29-Apr-08: More and more rocket-borne terrorism

9 Qassam rockets and six mortar shells have slammed into Israeli territory so far today (Tuesday). There's been property damage in three different places, but thankfully no injuries. This was not the intention of the Gazan Palestinian-Arab terrorists who did the firing.

One Qassam scored a direct hit on a house in Sderot. There are no injuries but several of the town's beleaguered residents have had to be treated for shock. Another rocket hit a guard post on the grounds of Kibbutz Sha'ar Hanegev and yet another hit an infirmary at another (un-named for security reasons) kibbutz.

Yesterday (Monday) 18 rockets and dozens of mortar shells were fired into Israel by the Gazan Palestinian Arabs. They have absolutely no concern over who or what is hit which is one of the things that makes them terrorists.

29-Apr-08: Ins and outs of Palestinian Authority incarceration

It's been revealed (though almost no one in the media seems to have noticed) that the shooting attack at the Nitzanei Shalom industrial zone on Friday that cost the lives of two Israelis was carried out by a Palestinian Arab terrorist who had "escaped" from the PA prison in Jericho. YNet quotes Palestinian sources saying the terrorist made his post-"escape" way from Jericho disguised as a woman. In Kalansua, he changed back into male clothing, going from there to Nitzanei Shalom where he carried out the attack.

Three additional terrorists, members of the Fatah-controlled al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, also "escaped" yesterday (Monday) morning from the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho. (The PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, is the head of Fatah.) Palestinian security forces are now "combing the area in search of the inmates" according to one report.

YNet explains that friends of the terrorists from the Jericho prison said all three had complained of their imprisonment conditions. Even worse, they felt rage over the fact that their requests to be included in an amnesty list were not met. Solution: why, somehow to escape of course. The PA (according to YNet) is "looking into the incident".

So, presumably, are the widows of Shimon Mizrachi and Eli Wasserman, the two murdered Israelis.

25-Apr-08: Gunmen at work

It's been a busy Friday Passover-week morning in this ongoing war.

Israelis driving their vehicle in the Samaria district were attacked early this morning by Palestinians hurling fire-bombs (home-made weapons in the language of the mainstream media). No injuries, thankfully, but that was not the intention of the terrorists.

In the southern city of Ashkelon (home to 110,000 Israelis), three Qassam rockets fired by Gazan-Palestinian-Arabs crashed this morning. One struck a cemetery on the city's southern side, damaging tombstones.

A fourth Friday morning Qassam rocket was fired into Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, not far from Ashkelon. Fortunately no injuries in any of today's Qassam landings.

In the Nitzanei Shalom industrial park (the name means buds of peace), near the West Bank city of Tul Karm, the outcome of this morning's terrorism was less banal. Two Israelis who worked there as security personnel were shot dead. Terrorists sent by Islamic Jihad infiltrated the industrial zone overnight and shot them dead at close range. Their intent, it appears, was to carry out a larger massacre, but the factories were shut down and mainly deserted for the Passover week. The dead men are Shimon Mizrahi, 53, of Beit Hefer, and Eli Wasserman, 50, of Alfei Menashe. In August 2002, another Israeli, a truck driver working in that industrial park - Shani Ladani, 27 - was killed, shot dead at close range by Palestinian-Arab terrorists in the same place.

It's unlikely anyone from the mainstream media will pay much attention to this aspect of the killings, but the fact is the industrial park at Nitzanei Shalom was one of nine industrial zones established in 1995 by the government of Israel to provide work and economic advancement for Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Seven factories are located today in Nitzanei Shalom. They make cartons, plastic parts, exterminator sprays and other items while coping with an ongoing war against them, brought on by the same sort of logic that leads the Palestinian-Arabs of Gaza to repeatedly attack Israeli fuel-transfer points (for transfer into Gaza) and then wail that there's insufficient fuel.

Some 700 Palestinian-Arabs are today employed in the park where today's killings were carried out. The premises are secured by Israelis like the men murdered this morning.

23-Apr-08: Stop Playing with Puppets

An opinion piece written by one of this blog's two authors is published today on the FrontPageMag website. The full text of Frimet Roth's article is reproduced below.

