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.

Am Yisrael Chai: The Jewish people live. That’s what the Benjamin Netanyahu said in Wannsee yesterday. That’s the place where the Nazis planned the destruction of the world’s Jews.

Ew! Jew cooties! Hamas is denying having participated in European workshops with Israelis. Because, you know, Jew cooties.

Note to self: No more putting purse on the back of chairs in restaurants. Ben Bernanke’s wife’s purse was stolen from the back of her chair at a Starbuck’s, begging the question: Didn’t she feel the thief take it? The media’s making this out to be a major ID theft case, but the details being given out make it seem like, uh, the thief stole her checkbook and tried to cash a check. Unless there’s more to the story, it’s typical media overhype.

Um, what’s the point of an Israeli suing a Swedish paper in a New York court? An Israeli lawyer (not one of the brighter ones if you ask me) is suing the Aftonbladet for libel in a New York court. Why not in Sweden? Am I the only one that thinks this is moronic?

Of course you didn’t. Because it was Palestinians killing Palestinians (or maybe some foreign Arab fighters). So there’s no outcry from HRW. There’s barely a blip of notice in the wire services’ radar. No statement from the UN, no world outcry—because dead Palestinians don’t count unless they were killed by—or accused of being killed by—Israelis.

The fighting broke out late Friday when Hamas security men surrounded a mosque in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on the Egyptian border where about 100 members of Jund Ansar Allah were holed up.

[...] The Hamas forces raided the mosque, setting off a fierce gunbattle. Flares lit up the sky and the sound of machine gun fire echoed throughout the night.

Moussa escaped with some bodyguards to his home where another standoff ensued.

Here’s the AP spin:

Gaza’s Hamas rulers said they had restored law and order to the seaside territory Sunday after a bloody weekend of clashes with an al-Qaida-inspired group.

The militant Palestinian group crushed a challenge from Jund Ansar Allah, or the Soldiers of the Companions of God, one of a number of small, shadowy factions that are even more radical than Hamas.

[...] At least 150 people were wounded in the fighting, which began Friday afternoon after Moussa’s fiery speech and continued throughout the night in two fierce gunbattles outside his mosque and his home.

No mention of the fact that an 11-year-old girl was killed. There were two human rights groups protesting the casualties—Palestinian human rights groups, and props to them for speaking out. The more shame to the UN and HRW.

I won’t hold my breath waiting for HRW to issue a special report condemning this. As I recall, they didn’t condemn the Lebanese for brutally suppressing another al Qaeda splinter group last year, though many civilians were killed. Because, of course, it wasn’t Jews doing the killing.

The headline and teaser:

First film produced by Hamas screens in Gaza

Imad Aqel is an action-packed movie of the life and violent death of a Hamas militant who topped Israel’s most-wanted list

The lead:

The film’s hero is a young militant, blamed by Israel for the deaths of 13 soldiers and settlers, who was killed at the age of 22 in a firefight in 1993.

Note the language: They are casting doubt in the first sentence on whether or not he murdered thirteen Israelis. And of course, instead of the word “civilians,” “settlers” is used.

The lead graph continues with this sad fact:

Many of the actors are Hamas members and, since the movie was finished, four of them have been killed in an Israeli attack. This is Imad Aqel, the first feature film funded by Hamas.

So does the Reuters

The description of the film:

Shot on the grounds of Gnai Tal, one of the Jewish settlements evacuated in 2005 when Israel withdrew from the territory, it is a two-hour, action-packed thriller celebrating the life and martyrdom of Aqel, a commander of the Hamas military wing who topped Israel’s most-wanted list.

This could be straight out of the Hamas PR release, and I would not be at all surprised to find out that it is.

According to newspaper reports, the line that elicits the biggest cheer from the Gazan audience is when one of the characters declares: “To kill Israeli soldiers is to worship God.”The film’s director, Majed Jendeya, says he hopes to screen Imad Aqel at the Cannes film festival.

Despicable. But not as despicable as this last paragraph, in which the writer editorializes as to why Hamas is making movies that honor mass murderers:

The biopic is just the latest effort in Hamas’s media campaign to instil a “culture of resistance” in the territory. It also owns a satellite television station, a radio network and websites, as well as sponsoring art exhibitions, plays and poetry which tell of the harsh conditions in Gaza.

