Powerline notes, “Muslims ‘Worry About Image’” and conclude:

So far, most of the world’s Muslims haven’t been embarrassed enough to take any significant action to reform their religion. They have, I think, a remarkably high threshold of embarrassment.

(via Instapundit)

As I noted before, CAIR has yet to issue any statement on the Mumbai terror, in stark contrast to its quick condemnation of the Holy Land Foundation verdict - “fear mongering.”

Reactions, like this one to the Beslan atrocity four years ago,

Obviously not all Muslims are terrorists but, regrettably, the majority of the terrorists in the world are Muslims. The kidnappers of the students in Ossetia are Muslims. The kidnappers and killers of the Nepalese workers and cooks are also Muslims. Those who rape and murder in Darfour are Muslims, and their victims are Muslims as well. Those who blew up the residential complexes in Riyadh and Al-Khobar are Muslims. Those who kidnapped the two French journalists are Muslims. The two [women] who blew up the two planes [over Russia] a week ago are Muslims. Bin Laden is a Muslim and Al-Houthi [the head of a terrorist group in Yemen] is a Muslim. The majority of those who carried out suicide operations against buses, schools, houses, and buildings around the world in the last ten years are also Muslims.

are all too rare.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I found this report from Arutz-7 heart breaking.

According to ZAKA emergency service, the body of the Rabbi’s wife Rivka was found covered with a tallit (Jewish prayer shawl), which her husband had managed to cover her with.

Presumably Rabbi Holzberg knew he was threatened, and possibly that his time was short, but when he saw his murdered wife, he accorded her the dignity of covering her body. I can’t imagine what he was thinking or feeling.

Israel Matzav observes that the terrorists clearly sought out the Chabad house. They intended to kill Jews.

(via memeorandum)

Treppenwitz who was in Mumbai just last week makes a similar observation. Plus read his two other posts on the outrage.

Aside from the fact that it is pretty clear that the terrorists sought out the Jews, according to this, they it accorded them “special” treatment.

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.

Corroborating the doctors’ claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. “During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis,” an IB source said.

(via Instapundit, memeorandum)

I’m assuming that Israeli and Jew are used interchangeably in this context.

CAIR hasn’t had the opportunity to condemn this Islamic terror in Mumbai yet, but they did helpfully note that the Holy Land Foundation verdict was based on “fear mongering.” So it took CAIR one day to condemn a legal outcome they disagreed with, but after four days they are silent about barbaric terror committed by their co-religionists. How does that fit in with CAIR’s vaunted “anti-terrorism campaigns?”

I think that seeking out people not of your faith and gunning them down generates a lot more fear than carefully laying out a case showing the relationship between fundraisers and terror groups. Who really is fear mongering? The U.S. government or the terrorists that CAIR is, so far, (and tellingly) quiet about?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

This time, it’s not a badly-sourced bunch of rumors from a discredited journalist. This time, there’s a mortar attack from Hamas to respond to, and an Israeli soldier who has lost his leg due to the attack. But it’s starting to sound like Israel is getting closer to a large operation in Gaza to clear out terrorists again.

Israel is nearing a wide-scale operation in the Gaza Strip, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said Saturday, several hours after eight Israel Defense Forces soldiers were injured in a mortar shell attack on the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel.

“There’s no doubt we’re getting closer to a wide-scale operation in Gaza, but it will be different from what took place in the past,” Vilnai said during an event in the southern city of Beersheba.

Of course, you have to take a look at the reasons behind the second mortar attack. It’s pretty evident:

The deputy defense minister rejected the possibility of evacuating the soldiers from the Nahal Oz base following the mortar attack, as the army did with the Zikim base last week. “We won’t vacate every place,” he said.

That’s right. Evacuate soldiers after Hamas attacks their base, and what does Hamas do? Attack more bases. It’s a pretty simple formula, one that’s been followed again and again in Israel, with the exact same result each time. You’d think they’d learn.

Some Israelis have the right idea. I like this solution a lot:

Likud Knesset members also addressed the Nahal Oz mortar attack Saturday. MK Gilad Erdan even came up with an original solution, saying the defense minister must set up a temporary detention facility in the Gaza vicinity and jail Hamas and Islamic Jihad prisoners there.

Erdan demanded that the new facility won’t be fortified. “It’s time for Israel to initiate creative solutions and prove to the world that it’s determined to do anything in order to stop the terror and rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

Not that it will happen. But it would rid the world of terrorists, a little at time.

Much, much more to come later. But the Texas jury found the defendants guilty on all charges this time around. Good for the prosecution.

Three more rockets hit two more areas in Israel. The rockets have been falling every day (the AP is for some reason saying “near-daily rocket attacks”), and we have yet to hear a peep out of the crowd of Israel-bashers about Hamas stopping the rocket fire. Except, of course, for the mealy-mouthed “We call on both sides to show restraint” types.

A Qassam rocket fired from the northern Gaza Strip on Friday morning landed in an open area in the city of Ashkelon’s southern industrial zone. There were no reports of injuries or damage.

Two mortar shells were fired at the Kissufim area in southern Israel. There were no injuries or damage in this incident as well. The Salah al-Din Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committee’s military wing, claimed responsibility for the mortars fired at Kissufim.

The Gaza crossings stay shut. Lucky for us, it’s Friday, so the world condemnation gets muted a bit as the usual crowd of Israel-bashers finds other things to occupy its time.

And since it’s Friday, the weekly riot against Israel is going on in Bil’in.

Two demonstrators were lightly wounded Friday in clashes with security forces during an anti-security fence protest in the Palestinian village of Bil’in, west of Ramallah.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire was among the demonstrators.

Gee, that Israel-hater really gets around. Maybe we got lucky and she was one of the wounded. Naaaah. It’d be a major newsflash on the wire services if that had happened.

Do you think she called on the Palestinians to stop firing rockets into Israel?

I’m thinking not.

That’s funny. I keep hearing all those Arab groups saying that jihad means “personal struggle,” and yet, the AP managed to translate it from an Al Qaeda tape as “holy war.”

