Who benefits from this? Certainly not Israel. Certainly not the Palestinians. It isn't the US either.
Iran benefits from the increased strife because it is able to expand its influence in the region, and that has the other Sunni countries worried. Hamas and Hizbullah are showing themselves to be quite effective terrorist groups, with Hizbullah managing to get a 30+ day war started against Israel last summer that resulted in Hizbullah launching thousands of rockets against Israel and Israel unable to dislodge Hizbullah from South Lebanon.
Speaking of rockets, more kassams were fired from Gaza into Sderot. Three Israelis were wounded in the latest attacks. Guess who was behind the attacks - Fatah and Islamic Jihad.
Hamas says that it will go after Palestinian collaborators who worked with Israel to track down the whereabouts of the Palestinian terrorists. Hamas is seeking to purge itself of threats to its own existence in Gaza, and they are intolerant of anyone who believes differently than themselves. They are also completely devoted to Israel's destruction - politically and religiously.
After days of noting the importance of having a summit to deal with the Palestinian situation and the Israel-Arab conflict, Olmert is now trying to lower expectations. Jordan says that the talks must lead to peace talks. Sorry, but I didn't have any expectations at all. I didn't think it would lead to any breakthroughs unless Fatah's Abbas was going to make significant concessions and actually carry them out and yet Abbas's initial position was even more strident in making demands on Israel. Abbas was in Jordan laying the groundwork for his position.
The Saudis are refusing to mediate between Hamas and Fatah. For the Saudis, they've been burned by trying to hammer out a deal on a new government only to watch their efforts go up in smoke.
UNRWA looks on approvingly as Israel continues providing humanitarian aid to Gaza. I look disapprovingly on as UNRWA does nothing to stop the UNRWA-run camps overrun with weapons and terrorists.
Human rights groups are pushing for Israel to reopen Karni Crossing into Israel from Gaza.
Meanwhile, the NYT is defending its publication of the Hamas editorial last week. They say it is not in anyone's interest to engage in one-sided debate, and then posited a defense in relation to an editorial on a vegan couple who starved their child to death, claiming that the other side was not heard in that instance. Sorry, but that's a weak argument. There are others who could present the Hamas/Palestinian point of view without actually being members of Hamas - a terrorist group on the State Department watchlist and whose members have killed Americans in the past.
The Times had the right to run the editorial, as is its right under the First Amendment, but it also has the inalienable right to make an ass of itself in the process. On that point, it did splendidly.
UPDATE:
This is what happens when you buy into Palestinian propaganda and then realize it is so much shoveled nonsense. You see what the Palestinians are doing to their own, and realize that Israel isn't the biggest enemy here - it's the Palestinians themselves.
Daryl Jones is an Australian volunteer aid worker duped by Palestinian propaganda propaganda to come to their aid but later realized that they were engaged in a bloodlust game to destroy the lives of children.
She recounts how Palestinians displayed photos of bodies, "gouged and pitted, torn. We were told this is from torture from the Israelis." Later, when she saw a Palestinian child blow up in front of her face, she realized that the ripped apart bodies were the result of human booby traps that the Palestinians used against the Israelis.
She was featured in "The Road to Jenin" film by French director Pierre Rehov.
(HT: Killgore Trout at LGF)
UPDATE:
A new video tape released by BBC journalist Alan Johnston's captors shows him decked out wearing a bomb vest. That the video was released shows that the terrorists are not playing around - they intend to kill him unless their demands are met.
PM Olmert is considering giving yet more weapons to Fatah. Why? To what end will those weapons be used? Fatah's terrorists have no problem using them on Israelis. Just as soon as Fatah either deals with Hamas or is defeated by Hamas, those weapons will just as quickly be pointed in Israel's direction.
This is the exact opposite tact that I would counsel.
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