The Conundrum, Part 16

The Palestinians fired a missile at the IDF in Khan Younis today and launched a kassam at Sderot (again). Hamas threatens more pain on Israel. As if the repeated calls for Israel's destruction are insufficient, along with the terrorist attack attempts?

This comes after Condi Rice visited the region, and offered up the tired pablum of how the Palestinians have been oppressed. Sorry, but that doesn't work, not unless you think that Fatah and Hamas are oppressing Palestinians because Israel no longer occupies Gaza and the Palestinian Authority has been granted civil administrative control over much of the Palestinian areas under Oslo.

That Israel continues to engage in military action against Palestinian terrorists is a function of those groups ongoing calls for the destruction of Israel. It's the platform on which Fatah and Hamas operate, though the difference between the two groups is the timeframe.

Israel is busy trying to destroy yet more smuggling tunnels that the terrorists use to resupply.

Maashal says that violence will be used to thwart an early PA election. No kidding. Hamas and Fatah are busy fighting amongst each other, and neither side wants to lose.

Speaking out against the insanity of a nihlistic deathwish that is Palestinian terrorism and the rise of militant Islamists is the exception, not the norm among Muslims. Dr. Wafa Sultan explains her own personal battles - with her own family all but disowning her. It isn't just overcoming the jihadis, but getting Muslims to realize that this path they've set upon is leading to no good for everyone.

Meanwhile, Mexico, along with US authorities, is looking into whether a Mexican group is funding Hizbullah.

UPDATE:
Maashal also had this to say about Israel:

Hamas politburo leader Khaled Mashaal reiterated Wednesday that his group would not recognize Israel. In an interview published Thursday in the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat and cited by Maariv, Mashaal said he was willing to accept a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, as well as a hudna [truce] with Israel but not to recognize the "occupation."

Mashaal addressed reports Wednesday that said he had agreed to wide-ranging concessions in order to pave the way for a unity government in the Palestinian Authority. Although he refused to recognize the "legitimacy of the occupation," Mashaal admitted the "Zionist entity" was an established fact. "There is an entity whose name is Israel, yes, but I am not interested in recognizing it," said Mashaal.

The Hamas political chief also hinted at the possibility that his organization and the Hamas-led Palestinian government would recognize agreements with Israel the PA and PLO previously signed. "We will deal with agreements that have been signed and are on the ground according to the interests of the Palestinian people," Mashaal said. "If the serve the interests of my people, I will implement them."

So, he's willing to lie, deceive and otherwise use all the means at his disposal to get Israel to agree to the terrorist state on its border, which will then seek Israel's ultimate destruction because it considers all of Israel to be occupied territory by the Jews.

Also, Israel doesn't appear to have a problem with the plans to build another minaret on the al Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount. It would be the first new structure there in 600 years and would be the tallest one on the site, if completed. Some Israelis are not happy about this either:

A leading Israeli archeologist lambasted the plan. "I am against any change in the status quo on the Temple Mount," said Bar-Ilan University's Dr. Gabi Barkai, a member of the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount. "If the status quo is being changed, then it should not just be the addition of Muslim structures at the site."

In contravention of the law, Antiquities Authority archeologists have not been carrying out full-time supervision of the site for much of the last decade due to their concern about renewed Palestinian violence, despite the reopening of the compound to non-Muslims two years ago.

During this period, Israel has been keen to involve the Jordanians in the ongoing repair work on the Temple Mount, as they are considered more moderate than the Palestinian heads of the Wakf appointed by Yasser Arafat on his return to the West Bank 10 years ago.

The other minarets include three near the Western Wall and one near the northern wall. The first minaret was constructed on the southwest corner of the Temple Mount in 1278. The second was built in 1297 by order of a Mameluke king, the third by a governor of Jerusalem in 1329, and the last in 1367.

"For the past century all Hashemite intervention [here] was restoration and maintenance, and now for the first time there will be a new monument on the site," Najim said.

Meanwhile, any attempt to build a Jewish synogogue on top of Judaism's holiest place would result in bloodshed and violence warns Muslim MKs.

UPDATE:
Here's an aerial view of the Temple Mount. The Dome of the Rock is the structure in the center with the Golden Dome. The al Aqsa mosque is in the center right quadrant of the Temple Mount, and the wide area just beneath that is the Kotel, where the Western Wall is located. The Western Wall Tunnels run parallel to the Western Wall underneath the built up areas of the Muslim Quarter adjacent to the Kotel.



UPDATE:
An Israeli airstrike to take out a Hamas terrorist ended up killing an 8-year old, 'an activist' and injured 13 others. Immediately following the attack, terrorists fired off kassams at Sderot, hitting a power line. As I've been noting for quite some time now, the terrorists have been firing kassams into Israel all along, so that is nothing new.

The Hamas two-step continues. One terror thug says that they might engage in a hudna, while another categorically denies recognizing Israel under any circumstances. Either way you cut it, they seek Israel's destruction and are quibbling over the manner.

Maashal says that Olmert is holding up the release of Gilad Shalit. Yeah, that's right. Israel doesn't want to release the thousands of Hamas and Fatah activists, many with Israeli blood on their hands, for the life of Gilad Shalit, who was taken by Hamas in a cross border attack that killed two other Israeli soldiers. Maashal is trying to play up the media angle in all this, and expect the media to lap this up.

The Palestinian civil war watch continues as Fatah and Hamas exchange killing each others' thugs.


Technorati: terrorism, nasrallah, fatah, Gilad, Shalit, Olmert, Eliyahu, Asheri, Ashri, Abbas, Regev, Goldwasser, PRC, Hamas, Gaza, palestinian, Israel, hizbullah, hezbullah, hezbollah, lebanon, syria.