A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
Sen. John Kerry has gone into Gaza and a separate delegation of Reps. Brian Baird and Keith Ellison visited as well. It's the first time US officials have gone into the Hamas stronghold since Hamas took over Gaza. Kerry says that they haven't spoken with Hamas leadership but we know that doesn't mean a hill of beans given that even Jimmy Carter has repeatedly met with Hamas leadership. These appearances and their border crossings had to be choreographed and coordinated with Hamas thugs who control the territory.
At least Kerry visited Sderot and saw the thousands of kassams piled up there - collected from all the rocket attacks originating from Gaza during years of Hamas' war against Israel. Oh, and FM Livni was also there. The Israeli press notes that the visit to Gaza was a harbinger of what Israel expects to be a new US approach to the conflict, and not in a good way.
Rep. Ellison, the only Muslim in the US Congress, was photographed, not at Sderot with those rockets fired by the Islamic terrorist group Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but in Gaza, looking like he's distributing food.
That's par for the course. He wouldn't want to be seen showing even the slightest bit of support for Israel by showing his mug alongside all those rockets fired by the terrorist groups.
The Israeli investigation into the UN school incident notes that an Israeli tank shell missed its intended target - a group of terrorists firing mortars in the vicinity of the school:
One of the deadliest single incidents since the offensive began was an Israeli strike near a U.N. school Tuesday that Gaza health officials said killed 39 Palestinians. On Sunday, Israeli defense officials said an investigation by the military concluded that an Israeli mortar shell missed its target and hit near the school.
The Israeli investigation concluded that troops fired three mortar shells at Hamas militants who had just launched a rocket, the officials said. Two shells hit the target, but a third missed by about 30 yards, striking near the school and killing bystanders. The Israeli military believes the number of casualties was inflated by Hamas.
The defense officials spoke Sunday on condition of anonymity because the investigation has not been made public, and there was no official comment from the military.
That's right folks, the terrorists were busy firing from in and around the school, but somehow it's Israel's fault? Sorry, but that's not how it works under international law. Terrorists operating with human shields are responsible for those casualties. Terrorists operating in dense urban environments and firing mortars within yards of a school are responsible. Are the deaths and casualties in the school tragic? Absolutely, but I will not blame Israel one whit for them because but for Hamas firing mortars at those Israelis, Israel would not have returned fire.
Hamas attempted to shoot down an Israeli aircraft, but was unsuccessful. There had been reports that the terrorists got their hands on surface to air missiles (one of the nasty surprises that they claimed to have for Israel), but the IAF pilots have been prepared for that possibility. Pilots routinely fire off flares (which the idiots in the media call weapons systems) to deter heat seeking missiles from locking on to their aircraft. Helicopters are more susceptible to missile attacks, but they too have flares and jammers.
Overnight Saturday, IAF aircraft bombed over 60 Hamas targets in Gaza, including the home of Hamas military chief Ahmed Ja'abri.
Ja'abri was not expected to have been at home at the time as he is believed to be in hiding, possibly under Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, in another bunker, or in an apartment building filled with civilians.
Also in overnight air raids, the IAF hit a mosque in Rafah which served as a training camp and meeting place for Hamas operatives as well as an anti-aircraft missile warehouse, the army said.
The air force also bombed nine tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor and about ten other weapons storehouses throughout the Gaza Strip.
An IDF official told Army Radio that soldiers reported killed over 40 Hamas gunmen during overnight operations, while troops themselves emerged unscathed.
At least 820 Palestinians, roughly half of them civilians, have died since Operation Cast Lead was launched on December 27, according to Palestinian medical officials. Thirteen Israelis, among them 10 soldiers, have been killed.
Take the Palestinian casualty figures with a grain of salt the hospital officials are co-opted by Hamas and aren't likely to know which men coming in are Hamas; it's not as though they wear uniforms.
The New York Times has a major article about the smuggling tunnels and how that they are a lifeline for Gazans. Gaza wouldn't need those tunnels at all had Hamas not engaged in a war against Israel forcing both Egypt and Israel to close the border. Hamas has breached the Egyptian border twice - invading Egypt twice in 2008 - because Egypt wants nothing to do with Hamas either.
The smuggling tunnels are owned and operated by Hamas, or are partnered with Hamas, which takes a cut of every transaction. Those tunnels are how Hamas makes money and sustains its operations. They are also used to transmit weapons and equipment. They serve no other purpose despite the photos taken by journalists cozy with the smugglers depicting them bringing in sheep and goats. Put bluntly, those photos are staged especially since there are farms in Gaza and no one has stopped Gazan farmers from tending their flocks but Hamas.
I've previously reported that two Hamas thugs were killed in the school incident. Allahpundit notes the reports stating that they were unarmed at the time. If they were a mortar rocket team, they could easily have been unarmed at the moment they were killed. How? Simple. Watch this video and see. The terrorists use rope to hang the mortar round in the barrel and when they pull the rope, the mortar round drops into the barrel and fires. It's a way to fire the mortar remotely and it makes the rounds fired even more inaccurate since you would be changing the trajectory of the round each time. It certainly isn't proper technique to fire an aimed round. If the terrorists are attacked, they look like they're just another bunch of civilians killed in the return fire when the reality is so much different.
Prime Minister Olmert has slammed the international media and diplomats for one-sided calls for Israel to stop its national defense, ignoring Hamas and their incessant attacks on Israel.
"For many years we've demonstrated restraint. We reined our reactions. We bit our lips and took barrage after barrage," said Olmert in remarks at the opening of the weekly meeting of government ministers. "No country in the world – not even those who preach morality to us – would have shown similar patience and self-control."
The prime minister's comments appeared to be aimed at the United States, which abstained last week from a vote and allowed the United Nations Security Council to pass Resolution 1860, calling for an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of all IDF forces from Gaza.
On January 8, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised the Council for passing the resolution, which she called "a step toward our goals." Although she noted that the U.S. recognizes the right of Israel "like other states, to exercise its right of self-defense," she softened the statement by adding "We have said to Israel that it is obligated to take feasible steps to minimize the impact of any actions on civilians."
Israel has taken feasible steps to minimize the impact, including telegraphing where and when Israel is to attack. The Israelis have repeatedly dropped leaflets warning Gazans of impending attacks, phoned Gazans to warn them that Israeli airstrikes are to occur, and I've actually argued that these are counterproductive because it tips Hamas off to the location of attacks so that they can increase the numbers of human shields kept in the vicinity to maximize the civilian casualties.
