Boker Tov Boulder notes that Salam Fayyad is hitting some of the right notes in his response to the murder of 2 Israelis on Friday. (BtB also observes that unlike some earlier reports the two murdered Israelis were not “settlers.” Of course even if they were “settlers” they were still people who were murdered for being Jewish.)

Still one time saying the right thing hardly makes Fayyad a moderate or a peace partner. After all, he can’t even countenance the notion of Israel as a Jewish state.

But even if I were to take his condemnation of terror as proof of his reasonableness, I wonder when he’s going to explain this (via memeorandum):

The IDF and Shin Bet uncovered 6.5 tons of potassium nitrate hidden in sacks that were disguised as aid from the European Union, the army announced on Saturday.Security forces discovered the stash in the cargo of a Palestinian truck at a West Bank checkpoint earlier in December. According to the IDF, the material, hidden in sugar sacks, was planned to be used by terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

Israel Matzav asks two clarifying questions:

Was the EU in on this? Or did the ‘Palestinians’ somehow do it themselves?

And Elder of Ziyon wonders why no other (serious) media outlet picked this up.

The story is now over six hours old and only a satirical UK site has published it, according to Google News.

According to the IDF this contraband was confiscated in the “West Bank” and was headed for Gaza. So wouldn’t this suggest that Fatah is likely involved in this smuggling - either by abetting Hamas or by turning a blind eye to it?

Meryl observes

You know, those humiliating checkpoints—the ones that are the cause of terrorism against the Israelis—they really don’t do much good, do they? Nah. Catching six and a half tons of a chemical used to make explosives is not worth “humiliating” the poor, poor, pitiful Pals.

(You think that the explosives were only meant for military targets?)

For every time some Palestinian official says the right thing, there are multiple instances where their belligerent actions speak louder.

UPDATE: Hasmonean won’t hold his breath.

I’m waiting for the massive international aid inquiry, the firings & charges against the EU aid workers who are smuggling weapons to terrorists, and the international condemnation..I’ll no doubt be waiting a VERY long time as the EU response was ‘no comment.’

If the record of OLAF is any indication, I have no doubt that he’s correct.

UPDATE II: More links at memeorandum.Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

You know what I’d like to see? Some day, when some terrorist crapbag asks Israel for a “mutual cease-fire” because he’s afraid the IDF is going to come into Gaza and go all medieval on his ass, I’d like to hear the Israeli representative say something like, “You want a cease fire? Kiss my big, fat Jewish ass.”

No cease-fire for terrorists. Good policy.

I’d love to see that one go across the wires.

According to JP (gleeful of course) report, Ha’aretz editor David Landau is definitely in a wrong line of work. For two reasons at least: he cannot help venting his personal frustrations in public and, secondly, with his deep penetrating analysis of subconscious sexual desires of whole states he is missing his real calling - that of a sex therapist.

Ha’aretz editor David Landau told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a recent private dinner that Israel “wants to be raped by the US” and needed more vigorous American intervention to resolve Middle East conflicts, according to a report in the New York Jewish Week.

This astute diagnosis is not all, Mr Landau apparently suffers from a streak of voyeurism as well:

Landau reportedly “implored Rice to intervene, asserting that the Israeli government wanted ‘to be raped’ and that it would be like a ‘wet dream’ for him to see this happen.”

Mr Landau himself denies the voyeurism charge:

“I told [Rice] that it had always been my wet dream to address the secretary of state” on this critical issue, Landau told the Jewish Week.

It seems that diplomatic skills acquired by Ms Rice served her well through that encounter with a sexually charged Mr Landau.

Rice was “fantastic” and “completely unfazed” by his comments, he said, and remained “urbane and diplomatic.”

Probably helped him out with a napkin after the fulfillment of that dream too…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Here’s an interesting statistic that you wouldn’t know unless you read the Israeli press: Ninety-seven percent of all IDF anti-terror attacks in 2007 caused casualties on terrorists, and only terrorists. That’s right. Only three percent of casualties in anti-terror attacks were civilians.

Lately, the thwartings have indeed become more worthy of the title “pinpointed.” In all the attacks of recent weeks, only gunmen were hurt, as confirmed by Palestinians. The rate of civilians hurt in these attacks in 2007 was 2-3 percent. The IDF has come a long way since the dark days of 2002-2003, when half the casualties in air assaults on the Gaza Strip were innocent bystanders.

The attacks fall into three main categories: targeting specific known terrorists; targeting Qassam rocket-launching cells en-route or in action; and punitive bombardments of Hamas outposts, in response to rocket or mortar fire into Israel. Since Israel began air assaults on the Gaza Strip, in late 2000, the first two types of attacks killed more than 100 Palestinian civilians.

And yet, when Israel is successful at killing terrorists—and only terrorists—the Palestinian prime minister is quick to label these pinpointed “thwartings” crimes.

… the PA leader condemned Israel’s “crimes against our people in the Gaza Strip and Qabatiya in the West Bank,” and called on the international community to intervene immediately “in order to stop Israel’s aggression against the Palestinian people.”

Thus proving that the so-called moderates are not moderate at all. Like I believe him when he said this yesterday:

“We mourn the deaths of the two soldiers. Every death is a senseless one,” Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Saturday evening in a meeting with President Shimon Peres in Herzliya.

“We are working to end the bloodshed, to create a better future,” said Fayyad and extended his condolences to the families of Cpl. Ahikam Amihai and Sgt. David Ruben, two off-duty soldiers on a hiking trip who were killed in a shooting attack south of Hebron.

This is the most dangerous Palestinian since Arafat. He really knows how to work the Western press and politicians. And now I know why Condi is acting so brainwashed. Because she believes this thug.

Once again, Osama bin Laden is trying to rally support for his terrorist network by threatening Jews. Yawn.

Bin Laden also made an unusually sharp threat of attacks against Israel, saying, ”I would like to assure our people in Palestine that we will expand our jihad there.”

”We intend to liberate Palestine, the whole of Palestine from the (Jordan) river to the sea,” he said, threatening ”blood for blood, destruction for destruction.”

Bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders frequently vow to liberate Jerusalem and Palestine in their messages. But the latest comments were a more direct language than Bin Laden usually uses. Israel has warned of growing al-Qaeda activity in Palestinian territory, but the terror network is not believed to have taken a strong direct role there so far.

”We will not recognize even one inch for Jews in the land of Palestine as other Muslim leaders have,” Bin Laden said.

You know what astonishes me? That they try to pretend that “Palestine” was ever a Muslim country. Even the name—”Palestine”—is the name given to the area by the Romans, centuries before Mohammed was born, in an attempt to erase the Jewish state forever. Yeah, that didn’t work, either.

Mind you, there is more al qaeda activity in Gaza than there has ever been—but I don’t think bin Laden has a whole lot to do with it. On the other hand, it’s good to see him being open about his Jew-hatred, just as his admirers in Hamas have been of late. On the heels of Hamas insisting there’s no room for Jews in “Palestine,” on cue, here comes bin Laden saying the same.

Yeah. WhatEVER.