Cpl. Gilad Shalit has not been heard from since his kidnapping. David Bogner is of the opinion that Gilad may be dead, and I’m beginning to agree. There have been no pictures, no real assurances, since his kidnapping two weeks ago. Lots of words, but when did words from terrorists mean anything?

But the fight to convince the palestinians to stop launching kassams, and to disrupt and destroy the terrorist cells, continues.

Note how the wire service leads are almost identical:

AP: GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Jul 11, 2006 (AP)— Israeli tanks and troops moved into southern Gaza early Wednesday in a new phase of a two-week offensive aimed at militants holding a captured soldier and firing rockets, Palestinians and the military said.

Reuters: GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli tanks and troops pushed into the central Gaza Strip on Wednesday, expanding a two-week-old offensive aimed at recovering a captured soldier and stopping rocket attacks by Palestinian militants.

Well, except the AP has the area wrong. Of course, Reuters can’t resist the easy anti-Israel bias in the lead.

Israel has rejected international criticism of its biggest operation in the Gaza Strip since abandoning the territory last year after 38 years of occupation, vowing to continue the offensive indefinitely.

But this is my favorite part of the Reuters story:

Militants tried to fire makeshift rockets toward the Kissufim border crossing as a column of dozens of armored vehicles and hundreds of soldiers pushed into central Gaza, but the rockets appeared to fall short of the troops.

Gee, guess all those years of fine-tuning the kassams don’t mean squat when firing them at a real army, huh? Funny, but the brave shaheeds seems to have all turned and run away instead of gathering together to take on the IDF. And here I thought they all wanted to die as martyrs. Boys, here’s your chance!

“Our main target is the terrorist infrastructure — the rocket crews, the gunmen, the arms caches,” said Israeli commander Colonel Yoel, who could not give his last name.

“But of course we are here to show that if, God forbid, any of us is captured by the enemy, the army will do everything to secure his return.”

Just for kicks and gigles, let’s look at the lead in Ha’aretz:

The Israel Defense Forces expanded its action in the Gaza Strip shortly after midnight Tuesday, when infantry soldiers and tanks entered central Gaza for the first time since Operation Summer Rains began two weeks ago.

Residents said the soldiers were conducting searches in a village east of the town of Dir al-Balah and had moved about 150 meters into the territory.

It appears that Hamas and the terrorists have at last bit off more than they can chew. The terrorist infrastructure is being removed, bit by bit. Oh, the IDF won’t get all of it. But Hamas will be licking its wounds for a while, as will PIJ, Al-Aqsa, and the rest.

I don’t think we will ever see Gilad Shalit again. And if Olmert and Peretz keep up this way, terrorists won’t ever try to kidnap another Israeli soldier. Or at least, they won’t do it thinking they’re going to swap one for thousands of prisoners.

I’m sorry, but if I were sitting in a bar, and a man came up to me and uttered any of the following lines, I’d burst into laughter:

“Was your father a thief? Because he stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes.”

“Didn’t it hurt when you fell from heaven?”

“You must be tired because you’ve been running through my mind all day.”

“The only things your eyes haven’t told me is your name.”

Lame, lame, lame, lame. These are considered four of the top ten on some jackass’ list.

In six languages.

Ladies, your Romeos—sans Shakespeare’s help—await.

Apparently, the Washington Post’s latest pet project is being a mouthpiece for terrorists. A column “written” by Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader currently running the PA, appears in today’s Washington Post.

He hit all the lefty talking points, using all the in-fashion lefty phrases: “fair and free elections,” “democratically elected government, “collective punishment,” “resisting the illegal, ongoing occupation,” “root causes,” “fail to address the underlying conflict,” “world’s largest prison camps,” etc., etc., yadda yadda yadda, blahblahblah.

Hit all those talking points, he did. Who know that Haniyeh was such a gifted writer?

I have several questions for the WaPo that I do not expect to get answers to:

• Did Haniyeh’s original draft include “Zionist Entity” every time Israel was mentioned?
• Who really wrote the column?
• Did the Carter Center have anything to do with it?
• Did Jimmy Carter write Haniyeh’s column, by any chance?

I find it difficult to believe that he didn’t have some kind of Western help, what with the language in the column being completely, well, Westernized. Yes, yes, yes, newspapers have styles that you are expected to follow, but I would lay odds that Haniyeh didn’t write a quarter of what we see in the op-ed pages. I would love to see the drafts that went back and forth on this one.

But enough on that. Let us look at some of the lies Haniyeh makes, and the Washington Post passes along:

They think, doubtless, of the hostage soldier, taken in battle — yet thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, remain in Israeli jails for resisting the illegal, ongoing occupation that is condemned by international law.

