of paying into their pension plans and having a co-pay for their Cadillac Healthcare Plans, they insist on forcing requiring the taxpayers of Wisconsin to foot the bill.

The trouble is that Wisconsin is broke. There is no money in the till for these luxuries. Something is going to have to be cut.  If not the luxuries, then it must be workers.  12,000 of them in fact.

If changes aren't made to the benefit contributions paid by Wisconsin's nearly 300,000 public sector employees, about 10,000-12,000 workers will lose their jobs, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker warned Sunday.

The Republican governor has been targeted by protesters for nearly a week for negotiating a bill now in the state Senate that would require workers to increase their contributions to pensions and health care coverage, would limit collective bargaining rules and tie raises to inflation.

But Walker said while the state enjoys a lower-than-average unemployment rate -- about 7.5 percent compared to 9 percent nationally -- about 5,000-6,000 state workers and 5,000-6,000 local government workers could lose their jobs if they don't accept changes to their benefits plan.

"I don't want a single person laid off in the public nor in the private sector and that's why this is a much better alternative than losing jobs," Walker told "Fox News Sunday."

The budget vote was supposed to take place last week, but was delayed when state Senate Democrats fled to Illinois to avoid having to vote on the plan, which would cost public sector employees about $300 million over two years, or less than 10 percent of the deficit total.

President Obama, whose group Organizing for America, has bused in some of the nearly 70,000 protesters outside the state capitol on Saturday, last week called the bill "an assault on unions."

Walker said the president should stay focused on fixing the federal budget, which is $1.5 trillion in deficit this year. The president's plan, rolled out last week, proposes $1.65 trillion in deficits next year.

While union workers say they've been blindsided by the governor's plan, which he campaigned on through the midterm election, they also say Walker has unfairly targeted public employees while giving tax breaks to businesses worth about $117 million.

"We expected concessions, but we just didn't think there was a mandate for this. We didn't see him getting rid of collective bargaining," said Gary Steffen, president of the Wisconsin Science Professionals, the union that represents state scientists, including crime lab analysts, biologists, chemists and foresters.

Under the governor's proposal, unions still could represent workers, but they could not force employees to pay dues and would have to hold annual votes to stay organized. Only wages below the Consumer Price Index would be subject to collective bargaining, anything higher would have to be approved by referendum.

Walker said he hoped "cooler minds will prevail" and lawmakers will come back to vote.

"Democracy's not about showing up in another state," he said.

Full story

The state could choose the 12,000 to be fired from the assembled idiots at the capital.   Heck, Governor Walker should pull a Reagan maneuver on the union and give them 24 hours to get back to work or they get fired.  It worked against the Air Traffic Controllers, and will work here.

Another Battle Over Sharia-In South Dakota

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

South Dakota State Senator Dan Lederman is introducing legislation in that state to insure that no foreign or shariah-type law can infiltrate the state law. Jerry Gordon of the New English Review (The Iconoclast) has the story. And guess who is also mentioned in the article; our good friends in the Islamic Circle of North America, who held a dinner Sunday in Yorba Linda, California.

http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/32673#CurDomainURL%23/blog.cfm

Kudos to the Jewish & Christian Coalition of the Midwest. Kudos to Dan Lederman.

Yorba Linda Protest

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk

(Weasel Zipper)

Can you spot yours truly? (No jokes, please).

On Sunday, February 13, an estimated 1,000-1,500 people showed up at the Yorba Linda Community Center to protest an event hosted by the Islamic Circle of North America, in which the speakers were two known radical imams, Siraj Wahhaj of Brooklyn and Amir Abdel Malik Ali of Oakland. The protest cranked up a few hours before the ICNA dinner began and featured plenty of American flags, some Israeli flags, and several speakers (including yours truly). The event was also covered by the OC Register, KABC News of Los Angeles, and the LA Jewish Journal. Below are some of the reports.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=7957092

http://www.landofgraciousliving.com/protesters-out-in-force-against-muslim-speakers/

http://www.nocconservatives.org/?p=1331

Many of the attendees were affiliated with ACT for America (Riverside and Orange County chapters). Featured speakers included the mayor of Yorba Linda, three city councilpersons, US Congressman Ed Royce, two rabbis, a young woman from Egypt who had left Islam, one of my activist pals and yours truly. This event was intended to be a protest against radicalism and hate, and in that spirit, none of the speakers said anything objectionable. The ABC news crew began filming the speakers, but switched to another site when the dinner attendees began arriving. The reason is that about 100 protesters had taken up a position near the parking lot (which was barricaded by local police). They began chanting patriotic slogans like, "USA, USA, USA" and "No sharia". There were also some chants of "Go back home", (which I did not care for). I Personally stayed away from that part of the site. Yet, the protest remained peaceful (if noisy), and the police did a good job. Several hours before the event, I spoke with a couple of residents of Yorba Linda who were setting up some posters on the outside sidewalk which I felt were over the top. I asked them to reconsider the posters, but was getting nowhere until a young local pastor prevailed upon them to remove the signs.

ABC News was allowed into the event itself for only a few minutes to get a couple of sound bites of the speakers and an ICNA official speaking like true moderates. The speakers, Siraj Wahhaj and Amir Abdel Malik Ali, are anything but moderates. (I think Ali would actually be offended if you called him a moderate.) If you see the news videos, all you will see is the hundred or so protesters who were chanting at the attendees.

To be sure, the ICNA and their cohorts will label this as some sort of racist event. It was not. Hopefully, this may represent a turning point where the American people state unequivocally that we will not surrender our rights.

I am hoping to add a few more photos and a video of my speech

The Islamic Circle of North America in Yorba Linda-Why These Two Speakers?

Gary Fouse
fousesquawk


Tomorrow, the Islamic Circle of North America is sponsoring a charity dinner in Yorba Linda, California (Orange County), in which the two featured speakers are imam Siraj Wahhaj of New York and iman Amir Abdel Malik Ali of Oakland. Both of these gentlemen are anything but moderate voices. Here is what Discover the Networks has to say about them.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=716


http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2102


I have never attended a Wahhaj speaking event, but I have attended several of Ali's speeches over the years at UC-Irvine. I always make it a point to challenge him in the Q&A's and on two occasions, debated several points with him after his speeches when there was no time for Q&A. While Wahhaj seems to try and portray himself as a moderate in spite of all his documented utterances, Ali makes no such effort. During his last appearance at UC-Irvine in May 2010, he told a questioner that he was a supporter of Hamas, Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad. He also stated that he supported Jihad on campus "as long as it was speaking truth to power." Moments later, he told the Jews in the audience, "You Jews, Y'all the new Nazis." I was there and heard it all.

I have also heard him refer to "Zionist Jews" in Obama's entourage ("David Axelrod, Zionist Jew", "Rahm Israel Emanuel" and Rupert Murdoch-"Straight up Zionist Jew". In addition, I have heard him state that "suicide bombers in Israel are not terrorists, they are heroes and martyrs."

Now comes this so-called mainstream, moderate organization with their charity dinner in Yorba Linda featuring these two speakers. How in the world can this bunch ever again claim to be a moderate organization?

Perhaps, Discover the Networks has known it all along.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6380

I guess I've answered my own question.