This year we’re going to have something new for Hannukkah: A video each night. You can thank regular reader chsw, who sent me a link to the video I’ll be using on the sixth night.
Tonight’s video: How Do You Spell Hannuka? by the LeeVees.
And we’re putting it in during the day so you can all enjoy before you go home from work. (Oh, like you don’t all call from work.)
Found a funny bit in the JPost today about Christopher Hitchens’ ignorance of Judaism. This is the best part:
Hitchens’ avers that: “If one could nominate an absolutely tragic day in human history, it would be the occasion that is now commemorated by the vapid and annoying holiday known as Hanukka. For once, instead of Christianity plagiarizing from Judaism, the Jews borrow shamelessly from Christians in the pathetic hope of a celebration that coincides with “Christmas.”
What? Hanukka takes from Christians? Awesome! The Maccabees were time travelers!
A BRIEF Hanukka refresher: The festival is a celebration of the victory in 165 BCE of the Maccabees, over the armies of the Hellenistic Syrians led by Antiochus Epiphanes IV.
Oops. Hey, feel free to be an atheist, Hitch. But perhaps you should know what you’re talking about before putting it down.
I have something in this week’s edition about the Dreaded Teddy Bear of Dooooooom.
The feature interview is with Evan Sayet.
This is the story that the mainstream media never covers: Muslim persecution of Christians is the major cause of the dwindling population of Christians in towns like Bethlehem.
Now, we are being told that Christians in the Palestinian territories will be completely eliminated within two decades. So the new Palestinian state will be not only Jew-free, but free of Christians as well. Another Islamic state will be added to the Middle East.
The ever-dwindling Christian communities living in Palestinian-run territories in the West Bank and Gaza are likely to dissipate completely within the next 15 years as a result of increasing Muslim persecution and maltreatment, an Israeli scholar said Monday.
“The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs,” said Justus Reid Weiner, an international human rights lawyer in an address at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he serves as a scholar in residence.
When you do get stories about Christians in the news services, it is usually from the angle that the Israelis are the Grinches taking away Christmas from Christians due to the anti-terror restrictions in the West Bank. Reuters generally doesn’t publish facts like this:
The Palestinian Christian population has dipped to 1.5 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, down from at least 15% a half century ago, according to some estimates.
No one city in the Holy Land is more indicative of the great exodus of Christians than Bethlehem, which fell under full Palestinian control last decade as part of the Oslo Accords.
The town of 30,000 is now less than 20% Christian, after decades when Christians were the majority. Elsewhere in the Palestinian territories, only about 3,000 Christians, mostly Greek Orthodox, live in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, out of a strongly conservative Muslim population of 1.4 million.
But the persecution of Christians in Palestinian territories has been going on since, well, since there were Muslims. But more recently, since Yasser Arafat was given control of the territories after Oslo. Christians have also been persecuted in Lebanon, Egypt, and other parts of the Middle East. Ninety percent of the 3 million Lebanese Americans are Christian. Muslims have been pushing Christians out of the Middle East for generations.
The Christian Science Monitor (among others) likes to beat up on Israel every year with stories about how the separation fence is ruining Christmas. They do not seem to be able to find stories about Muslims persecuting the Christians of Bethlehem, as does Ynet. I wonder if they’ll run an in-depth series featuring the disappearance of Christians in the Palestinian territories.
It’s not quite time yet for the “Israel is ruining Christmas stories,” but I expect them soon. Look for a run of them about a week before the holiday. We can compare and contrast with previous years.
It is a war crime to keep a soldier prisoner without any contact by the Red Cross or international organizations to check on the prisoner’s health and well-being. Not that a terrorist organization is bound by any rules of morality and ethics, but it’s good to remind the world that Hamas treats Israelis despicably, so that one can point to the difference between Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails, and Israeli prisoners in Hamas hands.
Hamas is denying yet again that they are willing to prove that Gilad Shalit is alive in order to foster a deal.
Hamas leaders denied Tuesday reports saying there was progress concerning a possible prisoner swap deal that would include Gilad Shalit, adding that it also did not agree to relay messages between the kidnapped soldier and his family in Israel.
Red Cross representatives in Gaza said the Islamist group agreed to pass on a letter from Shalit, but a senior member of the organization told Ynet, “There is no concrete discussion on anything, but if a fair and worthy exchange is put on the table, we will be willing to consider any offer.”
