The AFP says that Olmert agreed to Egypt’s cease-fire deal.

Despite earlier denials by top officials in Jerusalem, a senior defense official has confirmed Tuesday that an agreement on a lull in Gaza Strip fighting has been worked out.

In a conversation with French news agency AFP, the security official said that an agreement that would see an end to Israeli military operations in the Strip in exchange for an end to rocket attacks on Israel has been finalized via Egyptian mediation efforts.

And what else? Well, everything.

The lull agreement reached between Israel and Hamas is subject to an Egyptian pledge to do everything in its power to prevent arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip, the defense official noted.

In addition, according to the report, Israel pledged to refrain from massive offensive operations but is reserving the right to carry out attacks on specific targets should the need arise.

Other sources say that Olmert agreed to lift the Gaza closure and stop hunting down Hamas and other terrorist leadership. So effectively, Hamas has shown that they can send rockets all the way into Ashkelon, murder Israeli soldiers and civilians at will, supply other terrorist groups with rockets, commit suicide bomb attacks on Israel, sponsor terrorist shootings, stabbings, stonings, and what-have-you, and Israel will—beg them to stop.

Where will Israel find a King David now?

Way to allow your enemies to arm themselves.

What will it take for the average Israeli to get angry enough to demand a politician who will do something about the current state of war in Israel? How can Israel stand for a politician who tells his people that there’s nothing he can do to stop terrorists from firing rockets into Israel?

“Don’t conduct yourselves as though the Grad rocket attacks were not a one-time thing; this has been Israel’s reality for the past 60 years, and this demands restraint as well as strength,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told board members of the Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon Tuesday.

[...] “The Grad is heavier than the Qassam, and we have no way of preventing these things (rocket attacks) from recurring.”

Really? No way to prevent these things from recurring? Funny. Only one rocket has been fired in the last several days.

A rocket struck Ashkelon on Tuesday afternoon, dispelling reports that a secret cease-fire agreement had been reached between Israel and Hamas which would end the rocket fire against Israeli cities in return for a cessation of IDF activities against Palestinian gunmen.

Can you believe I just wrote that? “Only one rocket has been fired in the last several days.” Only one. Because that’s a good thing, right?

No. It’s a horrible thing, and even more horrible that we can so easily use the modifier “only” in a report of a rocket fired into Ashkelon by Palestinian terrorists.

There is going to be a bloodbath in Ashkelon or Sderot eventually. Many children are going to die. It’s only a matter of time.

During Olmert’s visit to Harel Elementary, the prime minister discovered that the school has no bomb shelters that can be reached within 15 seconds of the sounding of a siren warning of an incoming rocket.

The closest fortified room – the school’s computers class – was two minutes away from the yard and most classrooms. “We don’t have enough time to get to the shelter, so we hide under our desk,” the school’s fourth-graders told the prime minister.

When I was in fourth grade, we had regular air-raid drills. But we didn’t have rockets falling on us from a few short miles away, fired from the middle of populated areas by terrorists who know that Israel won’t randomly rocket Gaza.

But a kassam or a Grad missile will hit a school, or a daycare center, and cause the deaths of many children someday. It is inevitable under the current circumstances, with the current government, who appear to be knuckling under to terrorism by asking Hamas for a cease-fire.

Then, Olmert will authorize the ground operation into Gaza that will suddenly become the way to prevent rockets from being fired into Israel.

Maybe.

And shame on Shas for taking Olmert’s bribes to stay in the coalition. Shame on all of the politicians who put their political careers ahead of their citizens’ safety.

US Says Israel Housing Move Unhelpful

Earlier, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack chided Israel more directly for the announcement Sunday that hundreds of new Jewish houses would be built in disputed areas of the West Bank and east Jerusalem.”The announcement that we saw from the Israeli government, is it helpful to the process? No, it’s not helpful to the process,” McCormack said.

So building homes for Jews is unhelpful.

How about throwing them out of their homes?

Here’s an interview with President Bush from August 2005.

Q I understand why you like this place better than the White House.
We are on the eve of the disengagement and you have expressed your full support in disengagement, trying to help Prime Minister Sharon in his struggle. And I would like to ask why is it so important to you, Mr. President?THE PRESIDENT: First of all, let me speak about my relationship with Prime Minister Sharon, if you don’t mind. We’ve grown close, and one of the reasons why is I appreciate a person who when he says something, means it. And I hope he appreciates that about me. In other words, I said early on we’re going to join in fighting terror so that Israel could be secure and America secure and other free nations secure.

Secondly — and I have, and he knows I keep my word and I know he keeps his word. Secondly, what I appreciate is somebody who thinks boldly for peace. And Ariel Sharon came to the White House and said we’re going to disengage from the Gaza. And I was struck by what a bold decision that was. And the disengagement is, I think, a part of making Israel more secure and peaceful and I agree with the Prime Minister.

It’s important because the United States is a strong ally of Israel and, therefore, if you’re a strong ally, you want there to be peace for your ally.

