Two verses down.

Twenty-eight to go.

I’m finally getting this trope.

If this keeps up, I’ll get to do the maftir after all.

Earlier this week came the news that a bipartisan group of 8 former government officials were urging the Bush administration to include talks with Syria and Hamas. Joe Klein calls the effort “creative.” The letter (cited here via The Washington Note) includes:

• We commend the administration for its decision to invite Syria to the conference; it should be followed by genuine engagement. 

A breakthrough on this track could profoundly alter the regional landscape. At a minimum, the conference should launch Israeli-Syrian talks under international auspices.

• As to Hamas, we believe that a genuine dialogue with the organization is far preferable to its isolation; it could be conducted, for example, by the UN and Quartet Middle East envoys.

Promoting a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza would be a good starting point.

Well, maybe Hamas and Syria don’t want dialogue.

Consider the news today:

Hamas’ top leaders in Gaza and Syria warned the moderate Palestinian president Friday not to “fall into the trap” of an upcoming U.S.-sponsored peace conference with Israel.

Ismail Haniyeh, who was deposed as Palestinian prime minister after Hamas violently seized Gaza in June, urged President Mahmoud Abbas to mend his rift with the Islamic militant group and criticized him for planning to attend the peace conference next month. 

“Don’t fall into the trap of the coming conference. Don’t make new compromises on Jerusalem, on our sovereignty,” Haniyeh said, speaking to thousands of cheering supporters for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday.

and Assad?

Adding to the pessimism already surrounding the upcoming summit, Syrian President Bashar Assad announced on Thursday that his country would not participate in November’s conference in Annapolis, the Jerusalem Post reported.Assad said the conference would not answer any of his demands, his biggest being that Israel hand over the Golan Heights, a strategically vital plateau that Israel won in the 1967 war.

How can you engage parties who don’t wish to be engaged?

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

Wow, the captions on Eid In The Middle East (you must capitalize it or you’re simply Missing. The. Point) are stunningly non-objective. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Well, yes, there is:

A Palestinian boy rides a horse during the holiday of Eid al-Fitr in Gaza City, Friday, Oct. 12, 2007. Thousands of Palestinians gathered early Friday in the Gaza Strip for dawn prayers celebrating the festival of Eid al-Fitr, but the atmosphere this year was hardly one of celebration. In Gaza, the festival is marked by international isolation, empty shelves and bitter internal rivalries, casting a pall over what is meant to be one of the happiest dates in the Muslim calendar.

Here’s another one from the same story:

Palestinians pray during the first day of the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in the West Bank town of Jenin, Friday, Oct. 12, 2007. Thousands of Palestinians gathered early Friday in the Gaza Strip and across the West Bank for dawn prayers celebrating the festival of Eid al-Fitr, but the atmosphere this year was hardly one of celebration.

And this is from the story, which is about Hamas warning Fatah that it’s a “trap” to negotiate with Israel:

Gaza’s international isolation, empty shelves and bitter internal rivalries cast a pall over the Eid al-Fitr holiday - meant to be one of the happiest dates on the Muslim calendar.

Israel has barred the entrance of all goods to the territory except humanitarian aid, and Western governments have imposed a financial boycott.

Deepening the misery are ongoing clashes between the Israeli military and Gaza militants who fire rockets almost daily into Israel.

Because tensions between members of Hamas and Fatah in Gaza remain high, Hamas security forces were deployed in the streets to keep order during the holiday.

Even Friday’s prayers were divided along factional lines, with separate locations for supporters of Gaza’s Hamas rulers and their rivals from Abbas’ Fatah.

Please note who is blamed first in the order of misery that is the end of the story. And if that wasn’t enough for you, there’s always this one:

Muslim Holiday Begins in Most of Mideast
Most of the Middle East on Friday marked the start of the feast marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, with crisis, violence, fear and isolation all casting a pall over one of the happiest dates on the Islamic calendar.

In Baghdad, Beirut and Gaza, the beginning three-day Eid al-Fitr festival was somber and muted.

Pass out the hankies. I’m feeling a little choked up.

I blame the seventies. Most of these shows were on in the seventies. Go. Click the link. Cringe. Laugh.

Now go here to see the best ones.

Yisrael Medad points out that the PalArabs are claiming ownership of the Western Wall and notes the claimed basis for this in international law, from a British commission in 1930 that was established in wake of the 1929 Muslim pogroms against Jews. Read his posting first.

