Is it truce yet?

At least four Qassam rockets were fired at Sderot from the northern Gaza Strip Wednesday night following a brief lull in attacks on southern Israel communities.

Two rockets landed in town, near a school and next to a warehouse, and caused some damage. Security forces were attempting to pinpoint the landing site of another rocket that apparently fell in a residential area.

No, really, is it truce yet?

At the center of the arrangement would be deployment of officers loyal to Abbas at Gaza’s border crossings with Israel and Egypt. Hamas officials said they accept such a deployment in principle, even though it means giving up some control. They said they have given Egypt names of pro-Abbas officers who would be acceptable to Hamas.

Haniyeh said “all of the factions are involved,” signaling that Hamas’ call for a halt to the fighting has the support of smaller militant groups that have often scuttled cease-fire attempts in the past.

Haniyeh used the word “tahdia,” or calm, to describe the informal cease-fire he sought. He did not use the Arabic word “hudna,” which is interpreted as a more formal truce. Both terms denote a temporary cease-fire rather than a permanent peace, but even the subtle differences between the words has led to fierce debate among Arabs in past cease-fire efforts.

Seriously. Is it truce yet?

Muhammad Shahade, an Islamic Jihad operative who Palestinian sources say was behind the terror attack in Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem last week, has been killed by IDF forces in Bethlehem Wednesday afternoon, local witnesses reported.

According to reports, another three militants have been killed in the raid, one of them an al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades member.

Military sources said that the four men were responsible for a series of terror attacks against Israel in the years 2000-2001, but did not attribute the Jerusalem attack to Shahade.

And the Palestinian leadership—are they on the truce bandwagon or what?

A spokesman on behalf of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ office condemned the IDF operation Wednesday that left four senior terrorists dead in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

“This barbaric crime exposes the fake mask on Israel’s face,” the statement said, while slamming the Jewish State for “talking about peace but committing daily crimes, murders, and executions against our people.”

So, killing murderers is a “barbaric crime”? Gee. I think that truce is going to be a bit tougher than I thought.

I think I was worried about nothing. I keep forgetting that it doesn’t matter how much Olmert wants to give away. The terrorists want it all, and will not settle for less.

Phew.

Soccer Dad takes the New York Times to task in their latest Israel article. But he missed a spot where they are passing along Hamas propaganda, even while giving the readers the information showing that they’re passing along the propaganda.

In Gaza City on Tuesday, a group of young Hamas supporters persuaded dozens of Palestinian livestock owners to take their animals to a demonstration outside the local offices of the United Nations. They were seeking to draw attention to the blockade, in which Israel has for months allowed only essential goods, mostly supplied by relief organizations, into Gaza.

Note the text in bold. It says that Hamas “persuaded” Palestinians to join a protest. How did they “persuade” these people?

The livestock owners were paid 100 shekels each (about $28) to attend the protest, as well as transportation costs. Hundreds of animals — sheep, camels and donkeys — came from all over Gaza. Fatah supporters refused to take part.

Ah. So they were bribed to take part in a demonstration. Not “persuaded.” And how much “persuasion” did it cost?

Ashraf Abu Amrah, 24, who came with 16 donkeys, said he had to support more than 20 relatives on about $10 a day.

Let’s compare. Abu Amrah is supporting his family on $10 a day. Hamas paid him $28—plus transportation costs—to bring his donkeys to a photo op protest in front of the UN building. That’s roughly three days’ pay. That’s some “persuasion.”

And now for the sob story.

He used to make a lot of money with his donkey carts, transporting cement for construction projects, he said. Now cement is in short supply and the price of hay has doubled because of the blockade, he said.

There would be no blockade on Gaza if Hamas stopped trying to murder Israelis from within it. That never seems to be an angle in these stories, however.

Is it truce yet? Or does shooting not count as a truce violation?

Palestinian gunmen opened fire at IDF troops who were carrying out infrastructure work along the central Gaza Strip perimeter fence on Wednesday.

There were no wounded among the soldiers, who returned fire.

No, really. Define “lull.”

I was kind of put off by this headline in the NYT: Rocket endangers Palestinian-Israeli respite.

