Collision Course

News reports continue to note that Hamas is regrouping, rearming, and preparing for the next major confrontation with Israel.

Claiming that Hamas has jumped light years since Israel's disengagement from Gaza, a high-ranking IDF officer said that there was currently a limited window of opportunity for Israel to confront the Hamas threat in the Gaza Strip.

"There is an opportunity today since the world has not yet become accustomed to the new Hamas entity, and Hamas has not yet fully completed strengthening it's military capabilities," the officer said, adding that Israel was on a "collision course" with the Islamist group.

"The Gaza Strip is a boiling pot, the fire underneath is fueled by [a poor]economy and [an Islamist ideology] and the lid over it is Israel," the officer was quoted as saying by Israel Radio. "Hamas is currently not acting against Israel because it is not in the group's interests, but one must not mistake this with the organization's ultimate goals," he added.

So, Hamas is a grave and gathering threat, complete with new katuysha rocket capabilities, and yet Israel released Hamas thugs in the course of its prisoner release with Fatah? How exactly is this improving Israel's security situation? It doesn't.

That prisoner release - 256 Palestinians in total - is scheduled for tomorrow.

The vast majority of those to be released belong to Abbas' Fatah party, none of them have "blood on their hands," meaning involvement in attacks that have killed Israelis, and all will have to sign a "commitment not to be involved in terror," officials have said.

The 250 male prisoners have been assembled in the Ketziot prison in Israel's Negev Desert ahead of their transfer Friday to the military checkpoint of Beitunya scheduled for 9.00 am (0600 GMT), Israeli prison authorities said.

The six female prisoners will also be transferred to Beitunya from the Hasharon prison in Tel Aviv, prison spokesman Ian Domnitz said.

From there, the freed prisoners will travel to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, to be greeted by Abbas and expected hundreds of well-wishers.

The prisoner serving the longest sentence is Muhannad Jaradat, detained in 1989 and sentenced to 20 years. His sentence was due to end in September 2009.

While welcoming the release, the Palestinians have said that freeing 250 prisoners out of the more than 11,000 held in Israeli jails was not enough.

Well, considering how many Palestinians have engaged in terrorism and violence against Israel, and you get an idea of why Israel has so many Palestinians in jail. Among those being released is the head of the PFLP, another Palestinian terrorist group with Israeli blood on their hands.

Israeli Minister of Transportation Shaul Mofaz is right - this prisoner release will increase the price to be paid by Israel for the release of Gilad Shalit or Goldwasser and Regev. All three have been held by Hamas and Hizbullah for more than a year.

Oh, and the rockets keep falling on Sderot. The latest one hit a house.

The Palestinian Authority sappers defused a car bomb in Nablus. The bomb was found next to the Nablus police station and was a love note sent by Hamas for Fatah.

The border town of Rafah is under curfew because of bomb threats by Palestinian terrorists to blow up the border fence to allow Palestinians on the Egyptian side to enter Gaza. While the report doesn't indicate who was behind the threats, dollars to donuts it was Hamas.

Meanwhile, the PLO Central Council (of which Fatah is the largest faction) gave its approval for new elections. As if they'll help Fatah? The PLO is a terrorist organization. Fatah is a terrorist organization, but everyone from Olmert to President Bush seems committed to treating Fatah as something other than a terrorist organization.

Michael Oren has a slightly different take on the situation and would appear to be slightly more optimistic about the chances for a diplomatic breakthrough than I am (I put the chances of a breakthrough at about .1%). He thinks that President Bush is holding to his stance - demanding that Abbas and Fatah take the road of diplomacy with concrete steps rather than weaseling out of their obligations. He also notes the following:

Specifically, the conference will assist in reforming the Palestinian Authority, strengthening its security forces, and encouraging young Palestinians to participate in politics. Ultimate responsibility for laying these sovereign foundations, however, rests not with the international community but solely with the Palestinians themselves: "By following this path, Palestinians can reclaim their dignity and their future . . . [and] answer their people's desire to live in peace."

Unfortunately, many of these pioneering components in Mr. Bush's speech were either implicitly or obliquely stated, and one might have wished for a more unequivocal message, such as that conveyed in his June 2002 speech on the Middle East. Still, there can be no underrating the sea change in America's policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict brought about by this administration. If, under U.N. Resolution 242, Israelis were expected to relinquish territory and only then receive peace, now the Arabs will have to cede many aspects of peace--non-belligerency and recognition--well in advance of receiving territory.

Similarly, Mr. Bush's commitment to maintain Israel's Jewish majority signals the total rescinding of American support for Resolution 194, which provided for refugee return. Moreover, by insisting that the Palestinians first construct durable and transparent institutions before attaining independence, Mr. Bush effectively reversed the process, set out in the 1993 Oslo Accords, whereby the Palestinians would obtain statehood immediately and only later engage in institution building. Peace-for-land, preserving the demographic status quo, and building a civil society prior to achieving statehood--these are the pillars of Mr. Bush's doctrine on peace.

But will it work? Given the Palestinians' historical inability to sustain sovereign structures and their repeated (1938, 1947, 1979, 2000) rejection of offers of a state, the chances hardly seem sanguine.

Much of the administration's hope for a breakthrough rests on the Palestinians' newly appointed prime minister, Salaam Fayyad, who is purportedly incorruptible. Nevertheless, one righteous man is unlikely to succeed in purging the Palestinian Authority of embezzlement and graft and uniting its multiple militias.

The Saudis will probably balk at the notion of recognizing Israel before it exits the West Bank and Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees throughout the region will certainly resist any attempt to prevent them from regaining their former homes. Iran and Syria and their Hamas proxies can be counted on to undermine the process at every stage, often with violence.

He goes on to note that there is little chance of success given that prior steps in this direction have also failed, but it is worth pursuing.

UPDATE:
As if to underscore the point about Iran's intentions for the region this summer, Ahmadinejad's latest comments:

It's going to be a "hot" summer in the Middle East, said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad following a surprise meeting with Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah in Damascus on Thursday evening, Channel 10 reported.

Nasrallah allegedly entered Syria via an underground tunnel, the television channel said.

"We hope that the hot weather of this summer will coincide with similar victories for the region's peoples, and with consequent defeat for the region's enemies," Ahmadinejad added, in an apparent reference to Israel.

Just how hot a summer this turns out to be may depend on whether Iran unleashes the dogs of war once again via Hamas and Hizbullah in a multifront strike against Israel.