April 29, 2007

Barry Rubin in Cease Process, Not Peace Process reviews the peace process in all its ineptitude (worth reading) and argues

The first problem is that Fatah is not doing anything to help itself. Since Hamas took power in January 2005, it is impossible to detect any effort by Fatah to reform itself, strengthen its leadership, fight corruption in its ranks, or develop its unity. All the shortcomings that led Fatah to defeat in the January 2005 elections are still present. Nobody can save an organization that acts as if it is so bent on its own destruction.

The second problem is that Fatah’s main strategy in “combating” Hamas is to imitate it. Not that everyone in Fatah is radical and certainly not Islamist. But aside from the statements of a few, including Mahmoud himself, there is no big difference between them.

The third problem is that Fatah has accepted a role as Hamas’ junior partner. The two groups are rivals. But at present, they are allies.and concludes

and concludes,

The true proper option, though this isn’t going to happen, is to “decertify” the Palestinian movement. Since it did not deliver on its peace process promises and has essentially reverted to the pre-1993 policies (Hamas, actually, is back beyond 1974), the world should return to its positions of that era. That was when people understood that the movement sought to destroy Israel and was using terrorism. One day, was the hope, the movement would become moderate and a compromise solution could be negotiated with it. Until that happened, it would receive neither aid nor recognition. We’re still waiting.

Amen.

by Jerry Gordon,

While we await the release of the long-awaited Winograd Commission reports, Professor Efraim Inbar of Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies analysis is the closest we have to definitive criticism of the incompetent Olmert government, including the IDF military chiefs, during and following last summer’s botched mini-war in Lebanon. The Winograd Commission report will likely document in definitive detail their own analysis and recommendations save one-requesting the resignation of the Olmert Kadimah colaition government. More »« Less

By Ted Belman

Thursday I attended a panel discussion at the Hudson Institute in which the topic was Moderate Islam. All three speakers were Muslims with varying backgrounds. One was a Member of Parliament in Denmark who started a movement for Democratic Muslims. Another was a US doctor and the third was …

All professed to be democrats first and Muslims second. They presented a picture of Islam that gave room for their thinking and suggested that Islam was more about faith in God and the Golden Rule and that they could ignore political Islam. They even suggested that political Islam could be separated from the religion of Islam and that Sharia wasn’t binding and so on.
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By Ted Belman

IDF chief: Gaza incursion inevitable, THE JERUSALEM POST.

The only solution to continued Palestinian rocket fire into the western Negev is to implement a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip, said IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenzani during Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting.

But is it? The article in no way discusses what will happen after the invasion.

In a major article Israel’s strategy: Gaza and beyond, Ami Isseroff correctly analysis the options and the difficulties.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee, netwmd.com

Foolishly, but not surprisingly, the UN Commission on the Status of Women singled out Israel as the only country “found in violation of women’s rights” — while Arab/Muslim women are being whipped, murdered in honor killings, and beaten up for holding peaceful demonstrations. Israel’s Knesset (parliament) is democratically debating whether females, who already serve on the frontlines of defending the Jewish state, should be allowed to serve in “tank and infantry formations.” You go, (girls): More »« Less

Efraim Inbar:

Israel’s leadership was ill-prepared for the summer 2006 war against Hezbollah. Israeli politicians and planners displayed strategic blindness. While denying the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) victory, they squandered an opportunity to destroy the bulk of Hezbollah’s military presence in southern Lebanon, settle regional scores, enhance Israel’s deterrence, and strengthen Jerusalem’s alliance with Washington. …

Continue reading…

Cross-posted at netwmd.com and IsraPundit

By Arlene Bridges-Samuels

Delegates at The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Great Britain have voted 66-54 for a “boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa led by trade unions…” The 66 delegates who voted fo this misguided resolution did so while one of their own British journalists, Alan Johnston, is being held in the Palestinian Occupied Territory of Gaza (POTOG) kidnapped by Palestinian thugs.
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Comment by Jerry Gordon

My colleague, Brigitte Gabriel, founder and President of American Congress for Truth brings ‘truth to power’ in this edited interview with Larry Elder. She trenchantly discusses how her westernized Lebanon went under the knife of Islamist Jihad and didnl’t survive, Saudi spponsorship of hate-filled texts in Mosques and Madrasses here in America, that ‘moderate Muslims’ are really ‘non-practicing’ ones and account by her estimate for less than 2 percent of the ummah, how porous our borders are to infiltration by al Qaeda and other Islamist terror groups, setting up ‘sleeper cells’ here and why Hamas, Hezbolleh and Al Qaeda are ‘rooting’ for a dhimmicrat victory in 2006.

By Larry Elder, WorldNetDaily, April 26, 2007

Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese Christian who lived through jihad as a child, wrote “Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America.” This is an edited version of our interview. More »« Less

by Omri Ceren

* Filthy and disgusting:

Hezbollah militants erected a large photograph on Thursday of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in an area along Lebanon’s border with Israel. Lebanese security sources said the three-by-five meter photograph showing Goldwasser and Regev had been put up in Aita Al-Shaab, near where they were seized on July 12, 2006. Hezbollah supporters looked on, chanting anti-Israel slogans, while the poster bearing the slogan “for the sake of our detainees” and a yellow Hezbollah flag, was being erected.

Only in the Middle East could a much weaker force engage in such disgusting provocations with immunity. Think of the childlike machismo at work here. A primitive group of savages boast about their war crimes, knowing all the time that what keeps them safe is that they can run and hide behind the skirts of French UN peacekeepers. These are like particularly ill-behaved children, spoiled rotten as a result of being doted on by overly indulgent and extremely stupid parents.
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by Omri Ceren

Europe’s recent flirtation with Hamas is going swimmingly. Abbas:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday that a violation of a five-month ceasefire by Hamas was an exception and would not be repeated… “The violation of the truce is an exceptional event that will not last,” said Abbas at a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi in Rome.

Hamas:

Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip fired a barrage of rockets and mortars into Israel yesterday, declaring an end to a five-month cease-fire. Hamas’s military wing said the early morning volley was in response to Israeli actions it said effectively had ended the truce. Over the weekend, Israeli forces killed at least eight Palestinians, most of them fighters, during military operations in the West Bank and an air strike in Gaza, and Hamas leaders warned of possible retaliation.

Now some would react to this news by saying that it justifies the Bush Administration’s efforts to bolster Abbas. We think that’s stupid for a myriad of other reasons but at least it would be in the ballpark of logical. Cozying up to Hamas is just unrepentant terrorist appeasement. Bonus chaos after the jump. More »« Less