According to him, Hamas would agree to show signs of life from Shalit or discuss the possibility of a meeting between the kidnapped soldier and neutral party in return for the release of “hundreds of prisoners – not just one or two.
Of course, if Shalit is dead, then there’s good reason for Hamas to keep playing these head games.
The latest NIE reports that Iran has halted its nuclear weapons development and is likely a number of years away from being able to field a nuclear weapon. This estimate is being hailed because it takes the urgency of an attack on Iran “off the table” but it brings up a problem. Norman Podhoretz asks
These findings are startling, not least because in key respects they represent a 180-degree turn from the conclusions of the last NIE on Iran’s nuclear program. For that one, issued in May 2005, assessed “with high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons†and to press on “despite its international obligations and international pressure.â€In other words, a full two years after Iran supposedly called a halt to its nuclear program, the intelligence community was still as sure as it ever is about anything that Iran was determined to build a nuclear arsenal. Why then should we believe it when it now tells us, and with the same “high confidence,†that Iran had already called a halt to its nuclear-weapons program in 2003? Similarly with the intelligence community’s reversal on the effectiveness of international pressure. In 2005, the NIE was highly confident that international pressure had not lessened Iran’s determination to develop nuclear weapons, and yet now, in 2007, the intelligence community is just as confident that international pressure had already done the trick by 2003.
I can’t attribute dark motives to this turnabout. I’d like to, really, but the fog of bureaucratic turf wars is not something I wish to cut through right now. Regardless, this turnaround should bring up questions about the reliability of our intelligence gathering operations rather than serve as a rebuke to a trigger happy administration.
Gabriel Schoenfeld asks the right question though
What accounts for this about face, a disavowal of a judgment reached with “high confidence�
Schoenfeld wonders if this has something to do with the about face, though, on the surface, Asgari was seemingly providing information that pointed in the other direction.
Asgari, who according to reports is being held in a top-secret military installation, has been able to shed a new light on much of the Iranian regime’s most inner workings, especially regarding the Iranian nuclear development project.
Up until now, Iran – according to known intelligence – has been building two nuclear plants, in Arak and Bushehr, and has been using centrifuges to enrich uranium.
Iran, Asgari told his interrogator’s is working in another, stealth path, toward achieving its nuclear goal.
This third method involves attempts to enrich uranium by using laser beams along with certain chemicals designed to enhance the process. These trials are held in a special weapons facility in Natanz.
(much, much more at memeorandum.)
Instapundit (initially) takes the new NIE at face value, notes Well That’s Convenient and asks (rhetorically)
But what could have happened in 2003 that might have persuaded the Iranians to stop work on a weapon of mass destruction?
via memeorandumIt’s a sentiment that Thomas Joscelyn considers
Assuming for the moment that Iran really did halt its program, are we to believe that a substantial U.S.-led military presence in Afghanistan and in Iraq (or potential presence in Iraq, depending on when in 2003 this change supposedly occurred), had nothing to do with Iran’s supposed decision? That is, are we to believe that U.S. led forces on Iran’s eastern and western borders had nothing to do with Tehran’s decision-making process?
Also via memeorandum
(Hmm. Remember what David Pinto wrote to Instapundit? Maybe not, but I do. I’m a nerd that way.)
Meanwhile regardless of which NIE is correct, Ha’aretz concludes:
Professionals will now argue passionately, continuing the debates between Israel’s assessment (an Iranian bomb in 2009-2010) and the American one (a bomb in 2012-2013).The Americans failed to explain Monday how they reached their new conclusions. As such, the general public will find it difficult to decide who is right. Maybe in the future, when there suddenly really is a bomb in play, or maybe not a decision on this can be final. Meanwhile, Israeli intelligence has adopted the “most severe” approach, but the American decision maker is only affected by the Americans writing the assessment.
It does not really matter. However successful or flawed this report may be, there is a new, dramatic reality, in all aspects of the struggle against the Iranian bomb: The military option, American or Israeli, is off the table, indefinitely.
Given the American interest in the peace process and likely disinterest in Iran, Israel probably has to tread carefully even if its intelligence estimate differs from the American one.
One question: If the 2005 estimate concluded that Iran had stopped its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the new one concluded that it was now close to fielding a weapon, would the administration’s critics be counseling caution or action?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Last week the Washington Post expressed guarded optimism about the peace in the Middle East in An opening in Annapolis.
