PDavidHornik

Palestinian "Constitution"

Middle East scholar Barry Rubin gives an outstanding summation of the unwritten but widely and deeply understood Palestinian rules for dealing with Israel and the West.

Straight talk from Mansur

A fine, succinct piece by Salim Mansur in the Toronto Sun calls for "end[ing] the charade" of (damned) "Arab-Israeli peace conferences"--like the latest to be planned, Annapolis. Mansur shows an unusual attentiveness to truth, along with ability to express it, when he says:

Instead of another international conference the Americans would do better in accepting the obvious -- that a Palestinian state exists, and it is called Jordan with its population being overwhelmingly Palestinian.

Another Arab state squeezed on American insistence between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean -- its population hostile to the West and readily embracing every passing totalitarian ideology in its declared aim of harming Jews and destroying Israel -- instead of being a recipe for any final settlement, will be the source of unremitting conflict in the region and terrorism beyond.

Read the whole thing.

No Israel on PA map

The official, Abbas- and Fatah-run Palestinian Authority TV has displayed a map of Israel--problem is there's no Israel.

U.S. administration gets whacky

The planned Annapolis conference is so crazy and counter-empirical that it's brought together Yuval Steinitz, one of Israel's most intelligent right-wingers, and Yossi Beilin, one of Israel's most extreme Osloite doves, together to try to talk sense to U.S. leaders.

The Wall Street Journal takes the administration to task for appeasement on the proliferation, North Korean, Syrian, and Middle East fronts.

Israel gets tough

We learn today in the Israei press that:

In a strongly worded message to the United States, Israel has complained that the weapons smuggling and entry of militants from Egypt into the Gaza Strip is posing a direct threat to the Annapolis conference actually taking place.

Senior Israeli political figures said Thursday that in talks with their American counterparts, they stressed that the porous border in Sinai "is becoming a strategic problem" and asked them to raise the issue with the Egyptians.

"The smuggling of weapons and terrorist experts from Sinai to the Gaza Strip through the Philadelphi Route poses a real threat to the holding of the Annapolis conference," the message read.

Wow, a threat to the conference! And there I thought it threatened our lives and security.

The Israelis also expressed their frustration about Egyptian behavior vis-a-vis Hamas, both in terms of the ease of smuggling and also politically, in view of Cairo's calls for Fatah and Hamas to renew negotiations for a unity government.

"Egypt is working against everything we are all trying to achieve," senior Israeli officials told the Americans. "We are organizing a summit to further the diplomatic process under the banner 'strengthening Abu Mazen' [Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas], and they are strengthening Hamas."

Israeli political and defense officials have expressed grave concern about developments along the Philadelphi Route on the border between the Gaza Strip and Sinai in recent weeks. They are particularly irate at the clandestine entry of dozens of Hamas militants through the border near Rafah, without Egypt's trying to stop them.

Exacerbating these concerns are reports that Islamic Jihad militants have also managed to return to the Gaza Strip from Egypt without any difficulty.

Israeli political sources said Israel has asked Egypt for clarification on both matters, and received excuses and blurred responses.

Asked them for clarifications!! Israel gets tough!! The old Israel is reviving!!

"The Egyptians are saying they [the militants] entered the Strip through a hole in the fence," an Israeli political source said.

In its message to Washington, Israel emphasized it "views with grave concern the continued strengthening of Hamas through the smuggling of weapons."

Views with grave concern! The Middle East is trembling! This smuggling from Egypt has been going on for fifteen years since the Oslo pieces process started!

Israeli officials told the Americans that "the smuggling is taking place to undermine the general effort to restart the diplomatic process."

One of the scenarios the Israelis presented to the Americans raises the possibility that rockets will be smuggled into the Strip and launched against Israeli urban centers, causing many casualties. This would necessitate a military operation in the Gaza Strip.

The thousands of rockets that have already been falling since 2000 don't necessitate a military operation!

"Such a situation could result in the dismantling of the international summit," the Israeli sources said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to arrive in the region on Sunday. Rice will travel to Cairo for talks after meetings in Israel.

Israel asked the U.S. to urge Egypt to do more in its efforts to stem the flow of smuggled weapons. Americans officials have said they "also recognize the significance of this matter and we will raise it once more."

" . . . asked the U.S. to urge Egypt to do more . . ."--wow!

During her visit Rice is expected to focus on preparation for the summit at Annapolis, and will hold a series of meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas.

Also Thursday, a top architect of Israeli military policy in the Gaza Strip was quoted as saying that the army will have to conduct a lengthy ground operation to halt rocket fire, the clearest sign yet that Israel is preparing an offensive against Hamas.

In an interview with an Israeli daily, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky said a Gaza operation appears inevitable.

"We cannot over time stand idly by as Hamas rearms in the strip and as the rocket fire continues incessantly, Kaplinsky, who stepped down this month as the army's deputy chief of staff, told the newspaper. In order to dismantle the terror infrastructure, systematic treatment is necessary. A ground operation is a question of timing." He did not elaborate.

Since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip two years ago, the rocket fire has persisted, despite frequent Israeli airstrikes and incursions targeting rocket squads. Thousands of the crude rockets have landed in southern Israel, killing 12 people over the past seven years and disrupting the lives of thousands of residents.

That's what happens when you hand Sinai to jihadist Egypt and Gaza to the jihadist Palestinian Authority--you get jihad. The latest wisdom from Jerusalem and Washington is to give them Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem! Sick policies, a direction that must finally be reversed before it's too late.

"War process"

Some Jerusalem Post columnists were asked: "Do you believe that a significant renewed peace process has begun? Who do you think will make a significant concession at Annapolis: Israel, the Palestinians, both or neither?"

Daniel Pipes replied:

No significant peace process exists now, nor has it ever. Israel's signing of a diplomatic agreements with Egypt 1979), Lebanon (1983), the PLO(1993), and Jordan (1994) all proved ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst.

Preliminary skirmishes suggest that the usual pattern will hold in Annapolis. The Israeli side makes "painful concessions," the Arab interlocutor imperiously disdains these even as terrorism and other forms of violence continue.

Jerusalem responds with several more rounds of ever-more painful concessions until finally the Arab side grudgingly accepts them, offering airy promises of "peace" that promptly turn into just the opposite - greater levels of hostility and violence.

It's a mug's game that next month will mark its 30th anniversary. The Israeli body politic still has not wised up, much less all those do-gooder mediators, to what I have dubbed the "war process." As the spectacle resumes next month, one braces, prepares for the worst, and hopes for only limited damage from this iteration.

I would add that one also hopes at some stage the U.S. will desist from pushing for this kind of circus. It's disgraceful, ignores reality, needlessly inflames the situation, encourages Israel's weakest tendencies, and augments the danger to Israel.

Just ordinary folks

A very thoughtful blog post by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz of IsraelNationalNews.com

Islam the most warlike

The great, anonymous Norwegian blogger Fjordman writes about a Danish study "analyzing the original texts of ten different religions, from Christianity to Sikhism, and conclud[ing] that the Islamic texts were by far the most warlike." Understand this and you've understood the essence of the "Arab-Israeli conflict."

Voice of reason

Martin Sherman demonstrates irrefutably why it is madness for Israel to give up the West Bank (Judea and Samaria).