The rocket doesn’t endanger the respite. It ends the respite. And it’s not the rocket, it’s the people who fired the rocket. Of course if Israel agreed to a “lull,” I suppose that the headline isn’t nearly as bad. Still, if the firing of the rocket on Israeli civilians didn’t end the respite what would? An Israeli response to stop the rocket attacks? The Times reports:

Gazan militants fired a rocket at the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon on Tuesday, fracturing a tenuous lull in fighting between Israelis and Palestinians, which escalated sharply in late February and early this month. The rocket landed in an open area south of the city and caused no casualties, an Israeli police spokesman said. It was the first fired at Ashkelon in a week. Hours earlier, the prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, visited the city, telling residents there that the previous rocket assaults were not “a one-time experience” and that there was no way to prevent a recurrence.

So even though later in the article it reports that Olmert denied coming to any agreement with Hamas, apparently he did. (via memeorandum)

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.

(According to this, the ceasefire or “lull” was agreed to over the weekend, so the rocket fired into Ashkelon did indeed end the “respite.” I guess now a new “respite” begins.)

Pardon my French but WTF is a “lull?” If Israel’s agreeing not to target Haniyeh and friends hiding in their rabbit holes, at least demand to a full fledged ceasefire in return! Why just a “lull?” Could this be the explanation?

Now I know why it’s called a lull agreement - we lull Hamas into a false sense of security by making them think we are morons. By the way, the Israeli government know Hamas will be rearming. Yesterday (while Olmert was still denying a ceasefire agreement), I heard Israeli Government spokesperson Mark Regev say that there was relative calm not because of such an agreement but because Hamas wants a timeout to rearm. In other words, even though Israel know Hamas will be rearming and then attacking us ferociously again, we will allow them to do it.

Or put another way:

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.

Aside from the silliness of allowing Hamas to re-arm unmolested, Israel is setting itself up for a PR hit. The first time an Israeli soldier fires on a terrorist approaching the border, Israel will be the party that violated the lull ceasefire. (When Israel is blamed, it will take on the more serious term “ceasefire.”)

Finally, I’d just like to get back to the NYT article for a moment. I read the following paragraph in disbelief.

In a meeting with Jordanian newspaper editors, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, criticized the use of rockets by Hamas, a rival, contending that they caused more harm to the Palestinians than to the Israelis. In remarks published in the Jordanian papers on Tuesday, Mr. Abbas said: “What resistance are we talking about? Are rockets and suicide attacks considered as resistance?”

I was thinking WTF? (Yes, I’ve been thinking that a lot these days.) Doesn’t she realize that Abbas just gave interview in Jordan saying that he supported “armed struggle?” And then I read on.

In late February, Mr. Abbas recalled his own role in the early Palestinian resistance and raised questions about his future commitment to peaceful negotiations. “At this time, I object to the armed struggle, since we are unable to conduct it; however, in future stages, things may change,” he was quoted as saying in Al Dustour, a Jordanian daily newspaper, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a nonprofit organization.

I wouldn’t say that it “raised questions,” as much as it “confirmed doubts” that he was interested in peace. But I’m not looking for miracles from the NY Times. This was more than I expected. A bit late, but better than usual.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Is it truce yet?

Palestinians fired a mortar shell at Israel on Wednesday, hitting an open area near the security barrier on the border with the Gaza Strip.

Nobody was wounded in the attack, and no damage was reported.

Remember, firing mortars and rockets are not actions that break the truce. Israel arresting wanted terrorists, or returning fire when trying to arrest one that shoots at them, is breaking the truce.

It’s a good thing that Hamas can’t hold up its end of the truce, because Olmert is ready to sell Israel down the river.

Three interesting news items having to do with Kuwait and Israel:1) Kuwaiti analyst: Best if Israel, not U.S., destroys Iranian nukes

But when asked in an interview with the daily Al-Siyassah about the consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear reactors, analyst and former government adviser Sami al-Faraj said it would not be such a bad thing.”Honestly speaking, they would be achieving something of great strategic value for the GCC by stopping Iran’s tendency for hegemony over the area,” he said, adding that “nipping it in the bud by Israeli hands would be less embarrassing for us than if the Americans did it.”