Meanwhile, Hamas says that they're no longer interested in Gilad Shalit's wellbeing. They were never interested in his life; he was a pawn they were hoping to use to secure the release of hundreds of terrorists from Israeli jails. I've repeatedly stated that the world should have been demanding humanitarian gestures from Hamas, including Shalit's release, but they instead focus on demanding concessions from Israel in the name of humanitarian relief. Gaza needs humanitarian relief - in the form of the riddance of Hamas from its midst. So much of the suffering there is due to no one but Hamas.
Fatah has been doing its best to clamp down on pro-Hamas sympathies in the West Bank. That's most likely because they expect to be called upon to take over Gaza once Israel is done destroying Hamas' capabilities to function. Hamas and Fatah have fought a civil war over the future of Gaza, and Fatah lost; its forces fled Gaza, and those who were captured were killed or displayed for propaganda purposes. There's no love lost between the two terrorist groups.
Israellycool continues his daily coverage of the situation in Gaza.
UPDATE: Ralph Peters slams the propaganda spewed by the media - noting how the casualties in Gaza are the fault of no one but Hamas. Israeli weapons may have caused the injuries and ended lives, but Hamas killed them.
Hamas is a Jew-killing machine. It exists to destroy Israel. What is there to negotiate?
When Hamas can't kill Jews, it's perfectly willing to drive Palestinian civilians into the line of fire - old men, women and children. Hamas herds the innocent into "shelters," then draws Israeli fire on them. And the headline-greedy media cheer them on.
Hamas isn't fighting for political goals. "Brokered agreements" are purely means to an end. And the envisioned end is the complete destruction of Israel in the name of a terrorist god. Safe in hidden bunkers or in Damascus, the Hamas leadership is willing to watch an unlimited number of civilians and even street-level terrorists die.
UPDATE: Note that various media reports will indicate that Israel has attacked a number of mosques. There's a damned good reason for that. Hamas has turned many into ammo dumps and they store weapons there. Carl in Jerusalem has video of one such airstrike. Note too that Hamas is storing weapons in schools at under hospitals, hoping and knowing that Israel would not purposefully strike those targets. In that way, Hamas hopes to retain weapons and equipment it needs to fight Israel for the long term.
UPDATE: So, I'm checking Getty Images this morning, as I've been doing for some time now as part of my morning ritual, and guess what they're leading with?
Photo montages of the Israeli occupation of Gaza since 1967.
Memo to Getty Images.
Israel has unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza since 2005. Israel provided civil administrative control over Gaza to the Palestinians as part of the Gaza Jericho Accords, Wye, and the Oslo Accords beginning in 1993. Israelis living in Gaza were forcibly removed in 2005. No Israeli occupation since then.
By running the photo series as an occupation since 1967, it is a blatant lie about the current situation in Gaza. It is a purposeful misrepresentation and distortion.
That's what the Israelis are calling the current counterterrorism operations against the terrorists in Gaza.
The US media continues to push the anti-Israel propaganda and shows their sympathies for the Palestinians despite the fact that the Palestinians voted for Hamas and their incessant war against Israel.
MSNBC attempts to curry favor for the Palestinians by engaging in a photo essay about how the airstrikes are ruining the typical day in Gaza. I recall no such articles or photo essays recounting how Israeli lives were disrupted almost daily for the past three years as the terrorists in Gaza fired wave after wave of kassams and mortars against Israeli communities within range.
I don't recall MSNBC writing to discuss the hardships faced by Israelis living in Sderot and how Israeli hospitals have to build underground bunkers so that they can carry out their basic mission to save lives - those of Palestinians included as they are able to seek care in Israeli facilities even as the Gazans continue their attacks.
The MSNBC FAQ on the ongoing conflict is blatantly one-sided and omits so many instances of Palestinian and Arab aggression so as to make the whole document practically worthless. In fact, the piece omits key details about the past six months:
In June 2008, Hamas and Israel agreed, indirectly via Egyptian mediation, to a cease-fire to halt missiles being fired into Israel and stop Israeli incursions into Gaza. The cease-fire lapsed less than a week before Israel's massive crackdown.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad violated the ceasefire from the outset, carrying out kassam and mortar attacks almost every day of the past six months. There was no cease-fire; it was a hudna, and only Israel was consigned to cease firing. Hamas and Islamic Jihad continued their firing with no/minimal reporting by MSNBC or other media outlets.
Each and every violation was downplayed by the diplomats and the media, which wanted people to think that they were isolated incidents and didn't threaten a wider war. Hamas saw this and knew that they could increase the pressure by increasing the terror against Sderot and neighboring communities. They continued their attacks, until Israel had enough. That was the precipitating factor here. Israel's political leaders finally had enough.
CNN's history/background piece is moderately better, but downplays the fact that the Palestinians have controlled their own destiny in Gaza since 1993, and that after 2005, there were no Israelis in Gaza. Israel operated simply to prevent Gaza from arming, which they have done via the smuggling tunnels to Egypt and from boats.
Of course, that gets offset by the fact that CNN claims that the world rallies to the Palestinian cause. What exactly are we talking about here? Protests in a dozen countries, many of them Muslim dominated, and many of those protests can be numbered in the dozens. Not exactly rousing support, but that's all CNN had to work with. (HT: Jammie)
Demands for ceasefires will only prolong the fighting - extending it until the next time the fighting flares up and Hamas has still longer range rockets and missiles to hit even deeper into Israel, perhaps all the way to Tel Aviv. The UN is very good at demanding ceasefires, but is awful at recognizing that there are true evil regimes and bad actors - and placing them on the same page as nations defending themselves from such aggression is bad precedent and par for the course for the diplomats. The UN is also good at making demands of Israel without demanding Hamas or the other terrorists from carrying out humanitarian gestures in return. Where are the demands that they release Gilad Shalit, let alone cease firing the kassams and mortars against Israel. The UN demands that Israel provide still more humanitarian aid to Gaza, even as Gaza's terror regime attacks Israel.
Hamas demands that Israel release 1,400 Palestinian terrorists in exchange for Shalit, which is more than a 1,000 more than when they first started demanding prisoner exchanges. There are unconfirmed reports that Shalit was injured in the initial airstrikes against Gaza, but I honestly don't know what to think of whether Shalit is even alive after more than two years being held by the Hamas thugs.
No other nation is put in the position of having to provide humanitarian and medical assistance and power and utilities and infrastructure to the very people seeking its destruction. Yet, that is precisely the situation that faces Israel on a daily basis.
