"Political explosion" predicted in Iran

The Hollow Regime -Michael Ledeen

This past Sunday, 30 people were executed [in Iran] for a variety of alleged crimes, and a number lost their lives because they dared to criticize the regime.

This wave of executions in the world's second-most active killer of its own citizens (China tops the list) coincides with the anniversary of the resumption of public hangings last August. This weekend's mass executions mark a new, grisly watershed in the mullahs' ongoing terror war against their own people.

This dramatic carnage surely bespeaks a profound insecurity in Tehran. It documents the fear that dominates the rulers' nightmares, the fear of their own people, who are the greatest threat to the survival of the mullahcracy.

The Iranian regime is hollow. So far as we know, they are without atomic bombs and a reliable delivery system. Their economy is a shambles, their people hate them...

It is a political explosion ready to happen, it only needs the support of the West.
(National Review)

Palestinian: 'shame on us'

Killing the Dream -Zohir Andreus

It is difficult for me to be a Palestinian-Arab these days, because I'm simply ashamed.

The dream of establishing a democratic and secular Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel is dissipating. My people is the only one in the world that has no state and two governments.

World public opinion is justifiably asking: How can such a split nation establish a state if they behave this way towards each other?
The writer is CEO of the Israeli Arab newspaper Ma-Alhadath.
(Ynet News)

More Christians flee Islam

The damaged St. Matthew Church in Baghdad following a bomb attack

Christian Militias Combat Islamic Extremists -Damien McElroy

In the five years since the Anglo-American invasion of 2003, about half of the 800,000 Christians who once lived in Iraq have fled the country.

Now, civilians in Christian villages in northern Iraq have established their own security in an attempt to deter murders and abductions. "We are facing the threat of wipe-out," said Father Yusuf Yohannes.

The security patrols have already had an impact and there is a renewed willingness to resist the demands of Muslim radicals. "Why should Christians face arrest for not fasting in Ramadan?" asked Fr. Yusuf. "Why is it that women should cover their faces if God loves all human beings? We reject these things and want the right to our own culture."
(Telegraph-UK)

Rare Hamas Video: stocking up missiles for Israel...nice ceasefire

Zap 'em out of the sky: "the size of a baseball"

Missile Detection -Dan Williams

The U.S. will soon link Israel up to two advanced missile detection systems as a precaution against any future attack by a nuclear-armed Iran, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.

[T]he system has been described as capable of tracking an object the size of a baseball from about 2,900 miles (4,700 km.) away.

It would let Israel's Arrow anti-missile missile engage an Iranian Shihab-3 ballistic missile about halfway through its 11-minute flight to Israel.
(Reuters)

UPDATE:

Israel Can Shoot Down Dozens of Missiles Simultaneously -Yuval Azoulay

(T)he Israel Air Force unveiled Sniper, a system developed by three Israeli companies that identifies a target, whether missile or plane, while it is still hundreds of kilometers from Israel, enabling it to be struck with missiles.

The IAF stressed that this system is currently reserved for Israel's exclusive use; U.S. Patriot batteries elsewhere in the world are not equipped with Sniper.

Israel now has the ability to bring down dozens of missiles simultaneously, and to select which missiles to target based on each missile's projected landing site.
[Ha'aretz]

Iran caught with its pants down

Report: Iran Building Secret Nuclear Reactor

[T]he Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa reported that Iran had begun construction of a secret nuclear reactor in the Al-Zarqan region close to the city of Ahwaz in southwest Iran, on the Iran-Iraq border.
(MEMRI)


Secret Iranian N-Plant Discovered

The Al-Zarqan Nuclear Reactor is in the middle of very highly populated areas, making it a very difficult target due to a possibility that the Iranian authorities will use civilians as human shields.
(Arab Times-Kuwait)

A break from the MidEast: the other Bruce

Bruce Springsteen takes the stage at Giants Stadium

Soap Opera signals thirst in Muslim world

Some of the characters on "Noor," a hugely popular Turkish Television Soap Opera

Turkish Soap Opera Championing Equality for Women
-Karin Laub & Dalia Nammari

Every evening, tall, blue-eyed Mohannad, hero of the hugely popular Turkish TV soap "Noor," has been stealing hearts across the Middle East. He's romantic, attentive to his wife, Noor, supportive of her independence and ambitions as a fashion designer - in short, a rare gem for women in conservative, male-dominated surroundings.