Al-Faraj said Tehran was interfering in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories, and inciting strife between Sunnis and Shiites.

“The question is what would it do if it were a nuclear nation? We have to call a spade a spade and say that burying the military nuclear Iranian project is in the interest of GCC states, and other countries in the area,” added al-Faraj, who heads the independent Kuwait Center for Strategy Studies.

I would agree that this is a case of self-interest, but I’m not sure I see the hypocrisy that Simply Jews does unless of course they resort to item 6 on his list.

So let the Zionists do it - then we can always say that it’s another dastardly atrocity by the usual dastardly Zionists

2) Kuwait appeals for unity over Hezbollah tensions

Kuwait’s government appealed for unity on Monday amid rising sectarian tension in the Gulf state following demonstrations in support of the slain commander of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.The government has become increasingly concerned after hundreds of people took part in a rally last month to mourn Imad Mughnieh, killed in a Damascus car bomb.

The rally caused uproar in the oil-rich emirate because Mughnieh was accused of hijacking a Kuwaiti plane two decades ago.

LGF sees the glass as half empty.

Our so-called allies in Kuwait are doing their best to keep the lid on public demonstrations in favor of a mass-murdering terrorist.

But the government is discouraging these rallies.

3) Kuwaiti paper denounces Yeshiva attack

The writer goes on to assert that “the terror attack must prompt the free world to comprehend the magnitude of terrorism and its threats and to realize that a clear and unequivocal stance must be assumed against it. There can be no negotiations with terrorism that indiscriminately aims itself at students, women and babies without any consideration for the means and the targets.”Contrasting the terror attack with the IDF’s operations in the Gaza Strip, the writer explains that “there is no link between a murderous terrorist act and the inadvertent killing of civilians in response to the firing of rockets by Hamas.”

The piece presented a stark contrast to the main current in the Arab press, which presented almost sweeping praise for the “heroic operation.”

(via memeorandum)

This is a far cry from the equivocation of “moderate” Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas.

I’m not expecting an alliance between Kuwait and Israel anytime soon. I remember in 1990, that a member of the Kuwaiti royal family expressed sympathy for Israel in Time magazine, saying that after seeing his country occupied by Saddam, he understood why Israel sought, tried and executed Eichmann. But that didn’t mean that once the liberation of Kuwait was achieved by the United States and its allies that Kuwait would reject the “Zionism is racism” resolution.
I’d find it easy to dismiss any of these stories if they happened independently. Taken together it shows a softening of Kuwaiti attitudes towards Israel. I’m guessing that it’s more do to fear of Iran than of love for Jews.

Still it’s an interesting development.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Hamas is publicly dictating the surrender terms for Israel. The terms are the ones that Israel has said all along cannot be complied with. Five’ll getcha ten Olmert complies.

“There must be a commitment by Israel, to end all its aggression against our people, assassinations, killings and raids, and lift the (Gaza) siege and reopen the crossings,” Hamas’ Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a speech.

A ceasefire deal, he said, should be “reciprocal, comprehensive and simultaneous” and apply both to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

These are the terms I mentioned last time. Hamas is insisting that Israel cease all activities that stop terror. No more police raids, no more closure on Gaza, no more attacks on “ticking bombs”—in other words, give Hamas and its ilk free rein to build up its arms and army against Israel, so that the next time there is a “cross-border raid” against Israel’s soldiers, it won’t stop at the deaths of a few and the kidnapping of one or two. It will continue into a war against Israel.

Way to go, Ehud Olmert. You’re fast becoming the Neville Chamberlain of Israel. Operations like this will become extinct if Hamas gets its way:

Members of the Special Police Unit killed a wanted Palestinian by the name of Salah Karkur in the village of Seyda outside Tulkarm on Wednesday morning. According to reports from Palestinian sources, Israeli troops called on Karkur to give himself up before opening fire.

Karkur, 28, was a member of the al-Quds Brigades, Islamic Jihad’s military wing.

The army said that the force was fired upon during the operation and that several explosive devices were also thrown at the officers. An AK-47 was found on the body of the dead Palestinian, the army added.

Will Olmert knuckle under to the demands to stop terrorists from killing Israelis?

I have little hope that he won’t.