The Hamas-Fatah fake deal is falling through: I was pretty confident it wouldn’t last until September. Looks like I was right. Of course, the AP has already written one hagiography of how awesome Hamas is going to be in the unity government. Hands-off. Won’t impose any of their policies. Not at all. Nope. They’re just joining the cause so they can have a state called Palestine. After that, nothing. Just like the Muslim Brotherhood’s hagiography. Yes, the AP is that gullible. “Islamic group seeks place in a democratic Egypt”… sure. They want democracy. Their younger members are all about the Facebook, you see.

Bashar Assad falling down? Falling down? Falling down? Bashar Assad falling down? Awww, dorktator. (Actually, I have no sympathy at all for him, and hope that the Syrians don’t hate Israel in spite of the indoctrination they’ve had. Not that I think they do. I just hope.)

Just business: While looking at a news article about oil being in a bear market (WOOT!), I noticed that Microsoft is taking over Skype, and as a reward to the people who built Skype into such a desirable tool, they’re firing them now so they won’t have to pay more money if they’re fired when Microsoft takes over. Awesome. Stories like this is what makes me hate large businesses like Microsoft.

A balanced BBC piece: This isn’t the piece about Jerusalem. This was about the Gaza Flotilla, which I mentioned months ago. It was fair—it showed videos of the terrorists getting ready to attack Israeli soldiers, and was the most balanced report I’ve seen from a non-Israeli media outlet. The BBC investigation of itself (and let us stop and note the utter hypocrisy of the BBC being able to investigate itself, but Israel not being allowed to do the same) says it was fair. I agree.

It’s okay when Palestinians do it: If Israel did this, the world outcry would still be making our ears ring. But it’s okay for Hamas to surround a bunch of terrorists, go in shooting, and kill a few of them. Nope. No outcry. Not even a whimper. And yes, bystanders were wounded. Israeli Double Standard Time in action.

Egypt and Iran, perfect together: Say, remember all those pundits who insisted that Egypt wouldn’t make nice with Israel’s enemies? Yeah, they were wrong.

Yeah, tell it to the Czar: Israel is complaining to Russia about the Russian-made, Iranian-bought, Syrian-smuggled Kornet anti-tank missile used against an Israeli school bus last week. Think Russia gives a shit? I don’t.

Feel-good reads for you: Read this. And this. And this. Mind you, they’re not warm-fuzzy feel good op-eds. But they’re good to read.

Seriously? Gee, I can’t imagine why: The UN sent an investigator to Quantico to try to determine if Bradley Manning is being tortured by the U.S. Marines. He was denied access to Manning. See title.

Shyeah, like that’s gonna work: The Red Cross wants Hamas to show proof Gilad Shalit is still alive. See title.

Enter Iron Dome. It’s expensive—$25k per missile—but so far, it has worked perfectly to protect the residents of Ashdod and Ashkelon. Not a single Grad rocket harmed property or people in two Israeli cities this time around. The world is taking notice.

And so are Israel’s enemies. The rocket attacks grew in scope after Israel figured out how to stop most of the suicide bombings. Remember, in 2002, Palestinian terrorists were blowing themselves up sometimes as often as three times a day, on buses, in shopping centers, in hotel restaurants during Passover—the toll was horrific and the pace seemed unending. Israel responded with the security fence to make it harder to get into Israel, and stepped up developing intelligence on where the bombers were and where they were planning to strike. Israel perfected the art of assassinating high-ranking terrorists in their homes in Gaza, or driving from one place to another. Israeli drones patrol the sky now, looking for terrorist squads ready to launch rockets, but obviously, that isn’t enough. So Iron Dome was developed in Israel, by Israeli companies, with financial help from the U.S. The goal is to have all of Israel’s cities protected with an anti-missile shield.

Realistically, if Iran sets its proxy armies in Lebanon and Gaza free to fire hundreds or thousands of rockets per day at Israel, Iron Dome isn’t going to be able to keep up. Each battery costs $50 million. But for now, the Iranians and Hezbollah cannot be happy at all with the results of Israeli ingenuity.

