Category: war

Android unit testing and Mazer Rackham

כבר אמר מייזר רקהאם (“המשחק של אנדר”) שאין מורה כמו האוייב.
נזכרתי בזה במהלך המלחמה שלי בבניית בדיקות יחידה לאפליקציה לאנדרואיד בסביבת הבדיקה של API 24 והלאה.
Mazer Rackham (“Ender’s Game”) said: There is no teacher but the enemy.
I was reminded of this during my war of building unit tests for an Android application in the testing environment of API 24 and later.

The son of Cast Lead operation and Gilad Shalit

Once the Israeli Cast Lead like military action against Gaza Strip starts, it is necessary to organize daily demonstrations next to the White House to get Obama to support the Israeli military operation and not to call for stopping it until the Hamas free Gilad Shalit in exchange for ceasefire and nothing else.

The demonstrators there should be all those silly crazies who demonstrate today next to the Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s house with the demand to release Gilad Shalit at the price of humiliating surrender to the Hamas.

הבן של מבצע עופרת יצוקה וגלעד שליט

ברגע שתתחיל הפעולה הצבאית הישראלית, בסגנון עופרת יצוקה, נגד רצועת עזה, יש לארגן הפגנות יומיות ליד הבית הלבן כדי לשכנע את אובמה לתמוך בפעולה הצבאית הישראלית ולהימנע מלדרוש מישראל להפסיקה באמצע עד שהחמאס ישחררו את גלעד שליט תמורת לכל היותר הפסקת אש.

מי שאמורים להפגין שם זה כל הטיפשים המשוגעים שהיום מפגינים ליד ביתו של ראש הממשלה ביבי נתניהו בתביעה שהוא ישחרר את גלעד שליט תמורת כניעה משפילה לחמאס.

The Onlo Solution to the Gaza Strip Problem

In this article I’ll try to suggest how would Salvor Hardin solve the problem of the Gaza Strip people (see also The Salvor Hardin plan for Syrian-Israeli peace).

E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Second Stage Lensman, chapter 22 “The Taking of Thrale” describes how the 2nd stage Lensman Nadreck (one of the goodies) performs psychological manipulations on the people of the planet Onlo (one of the groups of the baddies). The result of those manipulations was that once provoked, all people of Onlo slaughtered each other with the exception of three commanders, who then were slain by Nadreck.

Given Gaza’s Culture of Self-Destruction, it may be possible to design propaganda, a framework of blackmailings and bribes, manipulations and provocations, analogous to fictional Nadreck’s methods, such that the Gazans will kill each other in an orgy of frenzied assassinations – as long as there are people who adhere to the self-destruction culture. This may eliminate Gaza Strip as a problem for Israel.

There are precedents from the Roman Empire – they employed the Divide and Rule strategy for subjugating rebellious people, such as the Jewish nation about 2000 years ago. However they didn’t go as far as inciting a people to commit self-genocide.

There is the question whether the Onlo solution to the Gaza problem would be moral. To settle this question, consider the following.

  • The Gazans strive to kill Israelis. Israel has a right to self-defense.
  • If the psychological manipulations are properly designed, they would work only on those who follow the culture – exactly those people that are dangerous to Israel.
  • Neither Israel nor the rest of the world have the resources to deprogram all Gazans and peacefully eliminate their culture. So this problem is equivalent to the problem of dealing with a plague of infectious disease, for which the available economic resources may produce a cure only for very few people.
  • The Gaza Strip happenings may serve as a lesson to the Moslems worldwide, getting them to reject militancy and turning all branches of Islam into truly peaceful religions. This could save more lives than any lost in Gaza Strip.

How is the Left in Israel undermining efforts to release Gilad Shalit and why?

During the last several months, I noticed that the strongest voices in favor of accepting Hamas’ terms for release of Gilad Shalit, and against tough negotiations – belong to the Left.

The question, then is:  why does the Left press Bibi Netanyahu to surrender to Hamas in the negotiations over Gilad Shalit?

The Leftist movements in Israel, such as Peace Now, have an agenda of demonstrating against the Israeli leaders whenever they try to play tough in peace negotiations with the Arabs, as if playing tough is equivalent to wish for war – rather than wish for peace from better position.  They throw to the winds the maxim that negotiations which end in satisfactory results – start with tough-looking bargaining positions.

In the case of negotiations for Gilad Shalit’s release, I suspect that the Left knows that the key for Gilad Shalit’s release is to act tough and even be cruel toward Hamas activists in Israeli prisons.  However they do not want that the Israeli public be exposed to the experience of tough negotiations with successful outcome.

Therefore, the Leftists would sabotage the process of negotiations by blaming the Israeli leaders for “abandoning” Gilad Shalit only because they try to play tougher in negotiations with Hamas.  Nevermind the fact that true abandonment means that no one is giving attention to the abandoned person; rather than having to do with the specific kind of attention being given.  The Leftists demonstrate – not against Hamas or the International Red Cross – but against Bibi Netanyahu and the other Israeli leaders.  They try to persuade Netanyahu to release dangerous terrorists, whose release is sure to lead to tens and hundreds of Israeli victims.

Seems that for the Left, it is better to keep the Gilad Shalit problem unsolved, rather than risk the lesson that playing tough in negotiations pays huge dividends.