"Noor" delivers an idealized portrayal of modern married life as equal partnership - clashing with the norms of traditional Middle Eastern societies where elders often have the final word on whom a woman should marry.

In Saudi Arabia, about three to four million people watch daily.
In the West Bank and Gaza, streets are deserted during show time.
(AP)


Saudi Grand Mufti Condemns Soap Opera -Hassna'a Mokhtar

The grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Asheikh, has condemned Turkish soap operas, which have charmed millions of people across the Arab world, and prohibited people from watching them.
(Arab News-Saudi Arabia)

Palestinians kill their own cause...again

Fatah and Hamas Getting Ready for Another Bloodbath? -Editorial

[T]he [Palestinian] [in]fighting has served to greatly undermine the Palestinian cause. It has become increasingly difficult for the international community to feel sympathy for the Palestinian people when their own leaders distract the world from their plight.

The image of lawlessness and internecine warfare conveys the image of a people who are simply not ready for self-governance or an independent state.

International mediators will soon grow tired of helping those who show no interest whatsoever in helping themselves.
(Daily Star-Lebanon)

Livni does something right

Israeli Foreign Minister Warns of U.S. Pressure -Gil Hoffman

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni came out against American efforts to have Israel reach an interim ["shelf"] agreement with the Palestinians before the end of President Bush's term based on the diplomatic talks that she has led.

"I don't want to be in the same situation that Ehud Barak was in at Camp David at the end of an American administration finishing its term and trying to put pressure on everyone to bridge gaps that cannot be bridged," Livni said.
(Jerusalem Post)

Reflections on the future of jihad

West Trying to Engage with Islamic Imperialists -Ari Morgenstern

How can the Lebanese nation honor Samir Kuntar, a man who in the dead of night slaughtered virtually an entire family? Calls for the West to engage in increasing dialogue with the advocates of Islamic imperialism that dominate the Persian capital and much of the Arab world grow louder each day, but the Beirut rally welcoming Kuntar shows the fallacy of this position.

This conflict is rooted in the viewpoint held by some followers of Islam that those who worship God differently than they should be killed for their religious beliefs or submit to Islamic rule. Hizbullah's embrace of Kuntar is the practical application of Islamic imperialism's genocidal philosophy.

History has shown that peace is achievable only when one side in a conflict is fully defeated or both sides make the conscious choice to at least begin to behave honorably. The West may not be perfect, but we seek peace and aspire to treat our enemies justly. Until certain portions of the Islamic world choose to regain some semblance of honor by rejecting rather than hailing the murderers in their midst, peace will remain beyond our grasp.

We in the West can certainly discuss ideas for reaching a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Islamic imperialism, but it is presently a futile endeavor, as our existence and humanity are simply non-negotiable.
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)


The Third Lebanon War -Giora Eiland

The reality in Lebanon is that the Lebanese government and people allowed Hizbullah to be the ruler along the border with Israel. Israel is not allowed to target the Lebanese state. It is only allowed to fight Hizbullah.

Israel must make this truth clear to its allies: that Israel cannot defeat Hizbullah as long as it is being supported by the Lebanese state. Therefore, if there is again aggression on the part of Lebanon, Israel would have no choice but to fight against the state that is encouraging aggression in practice. The only way to prevent another war is to make it clear that should one break out, Lebanon may be razed to the ground.

