Not much to argue about...

Mark Steyn on Israel

By most measures, the Jewish state is a great success story. The modern Middle East is the misbegotten progeny of the British and French colonial map-makers of 1922. All the nation states in that neck of the woods date back a mere 60 or 70 years — Iraq to the Thirties, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel to the Forties. The only difference is that Israel has made a go of it. Would I rather there were more countries like Israel, or more like Syria? I don’t find that a hard question to answer. Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East (Iraq may yet prove a second) and its Arab citizens enjoy more rights than they would living under any of the kleptocrat kings and psychotic dictators who otherwise infest the region. On a tiny strip of land narrower at its narrowest point than many American townships, Israel has built a modern economy with a GDP per capita just shy of $30,000 — and within striking distance of the European Union average. If you object that that’s because it’s uniquely blessed by Uncle Sam, well, for the past 30 years the second largest recipient of U.S. aid has been Egypt: Their GDP per capita is $5,000, and America has nothing to show for its investment other than one-time pilot Mohammed Atta coming at you through the office window.

Taranto is always on the ball...

One Man's Blockade . . .
Here's a great example from the BBC of the presumably unthinking double standard that guides so much Middle East reporting:

Egypt has sent 1,200 extra security personnel to the border area with Gaza, officials say.

The Egyptians fear another breach of the frontier by Palestinians trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

A senior member of Hamas, which controls Gaza, threatened on Tuesday to repeat a breach of the border with Egypt earlier this year.

So Egypt is trying to prevent "a breach of the border," while Israel is imposing a "blockade." Yet there is no difference between what the two countries are actually doing.

An attempted kidnapping and mass murder attack by Palestinian terrorists — killing civilians in cold blood — and the mainstream wire services are scraping the bottom of the euphemism barrel to avoid using the dreaded — and obviously appropriate — T word: Nine killed as Gaza militants storm Israeli border.

A pox on him...

Via Little Green Footballs

Former President Jimmy Carter is reportedly preparing an unprecedented meeting with the leader of Hamas, an organization that the U.S. government considers one of the leading terrorist threats in the world.

A slight understatement?

In Gaza, Hamas’s Fiery Insults to Jews Complicate Peace Effort

Read this and wonder about the ability of the so-called Palestinians to become a civilized people. But, of course, it is the Israelis' fault..... just ask the UN.

They really aren't human....

Palestinians Celebrating Mass Murder:

"Just like they did on September 11, 2001, Palestinians in Gaza and Ramallah and “refugee camps” in Lebanon are partying and celebrating the brutal mass murder of seminary students in Jerusalem."

Columbia University...

All utterly predictable

This is what happens when you're happy to be dead...

Hamas claims Gaza victory:

"Hamas declared victory after Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday following a U.S. appeal to end days of fighting that killed more than 100 Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said despite the culmination of the five-day operation, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, Israel would take further action in the Gaza Strip until cross-border rocket fire was cut significantly."

You can always count on the UN...

U.N. Security Council urges end of Gaza violence

"The U.N. Security Council on Sunday urged Israel and Palestinian militants to cease all violence in Gaza after the U.N. secretary-general condemned what he called Israel's 'excessive' use of force."

How dare they defend themselves!

Atlas Shrugs , of course, has her own take on it. As does Pajamas Media:

As rockets from Gaza rain down on her neighborhood, Laura Bialis wonders how the western media still manages to portray Israel as the aggressors in this weekend’s bloody conflict.

No kidding...

Gaza's Culture of Self-Destruction:

"The people in Gaza need to stop and take a good look at the culture and society that they are creating and begin to think hard about how they might begin to undo the damage to their social fabric that is, with every day that passes, increasing. They should begin their social re-engineering not for the sake of their Israeli enemies across the border, nor to increase their standing on the world stage, but rather for their own sakes because inculcating blind hatred, with a murderous twist, against another group has some unintended side effects for the culture that does the inculcating."

But as long as they can get some journalist to make their plight look as if it's the Israelis fault, they think they are doing their children a favor...

I hope they did it....

Hezbollah Chief Threatens Israel:

"The chief of Hezbollah threatened Thursday to retaliate against Israeli targets after accusing the Jewish state of killing the militant Imad Mughniyeh in Syria."

It never ceases to amaze me how the Arab mind works. "How dare you shoot back at me for shooting at you!" seems to be their MO virtually all of the time. And then the MSM buys into it....