The press also simply invents facts out of whole cloth, with the AP spinning that Israel would engage in a lull in airstrikes to evaluate the situation. Their only proof is a quote from Arab sympathizer and UNRWA lackey, Karen Abu Zayd, commissioner of the UNRWA, as their only support despite the fact that no Israelis said anything about a lull, pause, or other kind of reduction in pace of airstrikes against Hamas. UNRWA is self-interested in continuing the status quo of Palestinian refugees since its entire bureaucracy is predicated upon the continued existence of refugee camps, even those that exist in Gaza - territory wholly under Palestinian control. Hamas has no interest in shutting down the refugee camps and neither does UNRWA. Hamas' only interest is getting Israel to stop killing their terror minions.
Of course, the Arab/Islamic reaction is one of calling Israel's actions nothing short of a massacre and repeating canards such as claiming that Israel is engaging in a holocaust or genocide - terms purposefully used to deceive and debase the meaning and the true extent of what Israel is actually doing by specifically targeting the terrorists and the infrastructure supporting the terror campaign against Israel.
Hamas is attempting to goad Israel into launching a ground campaign before Israel is ready to carry one out. Hamas is taking damage to their infrastructure, but it will take a ground operation to assure the destruction of Hamas infrastructure and capture the top terrorists. Hamas is also calling on 1,000 "reservists" to join and stand with Hamas against Israel. They're trying to recruit more people to join with the terrorists and stand against Israel.
Apparently the feckless lame duck Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has learned a few lessons from the Hizbullah war; no talk about ceasefires. I'm still awaiting hearing about how Israel will accept nothing less than Hamas' unconditional surrender. That's a general prescription for Israel winning and improving its security and the long term chances for peace between Palestinians and Israel.
Palestinians must learn the taste of defeat and how Hamas has brought them nothing but death and destruction. They must know that the only way out of this mess is to repudiate entirely the Hamas doctrine.
The problem, of course, is that Hamas doctrine is Islamist at its core, and it would require its adherents to violate the core tenets of Islam. It would require an admission that Israel will continue to exist and that they simply cannot defeat Israel.
I'd say that this truce is dead and Israel should resume its operations against the terrorists along with a retightening of its restrictions on aid and items entering Gaza.
If Israel lets these incidents slide, the Palestinians will rightfully conclude that they can continue to fire on Israel at will without facing repercussions.
The terrorists will deny and evade responsibility for breaking the ceasefire, and will whine and seethe should Israel retaliate against those terrorists for attacking Israel. They will claim that it was Israel who broke the ceasefire, not them, even as there's irrefutable proof that the Palestinians broke it.
The terrorists might even point to an IDF operation that killed an Islamic Jihad terrorist as proof that Israel broke the truce. Never forget for one moment that the Palestinians have not given up on the idea of destroying Israel or attacking it at the earliest possible moment. They have simply engaged in a hudna to buy time and space to regroup and rearm.
Everything I expected had come to pass. Hamas and the terrorists have indeed used Israel's reluctance to carry out reprisals after that first violation of the ceasefire to launch hundreds of kassams and mortars since. It is to Olmert's everlasting shame that he allowed such a situation to persist, and it is a damning indictment of Israel's political landscape that no one could find the wherewithal to force Olmert to leave following the release of the Winograd Report.
Jules Crittenden has an interesting analysis of where this leaves Israel and the peace prospects. I think his analysis overestimates Fatah's ability to govern Gaza given the way Gazans thoroughly rejected Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas in 2005 and 2006 during the Palestinian civil war (defenestrations show no love lost for Fatah in Gaza). Still, that may be the best chances for a lasting uneasy peace between Israel and the Palestinians; the specter of Iranian influence and domination of the region is spurring Sunni dominated countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia to oppose Iran in subtle and not so subtle ways, including tacit support for the elimination of Hamas, which is a proxy for Iran.
The IDF has launched a YouTube channel to get their video publicized and to circumvent the media machine that is inescapably biased against Israel. This is something they should have done long ago, but there's no time like the present to show the world the true nature of Hamas and how carefully Israel is operating in a densely packed civilian environment.
Even as the kassams and mortars rain down on Israel, Israel continues to send in humanitarian aid to Gaza. The UN will complain bitterly that it isn't nearly sufficient. Perhaps the UN would impress upon Hamas that they would be better served making bread and not bombs.
UPDATE: Here's video of Hamas loading Grad rockets onto trucks in Gaza as caught by Israeli aircraft in the course of an airstrike:
Maybe the BBC ought to be reviewing IAF video showing Hamas using those people as human shields as they stockpile, produce, and fire the rockets from the civilian areas.
UPDATE: As always, check in with Aussie Dave and Carl in Jerusalem for more updates. More than 600,000 Israelis are now within kassam and mortar range from Gaza. That number will continue increasing so long as Hamas remains in control and is capable of firing rockets at Israel.
The Czech Republic isn't tolerating the anti-Israel bias and is supporting Israel's actions against Hamas. Why is that important? The Czech Republic takes over as the EU President January 1.
Hamas continues goading Israel into launching a ground campaign questioning Israel's manliness to use airstrikes rather than ground forces. Funny, but Hamas is busy hiding behind the skirts of women and children when firing those kassams and mortars at Israeli civilians during the 6-month hudna that lasted all of five days before Hamas and Islamic Jihad resumed the rocket war against Israel. Who exactly is not acting like the responsible party? Hamas.
The reason that Israel is in the current mess is because the diplomatic option was pursued prior to achieving the tactical and strategic objectives. Hamas is still fully functional in Gaza and is still launching kassams and mortars against Israel. A diplomatic effort - a new hudna - will only mean that Hamas gets to crow about winning another war against Israel and use it as recruiting new terrorists to the cause and Israel will be under assault from the kassams for the duration.
UPDATE: Hamas is summarily executing people in hospitals who they believe were collaborating with Israel. Some were injured in the Israeli airstrikes, but Hamas thugs executed them in cold blood.
On Monday, Dr. Ashour was not the only official in charge. Armed Hamas militants in civilian clothes roamed the halls. Asked their function, they said it was to provide security. But there was internal bloodletting under way.
In the fourth-floor orthopedic section, a woman in her late 20s asked a militant to let her see Saleh Hajoj, her 32-year-old husband. She was turned away and left the hospital. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Hajoj was carried out by young men pretending to transfer him to another ward. As he lay on the stretcher, he was shot in the left side of the head.
Mr. Hajoj, like five others killed at the hospital this way in 24 hours, was accused of collaboration with Israel. He had been in the central prison awaiting trial by Hamas judges; when Israel destroyed the prison on Sunday he and the others were transferred to the hospital. But their trials were short-circuited.
A crowd at the hospital showed no mercy after the shooting, which was widely observed. A man in his 30s mocked a woman expressing horror at the scene.
