In the first incident, Egged bus number 392, traveling from Beersheba to the southern resort city of Eilat, was ambushed by a three-man terror cell. Over a dozen people were wounded in the attack, which took place on Highway 12, about 30km north of Eilat, near the Ein Netafim junction.

Soon after that a second incident was reported, involving multiple roadside bombs and rocket fire at IDF forces patrolling the Israel Egypt border fence.

A third incident was reported at around 1pm, involving yet another shooting on a bus and a private vehicle traveling south. Five people reportedly suffered mortal wounds in the attack.

There’s no official word yet on whether lax security along the Egyptian border was responsible for the attacks, but carefully-worded statements seem to suggest as much:

“This was a grave terror attack at multiple scenes. It reflects Egypt’s failing hold on Sinai and the rise of terror elements,” Barak said. “This terror attack originated from Gaza. We will exhaust all measures against the terrorists.”

Israel has mostly been dancing on the head of a pin with respect to Egypt’s situation since Mubarak was outsted. On the one hand, nobody in Israel is going to come out publicly in support of an oppressive, dictatorial regime that the people clearly are glad to be rid of. On the other hand, there are legitimate concerns about what the next government will look like, and if terrorist elements hostile to Israel will gain control. Unfortunately, today’s attacks could only be a preview.

Update 8/20: Things go from bad to worse after what was apparently a suicide bombing that killed several Egyptian security forces members near the border. Egypt, of course, was quick to blame Israel, not terrorists, for the deaths, and now Egypt is withdrawing its ambassador to Israel and is accusing Israel of violating the ‘79 peace treaty. The situation in Gaza is heating up, the UN – with Lebanon sitting on the Security Council – won’t condemn the terrorist attacks (who’s surprised?), and Hamas is threatening more attacks. With the 30+ years of cold peace with Egypt a hair’s breath from shattered — and without even mentioning what’s going on in Syria — there’s no word to describe the matzav right now other than “clusterfuck”.

Update #2: Meryl is, of course, all over the stories as they (d)evolve.

Dozens of terrorist attacks, including Istanbul, Madrid, London, and last week in Marrakech, later.

2,340 coalition casualties in Afghanistan, including 155 Canadians, later.

Thousands of Afghan civilian casualties – too many for any body or organization to properly count – later.

Osama bin Laden is dead, says the President. It’s been almost ten years since the September 11th attacks, and since the world’s largest manhunt was launched for the man responsible. In those ten years, the world has changed so much that it’s almost unrecognizable.

Ten years ago, bin Laden’s death might have actually struck a body blow at the terrorist infrastructure. Today, it will probably make little more than a dent. After all, they’ve had ten years to reorganize and restructure, to recruit and train. Ten years during which Osama was little more than a figurehead, and the network has decentralized. Ten years for other international terror groups to “step up” and grow up.

(Oh, and ten years for the US to invade Iraq, for there to be civil war – and now reconciliation – in the Palestinian territories, for governments to change hands in western nations and for massive rounds of civilian unrest and protest across the middle east. A lot can happen in ten years.)

At best, this announcement will give Obama a temporary bump in the polls as he kicks off his 2012 re-election campaign. At worst, it will make bin Laden into a martyr among his followers and trigger additional attacks. In all likelihood, it will make very little practical difference.

It does feel like the end of an era, in a way.

Rival Palestinian groups said they reached an agreement Wednesday on reuniting their governments in the West Bank and Gaza after years of bitter infighting that weakened them politically and caused the deaths of hundreds in violent clashes and crackdowns since. Even as the tentative agreement revived hopes among Palestinians that they might be able to form a unified front, unity between the rival groups Fatah and Hamas appeared unlikely to jump start negotiations with Israel for an independent Palestinian state.

There’s no way that Hamas and Fatah will be able to avoid going at one another.

Update: Why this deal is bad news for Israel.

Terrorism as a fame vehicle? Somewhere, William Hung is wishing he thought of that.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers have suffered back-to-back setbacks with Israel’s successful test of a rocket shield and Egypt’s push to block smuggling tunnels.

The Iron Dome rocket defence system, reportedly to be deployed near Gaza in May, would deprive Hamas of its main leverage against Israel – the threat of rocket salvos. Egypt’s underground anti-tunnel barrier of steel beams, now under construction, could eventually cut Hamas’ supply of cash and weapons.

The looming double squeeze is poised to limit Hamas’ options and change the rules of engagement on Gaza’s volatile, blockaded borders.

Hamas officials refused to say which names were holding up the deal. But the -based Arabic daily al-Hayat said they included Ibrahim Hamed, the former commander of Hamas’ military wing in the West Bank and mastermind of a Jerusalem suicide bombing that killed 11 people in 2002, and Abdullah Barghouti, a mastermind of several suicide bombings serving several dozen life sentences.

Hamas appears to be demanding the release of Abbas Sayid as well, a planner of the Park Hotel suicide bombing on Seder Night 2002 that killed 30 people, according to lawyer Jawad Immawi, a senior official in the Palestinian Prisoners Affairs ministry, which employs many of the lawyers who represent high-level inmates.

That’s right, they mean the terrorist bastards behind attacks like this one. This is the Hamas that the world’s apologists keeps insisting is a “legitimate government” and should be dealt with.

The fact that Israel is even considering such a deal – the fact that it had already agreed to release hundreds of other terrorists from prison – speaks only to the value that it puts on Shalit’s life and the life of every one of its citizens. This, of course, is exactly what Hamas exploits as a weakness. And by negotiating with Hamas, Israel plays straight into its hands.

And of course, it’s tough for Hamas to complain that an Israeli life and a Palestinian life are valued unequally (by the media, by the West, etc.) when they insist on the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one IDF soldier.

Hamas will claim this deal – if it goes through – as a major victory, will use it to bolster its standing versus Fatah, and will argue that it proves that violence works. And really, with deals like these, it’s hard to argue with that logic. How many more innocent lives will fall victim to the newly-released terrorists? How many prisoners will Israel need to swap for the next kidnapped soldier?

I want nothing more than for Gilad Shalit to return home, safe and unharmed. But at what price?

Read between the lines. We have:

• The truce being contingent on the re-opening of border crossings. Translation: Hamas is low on weapons supplies, and wants a time-out with easy access to re-arm.
• An expiry date on the truce of 18 months, after which all bets are off and the whole song-and-dance will start all over from scratch.
• Hamas doesn’t refer to this as a “truce”, but as the Arabic word “hudna”, which has a completely different meaning. It’s got nothing to do with a desire for reconciliation; instead, it’s viewed as a tactical move.
• And of course, no deal for the release of Gilad Shalit.

But we all know what will happen. Hamas will announce the truce with great fanfare. It will then blatantly proceed to ignore and violate the truce daily. Israel will close its eyes as long as possible before finally having no choice but to respond. And then the world will universally condemn Israel for “violating the terms” of the truce.

I wonder if Meryl Yourish will launch another Shudna Watch in her blog?

Two bombs exploded aboard a train bound from India to Pakistan, sparking a fire that killed at least 66 passengers on Monday, an apparent attempt to sabotage a peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals.

One person was detained in connection with the midnight blasts on the train about 80 km north of New Delhi, Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav was quoted as saying.

The Samjhauta Express runs between Dehli and Attari in India and Wagah and Lahore in Pakistan twice a week, and is nicknamed the “Friendship Train” or the “Peace Train”, due to its route between the two rival countries. The symbolism of literally trying to derail peace must have been too tempting for the terrorists to resist.

Meanwhile, neither India nor Pakistan appears prepared to take the bait:

There was no finger-pointing by India and Pakistan, as there has been so often in the past after violent attacks.

