NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 

4 Keys to Making a Deal That’s a Keeper

These simple steps to take early on in any negotiation will save time and money and increase the likelihood that the arrangement will be one you can live with.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @HOWARDTULLMAN1

Nov 4, 2025

 

 

One of the first things they teach young corporate lawyers is to leave the ugly and difficult stuff to the very end of negotiations, when the parties are weak, tired and sick of the entire proceedings. In fact, the most experienced M&A attorneys will admit that an even better idea is to paper over the present and future problems, push the tough questions down the line, and leave the heartaches and the lawsuits to the next group of bloodsuckers. They tell you that your litigation partners will thank you in advance for their future fees.

This concept is also a critical part of the ground rules and gospel of all divorce lawyers, regardless of which side of the argument they happen to be on. No one who’s ever been there believes for a moment that these avaricious advocates can serve anyone’s interest but their own. The basic idea—after creating every delay possible in the proceedings and wringing all the fees possible out of their victims—is to get some closure so they can get on to their next case and never look back.

For the perspective of any poor entrepreneur sucked into one of these seemingly endless negotiation sessions, there really isn’t any simple or foolproof way to avoid the mess. There is, however, one rule to absolutely keep top of mind throughout the entire process. The easier the deal is to get done, the harder it will be to implement. This is why it’s your basic job to be difficult when it matters, regardless of what your own attorneys argue or caution and notwithstanding all the pressure from everyone else in the room to just get things done. This is a difficult position to put yourself in and it takes a while and a few different attempts and contexts to develop the thick skin, blank stare, and willingness to ask the same questions over and over until you get a solid and clear answer to them. You need to forsake peace for truth telling. The price you pay for momentary peace is always too high.

All of which is presently and painfully on display as the world watches Trump’s latest deluded lie about bringing peace to the Middle East fall apart in just days after it was touted and paraded everywhere. It was foolish, naïve and embarrassing for experienced negotiators and the public at large to think for a moment that an agreement with dozens of deferred terms and concessions including disarmament of Hamas and its expulsion from Gaza would ever come to pass in the absence of further military intervention. Once again, the Trump art of the deal turns out to be a fraud on us all. It appears that Putin’s not the only one to make a fool repeatedly of the Orange Monster. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, also just made Trump look like a clueless clown by giving back a small fraction of what China took away in exchange for major further concessions by Trump trying to save face as he backs away from a tariff battle that he stupidly started.

But even this miserable example provides simple negotiating lessons for entrepreneurs in their own business dealings. There are a few simple steps to take early on in any negotiation in order to save time and money and significantly increase the likelihood that the ultimate arrangement will be one that you can live with.

1. Start at the end, not the beginning.

Make it clear that certain basics are non-negotiable and that they are absolute requirements for getting any deal done. Don’t let these be deferred or glossed over.  You should never deny your firmest convictions for the sake of peace and quiet. There is zero chance that Hamas will ever give up its weapons and only a fool would believe otherwise. They’ve said it before the ceasefire and now they’ve said it after the ceasefire—even going so far on TV as admitting that it’s only a “hudna” which means a pause. On the other hand, Mamdani campaigned for Mayor in the NYC primary on some very risky propositions and made some over-the-top promises and, to his credit, he has maintained those stances, for better or worse, and even doubled down on some which has made his position abundantly clear to all.

2. Stick to your guns and stand alone if necessary.

Everyone in any meeting will have their own agenda, including the folks on your side and the professionals working for you. It’s rare that all these will be aligned. Open declarations and consistent clarity on your part will save everyone time. It’s far better to be an asshole in the moment and even risk the deal than to suffer years later with an agreement, terms, and conditions that you knew wouldn’t get the job done but settled for in order to keep the peace. Seeking consensus on aggressively contested points is more likely to lead to a mediocre outcome than to a happy ending.

3. Acknowledge that some deals just can never get done.

Wishing, hoping and beating a dead horse aren’t ways to get where you want to go. Sometimes, you just can’t get there from here and it’s smart and prudent to acknowledge that as soon as it’s clear. If you sit there long enough, all that happens is that you get subjected to a constant stream of asks for compromises, small concessions, deferments or flat out give-ups—all in the name of good faith, false hopes and sharing the pain. It’s like being slowly pecked to death by a flock of angry geese.

