29-Nov-11: Rockets from our north - once again

Village in Western Galilee [Photo source]

With the bloody war between the Assad regime in Damascus and Syria's civilian population moving towards the end-game stage and inevitable regime change to follow, a certain long-held view of Israeli analysts may be being proven right. Syria, according to the theory, is likely to increasingly generate regional troubles to distract from its own rapidly-worsening domestic situation. See for instance "Bloody, Bloodier Paths for Syria" in today's Wall St Journal.

Early this morning (Tuesday) at least three, possibly four, Katyusha rockets were fired from Lebanese territory, and exploded in Israel's otherwise-tranquil Western Galilee region. Ynet says there are no injuries but several structures sustained damage from the post-midnight attacks. Firefighers were called in to cool down a propane gas tank that was hit by the missiles. Ynet quotes an Israeli villager who says he saw a mushroom cloud billowing in the sky followed by the thick smell of gunpowder. "It was 20 meters from my house".

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit, in its official statement, said "The IDF Northern Command is operationally prepared, and conducting an ongoing situation assessment in light of the incident... The IDF regards this incident as severe."

There's no response that we can find so far from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. As we noted a few days ago ("23-Nov-11: So tell us again: this is why peacekeepers are sent to the area?"), the UNIFIL forces tend to hear about matters like this on the news. So their reaction might take some time.

AP is saying this is the first rocket fire into Israel from Lebanon since October 2009 and that the IDF says it doesn't expect the incident to touch off a wider conflict. It's the eighth rocket attack "since Israel's war with Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas ended in August 2006" writes AP in a sanitized reference to the Syrian and Iranian backed, trained, equipped and funded terrorists who are deeply entrenched among the hapless villagers of southern Lebanon.

Reuters is reporting that "some have worried about a possible spillover of tensions from a months-old revolt in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad and from a stiffening of Western sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme".

The Jerusalem Post, quoting an IDF assessment, says it was likely to have been al-Qaida and/or Palestinian terror groups rather than Hizbollah who fired the 122 millimeter rockets fired from just north of the Lebanese border with Israel. That's the area most in need of UNIFIL supervision, we would say, and the site of continued military buildup for the last several years.

28-Nov-11: Far from the election action in Egypt, a cold peace gets still colder

An Egyptian mob attacks Israel's embassy in Cairo, September 2001.
A cold peace is growing colder.

Reuters reports on yet another successful attack on the pipe that brings gas from Egypt to Israel. The pipeline running to Israel and also Jordan was blown up today (Monday) a few hours before Egypt's first free election since the toppling of Mubarak in February. It was last attacked earlier this month and there were seven more attacks before that during 2011. Each one caused an explosion and interrupted the gas flow. Earlier this month we blogged on how the government in Cairo said it plans to tighten security measures along the pipeline by installing alarm devices and adding security patrols. We assume the planning goes on.

Egypt's state-controlled news agency MENA says the explosions were in the al-Sabeel area and were detonated from a distance with tracks from two vehicles being found in the area. In strikingly laconic words, Reuters says "Egypt's 20-year gas deal with Israel, signed in the Mubarak era, is unpopular with the Egyptian public".  It might have mentioned that peace with Israel, as the BBC reported a short while ago, has always been unpopular with the Egyptian masses.

Case in point: the views published in a June 2011 Newsweek/Daily Beast poll ("Egypt’s Simmering Rage"). Based on a survey of 1,008 randomly selected Egyptian adults, it found only 3 percent had a positive impression of Israel. 70 percent of those polled would either amend or repeal the Camp David Accords that have formed the basis of the "cold peace" between Israel and Egypt since 1978.

26-Nov-11: Saturday morning rocket attack on southern Israel

A Qassam rocket, fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza, crashed into an open area in Israel's Eshkol region this morning (Saturday). AFP quoting Israeli police sources says there were no casualties but this, as we have said repeatedly in the past, is not the outcome that the terrorists planned. They will certainly try again until they are stopped.

25-Nov-11: Here's what keeps our side occupied, far from Tahrir Square

While most people's attention is on Tahrir Square in Cairo, this is Ynet's lead story as the sun sets for the Sabbath.

Alert level in al-Arish raised to unprecedented level after reports suggest Jihad members planning attack on local security headquarters             Roee Nahmias, Reuters
Published: 11.25.11, 14:04 / Israel News
While tens of thousands of protesters are amassing in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the Sinai Peninsula is heating up. Egyptian security forces on Friday raised the alert level to an unprecedented level in the al-Arish area in northern Sinai after they received information that Jihad members are planning on carrying out an attack on the local security headquarters, the Ma'an news agency reported Friday. According to the information they received, some 2,500 Jihad and additional radical faction members were equipped with "unconventional weapons" and had gathered large quantities of ammunition. The operatives prepared a plan to attack the al-Arish security directorate, the central prison and other official buildings. The purpose of the attack, according to the report, was vengeance on Egyptian authorities for thwarting a previous plan to attack Sinai and drive away security forces. The reports come after saboteurs blew up a gas pipeline 60 km (37 miles) west of the Egyptian town of al-Arish in northern Sinai earlier on Friday, the latest in series of attacks, state news agency MENA reported.

More when we're back on Saturday night.

23-Nov-11: One more thing about today's explosion in southern Lebanon

From Ynet:

"The blast occurred in an area that is under UN control. According to UN Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah is forbidden from storing arms in this region. A UNIFIL team is expected to launch an investigation into the explosion."

Once the Hizbollah people let them into the area, that is. As noted in our earlier post:

"Hezbollah members created a one-kilometer radius security zone around the explosion site between Siddiqin and Deir Ames".

23-Nov-11: So tell us again: this is why peacekeepers are sent to the area?

Irish UNIFIL soldiers at target practice, Kawakba, Southern
Lebanon - August 2001.

Yesterday was Lebanon's 68th independence day ("Lebanon celebrates Independence Day with mixed feelings"). Its media, typically, carries cryptic analyses today referring in round-about fashion to the huge influence exercised by its militant and aggressive Syrian neighbours. But the real elephant in the room is Hizbollah, the armed-to-the-teeth jihadists who have plunged the country into war and to its brink several times in the last five years.

