Two Became Twenty

Two Became Twenty

by

Margy Pezdirtz

It was a quiet Friday, one in which I wanted to study and prepare for the coming Shabbat, when my phone rang. Renee said, "Did you get the flyer? The one about the CAIR anti-Israel rally this afternoon at 4:30? I thought you might want to do something about it."

"No, I didn’t get the flyer. What’s happening." And that began the end of a quiet afternoon.

CAIR - Council on American-Islamic Relations - was sponsoring a rally from 4:30 to 6:00 to "to decry Israel’s attack on humanitarian aid ship share." Probably the last thing in the world I wanted to do on this very hot June afternoon was to stand on a street corner and protest the protestors. I thought about it for a moment. Could I, in all honesty and integrity, sit back in my comfortable, air conditioned home and do nothing? And what about my ten-year-old granddaughter who was with me until her parents got off work. Should I take her to a rally like this that could conceivably turn dangerous?

I thought about it for a moment and knew I had to act. If not me, then who? If not now, then when? I quickly forwarded the article on to my email list asking anyone and everyone that could to join me at 4:00 at the intersection. I called people whom I knew wouldn’t receive the email prior to getting home and told them of our intentions and asked them to call as many people as they could and to please join us.

My sister was across town with her daughter who is due to have a baby any day now. I called her and said, "Is the baby coming?" "No," she responded. "Then I have something more important for you to do." I gave her instructions and was happy when she said, "OK." I wasn’t sure I would leave my daughter in that situation, but she is as committed to Israel as I am and she knew I wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t significant.

I grabbed a box of Israeli window flags from my garage and threw them in the car along with a generous supply of ice water. An hour and a half in the sun could be a very long time and water would be necessary, not only for myself but for others who might show up. I donned white pants and my blue tee that showed crossed Israeli and America flags and said, "United We Stand...Divided We Fall" and backed out of the driveway. My heart and head were racing, and I wondered if I was walking into trouble. My granddaughter and I prayed as we drove towards the site of the rally where my son would pick her up. Rushing toward the freeway, I explained words to her like ‘flotilla’, ‘humanitarian’ and once again, "God’s love for the land and people of Israel."

In the beginning Renee and I were the only ones at the intersection where the rally was supposed to be held. We took our stand across the street from the anti-Israel bunch and began waving Israeli flags at passers by. At her suggestion, I called the local talk radio show, a conservative station, and told host Lee Matthews what we were doing. He put it on the air and soon, cars were passing by and honking in agreement with the two of us. I had told the Lee that I had Israeli flags I would give out to anyone who pulled over and asked for one.

A man in a white pickup truck was stopped at the traffic light, going in the opposite direction. He sat watching us as he waited on the light and I hollered, "Would you like a flag?" He nodded yes and I ran one across two traffic lanes to him. He took the flag and said, "I’m going to park and come help you." His name was David.

Every fifteen minutes, the radio station called for a report on what was happening. I was delighted to tell them people were listening and responding to us. He wanted to know how many there were at the CAIR site and I told him I could see seven, which later turned to eleven. As we talked on the radio, I continued to wave flags and smile at people.

Others came and joined us. One couple, Mike and Betty, said they were sitting on their porch in El Reno - a town approximately thirty miles away, when they heard on the radio about the anti-anti-Israel rally. Mike looked at his wife and said, "We better get down there."

Another couple heard about it on the radio as they were driving home from work and they detoured to our location to join us.

A beautifully dressed young woman who lives in Northwest Oklahoma City heard about it on the radio, pulled into the Walgreen’s parking lot across the street and waited for the very long light to change so she could literally run across the street to join us. She grabbed a flag and began standing watch with us.

And they continued to come. They were individuals. They were couples. Some were on their way home from work. Some were just driving by. Others heard about it on the radio and were moved to action. They were Christians and they knew this was late on a Friday afternoon when Jews were preparing for Shabbat and most likely wouldn’t be able to come join in the rally, so they responded to the invitation and stood on the hot corner, waving flags and shouting "support Israel." My spirits were lifted. I was thrilled to see the response and to hear the conversations of the people who joined us. They cheerfully pulled flags out of the bag and started waving them and giving them out and when we ran out, I ran back to the car and brought all I had.

We had a sign that said, "Honk for Israel" and people put the flags on their car windows and drove around the block two, three and four times honking for Israel. When the anti-Israel CAIR bunch mimicked our sign with one that said, "honk for Islam," people on our side of the street honked even louder and longer.