THE MIDDLE EAST peace meeting in Annapolis yesterday comfortably cleared the low bar of expectations that had been set for it. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and President Bush committed themselves and their governments to reaching a two-state peace settlement by the end of next year. At the last minute, the Israeli and Palestinian delegations agreed on a joint statement promising “vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations” to resolve “all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception.” The more than 50 countries and organizations that witnessed and implicitly blessed the new peace process included Saudi Arabia, which dispatched its foreign minister, and Syria, whose attendance may have opened a small crack in its alliance with Iran.
And yet the little signs I saw, showed something much less appealing.
First there was the behavior of the Saudis. David Horovitz writes about how the Saudis treated Israeli journalists and diplomats.
The United States on Monday indicated that it was willing to accede to the Saudis’ desire not to shake hands or otherwise be seen making overtures to the Israelis.”That’s going to be up to all of the representatives, how they decide to interact. We will of course be respectful of the various relationships, of the various states of relationships among the participants,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “They’re going to be focused on the tasks at hand. As the Saudi foreign minister put it, nobody’s interested in these uncomfortable situations where there are theatrics for the sake of photographs. We’ll of course be respectful and mindful of that as we’ll put together the various events.”
Other diplomatic sources have said that the Saudis don’t want any contact whatsoever with the Israeli delegation at Annapolis, and therefore the respective delegations will even use different doors to enter the meeting room.
Not only were the Saudis allowed to practice their form of anti-Israel apartheid, the Americans allowed it as a sign of “respect.” Allison Kaplan Sommer provided another telling detail.
During the ceremony, while the world press was watching Olmert’s speech, Barnea, who always has a sharp eye for telling detail, was watching the Saudi diplomats watch Olmert as he delivered his speech.“All of the foreign ministers put on their headphones (for translation.) All of them, except for one, the Saudi minister, Saud Al-Faisel. His ears, underneath his red keffiyah, were left bare. And no, it wasn’t because he understood Hebrew. It was the Saudi method of demonstrating their relationship to the State of Israel. Even as the Israeli Prime Minister was greeting him and speaking of peace, they were refusing to listen. For a minute I thought I was wrong that maybe there was a technical problem. But then I saw his aide next to him – also leaving his ears demonstrably naked.â€
Then, as Olmert’s speech ended, and the audience applauded. “The Saudi representative also brought his palms together in order to appear polite. Only someone who sat very close to him could see that the never touched. The little game that the Saudis were playing was just one contradiction – the least noticeable one – in a day full of contradictions.â€
So the Saudis who attended Annapolis couldn’t even be bothered to show PM Olmert basic courtesy. And yet, somehow, their presence was seen as a reason for optimism. A handshake would have been a very reasonable (though too insignificant) confidence building measure. And yet America couldn’t even prevail upon Saudi Arabia to do so.
Then we learned that the murderers of Ido Zoldan were Palestinian policemen and that announcement of their arrest was delayed until after Annapolis.
The IDF arrested members of a cell responsible for the murder of Ido Zoldan two weeks ago close to the northern West Bank settlement of Kedumim, it was cleared for publication on Sunday.According to army officials, the arrested men are Palestinian policemen from the nearby village of Qadum.
The IDF reported that two of the men, Abdullah Braham and Jafar Braham, were arrested on the night of the murder. A third terrorist, Fadi Jama’a, was apprehended by Palestinian security forces. The cell members are all 22 years of age.
There are a lot of factors obviously involved in making peace. But when making peace involves keeping slights and outrages quiet how can it be expected to work? Yesterday, I quoted columnist Jackson Diehl
Senior administration officials have told Olmert that he should prepare his public to absorb some terrorism without giving up on the talks.
Now it’s quite possible that the Olmert government is taking its marching orders from Washington. It’s also possible that Olmert has decided to keep the inconvenient aspects of Annapolis quite lest it trigger the fall of his government. For now he’s protected by two parties who claim to be against his diplomatic efforts and yet stay in the government. What if their constituencies started protesting? Playing down the little snubs and absorbing the violence is necessary to keep alive politically.
It also does very little for cultivating support for “painful concessions” and “risks for peace.”
The peace process in Israel wasn’t unpopular because it involved giving away land. It was unpopular because it didn’t work. In order to keep it going early, PM Rabin had to pull a parliamentary maneuver. Certainly Israel isn’t as safe as it was in 1993, the terrorist having established bases of operation in Gaza and Ramallah (and elsewhere) as a result of being invited in by Israel to make peace.
So the only way to convince Israel to go forward with the peace process is to argue that the alternative is too terrible.
“If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz Wednesday, the day the Annapolis conference ended in an agreement to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008.”The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us,” Olmert said, “because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents.”
This was too much, even for leftist columnist Yoel Marcus.
I almost fell off my chair when I saw the banner headline splashed across Haaretz’s front page: “Olmert: Two states or Israel is done for.” Israel is done for? I read this quote, taken from an exclusive Haaretz interview with the prime minister, in utter disbelief. Throughout 60 years of Israel’s battle for existence, no prime minister has ever declared that Israel might be “done for.” The closest anyone has ever come to that was the statement by Israel’s greatest general, Moshe Dayan, on the second day of the Yom Kippur War, when he told a forum of news editors that “the destruction of the Third Temple is at hand.” Some of the editors (among them Gershom Schocken) worried that Dayan’s desperation might leak out at the news conference scheduled for that evening. They called prime minister Golda Meir and the event was canceled. In the end, the tables turned and the war paved the way for peace with Egypt. Conclusion: Don’t scare the public. Israel is not done for, in any shape or form.
It’s worse than that. Olmert, by his declaration, has given the Palestinians veto power over any Israeli concession. All the Palestinians have to do is reject a concession as not enough and Olmert is forced to increase the concession. Because if he doesn’t mollify his “partners” the talks risk falling apart and the consequence of that is too terrible to allow.
But is that really what peace should be about? Should it be a matter of keeping quiet over the other side’s bad behavior and fear about the future? Peace and its benefits should sell itself. The problem is that the process hasn’t worked in the past and even its proponents believe that it holds little hope for the future.
So instead of selling a peace of hope, Olmert sells a peace of fear.
UPDATE: It was pointed out that the title to this post, is one of the “Sentiments for the Foreseeable Future” of In Context, a regular read. I suspect that I inadvertently ripped off the sentiment.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Okay. If you saw it, you have a theory as to what will happen next.
I am so bummed that there is a surviving twin. But I don’t believe anyone else is really, most sincerely dead, either. Heroes fell. They’re not dead yet.
I have ideas about Nathan, Nikki, Adam, and Bennett. And who this year’s Big Bad is. (I don’t think we’ve met the boss yet.)
Your turn.
Michael Oren sees good coming from Annapolis if you’re not looking for peace in Middle East peace through Anxiety
After arguing that the conditions for peace don’t exist (or aren’t that strong) Oren writes
The inability of the international community either to entice or deter the Iranians from producing nuclear weapons adds urgency to the need to unite those countries threatened by those bombs. That, and not American fiat, brought 49 states and organizations to Annapolis; that, and not the yearning for an Israeli-Arab accord, impelled a Saudi prince to sit alongside an Israeli prime minister.Not unexpectedly, the Iranians reacted ferociously to Annapolis. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pronounced it a “failure†and the government-controlled press promised to “bring down Islamic wrath†on its participants. But such rage merely betrays the anxiety induced by Annapolis in Tehran. For the first time a coalition of Western and modern Arab leaders has coalesced and declared its commitment to resist “extremism†in the Middle East — a well-known euphemism for Iran.
What’s more, new efforts have begun to confront Iran outside of the United Nations and woo Syria from Iran’s orbit. An international conference may not be the ideal formula for attaining Israeli-Palestinian peace, but it can provide a powerful forum for expressing solidarity in the face of war.
I don’t buy that wooing Syria from Iran’s orbit will be useful. I also can’t believe that with all the lip service given to “peace” that this conference was simply to deter Iran. Maybe Oren’s right, but I’m skeptical.
David Ignatius sees Iran as a focus too in the Road from Annapolis. (or here)
Annapolis was a setback for Iran. That country’s firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, tried hard to dissuade Syria from attending; his efforts, I am told, included calling his ally, President Bashar al-Assad. He failed, but if the Annapolis process should languish, Iran and its proxies could quickly regain the upper hand. That’s the danger of what Rice has set in motion. Now she has to make it work.
So whereas Oren sees Annapolis strictly as a response to Iran, Ignatius sees the “peace process” as a means of isolating Iran even further.
What needs to be done?
After dragging its feet on security assistance for the Palestinians the past two years, the United States has finally recognized that this is a crucial variable. To beef up the American effort, Rice on Wednesday named retired Marine Gen. James Jones as her “special envoy for Middle East security.” Jones is an adept mediator and has many friends in Congress and in Europe, where he was a popular NATO commander.
America did provide plenty of assistance to the Palestinians in the past, only to see it used against Israel. And if the United States is asking Israel to “absorb terrorism” how is that going to help? Declaring peace when there is none is not very effective.
A happy Annapolis surprise was the positive speech by Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Fayssal Mekdad, which American officials viewed as a break in the ice of U.S.-Syrian relations. Before publicly embracing a Syrian-Israeli track, Rice wants to see Syrian cooperation in electing a new president in Lebanon. But U.S. officials credit Syria for reducing the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq, and they are planning regular security meetings with the Syrians.
But at what cost? The Golan? That will only strengthen Syria, which has shown no reason to be trusted.
Lebanon is one example of how the Middle East logjam is beginning to break. After several months of deadlocked negotiations over a new president, the pro-American parties holding a slender majority in the Lebanese parliament announced last week that they will back the Lebanese army commander, Gen. Michel Suleiman. America’s key Lebanese allies, Sunni leader Saad al-Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, are both said to be comfortable with Suleiman as a compromise candidate. The Lebanese general has managed the trick of being friendly with Damascus, which originally backed his appointment, and also friendly with Washington. This compromise is not a perfect solution, and it leaves unresolved the future of Lebanon’s volatile Shiite militia Hezbollah. But it’s certainly preferable to a return to civil war.
Realistically, how much room does Suleiman have to maneuver? I can’t believe that he can act independently of Syria or Hezbollah without risk.
The big strategic challenge in the Middle East remains Iran. Rice believes that in dealing with such an adversary, it’s important to have some leverage. The Annapolis conference and recent American successes in Iraq have given the United States and its “realignment” allies a bit more of that strategic heft. The key now is deciding how to use the new leverage in a timely way, before it’s lost. Tehran isn’t yet on Rice’s travel itinerary. But someday soon it should be.
The leverage, such as it is, is diplomatic. There’s nothing for Iran to fear. Iran has shown no inclination to change its behavior. And nothing Ignatius has written suggests that it has any reason to do so in the future. So Ahamdinejad is a bit peeved with Assad, there’s really nothing more significant that than that happened at Annapolis.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
Jackson Diehl writes in today’s Fuses in Gaza
The Islamic Hamas movement, which won the 2006 legislative elections and took sole control of Gaza in June, spent the week of Annapolis quietly doing what it has been doing every week for the past six months: smuggling tons of explosives, rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, anti-aircraft missiles and Katyusha rockets through tunnels from the Sinai peninsula in Egypt. The explosives are used to make the crude Qassam rockets that are aimed mostly at the southern Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon. The Katyushas, new to Gaza, are being saved for the all-out war for which both Hamas and the Israeli army are vigorously preparing.Already, Israel is staging near-daily raids and airstrikes that have killed more than 200 Gazans this year. The power, fuel and water supplies it controls are being dialed back, with the aim of creating suffering just short of a humanitarian crisis. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has pronounced the same warning repeatedly in recent weeks: “Every day brings us closer to a broad operation in Gaza.”
First of all the Qassams have been fired at Israel for a lot longer than six months. Elder of Ziyon started his Qassam calendar in February when it became clear that the media wasn’t going to report on the regular attacks on Israel. So the regular Qassam attacks have been going on for at least a year.
Diehl may play up the Hamas election and downplay its attacks on Israel (as if Hamas wasn’t responsible for many of the suicide bombers we’ve seen since 1994) but doesn’t it tell you something about the legitimacy of Hamas if one of its primary qualities is that it is waging war against Israel where no occupation exists?
Israel, by the way, is not attempting to create “suffering” but to disrupt the ability of the rocket makers and shooters to attack civilian targets. Its humanitarian concern is why it keeps the level of suffering “short of a humanitarian crisis.”
The Bush administration, characteristically, favors a policy of continued “isolation” — it would keep Gaza on ice and turn the rival West Bank administration of Abbas into a showcase. In a few months — maybe even before a peace deal is reached — Gaza’s population could be asked in an election to choose between continued misery and Abbas’s promise of statehood. That might work as long as the Qassams keep missing and Hamas doesn’t try something larger. And if it does? Senior administration officials have told Olmert that he should prepare his public to absorb some terrorism without giving up on the talks.