Stop Playing with Puppets
By Frimet Roth
The Palestinian Authority makes a special award for valor to the murderer of my daughterFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, April 23, 2008

We are all familiar with PA President Mahmoud Abbas' game. There was no need for more evidence that he is far from the "moderate" that the West has dubbed him. Arafat's loyal apprentice would be a more apt epithet though Abbas has even surpassed his mentor: Arafat never garnered the unflinching support and admiration of the West that his successor has.

Nevertheless, Abbas has provided yet more incontrovertible proof that President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and our own Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are hawking a fantasy.

Last week's announcement that Abbas is awarding the Palestinian Authority's highest medal, the Al Quds Mark of Honor, to two convicted female terrorists currently serving terms for murder in Israeli prison left me trembling with rage.

One of them, Ahlam Tamimi, murdered fifteen men, women and children in the terror attack on Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant in August, 2001. Among the victims was my own fifteen year old daughter, Malki.

True to form, Abbas felt which way the western winds were blowing and realized he'd better do a hasty 180. The following day, he canceled the awards.

As always he has managed to convey one message to the Arab world – that terrorist are heroes – and precisely the opposite to the West – that he will not actually confer any honors on them. Once again, his reputation escaped unscathed.

My wrath is not directed at Abbas, of whom I had no other expectations, but at all the Western leaders who by now should know better. Breathless from their propping, buttressing, bolstering and even kissing and hugging of that duplicitous Palestinian, they seem blind to his brazen support of terrorism.

Western leaders will no doubt praise Abbas for canceling the awards and ignore the message conveyed in the original announcement.

Unable to withstand foreign pressure, Israel's own leaders have been touting the "moderate Abbas" fantasy with equal zeal.

Speaking at the Doha Forum in Qatar last week, Foreign Minister, Livni said that Israel is negotiating "with the pragmatic Palestinians, who recognize Israel's right to exist, who seek to realize their national rights but choose the path of peace over terrorism. With such partners, who support the two-state solution, peace can be attained."

There seem to be no limits to the risks Israel will take to pump life into this farce. One of the many is releasing convicted terrorists, the most famous being Marwan Barghouti. He too has been billed a "moderate" and essential figure, despite damning evidence to the contrary.

We have watched a steady succession of of Israeli politicians jump on the "Free Barghouti" bandwagon. Yossi Beilin, who hitched up the wagon was the first. Then over a year ago Minister Meir Shitreet suggested that Barghouti will likely be released as part of future peace negotiations. Not to be outdone, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres declared in June, 2007, that he would sign a presidential pardon for Marwan Barghouti if elected to the Israeli presidency. More recently Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer declared that if Israel was interested in achieving peace it had to recognize that "only the release of Barghouti could change things around." And last week Amir Peretz magnanimously promised to visit all of Barghouti's victims' families after Passover to enlist their support for his personal "free Barghouti campaign".

What do we know about Barghouti? Start with the fact that he was convicted by an Israeli court in May 2004 on five counts of murder, one of attempted murder, conspiracy to murder and activity and member ship in a terrorist organization.

But for a more intimate glimpse of the man, Yossi Beilin is, surprisingly, an objective source. Shortly after Barghouti was sentenced to five life sentences, plus 40 years, Beilin had this to say to NY Times reporter, Steven Erlanger:

"Barghouti told me that he wanted to continue the use of violence...he thought he could control the violence he unleashed and end the intifada in a few weeks.." In 2005, Beilin wrote: "The evidence that he was responsible for directing terrorist acts was overwhelming and his punishment was determined accordingly."

Notwithstanding this bleak report card, Beilin does not stop hankering for Barghouti's release stating in 2007:

"In spite of the fact that Barghouti was responsible for the Second Intifada... we are nonetheless talking about the most important elected parliamentarian and the most pragmatic and influential on the Palestinian street. His arrest was a big mistake and an act of stupidity. .. not releasing him would be an even larger mistake."