Al-Zawahri did not threaten specific attacks, but warned Obama that he was “facing a Jihadi (holy war) awakening and renaissance which is shaking the pillars of the entire Islamic world; and this is the fact which you and your government and country refuse to recognize and pretend not to see.”

But—but—they keep telling us that jihad means personal struggle!

Maybe they’re lying?

This was deep within an article that carried the lead of al-Qaeda insulting Obama by calling him a “house slave.”

Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri insulted Barack Obama in the terror group’s first reaction to his election, calling him a demeaning racial term implying that the president-elect is a black American who does the bidding of whites.

The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies. Al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites Wednesday, that Obama is “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.

So, if you don’t advocate violence, you’re dishonorable. Yeah, that sounds about right for al-Qaeda. And so does this:

Al-Zawahri also called Obama - along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice - “house negroes.”

Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term “abeed al-beit,” which literally translates as “house slaves.” But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as “house negroes.”

So, about that religion of peace, equality and freedom: That’s 0-for-3 so far.

Palestinians have fired more than 100 rockets during the eight months of the so-called cease-fire, including dozens of rockets in the last two weeks. But let’s just start with the order of recent events.

Israel discovers a tunnel that Hamas intends to use to kidnap more Israeli soldiers. The IDF goes in to destroy it, meets opposition from Hamas. There is a gunfight. Terrorists die, one soldier is wounded. Israel destroys the tunnel and the building it was dug from. Hamas responds by firing 35 rockets into Israel on November 4th.

Israel closes the Gaza crossings and refuses to allow in fuel and supplies. There is silence from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

On November 6th, more rockets are fired into Israel. There is silence from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

On November 7th, more rockets are fired into Israel. There is silence from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

On November 8th, more rockets are fired into Israel. There is silence from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

On November 9th, more rockets are fired into Israel. There is silence from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

On November 10th, more rockets are fired into Israel. There is silence from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

On November 11th, more rockets are fired into Israel. There is a brief mention of Gaza from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon during a press conference.

We were acutely conscious of the distressing conditions in Gaza. I call for Hamas and all Palestinian factions to respond positively to Egypt’s unity efforts. I call for the calm to be respected. And I call on Israel to ease the severe closure of Gaza by allowing sufficient and predictable supplies to reach the population, ensuring access for humanitarian workers, and facilitating stalled UN projects.

There is no mention of the rocketing of Israel’s civilian population.

On November 12th, more rockets are fired into Israel. There is silence from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

On November 13th, more rockets are fired into Israel. Israeli FM Tzipi Livni meets with Ban Ki-Moon and protests the barrage of rockets into Israel’s civilian areas. There is silence from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

On November 14th, more rockets are fired into Israel. The UN says they have to close down their food banks in Gaza (in spite of the fact that the very article on closing down the food bank says they have enough food to feed another 130,000 people for four weeks). Finally, after ignoring the dozens of rockets crashing into Israeli civilian areas in cities and towns, Ban Ki-Moon speaks. Or, well, issues a statement, anyway.

He calls for both sides to “exercise restraint.” Israel is killing only terrorists. Not a single Palestinian civilian has been harmed. Two Israeli civilians have suffered shrapnel wounds, and hundreds have suffered the terror of rocket attacks. And Ban Ki-Moon says that Israel should open the Gaza crossings, and supply her enemies with fuel and goods—including, I presume, the cement that Hamas is using to build the tunnels.

The Secretary-General is deeply concerned at the deterioration of the humanitarian and security situation in Gaza and southern Israel, and at the potential for further suffering and violence. He calls on all parties to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law.

The Secretary-General reiterates his condemnation of rocket attacks. He calls for an end to such attacks and urges full respect by all parties of the calm that has been in effect since 19 June 2008. The Secretary-General is concerned that food and other life saving assistance is being denied to hundreds of thousands of people, and emphasizes that measures which increase the hardship and suffering of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip as a whole are unacceptable and should cease immediately. In particular, he calls on Israel to allow urgently, the steady and sufficient supply of fuel and humanitarian assistance. He also calls on Israel to resume facilitating the activities of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and all humanitarian agencies, including through unimpeded access for UN officials and humanitarian workers.

The “calm that has been in effect” is the calm that included dozens of rockets fired, one or two or three at a time, since June. It includes the re-arming of Hamas, the digging of tunnels, the import of weapons and ammunition, and the continued holding of Gilad Shalit as a hostage, without any regard to Geneva Conventions or the human rights of the prisoner. Ban Ki-Moon swore when he was first elected that he would work tirelessly for Shalit’s release. Yeah, how’s that coming, Ban?

Once again, Jewish blood is cheap. The world simply doesn’t care that Jews are at risk. Only that their precious Palestinians might have to use the supplies that Hamas has been smuggling in via the tunnels from Egypt.

Apparently, now Israel doesn’t even have the right not to arm and supply her own enemies with the very fuel that they use to make bombs to drop on her own citizens. That now falls under the rubric of “disproportionate response.”

Not a single Palestinian civilian has so much as chipped a fingernail this time around. And still, the world calls for Israel to stop killing terrorists and reopen their supply routes.

Screw the world. And most especially, the UN, led by Ki-Moon.

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. What other nation on earth is being told to feed, clothe, fuel, and arm its enemy by the Eurocrats?

As rocket barrages fell on southern Israel Friday, European Union Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner called for Gaza crossings to be opened and the delivery of fuel and good to be resumed.

“I am profoundly concerned about the consequences for the Gazan population of the complete closure of all Gaza crossings for deliveries of fuel and basic humanitarian assistance,” Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement.

She called on Israel to re-open the crossings for humanitarian and commercial flows, in particular food and medicine, and said facilitation of fuel deliveries for the Gaza Power Plant should be resumed immediately.

The statement continued to say that International law requires the provision of access to essential services such as electricity and clean water to the civilian population.

“Recent infringements of the calm agreed in June must not lead to a renewed cycle of violence. I call on all parties to exercise restraint,” she said.