If Israel comes up with a solution that thoroughly counters rocket attacks, the terrorists will have no recourse, and no power.

Game-changer.

It is the second-most significant invention to affect the Middle East. The only thing greater will be the day that an Israeli scientist perfects an alternative fuel that knocks the bottom out of the crude oil market. (And may I live to see that day.)

And the Arab League, using the newly-issued R2P (responsibility to protect) hobbyhorse, wants the UN to authorize a no-fly zone over Gaza. Because responding to rockets being fired into your country is just like a dictator forcibly putting down citizen protests calling for his removal. The hypocrisy is just super-duper today, because that very same dictator is a member of the Arab League. He was unavailable for voting, due to the fact that he is currently trying to murder the citizens who want him to step down from his dictatorship. Doubtless, however, Muammar Ghaddafy would vote for the no-fly zone over Gaza.

Oh, and Turkey is condemning the use of excessive force. That’s a good one. Heard any good Kurd jokes lately?

Of course, the media are all blaming Israel for the “violence.” Here’s the new AP boilerplate, which takes the Hamas line that this is all Israel’s fault:

The violence escalated a week ago when an Israeli airstrike killed three Hamas militants who Israel said were planning a cross-border kidnapping. On Thursday, Hamas militants fired a guided anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, wounding the two people on board, including a teenage boy who was critically hurt.

Since Thursday, Palestinians fired more than 120 rockets and mortars into southern Israel, prompting a series of Israeli reprisals that have killed 19 Palestinians, including six civilians, and wounded 65 others. It has been the most intense fighting between Israel and Gaza militants since a major Israeli offensive in the Palestinian territory ended in January 2009.

Missing from the story is the fact that Hamas has been firing rockets steadily into Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead, and that less than three weeks before this latest “violence,” Hamas fired fifty mortars in one day. But absolutely, it’s Israel’s fault—for trying to stop terrorists before they get anothr Gilad Shalit to hold in a hole somewhere for years.

Amazingly, Reuters has the right cause-and-effect in its lead.

Israel and the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers signaled on Sunday they were looking to end a flare-up in violence that began four days ago with a missile attack on an Israeli school bus and has claimed the lives of 19 Palestinians.

Color me shocked.

The BBC counts the Palestinian casualties as just plain “people.” And they cast doubt on the reasons behind Israel’s response:

At least 18 people have died in Israeli air strikes, which it says have been in response to militant rocket fire.

[...] Several civilians were among those killed in the following Israeli air strikes. Dozens of people have been wounded.

This is the only number I can find in the BBC story.

Although three mortar shells were fired by Palestinian militants overnight this was a sharp drop from previous days

There have been over 120 rockets and mortars fired into Israel since Thursday, including many Grad rockets towards Israel’s cities that are being stopped by the Iron Dome defense system.

The shooting has not stopped, in spite of Hamas now saying that they’re really ready for a truce. Ehud Barak says that 750,000 citizens in bomb shelters is unacceptable. So this current round may not be over. And if the IDF does go into Gaza, those evil Israelis are going in with new maps that show them sensitive areas like schools and UN buildings that should not be attacked.

The list included hospitals, United Nations facilities, schools, power grids, flour mills, food storage centers and various homes and office buildings.

Senior IDF officers have told The Jerusalem Post that new maps being drafted by the Gaza Division in the Southern Command ahead of a possible future operation in Gaza now include more than 3,000 sites that are off-limits to attacks.

The most moral army in the world? You bet your ass they are. The difference between Hamas and Israel can be counted in those two paragraphs. Hamas deliberately targets school buses. Israel marks civilian sites as off-limits. Which one got the brunt of the Goldstone Report? Why, of course the one that tries to prevent civilian casualties. That’s Israeli Double Standard Time, defined.

Meanwhile, the IDF continues to hunt down rocket -aunching cells, which military officials say are operating out of civilian population centers and taking cover in densely crowded areas.

“When Palestinian civilians are killed in these kinds of strikes, the population should only complain to Hamas, which continues to turn its own citizens into a protective vest,” a military official said earlier.