This week we learned the results of a poll conducted by the Palestinian organization, the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center. 1,190 West Bank and Gazan Palestinians were surveyed by the center between April 8-13, 2008. The results prove that even the Palestinian on the street doesn't buy Beilin's hype about Barghouti's indispensability. His popularity fell from 14.3% in November, 2007 to 12.8%. During that same period, Abbas' ratings dropped from 18.3% to 11.7%.

It is not likely that the above statistics will alter the course of events in this region. These moderate marionette puppets serve many political careers too well. The beaten and battered Bush and Olmert have undeniably won a transfusion of support on the back of the Annapolis negotiations. But they are traveling a dangerous path offering only short term rewards.

Terror groups in Hamas-ruled Gaza are stronger and better equipped than ever. And Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak cautioned just three weeks ago: "We need to keep in mind the possibility that after all we have done, Hamas will take over the West Bank, not only by force but even in the upcoming general elections".

But apparently everybody was too busy planning the next Olmert-Abbas tete-a-tete to listen. Above all else, the puppet show must go on.

...
This article first appeared in Front Page Magazine on 23rd April 2008.

Frimet Roth, a freelance writer, lives in Jerusalem. She and her husband founded the Malki Foundation in their daughter's memory. Malki Roth was murdered at the age of fifteen in the Sbarro Jerusalem restaurant massacre in 2001. The foundation in her name provides concrete support for Israeli families of all faiths who care at home for a special-needs child.

21-Apr-08: What the Palestinian-Arab silent majority really thinks

An opinion poll of Palestinian-Arabs has reported that as of this month, April 2008, more than half of Palestinian Arabs are in favor of suicide bombings of Jews. What this means about the silent majority of Palestinian Arabs who secretly yearn for peace with their neighbors is anyone's guess.

We're speaking of a poll conducted by a respected Palestinian Arab organization, the Jerusalem Media & Communications Center. Its survey covers 1,190 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and was conducted between April 8 and 13, 2008.

There are no signs of the poll's findings in the English-language section of the JMCC's website. The news report of the survey comes via the invaluable Khaled Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post. As we've mentioned before, he's a courageous Palestinian Arab journalist who has a track record of shining bright lights on the things we need to know about terrorism among the Palestinian Arabs even when many consider them politically not correct. (Let's see how widely this latest report of his gets covered outside Israel. A Google News search just now shows the Jerusalem Post as the only source in the global media world that's reporting the story at present.)

Among other results of the survey:

• The percentage of Palestinians who support "resistance operations" against Israeli targets rose from 43.1 percent in September 2006 to 49.5% at present.
  
• Support for "resistance" is highest in the Gaza Strip, at 58.1%, with 24.5% in the West Bank agreeing.
• Palestinian Arabs who support bombing attacks against Israeli civilians rose from 44.8% in June 2006 to 48% in September 2006. In April 2008, it stands at 50.7%. That is, a majority of the men, women and children walking the streets of the Palestinian-Arab villages, towns and cities are comfortable with one of the modern world's most barbaric activities. Something to keep in mind when their representatives appear on news and analysis programs in your community.
  
• Support for suicide bombings is higher among Gazans (65.1%) than among the Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank do (42.3%).
• Regarding the thousands of rocket attacks delivered onto Israel in the past several years, 39.3% find them "useful" to Palestinian national interests. 35.7% see them as harmful.
• Support for Mahmoud Abbas fell from 18.3% in November 2007 to 11.7% in April 2008. Remind us again why such enormous risks are being taken to prop up the Abbas regime?
• Support for Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas dipped from 16.3% in November 2007 to 13.3% in April 2008. A catastrophic number for a politicians, but it still makes him more popular than Abbas.
  
• Support for Marwan Barghouti (a convicted murderer serving his sentence in an Israeli prison) which stood at 14.3% in November 2007 has now descended to 12.8%. Makes us wonder yet again why such energetic efforts are being made by failed politicians on Israel's left including Amir Peretz, Joseph Beilin, Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Naomi Hazan and others to have him pardoned and released immediately. (What powers of insight and understanding do such politicians have that let them see things the rest of us somehow cannot?)
• Fatah's support among Palestinian Arabs decreased from 40% in November '07 to 32.5% in April '08.
• Hamas's popularity went down from 19.7% to 17.8%. (Reminder: When people speak about the allegedly-democratic decision of the Palestinian Arabs to elect a Hamas government, it's this 17.8% party they're referring to.)
  