The Salvor Hardin plan for Syrian-Israeli peace

According to Michael J. Totten, the ruling class of Syria can never make peace with Israel on their own, as they are Alawites – a minority in Syria. If they make peace with Israel, they’ll be considered as traitors and the Sunni majority would revolt and drown the Alawites in blood.

In the following I’ll try to formulate how Salvor Hardin would have dealt with the problem of getting Bashar al-Assad to make peace with Israel.

Since it is Salvor Hardin, the following principles are relevant:

  • “Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right”
  • “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent”

The key is to save Assad’s face and convince the Sunni in Syria that by making peace with Israel, Assad really does them good rather than being a traitor.

The plan would be as follows.

  1. A pretext for starting hostilities against Syria could be its hosting and supporting the Hamas leaders, who are opposed to release of Gilad Shalit for free.
  2. Hostile action would be to demonstrate power and ruthlessness by bombing some critical infrastructure, such as irrigation dams or key bridges. However, the hostilities are to be sufficiently surgical that there’ll be no casualties or bodily harm to people.
  3. The next step would be to prevent reconstruction of the destroyed infrastructure as long as there is state of war between Syria and Israel.
  4. Once Syria capitulates and agrees to make peace with Israel and has accepted the humiliation of peace without the Golan Heights returned to it, Israel would extend economic aid to Syria in order to repair and upgrade the infrastructure destroyed during the hostilities. See below.

The biggest problem in carrying out the above plan is international public opinion. One way to counter it is to earmark few billion dollars for rebuilding Syria once there is peace, and arrange for those companies (presumably, French ones) which currently have construction contracts in Syria and are in position to get reconstruction contracts (for rebuilding Syria) to pull ropes and arrange for public relations so that there’ll be support for Israel’s actions.

In favor of identifying with Shalit family’s pain, against freeing Gilad in exchange for terrorists who murdered Israelis

  1. My accounting is simple:The terrorists, who were released in exchange for Elechanan Tanenbaum few years ago, have murdered 29 Israelis by now in terror attacks.

    There is no doubt that the terrorists, whose release is demanded by Hamas in exchange for freeing Gilad Shalit, will murder even more Israelis in the next few years.

    The only difference among Gilad Shalit and those Israelis is that today we know who is Gilad Shalit, and we can associate with him a photo, parents in distress and a life story.  Whereas those dead Israelis are today nameless and we have no way to associate with them a photo, grieving relatives or life story.  Only after they have lost their lives, we’ll know who they were.

  2. Another aspect which no one seems to have thought about:Suppose Gilad Shalit is freed in exchange for all those terrorists and returns to live in Israel.  How will his life look like under the burden of Israelis who are killed or otherwise put at risk by those terrorists?  Won’t he feel obliged to live up to them as they sacrificed their lives to release him?  Won’t he be able to enjoy his life as a free man without onerous obligations?  Would he be able to live normal life under the weight of obligations to those who risked and sacrificed their lives to secure his release?

Unequivocal Palestinian Victory

The following is an adaptation of the English translation of a talkback, which I wrote in response to an article in Ira Abramov’s blog (written in Hebrew), which commented on the results of the elections held in Israel at 2009 February 10, whose results showed the decline of the Israeli Left.

I do not think that the Israeli Left lost the elections due to leadership failures, divisiveness or other nonsense.

I think that it was a victory of the Palestinians in their war against the Israeli Left, pure and simple.

  • After Rabin’s murder at November 1995, there was widespread support for Shimon Peres (who advocated the same pro-Palestinian policy, which caused Yigal Amir to murder Rabin). Until the elections were at last held at 1996, the support passed to Bibi Netanyahu and he won landslide victory in the elctions. Who helped him? All those Palestinian terrorists, who exploded busses during the months between murder and elections.
  • One of the consequences of the Al-Aqsa intifada, which started at 2000, and which included terror attacks committed by suicide bombers almost every day, was that several people from the Israeli Left felt that they no longer have a partner in the other side, and withdrew support for policy of appeasement toward the Palestinians.
  • The third round of the war between the Palestinians and the Israeli Left was held during the years from the Disengagement until now. The By continuing to launch missiles from Gaza Strip into Israel, the Palestinians provided ammunition to those forces in the Israeli Right, who opposed the Disengagement and demonstrated and blocked roads in an attempt to stop the Disengagement.

After such battles, which ended with unequivocal victory of the Palestinians, why does anyone still wonder that the Israeli Left lost its influence over Israeli politics?

Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev

During the last few days, I have been alarmed by the news that the families of the soldiers abducted by Hezbollah and Hamas are suing the government in the Supreme Court in an attempt to force it to weaken itself in its negotiation tactics with Hezbollah and Hamas.

My concern is that those families are not taking the long range view.

The way they are pursuing now has the consequence of weakening the Israeli ability to deter its opponents. Thus, few months or years from now, Hezbollah and/or Hamas will abduct 5 soldiers. Then the families of those newly-abducted soldiers will be furious at the Shalit, Goldwasser and Regev families for preventing the government from adopting the hard-line stance, which would have deterred our enemies from ever kidnapping Israeli soldiers.

Contrary to popular opinion, this is not a personal Olmert issue. Any Prime Minister, faced with the same situation, would have to adopt a similar course of action.

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007
Some of the stories are startling. For example:
#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran
#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed

The information is slanted against Israel – see:
#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall
On the other hand, the story of Palestinian terror acts, before the Wall’s construction was started, is not widely known outside of Israel and is not in the list.