“This horrified you?” he shouted. “A collaborator that caused the death of many innocent and resistance fighters?”
The terrorists could care less about who lives and who dies. This is little different from the way they treated Fatah terrorists when Hamas took over Gaza in 2006. Hamas rules are pretty simple. You are either with them or you are against them. If you're against them, you will be shot and killed.
UPDATE: The kassams keep falling. This time it's Beersheba in the Negev.
UPDATE: The rocket attack on Beersheba (also transliterated as Beersheva) hit a nursery/kindergarden. It's on fire, but thankfully no one was inside as it was after dark. One of the rockets actually overshot Beersheba and landed in a field beyond the city.
The army said that the IAF struck 30 additional targets over the course of Tuesday, including seven Grad and five Qassam rocket launchers, rocket launching cells, rocket launching sites, weapons manufacturing facilities, Hamas outposts and armed terror operatives.
The IAF kept up a relentless string of attacks on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Tuesday, smashing a government complex, security installations and the home of a top militant commander.
According to a Military Intelligence assessment, the air offensive has destroyed a third of the Hamas rocket arsenal, Channel 10 television reported.
I call that a good start. The other 70% isn't going to get destroyed unless Israel carries on with its attacks against Hamas. Otherwise, that 70% will find itself destroying Israeli homes, businesses, fields, and inflicting Palestinian and Israeli casualties along the way.
Hamas Islamists fired their longest-range rockets at a southern Israel city on Friday after an Israeli air force attack on their Gaza stronghold, in the 11th day of skirmishes threatening a five-month-old truce.
The armed wing of the Islamist group said it fired five Grad rockets at an Israeli city, the longest-range weapon it has used against the Jewish state. Israel said they hit Ashkelon, north of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast, with no casualties.
Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the flare-up since November 4, in which 12 Hamas militants have been killed by Israeli forces 4 and scores of rockets fired into Israel. But both shied away from declaring an end to the Egyptian-brokered truce.
For anyone paying attention, that means that Hamas has been stockpiling longer range rockets than it had used previously. They were using the hudna to regroup and rearm, which is exactly what I was predicting from the get-go.
There is no truce, and both sides know it, but the "diplomats" are going to try and paper things over although Hamas now says that they will not renew the truce. The terrorists are also threatening to resume suicide bombing attacks, which is little different than before.
Why would Hamas need to renew the truce? They've had months to regroup and rearm, and are now ready to use the Palestinian people as cannon fodder once again for their senseless violence, carnage and mayhem.
During this hudna, the terrorists have used terrorists hijacking heavy construction equipment to go on rampages in Jerusalem, shootings, and have had several thwarted infiltration attempts, in addition to the mortar and rocket barrages.
The terrorists in Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been plotting attacks for months, and when Israel has disrupted those attacks by going after those in the process of carrying them out, it makes Israel look like the aggressor. Israel is simply defending itself from these terrorists, and the media doesn't bother to note it as such.
The terrorists then fire off their rockets at Israel claiming it was Israel's fault for them having to resort to these attacks. It's yet another sign of the Israeli double standard time that is all to prevalent in the world media.
In a letter to the AJC, WQXR general manager Tom Bartunek said parts of the spot were "outside our bounds of acceptability. First, the opening line . . . does not make clear that the potential target of the missile is not our listening area, and as a consequence, runs the risk of raising anxiety in a misleading way. Second, the description of the missiles as arriving 'day or night' and 'daily' is also subject to challenge as being misleading, at least to the degree that reasonable people might be troubled by the absence of any acknowledgment of reciprocal Israeli military actions."
Geller said Bartunek told the AJC the "general tone" didn't meet WQXR guidelines for "decorum," and the station also bans ads for "hemorrhoid cream or sexual potency pills." CBS Radio had no problem with the same spot, which it aired nationally on newsman Charles Osgood's "The Osgood File."
"We are finished with QXR. We've canceled our contract," Geller told us. "It's a shame, but we can't allow ourselves to be edited on a whim."
In the past, some media critics have accused the Times of having a pro-Palestinian slant. Times flack Catherine Mathis told us the paper "had no role in determining whether to run this ad." She noted WQXR had run eight other AJC spots read by Harris over the past 12 weeks.
What exactly is untrue about the Sderot spots? The rockets have indeed been slamming into Israel and Sderot on a regular basis. That the New York Times fails to cover such attacks is a testament to its own failures, not to the AJC's veracity. Indeed, Sderot residents don't have 15 seconds to respond - they have on average nine seconds because the alarms will often sound after the kassams have already slammed into the city. 15 seconds is an eternity compared to the time it takes for the Palestinian terrorists to fire the rockets and have them slam into Sderot day care facilities, homes, apartment buildings, and businesses. It is a fear that Sderot has to live with day in and day out.
And the fact is that many New York area Jews has friends and family living in Israel, some of whom may live in range of those missiles and rocket and mortar attacks from the Gaza Strip.
What is misleading is the fact that the radio station thinks that they are an arbiter of what's factually relevant and accurate. The fact is that the rockets and mortar attacks do rain down on Israel on a near daily basis - and Israel doesn't generally respond in a serious way unless Israelis have been seriously injured or killed or a significantly large number of kassams have been fired in a given barrage. Don't believe me? Simply search through my coverage of the kassam attacks.
The radio station simply couldn't be more hopelessly wrong.
Three Kassam rockets were fired at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip on Friday morning, one of them hitting the outer wall of a preschool in one of the kibbutzim in the Sha'ar Hanegev region moments after the children were taken inside by their teacher.
The teacher and a parent of one of the children suffered shock and the building was damaged.
Two other Kassam rockets that were fired at the western Negev landed in open areas and caused no wounded or damage.
This is all part of the media's coverage of the ongoing calm in the Palestinian war on Israel. The US media in particular ignores the ongoing kassam rocket fire and terrorist attacks against Israel, except and until Israel mounts a response that results in dead terrorists in larger numbers. This is just background noise for the media.
Meanwhile, Hamas' leader, Khalid Meshaal defends the use of kassams against Israeli children, but says that they'll consider the benefits of a hudna. That suggests that Hamas has either: 1) been getting pummeled and Hamas needs a breather; or 2) needs time to rearm as they're almost out of kassams to strike Israel with.