There's little point in discussing whether any of this is good or bad for peace. It's reality, and it needs to be analyzed and understood. Unlikely that that will happen, based on past performance.

21-Apr-08: And by the way...

It may be Passover, when the entire community of Israel is at rest, commemorating tumultuous events of long ago. But it's always the right time for the jihadists of Gaza to be lobbing explosives into Israel. Any place, any time.

JPost reports that two Qassam rockets struck open areas in the western Negev late last night (Sunday). Nobody was wounded in the attack, and no damage was reported. This was not the terrorists' intention.

Five additional Qassams landed in open areas of southern Israel earlier in the day on Sunday, YNet says.

20-Apr-08: Saying no to Carter... and meaning it

If you read our blog entry from Friday ("Removing the leaven"), you'll have an idea of just how incensed we are by the irresponsible antics and double-dealing hypocrisy of a certain former president of the United States.

The Haaretz Washington columnist Shmuel Rosner has penned some paragraphs that we feel an obligation to share here.

Just say no to Carter
Shmuel Rosner

Senior Israeli officials were not the first to try to get out of meeting Jimmy Carter. A number of members of Bill Clinton's administration have already tried, including the former president and his wife the candidate; most members of Bush senior's administration, including George H. W. himself; and it goes without saying the same applies to his son and his administration.

Carter has a strange characteristic: He finds it easier to make friends with dictators. If a person's companions testify to his personality and character, then here is a partial list of people with whom Carter has gotten along well: Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Kim Il Jong.

Carter has helped in no small number of humanitarian activities, said Brent Scowcroft, George H. W. Bush's former U.S. National Security Adviser, but "his political judgment was just awful."

After Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, Carter objected to using force to remove the invaders. He even had a creative idea of how to solve the crisis: "Now is a propitious time for Israel to come forward with a genuine peace initiative."

In simple terms, an Israeli withdrawal from the territories in return for an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. He had quite a lot of such creative ideas, few of them useful, a few dangerous and most just eccentric.

American administrations from Reagan to the second Bush were forced to grit their teeth and live with his endless activities, and in particular his amazing talent for public relations. When the Clinton administration reached a deal with North Korea, Carter played a role in reaching the controversial agreement. Senior officials then had to watch the ex-president steal the credit in a broadcast to the nation by a CNN crew Carter had invited in advance. Carter has turned self-promotion through scandalous behavior into an art form.

This is exactly how he sold his books, including the one presenting Israel as an apartheid state. A book which revealed, even if that was not what he meant to do, the fundamental hypocrisy which is the basis for the political partisanship concerning Carter. Whoever attacks a president such as Bush for distorting facts in order to push a political goal has no problem accepting Carter's book, which is nothing but a concoction of exaggerations, inventions, distortions and lies. Whoever disagrees with Bush because of the religious faith that serves as the foundation of his political actions has no problem with the same religious motives of Carter's messianism.

The mistake the Americans made when they elected him president in 1976 was mostly an act to punish the Republican Party after the Watergate affair, and they corrected their mistake at the next available opportunity. But Carter is a gift that continues to give - even when no one wants to receive it any more. The honor due Carter for his help in reaching the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt is written in the history books, but he did not come to the Middle East this week for honor, but to work.

And his work, for years, has had one goal: undermining the status of Israel, thwarting its policies and ridiculing its hopes. That is why Israel acted correctly in having him meet with only the ceremonial echelon - President Shimon Peres - and avoided having him meet with those who are supposed to be doing the work: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

In an interview earlier this week, Carter told Haaretz's Akiva Eldar a number of amazing things. Carter seemingly was not particularly distressed by the refusal to meet with him: "In a democracy, I realize that you don't need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that's the dictator, because he speaks for all the people," explained Carter knowledgeably.

The words were very well chosen, with a malicious message wrapped up inside: in a dictatorship it is impossible to trust the ruler to express society's views, but in a democracy such as Israel the opposite is true - the elected government is that which expresses the public's mood, otherwise it would not have been elected.

