Iron Dome has brought nothing new to the table, and it has not solved the inherent problems of a defense system based on missiles trying to intercept enemy rockets. Therefore the rejoicing and the preening in the wake of the test’s success hide the far bleaker truth.

The public relations campaign accompanying the test is full of deceptions and half-truths. It has ignored the flaws in the systems and has created illusions. This is because Iron Dome will not protect the communities directly surrounding Gaza nor, apparently, locales even further away from the Strip.

In likely scenarios of rocket fire on the home front, the stock of Iron Dome missiles is liable to run out way before the rocket barrages end. And in any case, because of the high cost of using Iron Dome for defense, the Palestinians in the south and Hezbollah in the north can defeat us at the bank, without even launching a single rocket.

To begin with, Iron Dome is not capable of protecting the “Gaza envelope” because of the Qassam rockets’ brief flying times. A Qassam makes its way from Beit Hanoun to Sderot in about 14 seconds. Iron Dome needs about 30 seconds to make an interception attempt.

That is – the system is not capable of protecting anything at a distance of less than four kilometers from the Gaza Strip.

This bitter truth was discovered in 2008 by cabinet ministers, who decided to fortify all the locales less than four and a half kilometers away from the Strip. This known fact did not deter the security establishment representatives from deluding the inhabitants of the “Gaza envelope” into thinking that the success of the Iron Dome test means protection for them.

But the problem is even worse. While the Qassams launched at Sderot were relatively slow, during the course of Operation Cast Lead Hamas was already launching third-generation Qassams, Grads and improved Grad models. These are three or four times faster than the earlier models.

A simple calculation reveals that in the face of this threat, Iron Dome’s minimum range has increased from four to 12 and perhaps even 16 kilometers.

Under such circumstances, Iron Dome will not be able to protect even Ashkelon.

Another deception spread by the media was the statement that henceforth the southern locales will be protected not only from Qassams but also from mortar shells, a claim that not even the developers of the system are making.

Nevertheless, when reporters and pundits hailed Iron Dome’s ability to intercept mortar shells, no one from the defense establishment bothered to correct them.

Another problem is the price of the interception. An Iron Dome missile will cost about $100,000; a Qassam costs several dozens of dollars. An attempt to prepare for the launching of thousands of rockets (as in the Second Lebanon War) entails an untenable cost in the south as well as the north – where the threat consists of about 40,000 rockets in Hezbollah’s hands.

Worse still is the plan to deploy another system developed by Rafael – Magic Wand. The price of one missile in this system will come to about $1 million.

The inhabitants of the western Negev, Kiryat Shmona and the Upper Galilee have to know the truth. They must not follow blindly the trumpet blasts of the media festival that has accompanied the successful test of Iron Dome. This dome is not going to protect them.

Haaretz, 13/1/2010

Benny Ziffer

Haaretz 27/11/09

The autumn of 2009 is not so tragic, but far more cruel and pitiless. Mijal Ziser is an astounded witness of the treason of her Government which, instead of being the institution which should protect her more, covers up between politicians and State for those officials who, acting as such, should have avoided the death of her son.

In the autumn of 2003, Mijal Ziser was not the only victim of carelesness and irresponsibility. Two more families lost their little babies while others saw their infants strive between life and death until they became total invalids for their entire lifespan.

Thanks to the tireless dedication and cleverness of Dr. Aviva Fatael from the Tel Aviv Medical Center, it was discovered that the origin of this strange and lethal occurrence that took away so many babies originated from the lack of a critical component of a food supplement, the formula of which is controlled and authorized for sale by the National Ministry of Health.

The initial reply of the officials involved deserves special mention because it shows a clear picture of what each of them interprets as his/her area of responsibility and duties and shows the courage of some to face extreme situations. The Israeli company importing and marketing the above products immediately washed its hands off the problem and transferred the guilt to the German manufacturer.  The National Ministry of Health authorities, who were the ones who authorized the sale of the product withouth taking the necessary previous approval steps, passed the responsibility onto the importing company.  It is worth mentioning the courage of the top officials of the German company who publicly admitted their guilt. What a difference!

A few months ago, after the corresponding police investigation and intervention by the prosecutor, legal court procedures were started against the authorities of the importing company and officials belonging to the National Ministry of Health responsible for the control and sale authorization of medicines and food supplements.  

