But the deeper error was strategic: Obama’s assumption that he could resume where Clinton left off in 2000 and pursue the land-for-peace idea at the heart of the two-state solution.

This approach ignored the deep scars inflicted in the past decade: the killing of 992 Israelis and 3,399 Palestinians between the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 and 2006; the Israeli Army’s harsh reoccupation of most of the West Bank; Hamas’ violent rise to power in Gaza and the accompanying resurgence of annihilationist ideology; the spectacular spread of Jewish settlements in the West Bank; and the Israeli construction of over 250 miles of a separation barrier that has protected Israel from suicide bombers even as it has shattered Palestinian lives, grabbed land and become, in the words of Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer, “an integral part of the West Bank settlement plan.”

That’s a pretty awesome list of what went wrong. Think Roger will devote any space in the rest of his column to the Palestinian terror attacks? The rockets from Gaza? Hamas’ constant warring with Israel?

Of course not. The rest of the article is about the fence, and about how Israelis are psychologically scarred and can only see themselves as “victims” of the Palestinians. Victims. Really? I thought they saw the Palestinians for what they are—a people who celebrate the mass murder of Israeli schoolchildren, killed while they were studying Torah in the heart of Jerusalem.

Gaza’s streets filled with joyous crowds of thousands on Thursday evening following the terror attack at a Jerusalem rabbinical seminary in which eight people were killed.

In mosques in Gaza City and northern Gaza, many residents went to perform the prayers of thanksgiving.

Armed men fired in the air in celebration and others passed out sweets to passersby.

But it’s the settlements. And the fence. Oh, and racism.

As Ron Nachman, the founder of the sprawling Ariel settlement, comments in René Backmann’s superb new book, “A Wall in Palestine,” the wave of Palestinian suicide attacks before work on the barrier began in mid-2002 meant that: “Israelis wanted separation. They did not want to be mixed with the Arabs. They didn’t even want to see them. This may be seen as racist, but that’s how it is.”

Really? Because I’m pretty sure there are well over a million Arab Israelis within Israel’s borders. But those “Palestinians” don’t count in any census except for the one where the rest of the world warns Israel that if they don’t negotiate a peace soon, the one-state solution will be forced upon them because Jews will make up a minority in the land formerly known as Palestine. Oh, and they mention them when they accuse Israelis of racism.

There’s one more bit of fantasy that all [anti-]Israel pundits like to promote. The fantasy that Mahmoud Abbas truly wants peace. (Plus, please… touting the Nobel given for nothing? We really are in Fantasyland here.)

Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward. Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente. That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s the end point of Netanyahu’s evasions.

It’s not what Abbas wants but he’s powerless. Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist, told me, “A nonviolent status quo is far from satisfactory but it’s not bad. Cyprus is not bad.”

Mahmoud Abbas pays lip service, in English to peace. But when he speaks to his fellow terrorists at the Fatah convention, it’s a whole different story.

“Although peace is our choice, we reserve the right to resistance, legitimate under international law,” Abbas said in a policy speech, using a term that encompasses armed confrontation with Israel and non-violent protests.

“Resistance” also encompasses suicide attacks. And when he’s not talking about “resistance,” he’s sending condolences to the family of dead Hizbullah fighters, and congratulating mass murderers like Samir Kuntar.

But these things never pop up on the radar of the anti-[Israel] pundits. They don’t exist. There is no Palestinian intransigence, only Israeli intransigence, and Palestinian intransigence caused by Israeli settlements—which is Israel’s fault, of course. The [anti-]Israel pundits simply refuse to acknowledge the facts of the matter, unless those facts damn Israel and praise Palestinians.

But if you’re a regular reader of this, or any other pro-Israel blog, well, you’re aware of that. Preaching to the choir here. But sometimes, someone else reads my posts and starts thinking.

I seriously doubt the Roger Cohens of the world will. But hey, he’s great post fodder.

Really?

Following a day of clashes between security forces and Arab rioters in Jerusalem, Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal on Sunday evening stated that the fate of the capital would be determined by force, not negotiations.

“The fate of Jerusalem will be determined only by confrontation and not by the negotiating tables,” Mashaal said in a speech, according to Channel 10.