In either case, Israel should accelerate its attacks on Hamas and not give them the opportunity to conduct more attacks. Any truce, hudna, or pregnant pause in Israel's defensive actions will only benefit the terrorist group.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak warns that Hamas is in a position that they could very easily eliminate Fatah in the West Bank. No kidding. Fatah has repeatedly shown itself incapable of dealing with Hamas and yet the Israelis and the West (including the US and EU) continue to live in dreamworld by pumping hundreds of millions of dollars and euros into Fatah, despite the fact that Fatah cannot and will not fulfill its obligations under Oslo to curtail terrorism and incitement to violence against Israel. They may think that throwing enough money at the problem will coopt the Fatah thugs, but all it does is enrich the leadership while allowing the terrorists to operate with fresh infusions of funds for their operations.
Secretary of State Condi Rice is once again heading to the region to try and keep the process going. Resistance is futile, despite the fact that there is no process when the Palestinians continually refuse to accept Israel's very right to exist. You cannot have peace or a peace process unless and until you get past that key point.
Has Hamas decided to engage in a 30-day hudna with Israel, with Israel agreeing? That's what the Jerusalem Post is reporting. A hudna is nothing more than a strategic and tactical pause to regroup before the next round of fighting.
Israel is demanding that a formal calm with Hamas be preceded by a 30-day "feeling the pulse" period, the London-based daily Al-Quds al-Arabi reported Tuesday.
According to the newspaper, the demand was presented to Egyptian officials by Amos Gilad, who heads the Defense Ministry's Diplomatic-Security Bureau.
The report quoted a "senior Palestinian source" as saying that if the 30-day period proves successful, Israel will assent to the Egyptian calm initiative, including the cessation of ground and air attacks in the Gaza Strip and refraining from retaliating for the terror attack at the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva last week.
So, how is this possible when Olmert says that Israel isn't talking with Hamas? Well, they're likely engaging in backchannel negotiations through a third party - Egypt. It does make sense that this is how such things are done.
I question why it is being done. Hamas was on the ropes and the IDF was doing a good job eliminating terrorists; the reduction in rocket attacks is because the IDF was doing its job. A pause only favors the terrorists since it enables them to regroup and rearm.
This pause, should it come to fruition will be lauded as a victory by Hamas and used to prepare for the next round in fighting. Israel should never give them that opportunity.
Prime Minister Olmert says that Israel should get used to rocket fire - that the Israelis have no way to stop the Grad rockets or kassams. This is yet another reason why Olmert must go. There is a way to stop the kassams - kill the terrorists who fire them; their leaders who direct this conflict against Israel, and make it impossible for the Palestinians to obtain weapons and resupply their stocks of rockets. Ceasefires are not how that will ever happen.
Olmert says there's no promise that the rocket attacks wont restart after this pregnant pause. Time and time again, Israel's restraint in use of force is misconstrued by the terrorists as a sign of weakness and exploited. How can this situation be avoided? Olmert says that the reason that Sderot is experiencing a lull in rocket fire is the IDF doing its job. Well, that's a great line, but it's too bad that you're cutting the IDF off from the ability to finish the job. Israel has the ability to strike a fatal blow against Hamas infrastructure in Gaza, and yet they're letting Hamas off the hook with this hudna.
While the New York Times and other outlets lead with the fact that Israel continues to pound Hamas positions with airstrikes, it curiously omits the reason that Israel is firing at Gaza in the first place.
Israel kept up its airstrikes Thursday against militants in the Gaza Strip, and Hamas continued to fire heavy barrages of rockets at Israel, one day after an Israeli civilian was killed in a rocket attack. That death was the first such fatality in nine months.
The Israeli Army said it had carried out five airstrikes since the early hours of Thursday morning against armed men and rocket launching squads in Gaza. Five militants were killed in those strikes, according to Hamas and Palestinian medical officials, bringing the total of Palestinians killed in Gaza since Wednesday to 17.
Two more militants were killed in two later attacks, according to local reports, and an airstrike in northern Gaza killed four young boys, aged 8, 9, 11 and 12, Palestinian medical officials said.
Eight Grad-type missiles fired from Gaza landed on Thursday afternoon in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, to the north of the strip, Israel Radio said.
The Grad missiles have a longer range than the homemade, relatively crude Qassam rockets that are usually fired at the Israeli town of Sderot and farming communities bordering the Gaza Strip.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from Ashkelon, but the targeting of the center of that city of 120,000 people, a rare occurrence until now, will likely be seen in Israel as an escalation of the conflict.
Among the dead in Gaza were 11 militants and six civilians, including three young boys and a 5-month-old boy killed in airstrikes on Wednesday night, the medical officials said.
Most of the dead militants belonged to the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades. One of them was Hamza al-Hayya, the son of Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader and legislator. Hamza was killed on Thursday morning in what the Israeli army said was a strike against a squad about to launch rockets.
Hamas has been unleashing barrages of rockets, killing and maiming Israelis all within range of Gaza. That is a not insignificant fact that should be conveyed in the lede.
The terrorists refuse to accept Gaza; they want to destroy Israel and will fight by all available means to do so. That means firing off barrages of rockets and mortars at Israel from within confined places where civilians live and work. It means knowing that Hamas leaders move within civilian areas on purpose so as to maximize casualties should Israel's airstrikes hit them.
The fact that Hamas managed to kill an Israeli yesterday is not for lack of trying; they've fired hundreds of rockets and mortars at Israelis with the express purpose of killing and maiming them. Note that 17 more Israelis were injured when one of those Grad rockets slammed into Ashkelon.
To ignore this, or to deemphasize this in the leading paragraph shows just how far the media will go to portray the Palestinians in a positive light.
Further, relying on Palestinian media sources for casualty information among Palestinians is also problematic given how they've routinely exaggerated or lied about the injuries sustained or those who died.
This should also give pause to anyone who thinks that Fatah is dedicated to anything but Israel's destruction - that Fatah provided Hizbullah with training and that they're not willing to cede armed resistance. Earth to Abbas; your terrorist minions have never stopped their war against Israel. Your terrorist group has been eclipsed by an even more violent terrorist group; Hamas.
UPDATE: It's good to see that some Israelis are waking up to the realization that the terrorists have been at war with Israel and are now calling for Israel to return the favor. It also appears that Israeli airstrikes were launched against the home of the Hamas prime minister (via MSNBC).
Residents of Sderot have no more than seconds from the time the rockets are fired by the terrorists until they slam into buildings, homes, schools, day care centers, factories, and parks. The Israeli government knows that, and while it claims that its defense systems can engage rockets within 15 seconds of launch, the sad fact is that most rockets take far less time than that from the moment they're fired until they hit Israel.
Thus, the only way to stop the rocket war is to take out the terrorists before they fire the rockets. And so far Prime Minister Olmert is reluctant to take the steps necessary to safeguard Israeli lives in Sderot and beyond.
