Palestinian Steel Cage Match Continues

The ongoing running battles between Fatah and Hamas have taken on the persona of a WWE steel cage match. You get over the top preening, illicit and violent conduct, blind referees (the worldwide media) ignoring the eye gouges, the illegal weapons in the match, and repeatedly helping one side versus the other.

Hamas and Fatah are busy working their own mini-cycle of violence, but no one in the media will use that term to describe the situation in Gaza. They can't bring themselves to use the term civil war either. Instead, they repeatedly use the term ceasefire, thinking that if they repeat it enough, it will be true.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Hamas and Fatah are locked in a deadly fight to the finish and no one is safe in Gaza. Hamas takes Dahlan's nephew, and Fatah retaliates by taking hostages of its own. Both sides shoot up the other and take hostages, and Palestinians are caught in the crossfire. The gunfire, rockets, and grenades are fired indiscriminately and without care that civilians could be hit. If it were Israel doing the fighting, the same media would be calling for war crimes trials against the Israeli leadership, yet the same voices are silent on Abbas, Meshaal and Haniyeh's culpability for the current situation.

These are the so-called leaders of the Palestinian people and their method of governing is to cow the other side into submission - threatening, kidnapping, and killing their way into power.

Hamas, meanwhile, continues to build up its weapons stocks for the inevitable clash with Israel. The terrorists are busy building tunnels to smuggle in arms and personnel.

And the winner gets to then battle Israel over its very existence.

Meanwhile, it looks like Hizbullah is up to their usual tricks:

Lt. Col. Guy Hazoot, the operations officer of Israel's northern division, said an Israeli patrol discovered and detonated all of the explosives, which were hidden in containers that looked like boulders. He said the explosives were designed to target Israeli military patrols on the border and had the potential to kill.

Hazoot said the bombs were planted as recently as Sunday night, under the cover of stormy weather, but gave no evidence to back the allegation. The military conducts routine patrols in the area.

Israel and Hezbollah fought a 34-day war last summer. The border area has largely remained quiet since the Aug. 14 cease-fire took hold.

Under the cease-fire, thousands of international peacekeepers, along with Lebanese government troops, police the border to ensure quiet. The deal bars Hezbollah guerrillas from carrying arms in the border area.

Hazoot said UNIFIL peacekeepers have thwarted similar Hezbollah attempts to lay roadside bombs in the past, but had failed to do so this time.

"We view the Lebanese army as responsible for this event," he said. "We will take all the necessary steps to make sure that these such events do not recur."

Of course, the WaPo couldn't go an entire article without questioning the veracity of the story from the Israeli sources, but will accept Hizbullah op-eds without question in its pages. It's always interesting to see who and how the media decides which side it trusts for information, while blindly accepting information from sources that are embedded with terrorists.