The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Tuesday that international aid for millions of Darfur residents can not go on indefinitely and said the Sudanese government and rebels must negotiate a solution that would allow the displaced to return home.

John Holmes made the comments as he visited Kalma camp, home to around 100,000 of the more than 2.5 million people displaced by fighting in the large region of western Sudan since 2003.

Earlier this month, Holmes appealed for $2.2 billion in donations to fund U.N. aid for Sudan, most of which would go to Darfur. The world body is providing food and other supplies not only to residents of camps but also to much of the remainder of Darfur’s 4.7 million population who still live in their homes.

Holmes said that while security in Darfur continues to deteriorate and people are still being displaced by violence, many cases are not emergencies because people are reasonably well settled in these camps.

“People are not dying of starvation,” he said. But “the problem is that people have been in camps for four or five years now,” he told reporters. “We need to find some solutions quickly so we don’t have to go on doing this indefinitely,” Holmes added.

After all, we don’t want to start another UNRWA, do we? These people aren’t Palestinians, so they can’t be fourth-generation refugees.

Yesterday, the UN commemorated 61 years of making Palestinians the only people in the world who can add Perpetual Refugee to their resume. But the Darfurians? Well, they have to come to grips with reality and find a solution to why they’re in refugee camps. Sure, there may be Islamic thugs ruling their country, burning down villages, raping, killing, and enslaving them. But hey, do they expect the UN to keep feeding and housing them forever?

Now, if only the Darfurians can convince the UN that Israel is really behind their problems. Then the UN would fund them indefinitely.

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.

A Hamas policeman was killed and several Palestinians were wounded Thursday night when an explosive device went off in a police station in Gaza City.

Hamas police spokesman Islam Shahwan said the device was found earlier in the day in the Hamas-controlled territory and was taken to the police station to be dismantled.

The bomb was put there, possibly by Fatah loyalists. Then again, there are so many terrorist groups wandering about Gaza these days, who knows who put the bomb in “Hamas-controlled territory” (which I thought was the entire Gaza Strip).

Here’s one of the things that makes you go Hmm:

While security men were taking the bomb apart, it exploded, causing several secondary blasts, Shahwan said.

“Several secondary blasts” indicates that there were other explosives at this “police station.” Now, I understand that the world is not all like America, but still, explosives aren’t generally kept in a police station where you’re attempting to disarm a bomb.

But here’s the other thing that makes you go Hmm:

Moaaya Hassaneen, director of the Health Ministry’s emergency department, told AFP named the policeman killed as Alaa Jihad al Ajna, 30, and said the incident occurred in a passport office in the center of Gaza City, and not in a police station.

So a “police officer” takes the unexploded bomb to a passport office in downtown Gaza—why, we’re not sure; perhaps he was going to get it papers so it could travel to Israel—attempts to disarm it, and it explodes. Causing “secondary explosions” at this, ah, passport office.

Really, is there truly anyone out there that doesn’t understand what a nest of terrorism Gaza is?

Oh. Wait. Yes, yes, there is.

In fact, there are lots of fools out there. A whole boatload of ‘em.

A boat loaded with international protesters has arrived in the Gaza Strip to bring attention to Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-controlled territory.

The 27 passengers, coming together from 13 different countries include Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead McGuire, Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti, and Israeli leftist Gideon Spiro. Israeli MK Jamal Zahalka (Balad) who was reportedly supposed to join the voyage, was not present on the boat.

They are scheduled to remain in Gaza for four days.

The boat chartered by the US-based Free Gaza group sailed from the nearby island of Cyprus on Tuesday and arrived in Gaza in pouring rain early Wednesday.

I wonder if the ship of fools is aware of the incident at the “passport office.” After all, they’ll need passports if they want to get into Israel. I hope this doesn’t impact their ability to get out of Gaza, like it did Tony Blair’s sister-in-law. (Well, of course that was sarcasm. I hope they get stuck there for months.)

Guess who one of the three nations standing by America was?

WASHINGTON – Israel was one of only two countries who stood by the United States on Wednesday at a United Nations General Assembly vote to lift the American trade embargo on Cuba.

The vote in the 192-member world body was 185 to 3, with 2 abstentions. The US, Israel and Palau voted “no” while Micronesia and the Marshall Islands abstained.

[...] “We proudly voted with the US, at a time where most of the world showed solidarity with Cuba,” said Israel’s Deputy UN Ambassador Daniel Carmon, “the decision was made by a solid majority, which is similar to the automatic majority against us in Palestinian decisions.”

“When the vote was over, applause and shouts were heard, which is unacceptable in the UN,” he added.

Wednesday’s approval of the resolution was the 17th straight year that the General Assembly called for the embargo against Cuba to be repealed “as soon as possible.”

“We expect that the new president will change the policy toward Cuba,” Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told the Associated Press in an interview following the vote.

Yeah, don’t hold your breath on that. If Obama wins, he won’t give up the Cuban vote. He’ll want Florida for his next term.

In the farewell interview, published Monday, Olmert also said Israel would have to leave the Golan Heights to make peace with Syria.

In the interview, Olmert said, “We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, one meaning that we will withdraw in practice from nearly all of the territories, if not from all of them,” Olmert said.

Olmert said Israel would keep “a percentage” of the West Bank but would have to give Palestinians the same amount of Israeli territory in exchange, “because without this there will be no peace.”

He also said Israel would have to leave parts of east Jerusalem, saying Israel couldn’t hope to maintain its control of the more than 200,000 Arab residents there.

Did I say “surrender entirely to the Palestinians”? Because what I meant was, “Surrender entirely.” Give up the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. And what, pray tell, will Israel get in return? Peace? You mean like the peace that exists for the residents of the Negev? The peace that exists in Sderot?

