The Piece Process

President Bush has landed in Israel and Hamas has welcomed him with 18 rockets landing in Sderot. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are behind those attacks.

This is the President's first visit to Israel and is the first of two visits scheduled for this year. He's getting what should be a rude awakening as to what Israelis have to deal with on a daily basis.

The key is to remember that the Palestinians want piece - a piece of Israel here, a piece of Israel there - and Israelis in pieces.

It isn't about peace, and President Bush should take those rocket attacks and calls for his death and those of the US and Israel as a reminder that the Palestinians do not want peace and Fatah simply cannot be trusted. Fatah doesn't even control all of the territory that would be part of the Palestinian state, and doesn't have support of most Palestinians. How exactly are they representative of the Palestinians given that more support Hamas, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction.

Gazans, and indeed the Palestinians in general, are making it quite clear that they have no interest in peace, and they're busy making threats against the US and President Bush.

President Bush is scheduled to go to the West Bank to Ramallah, and we've got violence there as well as Palestinian thugs are busy throwing molotov cocktails at vehicles.

Bush has said that the world has to fight terrorism. I wonder whether he means to include Israel in that declaration - or whether Israel has to fight with both arms tied behind its back as terrorists continue to rain down steel death on Israeli communities around Gaza and threaten attacks elsewhere in the country and Hizbullah is getting frisky in Lebanon?

The rhetoric is one thing, but the resolve to fight and defeat the terrorists is not apparent. It certainly isn't clear that Olmert is dedicated to defeating the terrorists as he appears more than willing to accept a certain level of terrorism against Israelis from Palestinian terrorist groups - rocket attack after rocket attack.

UPDATE:
Palestinian terrorists attacked Israel five more times this afternoon. Five rockets slammed into Sderot, injuring four Israelis and damaging a home. The media will simply shrug and/or ignore these attacks back in the US, despite the fact that it continues to show just how futile a peace effort is when the Palestinians have no interest in peace - only Israel and Israelis in pieces.

The PRC takes credit for these attacks, but that's another way of saying Hamas and Fatah; PRC are composed of ex-Fatah terrorists combined with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades members (who are also Fatah thugs).

UPDATE:
Exhibit A for pseudorealism: Olmert is seriously misguided if he thinks that the Palestinians are in his words "seriously committed to peace". I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

Consider that he's supposed to be negotiating with Abbas, who leads not only the PA, but is the head of Fatah. Fatah's thugs are mixed in with the PRC, which just finished firing barrages at Sderot injuring four Israelis and damaging still more Israeli property. How exactly are those rocket attacks showing that the Palestinians are committed to peace? The answer, of course, is that the Palestinians aren't interested in peace and it will not matter how many concessions Israel provides without anything in return because it will never be enough for the Palestinians since they are interested in nothing less than Israel's destruction.