Israel's Military Spend & Saudi Mugs

1. Hamas never could deliver a total ceasefire. It, like Fatah, is not in full control of the events there are too many weapons and too many militias. Even the political wing of Hamas is not in full control of the military wing.
2. The IDF interdicted an attempt by Hamas to repeat the Shalit seizure raid. But whereas in Shalit case they were not ready for such an action, in the reported event they were. Hamas as far as I am aware does not dispute that a force had been readied to launch the raid. So Hamas intended to breach the much vaunted ceasefire and was ambushed by the IDF, and the Israelis by doing this breached the ceasefire.

A Plague On Both Their Houses! They are both wrong. But the Palestinians are the main losers!

It doesn't matter if a man holds a stick, has no stick or even beats the tiger with the stick, the tiger will always win.
Violence has only delivered more Violence for everyone.
Military action against the Israelis would make sense if the PLO or Hamas or any other group had a chance of succeeding. But they don't!
How many lessons do we have to attend to learn that with each round of violence the Israelis get stronger?
How many dunams of Palestine must be lost until we learn these lessons.
How many Palestinians must die until we learn these lessons?
How many years will pass until we learn that the Muslim communities aren't coming to free Palestine?
By the time the Muslim world has the technology and the military competence and will to beat the Israelis and destroy Israel, there will be no Palestine left!
We laboured under sumud for years with the command wait we will liberate you. And when the Israelis let them come back, what then. Liberation??? No we got kleptocracy, murder, torture, lawlessness, organised crime.

Sorry Mazin, once again you have listened to the nonsense you have heard in the media. This site shows the actual statistics of the missiles launched at Israel. As you can see, they never really stopped.

Did Mark Regev really say that Israel had broken the ceasefire - I thought he had merely admitted to entering Gaza to blow up the tunnel the Palestinians were digging into Israel. Israel certainly did not invade Gaza - it just went in to try and capture the tunnel diggers.

Just saying something does not make it true, no matter how many times you say it. Only the gullible uneducated people believe propoganda like this - the rest of the world is now too wise to accept this sort of rhetoric without checking, especially when it comes to muslims, well know for exageration and twisting the truth. It does not help Palestinians in any way - in fact it harms their cause.

Concentrating on the I/P conflict of course, has always been the main way Islam tries to deflect the horrors of Darfur, the Yemen, South Thailand, the Phillipines and the human rights abuses happening all over the muslim world. It is old hat and only works to agitate the less educated masses of the muslim world.

Fact is that there was not one month during the six month "hudna" when the Palestinians did not fire rockets into Israel!. Hamas gets around this by saying "we didn't fire the rockets" and they may well have not, but as they know exactly what is going on in their territory and have tight control over it they must have know exactly who was firing the rockets and should have ensured that it didn't happen.

The last thing the ME needs is more weapons. Even if the various factions had more weapons it is highly doubtful whether it would produce the outcome you desire. Weapons are not the answer, even if you regard a military solution as being desirable.
The fundamental weakness remains the poor quality leadership and military skills across both the militias and the national armies. Basic infantry discipline is missing at the ground level and there is no culture of seizing and holding territory. On a basic infantry discipline level comparisons between the conduct of IDF and Palestinian militias in non-combat and combat situations can readily show the weaknesses. Each time there is a funeral or some celebration the TV news shows us images of militia fighters blasting off copious amounts of ammunition to no benefit military benefit, it is just boastful noise. A clip of Kalashnikov 7.62mm ammunition costs far more than a Palestinian family's daily income. Even on the open market 7.62x39mm ammunition costs about 25 US cents on bulk purchases,the costs to the militias is muchhigher as they have to pay for transportation (smuggling). So eventually the cost is around 50 US cents. Thus the price of an entire clip is US$15. The average wage in Gaza is less than US$2.
We do not see the IDF blasting away with their rifles into the air. Besides being dangerous to bystanders (& people are killed & injured by falling bullets), it is enormously wasteful.
The illustration I provide is a small example of waste. If you extend that to the thousands that are spent producing the Qassam rockets and purchasing RPG's etc the cost becomes astonomical. There is also almost no residual value in military equipment, once a bullet or rocket is fired that's it. There is no money to buy advanced military equipment.
On the other hand investment in healthcare, education, regeneration, housing all produce residual value and RoI. If there was commitment to invest in the fabric of the Palestinian nation with the same enthusiasm as there is to buy military hardware then Palestine would be booming, regardless of world trends. Since 1993 there has been a dramatic fall in the incomes of the average Palestinian as they are now largely cut off from employment with Israel and access to israeli markets is also severely limited.
Regardless of how anyone feels about the Zionists, there are many lessons to learn from them. If we look at the first decades of modern Zionism they invested in infrastructure, health, enterprise and employment., and laid the foundations for their success. Our expactations and demands of the IDF are implicitly in recognition of the superior organisational and individual discipline they demonstrate.
Deluding ourselves that somehow with just a few more bullets that there will be a Palestinian state is pure fantasy born of shame and self-deception. In pursuit of a Palestinian state we have nothing to offer than non-violence. Every violence act serves to reinforce their hardliners and to alienate the Palestinian cause from the nations we need to apply pressure on the Israelis.
We need to massively develop the Palestinian economy to provide jobs. Not only for those un / under-employed at the moment, but also for all those fighters who have no peacetime skills. If we don't then the fighters will continue to dominate the debate and we will remain in the endless cycles of violence, in which we routinely lose.
If we collectively decide to continue the war then we should not cry when we and our children get hurt. Let's not pretend that the "justified resistance" is any better than the IDF's excesses. Let's not pretend that our children are more innocent than their children. let's not pretend that our bombs exploding in their civilian centres are more moral than their bombs exploding in our civilian centres.
If we want a future then build it with what we have to hand today. If we want war then prepare to die, because some of us will.

and that is why Israel spends so much on its defences.