The prime ministers of the two countries called each other and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the attack would not be allowed to undermine the two countries’ peace efforts.

Progress? Or numbness to terrorism in a part of the world that has seen far too much of it already? It’s hard to say. But more people are dead for no reason today. That’s all anyone can state for certain. The rest? Who knows?

An anti-tank shell was fired at the U.S. embassy early Friday, striking the front of the building but causing no injuries. Greece’s Public Order Minister said the blast was probably an act of domestic terrorism — raising fears of resurgent violence by far-left Greek militants.

“It is very likely that this is the work of a domestic group,” Vyron Polydoras said. “We believe this effort to revive terrorism is deplorable and will not succeed.”

He said Greece “strongly condemns” the attack on the heavily guarded building — the first major attack against a U.S. target in Greece in more than a decade.

“We believe it is a symbolic act,” Polydoras said. “It is an attempt to disrupt our country’s international relations.”

Polydoras said police were examining the authenticity of phone calls to a private security company claiming responsibility on behalf of a militant left-wing group.

Or, maybe it was the work of some French tourists who were tired of having to compete with so many Americans for the good beach hotels in the Greek islands each August.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats take over in January, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

[ . . . ]

While Stein said Reyes is “not a stupid guy,” his lack of knowledge said it could hamper Reyes’ ability to provide effective oversight of the intelligence community, Stein believes.

“If you don’t have the basics, how do you effectively question the administration?” he asked. “You don’t know who is on first.”

Aside from not knowing the difference between Sunni and Shi’ite, there’s no evidence that Reyes is a bad guy or anything . . . but I’m tempted to apply my basic Bush-rule here: if you can’t pronounce nuclear, you shouldn’t be allowed to have your finger on the button.

The intelligence level of elected members of government – from both parties – is frighteningly low. Is anyone else more than a little scared that these are the people making the big decisions?

Noteworthy: this would apply only to rockets, not “other” forms of attack, such as suicide bombing… which is now apparently a favoured activity among the geriatric set, too. What, knitting needles were too boring?

Anyway, we’ve all seen this song-and-dance a zillion times before. The Palestinians call for a limited truce but continue to openly and brazenly defy it. Israel is finally provoked into reacting, and the whole world condemns Israel for “breaking” the truce.

Here we go again…

How could any of us have known, at that moment, that life would forever be defined as “before” and “after” that moment? How could we have realized the impact that this event would have?

Now, five years later, the world certainly isn’t any safer. Maybe we’ve opened our eyes to what we were willfully ignoring before. Maybe things have really gotten a whole lot worse. Maybe it’s both. In any case, terrorism has become part of our collective language, part of the daily discourse, an almost-expected part of the news cycle. And I look around and see a war that has no end in sight and no marked progress being made.

This is the world we live in now. A world that is much less innocent, much less naive. A world filled with scary things. Will Iran get nuclear weapons and launch them at Israel or the West? Will North Korea go renegade? Where in the world will Al-Qua’eda strike next? What major disaster will befall us next?

But I also see a world with so much potential, a world where extraordinary people are accomplishing amazing things every day. A world worth fighting for.

After five years, maybe it is finally appropriate to put aside this chapter of mourning and focus on our collective potential?

Who’s surprised? (Hat tip: Eric).

“When you walk in the streets of Gaza City, you cannot but close your eyes because of what you see there: unimaginable chaos, careless policemen, young men carrying guns and strutting with pride and families receiving condolences for their dead in the middle of the street.”

This is how Ghazi Hamad, spokesman for the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority government and a former newspaper editor, described the situation in the Gaza Strip in an article he published on Sunday on some Palestinian news Web sites.

The article, the first of its kind by a senior Hamas official, also questioned the effectiveness of the Kassam rocket attacks and noted that since Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip, the situation there has deteriorated on all levels. It holds the armed groups responsible for the crisis and calls on them to reconsider their tactics and to stop blaming Israel for their mistakes.

“Gaza is suffering under the yoke of anarchy and the swords of thugs,” Hamad wrote. “I remember the day when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and closed the gates behind. Then, Palestinians across the political spectrum took to the streets to celebrate what many of us regarded as the Israeli defeat or retreat. We heard a lot about a promising future in the Gaza Strip and about turning the area into a trade and industrial zone.”

Hamad said the “culture of life” that prevailed in the Strip has since been replaced with a nightmare. “Life became a nightmare and an intolerable burden,” he said. “Today I ask myself a daring and frightening question: ‘Why did the occupation return to Gaza?’ The normal reply: ‘The occupation is the reason.’”

Dismissing Israel’s responsibility for the growing state of anarchy and lawlessness in the Gaza Strip, Hamad said it was time for the Palestinians to embark on a soul-searching process to see where they erred.

“We’re always afraid to talk about our mistakes,” he added. “We’re used to blaming our mistakes on others. What is the relationship between the chaos, anarchy, lawlessness, indiscriminate murders, theft of land, family rivalries, transgression on public lands and unorganized traffic and the occupation? We are still trapped by the mentality of conspiracy theories – one that has limited our capability to think.”

Unusually frank words from any Palestinian official. But considering the source, this is pretty astounding stuff.

Some are taking this at face value, calling it a “flying pigs moment”.

But I’m a natural born cynic, and when something seems suspicious, it’s usually because it is. Frankly, I’m not sure what to make of this. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something tells me that this is going to turn out to be a part of a new powerplay game between Hamas and Fatah, and that, as many suspect, Hamas is looking to throw a monkey wrench into the U.S.’s policy of backing Fatah by confounding Bush’s view that Fatah are the guys in the white hats and Hamas are the guys in the black hats.

If, however, Hamad was really being candid here, I hope for his sake that he has a lot of bodyguards.

My elation at Steve and Olaf’s release was quickly replaced by outrage when I heard about their forced conversion. The video turned my stomach. It should turn the stomach of every American and every person of whatever nationality who believes that the concepts of liberty and freedom have any value and any meaning. What sort of religion, in this day and age, would demand converts at the point of a gun or the blade of a sword? What sort of religion would even want such “converts?”

In any event, as has been pointed out elsewhere (and it was my first thought after hearing about this “forced” conversion), Centanni and Wiig are now marked men if they retract their coerced statement of faith. That would make them apostates under Islamic doctrine, subject to the death penalty at the hand of any devout Muslim who wishes to glorify Allah by carrying out the sentence. So it isn’t over. Not by a long shot.

Read the rest. Now.

The statement does, however, represent the seething resentment of Sunni al-Qaeda, directed at what it sees as an attempted Shiite takeover of the jihad campaign in the Middle East.

In the speech, Rahman espoused anti-Semitic conspiracy theories inspired by the Russian forgery, the protocols of the elders of Zion: “We know very well from our history that the Jews target to occupy Lebanon, Syria and even the north of the Arabian peninsula even up to Iraq to the river of Furaat (Euphrates).”

However, he then turns his wrath to Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria, calling them “infidel entities,” and arguing that they are preventing Sunni jihadis from attacking Israel.

This pissing contest between Sunni and Shiite extremist groups is nothing new. It’s a battle of one-upmanship, with the barometer being which side can attack Israel the most. Which really makes me wish they’d cut out the middleman and just start attacking each other already.

“He is a person who would understand them and would want then to tell their story to the world. He is a man who understands the struggle for justice, and that peace depends upon justice,” Wiig told local media.

Olaf Wiig objected to Israeli action in the Palestinian territories and probably understood the desperation of his unknown captors, Wiig said shortly after the August 14 abduction.

