First Iraq then the EU and next America?
All they are doing is trying to drive the pay rate down!
” Business executives and politicians endlessly complain that there is a “shortage” of qualified Americans and that the U.S. must admit more high-skilled guest workers to fill jobs in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. This claim is echoed by everyone from President Obama and Rupert Murdoch to Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.
Yet within the past month, two odd things occurred: Census reported that only one in four STEM degree holders is in a STEM job, and Microsoft announced plans to downsize its workforce by 18,000 jobs. Even so, the House is considering legislation that, like the Senate immigration bill before it, would increase to unprecedented levels the supply of high-skill guest workers and automatic green cards to foreign STEM students.
As longtime researchers of the STEM workforce and immigration who have separately done in-depth analyses on these…
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How many more are there?
Netanyahu’s dilemma: Back Obama’s save Hamas policy, or fight for its downfall with Egypt and Saudis
Re-Post from DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis July 28, 2014, 12:05 AM (IDT)
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu entangled himself Saturday and Sunday, July 26-27, in the net he had cast to blur the effect of the unanimous decision by the security-political cabinet of Friday to turn down the ceasefire proposals proposed by US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The two diplomats and their partners, a brace of European ministers and Qatar and Turkey, who met in Paris to concoct a peace framework for Gaza, were privately dubbed by wags in Jerusalem the “Save Hamas Squad.”
Netanyahu tried to present the flat cabinet “no” to the ceasefire as a “no, maybe.”
His purpose was to leave an opening for the US and UN to ginger up their pro-Hamas framework for ending hostilities in the Gaza Strip by incorporating elements that Israel’s security needs half way. If that was done, Israel, he indicated, would be amenable to joining lengthy ceasefire accords with Hamas, or even making unilateral halts in violence.
He explained to his close circle that he was performing these maneuvers to gain international legitimacy for Israel’s large-scale counter-terror operation against the Palestinian extremist organization in the Gaza Strip, now it its 20th day. This would be especially timely ahead of the UN Security Council session on the issue due to take place in New York Monday.
The trouble with this pretext is that the large measure of international sympathy Israel enjoyed in the early days of its Operation Defense Edge against Hamas’ rocket barrage collapsed the moment President Obama sent Kerry to the Middle East last week, for a bid to save Hamas before it was mown down by the IDF.
The Palestinian Authority was much more open and blunt than Netanyahu in its disapproval of the game that was being played out in Paris. Walid Assad, one of the spokesmen of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas protested what he called Kerry’s “appeasement” of Qatar and Turkey at the expense of Egypt and the PA, and his failure to invite either to the meeting for discussing a ceasefire in Gaza hostilities.
Senior Palestinian officials warned against attempts to “bypass the PLO as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”
In the legitimacy stakes, Netanyahu has three solid allies for crushing Hamas: Saudi King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi and the UAE ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Sunday, Mahmoud Abbas attached a Palestinian voice to this group.
This regional coalition has enormous clout, derived, on the one hand, from the Israeli military and its fight against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian army’s containment of Hamas efforts to break out into Sinai for strategic depth; and, on the other, from the financial might of Saudi Arabia and the oil emirates and the world prestige they enjoy.
So why is the Obama administration shoving this powerful coalition out of his way and building a rival alliance to counter it?
Its primary motive is fear that if this group is allowed to make the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip a success, it will become the springboard for its next move, a victorious assault on Iran.
This sequence of events would totally derail current US Middle East policy, which hinges on détente with Tehran, Obama’s advisers warn him, and even jeopardize his strategy for bringing the nuclear negotiations between the six world powers and Iran to a successful conclusion.
Netanyahu’s shilly-shallying between approval and rejection of Gaza ceasefires is the outcome of his dilemma: Sticking with the first solid alliance Israel has ever acquired in the region would cost him a deep rift with Washington. But going along with Kerry’s plan would cost Israel more in security against one of the most dangerous Islamist terrorist organizations on earth.