From reading the report, I believe that one of the reasons that the British sided with the Muslims is because the very idea of “ownership” of the holiest place on the planet was so totally repugnant to the rabbis who testified as to its Jewish character:

The Jewish Side do not claim any proprietary right to the Wall. The Jewish Counsel are of opinion that the Wall does not constitute a property in the ordinary sense of that word, the Wall falling under the category of res divinum or res extra commercium. On the basis of that point of view the Jewish Side protest against any and every form of innovation in the structure of the Wall and its immediate surroundings carried out by the Moslems. The Jewish Side have submitted to the Commission a detailed “Note on recent Moslem innovations at the Wailing Wall,” which is annexed to this document (Appendix XI). The plaintiffs refer to a pronouncement made by Sheikh Hafez, when he was examined as a witness before the Commission, with reference to the properties dedicated as Waqfs (pages 711-712), to the effect that some learned lawyers and some jurists would say that such property is the property of God while some say that it is the property of nobody. In this connection the Jewish Counsel ask the Commission to accept the above definition which would have the advantage of solving entirely the problem.

In other words, the Jews’ intense knowledge of the extreme holiness of the Temple Mount was interpreted by the secular British as an admission of non-ownership, thus strengthening the Muslim case.

The Muslims, on the other hand, had no problem claiming complete ownership:

It is here a question about property which has belonged to the Moslems for many centuries.

Obviously, from a legal perspective the Jewish claim was not the best argument, but it proves beyond a doubt to whom the area is more important.

But interestingly, the current Arab claim that the Wall is theirs under international law based on this document is contradicted by their very own words in the document itself:

The Palestine Arab nation have rejected continually and in every opportunity the British Mandate over Palestine, and therefore they cannot be bound by any arrangement or regulation derived from that. Mandate; nor can they be bound by anything pertaining to what is known as the national home policy. My statement in this direction should not be taken as indicating any departure from that attitude which was adopted by this nation in exercise of its right to determine its own future.

Second: Moslems state that all contentions relative to Moslem sacred places should be dealt with only by competent bodies as prescribed by the Sharia Law. Other bodies can have no jurisdiction whatever by the Sharia Law. Other bodies can have no jurisdiction whatever on these places.

The Muslims, in their arguments before the Commission, already said that they do not consider the Commission to have any legal right to determine anything. It is rather hypocritical for them now to claim that they have the right to the Wall under international law when they themselves explicitly reject that document itself by their own words in this very report.

(crossposted at Elder of Ziyon)

A little background on Ann Arbor and UMich: Ann Arbor is an extremely liberal college town. So when UMich and Ann Arbor liberals vote down a boycott of Israeli products by an overwhelming margin, you have to think that the left is beginning to twig onto the lies of the anti-Israel crowd.

Despite the efforts of a group called Boycott Israeli Goods, products made in Israel will remain on the shelves of the People’s Food Co-op of Ann Arbor.

At a meeting of the co-op’s Board of Directors last night, officials announced the outcome of a vote to determine whether the organization should boycott Israeli products. The final vote was 262 members in favor of the ban and 866 opposing it.

The motion to boycott Israeli goods started this summer when Boycott Israeli Goods proposed a referendum to the co-op’s board. The group aimed to protest what it said was cruel treatment of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government.

Although the co-op’s Board of Directors rejected the proposed referendum, the group collected 600 signatures - enough to force a vote by co-op members. A majority of the votes was needed to implement the ban.

And the losers are, well, losers.

“It wouldn’t have been this lopsided if that were the only cause,” said Morin, who ran unsuccessfully for the University Board of Regents in 2006 on the Green Party ticket. “I think a bigger factor is that we had opponents who were clearly supporting Israel unconditionally - in other words, Israel was their chief value, and they weren’t going to subject Israeli behavior to any moral criteria.”

Don’t you get it? It was the Zionists who blew the vote. All 866 members of the co-op who voted against the boycott were only thinking of Israel, as opposed to the 262 freedom fighters who were thinking of the eternal victims, the poor, poor, pitiful Pals. 76% of the co-op are obviously Zionist Zombies, led by Israel as their “chief value” (and wtf does that mean, Israel is their “chief value”?), voted against the boycott. Once again, the Loser Lefties are unable to comprehend that the reason they lost is because their cause is wrong.

The good news, though, is that a liberal college campus voted down by an enormous margin yet another useless Israel boycott motion. The tide, she is a-turning.

As a goodwill gesture to Mahmoud Abbas Israel will allow 3500 illegal Palesitnian immigrants to stay.

In a gesture to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel will grant residency permits to 3,500 Palestinians who have been living illegally in the occupied West Bank, but will not act on another 1,500 Palestinians living in Hamas-run Gaza, Israeli officials said today. Many are the spouses or relatives of Palestinians who entered on travel visas.