4. Remember the rule of the slippery slope.

Every negotiation contains a number of detours, rabbit holes, and slippery slopes which all need to be avoided. Detours and rabbit holes merely waste your time. Slippery slopes are outright dangerous because they’re inducements and invitations to settle various matters for everyone’s sake except your own. But even worse is the end result. You need to always remember the rule: the minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.

 

A TRUE MENSCH AND A GOOD FRIEND

 

HOWARD TULLMAN JOINS LISA DENT ON WGN RADIO FOR A CHAT

 LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

LISTEN TO THE SHOW HERE

Why I’m Doubling Down On Israel By Lou Kerner

Why I’m Doubling Down On Israel

By Lou Kerner

No one has a crystal ball that tells the future. But once in a while, we all see something that changes our perspective. And if we actually act on that new perspective it can have a dramatic impact on our lives.

The last time that happened to me was in 2010 when I was angel investing in New York. Someone offered to sell me shares in Facebook at a $16 billion valuation. It was a price which most of the blogosphere was ridiculing. I did a back of the envelope analysis of the company that indicated Facebook would be worth $100 billion in five years. Discounted back, that meant it was worth $50 billion at the time! Now I wasn’t the first person to believe in Facebook. Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman beat me by five years. But I felt so energized by what I saw, that I was compelled to write my first “research report” in 10+ years (I left a career as an equity analyst at Goldman Sachs in January 0f 2000 to start the TLD .tv). I emailed the report to 150 friends as fodder for future conversations, and thought that would be that. But the report blew up in the press, and it lead to my return to Wall Street as the Street’s first private share analyst. I had a great second run as an analyst, during which I updated my Facebook forecast once, in 2011, projecting it would be worth over $234 billion in 2015 (it’s currently trading at $243B).

My second run as an equity analyst lead to the opportunity to launch The Social Internet Fund (TSIF) in July, 2012. TSIF is a stage agnostic venture fund investing in primary and secondary shares of rapidly growing internet companies. A few months after launching TSIF, I read a great book, “The Prime Ministers”, about an 18-year old from Britain who moves to Palestine in 1947, fights in the 1948 war, and eventually makes his way to the Israeli government in 1958, where he spends the next 25 years, working closely with five Prime Ministers. Reading the book, I was struck by how alone Israel was. Even the U.S. was not the friend I thought it was. Again, I felt compelled to do something, which lead me to AIPAC. As I got more involved with AIPAC, I was surprised to learn that there were active sub groups for lawyers and bankers and real estate execs, but there was no sub group for people in tech. So along with a few others others, we formed the first Technology Group at AIPAC. The speaker at our first event in February of 2013 was Dan Senor, the co-author of “Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle” .

The book, written in 2009, highlights the factors that enable Israel, a tiny nation of just 8.1 million people, to start so many successful companies. Israel is so successful at starting companies, that, as of today, Israel has the most companies listed on the NASDAQ (99, or 1 company per 80,000 people) of any foreign country in the world, other than China (153 companies listed on the NASDAQ, or 1 company per 8,000,000 million people).

Start Up Nation discards the arguments of religious exceptionalism or individual talent as major reasons for Israel’s high-tech success. Instead, the book highlights many other reasons for Israel’s high tech success, starting with the fact that at 61 years of age, Israel itself is a startup, iterating and pivoting to survive. The book also highlights Israeli chutzpah (defined in the book as “gall, brazen nerve, incredible guts…”). But the two major factors that, in the authors’ opinion, contribute the most to Israel’s economic growth are 1) mandatory military service and 2) immigration. The military service point really resonated with me.

The Israeli army is deliberately thinly staffed at the top to enable the decentralized decision making necessary in the military initiatives the army regularly undertakes. Thus, a talented Israeli in his early-to-mid 20's can rise to Commander in the Israeli army, where they are in charge of 100 soldiers and 20 officers, often in intensely pressurized situations. That experience, which is unique to young Israelis, gives them the confidence needed to start a company, and the leadership skills critical to start up success.