Carter, once the exaggerated attention is stripped away, is nothing but a nuisance. A painful reminder of the electorate's failure. His views do not represent the American public, his actions are not viewed favorably by the administrations that followed him - Democrats and Republicans alike - and his righteous trouble making is just a guise for continued hostility to Israel, which he views as partially responsible for ending his presidential career after only a single term.

In any case, the choice of those who still continue to insist on the need to listen to Carter is based on lies - it is possible to ignore him, protest his manipulative tricks, and still continue to work for true peace between Israel and the Arabs. There is no contradiction.

Carter spent the past two days in meetings with the Syrian dictator and with a Damascus-based Hamas terrorist ring-leader. Feh.

20-Apr-08: Putting an attack on a humanitarian crossing into perspective

To put Saturday's "smash-and-grab" terrorist attack on Kerem Shalom into some useful context, a little background is needed.

The place-name is Hebrew for "vineyard of peace", and refers both to a kibbutz founded in 1966 adjacent to the tri-border Gaza/Egypt/Israel area by members of a Zionist youth movement called Hashomer Hatzair, and to a border-crossing. Both are called Kerem Shalom.

The kibbutz members chose the name because the word shalom conveys the idea that the location would play a role in establishing peace and ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israeli optimism has never been in short supply.

As a border crossing, Kerem Shalom plays a vital humanitarian role. Since March 2006, it has been used to bring cargo - in particular, humanitarian supplies - from Egypt into Gaza. Pallets arriving on trucks from Egypt are offloaded in Kerem Shalom and Palestinian trucks carry them from there into the Gaza Strip. The turnaround time for the transfer is about 45 minutes, which allows between 15 and 50 truckloads daily. The crossing is managed by the Israel Airports Authority and supervised by European monitors from the European Union Border Assistance Mission Rafah who use it to get to the Rafah Border Crossing. When Kerem Shalom is closed, the Rafah crossing also closes.

Did we say humanitarian? Given the barbaric nature of terrorism in general and of Hamas in particular, any place that fulfills a humanitarian role for the benefit of the Gazan Palestinian Arabs is, by definition, going to be a prime terror target for them. And so it has been. On 25-Jun-06, an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit was abducted by terrorists near Kerem Shalom who crossed into Israel via a tunnel from Gaza and killed two of his companions. The 19 year-old has been held hostage since then. In January, Palestinian Arab terrorist materials were intercepted at the crossing, hidden in a consignment of humanitarian materials.

This brings us to yesterday (Saturday), the eve of Passover, a day on which Jews throughout the world make final preparations for the festive retelling of the Exodus narrative. In other words, the day we recall the transition from tribe to peoplehood. What better day for the Hamas to mount a sophisticated attack intending to grab additional hostages? And if the humanitarian crossing that provides Gaza's families with their meager supplies is destroyed or shut down - well then, that's just a bonus for the terrorists.

Hamas sent two explosives-packed jeeps and two armored vehicles. The jeeps, which were detonated by suicide drivers, broke through to the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom goods crossing early Saturday, April 19. Terrorists jumped out of the first armored vehicle under cover of the explosions as well as mortar fire and heavy mist, and attacked the Israeli position guarding the terminal. This vehicle, painted in IDF colors, was captured and the assailants driven back. The second armored vehicle, rigged with explosives, headed for the Kissufim crossing further north. IDF tank fire blew it up before it reached its target. (Thanks to Israel Insider for the narrative.)

Thirteen IDF soldiers were lightly or moderately wounded in foiling Saturday's attack. A senior IDF official quoted by Ynet said: "This was an obvious attempt to make an operational statement. The creativity demonstrated by the terrorists, was meant to carry out a 'quality' attack. Dead or kidnapped troops would have dramatically changed the situation in Gaza both over the holiday and in the future."