As a reminder of how far from independence the Lebanese actually are, the Daily Star reports this morning from the terrorist-controlled south of the country (the part that borders on Israel):

"A huge explosion shook the Hezbollah stronghold of Siddiqin in south Lebanon overnight, a security source told The Daily Star Wednesday. The source said the cause of the blast, which was heard shortly before midnight, could not be determined due to the heavy security blanket that was thrown by Hezbollah. Attempts by Lebanese security forces to reach the scene so far failed as Hezbollah members created a one-kilometer radius security zone around the explosion site between Siddiqin and Deir Ames, the source added. Local media said the explosion likely took place at a Hezbollah arms cache. A spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon said UNIFIL heard about the explosion on the news. "We have no information at the moment. We are checking this report," AndreaTenenti told The Daily Star by telephone. 

We're sorry for the burden the Lebanese carry. But we're infuriated at the bare-naked passivity of the armed representatives of the UN's "Interim Force" who need their radios and televisions to stay in touch with the deadly events happening under their noses.

Far from preventing hostilities, UNIFIL has played an extremely marginal role over the years in blocking the jihadists from massively arming and planting themselves inside southern Lebanon's towns and using the Lebanese population as a human shield. Notwithstanding, its mission was recently extended by the UN's Security Council to the end of August 2012, in part because

"deployment together with the Lebanese Armed Forces has helped to establish a new strategic environment in southern Lebanon". 

For the record, UNIFIL's frequently-updated mission is now said to be to -

monitor the cessation of hostilities; accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces as they deploy throughout the south of Lebanon; and extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons.

On paper, anyway. Of course, no one, least of all the gunmen, the rocketry experts and the theologists of the Islamist army of Hizbollah, takes UNIFIL's figleaf role seriously.

As for the "new strategic environment in southern Lebanon", someone ought to make contact with Hizbollah's people once they get back to their prayer mats after cleaning up what's left of As Siddiqin. They're the only reliable source of what's being done down there, and they're not telling.

Not that they are doing much good or much anything. When a UNIFIL convoy was bombed in southern Lebanon this past summer, this source, quoting Israeli defence sources, said it was a message to the peacekeeping force to scale back its operations against Hizbollah. Seems to us that was one message that was well received.

23-Nov-11: Yet another hitherto unremarkable suspected terrorist is dragged into the lights

Yusuf in New York court with his lawyer, 21st November 2011

For those of us without the time and ability to do serious research and lacking Arabic language skills, the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor provides an invaluable contribution to analyzing and translating otherwise inaccessible information about Islamist and other terrorists.

Its latest dispatch, issued last night, deals with arrest of Muhammad Yusuf, born Jose Pimentel. Yusuf is the 27-year-old New Yorker, originally from the Dominican Republic, a convert to Islam, who was arrested this past week on charges of plotting to blow up U.S. targets including troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as planning to blow up police cars and (naturally) postal facilities in Manhattan. He produced several English-language websites to disseminate his beliefs. These include Allah's Servants, Steeds of War, and The Few The Proud The Mujahideen. Under surveillance for a year or more, he was arrested in NYC's Washington Heights neighbourhood after coming close to completing an explosive device

His main contribution to the dissemination of racism is a site called True Islam. This is a vehicle for his original essays, links to introductory material on Islam and to other racist and hate-based websites, and - typically for the genre - video, audio and text featuring some of the Islamist all-stars: Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri and the American-born Anwar Al-Awlaki. It features posters advocating for the usual Islamist causes including "Free Somalia," "Free Chechnya," and "Support Afia Siddiqui", and has prominent and adulatory portraits of such jihadists as Sayyed Qutb (Egypt), Abdallah 'Azzam (founder of the global jihad movement), Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi (Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq), Chechen terrorist Shamil Besayev and others. 

MEMRI says most of his material appears to be aimed at Muslims, seeking to persuade them of Al-Qaeda's virtue and of the evil nature of Islam's "enemies" and especially the U.S. Though he appears not to know Arabic well, he shows familiarity with the tenets of Islam, of Al-Qaeda and of the jihad movement in general. His key themes:

• Praise for Osama bin Laden in an essay from March 5, 2011. He justifies Al-Qaeda's war on the U.S. and the targeting of civilians, especially the 9/11 attacks. 
• "America and its allies are all legitimate targets in warfare," including civilians who strengthen the U.S. economy, like those who worked at the World Trade Center.
• Non-Muslims fight wars for worldly reasons and for worldly gains, but Muslims wage jihad for religious reasons, in fulfillment of Allah's commands. Non-Muslim soldiers and wars are immoral. Jihad and the mujahideen are virtuous.
• Islam will not flourish until the concept of jihad is properly understood and implemented by Muslims.
• When arrested, he told police: "Islamic law obligates all true Muslims to wage war against the United States in response to the United States invasion of Muslim lands."

NY Post said the terrorist had been on the NYPD's radar for two years. The decision to bring him in came when police learned he claimed he would create a working bomb within hours. Most of the media reports call him a "lone wolf" as if this diminishes the threat to the lives of innocent people in some way. We see it differently. There is a worldwide industry out there of sleeper 'soldiers' plotting a war against the societies in which they live. Advances in the state of weapons technology give those haters the ability to create real devastation. To think - as many do - that the good side is somehow winning is to ignore the steady stream of suspects and attempts that have been blocked at the last minute or fell victim to accident or stupidity. 

It's mostly luck and sometimes good policing and detective work that is keeping the threats from overwhelming us. New York City's mayor Michael Bloomberg said this jihadist terror attack was the 14th to have been thwarted by the NYPD since the 9/11 attacks. So we're left to either assume this 'lone wolf' has no friends, has influenced no one, is an outlier, and the danger has been neutralized. Or we can look around at the ocean of inflammatory material (MEMRI has a constantly updated sample set here) like Yusuf/Pimental's, washing up against the empty lives of quiet, unobtrusive men and women and the religious messages being broadcast at them 24/7 and count our dumb luck that another huge unthwarted showcase attack by the terrorists has not happened. Yet.

17-Nov-11: A monster walks the streets and she has many accomplices

There may be words that adequately describe the feeling of watching your child's murderer being treated as a hero, the subject of community-wide adulation, an iconic figure to be emulated by school children. We just don't know what those words are. The information contained in the report we republish below leaves us dumbfounded.

The account in the following paragraphs, published in the past few hours by Palestinian Media Watch and entirely devoted to the woman who played the lead role in the massacre of innocents that took our daughter's life, describes a society wallowing in depravity and barbarism. We hope you will be interested in our comments - they are at the end of this piece, after the PMW analysis which starts in the next line.

A Palestinian hero in the media

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch

Since the release of 1027 Palestinian prisoners [Comment: Not correct, though the transaction is meant to produce that total after the second stage is complete] from Israeli prisons in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit last month, Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Palestinian Authority leaders, including Abbas, as well as the official PA media have chosen to glorify some of those terrorists who have committed the most lethal attacks against Israel as well as the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit.

