I really don’t understand why Ynet says that the IDF prevented this suicide car bomb attack from happening when it’s clear that it was divine intervention, but at least there was no Passover Massacre this year:

A major suicide attack on Tel Aviv was prevented this Passover, as Shin Bet and IDF forces arrested 19 Hamas members in the West Bank city of Qalqilya for planning a car bomb containing some 220 lbs of explosives, it was cleared for publication on Tuesday.

Investigations revealed that the suicide bomber, a holder of an Israeli ID obtained through family unification, had already reached the center of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area with the vehicle, but for unknown reasons did not carry out the attack and returned to Qalqilya, where the bomb accidentally exploded.

This is also yet another example of terrorists taking advantage of the reunification act, which allows Palestinians outside Israel to be unified with their families inside, and has been abused for terror attacks before.

Perhaps this is why the article talks about the IDF preventing terror attacks:

Following a recent wave of arrests of Hamas members in Qalqilya, it became apparent that the organization’s men in the city were working toward committing attacks against Israel’s home front as soon as possible, after a period of re-strengthening and building up abilities.

The arrests were carried out before Passover, in order to ensure a safe holiday. The IDF and Shin Bet are currently continuing investigations in an effort to thwart further terror activity.

The investigations showed that the group was plotting to carry out a number of different attacks in Israel in addition to this car bomb.

Yes, this is Hamas, the group that is holding Gilad Shalit and wants Israel to release hundreds of murderers in exchange for one Israeli boy. Here’s hoping that Olmert grows a spine and refuses to allow the release of murderers.

This week’s podcast features an interview with Egyptian Sandmonkey, who talks about how Mubarak feels able to repress his citizens even more now that Bush is ignoring the steady erosion of human rights in the country.

I talk about Nancy Pelosi, and talking to dictators, in my segment.

Have I mentioned that we’re looking for new contributors? If you can write and record something snarky (recording should be no more than three minutes) in the news analysis vein, we want you. Remember, Audacity is freeware, a good mike isn’t expensive, and anyone can be a broadcaster on the Internet, provided you find a forum.

We aren’t picky. I’m the token liberal, though I mostly don’t discuss that in public. Well, mostly because people don’t believe me when I say I’m not a conservative, but hey. We can have another liberal and still not tip the balance. Who knows? Maybe we could do a point/counterpoint.

Want to join SNN? Email Tom Paine at pacificjournalist - at - gmail.com.

Funny how neither major wire service can manage to spread widely the news that yet another Palestinian internecine firefight has broken out—this time in Nablus, the West Bank—not Gaza. That means the civil war is spreading.

I found the story on Fox News and the IHT, but so far, nowhere else. Well, except the Israeli media, of course. And you can find a ton of stories about the prisoner swap Hamas wants to make for Gilad Shalit. But no, you won’t easily find the news that Palestinians are murdering civilians again—their own.

Palestinian security officers and militants exchanged heavy fire in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday, injuring three people and paralyzing the downtown area. At least one of the casualties was a bystander, rescue officials said.

The clash between the police and militants from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - Fatah’s military wing -terrified residents and shoppers in the bustling city center, prompting them to shutter their windows and flee the area.

Police and the gunmen sped through the streets and ran over rooftops, shooting at each other.

“I saw, from where I was, dozens of Palestinian police and gunmen chasing each other and shooting,” said Ghassan Tabila, a street vendor.

And oh yeah—they’re doing it in Gaza, too.

In Gaza, a gunbattle between two warring families in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday killed three people, including a bystander, medical officials said.

It is not clear what restarted the long simmering feud between the Jerwan and the Sakr clans in the town of Khan Younis.

Gunshots were heard near the home of a member of the one of the clans, prompting armed men from both families to rush to the scene in downtown Khan Younis. Heavy gunfire lasted for more than an hour, and sporadic gunshots were heard throughout the day, witnesses said.

One person was killed from each family, and a bystander was also slain. The fighting wounded seven people, including one in serious condition, said Moaiwa Hassanein, a Health Ministry official.

Yep. The peaceful, peace-loving Palestinians. If only Israel would give them a state, they’d stop murdering each other, and they’d stop attacking Israelis.

Uh-huh.

Sure.

Here you go: A story about a woman who hit her first-ever hole-in-one—at age 102.

Elsie McLean thought she might have lost her ball on the par-3, 100-yard fourth hole at Bidwell Park. Instead, the 102-year-old Chico woman became the oldest golfer ever to make a hole-in-one on a regulation course.

Because of the slope of the green, McLean and her partners couldn’t see where her ball landed after she teed off.

“Where’s my ball?” McLean asked.

Her friends, Elizabeth Rake and Kathy Crowder, found it in the cup.

“I said, ‘Oh, my Lord. It can’t be true. It can’t be true.’ I was so excited. And the girls were absolutely overcome,” McLean said.

It was McLean’s first ace.

“Well everybody wants a hole-in-one, and I said, ‘Why can’t I have a hole-in-one?’ I came within inches once,” McLean told television station KNVN.

Well, good for her. That was a long time coming, that hole-in-one.

The Comments Quicktags script is buggy at the moment, so I’ve disabled it until we can figure out what’s wrong. You’ll have to enter the tags yourselves, folks.

Let’s say you are a member of parliament of a nation with many enemies. Let’s say you regularly make trips to those enemy nations. Let’s also say that you call on the enemies of the nation whose parliament you are a member to bring down destruction on that nation. And finally, let’s say you advise the internal enemies of your nation never to make peace with the nation for whom you serve.

Would that make you guilty of treason?

Would that give the world a reason to think that perhaps you are working against the nation that elected you and sent you to parliament?

Well, in every other nation, yes. But here is where the Exception Clause comes into play. Because the nation is Israel, the member of parliament is an Arab born in Israel, and the world simply closes its eyes to the treachery because, of course, his grievance is that he is an Arab born in Israel.

Arab Knesset Member Azmi Bishara (Balad) warned Hamas against making any substantial concessions to win the international community’s support.

Bishara’s comments were made during an interview with Jordanian newspaper al-Ra’i prior to the publication of his intention to resign from the Knesset.

“Fatah’s willingness to make concessions during the 1970s and in the framework of the Oslo Accords and the Madrid Conference just so it could remain in power under the (Israeli) occupation hurt the movement,” he said.

Bishara has fled to Jordan, and word has it he is set to resign from the Israeli Knesset soon. Of course, he’s now denying it. But he is going to be charged with visiting enemy states (from where he spoke against Israel, if I recall correctly).

The MK’s reported upcoming resignation could be connected to suspicions that Bishara had violated a 2001 law forbidding political officials from traveling to enemy states after he visited both Lebanon and Syria in 2006.

When Bishara is charged with working with Israel’s enemies, watch for the world to excuse it on the grounds that Israel “colonized” his family’s land or something. Because Israel can never do right by most of the world. Probably has something to do with all those damned Jews in it. You see, if it were only the state of Palestine, the world would like it so much better… because they cared so much about the nation called the Mandate of Palestine prior to Israel’s birth.

Yes, that last paragraph was simply chock-full of sarcasm. Why do you ask?

Okay, I know the Sun is a tabloid, and I know Faye Turney got paid to tell her story, but this is despicable:

Earlier it was revealed staff from the Iranian embassy in London phoned Faye’s mother-in-law to try to coax her to Tehran.

They traced Sue Turney, 60, by calling every Turney in her local phone book.

Faye said: “They told her if she went to Tehran it may help to secure my release.” The calls stopped after Foreign Office protests.

Un. be. lievable.

And yet, I believe it.

Gee, that fabled Muslim generosity never seems to be around except in words, does it?