Vacillation by a war leader increases the dangers to his troops and the risk of missing its goals. A wishy-washy formula was thrown up in Jerusalem to cover this period of uncertainty: “Quiet will be met with quiet and fire will be met with fire!
This slogan was used at the start of the operation against Hamas. Its response was the contemptuous ramping up of rocket fire against Israeli population centers to 100 a day – which in turn, triggered Israel’s ground operation eight days ago.
Half measures will not go down well with the Israeli public, which, even after losing 43 servicemen in action in the Gaza Strip, is still solidly behind the operation. A poll conducted by TV Channel 10 Sunday found 87 percent of those canvassed demanding that Israel press on, and 69 percent urging the government to go al the way and overthrow Hamas rule of the Gaza Strip.
With the US, Europe, Iran, Qatar and Turkey at its back and a wavering Israeli government putting the IDF Gaza operation on stop-go, Hamas can afford to carry on shooting rockets at Israel when it chooses before, after and in the middle of its own ceasefires.
There might a slowdown for the three-day Eid al-Fitr which starts Sunday night. But not necessarily. The Palestinian extremists may use an outburst of violence during the Muslim festival to rally their coreligionists across the Muslim world for huge marches of solidarity behind them. This could present Egypt and Saudi Arabia with a predicament.
Netanyahu will meanwhile have to resolve which way to jump, one of the hardest decisions any Israeli prime minister has ever faced.
Hamas won’t give him the peace to make up his mind. It has plenty of firepower and rockets left to keep Gaza violence and attacks on Israel on the boil, while making good use of the rising toll of Palestinian deaths in the fighting to place all the estimated 1,060 deaths squarely at Israel’s door.
Sunday, July 27, 2014, the Palestinian extremists received another shot in the arm from Iran, a phone call to politburo chief Khaled Meshaal from Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, with a promise to make up Hamas’ losses of weapons in the war with Israel.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossen Amir Abdolahian traveled to Beirut to discuss with Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah, how they could help Hamas.
by, Shezad Baloch | The Express Tribune | h/t Trop
There has been fierce fighting near Tripoli airportBritish people in Libya should leave the country immediately because of growing instability there, the Foreign Office has said.
It said it was advising against all travel to Libya because of the “greater intensity of fighting” in the capital, Tripoli, and the likelihood of further attacks on foreigners.
It said several options were available for leaving by commercial means.
There are believed to be between 100 and 300 Britons in Libya at present.
The British embassy in Tripoli remains open, but is operating with a reduced staff.
The Foreign Office said its ability to provide consular assistance was “very limited”.
EvacuatedSince late 2013, a number of foreign nationals have been shot dead in Libya. The Foreign Office said further attacks were “likely”.
The updated travel advice comes amid reports of at least 30 deaths in clashes between Libyan government forces and Islamist militants in the city of Benghazi.
There were also reports of intense fighting near Tripoli airport. More than 20 people are said to have been killed.
On Saturday, the US evacuated its embassy in Tripoli, citing a “real risk” because of the fighting.
Libya’s central government has increasingly lost control over the country to rogue militias in the last two years, says the BBC’s Rana Jawad in Tripoli.
July 27, 2014
In the adjacent posts John and I draw on the commentary of David Horovitz and Barak Ravid on John Kerry’s promotion of a ceasefire that toes the Hamas line in Gaza. Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization with which Kerry is prohibited from dealing directly under American law. Kerry’s efforts nevertheless serve Hamas and betray Israel as well as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE in Hamas’s war on Israel. Not a surprise, perhaps, for those of us who hold a low opinion of Barack Obama and his disservice to American interests around the world, but important to understand as events unfold in and around Israel.
Drawing on Israeli sources, the Times of Israel staffers report on Kerry’s efforts as follows with an added credit to Avi Isacharoff, who is a ToI columnist with good Arab sources:
Israeli government sources on Saturday night accused US Secretary of State John Kerry of “completely capitulating” to the demands of Hamas and its champion Qatar in drafting the Gaza war ceasefire proposal that Israeli ministers unanimously rejected on Friday.