“Resistance” is the word that terrorist groups use to describe suicide bomb attacks and other methods of murdering civilians. It is getting more and more mainstream as more and more of the world reverts to the Jew-hatred it has held over the millennia. The demonization has reached such heights that Phyllis Chesler can’t even bring herself to write about Israel anymore, and I have to admit it has affected me as well. And part of the problem are media outlets like the Guardian, which never hesitates to excoriate Israel, and builds up terrorist murderers with puff pieces on films about their lives.

If you need a palate cleanser, you can read the National Post of Canada, which may be based on the Reuters article, but at least uses the word “terrorist” to describe the subject of the film. But the Post is one of the few voices in the wilderness of anti-Israel media. Yaacov calls them the antisemitic media. I don’t think he’s wrong.

“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.

That’s the Ha’aretz definition of “resistance.” When you count the fact that “resistance” and “armed struggle” also means “murdering civilians on buses, in shops, and in their homes,” there’s not a whole lot of peace-making coming out of the convention. And just in case you weren’t quite sure about it:

After a journalist asked Rajoub about a large picture of a young boy armed with a rifle that was displayed at the conference, the former Arafat aide responded that Fatah has not abandoned nor will it abandon the possibility of resuming “armed struggle,” which he says remains a tool at the Palestinians’ disposal.

Here are two versions of the AP spin on the issue. The first, from yesterday, is a piece insisting that the Palestinians have “marginalized” terror. And the article manages to contradict its headline in the very first paragraph.

Fatah commits to Israel peace talks in party draft
The proposed new platform of the Palestinians’ moderate Fatah party marginalizes the once central theme of “armed struggle” against Israel, but demands a complete Israeli settlement freeze before talks for a final peace deal can take place.

An interesting side note: I found this in the Canadian press and nowhere else. Look at the headline.

In party draft, Fatah commits to peace talks but asserts right to resist Israeli occupation
The Palestinian Fatah movement says it will keep pursuing peace talks but reserves the right to resist Israeli occupation.

And the definition of Fatah:

Fatah’s 1989 program called for “armed struggle” against Israel. The new platform, published Monday, is vague on violence but stresses negotiations and civil disobedience.

That’s very different from the larger article:

In Fatah’s 1989 program, a call to “armed struggle” against Israel played a central role. That idea is being pushed to the sidelines in the new draft, without being dropped altogether – a likely nod to Fatah’s hard-line wing, particularly delegates from Lebanon and Syria. Authors of the draft suggested that the party also needs to remain competitive with the populist appeal of the Islamic militant Hamas, which focuses on armed resistance.

And now that the conference is actually occurring, this is the AP spin:

Abbas: Palestinians must stick with peace talks
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas launched his Fatah movement’s first conference in two decades Tuesday with a call for his people to limit their resistance to Israel to marches and protests and not to abandon peace talks despite years of setbacks.

Note that the lead uses the Palestinian term, “resistance,” and spins it so that it looks like Abbas wants peace talks—yet glosses over the fact that Abbas refuses to sit down with Israel until the Obama settlement freeze is in place. And Israel, of course, is the instransigent player in this game—for refusing to move backwards in agreements that even the Palestinians have managed to live with.

And let’s check on the AP spin a bit more, as the editors buy into the PA pap:

Abbas said the Palestinians have a right to resist Israeli occupation, but said such resistance is best embodied by the weekly marches and protests in Bilin and Naalin, two West Bank villages that have lost hundreds of acres to Israel’s separation barriers.

He said Fatah rejected terrorism when Arafat first unilaterally declared Palestinian independence in 1988. “We are not terrorists, and we reject a description of our legitimate struggle as terrorism,” he said. “This will be our firm and lasting position.”

Ah. There it is. “Resistance” and “armed struggle,” even when it comes in the form of bombs blowing up civilians, is not terrorism. Murdering “settlers” in their homes is not terrorism. It’s all just civil disobedience. Just like in Bi’ilin, where mobs hurl stones at soldiers on a weekly basis. And yet, if you look at this chart, you will see that Fatah has been actively launching terror attacks against Israelis since long before 1988. Let’s not forget that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is also Fatah, but Fatah itself claimed a suicide bombing as recently as 2002. When you erase the fiction that Al-Aqsa is separate from Fatah, the terror attacks have been continuous.

Abbas is also passing along conspiracy theories that blame Israel for causing the events that started the 1982 Lebanon war, and for Arafat’s death. Yes, he’s a moderate—moderately crazy, as evidenced by his master’s thesis in Holocaust denial.