In a reciprocal gesture President Abbas has announced that he will:
a) Accept a two state solution even if it doesn’t include all of the territory that Israel captured from Jordan in 1967.
b) Encourage his people to accept the results of political negotiations with Israel without resorting to violence even if said results are unacceptable.
c) Promise to crack down on the anti-Israel and anti-American incitement that appears in official publications.
d) Maintain a hardline against Hamas.
e) Give Israel the “finger.”

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I know the AP likes to think of itself as an unbiased, objective media outlet. But this interview with a top PIJ terrorist belies that.

Abu Hamza is a small, soft-spoken man with a wide smile, but the rockets that Islamic Jihad fires into Israel almost daily serve as constant reminders that renewed talk of Mideast peace remains a distant dream in the violence-torn Gaza Strip.

Israel’s military says Gaza militants have fired some 980 rockets into Israel since June, when Hamas seized power in the coastal territory. That compares to 440 in the preceding four months. In all, thousands of crude rockets fired over the past seven years have killed 12 Israelis, wounded dozens and disrupted life for thousands.

What a nice terrorist! He speaks softly, smiles widely, and launches thousands of “crude” rockets that have only killed 12 Israelis in the past seven years, and only wounded dozens (which is bullshit, by the way—dozens were wounded in one attack this year), and gee, disrupted life for thousands. Let’s look at those “disruptions“:

As I walked through the center of Sderot, an entire store had just been shattered by a Palestinian missile. Nothing special or newsworthy… just part of our daily routine, here in Sderot. On the radio, I hear a dry, lifeless news report that “Two people were lightly injured from shrapnel….”I stop to think: Wasn’t the army in Beit Hanon supposed to stop this?

I had just gotten off the phone with the Voice of Israel Radio English news, telling them about that morning in Sderot, when a missile fell two meters from the Yeshiva Hesder LearningAcademy in Sderot, where 120 students study. The missile has missed their study hall by 30 feet.

Funny how the AP can’t seem to profile the lives of the people of Sderot, who are on the receiving end of that soft-spoken murderer.

And then we have some flat-out passing on of lies.

Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from Gaza more than two years ago and Israel has begun a fledgling peace process with the moderate Palestinian forces now in control of the West Bank. So why is Islamic Jihad still raining missiles on Israeli towns, provoking fierce retaliation and a new Israeli threat to cut off Gaza’s electricity?

This is the Palestinians’ way of offsetting Israel’s sophisticated military machine, Abu Hamza said. Israel’s decision to seal Gaza’s borders after Hamas militants took control is another reason the rockets are justified, he said.

“Our rockets go over those borders,” he said.

Really? They fire the rockets because it’s a way of “offsetting” the IDF? Gee. If you read a little further in the article, you read this:

Abu Hamza spoke softly and methodically, making frequent eye contact with an American reporter. But there was no mistaking the bitterness of his words.

“Resistance must continue until we uproot the occupation from all the land of Palestine … from the sea to the river,” he said, outlining Islamic Jihad’s position that a future Palestinian state must replace Israel, not live alongside it.

Sounds to me that those rockets are being launched for a very different reason than to “offset” the power of the IDF. But then, the reporter and editor knew that, and still wrote the bullshit of the previous paragraphs. And then a little further on is this:

He said that Palestinian rocket fire forced Israel out of Gaza in 2005 and that he expected the same result in southern Israeli towns like Sderot and Ashkelon.

So tell me again, Mr. AP Editor, how is it that the reasons for PIJ firing rockets into Gaza can be characterized as this crap:

This is the Palestinians’ way of offsetting Israel’s sophisticated military machine, Abu Hamza said. Israel’s decision to seal Gaza’s borders after Hamas militants took control is another reason the rockets are justified, he said.

This is pathetically bad editing. But then, that’s par for the course when it comes to interviewing terrorists. The media constantly try to give us the other side, as if the opinion of men whose main goal in life is to murder schoolchildren is worth hearing.

This is about the only truthful part of the entire article:

At one point, Abu Hamza said his group would consider a temporary halt to rocket fire if Israel stopped pursuing militants and opened Gaza’s borders. But that statement was rendered meaningless by his subsequent assertion that other forms of “resistance” such as suicide attacks and roadside bombs would continue during any rocket truce.

The rest of the article is all about how Israel is going to send the IDF into Gaza to clean out the terrorists like Abu Hamza (and may a Hellfire missile find him soon). But there’s one last piece to the article, at the very end, that pretty much solves the riddle of why the PIJ gets a bye on so much terror:

Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak contributed to this report.

Uh-huh.

Exit question: I have seen exactly ONE AP article that shows being on the Israeli side of a terror attack. How many have we seen that have interviewed terrorists?