After reading the incredible story of Start-Up Nation, I became more open to opportunities to invest in Israeli companies. As a result, in the following year, I made two investments in Israeli companies, Viewbix and IT Central Station. Both companies are doing well. When the tenant anchor in TSIF suggested that TSIF II focus on later stage companies, I partnered with Gil Penchina and we launched The Israel Syndicate on AngelList in April, 2015, as a way to stay involved in earlier stage companies.

The Israel Syndicate closed its first investment on June 9th, in Segmanta. The following week I finally made my way to Israel for, I’m embarrassed to say, the first time in 20 years. What a week! I went with high expectations. They were more than fulfilled. Here’s a brief list of the reasons why I believe Israel is still early in its emergence as a major ecosystem for tech innovation and wealth creation.

I believe the world is flat. In addition to Israel and Silicon Valley, I’ve invested in companies in New York (where I live), Los Angeles (my home town), Toronto, Raleigh-Durham, Toms River (New Jersey) and London. But there is only one Silicon Valley, which continues to dominate in terms of wealth created from tech start ups. There are many reasons for this, but one major reason I’ve always marveled at is how open and accessible the Valley is. I first saw this point written about in a post by the esteemed Vivek Wadhwa who opined in a TechCrunch article in 2011 that:

“In Silicon Valley, sharing information is the norm — unlike most places in the world…in the Valley, techies are far less secretive and are generally helpful to one another…Silicon Valley is one giant network...”

I have always felt that way about Silicon Valley, and I had never felt that way about another city until my week in Tel Aviv. Not only was virtually everyone I reached out to open to meeting, every meeting included the offer of multiple additional introductions. It felt like I was with family. The joke in Israel is “everyone is just one degree of separation away from everyone else”. In Israel Sand Hill Rd and Market Street are combined, it’s called Rothschild Blvd. Walking on Rothschild with an entrepreneur was one long hug fest. They do a lot of that in Tel Aviv.

I spent a great few hours speaking at a meeting of AlmaLinks, a “global network fostering the next generation of Jewish business leaders”.

Another great example of the openness and collaboration in Tel Aviv is SOSA (as in South of Salame, a riff on SF’s SOMA, which was a riff on NY’s SOHO).

SOSA is a shared workspace. In additional to the normal start ups, more than 40 members of the tech community are members, ranging from VCs, to large multi nationals to incubators/accelerators, lawyers, bankers, and others. It’s a meeting place, and a home for those without a home (be they wayward VCs or multi national corporations). The shared workspace 1871 in Chicago is the closest parallel I’ve seen elsewhere in the world.

Israel has long been a major outpost for Silicon Valley’s largest companies, where they have grown organically and through multiple acquisitions. Intel’s largest R&D center outside of the Valley has long been in Israel, where they now employ over 9,200 people. It’s now impossible to go to a major building in Israel without seeing multiple floors taken by the likes of Google (acquired Waze for over $1 billion in 2013), Facebook (acquired Onavo in 2013, price undisclosed), and Apple (acquired PrimeSense for $350 million in 2013).

Acquisitions are a key part of successful tech ecosystems, as they create wealth that can be poured in to new start ups, and leave a trail of experienced tech executives who can invest in and mentor the next wave of start ups. Yossi Vardi began mentoring and investing in start ups after he sold ICQ to AOL for over $400 million in 1998. With Yossi now focused on his DLD Conferences, the baton has been passed to a rapidly growing list of experienced, talented, and supportive entrepreneurs like Noam Bardin (Waze CEO), Gigi Levy (CEO of online gaming site 888 acquired by Ladbrokes for £240 million 2011) and others who have had successful exits and become active angel investors and mentors.

Israel also enjoys a rapidly growing ecosystem of talented VCs that could hold their own against the best in the Valley. I had the pleasure of meeting with Arnon Dinur of 83 North, Modi Rosen at Magma Ventures, Tal Barnouch at Disruptive, in Tel Aviv, among others. Jerusalem is seeing increasing activity, lead by veteran firm JVP, which is being joined by newer seed stage firms like Jumpspeed Ventures. Israel also has its own highly supportive commercial bank, Bank Leumi, which has long provided the needed support in Israel, and recently launched its Leumi Tech initiative to provide the broad services needed by Israeli tech companies when they come to the U.S..