Really? Did she say anything about Hamas rocketing Israeli civilians? Because I”m betting not. Did she call on Hamas to stop attacking Sderot? Did she mention that Israeli schoolchildren should be allowed to walk to school without being in danger of dying from a rocket attack? And last, but not least, has she heard about the Hamas tunnels, which now have oil pipelines laid in them and are transporting oil from Egypt, besides arms, ammunition, and food?

Of course not. Because that’s not part of the narrative. Can’t destroy the evil Israel bugbear by admitting that Hamas is the instigator, and the reason Gaza is cut off. The Gazans elected Hamas in free and fair elections, as Jimmy Carter has told us. Well. Let them reap what they sowed.

Hamas has resumed full-scale attacks on Israel, complete with wounded Israelis in Sderot, and the headline to the AP story is this:

Gaza violence continues with airstrike, rockets

Notice the order of events in the headline. Airstrikes come first, even though they are in response to the rocketing of Israeli cities. But according to the AP, the rockets are in “response” to the airstrikes.

Palestinian militants attacked a major city in southern Israel with rocket fire on Friday, a serious escalation of widening violence that has all but buried a five-month-old truce.

Hamas fighters launched rocket barrages at Ashkelon, 11 miles north of Gaza, causing panic but no casualties. They also unleashed rockets at nearby Sderot, where rescue services said one person was lightly wounded by shrapnel. Several rockets hit open areas.

The Israeli military warned residents of communities near Gaza to remain in their homes, and police and rescue services went on high alert in preparation for more attacks.

Friday’s barrages followed an earlier strike by Israeli aircraft targeting militants firing rockets in northern Gaza. Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of Gaza’s Health Ministry said two gunmen were moderately wounded.

Do you see the deliberate anti-Israel slant of the AP reporting? The barrage was in response to airstrikes, which were carried out because of an earlier rocket barrage—and somehow, the AP manages to place the blame squarely on Israel’s shoulders, once again, for defending herself against terrorists launching rockets at the civilian population. And notice the attempt to play down the damages by the rockets.

And in upside-down world, even the AP is noticing that maybe—just maybe—the truce is over.

Hamas, like Israel, said it wants to continue the truce, but events signaled the opposite is happening.

This is after they already published this in the article:

Hamas claimed responsibility for the rocket fire, and said it fired deep into Israel to demonstrate the price the Jewish state would pay if the truce collapsed.

“The resistance…is able to hit the Zionist depth,” said Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri. “Either there’s full commitment to the truce and all its conditions, or the resistance will have a position on every Zionist crime.”

And what would an AP article be without pointing out that Hamas rocket barrages are mostly harmless, but Israel’s kill Palestinians. The fact that they mostly kill terrorists? Irrelevant.

The Egyptian-mediated truce has largely halted a cycle of Palestinian rocket attacks and deadly Israeli reprisals.

Funny how the actual toll of Palestinian rocket attacks never makes it into the AP articles. Well, no, not really. The AP bias is pretty well known here.

But there’s worse to come. Stay tuned.

Mahmoud Abbas vowed at Yasser Arafat’s former compound to continue his predecessor’s bloody path—and he used the language of blood and violence specifically.

During the memorial, held at Abbas’ Mukataa compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Palestinian president said, “The path of the shahids - Arafat, George Habash (founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and (assassinated Hamas spiritual leader) Sheikh Ahmed Yassin - is the path that we cherish; it is aimed at upholding the Palestinians’ nationalist and sovereign resolutions.”

All of the people that he quoted wanted to destroy Israel and replace the Jewish state with a Palestinian state—from the river to the sea, as they say. And there was this nod to Arafat’s hudna:

Speaking to thousands of supporters, Abbas said the Palestinians were determined to pursue the “peace of the brave that Arafat stood for.” Alluding to Hamas, Abbas added that “the Palestinian nationalist resolution will not be dictated by external elements.”

The “peace” that Arafat stood for was to declare in English that he wanted peace, while declaring in Arabic that he would not rest until all of “Palestine” was in Palestinian hands. The textbooks of the Palestinians are still missing Israel in their maps, and the Palestinian media still incites against the Jewish state.

But the world calls Abbas a “moderate.” I fail to see what is moderate about calling for martyrdom. But then, I actually read the words that Palestinian leaders say, and believe that when they are calling for the destruction of Israel, it isn’t just flowery rhetoric.

One of the survivors of the Merkaz HaRav massacre is in America for surgery, and needs some financial assistance.

A month or so after the attack Naftali was sitting up and even playing the violin, but he very nearly didn’t make it. Shaare Tzedek’s chief of surgery, Dr. Yosef Alberton, carefully described the 9th grader’s arrival at the hospital in an interview with Yediot Acharonot.

“You can say that Naftali was already not among the living,” he recalled. “He had no pulse in the main arteries, just weak heart beats. He wasn’t dazed, he was unconscious. At such times, there is no room for sterilization procedures. We put him on the table, poured iodine on his abdomen and opened it. I grabbed the aorta and held it hard with my hand to allow blood flow to the brain. I actually felt like I was holding his life in my fingers, until we saw that the pulse was beginning to return to his veins and his condition was stabilizing.”

Rabbi Billet is assisting other rabbis and communal leaders in a fundraising effort for the family, calling it a chance to “participate in the miracle of Techiyas Hamaisim.”

Here are the money contacts:

If you are in a position to be able to be a part of this mitzvah and you wish to participate, please make out your checks to THE YIW MAYER LEBOWITZ CHARITY FUND and earmark your check for Naftali Sheetrit. Checks should be mailed to the Young Israel of Woodmere, 859 Peninsula Blvd., Woodmere, NY 11598.

For more information, e-mail Dr. Asher Mansdorf, who is coordinating the fundraising effort, at amansdorf-atnospamplease-aol.com.

Give if you can.

So the Canadian Human Rights Commission, after expending much effort and taxpayer money, did not find Mark Steyn or Ezra Levant guilty of human rights crimes. But I wonder what happened to the CHRC in this case of genuine hate crimes that caused fear and actual damage, not imaginary damage, among a Canadian minority community?