The unnamed sources, quoted by Israel’s Channel 2 TV, said Kerry “dug a tunnel under the Egyptian ceasefire proposal” — which Israel accepted and Hamas rejected last week — and presented the Israeli government with a text that accepted “most of the demands” raised by Hamas, the Islamist terror group that rules the Strip.
To the “horror” of the Israeli ministers, the Kerry proposal accepted Hamas’s demands for the opening of border crossings into Gaza — where Israel and Egypt fear the import of weaponry; the construction of a seaport; and the creation of a post-conflict funding channel for Hamas from Qatar and other countries, according to the sources. The proposal, meanwhile, did not even provide for Israel to continue demolishing the Hamas network of “terror tunnels” dug under the Israeli border.
Rather than provoke an open diplomatic confrontation with the United States, the report said, the appalled ministers chose not to issue an official statement rejecting the Kerry terms. Instead, word of the decision was allowed to leak out.
The cabinet was meeting again on Saturday night to discuss all aspects of the 19-day conflict with Hamas. Ongoing efforts were being made to reformulate the ceasefire terms, Israeli sources said.
Channel 2′s diplomatic reporter Udi Segal said “voices” from the cabinet had described Kerry as “negligent,” “lacking the ability to understand” the issues, and “incapable of handling the most basic matters.”
The Channel 2 report said that some of those involved in the contacts with Kerry had suggested that “perhaps there was some kind of misunderstanding” or that Kerry “was only presenting a draft” of the offer, but the secretary himself gave no indication that this was the case when he expressed his disappointment that no ceasefire had been agreed during a press conference in Cairo on Friday night.
Israel and Hamas did maintain a humanitarian truce through Saturday evening, during which Israel continued to track and demolish some of the Hamas tunnels. Hamas ended the truce unilaterally on Saturday night and resumed rocket fire.
*****
Israel was also fuming Saturday over the tactics followed by Secretary Kerry since Friday night in his ceasefire quest.
Kerry flew to Paris and held talks Saturday without representatives of Israel, the Palestinian Authority or Egypt, but with Qatar and Turkey, which Israel’s Communications Minister Gilad Erdan said showed “we’re a long way from a political solution.”
Privately, Israeli sources signaled deep dismay that Kerry engaged in the talks in Paris with representatives of Turkey, whose leadership is openly hostile to Israel, and Qatar, whose leadership is seen by Israel to be representing Hamas’s interests. Egypt was also understood to be deeply dissatisfied with Kerry’s tactics.
Israeli government sources also privately contradicted Kerry’s assertion Friday that his ceasefire proposal was “built on” the Egyptian proposal from last Tuesday. Far from resembling the Egyptian proposal, which urges an immediate ceasefire followed by negotiation, the Kerry proposal leans heavily toward Hamas, the sources said, in tying Hamas preconditions to a cessation of hostilities.
*****
On Friday afternoon, The Times of Israel published what Arab sources said were the key terms of the Kerry offer, which indeed made no provision for Israel to be able to continue tracing and demolishing the cross-border tunnels.
An Army Radio report on Friday night highlighted that the US on Monday signed an $11 billion arms deal with Qatar, and noted that Qatar is championing Hamas’s demands in the ceasefire negotiations, and is also alleged by Israel to be financing Hamas’s rocket production, tunnel digging infrastructure, and other elements of its military infrastructure. The radio report also claimed that Ban Ki-moon “is flying around the region on a Qatari plane.”
Channel 2′s respected Middle East analyst Ehud Ya’ari said Saturday that Turkey and Qatar are “Hamas’s lawyers,” and that it was “very worrying” to see how Kerry was handling the ceasefire process.
Isacharoff’s related column — “Kerry told Hamas many of its demands would be met under ceasefire deal” — elaborates on the role Kerry is playing in promoting Hamas’s war aims.