“He’s the kind of person who understands the need for justice and would understand the kind of fear and trauma they’re going through,” he said.

I hope that Fiig and the other kidnapped journalist, Steve Centanni, are released and returned safely to their homes and families. But I also think that a Fiskie nomination might be in order.

Stephen Harper backed Jason Kenney on his comparison of Hezbollah to the Nazis, claiming it was “fair”:

“Like all comparisons, it’s true in some ways, and not in others,” he said, “but as near as I can tell, both Hezbollah and the Nazi party stand for the elimination of the Jewish nation. So I think that’s pretty fundamental and, in that sense, I don’t think it’s unfair.”

Though Kenney and Harper both have a point, they ought to realize that Nazi comparisons, even when justifiable, tend to obscure the original argument.

Meanwhile, one of the three MPs who originally called for Hezbollah’s legitimization, Liberal Borys Wrzesnewskyj, has resigned as foreign affairs critic (hat tip: Puck):

All 10 leadership hopefuls condemned the remarks. Scott Brison and Carolyn Bennett said Wrzesnewskyj should no longer retain his post as a foreign affairs spokesman.

The Liberal party has been floundering lately, with no clear voices emerging in this conflict. Wrzesnewskyj’s resignation, and the condemnation of his remarks by the leadership candidates, is the first hopeful sign in a while that perhaps the Liberals might find their moral compass that has been missing now for quite some time.

It seems to me that the problem is one of perception, and of which historical comparison is the most apt. Some, like Kenney and Harper, see Hezbollah as the new Nazi party, and view appeasement as dangerous and ultimately more destructive. Others, like Boris Wrzesnewskyj, Peggy Nash and Maria Mourani, see Hezbollah as the new IRA:

“You want to encourage the politicians of this military organization, you want to encourage the political wing, so that the centre of gravity shifts to them.”

Wrzesnewskyj compared the situation in Lebanon to the decades of sectarian violence by the Irish Republican Army.

“If there wasn’t a possibility for London to negotiate with Sinn Fein [the IRA's political party], we’d still have bombings in Northern Ireland,” he said.

Certainly, Hezbollah (and Hamas, and other groups that employ a political/social/terrorist combination strategy) would like to encourage the IRA comparisons. But there’s one key difference, that the Canadian MPs on their “fact-finding mission” seem to have missed: The IRA had, as its goal, the establishment of an independent Irish state. Say what you will about their methods – and I will condemn terrorism unequivocally – they did have a goal that could be pursued politically, and that would be legitimate if pursued politically. Hezbollah has no such goal. They aren’t vying for statehood or independence of freedom. Their goal is the destruction of Israel. And no matter what means they choose to pursue this goal, it cannot be legitimatized.

They appear to be typical of an alarming number of Canadians who think that compromise, which works so nicely in Canada, can work as well everywhere. But in Canada we don’t have parties, factions or demographic groups dedicated to the utter destruction of other parties, factions, or demographic groups.

How do you compromise with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who says “there’s no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.” What does Nash imagine Nasrallah means when he says: “When the people of this temporary country (Israel) lose their confidence in their legendary army, the end of this entity will begin”?

Meanwhile, Jason Kenney reminds us that foot-in-mouth disease strikes all sides of this one:

Conservative government spokesman Jason Kenney compared Hezbollah to the German Nazi party Tuesday and said opposition Canadian MPs are providing political cover to the banned organization.

Oh, Mr. Kenney, didn’t anyone ever teach you Godwin’s law?

How can a terrorist group that provokes a war subsequently claim to be “resisters” when the going gets tough?

This utter hypocrisy is echoed by Lebanon’s prime minister, who initially claimed to be held hostage by Hezbollah, only to proclaim subsequently his outright support for the terrorist group. How in the name of God (anyone’s God) can people support a group whose leader is adamantly opposed to a peaceful accord and who has often said coexistence with Jews (not Israelis) is not an option? Racism and hatred don’t get any more blatant than this.

What she said.

The threat level to the UK has been raised by MI5 to critical after the arrests in London, High Wycombe and Birmingham.

Critical threat level – the highest – means “an attack is expected imminently and indicates an extremely high level of threat to the UK”.

Three US airlines are believed to have been targeted.

Mr Reid said had the attack gone ahead it would have caused a loss of life of “unprecedented scale”.

Scary stuff.

We’re going to be hearing a lot of skepticism and moonbat conspiracy theories in the next few days. But I’d much prefer to deal with those than with the innocent loss of life that could have resulted here. In six months, probably nobody will remember this – but better that than a repeat of 9/11.

“I have a special message to the Arabs of Haifa, to your martyrs and to your wounded. I call on you to leave this city. I hope you do this. … Please leave so we don’t shed your blood, which is our blood,” Nasrallah said.

As usual, Meryl says exactly what I would’ve said, only better:

You know, the last time Arabs in Israeli territory were told by outside “leaders” to pull up stakes and split for a few weeks, they wound up as permanent refugees, pathetic puppets of the Arab League, and terrorist recruiting fodder for 58 year-

Ahhhhh… now it’s starting to make sense.

And in 50 years, there will be human rights groups around the world demonstrating againt the “Jews who forced the Arabs out” of Haifa.

Please remember this when you hear about the “atrocity” of the Israeli bomb that killed many civilians in Kafr Qana, a place from which Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel. Unlike previous administrations, Mr. Olmert has my respect when he says: “They were warned to leave. It is the responsibility of Hezbollah for firing rockets amid civilians.”

Terrorists and their supporters have lost the right to complain about civilian casualties, since all they have is one goal: this entire war is to target civilians. Every single one of the more than 2,500 rockets launched into Israel, is launched into populated towns filled with women and children. Just today, another explosive belt meant to kill civilians in Israel was detonated harmlessly by our forces in Nablus.

So don’t cry to me about civilian casualties. Cry to those using babies and wives and mothers; cry to those who store weapons in mosques, ambulances, hospitals and private homes. Cry to those launching deadly rockets from the backyards of kindergartens and schools. Cry to the heartless men who love death, and however many of their troops or civilians die, consider themselves victorious as long as they can keep on firing rockets at our women and children.

Everything Ms. Ragen says is right. But I think she’s wrong.

There are too many people in the world who can’t tell the difference between a legitimate democracy fighting for survival, and a terrorist organization trying to wipe a nation off the map. They draw false moral equivalences. They put on blinders. They say ridiculous things.

I refuse to be one of them.

Yes, it’s true that Israel is better than Hezbollah. Anyone with half a brain can see that. And it should be obvious. It should be a given. There are too many people in the world who don’t get that, but by arguing the point again and again, we’re giving them credence. It shouldn’t even be up for debate.

But here’s the thing: that’s not good enough.

Israel shouldn’t be content to simply be held to a higher standard than Hezbollah. Frankly, that’s not saying much, is it?

When Israel fights a war, I don’t need anyone to convince me that civilian casualties are anything other than a tragic an accident. I take that for granted, because I know Israel and I know the truth about this and any war that she fights. These are wars of survival, fought by people with faults but with the best of intentions: to protect the security of Israel.

I’ve decided there aren’t nearly enough West Wing references on this blog. So here’s a quote from Amy Gardner:

“Jed Bartlet: Not quite as mean-spirited as the other guy.” Doesn’t really send me running to my polling place.

Israel isn’t quite as mean-spirited as Hezbollah. Hezbollah wants to kill Israeli civilians. Israel doesn’t want to kill Lebanese civilians. I get it. But I’m not content to simply make that point. It doesn’t send me running to the polling place either, so to speak.