A man found guilty of firebombing attacks against Jewish targets in Montreal wasn’t the brains behind the attacks and should be given a suspended sentence, his lawyer argued yesterday. Gaetan Bourassa said his client, Azim Ibragimov, 25, did not plan the firebombing of a Jewish boys’ school, a Jewish community centre or a car on Sept. 2, 2006, and should receive three years’ probation. Crown attorney Mario Dufresne argued in Quebec Court yesterday that a distinction must be made between vandalism and terrorism. “The goal was not to just damage property but to cause fear and intimidate … the Jewish community,” he said, in asking for a four-year sentence. While Ibragimov’s actions were serious, Mr. Bourassa argued, it was his co-accused who planned the attack and took advantage of his friend’s immaturity to carry it out. Omar Bulphred, 23, faces nine charges. Ibragimov pleaded guilty in April to three counts of using fire or an explosive to cause damage to property, and one of uttering threats. He is to be sentenced on Nov. 17.

Please note how the defense is minimizing the anti-Semitic aspects of the case, even though all he did was attack Jewish institutions. And he has admitted his guilt.

He pleaded guilty earlier this year to firebombing Skver-Toldos Orthodox Jewish Boys school in Outremont in 2006, and attempting to attack a community centre the following year.

Ibragimov has admitted to throwing a Molotov cocktail at the school and trying to set one off at the Snowdon YM-YWHA.

He also admitted to writing letters that claimed the crimes were committed in the name of Islamic Jihad, a militant group that has vowed to destroy Israel and set up an Islamic Palestinian state, and hinted more incidents would come.

This must by why the CHRC didn’t get involved:

His former girlfriend, Anna Zelenko, told the court she didn’t believe Ibragimov was racist because he knew she was part Jewish and had lived in Israel for seven years.

Zelenko told the court he never made any anti-Semitic remarks while they were together. She testified she chose not to marry Ibragimov because he’s not very bright.

Oh, so it wasn’t a hate crime, because he had a part-Jewish girlfriend.

Mind you, I think I’ve come full circle about the concept of hate crimes, and I’m just about to decide that I’m against them in principle—but when a nation has an organization whose sole purpose is to seek out and destroy ideological haters, it’s funny that they didn’t have anything to do with, well, an actual hate crime trial. Well, no, not really. It’s The Exception Clause. Just add the phrase “except the Jews” to any case, such as, “The CHRC is against hate crimes against all people and groups.” Then you’ll understand.

Really, it’s just unbelievably depressing that even Israel is pretending that kassam rockets launched at schoolchildren aren’t violations of the “truce.”

Palestinian terrorists fired five Qassam rockets at Gaza-region communities Friday morning. Two rockets reportedly landed in the Sderot area, while three other rockets landed in open areas in the western Negev.

No injuries were reported in the rocket barrage. The al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility for the attack.

One of the rockets reportedly landed near a water reservoir at a southern kibbutz. Another rocket hit the fence of a western Negev kibbutz.

Meanwhile, the alert level in the south was raised ahead of the opening of the school day. Security chiefs at various regional communities urged parents to remain alert and boosted their patrols in the area.

You have to understand something here: The Palestinians deliberately fire the rockets during the hours they know that Israeli children are walking to school, in the hopes of murdering children.

This is done with the full knowledge and support of Hamas, the terrorist group that the EU invited for a visit.

But it’s really not that big a deal. Because even the Israelis are pretending that the “lull” continues—even after more than 50 rockets have been fired in the last two and a half days.

Security officials told Ynet Thursday that the next 24 hours could determine whether the Gaza Strip lull will continue. The officials said the defense establishment was preparing for any possibility.

I can’t wait for Olmert to be gone.

Another kassam rocket breaks the “truce.” I’ve lost track of how many times the “truce” has been broken.

The ceasefire between Israel and the armed Palestinian groups in Gaza was breached Thursday when a Qassam fired from the Hamas-controlled enclave landed in an open field near a kibbutz in the Sderot area. No injuries or damage were reported in the attack.

In response to the attack Defense Minister Ehud Barak has ordered that the goods crossings between Israel and Gaza remain closed, including Kerem Shalom and the fuel terminal at Nahal Oz.

At least the AP isn’t spinning this anti-Israel, for a change. And they’re not using weasel-words about the violation.

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have fired a rocket into southern Israel in violation of a 4-month-old truce, but the strike did not cause any injuries or damage.

The Israeli Defense Ministry has responded Thursday by snapping shut cargo crossings into Gaza until further notice.

I think the AP is too busy hyping Obama at the moment to pay any attention to slamming Israel.

I wrote my 1 p.m. post earlier today and scheduled it. Here’s the lead from the first version of the AP story about Tzipi Livni calling for new elections:

Prime Minister-designate Tzipi Livni on Sunday abandoned her efforts to form a new coalition government and said she would recommend early parliamentary elections.

Palestinians worried the decision could put already fragile peace talks in limbo for months until the elections are held. The balloting could also clear the way for opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejects sweeping territorial concessions to the Palestinians, to reclaim the premiership.

And here’s the lead in the AP update:

Prime Minister-designate Tzipi Livni abandoned efforts to form a government Sunday, putting Israel on course for new elections and endangering already fragile Middle East peace talks.

Palestinians fear the decision could put a year’s worth of peace talks in limbo for months, until elections are held. The balloting opens the door for opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejects sweeping territorial concessions to the Arabs, to return to power.

There’s also this, which wasn’t in the earlier piece:

Peacemaking foundered during Netanyahu’s 3-year tenure as prime minister in the 1990s, and his positions have not softened since.

He quit Ariel Sharon’s government because he opposed Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and opposes ceding sovereignty over any part of east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

Do you know what they fail to mention? Why peacemaking “foundered” during Netanyahu’s term.

As Prime Minister, Netanyahu negotiated with Yasser Arafat in the form of the Wye River Accords (1998). No progress was made regarding negotiations with the Palestinians, and although they failed to implement agreed-upon steps of the Oslo Accords, Netanyahu turned over most of Hebron to Palestinian jurisdiction. In 1996, Netanyahu and Jerusalem’s mayor Ehud Olmert decided to open an exit for the Western Wall Tunnel. This sparked three days of rioting by Palestinians, resulting in both Israelis and Palestinians being killed.