This morning ToI’s Raphael Ahren reports on a leaked draft of the Kerry ceasefire proposal confirming what the ToI reported on Friday:
A “confidential draft” of the American ceasefire proposal leaked to the press appears to confirm what The Times of Israel reported Friday — that Washington was willing to generously accede to many of Hamas’s demands, while all but ignoring Israel’s security requirements.
The published text of the proposal, obtained by Haaretz, also shows that Qatar and Turkey – Hamas’s main sponsors in the region — were given prominent roles in the mediation, while the Palestinian Authority and Egypt were entirely marginalized.
It is virtually impossible to extract this information from reports of Israel’s rejection of ceasefire terms conveyed in the American media on FOX News and elsewhere.
Before it ended with Hamas rocket fire Saturday night, July 26, the 12-hour ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was used by both parties for regrouping, re-arming, strengthening fortifications and digging in current lines and positions while the sights and sounds of devastation in the Gaza Strip came fully to light.
The pause in hostilities also offered Israeli forces a valuable opportunity for collecting intelligence. In the heat of the fighting, the IDF and its clandestine arms were unable despite strenuous efforts to obtain electronic and SIGINT access to the hidden Hamas and Islamic Jihad command and control centers.
From the way they were constructed in deep, well-furnished bunkers, these centers are presumed to be well equipped with complex tactical and encrypted communications systems at a high algorithm level, with likely capabilities to perform dual functions: Linking the fighting, medium command and staff levels; and electronic interference and possible jamming of the signals of the IDF’s drones, or even their interception, as well as eavesdropping on the IDF’s communications and signals networks and visual devices.
It is highly likely that, deep under ground, Hamas has concealed in its bunkers a sophisticated intelligence production processing system. This breaks surface in the form of sensors and antennas which are installed on roofs and in residential apartments for monitoring IDF signals and feeding the data to the operational production staff underground.
According to, debkafile’s military sources and cyber experts, an IDF plan to use those tunnels and their many turn-offs and offshoots to reach Hamas headquarters has not so far worked. The subterranean terrorist empire built by Hamas is estimated to run to more than 5,000 tunnels and sub-passages under the surface of the Gaza Strip. Their course and exits have never been fully mapped.
In the eight days of its ground operation, the IDF and combat engineers focused on finding and destroying the “terror tunnels” leading under the border into Israel. They can never be certain they have found them all.
On the Palestinian side, it must be said that many veterans of the extremist Hamas and Islamic Jihad campaigns of terror are familiar with Israeli social mores and modes of operation. Many spent years inside Israeli prisons and experienced many hours of interrogation; many more had jobs in Israel for long periods. They have fluent Hebrew. And so, with their help, Hamas can skip the time-consuming and expensive work of translating and processing the raw data falling into its hands and be sure that no distortions have crept in along the way. Hamas planners are therefore well equipped for going straight to the insights they need for striking the Israeli enemy.
For the Palestinians, the truce is a chance for respite, for sending intelligence and other key personnel up to the surface to assess the horrendous damage caused by the war, regroup and replenish their weapons and ammunition stores
But it also provides the IDF with a rare opportunity to see what Hamas is up to, decipher its plans and observe any changes in its operational and behavioral modes. These are pinpointed as vulnerabilities for future use in destroying the enemy.
Israel’s intelligence effort is hugely supported by the questioning of the hundreds of Palestinians taken prisoner in the eight days of ground combat and held at the Sde Teiman detention center in the Negev, northwest of Beersheba.
Some of these captives may jump at the chance to return to the Gaza Strip and work against the leaders who caused them to lose all their possessions and ditched them and their families. For guarantees of rewards in cash, medical aid or even asylum in Israel or other countries, these detainees may be willy to furnish Israeli intelligence with invaluble services as informants and active collaborators on the other side, provided they are carefully selected.
Long lines of prisoners in their underwear with bound eyes may have a momentary impact on Hams morale, but in the long term, as incentives for the enemy to surrender, these methods cause more harm than good.
