re: #37 lawhawk

In just the past week alone, Israel has been hit by at least 10 mortars and a couple of kassams. This is what passes for relative quiet in Israel.

Last year, following Operation Cast Lead, it was considered a quiet period.

This is what was considered a quiet year: 160 rockets fired and hundreds of attacks and attempted attacks from both the West Bank and Gaza.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PRCs (current and former Fatah) and al Qaeda wannabe groups are all itching to resume the war against Israel.

Iron Dome is a necessity, and even then it will not have the ability to defend against certain kinds of mortars and kassams because of the lead time needed to detect and fire - it would work to defend Tel Aviv and Ashkelon from fire, but Sderot would still be out of luck when the rockets were fired with just seconds of flight time.

All of which is why I find the Obama administration’s one sided pressure on Israel for concessions to be inexplicable.
Just yesterday, several news articles reported a threat from George Mitchell of a freeze on aid ( which is entirely military) to Israel.
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