Those who had any doubt about the position of the Lebanese state should be reminded of the warm reception for murderer Samir Kuntar on the part of the Lebanese president and government ministers.
(Ynet News)

A sign of the future: Sabotage in Iran

Iranian Military Convoy Rocked by Explosion -Con Coughlin

A mysterious explosion on July 19 wrecked a Revolutionary Guards military convoy in Tehran, killing at least fifteen people and injuring scores more. According to reports received by Western officials, the convoy was taking a consignment of military equipment to Hizbullah in Lebanon.
(Telegraph-UK)

Jihadist's Ads in New York City Subways: Next Stop World Trade Center

Click on ad above for full size image

MUSLIM SUBWAY ADS HAVE TERROR TIE-IN -Jeremy Olshan

An Islamic group plans to blitz 1,000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam [pictured above] whom federal officials have linked to a plot to blow up city landmarks.

Siraj Wahhaj, the inflammatory imam, has defended convicted bomb-plotters and called the FBI and CIA the "real terrorists." [H]e serve[d] as a character witness for the defense in the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, "the blind sheik" who is now serving a life sentence for his role in plotting the 1993 WTC bombings.

"In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing, and the only thing that will remain will be Islam," Wahhaj said in [a] sermon.
[New York Post]

Boteach calls for Death Penalty in Israel

The death penalty for terrorists -Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

It is time that we articulate what few wish to, namely, that Israel must finally institute a death penalty for convicted terrorists.

To be sure, human life is of infinite value and every human being is equally a child of God. No country upholds this statute more than Israel, which is why it is prepared to set killers free just to retrieve the bodies of its fallen soldiers. Israel could have defeated Hizbullah and Hamas with ease had it not always limited its overwhelming firepower to protect innocent civilians. A country this virtuous naturally balks from putting anyone, even terrorists, to death.

But there exist those fiends whose crimes are so heinous that they have erased the image of God from their countenance and have forfeited any reasonable right to walk God's earth. Worse, keeping terrorists alive in prison just invites further kidnappings of innocent civilians and soldiers who are hunted down by Hamas and Hizbullah to exchange for their terrorist brothers.

[H]umanitarian considerations do not, cannot, apply to terrorists like Kuntar who infiltrate a country looking to dash children's brains against rocks. And keeping them alive once they are caught simply draws a bull's-eye on countless other innocent civilians who become magnets for trade.

Indeed, keeping terrorist mass-murderers alive in prison bespeaks a contempt for life, demonstrating as it does that civil societies lack the moral courage to draw a line and declare that the lives of mass murderers, after a fair and impartial trial, will always be forfeit.

There are times when a country must temporarily violate a principle to ensure it is upheld. Police cars speed to catch those who themselves speed on highways, thereby endangering other motorists. Surgeons cut open people's chests with knives to save their blocked arteries and stopped hearts. And just governments must sometimes take the lives of unrepentant terrorist mass-murderers to protect and uphold the infinite value of human life.
[Jerusalem Post]

Contrasts: Israel blows it

They used to make movies about Israel's heroism

Samir Kuntar and the Last Laugh -Daniel Pipes

Israel has lived the past sixty years more intensively than any other country. Its highs – the resurrection of a two-thousand year old state in 1948, history's most lopsided military victory in 1967, and the astonishing Entebbe hostage rescue in 1976 – have been triumphs of will and spirit that inspire the civilized world. Its lows have been self-imposed humiliations: unilateral retreat from Lebanon and evacuation of Joseph's Tomb, both in 2000; retreat from Gaza in 2005; defeat by Hizbullah in 2006; and the corpses-for-prisoners exchange with Hizbullah last week.

For those concerned with the welfare and security of Israel, I propose two consolations. First, Israel remains a powerful country that can afford mistakes; one estimate even predicts it would survive an exchange of nuclear weapons with Iran, while Iran would not.

Second, the Kuntar affair could have a surprise happy ending. A senior Israeli official told David Bedein that, now out of jail, Israel's obligation to protect Kuntar is terminated; on arrival in Lebanon, he became "a target for killing. Israel will get him, and he will be killed … accounts will be settled." Another senior official added "we cannot let this man think that he can go unpunished for his murder of a 4-year-old girl."