Following the attack, the Israeli Air Force located and destroyed terrorist rocket crews in Gaza. A cell of four group members was killed by IDF fire Saturday evening en route to launch rockets at Israel. Two additional terrorists were killed in two separate strikes on Saturday night and Sunday morning. The body count, however, is not so straightforward, as Snapped Shot points out:

Reuters is claiming FIVE Hamas gunmen were killed by Israeli air strikes in retaliation to an earlier attack against an Israeli border crossing. No, wait. The AP says it was SEVEN. No, wait again - AFP claims it was ONE. No, THREE. What the hell, lets just add them together and call them civilians... SIXTEEN Palestinian civilians were killed in IDF air strikes!!

Leaving the problematic news-agency reporting aside, YNet points out that one of those terrorists killed yesterday was one of the Hamas senior figures behind the attack and a senior official in the group's military wing – the so-called Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. And an earlier report carried by UPI now makes more sense than it did earlier: An IDF Bedouin battalion on Thursday fired on three Palestinian gunmen who moved into the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing and who were trying to infiltrate the Israeli side. It's now evident that Thursday's small-scale move was a dress rehearsal intended to figure out how the Israelis might respond to something larger.

The outcome of yesterday's attack was, fortunately, quite different from what Hamas and its thuggish associates planned. The absurdity of it is that Israel, after some period of keeping the crossing closed and trying to figure out how to protect the personnel who man it - will continue to protect this crossing point from the future Palestinian-Arab terror attacks that are sure to follow. Israeli soldiers as well as civilian fuel workers will continue to place themselves in harm's way to ensure a constant flow of the very items - fuel, food, medicine - that the terrorists want to stop so that they, and such apologists for their terrorism as European Parliament vice president Luisa Morgantini, can continue bemoaning "collective punishment" and "humanitarian disaster".

Collective punishment is the right term for describing the humanitarian disaster inflicted by a jihadist leadership on its own people.

18-Apr-08: Removing the leaven

Passover is upon us. Saturday night, Jewish families throughout the world will sit down to a formal dinner laden with ceremonial elements that have been part of Jewish life for nearly three thousand years. That meal is preceded by the reading of the Haggadah, the narrative that traces the emergence of a Jewish nation out of Egyptian slavery, and by days - sometimes weeks - of clearing the leaven from our homes.

Leaven. It's a word that few people use if they're not getting ready for this Jewish festival. In Hebrew, Chametz, the word conveys not only a sense of the difference between bread (that rises in the course of being baked) and matza (the perfectly flat bread we eat for the next week). It's also the symbolic expression of arrogance, hubris - like yeast, something that causes a puffing up in dough.

An excellent time therefore to review the visit to this part of the world of James E. Carter, a former president of the United States and the noted author of a book entitled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Michael Kinsley's review in Slate ("Jimmy Carter's moronic new book about Israel") provides a good overview.

Carter's visit was marked by his laying a wreath on the tomb of an arch-terrorist and master Palestinian-Arab embezzler and physically embracing and conferring with several leading active Hamas terrorists (quite possibly breaching several US Federal laws in the process). He also visited beleagured Sderot (looking strikingly bored according to eyewitnesses) and pronounced the endless missile and rocket attacks on southern Israel "criminal". The word must have slipped past Carter's pursed lips because the last thing he meant, it appears, was that Israelis need to respond as one responds to a criminal attack by degenerate thugs on your home, family and future.

Sadly, the man gets considerably more mileage in the circles in which he moves by pronouncing Israelis as practitioners of apartheid than as victims of an ongoing mugging and conspiracy to murder.

Here are a couple of the more cogent published observations stimulated by the former peanut farmer's visit to one of the world's most complex war-zones.

• Jimmy Carter and Hamas - Washington Times Editorial
  Jimmy Carter's decision to meet with the terrorist organization Hamas is turning the former president into something of a political pariah. During a visit to the West Bank town of Ramallah Tuesday, Carter hugged and kissed a leading Hamas official at a reception. He is scheduled to meet later this week with Hamas' Damascus-based leader, Khaled Meshaal. After Iranian President Ahmadinejad called the Holocaust a "myth" and said Israel should be "wiped off the map," Meshaal congratulated Iranian leaders. Hamas has been behind scores of suicide attacks against Israel, and following that nation's August 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas has stepped up its firing of rockets and missiles at Israel.
  