Hamas is claiming it wants a truce. It doesn’t seem to want it that badly, however:

Since Thursday, terror groups in Gaza fired more than 70 rockets, mortar shells and missiles at southern Israel communities. Several rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-rocket system.

Hiding among civilians is their favorite tactic. They’re making triply sure there will be civilian casualties now.

The army said that terrorists in Gaza are making use of public buildings in their attacks and are operating in crowded population centers. A video published by the IDF Spokesman’s Office documented a strike on a rocket launcher hidden in a Gaza cemetery. Several Palestinian civilians were hurt in the attack.

The AP tried for objectivity. Truly, they did. I can tell that they’ve been working harder these days. They even changed their Gaza War boilerplate, which no longer says “at least half civilians” when discussing casualties. The lead of the story is almost objective.

Palestinian militants fired more than a dozen rockets at southern Israel on Saturday and Israeli warplanes killed four militants in the Gaza Strip in the most intense fighting since Israel’s 2008-2009 offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory.

The escalating series of strikes and counterstrikes has killed 18 Gazans since it began on Thursday and the continuing clashes are increasing the probability of a full-scale military confrontation.

Israeli officials said the airstrikes would continue as long as the rocket attacks persist. Hamas officials insisted they were trying to restore quiet, but said they were prepared to fight.

They failed.

The AP story includes three named spokesmen for Hamas, and none for Israel, although it does quote an Israeli analyst on why Israel retaliates for the rocket attacks. Yes, really. Because that’s the kind of reporting that only a professional can do!

The biggest failure, however, is the description of the last two years of attacks by Hamas.

After two years of relative calm, the situation began to escalate last weekend when an airstrike killed three Palestinian militants who Israel said were plotting to carry out a cross-border kidnapping. On Thursday, Hamas militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli schoolbus, wounding two people on board, including a teenage boy.

“Relative calm” includes hundreds of rockets fired into Israel, including over 50 rockets on one day last month. The weak response to that is probably part of the reason Hamas thought it could get away with murdering schoolchildren. By the way, in case you were unaware of this, if the attack had taken place a few minutes earlier, thirty children would have been on that bus.

The AP tallies the rocket attacks which will, doubtless, be ignored in next year’s end of the “relative calm” report:

Gaza militants fired 17 Grad-style Katyusha rockets and seven mortar shells into Israel Saturday in what Israeli police said was the biggest single-day bombardment since the Gaza war.

Several missiles fell in uninhabited areas near the southern Israeli cities of Ashkelon and Beersheba, while seven were intercepted by Israel’s new missile shield, Iron Dome. There were no reports of injuries.

Oh, by the way—Hamas is now saying it didn’t mean to target a school bus.

Liars.

The media put forward all charges of Israel committing war crimes. Take the Mavi Marmara incident. How many articles did you read about whether or not Israel committed war crimes against the passengers (those beacons of peaceful protest that only recently repeated their commitment to destroying Israel)?

Take a look at what Britain’s foreign minister had to say about the deliberate targeting of a school bus.

Earlier, British Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the anti-tank missile attack on a childrens’ school bus in the Negev, calling it a “despicable” and “cowardly” act.

“I unreservedly condemn today’s attack from Gaza on a bus carrying school children in southern Israel. The initial reports we have received suggest the bus was deliberately targeted and that a 16-year-old boy has been critically injured,” Hague said.

“This is a despicable and cowardly act that stands in stark contrast to people’s desire for peaceful reform across the region. Violence will never deliver peace,” Hague continued.

Only a week ago, Hague’s office released a report on the world’s 26 worst human rights violators. Israel was in the report, along with 25 actual human rights abusers. If, as Hague says above, he has reports that Hamas deliberately targeted the school bus (which it did), then this is not a “despicable and cowardly act.” It is a human rights violation. It is a war crime. And yet, Hague doesn’t use that language to describe it. Why is that? Why is it that his office can slander Israel as a violator of Palestinian human rights, but it can’t call a war crime a war crime? The deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime. Hamas deliberately targeted a school bus full of children (it hoped).

