16 Oct 14. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday openly mocked boasts still being floated by top figures from the Palestinian Hamas faction – the most significant rival to his own Fatah faction – to the effect that the terror group had emerged victorious from its confrontations with Israel over the summer. Hamas had through a range of gambits drawn Israeli security forces into both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with Jerusalem launching Operation Protective Edge and Operation Brother’s Keeper respectively. Jerusalem’s Gaza campaign was initiated due to an escalation in months-long Palestinian rocket barrages, and escalated further into a ground conflict after Hamas commandos began launching attacks inside Israeli territory via underground attack tunnels. Hamas broke 11 ceasefires over the 50 days of fighting, before finally capitulating and accepting long-offered terms in the face of heightened Israeli moves to decapitate its command and control infrastructure. The summer West Bank campaign, Operation Brother’s Keeper, was triggered by the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by Hamas terrorists. Israel eventually captured and killed the terror cell responsible for the attack, in the process exposing and uprooting a massive terror plot aimed at seizing control of the West Bank. Hamas leaders nonetheless responded to the immediate cessation of active violence by claiming victory, triggering sometimes arch responses from observers. Abbas on Wednesday blasted Hamas on Egyptian television – with the comments being conveyed by various Israeli media outlets – demanding “for what did we suffer through those 50 days? We had 2,200 fatalities, 10,000 injured, 40,000 homes and facilities and factories destroyed. Tell me, what did we achieve?” Responding more specifically to Hamas’s positive assessment of the conflict, Abbas emphasized “I don’t want to delude myself by saying: It was a victory… [w]hat victory?” The stakes in the debate are not academic. Regional and even global actors are engaged in ongoing diplomatic and geostrategic jockeying in the area, and Hamas is seeking to position itself as both willing and able to reignite a war should its post-conflict demands not be met. Top analysts in the American intelligence community have been explicit in assessing that the Gaza war constituted the literal definition of military defeat for Hamas, and losing a war of choice constitutes a particularly weak position from which to be making demands. (Source: theisraelproject.org)
15 Oct 14. Japanese General Calls on US Military to Confront China. In stark contrast to White House policy, a top Japanese general on Tuesday said the U.S. military rebalance of forces to the Pacific should confront Chinese aggression in the region. Japanese Gen. Kiyofumi Iwata, chief of staff of Japan’s Ground Self-Defense Force, said that “some countries want to change the status quo by force” in the region. “This is a reality we must face up to,” Iwata said. He then made clear his intent with a reference to China’s declaration late last year of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea to include the disputed islets called the Senkakus by Japan and the Diaoyu by China. China warned at the time that aircraft passing through the ADIZ without identifying themselves could be subject to “emergency measures.” Iwata said the U.S. and Japan should coordinate on “countermeasures to potential attacks” on the islands, and also develop plans “to recapture the islands in case an enemy invades.” Iwata’s blunt remarks contrasted with those of Gen. Vincent Brooks, commander of the U.S. Army Pacific, and Scot Maciel, principal assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, at a forum on the Asia-Pacific rebalance at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting and exposition in Washington, D.C. Maciel said it was wrong to view the so-called “Pacific pivot” as a “rebalance against China.”