Boker tov, Boulder!: Arab Attacks on Israel continue: One wounded so far today

"This war is killing us."

Today, so far, only one wounded. Haaretz reports:

An Israeli man was lightly wounded on Wednesday morning when Palestinian militants opened fire on the fields of a kibbutz near the Gaza Strip border.

The man sustained light wounds near his eye while working in the farmlands of Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, after one of the bullets struck a water tank, causing shrapnel to spray.

Gunfire on the fields of Ein Hashlosha has become a regular occurrence of light, though casualties are rarely reported.

Some two months ago, a 20-year-old Ecuadorian kibbutz volunteer, Carlos Chavez, was killed when shot in the back by a Palestinian sniper.

Also on Wednesday, seven Qassam rockets hit the western Negev, two of them striking a kibbutz in Sha'ar Hanegev regional council.

One of the rockets struck directly into the yard of a house on the kibbutz. There were no injuries reported in either incident, but the rockets caused damaged to some nearby structures.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair sez the international community needs to "rethink" its strategy toward Gaza.

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Middle East envoy Tony Blair said Tuesday that the international community must rethink its strategy toward Gaza to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian area.

In an appearance before a European Parliament panel, Blair did not call for direct talks with Hamas, which seized Gaza in June and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. But he said it was urgent for more food and other goods to reach Palestinians living under desperate conditions in the Gaza strip.

"If we have learned anything from the past few months it is that the present strategy in Gaza is not working," said Blair. The former British prime minister is now a special envoy for the so-called "Quartet" of Mideast peacemakers, comprised of the United States, the EU, Russia and the United Nations.

"We need a strategy which isolates the extremists and helps the people," he added. "At the moment, if we are not careful, we got the opposite .... That is not intelligent."

I agree. Helping the extremists is not intelligent.

And I take it that Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa Lappen would also agree.

.... in 1994 the U.S. helped establish the Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by one of the most wanted criminals in the world — the Muslim Brotherhood member and Soviet-trained jihadist Yasser Arafat. His comrade in arms, vizier, and chief negotiator, Mahmoud Abbas, follows in Arafat’s footsteps — albeit without the trademark kafiyah and beard — even more successfully.

Ignoring $10 billion (PDF) in Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) loot that Arafat already controlled, plus more than $2 billion in illegal annual income, the West showered millions more on Arafat. The West assumed that giving the PA legitimacy, funding it, and persuading Israel to cede territory would convince Palestinians to stop targeting Israel and the West.

As the world recognized the PA, however, Palestinians abused their new status. They expanded their illegal activities and terrorism. The more violent the Palestinians became, the more money and concessions they exacted from the West.

.... clever manipulation of U.S. laws [meant] to prevent funding terrorist and corrupt regimes seems equivalent to the irrational Bush Administration rationale for giving $150 million in cash directly to the PA within a new $555 million aid package.

This would be the first time the U.S. gives the utterly corrupt PA cash to use as it likes, even to share with U.S.-designated terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

Notwithstanding Fatah-Hamas leadership disagreements branding each other “murderers and thieves,” on Jan. 30 Abbas agreed to give Hamas $3.1 billion of $7.7 billion pledged by international donors in Paris last December.

The money quote / keeper:

“Frankly, the Palestinian [A]uthority, which is corrupt and cavorts with terror, is not the basis for a Palestinian state moving forward,” said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on June 24 [15], 2002.

[in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News]

And here's another one, for posterity you understand.

Rice said that President Bush had no plans to push forward peace initiatives promoted by former President Bill Clinton. "We're not going back down that road,'' she said.

See also BTB Archives:

IMPEACH BUSH 03/19/08

"recent cash injection" makes my head spin 02/20/08

poorpalestinian CHUTZPAH: taking U.S. for a ride 02/13/08

I can't audit the UNRWA - but someone should 12/26/07

Where has all the money gone? 12/26/07

Annapolis [Gang Rape] Continues Today in Paris 12/17/07

Israel... SOLD! for a measly $ 7.4 BILLION

Rice to announce "bigger Palestinian aid package" 12/14/07

Palestinians are the new Chosen People 12/5/07

Huh? Financial CRISIS? What? 5/17/07

Boycotting Hamas: Foreign Aid INCREASED 03/12/07