In the course of October, in the first days of the autumn of 2009, Mijal Ziser and all those who worry about the Rule of Law, were suddenly informed of a gross intervention by the executive and legislative powers into the judicial. The information leaked confirms that Parliament is discussing and will probably pass a project of law by which they refuse to assume all legal responsibilities and forbids to start legal action against those public officials in charge of control who could have originally been taken to court on charges of negligence whatever the damage they could have caused or avoided.

The above initiative does not come from a parliament members scheming to advertise themselves. This Project is backed by the National Government and originated from the National Ministry of Health, the maximum authority in matters of Health which, by coincidence, is in the hands of a Jewish orthodox minister belonging to a current of thought whose members brag about representing all Jewish values. The State is showing a total loss of care for human life and is not ashamed of legalizing the impunity of its representatives, inclusive in cases in which the life of inocent human beings could have been caused or spared.

It would attract much attention if World Jewish Leaders who strive so much and so rightly against the moves to get impunity for the people responsible for the AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, would try not to get involved in face of a gross similar oficial project destined to protect transgressors from Israel, in spite of all the patriotic chanting usually sang by them.

Or is it that they make a difference between accused and victims?

Hopefully I’ll be wrong.  

 Daniel Kupervaser

Herzlya – Israel 29-10-09

http://daniel.kupervaser.com/blog/

As an example, the next lines detail a few notes published and catalogued as innocent that, on the same day (October 13, 2009), the majority of Israeli citizens overlooked with indiference.

1. Erdogan: “Innocent children from Gaza were attacked with phosphorus bombs” (Ynet October 13, 2009). This horrid statement accusing Israel did not come out from the lips of a classic veteran enemy, nor from a red traitor reader of  “Haaretz” – the much criticized left-wing journal – but no more and no less than from the Prime Minister of a State that has been the most important strategic partner of Israel in the region for more than 50 years: Turkey.  Meanwhile, the much discussed Israeli Chancellor, Avigdor Liberman, applied the tradicional Israeli answer and replied without blinking an eye: “Turkey has decided to approach the axis of evil”. The well-known liberal Israeli concept came to light: either one is a Jewish floor mop, such as the American governments, or one is part of the die-hard anti-semitic enemies. No middle of the road to walk on.

2. “Extreme right-wing pamphlets for the making up of bombs to be used against homosexuals” (Haaretz 13 October, 2009). In Adei Ad, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, pamphlets instigating the use of home-made bombs against homosexuals as well as instructions to make them were found. It is worth while recalling that, a couple of months ago, a gay club in Tel Aviv was brutally attacked by masked people resulting in the death of two young men. Strangely enough, and contrary to the common results in the case of Arab terrorist activities, law and order in general and the powerful Israeli intelligence system have neither been able to find the pamphlet writers nor, of course, to locate the attackers.

3. “Israeli police deploys a secret camouflaged unit to operate within the Arab-Israeli population” (Haaretz, 13 October, 2009) The Chief of Police reported that he lacks the information infrastructure to ´deal with´the Israeli Arabs and that this new unit will be a big leap forward. Its main purpose is not ‘to deal with’ delinquency – with roots so much into the Arab as into the Jewish population; the purpose is ‘to deal with’ the Arabs. It would be quite interesting to find out what statements would be made by the Israeli Ambassador to Argentina or the DAIA President should they happen to learn that Argentine police forces deployed a special unit of highly trained and camouflaged agents with Kipa and Talit (ítems of religious Jewish clothing) to extract information from corrupt or potentially delinquent Jewish individuals.

4. ‘Children of foreign people born in Israel shall be deported at the end of the school year’ (Ynet, October 10, 2009). Members of the Israeli Cabinet that took part in a meeting with the Prime Minister informed the the 1,200 children of foreigners, workers and refugees, shall not be entitled to any kind of protection and shall be banished at the end of the year term. The above statement deals with children born in Israel whose daily language is Hebrew, their friends are Israelis, attend schools with an Israeli curriculum, are ready to serve in the Jewish Army, are not thieves or have good-for-nothing parents; their only bad point is that they were born from non-Jewish parents that arrived in Israel to survive starving conditions or persecution in their country of origin.