The IDF is largely reduced to policing rather than taking aggressive and necessary actions to stop the violence against Israel. I say largely, because the IDF and IAF still manage to take out terror cells using airstrikes.
Fatah is busy claiming that Hamas and al Qaeda are linking up in Gaza, which shouldn't be all that surprising. It's in Abbas' interest to get everyone to go after Hamas, because it extends Abbas' shelf life despite the fact that Abbas is no more interested in peace with Israel than Hamas is.
UPDATE: Palestinian terrorists have now fired rockets at Ashkelon (just north of Gaza), and one ripped into a hospital. Carl in Jerusalem has the latest details.
UPDATE: Israel raises Palestinian standard of living by lowering Palestinian infant mortality standards; Palestinians fire rockets at schools, universities, hospitals, etc., all with the hope of increasing Israeli mortality figures. This is the Palestinian-Israel conflict in a nutshell.
UPDATE: MSNBC is focusing on the Israeli airstrikes and not on the precipitating events - the ongoing rocket fire by the terrorists at Israel. Figures.
While the Hamas-inspired demonstration that would send tens of thousands of women and children towards the Gaza-Israel border was a dud as only 5,000 bothered to show up, the Palestinian terrorists continued their wicked ways, firing off kassam rockets at Israel, severely injuring another Israeli boy.
Apparently, even the Hamas thugs knew that attempting to breach Israel's border would be a completely different story than when they invaded Egypt.
Paramedics dispatched to the scene managed to stop the bleeding and evacuate the boy to the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. A number of other residents were treated for shock.
A total of three rockets were fired toward Israel since noon. One landed in the southern town's industrial zone, another landed in a grove near a school while the third hit a residential neighborhood.
One of the kassams struck propane tanks, setting off a series of explosions.
UPDATE: Jammie and Charles both note that the demonstrations are being touted as mass protests, despite the paucity of actual demonstrators.
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.
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.
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?
The Palestinian war against Israel continues to intensify. 22 more kassams slammed into Israel today, and there's no sign that the terrorists will slacken off their attacks. Indeed, the Israelis discovered missile silos in Gaza that would enable the terrorists to fire their rockets or mortars from more protected areas, rather than open fields. The PRC, which is comprised of both Hamas and Fatah thugs, took credit for some of the attacks. They're also suggesting that Sderot evacuate, even though it is fully within Israel's borders. The terrorists once again show that their intention isn't to create a two-state solution, but to eliminate Israel and supplant it with a terrorist regime.
The Jerusalem Post writes that Israel may consider going after the lead terrorists in Hamas. What took them so long? Or, are the Israelis more concerned with world opinion than they are with protecting their citizens from incessant attacks by a terrorist group dedicated to spreading mischief and mayhem wherever it goes? Indeed, the Egyptians aren't too comfortable with the idea of Gazans buying land in the Sinai (which further begs the question of how poor downtrodden Gazans could afford to buy land there in quantities that would make the Egyptians nervous).
The US, for its part, continues to tell Israel not to make things worse. Right. Accepting dozens of rockets fired at it daily is a situation that the US would tolerate if its neighbors were doing what Hamas, Fatah, and the other terrorist groups were doing? I didn't think so.
The US needs to let Israel defend itself and go after the terrorists in the strongest possible terms. The terrorists understand force, and know that Israel is far too restrained, both by the US and by its weak leadership, to mount a credible deterrent against the terrorists, so the terrorists are emboldened.
After what amounted to a pregnant pause in the rocket war by the Palestinian terrorists against Israel punctuated by the suicide bombing yesterday that killed one Israeli and seriously injured several others, along with the Hamas breach of the Gaza-Egypt border and invasion of Egypt, the terrorists have resumed their attacks.
Israel, for its part, is continuing its targeted attacks against Hamas and other terrorist groups involved in the ongoing war against Israel. Six were taken out in airstrikes in retaliation for more kassam rocket attacks this morning that injured several Israelis. Those rockets damaged Israeli factories in Sderot.
UPDATE: Carl in Jerusalem found this tidbit and it should definitely get wider coverage. It's an admission by Palestinian terrorist leader Mahmoud Zahar that there is no such thing as the Palestinians.
“We [Palestinians] were never an independent state in history,” he notes. “We were part of an Arab state and an Islamic state.”
Of course, such admissions will get ignored and overlooked by the diplomats and leftists who seek to undermine Israel's right to exist.
UPDATE: The Israel Project (HT: rightcanuck at LGF) has photos of the Israelis injured in the latest kassam attacks. This is who the Palestinian terrorists target. Kids.
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert says that Israel will not tolerate rocket fire. Where has he been for the past three years? Israel has been hit by more than 3,000 rockets since the Gaza withdrawal. Hundreds have slammed into Israel and injured Israeli civilians in the weeks leading up to, and subsequent to, the Annapolis peace conference. It is nice, however, to see that Olmert is realizing that the situation in the south is a war of the Palestinians' intent.
The Palestinian terrorist groups, including Fatah's al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the PRC, and other spin off groups are continuing their ongoing rocket war against Israel.
The media seemingly only pays attention when Israel accidentally hits someone who isn't a terrorist. They write laudatory commentary about the death of a son of a terrorist - who was killed alongside more than a dozen of his father's terrorist minions, but gloss over the murder of an Ecuadorian volunteer who was murdered by a Palestinian sniper as he and a group of Israelis were trying to retrieve vehicles from a field after their kibbutz came under rocket and mortar fire. Gilad Shalit's father sent his condolences to Zahar over the death of his son. I would never expect to see Hamas do the same to an Israeli family whose child was killed by a Hamas thug or any terrorist. That's what separates the Israelis from the Palestinians. Israelis feel sorry for civilian casualties, while Hamas seeks to inflict as many civilian casualties as possible.
More than 15 rockets slammed into Sderot again, although Israel did manage to kill one of the leaders of Islamic Jihad along with his wife as they were driving.
Palestinian mouthpiece Saeb Erekat says that Israel's military actions in Gaza jeopardize the peace process. Let's just ignore all those rockets, shall we? Israel has been far too restrained in dealing with the terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank, and they've been far too complacent in understanding that negotiating with the terrorist groups while under fire will be mistaken for weakness and exploited. That's exactly what the Palestinians have been doing for years, and yet Olmert and other Israeli leaders have sought out negotiations with the terrorist groups despite the fact that they have yet to fulfill their obligations under Olso.
If and when these latest overtures of a peace process fail, fault should rest firmly with the Palestinians and the terrorist groups, but the media and the diplomats will spin this as Israel's fault, just as they usually do.