A long time knock against Israeli start-ups is that they sell too early. But this is changing, as more Israeli start ups become Unicorns and have aspirations for more. CyberArk went public last September, and is now trading at a $2 billion valuation. Wix went public in November, 2013, and is now worth more than $900 million, defying the silly belief that Israel can’t build great B2C companies. When I met with Tomer Bar Zeev of ironSource ($1.1 billion valuation), he clearly stated his aspirations to achieve far more than what ironSource has accomplished to date. While others Israeli unicorns, like Houzz ($2.3 billion) and Taboola have moved to the U.S. to achieve their aspirations, their wins are surely Israel’s wins as well.

In fact, Israeli companies that move to the U.S. are increasingly feeling at home as robust communities of Israelis can be found in New York (242 Israeli start ups are featured on Israel Mapped in New York) and San Francisco (check out Silo, where users get help from their professional network, which started with the Israeli community in Silicon Valley).

Academics is another strong point of the Israeli ecosystem. My visit to the Technion Institute of Technology in Haifa was a highlight of my week. Technion is already recognized as home to one of the world’s leading academic environments for successful technology innovation ecosystems. The initiatives Technion has underway in partnership with Cornell in New York , and with Li Ka Shing in China, will only accelerate Technion’s remarkable ascent. Israel has three other universities ranked in the top 300 in the world (Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University, and Ben Gurion University), not to mention the IDC and its innovative entrepreneur programs.

As with any tech ecosystem, Israel has its challenges. Like San Francisco, skyrocketing housing prices has become a major issue in Tel Aviv, while salaries remain low. This disparity is driving up the the rate of startups in Israel, which can make Israel a challenging environment to attract capital. Even though the amount invested in Israel is climbing, the number of companies receiving VC has remained relatively flat over the last two years.

High marks should go to the Israeli government which has long helped foster it’s tech ecosystem. As I was planning my trip, The Government of Israel Economic Mission in New York made several introductions including to Arale Cohen of seed stage investor 2B Angels. My meeting with Arale, the first investor in Yotpo, a rising star among Israeli tech companies, was a highlight. Within Israel’s Ministry of Economy is the Office of the Chief Scientists (OCS). Among the various projects the OCS supports is a loan program which can provide up to $400,000 in funding for startups doing cutting edge research (broadly defined). The OCS also licenses incubators and then offers up to 5-to-1 leverage for investments the incubators make in startups. Among the 24 incubators currently licensed is one run by Nielsen. You don’t need to be licensed to operate an accelerator, and there are plenty of great programs. AOL’s Nautilis, Coke’s The Bridge, IBM’s AlphaZone and Citi’s Innovation Lab are just a few of the corporate accelerators blossoming in Israel.

Finally, I’m all in on Israel because I want to do things I believe in. I want to be a “missionary” CEO rather than a “mercenary” CEO, as defined by various VCs from Randy Komisar to John Doerr. I’m not very religious, but I find myself caring deeply about Israel’s survival, and the biggest impact I can have on Israel’s survival, is to help Israel thrive. That’s why I’m on a mission to help the Israel tech ecosystem evolve to become the best innovation ecosystem it can be. It’s not about being the next Silicon Valley. It’s about being the best innovation ecosystem Israel can be. I’m clearly not the first person to be so optimistic on the Israeli tech ecosystem. But much like when I invested in Facebook at $16 billion, I think it’s still VERY early days for Start-Up Nation. So I’m all in.

67 words to celebrate Israel’s 67th birthday

Herzl thought establishing Israel would end anti-Semitism because we’d have our own land, no longer be the perpetual minority, and be universally accepted.  He was wrong. We survive as a people today because of our astounding resilience, but equally because of the moral and military strength of the IDF and their daily sacrifices.  This photo reminds me of the precarious tightrope these young heroes walk every day.   HAT 

War is a brutal and horrific thing, but when one’s nation or civilization is under attack, one simply has to take sides.