The point is, all of the above isn’t enough. Being “not quite as mean-spirited as Hezbollah” isn’t enough for Israel. Nobody who loves Israel should say otherwise. We can’t simply be satisfied with the knowledge that we’re on the side of the angels here. When a tragedy happens, like dead children in Qana, the only way to truly show love for Israel is to ask the tough questions and demand the tough answers and the soul-searching that comes along with it. That’s how a country grows: with openness and freedom and a lively exchange of debate. And with a constant striving to do better, to do what’s right, to face up to blunders and wrongdoings and claim not only the relative moral high ground, but the absolute moral high ground too.

And so, I maintain that Naomi Ragen is right about the facts but wrong in her sentiment. I demand more from Israel, because I love and respect it so much and I know we need to judge it by the standard that it deserves.

Palestinian protesters stormed the main U.N. compound in Gaza City on Sunday during a demonstration against Israel’s bombing of southern Lebanon that killed around 60 civilians, witnesses and U.N. staff said.

Hundreds of members of the Islamic Jihad militant group, some throwing stones and others firing assault rifles, attacked the compound at the end of a rally, witnesses said.

At least five people were wounded, police said.

[ . . . ]

Witnesses in Gaza said extensive damage had been caused to the U.N. compound, from where the world body directs its relief and aid operations for the Gaza Strip’s 1.4 million people.

The attack came hours after thousands of Lebanese demonstrators attacked the U.N. headquarters in Beirut, smashing windows and ransacking offices.

Several thousand people massed outside the building in the center of the capital chanting “Death to Israel, death to America. We sacrifice our blood and souls for Lebanon.”

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!

Don’t count on a condemnation from Kofi Annan, though.

The explosion, some 50-100 metres from the gold-domed Shi’ite shrine of Kufa, tore through the van shortly after it had pulled out of the busy market with a group of labourers.

“A man driving a Kia van with an Iraqi accent came and said: ‘I need labourers’. After the labourers got on and packed the vehicle he exploded the car,” said witness Nasir Faisal.

Pretty horrific way to jump up and down and scream “hey, look at me!”.

The main purpose of the Israeli operation in Gaza is twofold: One, is to take measures in order to allow the release of the Israeli kidnapped soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, and the other is to stop the Kassam missiles from being shot at Israeli civilians in the south part of the country. Since about ten months ago, Israel pulled out entirely from Gaza back into the territory which is recognized by the international community as part of the State of Israel.

In other words, there are not any occupying forces in Gaza since August of last year. And since then, there wasn’t one day of rest for the people of Israel that live in the south part of our country. Almost on a daily basis, there are missiles shot at them, with one purpose in mind of those who are doing it. This is to kill innocent Israeli civilians in schools, or in their homes or in the streets as they are trying to do every day. This is something that is entirely intolerable. Israeli people like every other people, deserve to be protected.

More here.

Of course, that’s not really the case. We’re one world and the reverberations of today’s attacks will be felt everywhere. But the knee-jerk cynicism is there just the same, and it says otherwise.

Over 150 people are dead for no good reason today. Hopefully we won’t lose sight of that.

From today’s Reuters: Israel rejects Hamas ceasefire call.

From the headline, the casual reader would make the assumption that big bad Israel is at it again, rejecting the perfectly reasonable offer of a peace-loving Hamas.

Hah!

Rocket attacks? Kidnapped soldiers? Terrorist attacks? The fact that any cease-fire offer by Hamas is nothing but a ruse anyway? Well, none of those are even suggested by the headline, and are only vaguely referred to in the text of the article itself.

A better headline might read something like “Israel stands strong against Hamas’s blackmail” or, perhaps, “Israel sees through Palestinian terrorist government’s transparent cease-fire ruse”.

But of course, headlines like that would be called – what else? – biased.

Update: Here’s Meryl with more anti-Israel-media-bias-of-the-week, this time from AP.

There was little evidence of the scene a year ago as I rode the Underground around London last week. There are posters up everywhere urging vigilance about things like unattended baggage or suspicious characters, much like those in the New York City subway, but for the most part it seemed to be business as usual (complete with typical line delays and suspensions wreaking commuter havoc).

One year ago, people were reacting in shock and horror. But today, even as memorial services are held, what has changed? Can we really say that things have improved, any more than we were able to say so a year, or two, or three, or four after the 9/11 attacks rocked New York? Whether people are fearful of threatened “anniversary attacks”, still mourning personal losses, or trying to come to grips with “what it all means”, it’s hard to find any lessons to learn here. Maybe that is the lesson after all; terrorism is senseless and teaches us nothing beyond what we already knew, that it is terrible and must be wiped out. Maybe to reach for any other lessons is to attribute too useful a purpose to such a senseless act. I don’t know, and I don’t pretend to have the answers.

Today, London and the whole world remembers. Another senseless anniversary, another senseless tragedy.

Money’s tight for humanitarian causes. But to kill Jews? They’ll be lining up to write the cheques.

Bullshit.

The Palestinian people have chosen one form of terror over another form of terror. The only difference between Hamas and Fatah is that Hamas is open about its aims, while Fatah carries out terror attacks and then pays lip service towards “condemning” them. The people chose Hamas because it is perceived as less corrupt than Fatah, not because of any failings of the peaceful alternative. There was never a peaceful alternative.

The real question is, now what? There will be an element who insists on turning a blind eye to the truth and fooling itself that Hamas will reform, suddenly giving up its weapons because it’s got a role in government. These are the same people who keep insisting that there’s been a truce effective this past year.

The United States will refuse to deal with Hamas… maybe. Expect a lot of waffling on that one in the coming months. Europe will deal with them, probably with lip service about how much they’ve “changed”. Again, these are the same people who repeatedly insist that there’s a truce.

For Israel – dare I say – little is likely to change. Negotiations were a non-starter even with Abbas, and Israel will still have to prioritize security measures in defence of its citizens, just as before. Maybe there will be less hypocrisy now. But don’t count on it.

Tim Blair has a roundup of reactions. Jonathan has some day-after musings. And, as usual, Meryl has lots to say.

The Israeli embassy last night became the latest critic of George Galloway after it denounced him for choosing Interpal as his nominated Big Brother charity, claiming it is a front for Palestinian terrorists. The organisation vehemently denies the charge.

[ . . . ]

However, UK ministers are coming under increased pressure to ban Interpal. In August 2003, the US administration claimed it was “a principal charity utilised to hide the flow of money to Hamas”, branded it a “specially designated terrorist” organisation and froze its assets in America.

Interpal was also banned by Israel in 1997.

Surprised? Nah, not really. Galloway’s true colours have been clear for a long time, and this is far from the most shocking thing he has done. Then again, raising money for terrorists who blow up innocent Israelis is probably considered a good thing in Galloway’s twisted mind.

(Hat tip: Tom).

What is there to say that hasn’t already been said thousands of times already?

Update: The latest figures say 22 people were wounded. Ha’aretz is reporting that the Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, but suggests that it’s a bit murky and that the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade (in other words, Fatah) may be behind the attack.

What really irks me is that media reports call this the “first bombing in a year”. Not true. It’s the first suicide bombing (though not the first attack) of the 2006 calendar year. But it’s been barely five weeks since a terrorist bomber struck in Netanya on December 5th, murdering five Israelis.

Say it with me now: What truce?

Overall, 13 Qassams were fired at Israel since Friday.

On Tuesday, an IDF system to detect Qassam fire and alert Sderot residents detected two rockets fired at Israel. The “Red Dawn” system also detected a rocket Monday evening. All Qassams landed in the western Negev causing no injuries or damage.

On Sunday two Qassams were fired at Israel, with one landing in southern Ashkelon and the other in open fields near Sderot. The IDF responded by unleashing a barrage of artillery rounds at fields in northern Gaza used by Palestinians to launch Qassams.