The media, and most certainly the Palestinians, will latch onto reports such as this, claiming that Israel is engaging in ethnic cleansing. Last time I checked, the only group excluded from living in Gaza is Jews. Israelis were forcibly removed from Gaza in 2005, and since then, the Palestinian terrorists have waged war against Israel, hoping to rid the region of Israelis.
UPDATE: Israellycool has been liveblogging the situation over the past few days, and today is no exception.
Abbas is now threatening to resign if Israel doesn't stop with the escalations. Right. You go ahead and do that as if it's going to make any difference to the ongoing terrorism which you conveniently ignore when declaring that Israel is escalating the situation. Abbas would much rather Israel sit back and absorb all the rockets, mortars, and casualties, and thank the Palestinians for all that and more by giving up Israel's right to exist and dominion over Jerusalem and Israeli territory in general. Nowhere in his diatribe does he mention the rockets or mortars, which is the reason Israel is operating in Gaza in the first place.
Abbas is using this threat to not only puff up his feeble resume among Palestinians who have flocked to Hamas in the past, but to try and get the US to put pressure on Israel to stop going after Hamas. No matter how you slice and dice it, this is bad news for Israel and it once again points out how Abbas is no partner in peace.
UPDATE: Elder of Ziyon has compiled a running tab of kassam rockets fired at Israel. Keep in mind that this is far from a complete list, and that each rocket attack is indicative of Palestinian terrorist intent to kill, maim, or injure Israelis and/or knock out Israeli infrastructure, including power grid.
UPDATE: Sheik Yermami notes that 103 rockets have fallen in the last 36 hours alone.
Late Thursday night, Defence Minister Ehud Barak ordered the closure of all border crossings between Israel and Gaza.
In announcing the measure, a ministry official said it would remain in effect for several days and would affect both commercial traffic and individual travelers. He added that, in the meanwhile, crossings would be authorised to respond to "exceptional humanitarian needs."
Expect the usual suspects to complain that Israel is engaging in collective punishment for the ongoing attacks against Israel, ignoring that the terrorists have repeatedly used those same border crossings and humanitarian aid shipments to smuggle in arms and weapons. Israel continues to provide its enemies with power, water, and food.
Palestinian terrorists murdered an Ecuadorian volunteer who was staying in Israel after he and several other workers on a kibbutz came under sniper fire as they were trying to retrieve tractors that were abandoned after mortars and rockets fell on the kibbutz. His name is Carlos Andres Chavez. He was 20. MSNBC didn't bother with those details. That should be the headline, but it isn't. Israel's response against the terrorists operating in Gaza was the headline and it was the bulk of the story.
Israel killed 14 of them. Three civilians were killed, and 48 were injured in the fighting between Hamas and Israeli forces. Yet, MSNBC sees fit to focus on Israel's response, and not what precipitated it. It gives short shrift to the incessant terrorism, and thinks that coverage of the situation in Israel is appropriate only when Israel conducts military operations against Palestinian terrorists.
The 48 others were hurt because the Palestinian terrorists think nothing of using civilians as human shields.
The clashes Tuesday began when undercover Israeli troops moved several hundred yards into the territory to strike an abandoned house east of Gaza City that militants used to launch rockets, Hamas said.
When Palestinian militants discovered the force, an exchange of fire erupted, the militants said. In the ensuing clashes, Israeli tanks fired shells and aircraft struck twice, Hamas said.
“Israel is acting to protect its civilian population from these daily rocket barrages,” Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said.
In all, 14 Palestinian fighters and three civilians, including a 65-year-old man, were killed by the time the operation wound up in early afternoon, militants and doctors said. Forty-eight people were wounded, among them an 8-year-old boy who was seriously hurt, medical officials said.
Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Gaza Health Ministry said many of the dead and wounded lost limbs. Because of the high number of casualties, Hassanain questioned whether Israeli troops were using tank-fired flechette shells, an anti-personnel weapon that throws out thousands of metal darts.
The Palestinians think nothing of using rat poison in their explosives, to reduce the ability of those injured to clot. Yet, they're quick to trot out theories over the kind of weapons used by the Israelis to defend themselves against terrorists who have tried to kill and main Israelis for years.
Israel is barely doing what is sufficient to protect itself from Israel's enemies - a lack of political leadership will do that. Olmert is incapable of doing what is necessary to eliminate the terrorist threat in Gaza and West Bank, and thinks that his salvation rests in negotiating with the terrorist group Fatah.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas described the operation as an "Israeli slaughter in Gaza." Abbas said Israel was carrying out barbaric operations that undermined the peace process
If only he would speak of the Palestinian terrorism emanating from Gaza and West Bank on a daily basis in such terms. Of course, he wont, and he has no problem with the Palestinian body count - because it furthers his media war against Israel.
Meanwhile, President Bush thinks that the failure of past peace overtures was because of the lack of Arab involvement. Here's a clue Mr. President - it has nothing to do with Arab involvement and everything to do with the fact that the Palestinians do not want a two-state solution. They want nothing less than the destruction of Israel, and the incessant terrorist attacks are proof-positive of this. The attacks actually increase every time there's a push for peace - complete with Israeli concessions that are rebuffed by Palestinians without even the courtesy of a counter proposal.
Arab Members of the Knesset are busy undermining Israel as well - complaining that Israel's actions in Gaza are nothing less than war crimes. If only they would complain about Palestinian terrorism in such terms.
The terrorists continue firing missiles at Israel, including a Grad missile that hit Ashkelon. Kassams and mortars also slammed into the Negev.
UPDATE: Israellycool notes just how badly the Palestinian thugs massacre the meaning of the word massacre. They've got a willing and compliant media that pushes their agitprop daily.
This was not a massacre. It was a pitched gun battle started when Palestinian terrorists opened fire on Israeli civilians and the Israeli military responded by going after those terrorists and a firefight ensued. Tank and air support assisted the Israelis in killing a number of terrorists. No massacre - only just desserts for terrorists who sought to kill as many Israelis as possible in their incessant attacks.
This makes for interesting reading (translated via hartabuna at LGF), but it is of little comfort to Israelis living in range of the terrorist rockets and mortars. If you're living in Sderot or near Gaza, those words aren't nearly as comforting knowing that the rockets continue flying overhead or slamming into your homes and businesses and schools. Palestinian terrorism remains very real and very deadly. Israel has still not determined that it is in its best interests to go after the terrorist groups will full force, thinking that something less than full force could defeat the terrorists.
This decision gives the terrorists hope, which is powerful indeed. It is not the language of the defeated, but one that thinks that the Palestinian cause can outlast Israel.
Overnight, Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip killed two Hamas gunmen as Israel launched strikes against Palestinian militants that left 11 dead in 24 hours.