You see, Netanyahu turned over Hebron to Arafat, but the Palestinians rioted over lies that their precious aqsa mosque was being destroyed (obviously, it was not).

But just in case you weren’t sure that Netanyahu was one of those evil Likud guys that Obama likes to denigrate, the AP points it out for you. And lays all the blame of the “foundering” peace talks on his shoulders. Not on, say the terrorist bombings that happened just before and during his term as PM:

• Mar 3, 1996 - In a suicide bombing of bus No. 18 on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem, 19 were killed (16 civilians and 3 soldiers).
• Mar 4, 1996 - Outside Dizengoff Center in Tel-Aviv, a suicide bomber detonated a 20-kilogram nail bomb, killing 13 (12 civilians and one soldier).
• Mar 21, 1997 - Three people were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb on the terrace of a Tel Aviv cafe. 48 people were wounded.
• Jul 30, 1997 - 16 people were killed and 178 wounded in two consecutive suicide bombings in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.
• Sep 4, 1997 - Five people were killed and 181 wounded in three suicide bombings on the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall in Jerusalem.
• Oct 29, 1998 - One Israeli soldier was killed when a terrorist drove an explosives-laden car into an Israeli army jeep escorting a bus with 40 elementary school students from the settlement of Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip.

Funny how the AP doesn’t mention these things.

I do.

Jews are being stabbed, firebombed, and their yeshivas burned down—in Israel. Not in Europe, at least, not at this time.

A fire broke out Saturday night in a hesder yeshiva (program which combines advanced Talmudic studies with military service) in the northern city of Akko. There were no injuries, but the building sustained damage.

The city’s firefighting services reported that an initial investigation into the incident pointed to arson.

The fire broke out at around 3:30 am in a yeshiva located in one of the city’s mixed neighborhoods. Local firefighters were dispatched to the area and managed to put out the fire.

Another stabbing:

A 20-year-old Arab attempted to stab an Israel Nature and National Parks Service inspector Sunday, in Jerusalem’s Yad Avshalon neighborhood, near the Mount of Olives.

The inspector drew his weapon and was able to overpower his assailant, unharmed.

The molotov cocktail attacks seem to have eased off for the moment, but rest assured they’ll be back. A cheap and easy way to try to kill Jews—lob a firebomb into their car as they drive past, or at their bus, or even at their homes.

In Eretz Yisrael. Not in Nazi Germany. And the incitement that causes this hatred and violence? Well, that never stops. Because the world blames it on the “occupation,” not on the Arabs being raised on a steady diet of Jew-hatred. And oh yeah—the “wall” being built to prevent terror attacks. Yes, that “wall” causes terror attacks. Except that it doesn’t, unless you call the weekly riots against the fence terror attacks.

The child-killing POS that Israel traded alive for the corpses of her soldiers is swearing he won’t rest until Israel is destroyed. Get used to not sleeping, asshole.

Three months after being released from an Israeli jail in a prisoner swap, Lebanese terrorist and child-killer Samir Kuntar said he was more than ever committed to working to wipe the Jewish state off the map, AFP reported on Thursday.

“As long as there is something called Israel in this region, the resistance must continue … and I am totally committed to the resistance,” Kuntar, 46, told AFP. “I am ready to take part in any resistance mission.”

Please, please, PLEASE take a position near the IDF and start shooting at them. Please give Israel the chance to do to you today what she should have done thirty years ago, and end your miserable existence.

In the meantime, get used to disappointment.

Former National Security adviser, Robert MacFarlane wrote about the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut and its aftermath. Apparently, the United States had a response planned against Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley, but it was aborted.

Cabinet officers often disagree, and rigorous debate and refinement often lead to better policy. What is intolerable, however, is irresolution. In this case the president allowed the refusal by his secretary of defense to carry out a direct order to go by without comment — an event which could have seemed to Mr. Weinberger only a vindication of his judgment. Faced with the persistent refusal of his secretary of defense to countenance a more active role for the marines, the president withdrew them, sending the terrorists a powerful signal of paralysis within our government and missing an early opportunity to counter the Islamist terrorist threat in its infancy.

It’s a pretty strong indictment of Caspar Weinberger and implicitly of President Reagan.

The Donovan lists the 241 servicemen who were killed. Two years ago Ocean Guy related a more personal recollection of the attack.

If the United Stataes had struck, would it have forestalled the growth of radical Islam in the past quarter century?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Another Palestinian murdered another Jew in the City of David.

A young Arab man murdered a civilian and injured a police officer in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood on Thursday morning.

The 60-year-old citizen was critically injured and evacuated to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in the capital, where he died of his wounds. The police officer, 32, sustained light to moderate wounds and was evacuated to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

The terrorist sustained moderate to serious wounds in his stomach after being shot by the injured policeman. He was also taken to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

Should have killed him. He’ll be released in an upcoming prisoner exchange some day. Just watch.

The AP spin:

Police: Palestinian man fatally stabs Israeli
A Palestinian assailant fatally stabbed an 86-year-old man and wounded a police officer in an east Jerusalem neighborhood on Thursday, authorities said, in what they called a “terror incident.”

Yes, it’s “what they called” a terror incident. Because it’s not like this is terrorism:

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the attack erupted when a pair of police officers on patrol stopped to question the man during a patrol in the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo.

The man pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the officers, who managed to shoot the assailant, Rosenfeld said.

Rosenfeld said the wounded attacker then grabbed a passer-by and stabbed him before being overpowered.

I’m astonished that the AP named the Israeli spokesman. Normally they just use the words “Israel said,” as if the state were some walking, talking creature. But of course, you can’t have an AP article without the standard pro-Palestinian bias:

Gilo is among a group of Jewish neighborhoods established in east Jerusalem after Israel captured the area in the 1967 Middle East War. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state.

I repeat: City of David.

A possible smuggling tunnel was just discovered under the city of Hebron. Explosives from that tunnel were removed by the PA police who then alerted Israeli officials. That makes it the perfect time to give the PA even more control over Hebron!