On Friday evening, four Qassam rockets landed near the Zikim and Yad Mordechai kibbutzim. No one was injured in the attack.

The latest wave of Qassam attacks started Friday morning with Palestinians firing two rockets at Israel. A bystander was treated for shock after one of the rockets landed within a distance of him. The second rocket was not found.

But, of course, the international media absolutely insists that there’s a truce.

What was that quote again? “None are so blind as those who will not see”?

“I am fine, I am fine … They gave me cigarettes and tea,” Bernardini told reporters, looking shaken but unhurt.

“I will never change my idea about the occupation,” he said, referring to Israel’s occupation of land that Palestinians seek for a state. “I am with the Palestinian people.”

An armed offshoot of Abbas’s own ruling Fatah movement said it carried out the kidnapping.

Fatah. Not Hamas. Not Islamic Jihad. But Fatah’s “armed wing”. Did any of the people relentlessly promoting Mahmoud Abbas as a “moderate” ever stop to think about why Fatah has an armed wing in the first place?

Oh, and there’s more:

Hours earlier, gunmen stormed a United Nations club in Gaza City and blew up the bar — the only place where alcohol is served openly in the conservative Muslim territory. Nobody was hurt, but the attack added to security fears.

The United Nations is generally seen favorably in Gaza, where it is the second biggest employer after the Palestinian Authority.

Wow, talk about shooting yourself in the foot! The Israelis leave Gaza and suddenly the Palestinians are attacking their best friends, the United Nations?

My predicted U.N. response: “We will never change our idea about the occupation. We are with the Palestinian people”.

S.S.D.Y.

The UN Security Council failed to agree on Tuesday on a statement condemning the suicide bombing in Netanya, after a dispute between the United States and Algeria, the only Arab council member, made approving the resolution impossible.

The statement, similar to one adopted by the so-called quartet of advisers to the Middle East peace process, would have “unequivocally” condemned the blast. It also would have urged Syria to close the offices of Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for Monday’s bombing that killed five Israelis and injured more than 50 people.

[ . . . ]

[The U.S.] said “Algeria objected to the reference to Syria and to the reference to Palestinian Islamic Jihad” even though the group claimed responsibility for the attack and the Palestinians said the orders came from Damascus.

[The Algerian Ambassador], however, said he was ready to discuss the mention of Syria but also wanted to say something about Israel’s “disproportionate use of force” which resulted in a death of a child during in the West Bank city of Jenin last week.

As usual, the U.N. proves itself incapable of saying anything that isn’t directed against Israel.

The General Assembly has long been a write-off but occasionally we’ve seen the Security Council do something useful. But today, we are once again reminded of the corrupt and ineffective way in which the U.N. is run. If this actually is a war on terror, the U.N. is increasingly making its case for why it should be considered on the other side.

Meanwhile, Allison has the story of the policewoman who prevented the attack from being much, much worse.

What happens when a terrorist organization decides to enter the political arena? Does it automatically become legitimate?

[ . . . ]

The truth is that terrorists by definition have entered the political arena from the start because terrorism is violence with a political agenda. Without the political context, bombing, kidnapping, and shooting are simply crimes. Terrorism, like war, is politics by other means, an extension of politics when negotiation or discussion break down – or never existed.

The questions also are misleading because we have discovered that the world’s commitment to morality and justice is relative: It varies depending on the players involved. Especially when it comes to the Middle East, the world’s moral clarity gets muddy, the moral compass goes haywire.

[ . . . ]

We cannot be fooled by [Hizbollah] or by Hamas. Terrorists in suits and ties remain cold-blooded killers.

Terrorist organizations have a history of trying to “go legit” while still maintaining their original violent purposes. But Gil Troy’s argument cuts both ways: if a terrorist in a suit and tie is just a terrorist, then how is a democratically-elected terrorist preferable to dictatorship? If a society gets the leadership it deserves, then shouldn’t we let democracy unfold?

That doesn’t mean, of course, that any other government – Israel included – should be forced to deal with them.

What about what’s happening in Egypt, where the first hints of democracy have yielded a corrupt election where there are no clear “good guys”, because the people being prevented from voting and running were associated with the ultra-fanatic Muslim Brotherhood? What is the preferable outcome – a fair and impartial election of terrorists, or an “election” of so-called moderates thanks to rigging and intimidation? As it happened, we had a rigged election of terrorists, so it’s almost the worst of both worlds. But how does that fit in with the theory that we ought to push for democratic reforms in the Middle East?

One thing is for certain: As long the world continues to reward terrorists by giving them legitimacy in political arenas, terrorism will continue to thrive.

The most feared terrorist in Asia, Azahari bin Husin, the man responsible for the two Bali bombings and an attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta, has blown himself up after being cornered by police in East Java.

Meryl, I see your question and raise you this one: How is it that I only found out about it through reading your blog?

Reuters top stories? Nope. AP? Not a chance. CNN? Andrea friggin’ Yates is a lead story but no sign of the news about bin Husin.

I guess successes in the vastly unpopular War on Terror would be conterproductive. Failures sell many more papers, right? Especially when Bush can be blamed for them.

Three powerful bombs tore through New Delhi markets packed with families and shoppers on Saturday ahead of the biggest Hindu and Muslim festivals of the year, killing more than 50 people and wounding scores.

Charred bodies, blood, glass and smoking debris littered the blast scenes as rescuers frantically pulled out the dead and wounded while thousands of shocked survivors milled around trying to find out what had happened to missing relatives.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared the coordinated blasts, set off within minutes of each other, an act of terrorism. He said it was too early to speculate who was to blame.

I’m not sure what’s worse – the attacks themselves, or the likelihood that they’ll get quickly shrugged off as merely the latest in a long list of terrorist attacks. There’s very little that can shock the world anymore, sadly.

The explosion occurred in front of a felafel stand at the market in downtown Hadera, a frequent target of attacks during the past five years of violence.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack soon after the blast, saying the bombing was revenge for the death of its military leader Luay Sa’adi in an Israel Defense Forces raid in the West Bank several days ago.

The world will accept the excuse of “revenge”, implicitly saying that the terrorists can’t be expected to control themselves or to take any responsibility for their actions. They will whitewash these murders as being somehow morally equivalent to Israel’s targeted attacks on terrorists… as though killing Wednesday morning shoppers is the same as killing masterminds of dozens of suicide attacks. Everyone will urge “restraint” on Israel’s part to preserve the “truce” and avoid jeopardizing the “peace process”.

Reading these articles sometimes makes me think we’re living in a 1984-like universe, where words are meaningless and actions even more so.

Sick. Disgusting. All of it.

Update: Ma’ariv reports that the toll is up to 5 killed and 26 wounded, including 5 in critical condition.

Israeli troops killed a top militant in the Bank on Monday, while Gaza gunmen fired several rockets toward Israel in a flare-up of violence that threatened to unravel an eight-month ceasefire.

Israeli troops shot dead Islamic Jihad commander Loai Assadi during a raid in the West Bank city of Tulkarm. He was the most senior Palestinian militant to be killed since the start of the truce in March.

Islamic Jihad gunmen in northern Gaza said they fired 25 rockets into Israel in retaliation. There were no casualties. The army said several landed in open fields in Israel and that they responded with artillery fire into Gaza.

Militant groups in Gaza, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas, stopped firing rockets last month after a similar flare-up in violence in which Israel killed several gunmen in retaliation for rocket and mortar bomb salvoes.

Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge the killing of Assadi, 26, who Israel had accused of masterminding suicide bombings that killed 10 Israelis since the truce was declared in February.

