The Conundrum, Part 17

The terrorists try and try to kill Israelis with their incessant rocket attacks. Today, they got a whole lot closer to killing Israelis than they have in the past few weeks. Three were injured when kassam rockets were fired into Sderot. One landed in a sports stadium that only a few hours earlier had been full of spectators watching a soccer game.

And there are still folks who think that Israel's actions are akin to what the Nazis did (and Ynet uses one of the Green Helmet Guy photos with that story). Sorry, but there's no comparison. If Israel engaged all of its military force, carpet bombed Gaza and Lebanon without regard to civilian casualties, engaging in mass slaughter, you might have a point. But that is the exact opposite of what Israel has been doing.

Israel has been restraining itself from unleashing its full military force, much to its own detriment - permitting Hizbullah, Fatah, and Hamas to continue to exist despite those Islamic terror groups charters to destroy Israel. It is those groups that seek genocide and mass slaughter, not Israel. They sermonize that they will never recognize Israel. Those groups are engaging in terror attacks, continually plan to attack Israel using all manner of weapons, including stockpiles of antitank weapons (which happen to have been prohibited by the Oslo Accords). Those weapons are being smuggled into Gaza. One such anti-tank weapon was fired at the IDF in Gaza.

Lebanon warns that they'd fire at Israeli planes. Would Lebanon fire on Hizbullah that fails to disarm pursuant to UN SCR 1701, or is that too difficult to accomplish?

Hamas is sending represenatives to Iran. Still think Iran isn't a threat and the kingmaker of terrorists in the region? They continue to disabuse anyone paying attention of that notion. The PA Interior Minister went to Syria to try yet again to get some kind of a deal between Fatah and Hamas, though the ongoing Palestinian civil war seems to be heating up - as more than 50 were injured and one teen killed in Hamas clashes with Fatah.

Four Palestinians, including three Hamas militants, were killed today in a second day of deadly clashes with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.

In a separate confrontation, Palestinian gunmen from the two main factions, Hamas and Fatah, battled each other overnight and during the day today, leaving a teenager dead and nearly 50 wounded in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, the Palestinians said.

Both developments pointed to the relentless turmoil in Gaza.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting op-ed, though I disagree with the premise - that rocket barrages of the Hizbullah war have shown that the Islamists appear to have moved away from the suicide bombers. The Islamists have shown that they'll use all means at their disposal, and since they're getting the rockets from Iran and Syria, they're going to use them. Suicide bombings will continue to be a big part of the terrorists gameplan because its cheap. It doesn't require the kind of infrastructure necessary to procure and stockpile rockets and missiles.

But if you want craziness, try this one on for size: Mel Gibson blames his anti-Semitic rants on the Israel-Hizbullah war. Yeah, I really buy that excuse.

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