Our group had grown considerably. There were suddenly twelve and then twenty and more came as some left. One woman, riding on a large motorbike flying an American flag pulled into the intersection, parked the bike and said, "I came to join you." I laughed and said, "Welcome Biker Babe" and we continued to wave flags, hold up signs supporting Israel. I couldn’t help but give praise to God that the response from those joining us and those passing by with honking horns, were so supportive.

The CAIR group watched us and even sent someone over, dressed in intimidating black, with an camera to take our pictures from all angles. I made sure he got excellent pictures of us – what his rationale was didn’t matter. What mattered was that they – the CAIR – people saw not everyone bought their story of Israel’s unfairness to so-called humanitarian ships.

The hour and a half passed quickly and our spirits continued in spite of the hot sun. We were tired and thirsty but we shouted with the greatest of joy when one of Oklahoma City’s beautiful, large fire engines drove by and tapped out a tune of support to us on their air horn. We heard it loud and clear and I’m sure the CAIR people did as well, but there was no doubt whom the firefighters were supporting.

The rally was supposed to be over at 6:00 p.m. The hour came and went and the CAIR people stayed on. We were determined that we would win this demonstration by sheer will power, if nothing else, and we continued to stand on the corner, waving flags, shouting for Israel and laughing. Finally, at 6:30, the CAIR crowd had diminished to one person against our dozen or so remaining. We waited and watched as they packed up their last person, their signs and flags into a vehicle and drove off. Only then, did we call an end to our rally. One person in our group was determined to stay on the corner until he had given out his last flag and we left him there waving his flag and showing determination to all, reaffirming his – and our – solidarity with Israel.

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For more Background please read

Former Oklahoman National CAIR Board Member Deported

Terror in Oklahoma

CAIR-OK to Host Town Hall, Crying about Profiling of Muslims at Airports

Some pictures from today CAIR-OK 'Peace' Vigil

Obama campaign meets with Islamic Radicals

Cost of Operation Cast Lead

Israel has put a price on their recent Operation Cast Lead. This was the 22 day campaign in Gaza, and the Israelis are spending $590 million to replace damaged or destroyed equipment and supplies used, and restore troops to their pre campaign readiness.

The Israelis expended over a thousand smart bombs and missiles, and used vast quantities of fuel and spare parts to operate the aircraft and vehicles.

Reserve troops had to be paid and casualties (several hundred, although only 13 dead) taken care of. The $590 million is not the total cost of Cast Lead, but it is the bulk of it.

Mary Fallin: A new year with old tensions in the Middle East

By U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin

The new year arrived with more bloodshed in the Middle East.

It's often hard for Americans to sort out the warring factions there, but in the case of Israel's defense against continuous mortar and rocket attacks from Gaza, the situation is clear. Israel is defending itself against terrorism.

A little history might help clarify the issues.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip at the end of the 1967 Six Day War, which began when Arab countries attacked Israel. After many years, Israel agreed, in the 1994 Oslo Accords, to turn over most governing authority in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. Israel also withdrew most of the settlers who had made homes in Gaza after 1967.

Unfortunately, the militant terrorist organization Hamas later overthrew the PA and effectively took over Gaza. They almost immediately began launching mortar and rocket attacks into Israel.

Imagine if 20 or 30 explosive rockets and mortar bombs were falling in Bethany every day, launched from a hostile Warr Acres. Gaza is that close to Israeli communities. Of course Israel has a right to defend its citizens from terrorism.

The Israelis did just that in late December, launching selective air strikes and later ground attacks designed to remove Hamas leaders and terror cells. It is clear that Israeli forces are being as careful as they can in efforts to minimize destruction and civilian casualties.

Sadly, this situation merely brings more misery to the people of Gaza. They have been used and abused for years by bad leadership. Israel has routinely subsidized food and medical care for Gaza's citizens, regardless of their allegiances, because the corrupt and inefficient governing bodies that have ruled that region were unable to provide for their own people.











There have been demonstrations against Israel in some cities, including here in Oklahoma. In one case a demonstrator waved a sign bearing a Nazi swastika joined with the Star of David. That's both unfortunate and misguided.

The question is, where were these demonstrators while Hamas was bombarding Israeli neighborhoods and families with rockets and mortar shells for years?

I have had the opportunity to travel to Israel and meet with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders. I know there are Palestinians who desperately want peace and it pains me to see them endure hardships.

But the reality is that Israel has been under almost constant assault for 60 years. Hamas has publicly stated its intent to murder everyone in Israel and exterminate the Israeli nation. Israel has every right to defend itself, and like the vast majority of Americans, I support the Israeli people in their fight against terrorism.