Who will laugh last, Hizbullah or Israel?

[Jerusalem Post]

VideoBite: Kuntar-Nasrallah Rally

If you can stand to watch it, here is a 3 and a half minute clip of Hizbullah's victory rally...notice how Nasrallah frames his speech as speaking for Lebanon.

Israel has succeeding in king-making. Hizbullah's gain is another big loss for Israel...one which was avoidable.

Israeli writer blasts Israeli leadership

Day of infamy -Naomi Ragen

Our soldiers, kidnapped on our own land, are brought back to us in caskets after two years of sadistic playfulness with the hearts of their families. And in exchange for dead bodies, we turn over a despicable baby-killer, Samir Kuntar.

[Y]ou will hear the boosters of the Israeli government sigh. What can we do? We are civilized and they are not. We care about our soldiers and their families. No, I’m afraid you do not.

If you cared, then you would have a death penalty for people like Kuntar, so that they too can be released in caskets. And if you cared, you would be intelligent enough, seeing our soldiers brought back to us dead, to have put a bullet through Kuntar and then turned him over to his friends.

Civilized is a euphemism for weak and helpless. [T]he moral thing to do to a tried and convicted murderer like Kuntar is to spill his blood, because he has spilled the blood of others. That may not fit in with current civilized niceties, but let no one say it is immoral.

I am deeply ashamed to be an Israeli today. To lead the world in ever more despicable acts of appeasement is nothing to be proud of.

If we cared about our soldiers, [w]e would be passing laws with a mandatory death penalty for convicted terrorists with blood on their hands. We would be making these laws retroactive.

[W]e would begin daily bombings of Gaza, with the same number and frequency of attacks that our own city Sderot has suffered over the past three years from the Gazans. Not civilized? Perhaps. But moral. Extremely moral.

My fantasy is that Israelis will rise up and overturn the political system which has left them with the dregs of their nation as leaders - a bunch of self-serving crooks and sycophants who will do anything to stay in office...
May G-d redeem us from them.
[YNetNews]

Note Kuntar's hand gesture

Samir Kuntar gestures to thousands of his fans. His resemblance to another historical figure is unmistakable.

They get a huge victory rally...we get...

...GRIEF.
(Outside of Regev home)

[AP Photos]

Hizbullah celebrates 'victory' with Kuntar

Newly freed arch terrorist Kuntar [smiling with flag around his neck] at Lebanon's celebration. Speaking is Nasrallah, Hizbullah's head.

A Word of Advice for Samir Kuntar -Ron Ben-Yishai

A small word of advice for Samir Kuntar. Ask your comrades in the PLO and Hizbullah what was the ultimate fate of various killers of Israelis and Jews years after they thought their actions were forgotten.

For example, what happened to the killers of Israel's athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics and their masterminds? The last of them died in unnatural circumstances 24 years after that horrific massacre.
[L]earn from the past and draw your conclusions.
(Ynet News)


Nasrallah Will Not Die a Natural Death -Rebecca Anna Stoil

MK Yisrael Hasson, who was also a former Shin Bet assistant director, said: "None of them will be absolved. Whoever bathed in Jewish blood, will not be able to tell their grandchildren anything, because they will never get to that stage."

"I have no doubt that Nasrallah will not die a natural death. The State of Israel will settle its accounts with him. He knows that better than we do."
(Jerusalem Post)


Abbas Congratulates Kuntar's Family -Ali Waked

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas congratulated the family of released Lebanese murderer Samir Kuntar.
(Ynet News)

Burka blues: radical Islamist denied citizenship

France Denies Citizenship to Veiled Muslim Woman -Angela Charlton

A Muslim woman who sheaths herself in a head-to-toe veil was denied French citizenship because she had not assimilated enough into the society.