  
• Carter's Confusion - Clifford D. May National Review
  When Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich, he no doubt believed he could reason with him because he also no doubt believed that the Fuhrer was a reasonable man like himself. Offer Hitler a good deal - land, power, prestige - and surely he'd take it rather than plunge his nation into a terrible war. What this leaves out is ideology. Hitler's ideas inspired millions to fight and die for the glory of the Third Reich. And Marxist/ Leninist/ Stalinist/ Maoist ideology inspired millions to fight and die for the illusion of a Communist utopia.
  Hamas proudly proclaims that "the Koran is our constitution, Jihad is our way, and death for the sake of God is our highest aspiration." Hamas leaders promise their followers not just rewards here on Earth but in the next world as well - a selling point neither Nazism nor Communism could offer. As a matter of religious conviction, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal cannot accept Israel's existence. Hamas believes every inch of Israel and, indeed, of any land ever ruled by Muslims is "an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgment Day." A Muslim can fight to reclaim this endowment or he can fail to fulfill the obligations his faith imposes. To Hamas, there is no third way.

Removing a little of the hubris and the self-serving political narcissism from our midst at this time of year means not only ceremonially burning the bread with the crumbs but also recognizing puffed-up spent political leaders and placing their well-dressed hypocrisy on the garbage pile for immediate disposal.

17-Apr-08: Bracing

Ask yourself: what would you, as a citizen of some country some place that happens to have extremely badly-behaved neighbors, do in the face of this sort of ongoing trouble?

8 rockets fired at southern Israel
Eight rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel since Wednesday night, landing in open fields in the western Negev. No injuries or damage were reported in any of the attacks. Three of the rockets landed within Eshkol Regional Council limits, three fell in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council and one landed south of the town of Netivot – a location scarcely targeted by the Palestinians. One rocket landed outside Ashkelon Wednesday night... More than 30 Qassam rockets landed in Israel on Wednesday... The police have raised their alert level to the maximum on Wednesday ahead of the Passover holiday this weekend. The state of alert will remain high throughout May, until after Independence Day celebrations.

Most people in most places, relying as we all do on news reportage from the same handful of major industrialized reporting agencies (Reuters, AP, AFP, Xinhua) probably won't know this happened or have the ability to put it in context. As is so often the case, most reports from this area lead off, as this sadly typical AFP report does today, like this:

The Gaza Strip braced for more violence Thursday...

All this bracing that the Gaza Strip, more correctly the people of the Gaza Strip, do is more than slightly connected to the place having become one giant armed camp. The endless shooting, missile firing and terrorism-planning that emanates from them is directed at someone. It's not just a state of mind. It's not just a group psychosis. It's war. And that war is directed at real people. Us.

How would you react?

13-Apr-08: Terrorism doesn't recognize borders

A report today says British police and security agencies are keeping tabs on 30 terror plots, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told a Sunday newspaper.

"There are 22,000 individuals who are being monitored. There are 200 networks involved and 30 active plots," Smith said in an interview with the News of the World.

"We now face a threat level that is severe. It's actually growing," said the interior minister. "We can't wait for an attack to succeed and then rush in new powers. We have got to stay ahead.

"Because we now understand the scale of what is being plotted, the police have to step in earlier, which means they need more time to put evidence together."

In 2005, four British suicide bombers killed 52 people on underground trains and a bus in London. Other attacks have been foiled by police. Eight men are currently on trial in London accused of trying to blow up transatlantic jets using liquid explosives in 2006.

"Since the beginning of 2007, there have been 57 people have been convicted on terrorist plots," said Smith. "Nearly half of those pleaded guilty so this is not some figment of the imagination. It is a real risk and a real issue we need to respond to."

The minister also confirmed she would announce a scheme next week to bring over moderate Islamic clerics from Pakistan to assist British imams in combating extremism in their communities.

"The vast majority of British Muslims have a Pakistani heritage. If we work with the government there we can win the arguments," said Smith, who visited Pakistan this month.