My late grandfather, Bernard Kupervaser, who instilled in me the real values of humanist judaism and who, at the beginning of the past century was forced to emigrate to Argentina where he found a haven from persecution and the possibility to honestly keep his family as a farmer, would have surely been deeply upset and turned in his sacred grave if he had happened to learn what nowadays is done in the name of Judaism.  Even the urgent claim from the organizations composed of Holocaust survivors cannot bend this firm and deep-rooted racist stand, the only aim of which being to guarantee Israeli ethnic purity.

5. Rally in front of the Main Courts of Law: “Do not be silent before the murder of a little girl’ (Walla news, October 13, 2009). On the first days in January, 2007 an Israeli Jeep drove into Anabta, an Arab West Bank village. In the midst of the hostile crowds and flying stones the soldiers shot rubber bullets and a 10-year-old girl, Avir Aramin, fell dead at the side of her school from a hole in her head. Mysteriously, the Israeli State Prosecution decided to file the case records in spite of all its power and facilities as it does not consider itself capable of proving whether this girl died from a shot or ‘a stone thrown by her neigbours’. The Israeli Human Rights Association Yesh Din (Justice exists) made a complaint before this high tribunal demanding a revision of the above decision as well as requesting crimes of this nature not to be so grossly covered up. 

6. ‘The Jewish Agency decrees an end to olim ceremonies (new Jewish immigrants) at the Western Wall’ (Aurora, October 13, 2009). The Jewish Agency will put an end to nationalization ceremonies of new immigrants at the Western Wall Square according to the requests made by the rabbi responsible for the place. The rabbi’s demand is based on that Jewish religion demands sex seggregation and forbids women to be seated next to men. It is again proved that, in some aspects, religious Jewish behaviour is similar to that of the Talibans that, quizzically enough, has been the object of too much laughter and criticism.

7. To quote the Betzelem Human Rights Organization: ‘ Israeli soldiers sabotaged Arab vehicles in Hebron’  (Walla News, October 13, 2009) According to this report, 8 vehicles with Palestinian workers, whose only crime was to illegally work in Israel in order to survive, were intercepted by an Israeli patrol in the Hebron zone. In the course of the chase, the workers escaped from the vehicles which were set on fire and thrown down the cliffs by the soldiers. The report attaches photographs where one can see a vehicle enveloped in flames with several burning tyres underneath to spread the fire. The army made its usual answer: ‘this occurrence seems to be in contradiction with the soldiers’ instructions and shall be duly investigated’. We shall see.  

8. The army suspended the chance of humanitarian help to human rights Jewish organizations that had the purpose of speeding up the obtention of transit permits outside Gaza in special cases. (Haaretz, October 13, 2009) From now on, only the normal procedures remain in force and this presupposes a strong impediment or a long delay, especially in serious cases such as invalids, patients with complicated illnesses and/or students that do not constitute a security risk.

The image depicted by this group of news shows a country that has taken the wrong road and is being led by seggregational policies fed on an instinct of revenge and cruelty that bears little relationship with real defence. On the one hand, the racist, seggregational, fanatical, fundamentalist and indiscriminate use of force attitudes are worsening and deepening and, on the other, the majority of the population feel indiferent to and immune from the results of such a worrying image. Only a few, criticized and reproached by the apathic majority, are capable of sounding the alarm about the dangerous roads taken by the Israeli society. We are becoming more and more similar to other societies or processes of the old days, the memories of which are terrifying.  

I hope I am wrong.

Daniel Kupervaser

Herzlya – Israel October 14, 2009

http://daniel.kupervaser.com/blog/en

Yitzhak Laor: Public opinion, where art thou?

By Yitzhak Laor

The avaricious sortie by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his courtiers to Paris was sponsored by a state in which a third of all children live under the poverty line; Barak himself is supervising the starving of Gaza and its 1.5 million inhabitants. All this ties in well with Israel’s current political crisis, which revolves around a crisis of representation: Whom does Ehud Barak represent apart from the arms dealers and military elites? How can the commonwealth’s citizens demand accountability in a manner that would force le petit empereur to reply? The answer is they can’t.