Don’t hold your breath waiting to hear Hague condemn Hamas war crimes. He’s too busy accusing Israel of them. As for the EU, well, there isn’t even a mention of Hamas in Catherine Ashton’s rote condemnation of “violence.” It’s as if the rockets launched themselves. And mention of a school bus? Surely you jest.

“I strongly condemn yesterday’s mortar and rocket attacks out of the Gaza strip, which once again hit the innocent civilian population and which must stop immediately,” she said.

“I am deeply concerned by the current escalation of violence,” the 27-nation EU’s foreign policy chief said in a statement.

“I also deplore the loss of civilian life in Gaza and call on Israel to show restraint.

No, the label of war crimes is never attached to actual war crimes perpetrated by Palestinians against Israelis. That label is reserved for Israel only, especially when Israel is doing no such thing.

We must once again call on a refrain we got too tired to use recently. What time is it? That’s right, it’s Israeli Double Standard Time. But don’t worry. It only occurs on days that end with a “y.”

The school bus was traveling in southern Israel near the Gaza border when it was hit by a type of anti-tank missile known as a Kornet, said Israeli military spokesman Capt. Barak Raz. The Kornet is a Russian-made anti-tank guided missile system that is thought to have a maximum range of 5 1/2 kilometers (3 1/2 miles).

The Kornet anti-tank missile was supplied by Iran to Hizbollah and used to great effect in the 2006 Lebanon war. It is now obviously being supplied to Hamas. Israel has developed and used successfully a defense system for its tanks, but nobody ever thought that a schoolbus needed anti-tank missile defenses. Nobody outside of the subhumans that make up the terrorists groups trying to destroy Israel, anyway.

Israeli aircraft and ground forces struck Gaza on Friday, killing three Hamas militants and three civilians in a surge of fighting sparked by a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli school bus the day before.

Even the AP is pointing out that it wasn’t a directionless mortar, but a laser-guided anti-tank missile that terrorists used to make a sure hit on the bus. The Washington Post and CNN have also highlighted that fact, although the CNN update has since dropped the important factor that this was a deliberate, laser-guided anti-tank missile attack on a bus presumably filled with schoolchildren. That’s a pretty important fact to drop, considering the deliberate targeting of children is the reason the IDF is still bombing Gaza as I write this post.

In Thursday’s attack, Gaza militants hit an Israeli school bus near the border with a guided anti-tank missile, injuring the driver and badly wounding a 16-year-old boy. Most of the schoolchildren on the bus got off shortly before the attack.

You can see pictures of the bus at most of the links.  It’s quite clearly a yellow schoolbus, of the kind used throughout the world to denote “This bus is filled with children on their way to and from school.” There is no way the terrorists could have mistaken it for any other vehicle. A bus is a bus is a bus. Below is a video of the missile that Hamas used to hit the bus. Watch the video. See what kind of damage that missile can do. See how easy it is to assemble and disassemble the missile launcher. Note the ease and clarity of the targeting scope. The terrorists knew full well what they were aiming for, and Iranian dollars supplied them with the weapon. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is smiling today.

Alex Fishman, writing in Ynet, has captured the reasons behind Israel’s furious response perfectly.

Every American or European mother fully understands the meaning of firing at a yellow bus. A yellow bus is an international warning signing that means “these are children.” Those who fire at a yellow bus with the intention of murdering children are war criminals of the worst kind and a partner for nothing.

He also points out that Israel’s vapid response last month to the barrage of dozens of mortars emboldened Hamas to push even further. And push they did, almost committing a goal they have tried to reach for years: The murder of dozens of Israeli children. The anti-Israel left has no sympathy for murdered Israelis. They see no difference between the deliberate targeting of a schoolbus with a missile designed to penetrate solid, reinforced steel and the accidental death of civilians. If Hamas had hit the bus when it was full, the anti-Israel left would still be calling for both sides to exercise “restraint.” Because the world simply does not have a problem with more dead Jews.

The thing is, Israel does. Jews do. And this time, Israel has a clear casus belli—even though the anti-Israel forces will not admit it. The reason for this attack will soon be lost in the last paragraphs of the news reports. But not here. Here, you will know why the IDF is bombing Gaza: Because terrorists deliberately tried to murder dozens of children riding home from school.