“The Israelis want to divide al-Aqsa Mosque, and this is not all. They want to hold their religious ceremonies in the mosque … in preparation for demolishing it and building their temple there,” he reportedly said.

In case you were thinking that perhaps he just meant “traditionally Arab” east Jerusalem (which is not; the Jewish Quarter is in “traditionally Arab” east Jerusalem, well, he didn’t. Emphasis mine.

“Jerusalem is all of Jerusalem, not only [the east Jerusalem neighborhood of] Abu-Dis. The Arabs and Muslims are [the city's] residents, and the Zionists have no claim over it,” he said.

And of course, he didn’t call it Jerusalem. He called it “al-Quds.”

And here’s your hypocritical laugh-line of the year:

“Jordan, out of its historical responsibilities in being the custodian of the holy places in Jerusalem, is extremely worried about what is taking place and warns against going ahead with this provocative behavior on the part of Israeli troops,” he reportedly added.

This is a picture of the Jordanian protection of Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem from 1948 to 1967:

And this is the synagogue after Israel captured east Jerusalem and restored the desecrated Jewish holy sites:

Methinks the Jordanian omitted the word “Muslim” before “holy places” in that line. Because Jordan may have been the custodian of the holy places for nineteen years, but it certainly wasn’t a good guardian of Jewish sites. And it wasn’t good for Christians, either.

But hey, let’s not let an opportunity to bash Israel go by unheeded. It’s almost as good as the AP calling the rioters “protesters” in every news story they write about the Temple Mount riots. Check out that incredibly provocative picture at the link. What are they protesting, exactly?

Five weeks after the release of the Report of the Fact Finding Mission on Gaza, there has been no attempt by any of its critics to come to grips with its substance. It has been fulsomely approved by those whose interests it is thought to serve and rejected by those of the opposite view. Those who attack it do so too often by making personal attacks on its authors’ motives and those who approve it rely on its authors’ reputations.

There have been many, many attacks on its substance, but the well-respected jurist appears not to have noticed them. And in fact, it is the Goldstone supporters that are using the author’s motives as a means of defense: Since Richard Goldstone is Jewish and a supporter of Israel, the meme goes, the report cannot be biased. But of course, that isn’t true. Neither is Goldstone’s description of the report’s mandate:

Israel could have seized the opportunity provided by the even-handed mandate of our mission and used it as a precedent for a new direction by the United Nations in the Middle East.

This is the mandate issued on January 12:

14. Decides to dispatch an urgent independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and International Humanitarian Law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission;

If you read the entire mandate, there is not a single reference to Hamas. Goldstone may have been told that they would make the mandate “even-handed,” but in practice, it was not, and the report is not. To say that it is is a blatant lie. The UN Human Rights Council did not pass a resolution to send both Hamas and Israeli “war crimes” to the ICC—only Israeli “crimes” are referenced. Goldstone criticized that resolution, but so what? The barn door’s been open for months, and there are no horses left.

Even the press release following Goldstone’s appointment does not specifiy any violations by Hamas.

Today’s appointment comes following the adoption of a resolution by the Human Rights Council at the conclusion of its Special Session on 9 and 12 January convened to address “the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip.”

The fact that Goldstone thought he had a mandate to investigate both sides makes his one-sided report even more reprehensible. And really, when you read this:

notwithstanding the decision of the government of Israel, we took whatever steps were open to us to obtain information from victims and experts in southern Israel about the effects on their lives of sustained rocket and mortar attacks over a period of years.

And then read this:

Some of the Israeli witnesses who testified before the committee were injured by rocket fire before Operation Cast Lead, but their testimonies were left out of the report.

Dr. Mirela Siderer, a resident of Ashkelon, was severely injured by a Grad missile and is about to undergo her eighth operation.

“I didn’t have high hopes, so I wasn’t very disappointed, but I still feel awful after reading the report,” she said. “They didn’t refer to incidents that occurred before Operation Cast Lead, including my injury.”

You have to wonder: Who does Goldstone think he’s fooling? Does he think Israelis are that stupid? To come into the pages of the Jerusalem Post and think that Israelis won’t know these stories? Or that Goldstone fell asleep when Noam Bedin was testifying?