Among the recently released prisoners was Ahlam Tamimi. She is the terrorist who chose the place and led a suicide bomber to the Sbarro pizza shop in Jerusalem in August 2001, who murdered 15 people in his attack, 7 of them children. 

Tamimi has repeatedly stated that she does not regret her involvement in the terror attack. Since her release, Tamimi has appeared in several interviews, in which she has repeated this. A Jordanian website broadcast an interview with her in which, when she was asked if she would participate in or carry out another terror attack, she responded:

"Of course. I don't regret what happened, absolutely not. That is the path; I give myself for the sake of Allah, to Jihad for Allah. I carried out [my mission] and Allah made me successful: You know the number of victims who were killed. All that was thanks to the success from Allah. Do you expect me to abandon what I did, saying [I regret it]? Regret is something that is out of the question. If time could go backwards, I would carry out what I did, in the same manner." Click to view 

Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV also did a lengthy interview with Tamimi in which she described the suicide bomber admiringly:  

"It's important to say that I was walking with a spiritual person. Next to him, I sensed a sort of divine aura surrounding us."

Hamas' TV also interviewed the parents of the Sbarro suicide bomber. They both expressed their pride and appreciation of Tamimi and how she helped their son become a Martyr:  

"We are proud of Ahlam Tamimi even before our son, by Allah. She fulfilled her obligation and made me proud. We thank Allah and Ahlam Tamimi, who brought him [my son] to this high level." Click to view 

Prior to the prisoners' release, the PA official daily printed a long article describing Tamimi's life as a journalist and her becoming a "fighter" in Hamas' military wing Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades. Among other things, the article described how Tamimi,  

"the dreamy student and conscientious journalist turned into a different sort of woman - she began a race against time to participate in carrying out operations (i.e., terror attacks) in West Jerusalem."

This is not the first time that Ahlam Tamimi has been glorified by PA media. In a response to Israeli TV's rebroadcast of an interview with Tamimi in which she said that she did not regret planning the bombing even though children were killed and that she had chosen the Sbarro pizza shop as a target because it had a large number of customers, PA TV accused Israeli TV of "inciting against the prisoners." Click to view 

Palestinian Media Watch has documented the policy of the PA to glorify terrorists.

The following is the text from the video interview on the Jordanian website ammonnews with Ahlam Tamimi from her parents' home in Jordan following her release:

Interviewer: How did you take the sentence? [15 life sentences]
Tamimi: I'm a Jihad fighter for Allah and a Jihad fighter for Allah is ready for any outcome: either he will die as a Shahid (Martyr), or he will be assassinated, or he will be taken captive; [or] Allah can decree some unknown fate for him - [for instance,] that he will live as a wanted [fugitive].
Interviewer: If you could set the clock back, Ahlam, would you carry out, or take part in, a major operation (i.e., terror attack)?
Tamimi: Of course. I don't regret what happened, absolutely not. That is the path; I give myself for the sake of Allah, to Jihad for Allah. I carried out [my mission] and Allah made me successful: You know the number of victims who were killed. All that was thanks to the success from Allah. Do you expect me to abandon what I did, saying [I regret it]? Regret is something that is out of the question. If time could go backwards, I would carry out what I did, in the same manner.
Interviewer: How would you describe the Israelis?
Tamimi: The Israelis are a nation upon which it was decreed that it would be dispersed over the earth. Allah decreed this upon them, but international conspiracies, the Balfour Declaration, gave them the right to something to which they have no right.
Source: ammonnews.net accessed Nov. 12, 2011.  Click to view 

Excerpt of interview with Ahlam Tamimi on Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas): 

Tamimi: You make a big deal about the Sbarro restaurant (bombing) in which 15 Israelis were killed, but my first operation (i.e., terror attack) was at the King George supermarket (in central Jerusalem). I chose the Sbarro restaurant, but I didn't go in with him (i.e., the terrorist). A few days beforehand, I counted the number of people entering the restaurant, a large number of people would enter this restaurant.
Host: What did you talk about with the Martyrdom-seeker on the way (to the suicide attack)?

Tamimi: It's impossible to describe him with words. We met only on the day of the operation. The [Hamas] brothers changed his entire appearance. He wasn't bearded. He wore jeans and a hat. It's important to say that I was walking with a spiritual person. Next to him, I sensed a sort of divine aura surrounding us. We looked into each other's eyes. I said to him, "There is no God but Allah," and he said, "and Muhammad is Allah's messenger," and he smiled.
Host: We interviewed the parents of the heroic Martyrdom-seeker (i.e., the suicide bomber), Izz A-Din Al-Masri, who blew himself up in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem.
Father of suicide bomber: We are proud of Ahlam Tamimi even before our son, by Allah. She fulfilled her obligation and made me proud. We thank Allah and Ahlam Tamimi, who brought him [my son] to this high level.
Mother of suicide bomber: My son chose his path and his fate, and we do not regret that. Praise Allah, that is an honor for him. What [higher] level could he have asked for? That is the best level in the eyes of his Lord.
Tamimi: I always had an inner conflict whether they were happy with me or not.
Host: How did you conduct yourself [in the interrogation]?
Tamimi: By Allah, you won't believe it, but I was always smiling. I don't know why my smile always angered them.
Host: The judge who sentenced you ordered that you should not be included in any exchange deal.
Tamimi: I say to him - you will die in your anger. I was released, and you remain in your defeat.
I hope that you will be defeated, and may Allah add more defeat to you. 

Source: Al-Aqsa (Hamas) TV, Oct. 24, 2011 - Click to view  

The following is the official PA daily's article on terrorist Ahlam Tamimi the day before her release: Headline: "Ahlam Tamimi will not wait 1584 years to be released...!" 