Israel will have peace, even thought Nasrallah is saying that there will never be peace with Israel because Israel doesn’t “belong” in that fictional nation known as “Palestine”?

“Jerusalem and Palestine, from the sea to the river, belong to the Palestinian people, the Arabs and the Muslims, and no one has the authority to concede a grain of earth, wall or stone from the holy land,” Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said Friday evening.

You mean peace with the Iranians even as they constantly predict the end of Israel?

You mean peace with Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that is calling for renewed waves of suicide bombings? The Hamas that’s looking to take over the West Bank, which Olmert says Israel “must” give back to the Palestinians?

It’s simply unbelievable to me that he’s managing to try his best to take the ship of state down with him as he drowns. He’s definitely Israel’s Jimmy Carter—trying to make deals where he has no authority, no mandate, and no business making those deals.

He can’t leave office fast enough for me.

The Knesset member tasked with the mission will be given 28 days, with a possible extension of 14 days. If this person fails, the president is authorized to order a different MK to form a coalition within an additional 28 days. Should the second MK fail to do so, the general elections will be moved up and will be held within 90 days.

That would be a good thing. Tzipi Livni will have been elected by fewer than 35,000 voters. Can you imagine a U.S. president being selected by less than half of one percent of the nation’s eligible voters? This is a government that should absolutely call new elections. She won with 16,936 votes. There are over five million eligible voters in Israel. Talk about selected, not elected. If the Israeli public stands for this—well, I’m going to stop here before I start hurting the feelings of my Israeli friends.

Three Jewish youths on their way to the Paris branch of the Bnei Akiva movement were attacked by a group of teens on Saturday, a short while before the end of the Sabbath. The three youths were hospitalized for a day due to the facial fractions caused by stones that were thrown at them by the attackers.

The boys were walking through Paris’ 19th Arrondissement, home to 20,000 of the French capital’s Jews. Raphi Zeush, a Jewish Agency and Bnei Akiva envoy to the city told Ynet, “Five Muslim and African youths came and threw chestnuts and cobblestones at them.

“One of the Jewish boys asked them to stop, and the French teens started cursing at him. He responded with curses and they called their friends. Another 10 teens came, some of them wielding brass knuckles, and a fight broke out.”

Raphael Haddad, the student group’s president, said that one of the Jewish youths suffered a broken nose and another a fractured cheekbone, while all three had considerable contusions.

But it’s not anti-Semitism. It’s anti-Zionism.

And oh yeah, France doesn’t have an anti-Semitism problem.

Syrian President Bashar Assad says his country will not recognize Israel before a peace accord is reached, and that democracy is not a goal for Syria.

In a television interview to France 2, Assad says ”it is impossible for recognition to occur before a peace accord.” He says there would be ”reciprocal recognition” if and when such an accord is reached. He said democracy is ”not a goal” for Syria. He said Syria’s goal is stability and that democracy is a ”means to improve the country and reintroduce freedoms.”

Just hours after receiving his French counterpart Nicholas Sarkozy in Damascus, Assad said that while he supports peace efforts, he continues to stand behind the Shiite Hizbullah.

On Wednesday Assad said that talks with Israel were opening the door to peace, but on Thursday he stressed that his country had no intention of breaking ties with the Lebanese terror organization.

He’s speaking from both sides of his mouth. Assad doesn’t want peace. He wants the survival of Bashar Assad overall. And he certainly doesn’t want peace with Israel:

He added, “We don’t see any interest in abandoning the resistance. Our position has always been clear. Our position toward the resistance against any occupation in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine is firm and has not changed. I don’t believe it will change until the occupation changes.”

Why is it, exactly, that Olmert wants to talk to this man? It’s obvious he’s lying about peace. Then again, Olmert doesn’t seem to have anything but his own political survival at heart. That might explain why he’d want to talk to an obvious liar.

In his speech Nasrallah stressed that even if Lebanon receives control of the Shebaa Farms,his organization will continue to battle Israel. “We are not using Shebaa as an excuse to bear weapons. If the area is freed the weapons will remain because we are talking about a defensive strategy against a threatening country such as Israel,” he said.

And of course, there are the threats:

He warned Israel against attacking Lebanon, as the IDF would lose. “All of Israel is saying that in a new war against Lebanon the only way to determine victory will be through terrestrial warfare, that’s why Barak promised us five divisions,” he said.

So, where is Nasrallah making these threats from again? Oh, that’s right. It’s a secure, undisclosed location—because he’s afraid he’s going to get a Hellfire missile enema.

Here’s hoping.

She’s one of the tools that led the “protest” against the IDF shutdown of Gaza by sending two boats in the other day. And now, neither Egypt nor Israel will let her into their territory.

Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair’s sister-in-law, who arrived in Gaza with a boatload of activists protesting an Israeli blockade, said on Tuesday she was stuck there because both Israel and Egypt had denied her entry.

Lauren Booth, sister of the former British prime minister’s wife Cherie, revealed her predicament as Blair visited the region to further Western-backed efforts to achieve a limited Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

Booth was one of 44 foreign “Free Gaza” activists who set sail from Cyprus, docking in Gaza last month, and was one of 10 who remained when the others sailed back to Cyprus on Friday.

[...] Booth said she has tried unsuccessfully in the past few days to leave through Gaza’s land crossings with Israel and Egypt. “I tried through the proper channels, through the United Kingdom’s embassy, but I was told I was not allowed to come through,” she said after trying in vain to enter Israel.

An Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman, Peter Lerner, confirmed Israel had denied Booth entry, saying there was a policy of refusing entry to anyone from Gaza who did not get there via Israel.

“There is no possibility to let in those people who entered by the sea. They cannot enter Israel,” Lerner said.

I have a suggestion. Swim.