The hundreds of women and “children” (funny how a 19-year-old palestinian is a “youth” or “child,” but a 19-year-old Israeli is a “soldier”) are in jail because they took part in terror attacks. You know, that “resistance” thing Haniyeh talks about? It includes knives, bombs, molotov cocktails, and generally killing Israelis. As for the “battle” that took the soldier? It was a sneak attack, a shoot-from-behind operation made by terrorists dressed as close to Israeli soldiers as possible.

Israel’s unilateral movements of the past year will not lead to peace. These acts — the temporary withdrawal of forces from Gaza, the walling off of the West Bank — are not strides toward resolution but empty, symbolic acts that fail to address the underlying conflict. Israel’s nearly complete control over the lives of Palestinians is never in doubt, as confirmed by the humanitarian and economic suffering of the Palestinians since the January elections. Israel’s ongoing policies of expansion, military control and assassination mock any notion of sovereignty or bilateralism. Its “separation barrier,” running across our land, is hardly a good-faith gesture toward future coexistence.

Hamas does not want “future coexistence.” They want nothing less than the destruction of Israel. Their charter, which calls explicitly for the end of Israel, remains unchanged. They have stated many, many times, that they will never recognize Israel. Hamas has re-issued the infamous “Three No’s of Khartoum”: No recognition of Israel, no negotiations, and no peace with Israel.

At this point I must ask those who insist that Israel can negotiate with Hamas: What part of “no” don’t you understand?

This is the biggest lie, and the biggest howler, of all:

However, we do not want to live on international welfare and American handouts. We want what Americans enjoy — democratic rights, economic sovereignty and justice.

Let me quote just a tiny portion of the Hamas charter:

Article 1: The Islamic Resistance Movement: The Movement’s programme is Islam. From it, it draws its ideas, ways of thinking and understanding of the universe, life and man. It resorts to it for judgement in all its conduct, and it is inspired by it for guidance of its steps.

Article 5: By adopting Islam as its way of life, the Movement goes back to the time of the birth of the Islamic message, of the righteous ancestor, for Allah is its target, the Prophet is its example and the Koran is its constitution.

Article 13: There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.

Sure. That’s absolutely exactly like what Americans want and enjoy—except that it’s not. Hamas doesn’t want “democratic rights.” Hamas wants an Islamic Caliphate established where Israel stands today.

Was Israel defending itself when it killed eight family members on a Gaza beach last month or three members of the Hajjaj family on Saturday, among them 6-year-old Rawan? I refuse to believe that such inhumanity sits well with the American public.

Hamas justifies suicide attacks on Israel as “self-defense,” as recently as April. They also caused the Gaza beach explosion themselves.

None of these facts, of course, will enter the minds of the average WaPo reader. They’ll just tsk-tsk and remember the Hamas talking points during their next dinnertime debate about Israel.

For my final thoughts, I quote again from the Hamas charter:

Article 30: Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the confrontation of the enemy. The effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity - together with the presence of sincere purpose for the hoisting of Allah’s banner higher and higher - all these are elements of the Jihad for Allah’s sake.

Way to go, WaPo. You just helped Hamas continue its Jihad against Israel.

I’ve seen a few articles like this recently, but another one has popped up today. Is there anyone out there with half a brain (besides Juan Cole, of course) who doubts that Iranian Jews have been forced to toe the Iranian line regarding Israel?

Iranian Jews condemn Israeli crimes
TEHRAN (Fars News Agency) — Iranian Jewish Community in a statement released here on Monday condemned Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.

In their statement, Iranian Jews have expressed their sympathy with the oppressed Palestinian people and stated their profound concern over the increasingly intensifying violence by the Zionist Regime, which has so far claimed the lives of many innocent human beings and resulted into growing usurpation of the Palestinian nation’s rights.

[...] The Iranian Jewish Community has also stressed, “The Zionist Regime’s violence and genocide of the Palestinians do not at all comply with the religious fiats and decrees presented by Prophet Muses and all the God-fearing Jews and followers of Prophet Muses, thus, express their profound hatred for such movements and measures.”

The International Herald Tribune runs an article that says Iran and Israel (and Jews) had historic ties of friendship that have been severed only in the last two decades.

But since Ahmadinejad was chosen president of Iran, the threats against the Jewish community have increased.

Yet in Tehran, Jews say Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric has prompted threats not heard in more than 15 years.