That’s one… two… three references to the nonexistent truce. And anyone notice how it’s five paragraphs into the article before anyone mentions that the Islamic Jihad killed Israeli citizens – and even then, it’s a whitewashed mention? Then again, why would I expect differently from Reuters?

And as we brace ourselves for the inevitable criticism of Israel for “threatening the truce-that-isn’t”, the reasons behind these targeted attacks will surely get lost in the shuffle:

Israeli officials say Assadi was behind two suicide bombings this year, one that killed five people at an Israeli shopping mall in the coastal city of Netanya in July and another that killed five Israelis outside a Tel Aviv nightclub in February.

Army Colonel Aharon Haliva, commander of the force that entered Tulkarm, said troops had surrounded a house where Assadi, long at the top of Israel’s wanted list, was hiding and killed him when he fired on them as he tried to escape. A soldier was lightly hurt.

The army said Assadi had planned to send a suicide bomber into Israel in coming days.

But of course, it’s Israel threatening the peace. Riiiiiight.

The blasts struck the seaside area of Jimbaran Bay and the bar and shopping hub of Kuta, 30 kilometers (19 miles) away at about 8 p.m. Saturday night (8 a.m. ET).

In addition to the 26 fatalities, hospital officials said 102 people were wounded. One of those who died was a 16-year-old Australian boy, officials said, while South Koreans, Americans, Japanese and Britons were among those wounded.

Though there have not been any claims of responsibility, it looks like this was just the latest work of suicide bombers from Jemaah Islamiyah, the Al Qua’eda-affiliated terrorist group in Indonesia.

Have we lost our capacity to be shocked at these occurrances? Three years ago, the world recoiled in horror when bombs in Bali killed 202 people, mostly Australian tourists. But since then, countless attacks have occurred: Kenya, Riyadh, Madrid, Istanbul, Taba, Moscow, London… where will the list end?

Hamas leaders vowed to continue fighting Israel as tens of thousands cheered and waved the group’s green flags and masked gunmen hoisted assault rifles, rockets and anti-tank missiles.

“We will not rest and will not abandon the path of Jihad and martyrdom as long as one inch of our land remained in the hands of the Jews,” said Raed Saed, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza City, using the Arabic term for holy war.

“We are celebrating our victory in Gaza and now we are headed toward Jerusalem, Nablus, Akko, Haifa, the Galilee and all of Palestine,” he said.

“Sharon, you should know that we will win – the only language spoken will be the language of weapons. We are young people who aspire to die for Allah and for the weapons we are carrying.”

Catch that language? Jerusalem (not “East Jerusalem”), Nabulus, Akko, Haifa, the Galilee and all of Palestine.

For the uninitiated, that means Israel.

I was cautiously optimistic at the start of the pullout plan, figuring that Sharon had a strategy and that this could at the very least break the stalemate and get Israel out of a region it didn’t want in the first place. I have to sadly concede that those opposed to the plan were probably right – not for religious or ideological reasons, but because it set a very dangerous precedent in rewarding terrorism.

Just when the violence was starting to wane, just as the Palestinians were starting to believe that maybe their approach was a mistake, the Gaza pullout handed them a victory to re-energize their ranks and start up the bloodshed all over again.

I’d hoped I was wrong about that. It sadly appears that I was right.

A suicide car bomber blew himself up outside a Shi’ite mosque north of Baghdad on Friday, killing 11 and wounding 24, the latest attack in a three-day surge of violence that has killed more than 200 people.

The blast came two days after Iraq’s al Qaeda leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared an all-out war on the country’s Shi’ite Muslim majority.

Iraqi police Captain Saed Ahmed said the bomb went off outside the Great Prophet mosque in Tuz Khurmatu, a mixed Sunni and Shi’ite town 160 km (100 miles) north of the capital, as worshippers were emerging from prayers on the Muslim holy day.

He said a Saudi wearing an explosives-laden belt, who was apparently working with the bomber, was arrested soon after.

Militants have frequently attacked Shi’ite mosques over the past 18 months in an apparent attempt to goad Iraq’s Shi’ite majority into retaliation and spark a sectarian civil war with the Sunni Arab minority, once dominant under Saddam Hussein.

The mass hysteria caused at the mere suggestion that a Jewish person dares to even set foot near a Muslim holy spot is enough to cause war. And yet, the terrorists frequently stockpile weapons in mosques, attack mosques of their enemies, and destory holy places belonging to pretty much every religion. Why is it that nobody even blinked at the torching of synagogues in former Gaza settlements by Palestinians… and yet could you even fathom the world’s outcry if a Jewish person so much as dropped a speck of dirt in a mosque?

It’s hard to believe that four years have gone by. In many ways, it feels like just yesterday when I woke up to the radio and took a few minutes to process that it was saying something about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I don’t think anyone realized, at that moment, just how much was about to change.

The images are what persist the most strongly, after this time. The plane flying into the second tower. The collapse of the towers. The people running from the rubble.

September 11th changed the world. But fundamentally I don’t think it changed people. As with other catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina, people have a tendency to spin and interpret events in a way that best suits their preconceived notions anyway. But while I don’t think people truly changed, I think they did become more polarized.

Anyway, I don’t really have that much to say that hasn’t already been said by a zillion people already. It feels strange to think that only five years ago today, September 11th went by on the calendar without so much as a blink.

An Israeli police spokesman said nearly 50 people wounded in the bombing in the city of Beersheba were treated at hospital, most of them for shock. The two guards, who chased the bomber, were critically hurt, the spokesman said.

[ . . . ]

Palestinian militant factions say a “period of calm” they announced in March at Abbas’s urging will expire at year’s end.

What period of calm?

To echo Lynn, is it peace yet?

For Palestinians, the Gaza pullout is a little like a settler shell game. The settlers have disappeared from one place, only to pop up somewhere else. And Israel still controls Gaza’s land and sea crossings. In the eyes of the armed Palestinians, that’s plenty reason to keep fighting.

Then there’s the “separation fence” the Israelis are building, which has gobbled up huge chunks of Palestinian territory in the West Bank, in the name of security — yet more provocation.

So when Ariel Sharon says to them, “Look what Israel did for peace, now it’s your turn,” the Palestinians are a little stumped. Essentially, they have to convince the militants to lay down their arms without being able to promise to deliver a net gain in land or independence.

Meanwhile, armed Palestinian groups believe that making the cost of staying in Gaza too high with their constant attacks on Israeli settlers and soldiers is what drove the Israelis out. For them, the Gaza pullout proves that violence works.

The sad thing about this analysis is that it’s about to emerge as the Next Big Lie.

Mideast politics is full of these Big Lies. When Israel offered Arafat 99% of what he wanted in Camp David, and instead of accepting it or even making a counter-offer, he walked away and started a war that’s lasted nearly five years and cost thousands of lives, the Big Lie was that Israel wasn’t making much of an offer in the first place. When Israel withdrew from Lebanon, the Big Lie was that Hezbollah was still justified in launching rocket attacks because Israel didn’t pull completely out of the Sheba Farms. When Ariel Sharon made a scheduled – and approved – visit to Har HaBayit in 2000, the Big Lie was that mosques were being attacked, and that this was an excuse to launch a war that had been planned for months. Mohammed Al-Dura. Jenin and the massacre-that-wasn’t. The “Apartheid Wall”. I could go on and on with the Big Lies.

They get accepted as truth because there are just so many people in the world repeating them. Media outlets. Arab countries and leaders. “Activists” and sympathizers. When you consider that Muslims outnumber Jews in the world by a proportion of a thousand to one, and that sooner or later the message being shouted the loudest by the most people comes to be accepted as truth, then it’s easy to understand how these Big Lies get propagated.

So now the “shell game” is about to be the next Big Lie. Oh, the world will say, Israel didn’t really do very much. Sure, the country went through the most painful thing it could possibly imagine, forcibly evacuating fellow citizens from their homes and land. But really, they didn’t do anything because more settlers are moving to the West Bank. So the Palestinians don’t have to disarm; they don’t have to talk peace; they don’t have to take the next step.

No matter what sacrifices Israel makes or what unilateral steps it takes, nothing will be enough. It will all be explained away by the next Big Lie. And Israel’s moves will all be in vain.

In the meantime, Hamas is giving the real picture:

Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced on Monday that they have reached an agreement with the Palestinian Authority according to which the two groups would not be disarmed.

[ . . . ]

“We stressed during the meeting that the Palestinians have the right to continue the resistance [against Israel] and that there would be no attempt to collect weapons from the resistance groups,” he added.

“The weapons of the resistance were founded to defend the Palestinian people and resist the occupation. The Gaza victory was achieved with the weapons of the resistance, which is the only strategy to drive Israel out of the rest of our lands.”

Any questions?

A 19-year-old Israeli soldier opened fire inside a bus Thursday, killing four Israeli Arabs before being killed by an angry mob — the deadliest attack on Arabs in Israel by a Jewish extremist since 1990.

Damian claims there’s “no word for it but terrorism”:

So, will Ken Livingstone or John Pilger make excuses for this because of the gunman’s “desperation”? Don’t hold your breath. (And, of course, they shouldn’t – and neither should defenders of Israel. This act was vile, unforgivable and unjustifiable terrorism.)

No equivocation, no “buts”, no searching for “root causes” or justifications. If I hear any of that I will probably scream.

Edan Natan Zaada’s name should become synonymous with that of Baruch Goldstein or Yigal Amir. They should be universally condemned and reviled by Jews and non-Jews alike. These crazies are not part of my religion or my people. Their acts were unconscionable and there are no excuses. None.

Update: To put it more eloquently:

“I am shamed over the disgrace imposed upon us by a degenerate murderer. You are not part of the community of Israel. You are not part of the democratic camp which we all belong to in this house, and many of the people despise you. You are not partners in the Zionist enterprise. You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out. You placed yourself outside the wall of Jewish law. You are a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism.”

- then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in response to Baruch Goldstein’s murder of 29 Palestinians in 1994.

All I can say is, same goes for you, Edan Natan Zaada.

The first seven months of the year have witnessed a marked, gradual increase in attempts by all the terror organizations, especially the Islamic Jihad, to launch attacks, despite the Palestinian declared tahdiya (truce) on January 22, a seven-page report published by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed on Monday.

[ . . . ]

Since the beginning of 2005, 33 Israelis have been killed – 21 of them after the so-called January 22 truce. The deterioration of the continued while terror threats increased, totaling 436 attacks in July alone.

There was also a 50 percent increase in Gaza-based mortar attacks during the same period, with a total of 142 mortar shells fired at settlements, compared to 65 in May, the report stated.

As Meryl Yourish would say: What truce?

The leadership of Oglaigh nah Eireann has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign. This will take effect from 4pm this afternoon.

All IRA units have been ordered to dump arms. All Volunteers have been instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful means. Volunteers must not engage in any other activities whatsoever.

So was it the 7/7 bombings that made the IRA realize that – wait a second – terrorism ain’t cool? That might have motivated the timing of this announcement, but it was probably more of an inevitable end to a struggle that most people in Ireland no longer support. It will remain to be seen whether the IRA actually follows through with this promise – but hey, there’s a chance it’ll happen; after all, they’re not the Palestinian Authority.

Here are some reactions to this shocking announcement.

The stereotype that terrorists are driven to extremes by economic deprivation may never have held anywhere, least of all in the Middle East. New research by Claude Berrebi, a graduate student at Princeton, has found that 13 percent of Palestinian suicide bombers are from impoverished families, while about a third of the Palestinian population is in poverty. A remarkable 57 percent of suicide bombers have some education beyond high school, compared with just 15 percent of the population of comparable age.

This evidence corroborates findings for other Middle Eastern and Latin American terrorist groups. There should be little doubt that terrorists are drawn from society’s elites, not the dispossessed.

Impossible, people said. That can’t be right. It just doesn’t seem logical that people would strap bombs to their bodies and blow themselves up unless they were driven to it by total, utter hopelessness. Despite the fact that the 9/11 hijackers were far from poor, people simply didn’t want to believe it.

Now, two years later and the debate has been reignited with the London terror attacks and the realization that the bombers were British. Meryl points to an article in the Washington Post that discusses how the 7/7 terrorists were not products of poverty or despair, but middle-class, educated and privileged:

What will stop this revolt of privileged Muslims? One possibility is that it will be checked by the same process that derailed the revolt of the rich kids in America after the 1960s — namely, the counter-revolt of the poor kids. Poor Muslims simply can’t afford the rebellion of their wealthy brethren, and the havoc it has brought to the House of Islam. For make no mistake: The people suffering from jihadism are mostly Muslims.

This follows a discussion I was having on a web forum – yet another variation on the tired, endless debate on the “root causes” of terrorism and the people who argue that if we could just solve world poverty, we’d get rid of the recruits for all the jihad training camps in one fell swoop.

Now, I’m all for solving world poverty. It’s a nice dream, and it’s great that beauty queens get up and promise to attain it – along with world peace – in pageants around the world. But it’s time for us to realize once and for all that the notion that terror comes from poverty is utter hogwash.

Increasingly, terrorists aren’t poor people with nothing to lose, blowing themselves up because their lives are so miserable. The 9/11 bombers were engineers and scientists with American educations and jobs. The 7/7 bombers were also educated middle-class Britons. These weren’t people at the end of their ropes. They weren’t motivated by desperation. No, these are people born or educated in our cultures who are, for some reason, turning against it and deciding instead to attack it.

So if the terrorist aren’t being motivated by poverty, then perhaps they’re motivated by lack of freedom? That’s a fine theory as it goes, suits the Bush agenda of spreading democracy nicely, and works well when we look at terrorists in autocratic regimes. But how can you explain the British bombers, who lived in a very free society and chose to attack it? How do you explain the fact that the most extremist wings of Islamist political groups are emerging in Western countries?

This CBC column starts off well enough in doing just that, before taking the typical CBC turn and arguing that the world should capitulate to the terrorists’ demands to make them less angry. But let’s ignore that for a moment and focus on the actual valid points being made here (and yes, there are a few):

Go to any university campus in Canada’s larger cities and you’ll see the first seeds of a conservatism being born in young Muslims. For example, at the University of Toronto’s Muslim Students’ Association, male members won’t make eye contact with the females, they won’t address them, won’t sit next to them, and, worst of all, the female students pray behind the male students, even though in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, men and women pray side by side.

This separation between the genders is not happening at the universities in Karachi, Cairo or Dhaka, but for some reason, it is happening among Muslims in the West. While these “social regressions” may not seem like a big deal, they are emblematic of a larger trend towards rejecting everything that is western.

Like I said, from there the article isn’t much help, because it goes off into its appeasement arguments quite predictably for something published by the CBC.

So then what’s the solution? If they are blowing stuff up not because they’re poor, desperate or oppressed but because they’re comfortable, educated and free, then what’s the next step in the war on terror? How can we fight people who know our culture, understand it, are born and raised in it even, and then turn on it so vehemently? If we want to identify and fight the true “root causes” of terror, where do we go from here?