“When I stood up and started to testify before the judges, Justice Goldstone fell asleep in front of me. It was an embarrassing moment but I continued talking, realizing that I should not have high hopes,” he added.

Really. 93.5% of Israeli Jews think that the Goldstone report is biased. Who does he think he’s kidding?

The gist of the article is a debate between Israeli president and former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa. But before we get to all that, we have to have the set-up. First, tar Netanyahu as the one preventing peace because—wait for it—he refuses to stop building settlements.

The difficulty has been compounded by the fact that in March a right-leaning government replaced the previous more moderate one in Israel.

Several months ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reluctantly agreed to accept the principle of a Palestinian state – a position his predecessors had already adopted but his Likud party has not – but said it would have to have limits on its rights to have a military or control its airspace.

Next, give Moussa a chance to respond to the above, but don’t have Peres respond to it. Have Peres talk about a completely different topic.

Then, slam Peres and compliment Moussa, almost in the same breath (but while allowing Moussa to accuse the Israelis of duplicity):

Peres – pushing the boundaries on a role that is meant to be ceremonial and somewhat above the political and diplomatic fray – argued that even the borders initially delineated for the Palestinian state could be considered provisional and ultimately expanded.

“You want us to believe that?” thundered the urbane Moussa. “Another one of the tricks!”

Another way of telling which way the article is biased: There are ten paragraphs that contain quotes or paraphrases by Moussa. There are only six containing Peres’ quotes or paraphrases—and the article is titled “Peres: Palestinian state first, full peace later.”

I think, though, the thing that really got me is describing Moussa as “urbane” right after implying that Peres isn’t acting in his government’s best interest. In point of fact, nobody in Israel is complaining that Peres is overstepping his bounds, or if they have, I haven’t seen it. But don’t let the facts get in the way of a good anti-Israel slap.

The Associated Press: the anti-Israel Energizer bunny. They just never stop.

“We believe our post is accurate”
That was the definitively equivocal reply of Reuters’ AxisMundi Jerusalem editor and Bureau Chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories, Alastair MacDonald, to a reader who had pointed out that Reuters’ correspondent Erika Solomon did not have her facts straight when she claimed that Uri Davis was Jewish:

Yeah. It’s an uphill climb.

A Swedish newspaper publishes a blood libel, accusing Israelis of taking (and selling) organs from Palestinians. Israelis are outraged. They file paperwork.

Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon filed a formal grievance with the Swedish government Wednesday following a Stockholm newspaper’s report accusing Israel of trading in the stolen organs of Palestinians.

They ask the Swedish government to condemn the hateful lies.

“I demand the Swedish government condemn this groundless article,” said Ayalon.

They threaten to summon the Swedish ambassador.

The Foreign Ministry is reportedly considering summoning the Swedish ambassador and reproving him for his government policies, “Which allow such a hateful publication to go without censure.”

Ouch. Plus, there’s a very angry comment in my previous post (although I seriously doubt any prosecution could occur, as I’m unclear as to what Israeli laws were broken by the publication of this article).

Now, let’s think of another instance where a Nordic nation published something in a newspaper that stirred up controversy. Like, the publishing of a dozen Mohammed cartoons.

Danish Muslim organizations, who objected to the depictions, responded by holding public protests attempting to raise awareness of Jyllands-Posten’s publication. Further examples of the cartoons were soon reprinted in newspapers in more than fifty other countries, further deepening the controversy.

This led to protests across the Muslim world, some of which escalated into violence with police firing on the crowds (resulting in more than 100 deaths, altogether),[1] including setting fire to the Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, storming European buildings, and desecrating the Danish, Dutch, Norwegian and German flags in Gaza City. While a number of Muslim leaders called for protesters to remain peaceful, other Muslim leaders across the globe, including Mahmoud al-Zahar of Hamas, issued death threats.[2][3] Various groups, primarily in the Western world, responded by endorsing the Danish policies, including “Buy Danish” campaigns and other displays of support. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen described the controversy as Denmark’s worst international crisis since World War II.[4]

Funny how the most horrific things get published about Jews, in so many different publications, in so many different nations, so often, and yet, Jews don’t set fire to cars or riot or murder people in protest. And of course, there are the usual suspects who will also say that Jews are “overreacting” when they get upset about lies like this one.