On Wednesday, IDF regional commanders and Civil Administration head Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai will meet with their Palestinian counterparts to finalize details ahead of the planned deployment - possibly later this week - of 700 Palestinian policemen in Hebron.

Barak has presented the plan to US security coordinators for the region Generals Keith Dayton and James Jones, as well as to Quartet envoy Tony Blair, senior defense officials told The Jerusalem Post.

Following the deployment in Hebron, the Defense Ministry is also considering adopting the “Jenin model” in Nablus, Tulkarm and Kalkilya.

This would be called a confidence building measure as it gives the terrorist organizations masquerading as Palestinian government even more confidence that they can carry out their unholy work unmolested.

And let’s not forget that Iran is reportedly exerting greater influence in Judea and Samaria.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Getting Shmuel Rosner on board at Contentions was a great move. He’s a little too much of a leftist for my taste, but he does have an eye for an interesting story, or an interesting angle. But his effort today, The Terrorism effect is bewildering because of its conclusion.

This means that an additional terror attack in 1992 could have killed the Oslo process-which makes one think about the strange ways of terror, and the deranged ways in which it serves to destroy both victim and aggressor alike.

Another terror attack in 1992 may well have helped Rabin even more. Shortly before the elections, a fifteen year old girl, Helena Rapp was killed. Rabin used her death to argue that Shamir’s policies made Israel less safe. A year after the killing this is what Clyde Haberman of the NY Times wrote:

One reason Yitzhak Rabin is Israel’s Prime Minister is a teen-age girl named Helena Rapp.

Helena Rapp was viciously stabbed to death by a Palestinian a year ago as she waited for a bus near Tel Aviv, and Mr. Rabin invoked her killing again and again during his election campaign last summer. Install me as leader, he told Israelis, and you will have someone flexible enough to forge peace with the Arabs but also tough enough to stop Arabs who think they can get their way by knifing Jewish girls. As the final vote proved, it was a winning strategy.

However progress on negotiations did not lead to a reduction of terror. As Haberman later noted:

Whatever the reason, the bloodshed was ample and sustained, diverting Mr. Rabin from peace negotiations and forcing him to deal with rolling thunder on his right. The opposition Likud Party, reborn under a dynamic new leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, ran hard with the terrorism issue. So did disaffected Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, whose anti-Government demonstrations have grown bigger and more violent.

It did the Prime Minister little good to complain, as he did, that the right was trying to capitalize on tragedy, which indeed seems to be the case but is little different from what he himself did last year. Nor did it improve his standing to point out that stabbings pose no existential threat to Israel, or to lash out at young Israelis for being too passive in the face of knife-wielders.

The point is that Rosner’s premise is wrong. Another terror attack probably would have helped Rabin and Labor even more..

HIs befuddlement at the end is also strange. In 1992, yes, it appears that terror helped bring Labor to power, which, in turn brought about the Oslo Accords. But in 1996, terror brought Likud to power, even though Likud opposed the unconditional implementation of Oslo with no regard to Palestinian compliance. But the violence of early 1996, showed that Oslo wasn’t working. In late 1995, after Yigall Amir assassinated Yitzchak Rabin, Shimon Peres’s government withdrew from six Arab cities. It was the Palestinian Authority’s job to secure those cities and ensure that no terrorists were allowed to operate there. Of course Arafat allowed Hamas to operate in areas under his control, so the resulting terror took advantage of Arafat’s connivance. Unlike the terror of 1992, it showed that the peace process wasn’t working. When terror declined under Netanyahu, Israelis relaxed and voted him out of office.

Terror may affect election results. But terrorists are more opportunistic.The effects of terror on an election will be related to how the electorate views the government. I don’t think that there is enough data to draw consistent conclusions whether terror makes an electorate more hawkish or more dovish.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Nablus is one of those areas that was put under Palestinian control. And yet, an alert Israeli soldier caught three Palestinians trying to smuggle nine pipe bombs through the checkpoint.

The three Palestinians arrived at the roadblock from the direction of Nablus. The female soldier asked one of them for an identification
card, but remained suspicious even after he showed her his ID.

At that point, the soldier asked the suspect to open his bag, yet he refused. The soldier insisted, prompting the Palestinian to remove a shirt and pants from the bag before closing it again. However, the soldier was not satisfied, opened the bag herself, and found three pipe bombs inside it.

At that point, troops at the checkpoint activated a special emergency procedure. The Palestinians suspect’s two friends were also searched and were found to carry three pipe bombs in each of their bags.

Huh. Nine pipe bombs. Wonder what they were going to do with them?

Checkpoints save lives. Screw the people who say they need to all come down. Not until the Palestinians stop trying to murder Israelis.

Oh, don’t count on the AP to carry this story. It doesn’t fit the narrative of the “cease-fire” and the “peaceful Palestinians.”

Palestinian Islamic Jihad is calling for a third intifada on the heels of the riots in Acre—now in their third night. Please take careful note of the text in bold.

On a third successive night of rioting in Akko, Arabs threw stones at dozens of Jewish youths who formed a crowd in one of the city’s eastern neighborhoods. A man who was walking his dog sustained a mild head injury from a stone flung at him.

Police detained four Jewish protestors and began to disperse the remaining crowd with the help of stun grenades, tear gas, and water hoses. Officers also raided a home from which stones had been flung, detaining the family within. At around 10 pm police reported the incident under control.

Northern District Police stated that altogether 30 people have been arrested in relation to the riots since they first began on Yom Kippur Eve.

The incident commenced at around 9 pm, when dozens of Jewish youths began to crowd two of the neighborhood’s main streets. Police barricaded the eastern entrance to the city, and deployed large SWAT and Border Guard forces armed with anti-protest equipment to the area. Three residents of the city were detained earlier
Friday.

Now read what the terror leaders are asking:

The Islamic Jihad movement called on Friday for Palestinians to take to the streets in solidarity with the Arabs of Akko and Arabs in Israel, in general, “due to the racist aggression and brutality of the occupation and the bullying of the settlers.”

“The extreme Jewish attacks and the crimes of the settlers during recent days are a manifestation of the brutality of the occupation and its racism, in Akko and in other Palestinian villages in occupied Palestine,” said the group’s spokesman Walid Hilam.

