Terrorists Continue Rocket War Against Israel

Why should anyone call this anything other than a war? Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist groups continue firing rockets into Israel, and do so on a daily basis. They aren't going to stop unless Israel forces them to stop or the Palestinians run out of sewer pipes to convert into rockets.

Hamas says the attacks will continue, and blames the West for the tensions between Fatah and Hamas. The West would love nothing more but to see the Palestinians stop fighting, both with themselves and with Israel, and yet Fatah and Hamas have no problem going after each other because they want to be the sole voice of the Palestinian people and do not brook dissent.

He added that armed resistance was what would bring about an end to the occupation and was what had caused former prime minister Ariel Sharon to pull out of the Gaza Strip and his predecessor Ehud Barak to leave Lebanon.

"Under occupation, people don't ask whether their means are effective in hurting the enemy," he said. "The occupiers always have the means to hurt the people they control. The Palestinians have only modest means, so they defend themselves however they can."

It's most curious that Hamas' Meshaal says that. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and all the Palestinians have done since then is turn the place into a disaster zone. The PA has ignored basic infrastructure, causing cesspool collapses, destroyed infrastructure left by Israel such as greenhouses or used them as terror training facilities, and anarchy reigns in Gaza. Whoever has the most guns gets to decide what happens, and thus far it is Hamas that has dominated the situation there. For Hamas, the occupation includes all of Israel - regardless of where the diplomats draw the lines and borders. No map including a state of Israel is acceptable to Hamas.

And the US needs to stop supporting any efforts to train or supply the Palestinian Authority. All that does is provide equipment and training for terrorists:

A long-wanted terrorist chief captured this week by Israeli forces was trained by the US, served in a senior capacity on Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' US-backed security detail, and was a ranking member of a team that received and distributed American arms shipments the past two years, the WND has learned.

Khaled Shawish, an officer in Abbas' Force 17 presidential guards, was arrested Sunday by undercover Israeli police forces following scores of shooting attacks Shawish is suspected of carrying out.

I can understand why some in the State Department might think that supporting Fatah makes sense when the alternative is Hamas, but this kind of phony realpolitik undermines US national security and strategic interests in the region. Fatah has no interest in peace with Israel, and has repeatedly refused to hold up its end of repeated deals on security with Israel.

UPDATE:
Predictably, CNN headlines that Israel strikes at Gaza, rather than focusing on the Hamas rocket fire that precipitated the latest Israeli response.

An Israeli airstrike killed two members of Hamas' military wing early Wednesday, Palestinian security sources said, as Israel kept up pressure on Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza.

Meanwhile, in an effort to defuse the latest flare-up in tensions, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet next week, Olmert's office said in a statement released Tuesday. The precise date and location has yet to be determined.

The latest Israeli air raid occurred shortly after 1:30 a.m. Wednesday (6:30 p.m. Tuesday ET), east of the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza, the security sources said. Two people were killed and one person was wounded, hospital sources said.

The strike came a day after an attack on what an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman said was a Hamas training facility in southern Gaza. No injuries were reported from that attack.

UPDATE:
Have no fear, the UN Security Council is here; they want the kassam rocket attacks to stop. What is the UN going to do, use harsh language?

I have no doubt that they're going to push for Israel to make concessions such as ending the defensive engagements with Hamas thugs in Gaza, the arrest of Hamas leaders, or the airstrikes against the rocket teams, in order to get Hamas to stop firing rockets on a daily basis. The UN will likely accept firing every other day and force Israel to do so. The logic behind my opinion is simple - there's no way that the UN will force the terrorist group Hamas to comply. It will not send in troops to stop Hamas. It will not open fire on the terrorists, despite the terrorists repeatedly firing on Israeli civilians.