It’s telling that the author was interviewed on Israeli radio, and even said that he had no clue whether the allegations were true. But that didn’t stop him from publishing them.

Interviewed on Israel Radio on Wednesday, Bostrom said he was worried by the allegations he reported but could not vouch for their accuracy.

“It concerns me, to the extent that I want it to be investigated, that’s true. But whether it’s true or not – I have no idea, I have no clue,” he told the station.

That’s how it works these days. Prove you didn’t kidnap Palestinians and steal their organs, Israel. Bostrom is shocked, shocked I say, at being called an anti-Semite. He’s not anti-Semitic. Just ask him.

I mentioned Der Stürmer in my last post. Here’s an image that Bostrom would probably approve (after stating that he’d want it to be investigated whether or not Jews drain Christian children’s blood and drink it):

Photo of anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda rag Der Stürmer blood libel

Then and now. There’s not much difference. This is why people like Bibi Netanyahu warn that it’s 1939 all over again. The constant demonization and dehumanization of Israelis is sounding a drum that we’ve heard before. The difference, of course, is that this time, we Jews are armed and able to protect ourselves.

Oh, and we’ll write really nasty posts about you when you lie about us. Fear us.

First:

Israel cuts Palestinian tragedy from textbooks
The Israeli government will remove references to what the Palestinians call the “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation from textbooks for Arab schoolchildren, the country’s education minister said Wednesday.

The reference to “al-naqba” or catastrophe, what the Palestinian’s call their defeat and exile in the war over Israel’s 1948 creation, was controversially inserted by a dovish education minister for the first time in 2007.

The phrase remains contentious six decades after Israel was founded.

“No other country in the world, in its official curriculum, would treat the fact of its founding as a catastrophe,” Education Minister Gideon Saar told Israel’s parliament on Wednesday.

“What will you do to a teacher who addresses the class and begins to explain what happened to the family of a child who asks?” Ahmad Tibi, an Arab Israeli lawmaker, asked Saar in parliament.

Second: Notice that a quote pops up in the next edition, about “naqba denial”—yet another example of the Palestinians attempting to expropriate terms meaningful to Jews. To compare the removal of a negatively descriptive word (”catastrophe”) regarding the founding of Israel to the denial of the Holocaust is spurious and insulting—but not, apparently, to the AP, which puts it in the lead.

Israel cuts Palestinian tragedy from textbooks
The Israeli government will remove references to what Palestinians call the “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation from textbooks for Arab schoolchildren, the education minister said Wednesday.

The reference to “al-naqba,” the Arabic word catastrophe as Palestinians call their defeat and exile in the war over Israel’s 1948 creation, was controversially inserted by a dovish education minister for the first time in 2007.

The phrase remains contentious six decades after Israel was founded.

“No other country in the world, in its official curriculum, would treat the fact of its founding as a catastrophe,” Education Minister Gideon Saar told Israel’s parliament on Wednesday.

Israeli Arab lawmaker Hana Sweid accused the government of “naqba denial.”

Third:

Israel cuts 1948 ‘catastrophe’ from Arabic texts

The lead is the same. The headline is now using the Palestinian narrative that 1948 was the naqba in the headline, though using the words “what Palestinians call” in the lead to justify their objectivity. The “naqba denial” quote is still there, of course. Your latest version of yellow journalism, courtesy of the Associated Press—which is actually among the least anti-Israel of the mainstream media (cf: Reuters, AFP).

Update: The latest AP version adds an extra anti-Netanyahu graf to the lead, and drops the “naqba” quote to paragraph six as a result. The third paragraph has been given extra, added, anti-Israel value, as well. (The bold is the addition to the paragraph.) Witness:

The phrase remains contentious six decades later, a symptom of the continuing divisions in Israel. Many Israeli Arabs identify politically with their Palestinian counterparts in the West Bank and Gaza. As a result, some Israeli Jews accuse Israeli Arabs of disloyalty to the country.

Israel’s current government, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu and his hard-line Likud Party, includes members who favor cracking down on Israeli Arabs by ordering loyalty oaths or even moving them out of Israel.

It just doesn’t get any better than this, eh? Truly, the evolution of the anti-Israel AP narrative is an astonishing thing to behold.