France's highest administrative body, the Council of State, ruled that the woman had "adopted a radical practice of her religion incompatible with the essential values of the French community, notably with the principle of equality of the sexes, and therefore she does not fulfill the conditions of assimilation" listed in the country's Civil Code as a requirement for gaining French citizenship.
(AP/Washington Post)

Synagogues training terrorists

Atzmona synagogue, now a terror training site

Hamas Using Former Synagogues to Train Gunmen -Ronen Bergman

When Israel pulled out of Gaza in September 2005, the government decided to leave public buildings, kindergartens, libraries, schools and other structures whole for the benefit of the Palestinian population.

Terrorist organizations have been using these buildings for training purposes. One of the structures identifiable is the Atzmona synagogue...
(Ynet News)

Israel helps Lebanon unite around Hizbullah

Posters being prepared for the Lebanese 'national holiday' celebrating the release of arch murderer Kuntar

Lebanon Declares State Holiday -Aron Heller

The Lebanese government has announced a national holiday "to celebrate the liberation of prisoners from the jails of the Israeli enemy and the return of the remains of martyrs."
(AP)


Hizbullah Hands Over Coffins -Aron Heller

Hizbullah turned over to the Red Cross two black coffins believed to contain the bodies of Israeli soldiers captured two years ago, in a prisoner exchange with Israel. Israel turn[ed] over five Lebanese prisoners including Samir Kuntar [pictured at right being freed from prison].
(AP/Washington Post)


Palestinians Congratulate Hizbullah for "Freeing Heroes" -Ali Waked

Palestinians sent their warm wishes to Hizbullah for getting Israel to release prisoners. Ziad abu Ein, director-general of the PA Ministry for Prisoner Affairs, said, "The Palestinians congratulate Hizbullah and its leader and send their best wishes to all the Lebanese people ..."
(Ynet News)

UPDATE:
The picture below shows a newly freed Kuntar at celebration rally held in his honor in Lebanon. This photo has not been manipulated...his similarity to another murderous historical figure is mildly striking.
We get coffins [see Goldwasser's, of blessed memory, below].

Something good about Al-Jazeera

God Bless Al-Jazeera -David Keyes

Every Tuesday night Al-Jazeera superstar Faisal al-Qassem [pictured at right] hosts "The Opposite Direction," far and away the best program in the Arab world.

The show pits two guests against one another who, to put it mildly, hate each other's guts. Qassem will invite a Kurd whose entire family was killed by Iraqi forces and a Baath party loyalist who served under Saddam. He will invite a democratic Syrian dissident and an Assad lackey, a secular feminist and a radical Islamist. Guests storm off the show and regularly curse each other and threaten bodily harm.

Few tools have done as much to break the wall of Arab ignorance and lack of accountability as Al-Jazeera. Debates that were previously thought unimaginable in the Arab world are now heatedly discussed night after night and broadcast to tens of millions.

Vociferous secularist Wafa Sultan, Lebanese neocon Fouad Ajami, critic of radical Islam Daniel Pipes and terrorist-hunter Steve Emerson have all had significant face time on Qassem's show. They have defended secularism, democracy, and the West to tens of millions of Arabs. And Qassem's Arab guests are tyranny's most eloquent critics.

Al-Jazeera still has a long way to go, [y]et [it] has set a new gold standard for Arab media.

That Faisal al-Qassem is banned from most Arab countries and would be thrown in prison in Syria is a sure sign that he is doing a lot right.
(National Review)


UPDATE [on the other hand]:

Israel to Sanction Al-Jazeera over Party for Kuntar -Khaled Abu Toameh

For the second time this year, Israel has decided to act against Al-Jazeera, after the influential TV station held a party for released Lebanese child-killer Samir Kuntar in Beirut, where he was hailed as a hero who carried out a brave military operation against the Jewish state.