"No one at Bir Zeit University would have believed that Ahlam Tamimi could be a member of a radical, top secret military organization such as the Shahid (Martyr) Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas movement's military wing. Likewise, no one knows what caused Ahlam, a spirited young woman... studying journalism at the university in order to realize her aspirations, to become a fighter, even if she herself has said that it was the occupation which drove the Palestinians to resist it in every way... Ahlam was born on Oct. 20, 1980, in the city of Zarka, in Jordan, to a Palestinian family... She returned to Palestine in order to study journalism and communications at Bir Zeit University. She had only one semester left [to complete] when the Al-Aqsa Intifada (i.e., the Palestinian terror campaign, 2000-2005) broke out, with unprecedented violence in the Palestinian territories, as evidenced in the terrible murder policy of the Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon government. Ahlam tried to 'fight' the occupation in her way, focusing on a program which she presented on local television broadcast in Ramallah, which covered the occupation's actions. In her journalistic work, Ahlam encountered the harsh reality and the tragic stories brought about by the occupation, and decided to take another big step. At the same time, her friend from the faculty of journalism and communications, Wael Daghlas of the Al-Qassam Brigades, thought that she was suited to join the Brigades... The dreamy student and conscientious journalist turned into a different sort of woman - she began a race against time to participate in carrying out operations (i.e., terror attacks) in West Jerusalem.
The article goes on to describe her role in the Sbarro attack, and then her arrest and trial:  After a period of training, she carried out her first activity on July 27, 2001, when she carried out surveillance on the streets of western Jerusalem without attracting attention, aided by her modern clothing and pleasant appearance. Her mission was to choose places to carry out bombing operations planned by Abdallah Barghouti, as revenge for every [Israeli] assassination operation. Her most prominent operation was her assistance in carrying out the bombing attack which shocked western Jerusalem on Aug. 9, 2001 (i.e., the Sbarro restaurant attack), whose ramifications affected regional and world leaders. Ahlam patrolled Jerusalem in her car and set the route which the one who would carry out [the operation], Izz A-Din Al-Masri, would take from Ramallah to Jerusalem. The next day she took the guitar which Abdallah Barghouti had booby-trapped, and joined Izz A-Din Al-Masri. She asked him to carry the guitar over his shoulder. These were moments laden with emotion between them, as she pointed out the place to him and left him to take his final walk while she returned to Ramallah. When she was arrested afterwards, she was tortured and the Israeli court gave her 16 life sentences, meaning 1584 years... Ahlam dealt with the trial with a smile and her words to the judges: 'I don't recognize the legitimacy of this court; I do not wish to present my name or age to you... I present myself to you through my actions, with which you are very familiar... My name is Ahlam, and I shall remain thus until I attain the dream of my Palestinian people to rid this land of you.' She became engaged in prison to another prisoner, her cousin Nizar, who belongs to Fatah; his father is Dr. Samir Shehadeh, a member of the Fatah leadership."
Source: Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 16, 2011

PA TV [which ThisOngoingWar reminds our visitors is headed by the reputedly 'moderate' Palestinian Arab politician Mahmoud Abbas, known also as Abu Mazen] accused Israeli TV of "incitement" for airing old interview with Tamimi: 

PA TV News reader: Israeli TV Channel 1, during the first part of the prisoners' exchange, deliberately rebroadcast an interview held in the past in prison with the [now] released female prisoner Ahlam Tamimi to incite against the prisoners.
PA TV shows Israeli Channel 1 TV re-broadcast of interview:      Israeli interviewer: "Who chose Sbarro [restaurant, as the target of the attack]?"
Tamimi: "I did. Over nine days I examined the place very carefully and chose it after seeing the large number of visits to this restaurant, the Sbarro restaurant. I didn't want to blow [myself] up, I didn't want to carry out a Martyrdom-seeking operation (i.e., a suicide attack). My mission was just to choose the place and to bring the Martyrdom-seeker (i.e., the suicide bomber). [I made] the general plan of the operation, but carrying it out was entrusted to the Martyrdom-seeker. ... I told him to enter the restaurant, eat a meal, and then after 15 minutes carry out the Martyrdom-seeking operation. During the quarter of an hour I would return the same way that I had arrived. Then I bade him farewell. He went inside, he crossed the road and went to the restaurant, and I went back the way I had come... You have to know something: a Martyrdom-seeker has a very special character, and I was amazed at his great wish to carry out the operation, his great wish to pass over to a different life. How beautiful it is when you make a person - [starts the sentence again] [Suppose] there's a poor person and you give him a lot of money. He will be happy and you yourself will be happy that you realized for him the happy life that he wanted. My job was to realize, for this Martyrdom-seeker, the happy life that he wanted.
Interviewer: Didn't you think about the people who were in the restaurant? The children? The families?
Tamimi: "No."
Tamimi: "I have no regrets, and no Palestinian prisoner regrets what he or she has done. We were defending ourselves. What are we supposed to regret? Should we regret defending ourselves? Should we regret that the Israelis killed one of us so we killed a different one of them? We have no regrets."
Interviewer: Do you know how many children were killed in the restaurant?
Tamimi: Three children were killed in the operation, I think. [Smiles.]
Interviewer: Eight.
Tamimi:  Eight?! [Smiles.] Eight.
Source: PA TV (Fatah), Oct. 23, 2011 Click to view 

The people from PMW are owed a great debt of gratitude for pulling this material and their report together. Now our own comments.

This person murdered fifteen people, most of them children, all of them Jewish. A sixteenth woman, a young mother, was left unconscious and vegetative from the day of the terrorist attack until today; the woman's two year old daughter has grown up motherless. And more than 130 people were left maimed and wounded, along with several hundred families, ours among them, who were and are devastated. 

Yet today, the woman who is the focus of the intense media attention sampled above, this religiously-inspired monster, walks entirely free. She is a media celebrity; see, as just two of many instances, "Ahlam Al-Tamimi Arrives in Amman to a Hero's Welcome" and "Celebrations held at home of released prisoner’s family". Dozens of photographs of her smiling and exultant face are syndicated by the major global newswire services. Her every statement is broadcast and analyzed not only by the terrorists of Hamas and Gaza to whose murderous strand of Islamism she long ago swore allegiance, but also by the mislabeled 'moderates' of Fatah and the PA who are not in the least moderate on the subject of the murder of Jews and the dismemberment of the society we have created here in Israel. 

The injustice of this person's freedom, and the hypocrisy of those who fail to scream out against it, overwhelm us. They choke us. 

One final word. There are two well-known journalists, one British, one Australian, each with an international name and reputation, who contacted us in the days immediately after the murder of our Malki in August 2001. Each of them, in different ways, proposed a double-headed interview for the benefit of their audiences: an interview that would couple, on one hand, the father of the fifteen year-old Israeli child murdered by the thuggish terrorists of Hamas, and on the other hand, the father of the bomb - the father of the religiously-addled young fanatic who carried an explosive laden guitar-case into the restaurant in order to go to his 72 virgins. 