Seems to me that deliberately firing on any civilian bus is a war crime. It does not matter whether it is a bus of seniors going to gamble in Jericho, a city bus, a tour bus or a school bus. WAR CRIME.

The weapon used by Hamas for the bus attack was a Kornet anti-tank rocket, laser guided directly to the target. It was not a mortar blindly lobbed over the border that happened to hit the bus. Even then, the likelihood that it would hit a civilian target, if it hit anything, would make it a war crime. All of the mortar and rocket attacks coming from Gaza are war crimes. In this case, however, a member of Hamas decided to fire upon the civilian bus and guided the weapon to the target. WAR CRIME.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. They did not apologize for wrongly attacking a school bus, if you were wondering. They did not say that charges will be filed against the people responsible either, in case you were wondering. Hamas policy is to commit war crimes against Israel, to attack civilians deliberately. WAR CRIME.

I wonder when the UN will look into Hamas’ war crimes. I’m not holding my breath.

Israel kills two Hamas militants hours after truce

Two Hamas militants were killed on Friday in a new air strike on Gaza just hours after the movement called a truce, following a day of confrontations with Israel.

We also learn that Israel responded “immediately” to the attack on a bus, which wounded [only] two people, with the killing and wounding of many. This is the “disproportionate” meme. (Also the “round of violence” meme, but that’s practically a given now.)

The latest violence was sparked Thursday afternoon when Hamas militants fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, critically wounding a teenager and lightly injuring the driver.

Israel responded immediately, launching more than a dozen strikes on targets across the enclave which by the evening had killed four and injured more than 30, prompting Gaza’s Hamas leaders to hurriedly announce a fresh truce.

[...] The bus attack sparked a chain of Israeli attacks across the territory, which initially killed four people and wounded 37, with medics pulling a fifth body pulled from the rubble in the southern city of Rafah early on Friday.

What we do not learn is that immediately after the bus was shelled, Hamas fired 44 more missiles, including a Grad attack on Ashkelon. Well, not until we’ve read all of the above, a tally of dead and wounded, and the number of times Israel has attacked Gaza. Then we discover this fact:

Aside from the anti-tank missile, militants had lobbed around 50 mortars at Israel, one of which hit a house, a military spokeswoman said.

The BBC is even worse. They use the “military wing” fig leaf to pretend that Hamas has two arms which have nothing to do with another. The BBC story does not mention yesterday’s bombardment by Hamas except for the mortar that hit the bus. It makes it look like Israel is responding only to that, not to some 50 rockets and mortars—as well as the hundreds fired in March.

At least six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli air strikes in Gaza, including two women, doctors say.

The Israeli strikes come hours after Islamist group Hamas said it had brokered a deal for Gaza’s militant groups to stop firing on Israel.

On Thursday, members of its military wing hit an Israeli school bus with an anti-tank shell, injuring two people.

The BBC report mentions “fresh violence,” but clearly puts the responsibility on Israel and whitewashes the attacks of the Palestinians:

Israeli artillery fire and air strikes have been heard across Gaza throughout much of the day, our correspondent says, and at least six rockets were fired into Israel, hitting an area north of the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli police.

It is not clear whether the fresh violence signals an end to the truce, or whether the firing of rockets was carried out by a Palestinian splinter group that had not signed up to the ceasefire.

CNN has a mostly fair account. It has an accurate headline, mentions the 15 mortars shot into Israel today, and seems perfectly fine. Except for the fact that it, too, neglects to mention that the Israeli reprisals are not just for the mortar that hit the bus. There is no word of the barrage that followed immediately after, causing the first responders to wait to bring the boy to the hospital.

What is missing from all of these articles? Any cogent analysis of why Israel is bombing the crap out of Hamas as a response to yesterday’s attack. Here’s why Israel is going full-out after the terrorists:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on an official visit to Prague, commented on the escalating tensions in southern Israel, saying: “The attack on the children’s bus was crossing a red line.

“The IDF reacted immediately overnight and will continue to act with resolve. Heaven help those who try to hurt and murder children,” he added.

More on that later.