More of the Same

While I spent the past week cruising in the Caribbean, the situation in Israel is little changed. Palestinian terrorists continue firing rockets at Israel, and instead of launching another major military operation against Hamas, which has not stopped attacking Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead, Israel is now resorting to the dreaded letter to the United Nations.

That will go over well. How exactly is a letter to the UN going to stop Hamas and the other terrorists from firing rockets and mortars into Israel? They aren't. The UN isn't interested in stopping the terrorists from attacking Israel but rather limiting Israel's ability to defend itself from those very attacks.

What will stem the attacks is Israel's airstrikes against smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi route between Gaza and Egypt, but more importantly, going after Hamas terror masters. Israel cannot allow itself to fall back into the position it was in just a few short months ago - tolerating an incessant stream of rockets and mortars on its cities. Israel is engaging in limited strikes, which does little to deter the terrorists. Palestinians claim that nine people trapped in those tunnels were rescued.

Since Operation Cast Lead, Hamas is not only firing short range kassam rockets into Israel, but is firing longer range Grad rockets that are coming into Gaza courtesy of the smuggling tunnels and some appear to have been procured from Iran. More than 120 rockets and mortars have been fired into Israel in just the past week. That's not calm. That's not a ceasefire. That's open war, and Israel is not responding in kind.

Oh, and the reward for the ongoing war against Israel? Donor countries have pledged billions to the Palestinians.

The lull in a military response coincided with the international donors conference in Sharm el-Sheikh Monday, where the international community pledged more than $4 billion for Gaza.

Terrorists in Gaza fired more than 120 rockets and mortar shells on southern Israel the past week, returning the region to the routine of fear and panic which prevailed before the IDF launched Operation Cast Lead in late December.

Knesset Member Dr. Yuval Steinitz (Likud), former chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, has dismissed the IDF tactics of hitting tunnels as ineffective. He said that the only way to stop the smuggling is to close off a security zone in the area of the Philadelphi Route, along the Egyptian-Israeli border.

Channel 2 television reported last week that Hamas is continuing to smuggle advanced rockets through the tunnels despite occasional Israeli attacks.

Hamas isn't giving up attempting to attack the Gaza fence with Israel either.

Israelis are increasingly asking questions about the rationale for capturing terrorists when it is all too likely that they will be released for political purposes. It's a question that keeps popping up as the Obama Administration contemplates releasing terrorists from Guantanamo Bay despite evidence that the terrorists resume their plotting, preparations, and attacks against the US.

The PA is concerned that the peace process might come to an end, and with it the notion of a 2-state solution. They'll frame it in terms of it being Israel's fault, but the fault resides with no one but the Palestinians who have not accepted Israel's existence, and which call for jihad and Israel's destruction and supplanting Israel with a Palestinian thugocracy. Hamas doesn't want a 2-state solution; it seeks Israel's destruction at every turn and engages in repeated hudnas to regroup and rearm for that very purpose. Fatah can't muster the courage to amend its own charter to eliminate references to Israel's destruction. The Hamas Charter demands Israel's destruction as a religious and political obligation. No Palestinian leader has the courage to take the necessary steps to make necessary concessions to make a peace deal actually work, but instead demand still more money from the US that gets siphoned off to terrorist groups and concessions from Israel that undermine Israel's security all without doing anything to improve the chances for a real and lasting peace.

At the same time, the Obama Administration continues to make overtures to the Assad regime in Syria, which makes little sense since Syria continues harboring terrorist groups including Hamas and Hizbullah, both of which have American blood on their hands, to say nothing of Syria's support of the Iraqi insurgency.