"We will suspend all handling of Al-Jazeera requests," said GPO director Daniel Seaman.
(Jerusalem Post)

Note: Click HERE for a video feed of Al-Jazeera's party for Kuntar

NY Times favors Palestinian narrative

Click on the graphic above to see a short video segment on NYTimes reporting bias against Israel

The New York Times: A Year-Long Analysis

[W]e looked at 205 articles between July of 2007 and June of 2008. [W]e found that, when reviewing headlines and photographs, there is an inherent bias in New York Times reporting about the conflict that favors the Palestinians.

[HonestReporting.com]

The pie-chart above is part of HonestReporting.com's report

"Trust Israel's instincts"

A simulation of Israel's 1981 destruction of
Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility

Waltzing with Beirut -Michael Oren

Winning in the Middle East means trust[ing] Israel's instincts.

The West's forward-most outpost in the Middle East, Israel correctly signaled the danger of Osirak and of a terrorist-dominated Lebanon. Israel is now warning about the cataclysm impending from a rapacious, nuclear-armed Iran.
The West would be well-served to listen.
(New Republic)

Cute doggie sparks "outrage"

Muslims outraged at police

A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat advertising a Scottish police force's new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean.
[Daily Mail -United Kingdom]

Weakening Iran?

International Sanctions Are Having an Impact -Howard LaFranchi

Iran's missile tests may be an attempt to cover over Iran's weaknesses and to draw attention away from signs that the international community's efforts to curtail Iran's nuclear program are having an impact.
(Christian Science Monitor)

Wolf bites: Palestinian Authority to cheer murderer...who's surprised

PA Wants Festive Funeral for Killer -Khaled Abu Toameh

The Palestinian Authority has asked Israel to hand over the remains of Dalal Mughrabi [pictured at right], the Palestinian woman who led the 1978 coastal road attack in which 36 people were murdered and 71 wounded.

The PA said it wanted to "honor" Mughrabi by holding a big funeral for her in Ramallah. Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah official closely associated with Mahmoud Abbas, described Mughrabi as a "the first Palestinian woman to carry out one of the most courageous operations in Israel."

"We want to turn Dalal's funeral into a national wedding, a major celebration," he said.
(Jerusalem Post)

Iran's other goal: The gulf's riches

What Iran Really Wants -Yoram Kaniuk

What Iran really wants is the Persian Gulf, which the Arabs refer to as the Arab Gulf.

What they want is the billion dollars a day earned by Saudi Arabia.
(Ynet News)

Coptic Christians under attack

Pressure Growing on Egypt's Coptic Christians -Ellen Knickmeyer

Under pressure from fundamentalist forms of Islam and bursts of sectarian violence, the most populous Christian community in the Middle East is seeking safety by turning inward, cutting day-to-day social ties that have bound Muslim to Christian in Egypt for centuries.

Attacks this summer on Coptic monks and shopkeepers, and scattered clashes between Muslims and Christians, have compelled many of Egypt's estimated 6 to 8 million Copts to isolate themselves in a nation with more than 70 million Muslims.
(Washington Post)

Hoping cows will pacify Hamas: Israel allows rockets to become status quo in "cease fire"

Israel Trades Cows for Calm -Karin Laub & Ibrahim Barzak

An Israel-Hamas truce has boiled down to a simple trade-off:
For a day of calm, Israel adds five truckloads of cows and 200 tons of cement to the basics it ships to Gaza, but rocket fire from the territory reseals the border for a day.

Under the Egyptian-brokered deal, Gaza's Hamas rulers are to halt rocket and mortar fire on Israeli border communities and Israel is to increase the flow of goods into Gaza.

[T]he Israeli army says 15 rockets and mortars have been fired since the truce took effect June 19.
(AP)

BBC is sorry it filmed attack

The Ramallah lynching in 2000.

Israeli soldiers and a few of their internal organs were thrown out the window to the cheering crowd below.

The media and enduring narrative -Caroline Glick

Last Wednesday's terror attack in Jerusalem was unique. Due to the fact that Husam Taysir Dwayat bulldozed his victims outside of Jerusalem Capitol Studios where many of the foreign television networks have their offices, his was one of only two attacks to have been caught live on camera.