Israel faces perilous, protracted war as IDF expands its operation into Hamas’ urban strongholds
Re-Post from DEBKA file Exclusive Analysis July 20, 2014, 9:59 AM (IDT)
The IDF tried to mitigate the bad news from Hamas warfront by releasing it in sections over Saturday and Sunday, July 19-20. Four soldiers were killed and a score were wounded. Maj. Amotz Greenberg, 45, from Hod Hashorn and Sgt. Adar Bresani, 20, from Nahariya, were shot dead Saturday when their jeep was attacked by Hamas infiltrators bursting out of a tunnel.
On the Gaza battlefield, Paratrooper Staff Sgt. Bana Roval, 20, from Holon, was shot dead by a terrorist from another tunnel, and 2nd Lt, Bar Rahav, 21, from Ramat Yishai, was killed by a missile defense system in a nearby tank.
Hamas is not only bringing its deadly tunnels into play, but also planting small commando units heavily armed with anti-tank rockets across the paths of advancing Israeli armored forces.
Saturday, those commandos fired 10 anti-tank rockets. Without their Windbreaker armor, many tanks would have been destroyed and the casualty toll much higher.
However, most of all, Hamas is fighting to save its tunnel system from systematic destruction by IDF demolition teams. This system was designed to be the Palestinian Islamists’ highest strategic asset, comparable in importance to the IDF’s chain of fortifications along the Syrian border.
Around 16,000 men, around 15 percent of Hamas’ fighting strength, were assigned to the tunnel project in the last five years and substantial funds. The IDF will not be permitted to demolish this flagship project without a savage fight.
The most important conclusion for Israel’s war planners, from the first days of the ground phase of Israel’s Operation Defensive Edge, is that Hamas is standing firm and not cracking, even under the relentless pounding of their military infrastructure by Israeli artillery and air might, and appears determined to fight on.
Its commanders believe they can keep going for another 4 to 6 weeks, while also maintaining a steady hail of rockets against the Israeli population.
This estimate has spurred a major buildup of Israeli military strength for the Gaza operation. Another 50,000 reservists were called up Saturday night and a large number of infantry brigades started moving into the Gaza Strip overnight and will continue to arrive Sunday. The extra forces have made it possible to embark on the second, urban stage of the IDF operation, the breaching of the densely-populated towns.
A different type of combat lies ahead from the project for destroying tunnels. It is tougher and more perilous. But there is no other way to reach Hamas’ command centers and its longest-range rockets.
With this mission still unaccomplished, talk of a ceasefire sounds as though it comes from another planet. Hamas feels strong and confident enough to spurn the Egyptian-Israeli ceasefire proposal, which is firmly backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Every attempt to sway its political leader Khaled Meshaal, when he was buttonholed in Kuwait, ran into a blank wall. He summarily rejected invitations from Egypt and the Arab League to travel to Cairo and discuss the cessation of hostilities.
The various international mediation efforts have therefore nowhere to go.
As far as Hamas is concerned, no incentive has been offered tempting enough to persuade its leaders to give up their predestined war on Israel.
US Secretary of State John Kerry changed his mind about visiting the region for the second time this month, when the Obama administration decided to stay out of it and let Egypt handle the crisis. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who scheduled a visit for Saturday, postponed it indefinitely.
Israel has accordingly won a rare opportunity to deal with Hamas without being stopped short and the enemy saved by international intervention. But although it has wide popular support, this opportunity confronts Israelis with one of the cruelest, costly and drawn-out conflicts in their embattled history.
The ground offenses starts: IDF ground forces attack Gaza amid air, sea and artillery pounding. Half a million Gazans told to leave. Israelis around Gaza sent to shelters
Re-Post from DEBKAfile Special Report July 17, 2014, 10:44 PM (IDT)
Israel air, sea and artillery pounded the Gaza Strip Thursday night, July 17, as IDF ground forces embarked on a ground attack, just announced by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. debkafile reports a softening-up operation to prepare for the entry of armored and infantry units. The IDF calls on the half million Gazans of southern towns of Khan Younes and Rafah to leave their homes for their own safety. Palestinians in northern towns reeived the same message. Israelis living close to the Gaza border were advised to stay in bomb shelters.