Both journalists received an immediate refusal from us. To this day, we consider their requests to have constituted an especially vile form of pornography, a kind of reportial peep-show. What is especially galling to us in the case of the Australian journalist, is that he confidently told us in the one and only phone call that ever took place between us that he had personally spoken with the father of the bomb. The father was a lover of peace, he told us. The father was deeply saddened by what his son had done, he said. The father believed in the path of peace and co-existence, and so a two-person interview of this kind would be interesting to an Australian audience since Malki, after all, was born in Australia and there had been considerable media coverage of her death. 

This Australian journalist is not a fluent speaker of Arabic as far as we were able to tell, and the father of the bomb - as we learned - speaks no English. Yet the journalist saw no problem in pressing ahead with his offensive request when he could not have known whether the things he was told by intermediaries (we assume Hamas intermediaries) were true or entirely fictitious. Tonight we are wondering to ourselves, privately, quietly and without any intention to raise the matter with him, whether he will trouble himself to read or listen to or watch the words of the parents of the bomb, the Al-Masris, by clicking on the link above. 

And we wonder when his apology will arrive in our mailbox.

UPDATE 19-Nov-11 at 18:00: We are honored to see that a Polish website has translated the article above. It's online here. Our great appreciation to the translator, Małgorzata Koraszewska.

15-Nov-11: Terrorists keep sending rockets into southern Israel; IDF leaders may have reached the limit of their tolerance levels

Ynet reports that  two more Qassam rockets, indiscriminately fired yet again by the terrorists of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into the general direction of Israeli population centers, exploded in the Shaar Hanegev region. One struck a warehouse near a kindergarten. AP says the warehouse was destroyed and fortunately the kindergarten was unoccupied.

A second rocket exploded in an open area shortly after. Thankfully, there are no reports of injuries - but the terrorists planned a different outcome and must be disappointed... and will surely keep trying until they are stopped permanently.
 
Ynet adds:

Dudi, a father whose son attends the kindergarten, estimated there were only seven seconds between the alarm and the explosion. "The rocket hit the outer wall," he recounted. "It's very frightening for a father who has a child in kindergarten, despite the fact that they are fortified. Some two hours before the hit the kids left the kindergarten, and some of them play in an adjacent playground. If, God forbid, the rocket would have landed then there would have been chaos. " As it turned out, a few teenagers were playing outside when the rocket landed. They ran for cover in a nearby fortified area and were miraculously spared injury.

The Chief of Staff of the IDF, Lt-General Benny Gantz warned the Knesset's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee today behind closed doors that an Israel mission to stop the men with the rockets is needed. He is quoted saying what large swathes of the Israeli citizenry have said for years: "We cannot tolerate repeated cycles of violence in Gaza." The Haaretz report of his closed-door comments quotes his view that "recent rounds of escalated violence and the injury of both lives and the daily routine of citizens of Israel's south are leading to a reality in which the IDF will have to take significant, aggressive action in the Gaza Strip."

13-Nov-11: The Gazan terror rockets are back in action tonight

A Qassam rocket was fired from the northern part of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into southern Israel this evening (Sunday), exploding in an open area inside the Sha'ar Hanegev region. Ynet says there are no reports of injury or damage so far, which was not the intention of the terrorists.Ynet quotes an IDF spokesperson saying the Gaza-based terrorists have been steadily expanding their already formidable arsenal, in part with weapons smuggled out of Libya.

There is little doubt their rockets are capable of striking Tel Aviv, Israel's cultural and business hub and the heartland of this tiny state. The Gazan terrorists, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and smaller gangs, now possess sophisticated anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, according to the un-named IDF official:

"Many arms have flooded into Gaza in the wake of the Libyan revolution, with looted weapons making their way through Egypt's Sinai peninsula and into Gaza through the border tunnels.. The weapons have not changed militants' abilities, since armed groups already possessed these arms. But the amount of weapons has grown substantially."

12-Nov-11: Google publishes aerial views of Iranian heavy-water facility

As anxiety grows about Iran's march towards a nuclear weapons arsenal, Google today released satellite images of facilities at two Iranian cities - Arak and Natanz - that the UN claims may be used to develop nuclear weapons.

The pictures, of which two are below, show changes to the facilities between October 2010 and last month. The images were released by Google after this past week's report by the UN nuclear watching agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that concluded there are 'serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear programme'.

This source says the Fuel Enrichment Plant and Pilot Fuel Enrichment plant in Natanz has been described as 'the facility at the heart of Iran's dispute with the UN'. It is also thought to be the largest nuclear facility in Iran, and has anti-aircraft weapons to defend itself from potential airstrikes.

The satellite images below are of the heavy water production plant facility in Arak. One was taken a year ago, and the second a year later. The buildings and plant at the top left and bottom left appear to have been removed in this year's image of Arak, while there has been new building in the centre of the plant.

Arak: October 2010 [Source]

Arak: October 2011 [Source]

ISIS (the Institute for Science and International Security) is a non-profit, non-partisan institution dedicated to informing the public about science and policy issues affecting international security. On its NuclearIran website, it says this:

Iran’s heavy water production plant was commissioned in August 2006.  The existence of this facility was first revealed publicly by the Iranian opposition group, National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), in August 2002.  ISIS then located the site in commercial satellite imagery after a wide-area search.  By United Nations Security Council resolution 1737 (2006), Iran was to suspend all work on heavy water related projects.  However, Iran has not halted this work and maintains that it has no legal obligation to do so under its safeguards agreement. Iranian officials speaking at a March 5-6, 2005 conference in Tehran said that the plant was in its first stage of operation.  As of 2010, imagery of the heavy water production plant analyzed by the IAEA indicates that it is operating. 

10-Nov-11: Israel-bound gas pipe attacked and blown up by Egyptians yet again

"Saboteurs blew up the gas pipeline between Egypt, Israel and Jordan on Thursday in Northern Sinai using remote controlled bombs, forcing it to shut down, Egyptian security sources said. The first blast, the sixth [but Associated Press the seventh] since the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and the seventh this year, was near Mazar area, 18 miles west of the town of Al-Arish, security sources and witnesses said... The pipeline has been a target for attacks by anonymous saboteurs since the overthrow of Mubarak in February... Egypt and Israel have signed a 20-year natural gas deal by which Egypt would export gas to its neighbour. The deal was unpopular with the Egyptian public and critics argued the Jewish state had been offered gas at prices that were too low. A company official from East Mediterranean Gas Co (EMG), which exports Egyptian gas to Israel, had said in July that international shareholders in the firm were pursuing legal claims against Egypt for $8 billion in damages from contract violations in gas supplies. That followed disruptions caused by pipeline attacks."  (Reuters)

Earlier this week, an Egyptian paper reported that "Egyptian authorities have installed an early warning system to protect gas pipelines in the Sinai Peninsula after a wave of attacks... The head of the governmental Egyptian Company for Natural Gas, Magdi Tawfiq, told the independent newspaper Al Masry Al Youm that security was being tightened for the pipelines."