Tank Warfare In The Gaza Battlefield

The tactical success of the Israeli military incursion into Gaza over the past week confirms a lesson I noted after the five-day Russian conquest of one-third of Georgia in the Caucasus last August: Main Battle Tanks still rule ground war, whatever the high-tech, guerrilla-war and minimum-army enthusiasts say to the contrary.

In the first four days of its ground forces' incursion into Gaza, Israel inflicted an estimated 500 military fatalities on the forces of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement. But the Israeli army forces involved suffered only five or six fatalities.

This obviously reflected the extremely poor military performance of Hamas so far. Hamas' military weakness has been in striking contrast to the very impressive performance against the Israelis of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite Party of God, in the mini-war in southern Lebanon in July 2006. On that occasion, Hezbollah forces were well dug in and they used improvised explosive devices very effectively against Israel's much vaunted, homemade Merkava (Chariot) Main Battle Tanks.

Hamas had had plenty of time to equip itself with IEDs and to train its cadres how to use them. Also, the densely populated urban maze of Gaza City should have provided plenty of opportunities to inflict significant casualties on the Israeli Main Battle Tanks. But so far Hamas forces have had negligible impact on them.

Part of the contrast obviously reflects the renewed emphasis on training, unit cohesion and sheer disciplinary toughness that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his highly respected Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi have had upon the Israel Defense Forces -- Zahal.

But there is another factor as well: While tanks have many vulnerabilities in different aspects of modern ground and guerrilla war, it is impossible to conquer a country, win a full-scale battle or hold occupied hostile territory without them.

The striking success of Russian Main Battle Tanks in the five-day conflict with Georgia last August, like the current fighting in Gaza, proves once again how crucial tanks remain to the conduct of modern war.

In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Russia used a concentration of its state-of-the-art T-90 Main Battle Tanks, which also have been sold in large numbers -- 657 in all -- to India, backed up by significant numbers of older, supposedly obsolete but still highly effective models, especially the more than a quarter-century-old T-72.

The failure of Hamas so far to come up with any tactical solution to the Israeli deployment of its venerable but still effective Merkavas. The Merkavas, like the old Soviet-era T-72 Main Battle Tanks the Russians used to such effect in Georgia, proved that masses of tanks don't have to be state-of-the-art technological wonders to be highly effective war winners. Concentrations of older models kept running through effective maintenance can get the job done quickly and cheaply.

Some pictures from today CAIR-OK 'Peace' Vigil

This picture look like CAIR-OK is looking for Peace

Should have some video up sometime tonight.

Twitter, Facebook users show solidarity with QassamCount

See my Blog Post 'Israel armed with New Media savvy' for more background...

Twitter, Facebook users show
solidarity with QassamCount

By STEPHANIE RUBENSTEIN,
JPOST CORRESPONDENT IN CHICAGO

As soon as Operation Cast Lead began to take shape just over a week ago, Dan Peguine started the program QassamCount, a system that updates users' statuses on Facebook with the number of Kassams that hit Israel.

Within the first three days, 10,000 people had donated their statuses to the cause.

Peguine first started a program counting Kassams about a week before the operation in Gaza began. He used Twitter, which sends users' statuses to all their "followers," to help people understand how often rockets hit the South.

"When you live in Tel Aviv and you read at the end of the day, '20 Kassams hit Sderot, Ashkelon,' you do not really understand what it means to live through this," Peguine told The Jerusalem Post. "So by having a feed that pops up every time a Kassam hits, I thought it would be a good way to convey this."

After recognizing the quick success of the Twitter program, to which 600 followers had subscribed in three days, Peguine decided to apply the same form to a larger social network. He partnered with Arik Fraimovich and set up the application on Facebook.

"I think that the Internet is a medium that needs to be used to reach audiences that are not usually aware of the situation in Israel," Peguine said.

"We hope to bring to the world's attention the fact that Hamas fires rockets at Israel daily," he said.

The Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) is another group that has been active in fighting anti-Semitism and terrorism throughout the Internet.

"When it comes to bias against Israel, it's very easy for our enemies to be on the constant attack," said David, the spokesman for the JIDF, who asked that his last name not be published. He said he had received death threats since beginning his activities.

The JIDF formed in response to the second intifada in 2000 and functioned on a grassroots level, mainly through e-mail campaigns. The group then began operating on various Web sites to spread news about Israel and Jewish issues.