How much of this is coming from the administration and how much from the Olmert government, is uncertain. But this is very disturbing. And if the terror is coming from Fatah no doubt the administration would also advocate Israel’s absorbing terrorism instead of stopping talks. To the degree that this is true this is unconscionable meddling in Israeli security. (And it doesn’t bode well for the tenure of Gen. Jones.)
However Diehl also writes
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have a different strategy — one that directly undercuts Bush’s. Both Israelis and Americans believe that the Egyptian government has chosen to tolerate the smuggling from Sinai into Gaza. President Hosni Mubarak, they say, is hedging his bet on Abbas and avoiding a complete break with Hamas. Both Egyptian and Saudi officials are quietly pushing for renewed negotiations between the two Palestinian factions, in parallel with the peace talks. The problem is that Abbas, so far, hasn’t been interested in striking a bargain with Hamas.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia’s action is only described as undermining the administration’s not as inimical to peace efforts. (“[C]hosen to tolerate?!?” How much more delicate could Diehl have been?)
The one option that doesn’t seem to be getting serious consideration is perhaps the only one that Hamas itself might accept: a cease-fire with Israel that would end attacks by both sides, open Gaza to normal commerce and allow the peace negotiations to go forward without interference. Such a deal, which is favored by the out-of-power Israeli left, doesn’t fit with the Bush administration’s vision of a polarized Middle East in which Iran and its allies are irreconcilable. Hamas might indeed be unyielding in its opposition to peace. But if there is no cease-fire, prepare for war.
Perhaps dealing with Hamas is off the table, perhaps not. But Diehl, in his sloppiness, before ignored the length of time that Hamas has been encouraging the Qassams. Elder of Ziyon started keeping the calendar because the Qassams persisted despite a Hamas ceasefire.
So the question is why in the world is Diehl advocating a policy of continuing to tolerate the intolerable? Is his vision of peace so warped that peace can only be achieved by Israel absorbing terror?
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
It’s past time that Ehud Barak made good on his promise to clean up Gaza.
Four soldiers were lightly injured Sunday evening from a mortar hit on an infirmary in an IDF base adjoining Kibbutz Nahal Oz, next to the Gaza Strip.
The injured soldiers, three men and one woman, were evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon and Soroka Hospital in Beersheba to receive treatment for their wounds. Around 15 mortars have been fired thus far Sunday from the Gaza Strip toward Israel.
There were between 5-8 mortars in the barrage that hit the base, one of which hit the base infirmary in which four soldiers had sought shelter. One paramedic broke her hand, two other soldiers were hit by flying shrapnel and a fourth went into shock. The injured soldiers received immediate first aid from on-base medical personnel.
The IDF took out a few terrorists.
Between Sunday night and early Monday morning, five palestinians were killed in two separate IDF actions in the northern Gaza Strip. An IDF force killed two gunmen who were trying to launch a mortar shell into Israel, and later a Golani Brigade force in the Saja’eeyah area killed three armed men attempting to reach the border fence.
Not good enough.
Earlier, a barrage of more than 10 mortars were fired toward the Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council. Three mortars landed in a kibbutz, while the rest landed in open fields near the Gaza border fence. No injuries or damage were reported.
[…] Also on Sunday, a Qassam rocket landed in an open field near Sderot.
In the past week, dozens of mortars were fired from the Gaza Strip. Last Friday five mortars landed near the border fence. Two days earlier, seven mortars were fired from the Strip and landed in open field.
Funny how we don’t hear the world talk about the need to stop rockets from raining down on Israel as part of the peace deal. But then, they do—they just insist it can’t be done, or isn’t part of the deal.
Haveil Havalim #143 is UP!
Haveil Havalim is the Israel/Jewish blogging carnival.
Among the great posts:
The history of the UNRWA
Asser Levy
When Hebron is as distant as Lebanon
How should you light?
The categories are:
Annapolis
History
Israel
Politics
Humor
Judaism
Torah
Culture
Antisemitism
And that first one is rather large.
Please check it out and enjoy.
You know, in all the fuss about Venezuela, I never once thought to check on the country’s population. So many people were making so much about it, I thought, gee, Venezuela’s gotta be playing in the big leagues, right?
Twenty-six million people.
WTF?
Twenty-six million people? Twenty-effing-six million people?
You have got to be kidding me. That’s barely a blip in the U.S. census. That’s the entire number of illegal immigrants in the southwest. No, wait, add in the northeast, too. What-EVER. I can’t believe we even care about such a dipshit little nation.