Israel’s political society is essentially a club of advocates. Those advocates are portrayed to constituents as their representatives. The public is invited to elect those representatives, who are feeding on propaganda money, to a term in office. The public is only allowed to choose from the limited offering available, and essentially gives the advocates carte blanche until the next elections. “Public opinion” is not consulted until those next elections, when it is offered such tantalizing choices as “He’s not a pal, he’s a leader,” “He will defend Jerusalem,” and “Who will take on the ultra-Orthodox’s extortion?” Anything goes.

The formerly representative institutions of Israel’s never-too-representative democracy are all but gone: the unions, the workers committees, the protest movement, and most importantly, the political parties as organizations based on membership, chapters and conferences. We’re left with the Knesset factions, which are staffed with the above-mentioned advocates who are wealthy enough not to give a damn. There will be primaries before the next elections. Barak will take to the podium on some kibbutz and speak out against the settlements, and then go on building them regardless. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will talk about the Holocaust, and then give a macho speech at the UN. We’ll be called up to agonize over which is the least repugnant. That’s all.

At the end of the new century’s first decade, Israeli democracy is being administered by four elites: the political elite (which includes influential journalists), the financial elite (which excels in extraordinary cowardice when it comes to opposing the powers that be), the military elite (whose power is greater than anyone would like to admit), and the academic elite (whose role is to legitimize the other three elites). These elites ensure society’s approval for each other, as in the words of the Talmud, “whores fixing each other’s makeup.” Their supreme indifference to public opinion is most visible in moments when they might be held accountable. This is where you’ll find senior officers violating laws accompanied to court by entire lobbies of comrades-in-arms, or that Tel Aviv University dean about whom a court said there was “not a grain of truth” in his claims, but got to keep his job despite clear hints from the judge to the university.

And as indifference goes, there’s nothing quite like the apathy toward the horrors in Gaza while they were happening, despite clear knowledge of what was happening. But the “consensus,” for which a price is now being exacted in Geneva and might soon be exacted in The Hague, was not reached by idiotic solidarity with the military and its orchestra of propagandists in the vast majority of the media, it was ensured by the continuous disconnection between “public opinion” and the political elite. “Public opinion” hasn’t had influence over any level of government, a situation amply illustrated by the failure to release Gilad Shalit or curb the settlement project.

When public opinion doesn’t influence anything for years it dies out, at least while its subjects are law abiding and don’t become military or tax objectors. The paralysis gripping Israelis in everyday life is fed by the emptying of political life of democratic content. Hence the thrill when “the world is against us,” or when “we’re up against the world” – the world in the latter case being the besieged Palestinians. On occasion, “public opinion” stumbles on the Armenian genocide, because that’s what the politicians told it. And the next day comes a new patriotic thrill.

Haaretz Newspaper, 21/10/09

It seems that young Barack Obama has not learnt from his grandfather that, in the political tangle of the Levante, the different parties can be harsh, indocile and, quite often, deceitful. With the candidness of a brand-new president, he has put his mind –with all his strength and tenacity– to solving the Middle East conflict in a pest-infested forest, and, like in the story of the old hunter, has not hit the target. In clear contrast with his original purpose, and based on the great disparity between his preliminary demands and the feebleness of his treatment of Israel, Obama has provoked the death and final grave of the idea of a Palestinian State. For Israel, that act of weakness is enough for the Jewish State of Cisjudea to be founded ‘de facto.’ The dream of a Palestinian State of Cisjordan is now history. This may be the future result in all the territory, just as a substitute for the State of Israel, in the frame of a binational state.

In his famous Cairo University speech, Obama broke through like a meteorite, with the image of a handsome leader heading the world’s mightiest superpower, and demanded the creation of a Palestinian state together with an immediate freezing of all Israeli Cisjordan settlements. Today, after the pale image the meeting between the leaders of Israel, the United States and the Palestinian Authority left in us, and only five months from that renown speech, we can sadly assert that Obama gave us the impression of a cheap politician who tried to sell his goods with the artful and seductive words of someone who has the world’s power in his hands, but eventually turned out to be hollow and sterile, from a weak leader who was easily subdued by the Israeli political and military power, and the economic control of Jewish groups and lobby in the United States.