9-Nov-11: Rocket fired on Sderot overnight amid escalating levels of Gaza-sourced violence

The education of Gaza's next generation

A Gazan terrorist rocket crashed into the Sderot area of southern Israel around midnight (Tuesday night). No damage, no injuries according to Ynet: just more terror... again. [UPDATE Wednesday 09:30 And it appears the IDF responded.]

What can we expect ahead? Terror attacks on Israel were sharply up during October 2011: 80, as compared to 68 in September, according to the Israel Security Agency which is charged with tracking such matters. 46 of the attacks originated in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, compared to 12 in September. Those 46 attacks included 52 rockets and six mortars. The numbers in September were 8 rockets and 2 mortars. Not a good sign for the coming days.

8-Nov-11: "You see a rocket coming towards you..."

Inside a bomb shelter in the southern Israeli city of Beer
Sheva. This and the pictures below are from August, and can
be viewed online here.  

A first-person account from the 4th November edition of the Hebrew-language Israeli daily Makor Rishon, by Hagit Riterman. The translation comes from the good people at dailyalert.org

600,000 Israelis live in the Beersheba [we prefer Beer Sheva] metropolitan area. Last Monday evening I was driving into Beersheba, listening to a song on the radio. Through the window I noticed a young girl running fast and looking scared, not sure where she was going. Suddenly I saw that all the cars ahead of me had stopped in the middle of the street. Their occupants were getting out and running. I understood - the air raid sirens. I ran with the others to take shelter between two buildings.
There were women there hugging the concrete walls. Some were crouched down, and one was shaking. Other sat on the ground. Then someone shouted, "Look up!" and I saw them in the sky. Two bright lights, like balls of fire with tails, almost white, flying in an arch in the sky, coming from afar. I thought they were about to land next to us, but the Grad rockets continued to fly and passed over our heads. We heard explosions and later learned that the Iron Dome missile defense system succeeded in shooting down the two rockets that were aimed at the center of the city. When I saw the two rockets flying in the air, heading towards us, seconds before they passed overhead, I understood so well the fear that people here are now living with.
We're not soldiers in wartime, we're the civilian population. And in the middle of an ordinary day, during a routine drive down the street, suddenly you see a rocket flying in your direction.

For a different standpoint, see this Defence Professionals article: "IDF soldiers operating an Iron Dome anti-rocket battery successfully intercepted on Monday evening (October 31) a Grad rocket in the Be'er Sheba region."

Additional scenes below from the Gazan bombardment of Beer Sheva three months ago (we reported on it here). They're all on display on the Zimbio site in a photo-essay entitled "Gaza Missiles Target Be'er Sheva In Israel As Tensions Rise".

A direct hit (21-Aug-11)

From a Beer Sheva shelter 21-Aug-11

The remains of a breakfast, interrupted by terrorist rockets 

When you hear about people taking shelter in the middle of their
ordinary day, this is how it can look 

A Gazan rocket penetrated the roof of this Beer Sheva school (21-Aug-11)

8-Nov-11: Get ready for a long Arab winter

Cairo's central square - 25th January 2011. You have to be brave or
polyannish to not see the rolling tide of Islamism that has steam-rollered
the so-called Arab Spring

Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal this past week, tells some home truths about the role that Islamism is playing in the over-optimistically-named Arab Spring. It's entitled "Why Islamists Are Winning: When secular politics fail, Islamism is the last big idea standing". Some extracts:

• Europe's foremost authority on political Islam, in an essay published days after Hosni Mubarak was forced from power in February[wrote] "Look at those involved in the uprisings, and it is clear that we are dealing with a post-Islamist generation"...
• "I am not in the least bit worried about the Muslim Brotherhoods in Jordan or Egypt hijacking the future," confided New York Times columnist Tom Friedman...
• Added his colleague Nicholas Kristof in a dispatch from Cairo: "I agree that the Muslim Brotherhood would not be a good ruler of Egypt, but that point of view also seems to be shared by most Egyptians."
• What reassurance. Nine months on, the Islamist Nahda party has swept to victory in Tunisia, the one Arab state in which secularist values were said to be irreversibly fixed. Libya's new interim leader, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, came to office promising "the Islamic religion as the core of our new government"; as a first order of business, he promises to revoke the Gadhafi regime's ban on polygamy since "the law is contrary to Shariah and must be stopped." Later this month, Islamist candidates—some of them Muslim Brothers, others even more religiously extreme—will likely sweep Egypt's parliamentary elections.
• It doesn't stop there. Hezbollah has effectively ruled Lebanon since it forced the collapse of a pro-Western government in January. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's Islamist prime minister, cruised to a third term in parliamentary elections in June. Hamas, winner in the last vote held by the Palestinian Authority in 2006, would almost certainly win again if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dared put his government to an electoral test.
• [Why is this happening? asks Stephens.] Mideast scholar Bernard Lewis noted in an April interview that "freedom" is fairly novel as a political concept in the Arab world. "In the Muslim tradition, justice is the standard" of good government—and the very thing the ancien regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya so flagrantly traduced. Little wonder, then, that Mr. Erdogan's AK party stands for "Justice and Development," the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's new party is "Freedom and Justice" and, further afield, the leading Islamist party in Indonesia calls itself "Prosperous Justice."
• There is also the comprehensive failure of the Muslim world's secular movements to provide a better form of politics.
• That sour history leaves Islamism as the last big idea standing—and standing at a moment when tens of millions of young Muslims find themselves under-educated, semi- or unemployed, and uniquely receptive to a world view with deep historic roots and heroic ambitions.
• The good news is that after 31 years most Iranians have grown sick of Islam always being the answer, and the collapse of the regime awaits only the next ripe opportunity. The bad news is that a similar time-frame may be in store for the rest of the Muslim world, until it too becomes disenchanted with Islamist promises. Get ready for a long winter.

Stephens' essay is worth reading in full.

8-Nov-11: The ongoing tragedy of Syria

The Associated Press provides an update on the effectiveness of the mis-named "international community" in restoring the human rights of ordinary Syrians. No additional comments needed.