“No, not ordinary people, but mostly the Basij,” said a Jewish shopkeeper, saying the harassment came from the paramilitary from which Ahmadinejad emerged. “The thing they usually say is ‘dirty Jew.’ But I believe these people are insane. They’re not real people.”

The culmination of these threats, of course, are the supposed pronouncements from the Iranian Jewish community against Israel. When you read these words, remember that the vast majority of Iran’s Jews fled due to the Khomeini revolution:

LONDON, July 2 (IranMania) - The Iranian government and nation do not officially recognize Israel and Jews share the same position, according to an Iranian Jewish figure, IRNA reported.

Head of the Committee of Tehrani Jews Haroun Yashai told Russian Gazetta daily, “We are citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

He ruled out allegations that religious minorities are deprived of their rights in Iran, saying, “Foreign journalists usually think that our comments on good condition of religious minorities in Iran are false; foreign journalists wrongly believe that we express everything on the call and under pressure of Iranian officials,” IRNA stated

He said Jews are free to react to some of the policies of government and even write to government officials on the issues.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain (the one holding the sword ready to cut the speaker’s throat). Know that an Iranian Jew can only leave Iran if he leaves behind most of his family. An entire Iranian Jewish family is not allowed to leave the country, for fear they will emigrate. Where there is no freedom to emigrate, there is no freedom of speech—and no freedom.

The Iranians keep their Jewish community hostage, much as Syria did until the 1990s. (And it wasn’t out of the goodness of their hearts that the Syrians stopped. Bashar Assad, the Nazi-shelterer, was forced into letting Syrian Jews leave.)

For years, the Jews in Syria lived in extreme fear. The Jewish Quarter in Damascus was under the constant surveillance of the secret police, who were present at synagogue services, weddings, bar-mitzvahs and other Jewish gatherings. Contact with foreigners was closely monitored. Travel abroad was permitted in exceptional cases, but only if a bond of $300-$1,000 was left behind, along with family members who served as hostages. U.S. pressure applied during peace negotiations helped convince President Hafez Assad to lift these restrictions, and those prohibiting Jews from buying and selling property, in the early 1990’s.

Remember this when you hear the spokesliars of Hamas talk about how well Jews would be treated in a palestinian state. Remember this when you hear anyone discuss the one-state solution, which is another name for Hitler’s Final Solution. There will be no freedom of worship for Jews under any Muslim despot. There is no true freedom for Jews now in Iran or Syria. There was no true freedom for Jews, ever, under Islamic rule. Not in the ancient past, when reading the Torah was forbidden. Not in the recent past, when you can still find (in the New York Times archive) the pictures of Jews swinging from the gallows during the Iraqi Farhud, or Jewish stores and homes looted, smashed, and burned. Or Jewish synagogues destroyed.

The only state in the Middle East where Jews can live in complete freedom is Israel.

And the Muslims—and their allies—would take that away from us.

I think not.

It is funny to watch the verbal acrobatics some people go through when talking about Basayev’s demise. Of course, Guardian (easy guess, ain’t it?) produces the best example of the tortuous squirming. See today’s on-line edition headlines.

Even before we start with the articles, the smell of controversy is already in the air: “terror leader” on one hand and “the militant who went too far” on the other.

The first article in the above list, the one dubbed “Beslan terror leader killed” in the picture above, is by Nick Walsh. Not a bad egg, all things considered. So, when you open the article, the internal headline is “Beslan massacre mastermind dies in blast as Russia says he was plotting new attack“. Well, the despicable an brutal murderer was much more than Beslan massacre mastermind, but still…

But then the author slips into a familiar groove. The word “terrorist” appears only between quotation marks, attributed to various Russian sources. And the inevitable happens almost immediately: “He and 12 other militants were killed in a blast…“. Obviously, the habit is stronger than the truth: the insidious “militant” is in.

Nick Walsh is also the author of the next opus on the same subject. It is headlined “Explainer: Shamil Basayev” (yeah, sure, who but Guardian to “explain” the unspeakable?). Here the cozy “Militant who went too far” appears for the first time. Sounds almost like a schoolboy who missed a lesson on purpose or stole a candy in a grocery shop. You will find “gunman” but no “terrorist” in this one. Gunman is defined in a dictionary as “a person who shoots a gun“, by the way.

But all this is a mere appetizer - before the inimitable Jonathan Steele comes in to take the whole cake. Forget “terrorist”, forget “militant”, it is now:

Chechen politician seeking independence through terrorism

Or, if you will: one-time guerrilla commander, politician and warlord, and even ruthless adventurer… An impressive dictionary - fits an image of a scribe who is hard put to avoid the unavoidable.

Poor show, Guardian, but not quite surprising.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews