Boker tov, Boulder!

Home in time for Shabbos

One day I'll tell you all about my anthropological fieldwork in Posh Resort World, but not tonight. Just walked in and I have to check the news.

At first glance, the terrorists seem to have maintained the upper hand: our soldier is not returned and Hamas is not caving to Israel's show of force. Otherwise, except for Israel striking the Palestinian Interior Ministry building, things seems much the same:

UN rights body targets Israel. check.

UN Security Council Debates Israel's Gaza Offensive. check.

Israel aims to topple poorpalestinian "government". check.

Oh, and never mind that "they started it"... that's ancient history now, lost in the MSM shuffle.

Well it's almost Shabbos anyway and it's all in Hashem's hands.
I know you will be praying with me for Am Yisrael.

Misc.

Two items from Daily Alert, which you might not see otherwise:

Palestinian Rocket Explodes on Launch

Hamas member Kasam Masoud and his baby sister were killed, and seven Palestinians were wounded, in an explosion of a Kassam rocket as it was being launched at Israel from Khan Yunis in Gaza. (Maariv-Hebrew)

Taken Hostage - Yossi Klein Halevi

Nothing unites Israelis in outrage more than the seizure of hostages. On July 4, Israel will mark the 30th anniversary of the Entebbe operation that freed over a hundred Israeli hostages, and little has changed since then in the national ethos of rescue. The last Zionist ideal still shared by most Israelis is the determination to fight back. An Israeli soldier held hostage is a taunt against the Zionist promise of self-defense, an unbearable reminder of Jewish helplessness.

Our obsession with hostages is a tactical weakness but a strategic strength. It allows terrorists a stunning psychological advantage: With a single random kidnapping, they hold an entire society emotionally hostage. Strategically, though, hostage-taking only strengthens Israeli resolve. (New Republic)

It may be a while before I post again (going on another excursion/adventure), so if you find yourself without anything to do or read, you can try this NY Times editorial from yesterday: Patriotism and the Press ... and subsequent commentary here.

Yes, Charles, the Palestinians Are to Blame

Charles at LGF writes:

By the way, I’d like to make something clear. When I title a post, “Palestinians Claim Hostage Murdered,” I mean it exactly that way. It’s not a “group” of “militants,” “loosely linked” to Hamas. It’s the Palestinian people. If they want to be a state, that means taking responsibility for their elected government.

And the Palestinian populace voted overwhelmingly (as CAIR is fond of telling us) for the Hamas government, knowing full well its radical nature and genocidal intent. What’s happening today is a direct result of that election.

I’m sick to my soul of this politically correct attitude of coddling savagery.

If 18-year old Eliahu Asheri really has been murdered by his kidnappers, every single Palestinian who voted for a Hamas candidate bears some of the blame.

For affirmation, one need look no further than this Jewish Current Issues post from the other day: The Palestinians Speak Their Mind:

56% of Palestinians support armed attacks
against Israeli civilians inside Israel

The terrorists are to blame; the Palestinian people who voted for, and continue to support and hide the terrorists are to blame; and I think the global press is also largely to blame... for treating the Hamas like a legitimate civil entity.

Cabinet Secretary General of the Hamas led Palestinian government Mohammed Awad, left, and Minister of Information Youssef Rizka, right, addresses reporters at news conference in Gaza City, Thursday, June 29, 2006.... (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

See also Soccer Dad on the "evolution" of views over at the Washington Post.

... the editors of the Washington Post seem to feel that as long as more extremist Palestinians exist those who aren't as extreme are, by definition, "moderate" or reasonable.

Boker tov ~ Catching up on the news

Two Kassam rockets hit Sderot late this morning, two people injured.... Reuters reported that a terrorist spokesman said Arabs had fired a chemical rocket at Israel Thursday morning. An IDF spokesperson said the army had not detected the firing of any such rocket.

The IDF confirmed early Thursday a report the Popular Resistance Committees issued from Gaza that it had executed Eliyahu Asheri, 18, of Itamar, who was kidnapped earlier this week in the West Bank. Asheri's family has been notified. His funeral was scheduled to take place at 2:30 p.m. in Jerusalem, with the funeral procession to pass from Beit Sanhedria to the Mount of Olives in the city.

... more than 60 senior Hamas figures, including many members of the PA government, were arrested overnight.... in Ramallah, Jenin, Jerusalem, Shechem, Kalkilyeh, Bethlehem, Hevron and other towns throughout Judea and Samaria, starting shortly after midnight. Among those captured in simultaneous operations in many PA cities are members of the PA government and parliament, and senior Hamas movement leaders. Israel emphasized that the arrests were routine police arrests of criminals suspected of membership in a terrorist organization.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants ... taunted the Jewish state on Thursday.... spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC)... set out three scenarios.

"Possibility one: the missing soldier, for one reason or another, is dead and maybe there is a morgue available for his body or maybe there is not,"

"Possibility two is the soldier is still alive but is suffering a serious injury. Medication might be available or might not be available ....

Possibility three is that he is fine but that a long time will pass (before he is released)."

Israel went to sleep Wednesday night thinking there was a third person in the hands of terrorists. By Thursday morning, however, police had found Moskowitz's body .... Police say it is unlikely that Moskowitz was killed, but appears to have died of natural causes. They estimate that the terrorists scanned reports of missing persons and issued the claim of kidnapping to frighten the Israeli public.

Any good news?

With Israeli soldiers set to engage in battle with the terrorists tomorrow, I can't think of much else, but I did notice that CU intends to fire Ward Churchill and that Oracle CEO Lawrence Ellison is refusing Harvard a $115 million donation he had pledged... because of Larry Summer's resignation. Ellison told the Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper, "I lost confidence that that money would be well spent."

Please pray for the IDF and say tehillim.

Body found in Ramallah may be Israeli civilian teenager

YNet

IDF officials estimate that the body found in a deserted wadi in the Ramallah area is that of 18-year-old Eliyahu Asheri of the Itamar settlement.

Asheri was kidnapped early this week by the Popular Resistance Committees. Palestinian sources told Ynet that a large IDF forces arrived at the wadi and located the body in a vehicle – apparently after receiving intelligence information. The body was then transfered by ambulance to army base Ofer for identification.

Arutz Sheva

Elsewhere Wednesday, an Israeli motorist was the target of a shooting attack by Arab terrorists while driving through Hawara, in Samaria. The attack occurred near a local gas station. No injuries were reported.

Three Arabs were killed in Khan Younis, in Gaza, when a bomb they were constructing in a residential house blew up ahead of schedule. Another such “work accident” took place Tuesday inside an Arab car in Gaza City, killing one.

The Red Dawn missile alert system sounded Wednesday evening in the western Negev as two more Kassam rockets were fired toward Jewish towns in the region. None of the rockets hit any residential areas.

In Kiryat Arba, near Hevron, residents blocked the main highway to Arab traffic in protest of the fact that PA residents continue to travel freely on Israeli-built bypass roads despite the wave of terror attacks and kidnappings, while Jewish residents are being told to refrain from hitchhiking outside their communities. In Kedumim, in the Shomron, residents also blocked the road to Arab traffic.

Palestinians are "preparing deathtraps"

YNetNews.com

The Air Force dropped leaflets in northern Gaza ahead of the operation, in which it called on residents to abide by IDF instructions and refrain from wondering around any area in which forces are operating in. The leaflets also warned the forces are working to free the kidnapped soldier, and added that anyone who interfered with the operations is exposing himself to danger.

An al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Member, Abu Ahmed, told Ynet that despite the threats being heard, local organizations are preparing for the IDF incursion. "In previous invasions the Israeli side absorbed heavy losses in armored personnel carriers and jeeps that blew up, but this time we promise that the losses on the Israeli side will be much larger. We are preparing suicide bombers, car bombs, tunnels, and booby trapped donkeys. Everything that the Israelis encounter could turn out to be a deathtrap," he said.

Abu Ahmed said that the Palestinian fighters will use massive amounts of rockets and mortars against the IDF forces that will advance towards them. "We will use tonight and in coming days in weapons and rockets that have not yet been operationally used. The Israelis won't know from where they are being it. Northern Gaza will turn into one large cemetery for the invaders. We also commit to carry on firing rockets on Sderot and Ashkelon during the Israeli operation."

The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades commander refused to address reports that other senior figures in his organization succeeded in creating rockets that could contain chemical or biological agents. "I don't want to address what we have or don't have. The coming hours will do the talking," he said.

Abu Ahmed added that the IDF is trying to turn the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit into an embarrassment. "I promise that the mujahadeen (holy fighters) will do everything so that the result will be the opposite. Our main mission, other than repelling the invasion, is to capture as many Israeli soldiers as possible."

He said that every Palestinian organization will take part in the fight against the IDF, despite the recent tensions between Hamas and Fatah.

There IS a solution

Indyk: No solution to Jerusalem "sovereignty dispute"

The thorny issue of sovereignty over Jerusalem's holy sites as part of any future peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is best left untouched since there is no solution that will be agreeable to both sides, former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said Wednesday.

"In the Middle East and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular some problems do not have solutions," Indyk said in an address at the Jerusalem Conference, a city-sponsored event aimed at boosting Jerusalem's economy. "You should leave well enough alone."

I have no doubt that Natan Sharansky and the other folks at One Jerusalem will disagree -as do I- quite vehemently with Indyk's statement.