11-Apr-08: Putting unpleasantness in perspective

The unpleasantness and inconvenience that accompanies security checks at airports, shopping mall entrances, restaurants and buses in this country and elsewhere happens against a certain background that is often forgotten or unknown.

Five Hours at Tel Aviv Airport: It's 4 a.m. at Tel Aviv Airport and this is the third time I've been questioned so far. My passport has stamps from various Arab countries: Dubai, Yemen and archenemy Syria. Finally I get my passport back and am allowed to enter. I save my complaint for the government press office in Jerusalem, where I go to pick up my press card the next day. "Security measures," is the explanation I get from the press officer, a tired looking woman by the name of Pnina Aizenman. "What do you think it's like for us, waking up each morning and never knowing what the day will bring?" she says, clearly referring to Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli civilians. While Pnina's busy getting my press card ready, I take a look at the photos of children and a newspaper article on the wall behind me. The article is about a woman who lost her mother and er five-year-old child in a Palestinian suicide bombing. The name of the woman is Pnina Aizenman. I get the shivers. "That's you," I stammer. "Yes. Do you understand now what I mean by security measures?" she replies. I suddenly feel ashamed that I've just been complaining about being kept waiting for five hours when this woman's life has been totally wrecked by a bomb. (Radio Netherlands)

Pnina Eisenman's mother Noa Alon and her five year old daughter Gal were murdered in the bombing of a Jerusalem bus stop at the French Hill Junction a few minutes drive from our home in 2002. Her tragedy is recounted in an online video here.

In 1972, three Japanese terrorists attacked the airport we now call Ben Gurion. Wikipedia says that "Because airport security was focused on the possibility of a Palestinian attack, the use of Japanese terrorists took the guards by surprise, and their commitment to a suicide mission simplified the planning. Kozo Okamoto, Tsuyoshi Okudaira, and Yasuyuki Yasuda had been trained in Baalbek, Lebanon." No further terror attacks against any Israeli airport have succeeded since then.

11-Apr-08: When it's calm here

The next time your local media reports on "calm" or a "lull" in the ongoing war of terrorism being waged against Israelis, think of this largely-unreported story.

Two Palestinians Arrested for Plot to Poison Israeli Restaurant Diners: Ahmed Abu-Riyal and Mustafa Salum, both 21, from Nablus, who were staying in Israel illegally, were arrested last month for planning to poison diners at Ramat Gan's Grill Express, where they were employed, according to details revealed Thursday. The pair admitted being recruited by an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade cell that received funding and instructions from Hizbullah. The flavorless, odorless poison was supposed to take effect about four hours after ingestion, during which the pair planned to kill as many Israeli diners as possible. Terror organizations have tried a number of times in the past to recruit Palestinian cooks and waiters to poison food at Israeli restaurants. Defense sources said the terror cell that sent them is still operating in Nablus. (Ha'aretz)

When it's "calm" here, do you realize how many different threats, how many different modalities for murdering or maiming Jews in their land, are being hatched simultaneously by the dark forces of terror?

Do your journalists and their editors?

10-Apr-08: Children and Nahal Oz

The AP photo at right will probably never get the attention it deserves.

Yet this image goes a long way toward countering incessant accusations against Israel of killing unarmed Palestinian children. The caption reads (in part): "A Palestinian militant sets up an improvised explosive device at a street corner in Gaza City, near the Nahal Oz crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel Wednesday, April 9, 2008"

Here is just one of many Palestinian terrorists conducting his business in the immediate presence of Palestinian children. This is a win-win scenario for him and his comrades.

Either the proximity of innocent children will deter Israelis from responding, which often occurs.

Or Israeli forces will be obliged to respond against the terrorists in order to save Israeli lives.

In the latter case, if the Palestinian children do die, then the terrorists will gain invaluable photos of the poor victims. Western media outlets can be relied on to distribute those horrific images widely. And the Palestinians will enjoy a "sympathy surge" from arm-chair liberals in the West.

So who's really guilty of those Palestinian children's deaths?

(For brief background on yesterday's murderous terrorist attack on Israel's fuel-supply line into Hamas-controlled Gaza, read "Palestinians attack key Gaza fuel transfer point".)