The only other attack which was filmed was the lynching of IDF reservists Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Novesche at a Palestinian police station in Ramallah on October 12, 2000 [pictured above]. That attack, which showed the mob basking in the blood of the two men, was filmed by an Italian camerawoman. The attack last Wednesday was filmed by the BBC whose correspondent Tim Franks witnessed the carnage from the outset through his office window.

Their film documentation is not the only things those two attacks share. The lynch[ings] in Ramallah and the attack last Wednesday are also the only attacks that elicited abject apologies by otherwise arrogant media giants. In the aftermath of the lynch[ings], Riccardo Cristiano, Italy's state-owned RAI network's correspondent in Israel, wrote a groveling apology to the Palestinian Authority in which he went to painstaking lengths to explain that it was not his network, but his competitor that published the footage.

On Friday, the BBC published an apology for broadcasting the footage of Wednesday's carnage. What did the BBC have to apologize for?

In this case, as in the case of the lynching eight years ago, the reason the BBC apologized is not because the film's images were too gruesome, but because it strayed from the accepted narratives of the Palestinian war against Israel.

The film showed an unarmed, furloughed IDF commando climb onto Dwayat's bulldozer just after Dwayat murdered Batsheva Ungerman by crushing her car. It showed the soldier grabbing a gun belonging to a security guard who was unsuccessfully trying to restrain Dwayat and shooting Dwayat three times in the head. The film did not show Dwayat or any of his victims dying. What it showed was the terror of the wounded, Dwayat's murderousness and the soldier's heroism.

[W]hat all of this illustrates is that the media will only give us the information they wish us to have. And that information's relationship to the truth is arbitrary at best.
[Jerusalem Post]

Rejecting statehood

Bush Offered Palestinians a State; They Said No -Clifford D. May

Six years ago, on June 24, 2002, President Bush announced that the U.S. would support the creation of a Palestinian state. His only condition was that Palestinians first choose "leaders not compromised by terror." He asked also that they "confront corruption," and "build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty."

President Bush believed that Palestinians wanted a state to call their own - and that they wanted that more than they wanted the destruction of the Jewish state next door. Bush said: "If liberty can blossom in the rocky soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions of men and women around the globe....This moment is...a test to show who is serious about peace and who is not."

It was a test. And now it's time to be candid about the results.
(National Review)

Happy Independence Day to our readers in the United States

Peacenik Shimon Peres: 'forget peace'

President Peres: No Chance of Peace with Palestinians -Yossi Verter

[A]t a dinner in Defense Minister Ehud Barak's home with the Jordanian and French ambassadors, President Shimon Peres [pictured above] said "it would be very hard to reach an agreement" with the Palestinians, due to the Hamas-Fatah split.

He said Abbas had no support among his people, no power to carry out security agreements, and that any agreement Israel and the PA made crumbled a day later.
(Ha'aretz)


The Unlikely Prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian Agreement
-Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak

In Israel, many do not trust the PA. Even those who have always supported reconciliation with the Palestinians have begun to question whether Abbas and his colleagues can implement an agreement. No agreement can be achieved without the PA implementing law and order in the West Bank and Gaza.
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy)

The cancer within

Israeli Arabs riot in October 2000, supporting the Intifada

Barak instructs IDF to demolish home of bulldozer terrorist
-Dan Izenberg & Yaakov Katz

Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the IDF to begin demolition [of] the homes of Ala Abu Dhaim - who killed eight religious seminary students in March - and Husam Taysir Dwayat, who killed three Israelis on Wednesday.

"Yesterday's terror attack in Jerusalem was a type we haven't experienced in the past," [Prime Minister Olmert said]. "It was an attack carried out against Israel from within Israel, by someone from the Israeli side of the barrier."