(emphases mine)”More secure and peaceful” is not how I’d describe the results of “disengagement” now. I wonder if President Bush has reconsidered the next part of the interview:

Q You know, the main concern of Israel is that the disengagement might lead not to more security, but, on the contrary, to more violence. Do you understand the concerns?THE PRESIDENT: Oh, absolutely, I understand. And I can understand why people think this decision is one that will create a vacuum into which terrorism will flow. I happen to disagree. I think this will create an opportunity for democracy to emerge. And democracies are peaceful. And, therefore, it’s very important for the United States, as an active participant in this process, to encourage the formation of security forces that will defeat terror, just like the road map calls for — these are Palestinian security forces — and to encourage the Palestinians to develop a peaceful state.

In recent weeks we’ve seen Egypt (at least passively) assist Hamas in tearing down its border fence allowing an influx of longer range missiles and trained terrorists into Gaza. The administration did not call that “unhelpful.”

We’ve seen the moderate Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas declare that he was proud of his terrorist pedigree and expressed his view that when the time is right he would return to the old ways. The administration did not call that “unhelpful.”

So what’s unhelpful? Building homes for Jews. What helps make Israel peaceful and secure? Forcing Jews from their homes.

There’s something perverse going on around here.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

In Hezbollah’s media relations, Michael Totten writes:

And I’ll add that is there is nothing “special” or difficult about getting a quote from Hezbollah. I’ve done it. All I had to do was call their press office and take a taxi down to their headquarters. Every journalist in Lebanon has the phone number. What’s difficult is preserving access to Hezbollah. Doing so is not necessarily impressive, however. It took me five minutes and a press pass to gain access, but it lasted less than a week. I was threatened for writing this blog post, and I was blacklisted for publishing this article in the LA Weekly.

So in the past when the NYT (or, for that matter, any Western media outlet) published paeans to the PR savvy of the new Hezbollah it’s important to keep in mind that such articles came at a price.

But Hezbollah today has a new populist image, with representatives forming the largest single-party group in the Lebanese Parliament. It also has an impressive network of schools, hospitals and welfare centers that cater to tens of thousands of families, and an information network that may be unrivaled anywhere in the world, at least by an organization that many Western nations still list as a terrorist group.

Had John F. Burns written anything remotely negative about the group, he wouldn’t have gotten further access and probably wouldn’t have been able to work in Hezbollah controlled areas. So the reporter effectively became part of the PR effort that he was praising.

It’s something to keep in mind when looking at The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University (emphasis mine) and seeing Ayatollah Fadlallah referenced including links to his website. Similarly, he’s featured on the Washington Post’s “On Faith” website, on which he’s given a chance to sanitize define Islamic terms for visitors to the Post’s website. Here’s an excerpt his definition of Jihad.

Jihad in Islam (The violent confrontation of the enemy) is the fighting movement that aims at preventing the enemy from forcing its hegemony over the land and the people by means of violence that confiscates freedom, kills the people, usurps the wealth and prevents the people’s rights in self-determination and running their own affairs. Therefore, Jihad is confronting violence by means of violence and force by force, which makes it of a defensive nature at times and a preventive one at others.

Not as bad defining it as an inner struggle but “defensive” and “preventive.”

Here’s Sheikh Fadlallah on the recent massacre at Merkaz Harav:

Ayatollah Mohamad Hussein Fadlallah is the most senior Shiite religious figure in Lebanon to have praised the massacre of eight Israeli students at Mercaz Ha-Rav Yeshiva in Jerusalem on March 6. In his sermon during Friday prayers, Fadlallah declared: “the heroic operation in Jerusalem proved that the mujahedeen in Palestine are able to hit the Zionists hard.” His remarks were carried by Hizbullah’s television network, al-Manar, on March 8.

(The article also

There was nothing “defensive” or “preventive” (the unarmed young men killed were not in any sort of army program) about last week’s terror attack.

In various ways, our media seeks not to report about the Islamist threat to the West, but to present it as just another benign viewpoint. Sanitizing the way the Times has in Lebanon or the Post is doing with Ayatollah Fadlallah isn’t defensive or preventive. It’s offensive and outrageous.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

My Shrapnel hosted an excellent Haveil Havalim #157 (The Jewish and Israel related blogging carnvial) covering topics such as Sderot, the massacre at Merkaz Harav and culture, with all the attitude you’ve come to expect from Gila.

It could be summarized just by copying the headline from Haaretz:

Kuwaiti analyst: Best if Israel, not U.S., destroys Iranian nukes

Still here is a quote:

The destruction of Iran’s nuclear capabilities would be in the interest of the Arab nations in the Gulf, and it would be less embarrassing if it was done by Israel rather than the U.S., a top Kuwaiti strategist said in remarks published Sunday.

It could be educational to trace the devious logic of the learned analyst.

1. We are afraid of Iran, that is a given
2. We don’t want ever to be seen as Iran’s enemies
3. We’ll be glad to see Iranian power in the region waning
4. The only ones who could or would give Iran a beating are Americans or these damn Israelis
5. But we don’t like Americans, our friends and protectors, to be linked to it, cause it will embarrass us by reference
6. So let the Zionists do it - then we can always say that it’s another dastardly atrocity by the usual dastardly Zionists
7. And kill two birds with one stone, then relax on our fat arses and count the petrodollars pouring in

There is a laughably stupid question the analyst (one Sami al-Faraj) is asking:

The question is what would it do if it [Iran] were a nuclear nation?

The answer is so glaringly obvious, Mr al-Faraj: continue relaxing on your fat arses and count the petrodollars pouring in. You know it, dontcha?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews