Comings and Goings In Israel

Israel's President Shimon Peres has given the task of forming the new Israeli government to Binyamin Netanyahu of Likud. He garnered more support in the Knesset than Livni's Kadmima, despite losing the election by one seat. Since governments are formed on a coalition basis, Netanyahu has a better chance of forming a coalition of 60+ seats.

Netanyahu, who met with Peres shortly before Livni, said that Kadima would be the first party he turns to after receiving the nod from Peres. "I am willing to go to great lengths in the negotiations needed to establish such a government," the Likud leader said after his meeting with Peres, echoing assessments that he would be willing to give Kadima several senior portfolios in his cabinet.

Netanyahu said repeatedly during the campaign that not forming a national-unity government when he was prime minister from 1996-99 was his worst-ever political mistake. But Livni left him no choice but to repeat it when she vowed to remain in the opposition.

"Today, the foundations of a right-wing extremist government under Netanyahu were set," Livni wrote in a cellular phone text message sent to some 80,000 Kadima members Thursday. "The path of such a government is not our own and we have nothing to look for there. You didn't vote for us in order to provide a kosher certificate for a right-wing government, and we need to provide an alternative of hope from the opposition."

Livni and Kadima mishandled Israel's national security in the Hizbullah War and by calling off Operation Cast Lead far too soon before Israel's security objectives were reached. The Israeli public doesn't trust them to handle Israel's security affairs, which is why the right wing parties benefited greatly from the situation.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Kerry is on his way out of the Middle East, but not without accepting a letter from the Islamic terrorist group Hamas, courtesy of the UNRWA, which received the letter at one of its offices.

"A letter addressed to Obama was left at the gate of our offices in Gaza; it is believed to be from Hamas," said Christopher Gunness of UNRWA, the agency for Palestinian refugees.

Asked about the contents of the letter, Gunness said: "We are very polite at UNRWA, we don't open other people's mail."

Kerry did not meet any Hamas representative and stressed that his trip to the impoverished territory, which no US official had visited for years, did not indicate a shift of policy towards Hamas.

He's going to play messenger boy for Hamas to give a letter to President Obama. The group is on the State Department's terror list and has regularly attacked Israel for years on end in an unending war against Israel's existence.

I can't begin to imagine what is in that letter. Oh wait. I can.

It will probably demand that the US lean on Israel to make still more concessions, including but not limited to: releasing hundreds of terrorists from Israeli jails, an end to airstrikes that kill Hamas terrorists attempting to attack Israel or who have just carried out mortar or rocket attacks on Israel; targeted airstrikes against Hamas leadership; and opening up the border crossings between Israel and Gaza and ensuring that Hamas terrorists free passage, and that's just for starters.

It's nothing that we haven't heard before, but the claim that Kerry had no contacts with Hamas is misleading. Kerry had to have had contacts with Hamas thugs to gain entry to Gaza for his day-trip, including visits to various locations in the Strip. An intermediary could have arranged the trip on Kerry's behalf, but they had to coordinate with Hamas, who controls Gaza. Nothing gets done in Gaza without Hamas having their hands on it.

Within hours of the Kerry visit to Gaza, Hamas rockets and mortars fell on Israel. That includes grad rockets that hit near Netivot. Oh, and a rocket fell short and slammed into Gaza too.

Hamas is a menace to everyone, not just Israelis.

Israel has continued to attack the smuggling tunnels across the Philadelpi corridor, and this has put a crimp on that underground industry. I'm not going to shed a tear for it one bit. Hamas has created the conditions under which the Gazans live, and they are to blame for the situation. But for the rocket attacks and incessant calls to jihad against Israel, the border crossings would have been opened long ago. Instead, Hamas uses the situation to gin up a crisis and to destroy the economy to force still more reliance on Hamas.

Gaza Suffers And No One To Blame But Hamas

60 have been wounded as Egyptians open fire on Gazan protesters.

About 60 people were hurt, including one woman who was hit by gunfire, as Egyptian border guards fired in the air and used clubs and water cannons to drive back hundreds of Palestinian women who surged across the border from Gaza Tuesday.

The protesting Palestinians were demanding that Egypt back their demands for the border to be opened for shipments of food and essential provisions, in short supply due to Israel's closure of its borders with the Strip.

Meanwhile, with Kassam rockets continuing to hit the western Negev, and despite the easing of the blockade on Gaza, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said that peace talks with Israel must continue, regardless of the escalating confrontation between Israel and Hamas.

Israel will inevitably be blamed for this, despite the fact that this is a crisis wholly of Hamas' own doing.

Hamas has had all the food and fuel it needs, and yet they decided to forment a crisis by shutting down a power plant in Gaza. Gaza receives most of its power from Israel.

Abbas continues to demand negotiations with Israel, just days after claiming that he would stop talks over Israel's attack that killed a bunch of Hamas thugs. He can barely keep his story straight. Then again, the media has a hard time trying to keep it straight either.

Israel is engaged in self defense and actively provides most of Gaza's power and energy requirements despite the fact that the Palestinians there seek Israel's destruction. No other nation would willingly place itself in that kind of peril. Israel does, and leftists and Palestinian sympathizers around the world slam Israel for even suggesting that the Palestinians be left to figure out how to power their own territory (which they have the capability to do so if only they put as much energy into building an infrastructure as they do to building kassams, mortars, and suicide bombers).

The human rights groups and Palestinian sympathizers continue to claim that Israel is committing crimes - all the while ignoring the very real kassam rocket attacks and mortar attacks against Israel. They've got their blinders on.

Even dovish Shimon Peres is realizing that the UN is operating with blinders on. He's noting that the UN should spend more time focusing on the Palestinian rocket attacks.

As always, check into Carl in Jerusalem and Aussie Dave at Israellycool for the latest.

UPDATE:
As the UN is set to take up yet another anti-Israel resolution in the Security Council (the US says it will veto), 17 kassams fell on Israel today. Where's the resolution condemning the same Palestinian terrorists who manufactured this whole energy "crisis"? They are, after all, one in the same.