Syria's nearly eight-month-old uprising has cost at least 3,500 civilian lives, the United Nations reported Tuesday, in a tally based on figures gathered outside the country. That includes dozens killed since last week's Arab League-brokered peace plan, and the passing of a major Muslim holiday on Sunday, according to the U.N. human rights office. Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said "more than 60 people are reported to have been killed by Syrian security forces since Syria signed the peace plan" sponsored by the league. She told reporters in Geneva the tally includes 19 killed on Sunday during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, also known as the Feast of Sacrifice... Despite increasing international pressure, President Bashar Assad still has a firm grip on power and has shown no signs of moving to stop the crackdown on the uprising against his regime since mid-March. He blames the bloodshed on "armed gangs" and extremists acting out a foreign agenda to destabilize the regime, portraying himself as the lone force who can ward off the radicalism and sectarianism that have bedeviled neighbors in Iraq and Lebanon.

6-Nov-11: Rocket attacks from Gaza again; southern edge of Ashkelon is hit

A midnight report says a rocket fired from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip crashed to earth just south of Ashkelon, a southern Israeli city, a short time ago. No reports of injury or damage at the present time.

UPDATE: Sunday morning 3:30am - a second Gazan rocket, seeking Jewish Israeli civilians like all the other jihadist missiles before it and those to come, crashed into the same general area on Ashkelon's southern flank. This time there is a victim: Ynet says it caused shrapnel wounds to a foreign worker who is now hospitalized at Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon.

5-Nov-11: Israel successfully and surgically pre-empts yet another Islamic Jihadist rocket attack

AP is reporting in the past hour that a targeted Israeli airstrike on terrorists in the Gaza Strip "preparing to fire rockets into southern Israel" has killed an Islamic Jihad terrorist and wounded three others. A spokesman, Adham Abu Salmia, speaking for the Health Ministry of the terrorism-addicted Hamas regime, confirms the death and injuries and says the four were hit by shrapnel.

For its part, the Islamic Jihad terror organization, quoted by AP, acknowledges not only that the men belong to IJ but that they were members of the same IJ gang that fired rockets into Israel a week ago. We reported two days ago ["Raining rockets, and as always Israeli children are in the terrorists' sights"] that Moshe Ami, a grandfather and resident of Ashkelon, was killed in that attack.

Note that no one - other than the terrorists, caught in the act - was injured in the Israeli attack from the air.

5-Nov-11: Tentacles again in west Africa, and the toll is shooting upwards

Boko Haram terrorists: their doctrine declares
wearing pants a sin, but evidently not really

Back in August, we blogged about the Islamic terrorism that is increasingly gripping Nigeria. We wrote:

Like jihadists everywhere, the Boko Harams seek... to create chaos and terror, and to create a vacuum of stable governance, and then move to fill the void with Sharia, the only "solution" they will accept to the problem of their own deliberate making.

Tonight, there are reports of a massacre carried out by the Boko Harams:

A series of bomb and gun attacks in the north-eastern Nigerian town of Damaturu has killed at least 63 people, the Red Cross says [but the BBC quotes witnesses who saw more than 90 bodies in the local morgue]. Witnesses said the bombs hit several targets, including churches and the headquarters of the Yobe state police. Many people are reported to have fled the town after a night of violence. The Islamist militant group Boko Haram told a newspaper it was behind the attack and that it planned to hit further government targets.

An Indonesian news report adds that "in a mainly Christian neighbourhood of Damaturu called Jerusalem, six churches were bombed in addition to a police station". It's reported that the Boko Harams want to see the establishment of an Islamic state in northern Nigeria. The name of their terrorist organization means "Western education is sin" in the regional Hausa language. Proving that they really mean it, they forbid the wearing of shirts and pants and voting in elections; reject Darwinism and the claim that the earth is a sphere ("contrary to Islam"); and are enraged by the suggestion that rain comes from water evaporated by the sun [BBC]. They may be lunatics, but their weapons don't know that.

UPDATE: Saturday night, 11:25pm - The unofficial toll of victims killed by the Nigerian terrorists is now said to be 150 [source].

5-Nov-11: Friday night rocket attack on southern Israel, and the threat of consequences

Damage to a home in southern Israel from one of last week's
Gazan Palestinian Arab terrorists rocket attacks on civilian centers

With the Sabbath just ended, we're catching up on news of the past 24 hours. And not so surprisingly, there is more rocket-borne terrorism from Hamas-controlled Gaza. Ynet reports that a missile fired from Gaza Strip landed in an open area in the Eshkol region of southern Israel on Friday night around 9:00pm. No injuries or damage are reported. That was not the outcome sought by the terrorists, and inevitably their hopes and prayers - meaning Israeli casualties - are likely to be realized, to which there are two responses in today's news: one from Israel, the other from Egypt.

An Egyptian government official quoted in the London-based al Hayat paper (he's un-named in the report we saw) warned the Gaza regime today that continued escalation and rocket fire directed at Israeli cities could prompt a military operation in the Strip. Egypt, he said "cannot continue pushing the Israeli side and prevent it from striking Gaza, especially when the other Palestinian factions are not committed to keeping the lull."

The former head of Israel's security services (Shin Bet chief) Avi Dichter (today a member of Knesset in the Kadima party) is quoted today saying "Israel will be forced to reconquer Gaza and disband the terror infrastructure if no other political solution is reached with the help of neighboring countries."

4-Nov-11: Quote of the day: Legendary former head of Israel's secret service on the Murderers-for-Gilad exchange

To us and some civilized societies, the released
murderers are thugs and barbarians. But to societies of
a different kind, most of them unfortunately located
adjacent to Israel's borders, they're celebrities, heroes,
figures worthy of emulation. 

The long-serving former head (2002-2011) of the Mossad (Israel's Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations), Meir Dagan, addressed the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap deal two days ago (Wednesday) at a media conference in Tel Aviv. Ynet has this excerpt:

"I'm not sure I was thrilled with the fact that Netanyahu greeted him back. It seemed problematic to me [that] he's being portrayed as a hero. I would beware of such definitions... Gilad went through terrible suffering and should have been brought back home, but a hero? This event does not strike me as quintessential heroism... I'm glad Shalit is back. We had no choice but to strike a deal, but not this one... I oppose the deal which was implemented. I thought it wrong to release 140 terrorists to the territories. Many of them will resume their terrorist activity. We bolstered Hamas and weakened the PA."