While the world watches, absorbs the b.s. and passes along the lies, the IDF is watching, too. And waiting to see what happens before issuing an opinion about whether the PA is changing.

My money’s on “not.” As if you couldn’t tell.

According to the sources, the aircraft was carrying a large number of modern fuses composed of 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of explosives and electrical instrumentation.

The report is in line with testimonies on explosion sounds heard before the crash. According to the sources, the plane was meant to transfer the fuses from Iran to Armenia, and from there to Syria through Turkey, and then on the ground to Lebanon. This route was chosen, according to exiled opposition sources, so as not to draw attention.

Chalk another one up to our terrorist buddies in Lebanon and Syria. And it’s just lovely that the Turks are complicit in this terror track as well. Why on earth shouldn’t we trust them to negotiate between Israel and Syria?

Doesn’t matter, the world will still cry war crimes when the buildings go down. The IDF is going to tell Palestinians exactly when the missile strikes will come in order to precipitate fewer civilian casualties. Unbelievable. Is there any other nation in the world that tries so hard not to harm civilians? Of course not. Does this mean that Israel will be commended for these actions? Of course not.

So what if he’s a terrorist? He’s a teacher too, isn’t he? A Canadian university hired a man who is under house arrest on terrorism charges to teach a class at university this summer. Because hey, just because he’s fighting extradition on terrorism charges to France doesn’t mean that he can’t collect a salary teaching young, impressional minds, right? Wrong. After Canada’s B’nai B’rith protested, the university decided that perhaps they should have someone else teach the course.

Peace Now: Always striking the right chord. You know, the group really is full of idiots. On Erev Tisha b’Av, the eve of the commemoration of the destruction of the Temples, Peace Now is going to hang posters all over Jerusalem, saying that settlements are going to destroy the Third Temple. Nice. Because that’s going to really change people’s minds, isn’t it? (Insert Standard Eye Roll #34 here.)

Boy, were we wrong about that disengagement thing! A new poll out says that 68% of Israelis who supported disengagement changed their minds. Yeah, good luck getting Israel out of Ma’ale Adumim, Obama.

Obama to America: Still lying about healthcare reform. Really, does this man ever stop? Now he’s trying to sell his plan as one that will protect consumers. Right. It will protect us by forcing us into a single-payer system, just like his idols in Canada and Europe. Here’s what he wants now:

Insurers would be barred from refusing coverage because of pre-existing conditions, scaling back insurance for people who fall very ill, charging more for services based on gender, and placing caps on coverage.

Oh, that won’t raise prices at all. And on that pre-existing conditions thing: I had to wait six months for a pre-existing condition to be covered by my insurance plan when I went from having none for several years to having insurance again. Anyone out there ever been barred completely—and forever—by insurance companies for a pre-existing condition? Mind you, I’m all for reform of that one. But it can be done without passing ObamaCare.

Palestinians answer Hillary’s request with a kassam rocket: Looks like Hillary’s plea to the Palestinians to refrain from any actions that would make peace more difficult is working. The Palestinians launched a kassam at Southern Israel, because now they’re going to blame Israel for taking action against it. And considering that Netanyahu has stated that he will not tolerate so much as a dribble, expect some tunnels to go boom.

Israel wants UNIFIL to do what? Israel is asking for UNIFIL’s report on the rocket storage depot in southern Lebanon that blew up this week. UNIFIL doesn’t so much as mention the explosion on its site. Ban Ki-Moon hasn’t said anything about the violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. The General Assembly is not calling for an emergency session to vote on a resolution condemning Hezbollah’s overt violation of 1701. And the Security Council is silent. What’s that you say? It’s a day that ends with a “y,” so it’s Israeli Double Standard Time? Well. I can see you’ve been reading this blog for a long time.

Syria to U.S.: We want the entire Golan. Meryl to Syria [singing]: You can’t always get what you want.

Neturei Karta guarantee their place in Dante’s Seventh Circle: Okay, not really, but it’s a good metaphor, because any Jew that works so hard for Israel’s enemies—they’re meeting Haniyeh, now, and bringing him little statues of Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Mosque, how sweet—cannot possibly be on G-d’s good side. Really, I detest these people more than I detest almost anyone else in the world, except pedophiles. And even that one is a close call. I know there’s no hell in Judaism, but for the Nutty Karta, I’d make an exception.