He called on Akko’s Arab residents to continue to fight and remain unified in the fact of aggressive behavior and to hold on to their lands in the face of an alleged Zionist plot to relocate them, as occurred in 1948.

This is not your father’s intifada. This is not the Arafat-led intifada of 2000. It is not the rock-throwing intifada of the 1980s. This is a different time, and Jews are feeling very, very differently about Arab mobs. All you have to do is look at what happened in Acre the past three nights. What I have seen from these events is that Jewish Israelis will no longer stand by passively while Arab mobs riot in their neighborhoods. What you will see, if this thing spreads, is more crowds of young Jewish men matching club for club and stone for stone with young Arab men. And while this is not a good thing for either Arabs or Jews, it’s pretty clear that the Arabs will be the losers if this rioting does not stop.

There’s simply no margin of error left. After years of being bombed and rocketed by terrorists, after months of watching Arab Israelis misuse their identification cards to murder Israelis even in the heart of Jerusalem, Israeli Jews are responding to violence with violence.

I am not condoning this. I am simply reporting it, and writing what I think.

And I think that Israeli Arabs had better not listen to the terrorists. A third intifada will be disastrous for them.

The Supreme Court refused to hear Sami al-Arian’s appeal. Countdown to expulsion or prison can begin.

The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from a former Florida professor once accused of being a top Palestinian terrorist.

The high court’s decision means that Sami Al-Arian, who once taught at the University of South Florida, is a step closer to facing trial in northern Virginia for refusing to testify to a grand jury.

Al-Arian struck a plea bargain in 2005 admitting that he conspired to assist the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. He argued that the terms of the deal barred the government from demanding his testimony in other terror cases.

But a federal appeals court disagreed, and now the US Supreme Court is refusing to intervene. A judge in Virginia had wanted the appeal to be resolved before trying Al-Arian for contempt of court.

MEMRI’s enemies keeps on accusing the organization of cherry-picking quotes, or pulling them out of context. I’d like to know what MEMRI’s enemies can possibly say to excuse this excrescence, who has managed to both steal and warp one of the best concepts of all of Judaism—which was, of course, copied by Islam. The Jewish concept is that when one takes a life, it is as if a whole world has been destroyed. Islam borrowed that concept. Radical Islam appears to have changed it for the much, much worse:

Hamas Parliament Member Fathi Hammad tells Al-Aqsa TV, the television station of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip, that Allah hates the Jews more than anyone and that the 15 million Jews in the world are worse than the 4.5 billion infidels in the world. Hammad adds that killing one Jew is like killing 30 million Jews in the eyes of Allah.

Click on the link to watch.

An exact quote: “Allah has chosen you to fight the people he hates most—the Jews.”

And displaying the murderous math of the jihadi mind, dividing the number of infidels in the world by the number of Jews—and when he says Jews, he doesn’t mean “Zionists”—gives you a jihadi sum on which to base each murder. 30 million.

Disgusting. Depraved. Despicable. These are the people that Jimmy Carter defends as the free-and-fair elected representatives of the Palestinian people, while ignoring the hatred spewed out on a daily basis.

And these are the members of the organization that the EU and the UN seem to think Israel should sit down with and negotiate. Because this is just rhetoric, right?

Wrong.

I remember some cartoon - maybe from Mad Magazine, maybe from Calvin and Hobbes - showing a little boy on Santa Claus’s lap asking for all sorts of weaponry and - peace on earth. This picture reminded me of the punchline.

Anyway, Elder of Ziyon observes that these toy weapons aren’t very safe.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The other day Eli Lake reported:

Call it Osama bin Laden’s “October surprise.” In late August, during the weekend between the Democratic and Republican conventions, America’s military and intelligence agencies intercepted a series of messages from Al Qaeda’s leadership to intermediate members of the organization asking local cells to be prepared for imminent instructions.

An official familiar with the new intelligence said the message was picked up in multiple settings, from couriers to encrypted electronic communications to other means. “These are generic orders,” the source said — a distinction from the more specific intelligence about the location, time, and method of an attack. “It was, ‘Be on notice. We may call upon you soon.’ It was sent out on many channels.”

The article also recalls:

In the week before the 2004 American presidential election, Mr. bin Laden recorded a video message to the American people promising repercussions if President Bush were re-elected. In later messages, Al Qaeda’s leader claimed credit for helping elect Mr. Bush in 2004.

If they made that claim that was an admission of failure because Bin Laden threatened to retaliate against all states that voted for Bush. The voters were not cowed.

Last year in Pakistan, Qaeda assassins claimed the life of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister who returned to her native country in a bid for re-election.

“There is an expectation that Al Qaeda will try to influence the November elections by attempting attacks globally,” a former Bush and Clinton White House counterterrorism official, Roger Cressey, said yesterday.

Mr. Cressey said Al Qaeda lacks the capability to pull off an attack in the continental United States, however. “It would likely be a higher Al Qaeda tempo of attacks against U.S. and allied targets abroad,” he said.

This is interesting. Apparently America’s counterterrorism efforts have been successful.

Q & O has a related poll.

Having to think about it my guess is that Al Qaeda attacks would benefit McCain and that Al Qaeda knows it, so it will refrain from attacking. This noise is just to keep in the news.

The Wonk Room thinks that Al Qaeda wants McCain to win also, because it will help its recruiting efforts.

But as Michael Totten points out:

Bin Laden’s lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri explicitly spelled out Al Qaeda’s strategy in Iraq on July 9, 2005. “The first stage: Expel the Americans from Iraq,” he said. “The second stage: Establish an Islamic authority or amirate, then develop it and support it until it achieves the level of a caliphate—over as much territory as you can to spread its power in Iraq.”

The war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq can plausibly be described as a distraction from the war against Al Qaeda. But the war against Al Qaeda in Iraq cannot possibly be accurately described as a distraction from the war against Al Qaeda.