War is a brutal and horrific thing, but when one’s nation or civilization is under attack, one simply has to take sides.

I have now lost count of the number of emails I’ve received this summer from committed, involved Jews, that began, “Hope you’re having a good summer,” or “Hope all’s well with you.” But I will confess that these notes, more of which I got this week, continue to stun me.

Summer? Most people here won’t go to the beach – what if the siren went off and you were outside, with nowhere to hide? Many fewer people will go camping, for the same reason. Many people who had planned to travel have canceled – what if you’re in Scotland and your kid gets called into battle? What then? When, for that matter, did summer even begin? Ever since Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-Ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah were kidnapped on June 12, we have been a news-consumed nation – first praying for their return, then devastated by their murders, then horrified by the revenge killing of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, then stunned by the beginning of Hamas fire onto almost all parts of Israel, and then the war, the tunnels, the horrific number of IDF soldiers killed, the searingly painful funerals, the multiple cease-fires, US Secretary of State John Kerry’s utter ineptitude, the US Federal Aviation Administration’s reminder that we are surrounded and besieged, American “delays” in resupplying armaments, Britain’s threat of an arms embargo and the emergence of a Europe to which many Israelis are now too frightened to travel.

Summer? What summer? Of the entire above-mentioned list, it was the discovery of the tunnels (which the army and government had known about, but most Israelis had not) that changed everything.

We were used to rockets, even if not in these quantities, and we feel largely protected by a virtually miraculous Iron Dome system. But the images of tunnels so well-constructed that Hamas terrorists could ride motorcycles in them – that was something different.

When the IDF killed Hamas men who had come through the tunnels and found them equipped with weapons, handcuffs and injectable sedatives, it was clear that the movement’s intent was to kill as many Israelis as they could, then kidnap others and take them to Gaza. That, more than anything, struck horror so deep into the hearts of Israelis that, for the most part, internal politics have disappeared.

Yes, there is a left-wing fringe that wants to end the war, but most Israelis know that’s absurd. And there’s a right-wing fringe that wants to retake Gaza, but Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has made it clear he has no interest in that. But the fringes are small, and Israelis are united as almost never before. The petty fighting that often consumes us is now a luxury we simply cannot afford.

Far away from Israel, though, the infighting in Jewish circles continues. The New York Times recently published an op-ed, “The End of Liberal Zionism,” which opined that “the original tradition of combining Zionism and liberalism – which meant ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, supporting a Palestinian state as well as a Jewish state with a permanent Jewish majority, and standing behind Israel when it was threatened – was well-intentioned.” But Netanyahu’s “decision… to launch a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza” has ended all that, the author writes.

It would be funny, were it not so stunningly myopic. Who in their right mind believes that Israel started this war, that Hamas wasn’t just waiting for an excuse to fire so it could arrest its rapid decline into irrelevance? Who is still sufficiently naïve to believe that had Israel made a deal with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas would not have fired? Who imagines that a Palestinian state will stop Hezbollah from doing the same thing, when it gets the command from Tehran? Who is so divorced from reality as to suggest that a Palestinian state will do anything to stop the steady march of the Islamic State across the region? It is no accident that Israelis were so riveted by the photos of Hamas executing people on the streets of Gaza last Friday, for they were a reminder of what we’re fighting, a reminder of what they would have tried to do to us if we didn’t find all the tunnels, a reminder of the barbarism that surrounds us everywhere we look – in Gaza, in Syria, with IS. We are far from perfect, but make no mistake: Israel’s challenge is to stay alive in a sea of barbarians.

Meanwhile, back at the Diaspora ranch, however, the conversations continue as if it were business as usual. The New York Times dredges up the old Palestinian state issue, which significant though it is, is utterly irrelevant at the moment. And Tablet Magazine reports on bickering at a well-known New York synagogue over whether to read the names of dead Gazans at Friday night services, whether to collect money to buy potatoes for Gazans, and the subsequent resignation of at least one board member over what he perceived as the abandonment of Israel at this critical hour.

When those are the conversations unfolding in a synagogue, it’s clear the participants just don’t appreciate the existential nature of this conflict for Israel. Of course Gazans should have food, and of course the death of innocents is unfortunate. But did American churches read aloud the names of innocent dead Germans during World War II? War is a brutal and horrific thing, but when one’s nation or civilization is under attack, one simply has to take sides.