The IDF spokesman reported that large infantry and armored units are operating across the entire area of the Gaza Strip.
The announcement from Jerusalem said: “The prime minister and defense minister have instructed the IDF to begin a ground operation tonight in order to hit the terror tunnels from Gaza into Israel.”
The IDF said: the ground attack has launched a new phase of Operation Protective Edge for striking a significant blow at Hamas in response to 10 days of attacks by land, sea and air and after repeated rejections of offers to de-escalate the situation.
See the earlier debkafile report below:
Hamas tried sending a commando team through a tunnel snaking under the Gaza border for a large-scale terrorist attack or kidnap early Thursday, July 17. As the group of 13-30 started coming to the surface inside Israel opposite the southern Gaza Strip, it ran into heavy IDF fire. Some were killed; the rest turned tail to escape through the tunnel and reach home. Israeli helicopters bombed the tunnel which exploded, and went on to scour the area around the Gaza Strip for more attempted incursions, through the honeycomb of secret tunnels Hamas has sunk for terrorist attacks and kidnaps.
debkafile quotes Israeli and Western military experts as estimating that the prospects of an Israeli ground incursion into the Gaza Strip are now more real than the chances of a ceasefire. There is little substance to the reports that Hamas and Israeli delegations are in Cairo to discuss various drafts of a ceasefire accord.
Our sources stress that the only real talks revolve around an ultimatum Israel has slapped down for Hamas, via the various would-be peacemakers: It has only days to halt its rocket offensive before Israel launches a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
The question being asked now is why, after 10 days of trading Israeli air strikes for Palestinian rocket attacks, the IDF has not destroyed the Hamas war room, the seat of its command and control center for directing the war and launching rockets, instead of striking the vacant homes of Hamas high-ups.
In the absence of a clear battlefield victory, headlines are appearing like this one: “Hamas Has Already Won Its Rocket War With Israel.”
Even IDF commanders are noting that the IDF, while hammering the Gaza Strip night after night, has not achieved a single tactical victory. Destroying the Hamas war room would serve this purpose.
debkafile’s military and intelligence sources note that finding and destroying underground structures is a daunting challenge, which is why Hamas has sunk its resources for fighting Israel deep below the surface. The war room in particular is a whole town complex, which runs under the surface buildings at the center of Gaza City, including the Shifa Hospital. This labyrinth accommodates top Hamas military personnel, the local social elite made up of Hamas bigwigs, affluent Gazans, foreign citizens and professionals like doctors or engineers.
It has a large and elaborate system of conference rooms, as well as control and command centers, outfitted with air conditioning, its own electricity and communications systems, security, and storerooms for food, drink and medicines to support the hundreds of top personnel operating and sheltering in the facility.
The Hamas underground city can function for weeks without outside help.
The various would-be European peace brokers, including foreign ministers and the Middle East Special Envoy Tony Blair, have been concerned to preserve the Hamas core stronghold, so as to leave the Islamist organization intact at the end of the current round of hostilities as a future negotiating partner and surviving government of the Gaza Strip. Our military sources say that this core stronghold is in fact Hamas’ sunken war room complex.
The Obama administration has been careful to keep its head down and make sure not to be seen or heard until Washington sees where this process is going.
Former Israel Air Force chief, Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, who also led the planning team for a strike on Iran, hinted this week that if the air force and IDF had the capability for destroying the underground nuclear facilities at Fordo, they could also destroy the Hamas underground command center.
When Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu saw Wednesday that the cross diplomacy in Cairo had little chance of gong anywhere, he ordered a call-up of 8,000 military reservists in anticipation of the week ahead. The IDF spokesman said: The forces are prepared for ground action. After the Hamas tunnel terror bid was foiled Thursday, a ground operation was seen to be close, as the only effective measure against tunnel warfare.
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