The Wall Street Journal has it's own take:

Mughniyeh died in a car bombing, probably orchestrated by Mossad, though Israel denies it. It'd be nice to think the CIA was up to this, but we have our doubts. The location -- Damascus -- of his killing is of special note, and the private intelligence agency Stratfor reports that he died as he was leaving a meeting at a Syrian intelligence office. Syrian officials surely knew of his whereabouts and could have arrested him if they really wanted some accommodation with the U.S. At least Mughniyeh will kill no more.

Let's give them a state....

"I'll finish off the Jews and eat them!"

This was part of a children's broadcast on Hamas Television this week. The program is called Tomorrow's Pioneers, which previously featured a fuzzy Mickey Mouse character named Farfur and a cute bee named Nahul. We've learned from previous episodes of the program that both Farfur and Nahul were "martyred" by Israelis. In the latest episode, we learn that Assud, the new rabbit character, has come from Lebanon "in order to return to the homeland and liberate it." Later in the show Assud and the child hostess discuss the eventual conquering of Tel-Aviv through terror.

If you have any questions, read the whole post, and then make sure you follow Atlas Shrugs every day.

A look on the bright side...

Israel’s Secret Success

"Wake up, fellow Israelis, it’s over, we’ve won! What is more we’ve won a lot: more than 8,000 square miles out of the 10,400 square miles of the British Mandate for Palestine. And most Palestinians have accepted this territorially lopsided resolution of the 100-year-old dispute."

In spite of everything that's been going on, there's nothing wrong with rubbing a whole mess of salt in the Arab wound.....Heh.

The Israelis are paying attention...

The Belmont Club: The strip

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) argues that, by blowing a hole in the Gaza-Egyptian border, Hamas has reshaped its geography vis a vis Israel. As if to illustrate the point, two suicide bombers who attacked a Dimona shopping center believed to be Hamas operatives may have entered Israel via Egypt.

Atlas Shrugs noticed the same thing....and Egypt ain't so happy about it either.

I find myself asking the same question

The Volokh Conspiracy

"No matter what happens in the near future between the Palestinians and Israel, I doubt Israel will ever allow the reasonably free movement between Gaza and Israel that existed through the early 1990s. Giving the Gazans Egyptian citizenship, and making Egypt responsible for security in the area, would benefit Israel, the Gazans, and even Egypt itself, by destroying Hamas's base (Hamas being affiliated with Egypt's anti-government Muslim Brotherhood). It would also benefit the Palestinians in the West Bank, by allowing the more moderate residents there to reach an accommodation with Israel, perhaps in concert with Jordan.

If Israeli leaders had any p.r. sense and/or vision, they would use this opportunity to loudly ask why Egypt, which refused custody of Gaza when Israel returned the Sinai, is so adamant about refusing to do its part to relieve Palestinian suffering."

From Instapundit....

EGYPT BEGINS CLOSING GAZA BORDER, FUELING TENSIONS: It's part of their genocidal plan to conquer the Gaza Strip and . . . oh, wait, that's only when the Israelis do it.

Arun Gandhi Quits Peace Institute in Flap Over Blog Posting - washingtonpost.com

Arun Gandhi Quits Peace Institute in Flap Over Blog Posting

The grandson of Indian spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi resigned yesterday as president of the board of a conflict resolution institute after writing an online essay on a Washington Post blog calling Jews and Israel "the biggest players" in a global culture of violence.

In his resignation letter to the board of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, founder Arun Gandhi wrote that his Jan. 7 essay "was couched in language that was hurtful and contrary to the principles of nonviolence. My intention was to generate a healthy discussion on the proliferation of violence. Clearly I did not achieve my goal. Instead, unintentionally, my words have resulted in pain, anger, confusion and embarrassment."

Apparently, many on the left feel that Mr. Ghandi has been wronged by the Jewish machine. Michael Leeden doesn't think so.

I hope that most of you left-leaning Democrats, especially you pseudo-liberal Jewish guilt-ridden Democrats, remember that it will be the Left who will abandon Israel first, and then stand idly by as the Jews are pushed into the sea so as not disturb the road to Universal Health Care...

Once again, they are not responsible.....

Israellycool catches the Australian Broadcasting Corporation promoting a blatant—and completely untrue—libel against Israel:

A study has found there’s been a surge in the use of illicit drugs by Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

According to Palestinian drug workers a major reason for the increase is that Israeli authorities are turning a blind eye to the trafficking of drugs to Palestinians.

They claim it’s part of an effort to destroy the fabric of Palestinian life, a claim Israeli authorities strongly deny.

Read the whole post. Not only have the drugs been around for quite some time, but introducing the notion that the Israelis are responsible because they don't stop it, is just another excuse in the Palestinian (and European) arsenal of "We're so pathetic that it can't be our fault". Sound familiar?