Israelis have done that because our houses are under fire. In London and New York, the spectator sport called Zionism continues unabated.

Let there be no mistake – this is a battle for Israel’s survival. Some people get that, many do not. We understand that our Diaspora counterparts have still headed for their beach homes this summer. Why not, after all? Staying glued to CNN in the city isn’t going to do us any good. And we don’t begrudge the Facebook postings of our friends’ and relatives’ trips to Barcelona or Berlin or Tuscany, or the #GreatWeekend hashtags we’re seeing everywhere. Life must go on, after all.

It will go on here, too. We’ll fight long enough and hard enough to make sure of that. But, for the record – no, we’re not having a good summer.

The writer is senior vice president, Koret Distinguished Fellow and chair of the core curriculum at Shalem College, Israel’s first liberal arts college, in Jerusalem. His latest book, Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul, was recently released by NextBook.

1871 welcomes Israel Ambassador Ron Dermer to Speak on Innovation

IDF CAPTAIN's LETTER

I’d like to share with you a small part of a letter written by a captain in the Israeli Army to give you a sense of the Jewish warriors who are fighting to protect the Jewish state.

“To the Palestinian people of Gaza: We don’t hate you. We don’t wish you ill. We want only to live in peace side by side with you. When you come out of wherever you’ve been able to take refuge, ask yourself why Hamas never built you any shelters to protect you. They’re great at digging tunnels after all. They’ve dug them under our border, intending to murder as many of our civilians as possible; our women and children, gathered in agricultural village dining halls. Not soldiers, not warriors, but our women and children and old people.

“So they’re good at building tunnels. Why didn’t they build any for you to take shelter in? Then look at your neighborhoods, which are destroyed now because they housed the entrance points to those tunnels, not next to your homes but in your homes!

“They turned your homes and neighborhoods into rocket launching sites and weapons storage depots. Not by accident, but to make you vulnerable, to insure, in fact, that you would be in harm’s way no matter how many warnings Israel issued before it attacked. Ask why Hamas told you to ignore those warnings and that it was your duty to stay in those neighborhoods that they had turned into military targets.

“Look at your neighborhoods. How’s Hamas’s Holy War working out for you?

Are your lives better? Do your children have a better future? Do they have any future but suffering? Hamas and their ilk have been trying to drive us into the sea for over a hundred years now. How’s that working out for you?

“You’ve gone to war against us three times in the last five years. You’ve initiated each one and we’ve begged you, before each, not to launch more rockets at us. But each time you were promised a new divine victory. The rockets would be the sword that would defeat us. We invented Iron Dome.

“The tunnels would be Hamas’s “surprise” that would “open the gates of hell to us.” We’re inside those tunnels right now. Blowing them up. And who has paid the bitterest price? You. Is it worth it? Are you getting something out of all this?

“Here’s an idea. You’ve tried war three times in five years? Try something new. Try peace. You don’t even have to call it peace. . Just stop trying to kill us and prepare to be amazed at how good your lives will become. But what about the siege? The so called “siege” which is nothing more than a sanction regime, was put in place because you keep trying to kill us! So stop.

“You’re smart people. You’re industrious people. Stop trying to kill us and you won’t need to be a martyr to get into Paradise. You’ll have Paradise on earth. You can become the Singapore of the Middle East. You have beautiful beaches that can be developed for tourism. You’re on the Mediterranean for Goodness sake! You are creative and hard working and talented. Put those talents to use at trying to improve your lives instead of trying to end ours.

“You don’t even have to love us. You don’t even have to like us. In fact you can continue to hate us, if that gives you some sort of emotional comfort. It won’t bother us. Knock yourselves out. Just stop trying to kill us,

“Give it a decade. Try it. We’re not going anywhere. You won’t defeat us. You won’t destroy us. You won’t cast us into such despair that we leave the land we’ve yearned for, worked for, sweated and bled for, for two thousand years. We won’t withdraw from the Middle East. Because we live here. Our religion wasn’t born in Poland. It was born here. Our language wasn’t born in Russia or America or France or Ethiopia or Yemen or Morocco. It was born here. And I promise you, we won’t become war weary. We can’t afford to.