Senate votes big expansion of federal hate crimes—Can we get a Constitutional challenge, please? Then again, forget about it. Sotomayor is going to be approved, no way is the Supreme Court going to find hate crime laws unconstitutional. Add this to the list of things I’ve changed my mind about since moving to Virginia: I no longer believe hate crimes should be legislated, at all. A crime is a crime is a crime.

Jake Tapper, will you marry me? If the man continues to tell the truth about Obama, I’m simply going to have to have him.

At a rally in Holmdel, New Jersey, today, President Obama continued making a promise about health care reform that he has acknowledged isn’t literally true.

Holmdel. Feh. Where was he, in the Garden State Arts Center? Whoops, sorry, they changed its name to the PNC Arts Center. And yes, he was. You know, I saw a much better act last time I was there. Lilith Fair. The Pretenders, Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow. All of whom probably voted for Obama, come to think of it (except McLachlan, she’s Canadian). But I digress. Tapper:

“Let me be exactly clear about what health care reform means to you,” the president told residents of the Garden State. “First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”

But last month, as the president acknowledged during a press conference, he doesn’t literally mean that you are guaranteed to be able to keep your health care plan, and your doctor, if and when health care reform passes.

What? Obama lying again? Say it isn’t so! As for the price tag? Go watch Tapper’s report.

Don’t let him succeed. Call your Senator.

Shootings, stabbings, rocket and missile fire, and a bulldozer attack by Palestinian and Arab terrorists killed 36 Israelis and tourists in Israel in 2008, compared to 12 in 2007 and 29 in 2006, according to a report by Hatzalah Judea and Samaria released over the weekend.

The organization, which provides rapid response first aid in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza border area, also reported a sharp rise in the number of injuries by Kassam rockets, Grads and mortar fire compared to the past two years.

These attacks on Jewish settlements within firing range of Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, wounded 947 in 2008. A total of 464 were wounded in 2007 and 227 in 2006.

A total of 1,683 Kassam rockets fell in Israel near Gaza and another 108 shot from Gaza fell back into Palestinian areas.

In Israel, eight people were killed in 2008 by rocket attacks, 19 were killed in shootings, one person was stabbed to death, one was killed in a suicide bombing, one in a bulldozer attack, and an additional eight soldiers were killed in battle.

There’s a statistic you’ll never see on the mainstream media sites.

When Israel shows weakness, she is attacked. Let’s see how the Gaza war plays out. If all goes well, there will be a dramatic drop in terror attacks on Israelis. There will certainly be a dramatic drop in rocket attacks from Hamas.

Israeli morale isn’t shaken at all. Listen to the words of one of the soldiers just back from Gaza:

In a smoking area outside the hospital, a Golani private, visibly shaken, said he was a member of the platoon whose men were hit by the mortar shell and that in the aftermath, his mother had revoked her permission for him to go into combat. He was an only son and army protocol required a parent’s signature. His mother, he explained, had had a change of heart.

“But I’m dying to go back in there,” the private said, sucking down the cigarette he had just lit with shaky hands. “I’m not going to tell you that it wasn’t frightening. We went in, it was all quiet, and then boom, the mortar hit and Hamas fighters started coming out. We repelled them, but it was a real balagan.”

Hamas on Thursday declared the end of a six-month-old Egyptian-brokered ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip, raising the prospect of an escalation in cross-border fighting.

“The calm, which was reached with Egyptian sponsorship on June 19 and expires on December 19, is finished because the enemy did not abide by its obligations,” said Hamas member Ayman Taha, who represented the group in talks with other Palestinian factions. “The calm is over.”

The European Union finally noticed the rocket fire and demanded that it stop. But not until it had the chance to tell Israel to stop defending herself, first.

The European Union, in a statement, called Thursday for an “immediate cessation” of both rocket fire and Israeli incursions.

I swear, I don’t really have to write new posts. I can just go back to my archives and reprint posts I wrote years ago. Nothing’s changed. Only a couple of the names of the players.

How is it that the EU can never get up the energy to condemn Hamas rocket fire until after Israel fires back at the terrorists? Really. Let’s think. Why is it that Jewish self-defense causes Europeans such anxiety? Hm.

Sorry, the only reason I can come up with is anti-Semitism, but Europe murdered or drove out most of its Jews sixty years ago, so that can’t be the case. Right? Right?

Right.