Shire Network News features the second part of Tom Paine’s interview with Ezra Levant, the Canadian Human Rights Commission gadfly who is now going to really have his day in court (check out his latest post, and the newest lawsuit against him).

I’ve got a contribution this week. As usual, you can find my podcasts in the usual place. But really, if your’e not listening to all of SNN, you’re missing some superb interviews, and some funny blog news, as well as podcasts from my fellow essayists. You don’t need an iPod. All you need is an mp3 player (Windows Media Player works just fine).

Before the Hajj started, Elder of Ziyon noted:

Now, Palestine Press Agency reports that Hamas is planning to embarrass Egypt into opening Rafah by demolishing the wall near the crossing and forcing Egypt to directly stop the pilgrims from going to Egypt - or forcing Egypt to let them through. PPA says that Hamas plans to demonstrate on Friday and demolish the wall on Saturday. Whether this is true or not, Hamas is clearly playing political games with their devout Muslim population.

Now in Gaza, Hamas might be planning to do the same at the Israeli border. (via memeorandum)

Israel has put paramilitary police on standby and boosted surveillance along the Gaza border in case Palestinians try to break through into Israel as they did in Egypt last month, security sources said on Sunday.A pro-Hamas group said it would hold a peaceful protest on Monday in which it estimated that 40,000 to 50,000 women and children would form a “human chain” stretching the length of the Gaza Strip. Organisers said they had no intention of breaching the border.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli Defence Forces said: “The IDF is preparing based on reports from the Palestinian media.” She declined to elaborate.

Like Elder of Ziyon noted a few months ago, the intelligence about what’s going to happen was in the Palestinian media.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians poured across the Rafah border breach into Egypt to stock up on goods in short supply in the coastal enclave because of an Israeli blockade.

This is the short version. Residents of Gaza flush with cash bought quite a few luxury goods also. And Israel is pretty certain that terrorists and materiel also crossed the border at that time.

LGF observes:

And they’re releasing children from school so they can be on the front line.

Powerline suggests:

Hamas’s stage managers in Iran must think the time is ripe for the usual misdirection that accompanies international attention to their nuclear weapons program.

Or it might just be now that the dry run worked so well in Egypt they want to breach the Israeli border to increase the ease with which terrorists could slip into Israel again.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Dr. Reuven Pedatzur, a person whose opinion one should certainly respect in all matters military, writes in Haaretz on the amazing discovery: the much touted Iron Dome anti-rocket system will not be able to protect Sderot from the Qassams. He demolishes the whole idea using simple arithmetics, so you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand it:

The distance from the edge of Beit Hanun to the outskirts of Sderot is 1,800 meters. Therefore, a rocket launched from Beit Hanun takes about nine seconds to hit Sderot. The developers of Iron Dome at Rafael Advance Defense Systems know that the preparations to simply launch the intercept missiles at their target take up to about 15 seconds (during which time the system locates the target, determines the flight path and calculates the intercept route). Obviously, then, the Qassam will slam into Sderot quite a number of seconds before the missile meant to intercept it is even launched.

But besides not being able to protect the border communities, Iron Dome will also not be able to cope with rockets that are launched much farther away. According to data available from Rafael, the average flight time of the intercept missile to the point of encounter is another 15 seconds. In other words, to intercept a rocket using Iron Dome requires at least 30 seconds. This is the time it takes a Qassam to cover six kilometers.

Pedatzur adds:

The disturbing question is why no one bothered to apprise the prime minister of this simple calculation, to make it clear to him that Iron Dome, in the development of which his government decided to invest hundreds of millions of dollars, will not be able to protect Sderot.

The article was published on February 22, and today (February 24) Olmert continued touting Iron Dome as the ultimate solution:

Olmert said the protection of Gaza-area communities will include a combination of solutions such as the Iron Dome defense system, an early-warning system, new school buildings in addition to the partial fortification of homes.

Strange, ain’t it? And there are more disturbing questions, such as the cost of each intercept missile (about $100,000), its ability to tackle mortar shells (about 0), but most of all the curious (to say the least) rejection of all and any US-made protective systems. It looks like a pathological case of NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome:

Part of the explanation for the opposition to the laser system may lie in remarks made by Shimon Lavie, from the R&D directorate, who was the officer of the Nautilus project in the United States, on the “Fact” TV program, broadcast on Channel 2 last December. “We in the directorate are responsible for developing blue-and-white [Israeli-made] systems, which the Nautilus was not. We had hoped for intense cooperation with Israeli firms. If that had happened, it might have had an influence [on the decision about whether to acquire the laser system].”

Bingo. There is no need to add anything, is there? The article mentions other strange items, such as the fate of the (initially) joint US-Israeli development of the laser defense system Nautilus / Skyguard, and much more - worth reading in its entirety.

It is also worth mentioning that while the citizens of Sderot remain unprotected and crying for help and while mandarins fight their turf wars, several anti-rocket and anti-mortar systems are coming to maturity and being used in the field, protecting US troops in Iraq.

Another expert claims that the solution to Qassams already exists.

Farber’s suggestion is to deploy American artillery batteries called Phalanx around the Qassam-battered town of Sderot, to intercept the rockets fired by Palestinians.

The U.S. army has been successfully operating the system in Iraq, where it provides its bases with protection from rockets and mortar shells.

Something definitely smells fishy in the whole business.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

Hamas isn’t getting the results they wanted after they kidnapped Gilad Shalit. So they’re going to kidnap more soldiers until Israel gives them what they want.

Hamas will abduct more IDF soldiers if Israel does not answer its demands for freeing Gilad Schalit, a Hamas official said in an interview published Saturday.

“Abducting soldiers is not a purpose in and of itself and is not a hobby,” Osama al-Zeini, the Hamas official in charge of the “Schalit file,” told Palestine - a newspaper affiliated with Hamas.

“The issue is the issue of prisoners. If the Schalit deal does not meet its objectives and the enemy will not answer our demands, there is no doubt that more pressure must be exerted on the enemy so that it complies. [Our] goal is to free the prisoners and we insist on it.

“If we don’t see compliance from the enemy, abductions will continue until every single prisoner is released,” he stated.

Funny, Hamas keeps on saying they didn’t kidnap Schalit, and that they have no power over Schalit’s kidnappers. Guess al-Zeini didn’t get the memo.