Let this be a signal to you. If you haven't yet signed the petition for a UNIFIED JERUSALEM UNDER ISRAELI SOVEREIGNTY, with free and open access for all people to the holy sites of Christianity, Islam and Judaism... well, what are you waiting for?

Caroline Glick

Our World: Israel's rude awakening

It is painful to watch Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni try to contend with the terrible outcome of the Palestinian terror strike against the IDF on Sunday morning.

They use so many fancy and angry words. They sound so resolute. And yet, they have nothing useful to say. Two soldiers are dead, a third is now the prisoner of jihadist killers, seven are wounded, an IDF border post has been overrun, and a world view and a security doctrine have been blown to smithereens.

Olmert and his associates have four general messages. First, they tell us that Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas is responsible for bringing about Cpl. Gilad Shalit's release. Second, they say Hamas better watch out because they're gonna get it. Third, they say that Hamas won't get it until later. Finally, while stipulating that they will not negotiate with Hamas, Olmert and his associates are negotiating with Hamas.

None of these messages and none of the actions that attend to them have any chance of making Israel safer. They also hold little promise of bringing Cpl. Shalit home. Yet there is next to no possibility that Olmert or his associates will widen their options to include any relevant responses to Sunday's terror offensive. Doing so would involve an admission that what the Kadima and Labor parties have presented to the public as their world view is wrong.

That world view involves a denial of a basic, fundamental truth: When you empower terrorists, terrorists are empowered.

Always read Caroline Glick's column in its entirety. Always.

It's unanimous (except for some stragglers in the press)

As it turns out, we don't have to stop the MSM runaway train hellbent on declaring "implicit recognition." Hamas is doing that for us. Luckily, they don't want to be misunderstood or misrepresented.

For once, I can share some good examples from the media (via CAMERA):

In today's (June 28) Philadelphia Inquirer, reporter Michael Matza notes "Before anyone gets too excited about the Palestinian agreement initialed yesterday but not yet a done deal, consider what it does not do...'This is an internal agreement,' Palestinian lawmaker Abdul Rahman Zidan told the BBC. '... You will not find one word in the document clearly stating the recognition of Israel as a state.' Recognizing Israel's physical existence is different from recognizing its legitimacy. Furthermore, the document does not renounce violence as a political tool, as demanded by the international community. Instead, the document says it will 'focus resistance' on the occupied territories."

In today's Boston Globe, reporter Anne Barnard quotes Hamas leader Khalil Abu Leila saying: "Fatah wants from us more than what is in this document. They want Hamas to recognize Israel and be a copy of Fatah, something that will not happen...We will never recognize Israel."

The Globe also quoted Ziad Dayeh, described a Hamas official who worked on the deal, saying: "We are recognizing Israel's existence, not its legitimacy."

Today's Chicago Tribune quotes two other Hamas leaders. Reporter Joel Greenberg writes:

"The document included a clear clause referring to 'the non-recognition of the legitimacy of the occupation,' Abu Zuhri said. Hamas uses the term 'occupation' to refer to Israel [not just the territories]."

"Salah Bardaweel, the leader of the Hamas faction in parliament, said: 'We accept a state in [territory occupied] in 1967, but we did not say we accept two states.' "

Also today, in newspapers owned by McClatchy (formerly Knight Ridder), reporter Dion Nissenbaum quoted Khalid Abu Hilal, a senior Hamas leader, saying: "Our principles and statements are clear. We will never recognize Israel. We will recognize Israel only if it is far away."

Writing in today's Jerusalem Post, Khaled Abu Toameh quotes Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri saying: "We agreed to all the articles of the document without having to recognize Israel. This is a major achievement for Hamas because the agreement also allows us to pursue the resistance against Israel."

In an online report yesterday, BBC explained that "Hamas negotiators have denied earlier reports that the deal meant the militants would implicitly recognise Israel." The network continued:

"Palestinian minister Abdel Rahman Zeidan told the BBC the Hamas-Fatah document did not in any way recognise the state of Israel. 'There is no agreement between the Palestinians on specifically this phrase. You will not find one word in the document clearly stating the recognition of Israel as a state. Nobody has agreed to this. This was not on the table. This was not in the dialogue,' he said..."

"The BBC's James Reynolds in Gaza says that the central point of the joint manifesto is the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Traditionally that is one half of a two-state solution, but the existing drafts of the deal make no mention of the second half of this solution - the state of Israel. This omission is deliberate, our correspondent says. While some have argued that this means Hamas tacitly accepts Israel's right to exist, it is becoming clear that that is not how Hamas sees it. Hamas negotiators have told the BBC that the entire state of Israel has been built on occupied Palestinian land. They believe that a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza is a first step - not a final step."

According to CAMERA, the stragglers in the press would include the Washington Post and USA Today, neither of which cite any of the clear repudiations of Israel by Hamas leaders noted above.