There are the titles and pullquotes to two of Todd Purdum’s Vanity Fair profiles.

Raising Obama
Is he tough enough? That’s the question being asked of Barack Obama. To those who have known the candidate since boyhood, it’s not just those “dreams from my father” that make Obama a contender, but also his mother’s daring, his grandmother’s grit, and his own relentless drive.

It Came from Wasilla
Despite her disastrous performance in the 2008 election, Sarah Palin is still the sexiest brand in Republican politics, with a lucrative book contract for her story. But what Alaska’s charismatic governor wants the public to know about herself doesn’t always jibe with reality. As John McCain’s top campaign officials talk more candidly than ever before about the meltdown of his vice-presidential pick, the author tracks the signs—political and personal—that Palin was big trouble, and checks the forecast for her future.

And here are quotes from the articles. First, Obama:

The Barack Obama who wrote so poignantly of adolescent alienation and the search for racial identity is the same Barack Obama who learned, the hard way, how to deal with the likes of Emil Jones Jr., a man whose cell-phone ring tone is the theme from The Godfather. Obama’s good looks and soft-spoken willingness to ponder aloud some of the inanities of modern politics have masked the hard inner core and unyielding ambition that have long burned beneath the surface shimmer. He is not, and never has been, soft. He’s not laid-back. He’s not an accidental man. His friends and family may be surprised by the rapidity of his rise, but they’re not surprised by the fact of it.

Now, Sarah Palin

Palin is unlike any other national figure in modern American life—neither Anna Nicole Smith nor Margaret Chase Smith but a phenomenon all her own. The clouds of tabloid conflict and controversy that swirl around her and her extended clan—the surprise pregnancies, the two-bit blood feuds, the tawdry in-laws and common-law kin caught selling drugs or poaching game—give her family a singular status in the rogues’ gallery of political relatives. By comparison, Billy Carter, Donald Nixon, and Roger Clinton seem like avatars of circumspection. Palin’s life has sometimes played out like an unholy amalgam of Desperate Housewives and Northern Exposure.

That’s some difference. Obama wasn’t compared with Michael Jackson or Al Sharpton. But Purdum felt it relevant to bring up the memory of the first woman elected to both the House and Senate side by side with a publicity whore and Playboy Playmate. Subtle. It’s the writer’s way of getting the reader to compare Palin to Anna Nicole without actually making the comparison. And it also denigrates the memory of Margaret Chase Smith, another female Republican politician.

Purdum says that Obama has a hard inner core and unyielding ambition, but those are good qualities in a man. Palin? The same qualities, but with a very different spin.

It is the story of a political novice with an intuitive feel for the temper of her times, a woman who saw her opportunities and coolly seized them. In every job, she surrounded herself with an insular coterie of trusted friends, took disagreements personally, discarded people who were no longer useful, and swiftly dealt vengeance on enemies, real or perceived.

Does that description sound like anyone who was recently president of the United States? In fact, it sounds like the current office holder, as well as the last two presidents. But when it’s a woman who shows these qualities, well. You know the drill. Man—relentless drive. Woman—narcissistic personality disorder. Republican woman? Superbitch.

The double standard about Sarah Palin is overwhelming, especially when you consider that she really hasn’t done anything much different from any other politician. She’s not a hundred percent truthful? Whoa, shocker! A politician who lies! She’s egotistical? She’s driven? She’s tough on her enemies and rewards her friends? Holy crap, alert the media! We’ve never seen any politicians like that before!

The Palin attack machine will continue for a long time to come, especially if the reason that Sarah quit this week is to ramp up for a run for President. But for now, I’m going to take her at her word. I’d quit, too, if I had to undergo the kind of vicious attacks that she’s been dealing with even now, eight months after she lost her bid for the vice-presidency and went back to Alaska to govern. Can you name another politician that’s been attacked as often, as viciously, and as widely as Sarah Palin?

Neither can I.

The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Amazing! What a story! And to whom can we credit this fantastic story?

“The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source said last week.

Although the countries have no formal diplomatic relations, an Israeli defence source confirmed that Mossad maintained “working relations” with the Saudis.

