Opuscula Hamas aim: Destroy Israel Or kill innocents?

 

If you think Hamas wants to destroy Israel, you are mistaken.

Hamas wants to slaughter civilians. Period. End of story.

It wants, if the Israeli government has the "intestinal fortitude," to commit political suicide by forcing Israel to take over Gaza. (This time there is no Arial Sharon to give it back until it has been disarmed and a responsible government installed.)

Either that or its leaders are imbeciles, and that is well within the realm of probability.

My logic?

I'm not a career military planner, but if I wanted to get rid of Israel I would NOT go about it by firing rockets at civilians. That's just making the people angry and causing them to demand (at last) that Gaza once more be under Israeli military control (and damn the bleeding heart liberals who will gnash their teeth and wail about "occupation").

Israel is a "revolving door" nation.

It imports raw materials.

Does something with those raw materials.

Exports a finished product.

Add under the import/export category "tourists." Tourists are hardly "raw materials," but they are a major source of income for the country.

All the imports and exports go through ports.

  Ashdod (sea)

  Ashkelon (sea)

  Eilat (air and sea).

  Hadera (sea)

  Haifa (air and sea)

  Lod (air)

  Ovda (air)

Shut down the ports ^{NOTE BOTTOM} and you almost completely isolate Israel from the world. Israel still would have access, albeit inconvenient access, to the world via Egypt and Jordan.

It's pretty clear that the "fearless leaders" behind Hamas - and Hezbollah in the north - are interested in murdering civilians and not, as they and the PA leadership proclaim, in destroying Israel.

Add to that the terrorists Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of installing rocket launchers in residential areas, of using their own civilians as shields against Israeli counter-attacks and it becomes clear that the goal is not Israel's destruction but population reduction.

Hamas doesn't even target military installations - army, navy, and air force bases. No, it saves its missiles for civilian targets.

If Israel "went away" tomorrow - and G-d willing will be it remain until the mashiach arrives - Hamas, the PA, Hezbollah, et al, could have little or no reason to exist, so the reality of it all is that the terrorists need Israel to keep money flowing into the leadership's pockets.

NOTE: When I worked for Tadiran in Holon, customs clerks went on strike. Nothing came into the country; nothing left the country. Tadiran, a huge, multi-division company, would have laid off 20% of its workforce if the strike continued beyond a specific date. Fortunately for me and other Tadiran employees, the strike was settled and we had no strike-related layoffs.

Opuscula Riding Israel's rails: From Yavne to Haifa

 

Yavne: We've been riding the rails, being convinced that the best way to (a) get from point to point and (b) to see much of the country in comfort is to buy a ticket on Israel Rail.

We rode from Yavne to near Haifa - and back.

What you discover riding the rails is that Israel is a land of cranes and fields.

Source: http://www.rail.co.il/EN/Stations/Map/Pages/RouteMap.aspx

Israel is, unlike less civilized countries, is expanding its rail system. Coupled with better-than-good bus systems, a car is pretty much an expensive option. The train to Bet Shean is expected to be operational in 2016 or sooner; bridges already are in place and awaiting tracks.

The trains are clean (!), climate-controlled, reasonably comfortable (OK, the seats are a little hard - bring your own cushion if you have a sensitive backside), have Wi-Fi and electrical outlets for computers, the ubiquitous cell phones, and other devices.

There is one caveat: the railroad cars (coaches, carriages) are packed to Standing Room Only capacity on Fridays, early Sundays, and the days before and after holidays; soldiers ride both trains and buses gratis. Still, even in SRO conditions someone will give their seat to a geezer.

Because we bought one-way tickets we paid a small penalty over the round-trip price, but even then our half-price geezer tickets were only 27.50 NIS from Yavne to Hutsot HaNifrats, north of Haifa Center - HaShmona. We changed trains twice going north and once coming south; the wait times were short.

As I write this, US$1 = NIS 3.455580, you do the math.

According to one of my sisters-in-law - here after SIL - she and her husband buy roundtrip tickets from Hatsot HaNifrats to Tel Aviv - they like to shop - and their geezer tickets include bus passes so they can ride a local bus from the train station (takana rakevet) to wherever they want to go in Tel Aviv, then return to the train station. Not bad for less than US$10. ('Course what they spend in Tel Aviv . . . )

The trains have large, fairly clean windows that allow passengers to survey the landscape as they roll by.

Near any city of consequence - and a few of little consequence - the view is a mixture of cranes raising buildings of 10 or more stories next to open fields that, depending on season, are either bare or bearing.

Old houses compete with new mid- and high-rises for space in established communities; it's easy to see a Mandatory-period structure next to a new building.

All this from a train window.