Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the latest kassam attacks. So did the PRC.
Israel has agreed to close down one of its checkpoints in the West Bank, as though that will do anything to stop the incessant attacks against Israel from Gaza? Fatah may stand to gain from that move, but they are no more interested in peace with Israel than Hamas. They're only more circumspect in their goals and are more likely to use diplomacy than terrorism to carve up Israel.
Hamas says that Gilad Shalit will not be part of any truce between it and Israel. Why not? Let's see Hamas engage in a good faith measure for once in its existence. That's certainly too much to ask for, and the terrorist group continues to stand by its demands for the Israelis to release hundreds of its terrorists from Israeli jails as part of any deal. Good faith gestures work both ways - Israel shouldn't have to bear the burden of engaging in concessions and good faith gestures while the terrorists in Hamas and Fatah get to issue platitudes that they quickly ignore as they resume their fight against Israel.
Meanwhile, President Bush is likely to be made to eat these words shortly, as he calls Prime Minister an honest man, and Abbas is a true peace partner. I don't think Bush could have gotten that any more wrong if he tried. Olmert is likely to get indicted for corruption any day now, especially as the Israeli authorities continue digging into his actions at Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry in Jerusalem, and have seized documents related to illicit funding case.
Abbas has never been a partner in peace, and has never wavered from the position taken by Arafat in his years of stonewalling on peace with Israel - the Palestinian position has not changed one iota regarding Israel's right to exist, a two-state solution, or the right of return, to say nothing of the status of Jerusalem. Again, this may be Bush's attempt to prop up Abbas and Fatah, but there's no good reason to do so when Fatah has not shown itself to be a partner in peace. That Fatah is only marginally less violent than Hamas is not a reason to prop it up and provide it with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, especially when Fatah could fall to Hamas should Hamas restart the Palestinian civil war and get its hands on all the weapons and equipment provided to the Palestinian Authority and Fatah.
UPDATE:
Palestinian propaganda and their sympathetic human rights groups strike again. A Gazan claimed by the Palestinians to have died waiting for health care in Israel was quite alive and well. His own family claimed him as dead so that he wouldn't have to go through a screening process required for entry into Israel:
On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, al-Harrani’s story was published. His family reported to the “Physicians for Human Rights” organization that he died. “The sick man could not withstand the wait for the permit,” claimed Ran Yaron, Director of the Occupied Territories Department who blamed the Shin Bet for adopting cruel policies against cancer patients.UPDATE:
However, the next day, the organization discovered that al-Harrani was still alive. Members of group estimated that his brother, who reported the death, “killed” him so he does not report to the questioning session.
“This is a rare case where a family member knowingly provided false information to the organization,” Physicians for Human Rights said. “Usually, the organization receives information from the families and from the hospitals, but in this case the information was received from the family and was not confirmed by the hospital."
I can't wait to see what understanding was reached between the Israelis and Fatah.
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