“Just stop trying to kill us.”

Why Hamas must ultimately be destroyed

Why Hamas must ultimately be destroyed By CHARLES BYBELEZER 11/08/2014 Very few doubted the legitimacy of the need to vanquish the Nazis during WWII, or of the Cold War against communism.

As Operation Protective Edge was winding down, I was invited along with a group of journalists to visit the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. There, hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian goods were being transferred into the Strip – a scene repeated every day during the war, as it is throughout the year – containing hundreds of thousands of tons of food, medical supplies and other basic staples. With some 2,000 people killed, thousands more wounded, and hundreds of thousands displaced, Israel was affording some much needed relief to Gazans, who undeniably suffered greatly during the conflict. While widespread criticism has been directed at the Israeli government over said death toll, the Jewish state’s concern for the wellbeing of civilians was apparent when visiting Kerem Shalom – which, perhaps not by coincidence, translates into “vineyard of peace.” But the good-will is entirely lost on Hamas. Aside from military installations, the crossing was one of the most dangerous places to be within Israel during the latest round of hostilities. Hamas targeted the Kerem Shalom crossing multiple times daily during the war with mortar and even sniper fire. While we were on-site, a Color Red alert was sounded followed by an audible explosion nearby. The head of our tour made clear that those working at the crossing were risking their lives. It is difficult for the Western mind to conceptualize Hamas’ ideology; these types of tangible examples, however, demonstrate the terror group’s barbarism, tantamount to outright depravity. How could Hamas target, almost more than any other location during the war, the very place where aid was being delivered to its citizenry? How is it that when Israel went so far as to set up a field hospital to treat wounded Palestinians, Hamas went to great lengths to prevent Gazans from receiving the medical care they so desperately needed? The answer is that Hamas wants its people to suffer, which it uses as leverage in its war against Israel. The effect is two-fold: First, it creates a humanitarian crisis that not only contributes to the ongoing effort to delegitmize Israel, but also brings about tremendous international pressure on the Israeli government to limit its tactical, military options. Second, it deflects blame onto Jerusalem for Hamas’ gross failure of governance and the usage of its people as sacrificial lambs. Concisely, the more the people of Gaza suffer, and the more of them that die, the closer Hamas gets to achieving its terrorist and, indeed, genocidal goal. This twisted reality is perhaps best understood when considering that Hamas uses its funds, not to invest in schools and hospitals, but rather to develop weaponry and other elaborate terror infrastructure, most notably its vast maze of underground tunnels, built purposely in civilian areas from which it launches its attacks. Gazans will never know freedom under such circumstances, while living under the iron fist of a bloodthirsty organization that values the murder of Jews more than life of its own people. From Israel’s standpoint the reason Hamas must ultimately be destroyed is equally clear. As Israeli troops were unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza after having supposedly achieved their operational goals, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon stated that, “Hamas had been set back five years.” It is worth noting that Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s last ground incursion into the Strip, ended in 2009 – five years ago. Is achieving a few years of relative “quiet” truly a legitimate military objective? Have thousands of people on both sides of the conflict been killed and wounded over the past four weeks so that this cycle of events may be repeated every half-decade? The question, then, becomes one of politics; namely, can a durable, long-term truce actually be forged with an organization like Hamas? It clearly viewed the 2012 ceasefire agreement, ending Operation Pillar of Defense, as worth less than the paper it was written on. It seems, therefore, that only one logical conclusion can be drawn; that there is a fundamental flaw in the Israeli government’s logic. That in the absence of a major and highly unlikely breakthrough, all roads lead to the same place, and just as Protective Edge was more costly, on a human level, than was Cast Lead, so too will the next round of fighting extract more blood and treasure that did its precedents. The answer is to begin viewing Hamas for what it truly is – pure, unbridled and senseless evil, a terrorist group that preaches death and destruction, rather than justice and morality. There were earlier periods when much of the world understood that ideologies like those expounded by Hamas pose a mortal threat to humanity and had therefore to be eliminated, and not negotiated with. Very few doubted the legitimacy of the need to vanquish the Nazis during WWII, or of the Cold War against communism. But as society has increasingly adopted a morally relativistic view of the world, the line between good and evil has been progressively blurred, to the contemporary point of willful blindness. It is high time to refocus. So long as Hamas exists, the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians will continue to be plagued, precluding the possibility of them together ever sowing the seeds, or perhaps one day even growing real vineyards, of peace. The author is a correspondent for i24News, an international television network broadcasting from Israel.