The IDF itself has also begun an Internet effort, making use of YouTube and a blog to post official army videos and information about the situation in Gaza. The site on YouTube had nearly 11,500 subscribers as of Sunday, and its videos had been viewed over 750,000 time.

"Throughout the years, we have tried to help shape public opinion with our own brand of Israel advocacy on-line, and it's very refreshing to see Israel taking an active on-line role," David said. "The videos on YouTube showing secondary explosions have had a major impact, as do the videos and photos of all the humanitarian effort."

Israel and the Jewish People have always faced bias in the media, he said, adding that anti-Semitism and a false perception of Israel as an aggressor have played a role.

Why is the IDF wearing Chef’s hats?

Photos of Israeli soldiers taken in Operation Cast Lead show them wearing big, floppy hats that look like Chef’s hats.

What’s the deal?

They’re for camouflage.

The hat—called a mitznefet in Hebrew—attaches to a regular combat helmet and obscures its rigid, round shape.

As the mitznefet flops about, it takes on an irregular form that’s harder to recognize in a shadow or out of the corner of your eye. The hat also protects against the sun and the moon, which might reflect off the surface of the helmet. A standard mitznefet consists of reversible mesh fabric, with a greenish woodland camouflage print on one side and a brown desert print on the other.

55 targets within 220 seconds - IDF Kick Ass

The Israeli attack on Hamas forces in Gaza on December 27th, hit fifty targets within 220 seconds.

The fifty Israeli aircraft assembled off the coast, and delivered a well rehearsed attack designed to take out Hamas targets before key commanders could get away.

Israeli intelligence had discovered Hamas plans for such an Israeli attack, which involved key Hamas personnel immediately dispersing to hiding places. These included hospitals, where the Hamas men would dress in staff uniforms and blend in. Other safe havens included nursery schools, and other places where the Hamas officials would be surrounded by lots of civilians at all times. Thus the tight timing for the Israeli attack, intended to catch the key Hamas personnel before they could disperse.

Hamas knew that the Israelis have an informant network in Gaza. The key to Israeli success in dealing with Palestinian terrorists has always been an informant network within the Palestinian community. Many of these Palestinian informants are doing it for the money. Israelis pay for information. They also use other inducements (help with the bureaucracy, medical care, etc). Palestinian terrorist organizations have been unsuccessful in their attempts to shut down the informant networks, and many innocent Palestinians have died simply because they were falsely accused of being informants.

In addition, the Israelis gain a lot of information via electronic intelligence work and UAVs that are constantly in the air over Gaza. Israel seeks to make the terrorists think that it's the gadgets, not informants, gathering the information. To the Israelis, inducing paranoia among the Palestinians is seen as a successful weapon. All this has helped keep the terrorists out of Israel for nearly five years now, something no one thought was possible.

The Israelis also have hundreds of police and military operatives who can pass as Arabs (their families came from Arab countries shortly after Israel was founded in 1947). These Israelis speak fluent Arabic (with a Palestinian accent), in addition to their Arab appearance. These agents dress as Palestinians and enter Palestinian areas to recruit and run Palestinian informants. At least in the West Bank. In Gaza, the Israelis use pro-Fatah Palestinians. At least a third of the Gaza population is still pro-Fatah, and continued Hamas pressure has not changed that.

The Israelis also make use of the phone system to avoid civilian casualties. For example, the bombing campaign after the initial attack was directed mostly at the thousands of rockets Hamas had stockpiled. Most of these were stored in civilian housing. This was a technique pioneered by Hezbollah in Lebanon. There, some homes would have a basement excavated, to provide more space for rockets. Israeli intelligence is still identifying these storage locations. When one is found, the Israelis will phone the home just before the attack and tell the civilians they have a few minutes to get out before the place blows up. In at least one case, the civilians were defiant, and went to the roof, believing that the Israelis would not bomb with women and children in plain sight. In response, the Israeli fighter came in low and fired some 20mm cannon shells right next to the building. The panicked civilians fled the building and the place blew up shortly thereafter.

Israel armed with New Media savvy

The thermal imaging footage shot from an Israeli drone hovering over Gaza shows eight Palestinian militants loading rockets on to a lorry.

Within seconds, the drone’s sights are locked on to the vehicle and it and the ghostlike figures nearby are incinerated in a missile blast.

The clip was one of several dramatic scenes uploaded to the site by the Israeli army last week, the first time a national army has created its own YouTube channel.

Israel is waged 'Operation Cast Lead' on several fronts, including unprecedented use of New Media.