Obama has fallen on his knees in front of a Netanyahu that, in a hypocrite manner demands from Abu Mazen whether he wants to be like Arafat (the bad one) of like Sadat (the good one), whereas the Israeli Prime Minister openly denies the least possibility to negotiate what was Sadat’s main demand and highest achievement: Israel’s complete withdrawal up to the last inch from Egyptian territory conquered during the 1967 war.

Obama’s capitulation was so humiliating that at the very moment he’s declaring at the UN General Assembly podium that Israel should withdraw to the 1967 borders, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak took care to humiliate him public by divulging to the four winds a new order from his office authorizing the immediate building of new houses for Jews in the Karnei Shomron colony, right in Cisjordan center. Obama could not do anything but swallow this bitter pill.

Obama was cornered in a shameful position. It is very contradictory and dangerous to impose drastic conditions and to criticize Israel when the latter answers with political blows, making fun in front of his face while Obama responds with impotence and passivity, the US being the supporting spinal cord and endless financial source of Israel. The same source that, directly or indirectly (a question of appearance that in the national pocket is but a gross lie) finances every civilian settlement in Cisjordan.

Reports detailing the events of this tripartite summit are a clear example of the lack of knowledge of factors that impel the parties, especially Israel’s. There are those who regret missing the opportunity; others mention the importance for the meaning of the simple fact or the meeting, greetings and picture in common. Others still, put all their expectations in the result of renewed unconditioned negotiations starting on that date.

It is clear that for the Palestinians, the weak party, lacking in possibilities and influence unless with American support, there just remains to participate in negotiations, pray and long for a drastic American intervention. The Jewish party, convinced that it has the Americans under its control, has already started to implement its plan. It will participate for an indefinite time in the parody of negotiations, and, at the same time, pushes full throttle (and, typically, hiding) the machinery of creation and establishment of the new State of Cisjudea, widening and deepening the civilian colonization in all Cisjordan.

Unlike the State of Israel, which conducts itself –not in every aspect, but in its majority– by a legal and democratic order, the State of Cisjudea has a ’special order for Jews.’ While in Israel’s declaration of independence “the development of the country will be promoted for the benefit of all its inhabitants,” in Cisjudea a clear discrimination in favor of the Jewish inhabitants will be stressed. While in Israel the same document stated the principles by which “complete equality of political and social rights will be ensured to all inhabitants without difference of creed, race or sex,” in Cisjudea there will be an Apartheid system in favor of the Jewish population and in detriment of the Palestinian population. Arguments about “security” are but a vulgar lie in order to allow the army to serve as pawns that protect the civilian conquer of the territory, which is nothing to do with Israel’s “security.”

In Cisjudea, Palestinians lack the majority of political rights and they do not enjoy full liberties as it is the case of its Jewish inhabitants. The Police is responsible for public order among Jews, whereas the Army is for Palestinians. Civilian justice is the frame for the Jewish population, whereas Palestinians have to show up before military courts. The road and thoroughfare system consists of separate lanes for Jews, where Palestinians are denied access. Likewise, central services for the supply of water and communications are based on different systems.

Not in vain, both for Israel as well as for Cisjudea, there are not defined territorial borders. The territorial ambitions of Cisjudea’s rabbis and leaders, who really hold the power –and not the Israeli government–, are still far from being satisfied. Cisjordan is only a part of what inspires its heroic hymn: “The Jordan River has two banks, one is ours (Cisjordan) and the other one too (Transjordan).” It is to assume that the superior command of these colonizers has already programmed the fight that will give way to the conquer of Transjordan. It would be cautious to quicky advice King Abdallah of Jordan to start looking for a comfortable apartment in London, for example.

As an epilog to this show, we only have left for the Jewish people to thank the great contribution of Barack Obama. Not his political-military-economic inconditional support to Israel, which surely will carry serious complications in the future. Jews should thank Obama that he’s put an end to the history of this weak and defenseless people. It is now clear that the political-military power of Israel, together with the economic one of the diasporas Jews, especially of the United States, are a world power who even the mighty Americans are afraid of when confronting it.

Hopefully I’ll be proved wrong

Daniel Kupervaser

Herzlya – Israel  26-9-09
http://daniel.kupervaser.com/blog/en