The simmering conflict between Israel and Gaza's terror organizations has escalated less than a week before US President George W. Bush's visit to the region, overshadowing peace efforts and increasing the chances of a full-scale armed conflict in Gaza.
On Thursday, Palestinian terrorists hit Israel with a Katyusha rocket, a weapon with a deadlier warhead and longer range than the smaller rockets the extremist groups regularly launch. It hit in the northern part of the town of Ashkelon, the longest reach yet for a Palestinian rocket.
Israeli media largely refuses to call this war, and the world media is even more reluctant to cover the Palestinian war against Israel. Also, it appears that the Israeli government doesn't consider Sderot worth defending because they've apparently decided that major reprisals are warranted only if a major city is attacked. PM Olmert is letting the residents of Sderot and all the border communities twist in the wind because the government is not taking the incessant rocket and mortar barrages seriously enough to deal with the terrorists in Gaza the way they must. No other country would show as much restraint as Israel has towards Gaza. It is neither warranted nor a wise course of action as it shows the terrorists that they can indeed strike at Israel with impunity up to a certain level - disrupting the lives of tens of thousands of Israelis on a daily basis for years on end.
If this report is accurate, what does it say about the Palestinian polity except that they demand war with Israel? Fatah continues to lose support among Palestinians while Hamas gains. Fatah managed the "diplomatic success" of Annapolis, received hundreds of millions in pledged monies to support the Palestinian Authority, and yet they lose support to Hamas, who has seen Gaza's economy ruined even further and where Israeli reprisal raids have slammed the terrorist groups openly operating there.
While much of the focus of late has been on Gaza, the terrorists have been busy in the West Bank as well. Israel continues to uncover terror cells in places like Nablus, where a bomb lab was discovered.
Hey - stop firing thousands of rockets and mortars at Israel and plotting for mass casualty attacks against Israel, not to mention picking the most violent thugs to lead you and Israel might consider changes. Goodwill gestures and fulfilling obligations under Oslo and all that jazz. All those obligations and goodwill gestures are a two-way street, and it's way past time for the Palestinians to realize it.
Israel left Gaza in 2005. All Palestinians have done since then is turn it into a bigger hellhole than when Israel was present. Anarchy, lawlessness, and Islamists running amok dominate. Hamas and Fatah slug it out regularly. Economic opportunity is laughable - especially when you remember that Israel left Gazans with greenhouses and other engines for economic possibility, and the terrorists promptly turned those into terrorist platforms.
40-year-old woman was lightly to moderately wounded on Thursday after a Kassam rocket fired by Palestinians directly hit the home of the Aberjil family in Sderot.
The woman received medical treatment at the scene before being evacuated to a hospital. Magen David Adom officials were treating several people who were suffering from shock. Between 13 to 15 people had been evacuated to a nearby center for victims of trauma, Sderot Media Director Noam Badin told the Jerusalem Post.
Security forces were on their way to the scene.
The Jihad Martyrs Brigade, a group affiliated with Fatah, claimed responsibility for the latest attack.
Let me repeat that last part. The terrorist attack was done by Palestinian terrorists affiliated with Fatah, who's leaders are currently trying to connive their way into making Israel give more concessions when they have failed to adhere to any of their obligations under Oslo.
Who will be blamed when the latest talks fail? It certainly wont be the Palestinians, because the media constantly focuses on Israel's response to terrorist attacks and not the Palestinian terrorism that requires a response.
There is no other nation in the world that would permit such incessant attacks from its neighbor without taking overwhelming force and crushing those that launch the attacks. Yet, if and when Israel does launch such attacks (and it has done so on a limited basis in the past - both in Gaza and South Lebanon against Hizbullah), such Israeli actions are considered disproportionate responses to terrorist actions. By limiting Israel's response, the conditions remain unaltered and the terrorists know that they can ratchet up their attacks a notch knowing that they'll be able to get away with that much more until the next time. It's a no win situation for Israel unless and until it decides to crush the terrorist groups - including the Fatah and Hamas leadership - once and for all.
Israel cannot make peace with such groups, and to believe otherwise is to believe in psuedorealism, which is precisely what the diplomats continue to do.
UPDATE: This all comes at a time when Fatah is demanding billions in foreign aid from Western governments, including the US.
Meanwhile, Palestinians complain about Israel considering a construction project in Har Homa as though that's on an equal footing with Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel focusing on Sderot? Since when is the construction of housing on Israeli territory equal to that of terrorist attacks by the Palestinian terrorists with whom Israel is supposed to be negotiating with?
All this diplomacy will end badly for Israel. Israel's enemies see the diplomacy as a sign of weakness to be exploited. There is one thing they respect, and that's power. Israel's attack on the Syrian facility on September 6 was a clarion call to the terror masters in the Middle East that Israel will strike back when sufficiently threatened. The silence following that attack is significant.
All the chatter from the ongoing diplomatic efforts is not.
Earlier today, Palestinian terrorists fired a barrage of kassam rockets into Israel - and one landed at an Israeli day care center. The AP reports that the Palestinian rocket attack in Sderot hit near an Israeli day care center.
A Palestinian rocket exploded Monday next to a day care center crowded with toddlers in southern Israel, sparking anger and panic in the frequently targeted town of Sderot and bringing warnings of retribution from Israeli leaders.
No one was hurt, but the blast and the panic underlined Israel's ineffectiveness in the face of the primitive rockets, which fall daily despite frequent Israeli airstrikes and occasional ground offensives.
The AP got this story wrong. The fricking rocket landed in the day care center's courtyard. That's not near the day care center - that's in the day care center. One of the center's buildings was damaged.
That's not near - that's hit.
And children and adults were injured in the attacks - 12 were taken to hospitals for treatment of shock. That's not simply something that you can ignore. Yet, the AP reports this attack, which was done on purpose by the Palestinians to send a message to Israelis as they start the school year , as though it's not as grievous as it was. The AP ignores the message sent by Islamic Jihad:
The Islamic Jihad said they had fired nine Kuds-3 rockets, saying on their internet site that the attack was "a present for the start of the new school year."
At least Kerry visited Sderot and saw the thousands of kassams piled up there - collected from all the rocket attacks originating from Gaza during years of Hamas' war against Israel. Oh, and FM Livni was also there. The Israeli press notes that the visit to Gaza was a harbinger of what Israel expects to be a new US approach to the conflict, and not in a good way.
Rep. Ellison, the only Muslim in the US Congress, was photographed, not at Sderot with those rockets fired by the Islamic terrorist group Hamas or Islamic Jihad, but in Gaza, looking like he's distributing food.