And make no mistake: Al Qaeda’s manpower and resources have been thoroughly degraded from its disastrous fight with Americans and Iraqis, especially in Anbar Province which was briefly established as Al Qaeda’s “capital” of the so-called “Islamic State in Iraq.”

So maybe having a Republican in office is good for recruiting, but not for the continued success of Al Qaeda.

My guess, as stated above, is that Al Qaeda would rather have President Obama than President McCain, so I don’t expect any major attacks against American interests before the election. Al Qaeda couldn’t make good on its threat against America four years ago. With its organization further degraded, I can’t imagine that they’ll be any more successful this year. Assuming that they even want to try.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Looks like the Palestinians are trying to create a new weapon: The automobile and its relatives.

IDF forces thwarted an attempt by Palestinians to run over a group of soldiers on Wednesday, near the West Bank village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah. No injuries or damage were reported in the incident.

Four Palestinians traveling in three vehicles, including a bulldozer, broke through an army roadblock at around 3 pm and attempted to plow the vehicles into the soldiers.

The troops responded in accordance with military suspect apprehension protocol and proceeded to open fire.

The good news is that no soldiers were hurt, and the terrorists were captured.

Expect more of these, as the Palestinians seem to think they’re the new “It” weapon. Thankfully, no one was killed in the last attack, either. But seventeen were wounded. And the media, of course, play down the seriousness and effect of the terror attacks.

Cars may work as a weapon in a crowded street, but not so much at a checkpoint with armed and ready soldiers.

It will be short but sweet: Independent reports on the terror attack in Jerusalem (September 22):

Police said the incident was a “terror attack”…

A rescue worker said the group of pedestrians was about to cross a road near the so-called Green Line separating the Arab and Jewish areas of Jerusalem when a black BMW struck them just before 11pm.

That’s it, nothing more to see or to add. Comments will be unnecessary.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews.

If we go back four years and two months we learn:

Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenants, operating from hideouts suspected to be along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, are directing a Qaeda effort to launch an attack in the United States sometime this year, senior Bush administration officials said on Thursday.

”What we know about this most recent information is that it is being directed from the senior most levels of the Al Qaeda organization,” said a senior official at a briefing for reporters. He added, ”We know that this leadership continues to operate along the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

Counterterrorism officials have said for weeks that they are increasingly worried by a continuing stream of intelligence suggesting that Al Qaeda wanted to carry out a significant terror attack on United States soil this year. But until the comments of the senior administration officials on Thursday, it was not clear that Mr. bin Laden and top deputies like Ayman Zawahiri were responsible for the concern.

Another senior administration official said on Thursday that the intelligence reports — apparently drawn partly from interviews with captured Qaeda members and partly from other intelligence — referred to efforts ”to inflict catastrophic effects” before the election.

The article reports that the nature of the threat was “unspecific” leading me to believe that it never got much past the wishing stage. For some reason or another. Still, it’s incredible that there was no such chatter this year. Was there?

And we if we go back to right before the election we recall that Osama bin Laden made a rather specific threat.

The Islamist website Al-Qal’a explained what this sentence meant: “This message was a warning to every U.S. state separately. When he [Osama Bin Laden] said, ‘Every state will be determining its own security, and will be responsible for its choice,’ it means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as president has chosen to fight us, and we will consider it our enemy, and any state that will vote against Bush has chosen to make peace with us, and we will not characterize it as an enemy. By this characterization, Sheikh Osama wants to drive a wedge in the American body, to weaken it, and he wants to divide the American people itself between enemies of Islam and the Muslims, and those who fight for us, so that he doesn’t treat all American people as if they’re the same. This letter will have great implications inside the American society, part of which are connected to the American elections, and part of which are connected to what will come after the elections.” [3]

Apparently, unable to strike before the elections, Bin Laden attempted to bully the American electorate into voting for John Kerry. It likely didn’t have any effect. But still remember he made a threat and never carried it out.

Jonathan Spyer has more as to what has happened to Al Qaeda since 9/11.

Al-Qaida has combined sometimes nightmarishly effective tactical ability with a somewhat other-worldly, incoherent political and strategic program. Political Islam is transforming the politics of the Middle East, and represents a key strategic challenge to the west. But the particular version of it represented by the perpetrators of 9/11 is today more of a murderous side-show than the nerve center of the future Caliphate which it likes to imagine itself.

Al Qaeda, Spyer reports, has been effective in getting its message out to like minded organizations, but operationally it has suffered numerous setback over the past seven years.

Abe Greenwald summarizes some of these losses:

Every criticism of President Bush’s national security record begins rightly with the charge that Osama bin Laden has not been captured or confirmed dead. Any honest defense of Bush must reckon with this fact. The story goes that in 2003 U.S. forces abandoned the hunt for bin Laden in eastern Afghanistan and shifted their focus onto Iraq, giving the al Qaeda leader a free pass so that we could take up arms against a regime unconnected to the attacks of September 11. Let’s put aside the fact that this is a false choice. And let’s put aside questions about the claim’s legitimacy regarding timelines, intelligence agencies, roaming fighters, Iraq’s terrorist ties, and the dynamics of force deployment, and simply accept the accusation at its most damning. To wit: Bush lost bin Laden by going into Iraq. Okay: If I were offered the choice of taking out one al Qaeda mastermind who had recently been reduced to the status of cave-dwelling spoken-word artist or more than a thousand senior al Qaeda operatives and tens of thousands of armed Islamist soldiers, I would choose the latter a thousand out of a thousand times.

And the proof is in the pudding. Consider the decimated state of al Qaeda and related organizations since they’ve come up against overwhelming American force in Iraq. As CIA director Michael Hayden recently put it, we’ve seen “Near strategic defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al-Qaeda globally.” Would the hunt for one man in the caves of Afghanistan and Pakistan have yielded better results?

While Al Qaeda remains a force to be reckoned with, it cannot act as it did seven years ago. This means that whatever mistakes President Bush has made along the way, he has succeeded in the big picture. Will whoever succeeds him take the calm we have experienced over the past seven years for granted and relax his vigilance or will he remain committed to keeping the forces of the Islamists on the defensive. Osama hasn’t barked in seven years on American soil. What will it take to extend that record?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.