Palestinians Complain About Israel's Refusal To Capitulate

Israel continues to be bombarded by Palestinian terrorist rocket and mortar attacks, leaving Sderot a shell of its former self. More than 20% of the citizens of Sderot have fled after being the target of many of the more than 4,000 rockets and mortars fired at Israel since 2005. And the rockets keep slamming into Sderot.

Of course, Palestinian Authority officials claim that Israel isn't negotiating and that they're complaining that the Israelis aren't making concessions to aid and abet Israel's destruction. Peace talks are a standstill.

As they should be. There is absolutely no incentive for Israel to engage in peace talks with terrorist groups that do not have any interest in peace with Israel. They see a peace deal with Israel as the first step in a long chain of actions designed to destroy Israel from within and without. By this, I mean that the Palestinians demand a right of refugee return to Israel, which would destroy Israel from within by sheer force of demographic numbers. They would destroy Israel from without because they would demand Israel's borders become porous and allow terrorists to strike at Israel at will.

That Israeli officials are talking with the Palestinians at all is a sign of weakness and enables the terrorists to claim a propaganda victory simply because media outlets can run stories claiming that the Israelis aren't negotiating or refusing to make concessions.

Israel is responding by going after the terrorists who fire the rockets at Israel, but again, the media will report this as being Israeli provocations, and not the reprisal for terrorist attacks on Israel.

Hamas, meanwhile, isn't ruling out more invasions of Egypt and further border breaches. Egypt is raising the number of forces at the border to try and prevent that from happening. Hamas wants to capture Egyptians so that they can make prisoner swaps with the Egyptians who are holding some of its operatives. Egypt is learning what it's like to be Israel - they have to deal with the same insanities - terrorists making demands to release prisoners and the terrorists threatening taking prisoners of their own to force swaps. This is the true face of the terror regime operating Gaza.

They're also threatening to invade Israel or Jordan. Given that Israel's border control along the Israel-Gaza border is far better than Egypt's efforts along its border with Gaza, it is a far more difficult task. However, the terrorists are more than willing to use human shields to do what their terrorists can't. They could hope to mass huge numbers of civilians to mask the terrorists' efforts.

Israeli officials have lodged yet another complaint at the UN over the kassam attacks, for what good that will do. The UN will do nothing to stop the attacks as they can barely recognize the existence of terrorism at all; they repeatedly seek to equate Israel's defense with the terrorism that necessitates Israel's defense.

UPDATE:
And again. Israeli children are injured by kassam rocket attacks in Sderot.

Israel threatened retaliation Saturday after two brothers, ages 8 and 19, were seriously wounded when a rocket from Gaza slammed into the center of the Israeli border town of Sderot.

The ongoing rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and Israeli military attacks could hamper the Bush administration's efforts to prod Israel and the Palestinians toward a final peace agreement by the end of the year.

"Israel will take resolute and decisive measures to protect our citizens," government spokesman David Baker said. "We will not allow Israeli families to be victimized by Palestinian rockets in the heart of their own cities."

The rocket was one of 11 fired toward southern Israel on Saturday, police said. It landed yards away from a road where a family was running to seek shelter as warning sirens rang out to announce the attack, Israeli media reported.

Hamas and Fatah do not want peace with Israel. Their actions show them committed to only one course of action: war with Israel at all costs. They will obfuscate and spin the violence to suit their ends, but the single inalienable fact is that the rockets keep being fired from Gaza, which is wholly in Palestinian hands and Israelis continue to get maimed and killed from the attacks.

Yet, the diplomats think that peace talks are called for under these circumstances?