3-Nov-11: Raining rockets, and as always Israeli children are in the terrorists' sights

A family snapshot of Moshe Ami, killed
by Gazan Arab terrorists [source]. Father of 4,
grandfather of five, his death was almost completely
unreported outside Israel

Schools right across southern Israel were closed for the first three days of the school week, reopening yesterday (Wednesday). The decision to close down was taken in light of the intensive rocket attacks executed by the terrorist enemy forces based just the other side of Israel's border with the terrorism-addicted Hamas regime in Gaza.

Some 45 mortars and rockets were fired into Israel since the start of the week. They all originated in Gaza, and not one of them had a military objective. The goal of the terrorists was and is to attack civilians, the younger the better. Hence the defensive measures taken by the education ministry.

The degree of exposure suffered by about a half million Israeli residents of southern communities is frightening. Yisrael Hayom says this may soon change:

Many schools in southern towns and villages still lack protection from rocket attacks, a fact that was emphasized during an emergency meeting of the Knesset Education Committee on Tuesday. Col. Benny Shick, the Homefront Command's structural reinforcement chief, said that by the next school year, all educational institutions within 15 kilometers of Gaza would be protected. The estimated cost of the project is NIS 500 million.

From a distance, there is a numbing sameness about the reports of rockets fired on Israelis. Thousands of terrorist rocket firings have the character, over time, of sounding ordinary. They're not, certainly not if you live in the places they target.

Consider how things were just this past Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath: 26 incoming rockets and mortar shells in just one day, according to Ynet's count. One man, Moshe Ami, 56, a resident of the southern city of Ashkelon which has come under rocket attack from the Gazan Arabs numerous times, was killed after sustaining shrapnel wounds in one of the rocket attacks while driving in his car. Another person was injured.

3-Nov-11: The mass, premature release of hundreds of unrepentant murderers has triggered a debate about introducing the death penalty in Israel

Our child's unrepentant murderer, prematurely and immorally
freed despite being sentenced to 16 life terms, has become
a feted and honored celebrity in the Kingdom of Jordan,
the land of her birth, a country which has a peace treaty
with ours, and the land to which she was "exiled" in
the Shalit-for-terrorists transaction.

We're back this morning after a week traveling and speaking in the United States. Sadly, there are numerous reports of terrorist attacks here that need reporting and we'll get to that. Meanwhile, below is an opinion piece from a US source. We're not entirely convinced of the case the writer presents, but we're certainly hearing similar sentiments more and more in these difficult days. Deroy Murdock is a fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

Israeli Death Penalty the Answer for Hardened Terrorists

Tuesday, 01 Nov 2011
Deroy Murdock

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, previously counted among the toughest leaders in the civilized world, has become softer than the secretary general of the United Nations. Netanyahu recently ransomed a kidnapped Israeli soldier whom Hamas had held hostage since 2006. The price for Sgt. Gilad Shalit's freedom? Israel will free 1,027 Palestinian prisoners. Many are hardened terrorists with Israeli and even American blood on their hands. This colossal breach of justice for these victims injects this toxic population back into society. Some of them almost certainly will express their gratitude with machine guns and dynamite.

The first wave of 477 prisoners swapped for Shalit include at least three terrorists who have slaughtered Americans.

• Ahlam Tamimi conspired to attack a Sbarro restaurant on Aug. 9, 2001. This Jerusalem suicide bombing murdered 15 — including Passaic, N.J.'s Shoshana Greenbaum, 31 — and wounded 130 more. Now carefree in Jordan, despite 16 life sentences, Tamimi has no regrets. "It was a calculated act, performed with conviction and faith in Allah," she told a Hamas website. "Why should I repent?"
• Abd al-Hadi Rafa Ghanim of Islamic Jihad grabbed the wheel of a Jerusalem-bound bus and steered into a ravine in 1989, killing 11 (including Philadelphia's Rita Susan Levin, 39) and injuring 27. Ghanim was serving 16 life sentences.
• Ibrahim Muhammad Yunus Dar Musa received 17 years for, among other things, helping to murder Detroit native David Applebaum, 51, and his daughter, Nava, 20, on her wedding eve. Five others were killed and at least 50 wounded in a Sept. 9, 2003 suicide bombing at Jerusalem's Cafe Hillel.
• Abd al-Aziz Yussuf Mustafa Salehi famously waved his bloody hands from the window of a Ramallah police station, in which he and other members of a mob fatally flogged and killed Israeli reservists Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami. These Oct. 2000 murders earned Salehi a life sentence.
• Maedh Waal Taleb Abu Sharakh, Majdi Muhammad Ahmed Amr, and Fadi Muhammad Ibrahim al-Jaaba of Hamas planned a March 5, 2003 suicide bombing of Haifa's Bus 37, killing 17 and wounding 53. These murderers received 19, 19, and 18 life sentences, respectively.
• Nasir Sami Abd al-Razzaq Ali al Nasser-Yataima planned a Passover 2002 suicide bombing that killed 30 and wounded 140 at Netanyahu's Park Hotel, earning him 29 life terms.

Ignoring 469 other prisoners released on Oct. 18, Israel soon will free another 550 dangerous characters — all to rescue one Israeli soldier. With all due respect and mercy for Shalit, this was a stupid, disproportionate, and likely deadly decision.

As Nadav Shragai wrote in Jerusalem Viewpoints, an estimated 50 percent of terrorists in previous Israeli prisoner swaps and "goodwill gestures" subsequently executed, plotted, or supported terror assaults. In fact, Israel previously freed participants in the aforementioned Passover massacre and Cafe Hillel bombing. Israeli officials twice discharged Ramez Sali Abu Salmim. He eventually blew himself up in Cafe Hillel.

In Oct. 2010, the U.S.-Israeli Almagor Terror Victims Association counted at least 30 attacks involving Islamic extremists liberated by Israel's government. Almagor reports that 177 people have been murdered, and many others injured, in attacks that Israel could have prevented simply by keeping these savages caged.

While Israel now has complicated its own anti-terrorist vigilance, America cannot rest, either. Some of these freed killers will remain in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, from which they can attack Israelis. That would be bad enough. Some of the more adventurous terrorists, however, might use their new and undeserved freedom to target Americans. As Israel's chief benefactor and staunchest ally, why not teach the Yanks a lesson by, say, blasting a U.S. bank branch elsewhere in the Middle East? Why not bomb Americans in Long Island or Los Angeles?

Rather than meaningless "life sentences," Israel immediately needs to enact and implement the death penalty. Terrorists neither can be demanded, nor exchanged, nor kill again while dead.
---

Though Mr Murdock evidently does not mention it, the list of American victims of the first woman murderer in the list above should also include our daughter Malki. We'll write to him.