John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations who recently visited the Gulf, said it was “entirely logical” for the Israelis to use Saudi airspace.

Uh-huh. Notice that he did not actually quote anyone but his anonymous source as saying this is true. Rumors, lies, bullshit—call it what you will, but here’s what the Prime Minister of Israel had to say about it:

The Prime Minister’s office issued a statement in response Sunday morning, saying that “the Sunday Times report is fundamentally false and completely baseless.”

There you go. It’s about as reliable as the lies he published years ago about the “genetic weapon” that Israel was supposedly developing that would kill Arabs and leave Jews alive (both a lie and an impossible weapon to build) that is still being used as a modern blood libel against Israel, and also, he had several articles published about “imminent” attacks that, well, never happened.

My suggestion: If Uzi Mahnaimi tells you it’s sunny out, bring an umbrella. Shame on the Times of London, again, for publishing this serial liar.

Palestinians watched with hope this week as President Barack Obama called for an Israeli settlement freeze and spoke about the need to move quickly toward statehood alongside President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House.

But despite the clear signal of a shift, there is caution in the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinians judge whether the administration has the mettle to make good on promises which have become all too familiar.

“Obama has new speech, but not yet a strategy,” says Mohammed Khirresh, a Palestinian economist and political analyst, speaking on the sidelines of a Ramallah policy conference sponsored by the Palestinian Center for Media and Research. “The criterion for Obama’s new strategy is whether I can see it on the ground and touch it. Otherwise, it’s empty words.”

Despite his charm and message of change, Obama must still overcome a deficit from decades of failed US policy on mediating an Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Palestinians are weary of a peace process that has been long on talk and short on dividends, and that has eroded the credibility of the president’s diplomatic pulpit. There are also questions whether one president has the political ability to buck decades of US partiality toward Israel.

What do you think? Al Jazeera? The Arab News? Al-Ahram? Reuters?

Nope. The Christian Science Monitor. And the author: Joshua Mitnick. And there’s even more Palestinian propaganda to come:

Still, conditions are less than ideal, because Israel’s right-wing government won’t endorse a two-state solution and because of the ongoing rift with Hamas, a long-time critic of negotiations with Israel.

Because Mr. Abbas is a proponent of diplomacy instead of violence, his political fortune is in large degree tied to Obama’s ability to push Israel to ease restrictions on movement in the West Bank, allow goods into the Gaza Strip, and restart a credible negotiations process.

But wait. There’s even more propaganda: The taming of Hamas.

Even Hamas is sounding politely upbeat. An aide to Hamas’s Gaza leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said that the Islamic militants seek to foster good relations with the West, including the US, which lists the group as a terrorist organization.

“We have no other choice,” said the aide, Ahmed Yousef, addressing the Ramallah gathering by video link. “We hope that the new administration will take a more balanced approach in solving the conflict.”

Funny, that’s not what Hamas’ spokesman is telling the rest of the media:

Meanwhile, Islamic Hamas movement, bitter rival of Abbas, said the meeting between Abbas and Obama was disappointing and did not bring any new thing.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said his movement saw Abbas’s commitment to the Road Map as “an uprooting of the resistance and a liquidation of Hamas” as the plan calls on the PNA to dismantle the armed Palestinian groups.

“All the Palestinian factions rejected the Road Map except Abbas,” Barhoum said, adding that Obama’s statements were “insufficient wishes that are no longer useful under the Zionist increasing military escalation.”

Hamas wants Abbas to halt peace negotiations with Israel, and to adopt armed resistance against Israel to pressurize the Jewish state into giving the Palestinians their legitimate rights back.

It makes you wonder how blind these so-called Mideast experts truly are, that they can’t even keep up with other news organizations’ reporting of the same topic. But of course, it isn’t blindness. It’s deliberate obfuscation because the above quote doesn’t fit Mitnick’s—and the Christian Science Monitor’s—narrative. That narrative, of course, is that it’s not Palestinian terrorism, anti-Israel (and anti-Jewish) incitement, and the refusal to compromise that is responsible for the lack of peace. No. It’s Israel in general, and settlements in particular.

You really have to wonder what the CSM’s problem is. As for Josh Mitnick, well—I’m guessing he’s one of Snoopy’s AssaJews.