[Jerusalem Post]

"A body for a body"

Exchange of Prisoners: An Absurd Imbalance -Leslie Sacks

Israel is giving up five prisoners including [arch terrorist] Samir Kuntar [in exchange for] two kidnapped Israeli soldiers, Regev and Goldwasser who are no longer alive...

The exchange would make both pragmatic, political and moral sense if the Israelis were to ensure that their prisoners were transferred to Hezbollah in the same state and condition as the two Israelis being received. A body for a body, a corpse for a corpse.

Perhaps then in future these terrorist regimes might be better tempted to follow the Geneva Convention and take the most rudimentary care of their prisoners.
[LeslieSacks.Blogspot.com]

Bulldozer reflections

Palestinian Terrorism as a Natural Act -Bradley Burston

On a quiet morning in Jerusalem, a man behind the wheel of a bulldozer has taken it upon himself to kill Jews.

What's a decent person to think when Palestinian groups fall over one another trying to claim the bulldozer attack? And when one of the groups is the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade?

What is it that Palestinians really want?

I no longer believe that it's as simple as wanting statehood. This is what I don't yet want to admit: that for all these years, what a critical mass of Palestinians want most, perhaps even more than statehood, may be nothing more than seeing Jews dead and gone.
(Ha'aretz)


Terror's Predictable Spontaneity -Gerald M. Steinberg

The constant pattern for over sixty years has been that whenever violent attacks against Israelis were contained on one front, another front was immediately opened, often involving a different form of violence.

Now the shaky cease-fire in Gaza is the signal for a new and different form of violence against Israeli civilians. Palestinians have been raised on the armed struggle, and many are capable of acting on their own, with whatever weapons are most readily available.

The steady flow of incitement in the media plays a central role in this process, including Palestinian television programming preaching the virtues of martyrdom and the glory of fighting the Zionist enemy.

[This] action may appear to be spontaneous, but the foundation and preparations are never far away.
(Jerusalem Post)

Terror rampage in Jerusalem

Moshe Plesser, an 18 year old IDF soldier,

hangs from the bulldozer after killing the terrorist

A wounded baby, whose mother was crushed,
is evacuated from the scene

3 killed, 66 wounded in Jerusalem terror rampage -Etgar Lefkovits & Jonny Hadi

Three people were killed and 66 were wounded when a bulldozer driver went on a rampage in downtown Jerusalem.

A half-dozen cars were flattened and others were overturned by the Caterpillar vehicle. A bus was also overturned, and another bus was heavily damaged.

A car was dragged several meters by the bulldozer before being crushed under the vehicle. A baby was pulled out by a passerby before the vehicle was crushed, with the child's mother still inside.

Finally, Moshe Plesser, [an 18 year old] off-duty [IDF] soldier shot the terrorist, who cried "Allah Akhbar" (God is great) before being killed.
[Jerusalem Post]
Video footage of Moshe Plesser shooting the terrorist is available at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mPsg5lEonc
[Hat tip: Lara M-Z]


UPDATE:

Israeli Mother Saves Baby -Abe Selig, Shelly Paz, & Jenna Stark

Seconds before being crushed to death by a bulldozer driven by a Palestinian, Batsheva Unterman succeeded in unbuckling her 5-month-old baby from the car-seat and passing her out through the window to safety.

"Just as I took the baby out, he reversed on top of the car. The baby is okay, but not the mother," said Jeremy Aronson, the man who helped save the baby.
(Jerusalem Post)


Three Israeli Fatalities Named in Palestinian Terror Attack

The fatalities in Wednesday's terror attack were all Jerusalem residents.

Batsheva Unterman, 33, who worked in a kindergarten, was killed when the car she was driving was crushed by the bulldozer. Her baby daughter, Efrat, was evacuated from the car just before the vehicle was hit. Elizabeth Goren-Friedman, 54, the mother of three children, worked as a teacher in a school for the blind. Jean Raloy, 68, a father of three, was an air-conditioner technician.
(Ha'aretz)