Israeli officials said they are satisfied that Israel is winning sympathetic media coverage that has provided its military with the breathing space it needs to continue the strikes against Gaza.

“Israel has no small measure of understanding and support and even approval from many countries,” Dan Gillerman, a former ambassador to the United Nations, said last week. “Unless something very dramatic happens, such as a blundered hit that kills large numbers of civilians, then we will have enough time to do what we need to do.”

Led by Yarden Vatikai, a former official with the defence ministry and the Jewish Agency, the directorate decided to replace the traditional wartime press conferences with a wide range of initiatives using new media.

“In terms of communicating our message, new media is the future,” said Avi Benayahu, the chief spokesman for the Israeli army, who has organised a series of workshops for his staff over the past six months.

“Explaining your actions is a kind of ammunition in this sort of war.”

The YouTube channel, established the day after the first air strikes, is currently the most popular on the site. The dozen's videos relating to the current operation have recorded hundreds of thousands of hits.

Israel has turned to other New Media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter @IsraelConsulate / Twitter @IDFspokesperson, blogs and chat rooms, often relying on former army personnel and public relations consultants, to advance its case.

In addition, reporters and diplomats have been blitzed with text messages offering interviews, briefings and tours of Israeli communities in the Negev close to the Gaza border. Other initiatives are likely to be unveiled if and when a ground invasion is launched.

“We have photographers embedded in all the units preparing to enter Gaza and we already have incredible footage that we are planning to release [if] we go in,” Dinor Shavit, commander of the Israeli army’s filming unit, told The Jerusalem Post newspaper.

Opposition politicians, including the Likud party head, Benjamin Netanyahu, have set aside their campaigns for the parliamentary election next month and been recruited to the public relations offensive.

Officials believe coverage of Israel’s actions in Gaza have benefited as a consequence. According to a survey by the foreign ministry of the international broadcast media, Israeli spokespeople have been given three times as much airtime as Palestinian representatives.

Daniel Seaman, the head of the government press office, “We know that Hamas is in complete control of the news and that reports from Gaza are carried out under duress. Foreign media in Gaza will become fig leaves for the news, and will give credibility to the reporting.”

Palestinian in Gaza Campaigning for Barack Obama

PA Arabs in Gaza
Campaigning for Barack Obama
by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

(IsraelNN.com) A Palestinian Authority newspaper reported on Sunday that Arab residents of Gaza are randomly calling Americans at home in hopes of persuading them to vote for Democratic candidate Senator Barack Obama in next month's US presidential election.

The article in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, first noted and translated by Palestinian Media Watch, quotes a young man from the Hamas-controlled Gaza region as saying, "We dial random numbers and try to call people [in the United States] without knowing their identity or their affiliation...." He reportedly uses "Internet sites that allow making free calls... in order to use them for the campaign supporting Obama."

The Al-Hayat Al-Jadida article said, "Most of the Palestinians feel hatred towards USA, whose administrations have always stood by Israel...." The Gaza-based Obama campaigner, Ibrahim Abu Jayyab, "said that a large number of Palestinians dislike their activity..." Those PA residents "do not see any difference between the American politicians [Obama and Republican candidate Sen. John McCain] because of the hostility that they feel towards America," the report explained.

"But [Abu Jayyab's] hope is that their activity will have some impact [in support of Obama]," according to the newspaper report.

Previous Support From Gaza
Abu Jayyab's freelance phone campaign for Obama in the last weeks of the American presidential race has not been the first time the Illinois senator has gotten such help. An Al-Jazeera TV report during the Democratic primaries featured Abu Jayyab as well, when he was busy organizing calls to American voters to persuade them to vote for Obama over then-candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Other types of assistance have also been forthcoming from Gaza. In July of this year, Pamela Geller of the Atlas Shrugs blog revealed documents purporting to show that the Obama campaign received nearly $30,000 from two brothers living in Rafiah, in Hamas-controlled Gaza, during 2007.

Earlier, during an April 2008 interview with WABC radio and WorldNetDaily, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's Gaza-based political advisor Ahmed Yousef said, "Actually, we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will [win] the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle."

At the time, McCain commented, "I think it is very clear... why [Hamas] would not want me to be president of the United States, so if Senator Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly."

Obama campaign spokespeople excoriated McCain and noted repeatedly that Obama has called Hamas a terrorist organization worthy of condemnation. In an interview with The Atlantic shortly thereafter, Obama warned people in the Middle East who were enthusiastic over his candidacy not to be "confused about my unyielding support for Israel's security."