We haven’t had a rip-roaring case of Meryl’s near aneurysm brought on by the AP media spin, so have at it:
First, we have the headline:
Israel’s Premier Rejects Peace Deadline
Note that it’s all about Israel rejecting peace. Let’s look at the lede:
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Israel is not bound by a December 2008 target for a peace agreement set at last week’s U.S.-hosted Mideast summit, telling his Cabinet that progress will depend on the Palestinians’ ability to rein in militants.
Note the words in bold. The peace “agreement” is a target. It is not an agreement. It is not binding. It is not a signed document, treaty, deal, or binding agreement of any kind. It is a target. A goal. A hoped-for state. And on what does that progress depend? Let’s take one more look:
progress will depend on the Palestinians’ ability to rein in militants
In other words, Olmert will not consider himself bound to any peace agreement that doesn’t also include an end to attacks on Israelis. Which means that the agreement is not being fulfilled by the Palestinians, who are bound to end attacks on Israelis. Not try to end attacks on Israelis. End them.
The comments reflected Olmert’s internal political weakness. Hard-liners have threatened to bring down his coalition government if he makes too many concessions in peace talks with the Palestinians. Olmert spoke a day before Israel was set to release 429 Palestinian prisoners in a gesture to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, a step that has drawn criticism from the same hard-line members of Olmert’s Cabinet
One would think that the comments reflect on Mahmoud Abbas’ weakness, but then, one would have to buy into the sham that he actually wants to stop attacks on Israelis. I am not one of those people. Now, however, let’s look at the language that was spoken at the conference:
At the Mideast conference sponsored by President Bush, the leaders agreed that “an effort will be made to hold accelerated negotiations in the hope that it will be possible to conclude them in 2008,” Olmert told his Cabinet, according to a statement. He added, “However, there is no commitment to a specific timetable regarding these negotiations.” The target coincides with the end of Bush’s term.
Well, duh. There’s no timetable? No commitment? Everyone knew that going in, and coming out. The AP knows that. And yet, that did not stop the AP editors from mislabeling this story to make it look like peace will not occur because Israel doesn’t want it. And even now, the AP continues its policy of moving the goalposts for the Palestinians any time that any sort of effort is made to hold them responsible for stopping the murder of Israelis.
Under the plan, the Palestinians must rein in militant groups that attack Israel _ a task that will be hard for Abbas to carry out so long as Islamic Hamas militants rule the Gaza Strip.
Hamas wrested control of the territory from forces loyal to Abbas in June, and remain firmly in control there. While Abbas claims to have authority over the territory, in practice he does not.
I swear, we don’t even need Hamas spin doctors. We have the wire services, and all the rest of the mainstream media. But especially, the wire services that push this crap to thousands of papers worldwide. Thanks, AP, for the unbiased look at the news. Shyeah. Right.
You know, I had to memorize Elizabetth Barrett Browning as an undergrad. I may have to do a riff for the AP:
How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways…
The IDF killed five Hamas terrorists, and wounded a number of PRC terrorists. Nicely done, but not good enough, since rockets are being fired just about every day.
An Israeli airstrike killed five Hamas members early Saturday, prompting threats by Gaza militants to fire longer-range rockets at Israeli border towns.
Eight people were wounded, including one critically, in the strike near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, close to the border with Israel, said Moaiya Hassanain of Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Hamas said the dead were members of its military wing, while many of the injured belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees, a smaller militant group allied with Hamas. Hamas said the men were on a night patrol east of the town.
Gee, you think that “patrol” may have been like this one?
Each six-man unit travels with rocket-launchers, machineguns and grenades and carries a locally made antitank mine similar to the explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) that have wreaked havoc against allied armoured vehicles in Iraq.
If so, good shooting, IDF. Five out of six!
And of course, the threats continue:
Abu Mujahed, a spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, said his brother was one of those killed in the airstrike. “This is a tax we pay for (creating) a homeland,” he said.
Abu Mujahed said his group had plans to fire longer-range rockets at Israel.
“The real barrage of rockets has not yet begun,” Abu Mujahed said, adding that “22 kilometers is not the ceiling.”
It appeared to be a threat to use 122mm Katyusha rockets, which can hit targets up to 19 miles away, about twice the range of the thousands of homemade Qassam projectiles that Gaza militants have fired at Israeli communities in recent years.
Gee, ya think? And once again, note the modifier “homemade,” as if these rockets don’t kill or wound. They do.