The Facts of Operation "Protective Edge"

The Facts of operation "Protective Edge"

Everything you need to know about Operation Protective Edge, from destroyed terror tunnels to rocket attacks on Israel. Just the facts. 

The IDF initiated Operation Protective Edge to put an end to the terror attacks emanating from Gaza. In the three weeks leading up to July 8, terrorists fired 250 rockets capable of reaching Israel’s largest population centers and endangering 3.5 million Israeli lives. More than half a million Israelis had less than 60 seconds to find shelter after hearing a rocket siren. Tens of thousands had only 15 seconds.

The Rocket Threat  

The IDF initiated Operation Protective Edge in response to incessant, indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza directed at Israeli civilians.

Between July 8 and August 6:

·        Terrorists in Gaza fired 3,360 rockets at Israel.

·        2,303 rockets hit Israel.

·        115 rockets hit populated areas in Israel.

·        584 rockets were intercepted by Iron Dome.

·        119 rocket launches failed.

·        475 rockets landed within the Gaza Strip.

Before the operation, IDF intelligence assessed that terrorists in Gaza held approximately 10,000 rockets. 1/3 of these rockets were were fired at Israel, and an additional 1/3 were destroyed by IDF forces.

The Tunnel Threat

On July 17, IDF ground troops were moved into Gaza to locate and destroy theunderground tunnel network used by Hamas to infiltrate and attack Israel.

Between July 17 and August 5:

·        IDF forces neutralized 32 terror tunnels.

·        14 of these tunnels crossed into Israel.

·        2 tunnels had access points located 300m-500m from Israel.

Hamas exploited civilian infrastructure

Hamas abuses the civilians and civilian infrastructure of Gaza for terrorist purposes. These abuses constitute severe violations of international law.

Between July 8 and August 5:

·        Terrorists fired 597 rockets from civilian facilities in Gaza.

·        Approximately 260 rockets were fired from schools.

·        Approximately 160 rockets were fired from religious sites, including mosques.

·        Approximately 127 rockets were fired from cemeteries.

·        Approximately 50 rockets were fired from hospitals.

IDF struck terror sites throughout Gaza

A primary objective of Operation Protective Edge was to strike a heavy blow to the military capabilities of Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza and thus eliminate the threats to Israel’s national security.

Between July 8 and August 5, IDF aerial, naval and ground forces struck 4,762 terror sites across the Gaza Strip, including:

·        1,678 rocket launching facilities.

·        977 command and control centers.

·        237 military administration facilities.

·        191 weapons storage and manufacturing facilities.

·        144 training and military compounds.

·        1,535 additional terror sites.

From July 8 to August 5, the IDF targeted terrorists in Gaza responsible for the planning and execution of attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.

·        IDF forces targeted at least 253 Hamas terrorists.

·        At least 147 Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.

·        At least 65 terrorists of various smaller organizations.

·        At least 603 terrorists of unknown affiliation.

In addition, 159 terrorist suspects have been questioned by Israeli security forces.

IDF transferred supplies into Gaza

Despite Hamas’ incessant attacks, including on the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the IDF continued to transfer thousands of supply trucks into Gaza during Operation Protective Edge.

From July 8 to August 5:

·        The IDF transferred 1,856 trucks carrying 40,550 tons of supplies into Gaza.

·        37,178 tons of foods.

·        1,694 tons humanitarian goods.

·        1,029 tons of medicine and medical supplies.

Operation Protective Edge succeeded in striking a heavy blow to terrorists in Gaza. Hamas’ underground terror network was knocked out, and quiet has been restored to southern Israel. All of Israel is now safer.