An Israeli woman stands outside her damaged house after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza landed in the southern town of Sderot

And this picture with this caption:

Palestinian Hamas militants take part in a training exercise in Gaza

Noah Pollak noted:

Yuval Diskin, the head of the Shin Bet — he was against the Hamas cease-fire in the first place — tells Haaretz that both arms smuggling and terrorist training in Gaza have increased since the cease-fire took effect.

So the ceasefire has had the effect of forcing an Israeli family, once again, to seek shelter, while the terrorists of Hamas train openly without fear.

Related thoughts at Yourish, Bookworm Room and Mere Rhetoric.

On Palestinian police:

And here we have a picture from the Berlin conference in support of Palestinian civil security and rule [of] law where these important people will discuss funding Palestinian police so that they can balance things on their noses, dance the Hora and fix their pants.

On normalcy:

This idyllic picture of people in the surf is accompanied by a caption that “Palestinians” are enjoying a day at the beach. On closer inspection, you see that the caption should have read “Palestinian men.” Except for a few small girls, the folks clad in bathing suits are all men.

Where are the women? Oh they’re also at the beach. Here, in burqas. I don’t imagine that they’re enjoying the day nearly as much.

My point isn’t to complain about the separation of the sexes. That, by itself, doesn’t bother me. It’s that these pictures are being used to show how the Israeli agreement not to defend itself has now allowed these people to live normally. But it’s not normal in the Western sense. The fact that the women dare not attend the beach in anything less bulky than burkas shows that the organization governing Gaza is one that enforces a rather rigid Islam on its inhabitants. And that bit of information isn’t being reported. Just that Israel has finally relented
and allowed the Gazans some normalcy.

Related thoughts at Elder of Ziyon.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

There were a couple of pictures yesterday, that defied categorization. The recently trained (in Jordan) Palestinian police just returned to Jericho and were demonstrating their “martial arts skills.”

First we have this guy. I’ll call him the perfectly parallel Palestinian policeman. (Or in relation to his sparring partner perfectly perpendicular Palestinian policeman.) I’m no expert in martial arts, but I’ve never seen a move like this.

And then there’s this guy. The spreadeagled guy in front, specifically. What happened? Did he spreadeagle too far? I see Paris, I see France …

(see also Elder of Ziyon.)

Speaking of ripping and the Palestinian police, one Steven Smith who was involved in the training really ripped into them in the pages of the IHT.

Many of the Jordanian instructors were pressed into service and simply didn’t have the expertise, equipment, or the time to provide good instruction. A first-aid instructor teaching CPR had never taken CPR himself and taught his students to give chest compressions on the abdomen of a retail store mannequin instead of a CPR dummy.The firearms training failed to include failure drills, discretionary shooting, the use of cover and concealment and weapons cleaning. Only a few students demonstrated skill at assembling and disassembling their firearms. Students firing just 60 rounds of ammunition at close range who could hit the target were pronounced qualified.

The congressional investigators and journalists I saw were steered clear of any training that was substandard as well-rehearsed students put on demonstrations of police skills designed to impress laymen.

(h/t My Right Word)

Well I hope that you laymen were impressed.

I’ll remind you that Gen. Kenneth Dayton was in charge of the training. The Muqata provides a sobering reminder of past accomplishments of the Palestinian police.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.