There is an interesting small point in the CBC article that perhaps wasn’t focused on enough:

Ali says that these youth just want to have a voice that opposes foreign occupation and wars in their countries but, unfortunately, moderate Muslim leadership is lacking, so they join hard-core fundamentalists groups, not necessarily because they are religious, but because it’s the only organized response out there.

I’d argue that right there is the starting point. The first and most pressing problem is a lack of a strong moderate Muslim leadership. We’ve all argued that the voices of moderation are too few and too weak to outweigh the voices of the extremists.

But this is a bit of a different spin on the issue. The argument here is that young people of any culture are just looking for a place to fit in, to get involved, to forge an identity. This is true of any culture in a multicultural society. Religious groups, community groups or social groups play very valuable roles in the lives of nearly everyone.

But if the only – or most readily available – options available to young Muslims are extremist political groups, then the indoctrination of this sort of hatred will only get worse.

Maybe that’s a place to start, then. An alternative voice. Another way for young Muslims to get involved in religious, community or political issues. Another sort of cultural identity, one that has nothing to do with hating the west or blowing stuff up. The one that everyone keeps assuring us exists, but that we see so little of. In short, “religion of peace” needs to be more than just a slogan used by Muslims to attempt to convince us on the outside; it needs to be what’s “cool” on the inside. It has to become cooler to be into peace than into militancy. After all, everyone has a need to belong somewhere. Maybe it’s time people started having better things to belong to.

I don’t know any of the the answers here. I don’t even know most of the questions. But maybe – just maybe – that’s a place to start.

At least 83 people were killed and 200 injured when car bombs ripped through shopping and hotel areas in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday in the worst attack in Egypt since 1981.

Shaken European tourists spoke of mass panic and hysteria as people fled the carnage in the early hours, with bodies strewn across the roads, people screaming and sirens wailing.

The regional governor said two car bombs and possibly a suitcase bomb had rocked the resort, popular with divers and European holidaymakers, as well as diplomats who have convened world summits. Egypt has called it “the city of peace.”

One blast tore the front off the Ghazala Gardens Hotel in Naama Bay, the site of most of the resort’s luxury hotels. People were feared trapped in the rubble of the lobby.

A car broke into the hotel compound and exploded in front of the building, South Sinai Governor Mustafa Afifi said.

There are reports of “claims of responsibility” from an Al-Quaeda linked group. The stated motive/excuse was “retaliation for crimes against Muslims”.

This is truly sickening. But what I really can’t help but wonder is how long it will take for someone to blame even this on the U.S. and Israel, somehow.

Minor explosions using detonators only have sparked the evacuation of three Tube stations and the closure of three lines, a BBC correspondent has said.

Police cordoned off large areas around Warren Street, Oval and one of the Shepherd’s Bush Tube stations.

A route 26 bus in Hackney Road in Bethnal Green had its windows blown out by a blast. There were no injuries.

Police in London say they are not treating the situation as “a major incident yet”.

My first thought is this is too small-scale to be Al Quaeda again, and it sounds like lamebrain copycats. (Though anyone who would launch a copycat attack of one of the worst terrorist acts in history is, well, I can’t think of a rude enough word to describe them).

Details seem extremely sketchy at this stage. More to come, surely. I just hope everyone is okay.

Then there’s the stuff in my own life that makes me mad too. Like certain people who I am forced to deal with at work. And certain issues of long distances. And certain issues of lack of air conditioning.

When I’m really mad, sometimes it’s great to listen to some appropriate music.

Sickening.

This despite the fact that there’s supposed to be a “truce” (as Meryl has been saying pretty much daily, what truce?).

This despite the fact that Israel is withdrawing unilaterally from Gaza this summer, over the protests of many of its citizens.

This despite the fact that the G8 just committed more money to the Palestinian Authority only a day after London’s terrorist bombings.

Bastards.

Islamic Jihad, in one sentence, stated that it “remained committed to the truce” and that it was responsible for today’s attack. That ridiculous contradiction will probably make perfect sense to the rest of the world, who will find a way to blame Israel.

The script by now is familiar. Israel will press Mahmoud Abbas for a condemnation of terror. Abbas will “condemn” the attack to the Western press, but not too loudly in case the Arab world might hear. The Americans will call for “all sides” to remain calm. The EU will find a way to blame Israel. Until the whole thing starts all over again.

When will this end?

Update: The grisly toll is now 3 dead and over 90 injured.

There were apparently quite a few athletes from the Maccabiah games in the area seeing as how numerous events were taking place in Netanya. Maybe it’s just the cynic in me speaking, but something tells me that the media coverage and pressure on Abbas would be stepped up if any Europeans or North Americans are determined to be among those dead or injured.

As the world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, has helpfully pointed out, Canada is a prime terrorist target despite the widespread Canadian misconception that theirs is a nation of peace-loving Boy Scouts only marginally involved in President George W. Bush’s global war on terror.

Ottawa, however, sent six warships to police the Arabian Sea after 9/11.

Ottawa dispatched a battle group to the mountains of Afghanistan in 2004 that included snipers who hunted down and killed al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives.

A Canadian frigate was part of a U.S. carrier battle group for several months in the war in Iraq.

Canada seconded a general for one year to the U.S. army office in Iraq responsible for planning military operations there.

And beginning next January, Canada is deploying an infantry battalion to southeastern Afghanistan where they will be specifically tasked with fighting al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Canadians must understand that as part of the West they are already into this up to their eyeballs. They must prepare at home for the almost unfathomable menace that confronts them. And because the war in Iraq has become an incubator for would-be terrorists it is growing every day.

Us Canadians tend to think that if we just sew flags on our backpacks and smile nicely, everyone will love us. Basically, Fisher is saying we should snap out of it, and soon. Basically, he’s right. G-d forbid there’s a successful attack on our soil, but we need to start thinking of ourselves as every bit as much of a target as our friends who have been hit… and we need to start giving those friends more loyalty, understanding and support.

Sure, because everyone knows the first thing we should do after being hit with a terrorist attack is give money to terrorists…

We can all (well, those of us who aren’t of the terrorist persuasion anyway) agree to be shocked, horrified and sympathetic when something like this happens. As far as that goes, we’re all united for about 10 seconds.

But then the next question is “what now?” And that’s where the divisions start, because that’s where everyone starts telling people that today’s attacks “mean” that… (insert their political viewpoint here).

Some examples:

• Anti-poverty activists are saying that today’s attacks “mean” that the fight to eradicate third-world poverty must be stepped up, because only that can solve terrorism.
• Anti-Americans are saying that today’s attacks “mean” that Bush’s foreign policies, especially in Iraq, are disastrous and responsible for the bombings today, since Blair is an ally of Bush.
• Defenders of the Iraq war are saying that today’s attacks “mean” that going into Iraq was the right thing to do after all, and that the world’s leaders should unite with the US and Britain.
• Socialists are saying that today’s attacks “mean” that the capitalist system is a failure and that only when true social harmony exists under a socialist system will terrorism be eradicated.
• I’m willing to bet that sellers of blue cheese are saying that today’s attacks “mean” that people should eat more blue cheese.

See what I’m saying?

The only thing that today’s bombings in London “mean” is that dozens of people are dead and hundreds more are injured in a cowardly attack. All the rest is just politics.

What would justice be for them, I wonder? A trial and sentencing to imprisonment or death? Torture? Mass murder?

No, I think justice – true justice – for them would be having to observe freedom persevere and win the fight.

These terrorists aren’t afraid of death and aren’t terribly bothered by imprisonment. Torture to them would be a propaganda tool. But what they truly fear – what they truly can’t stand – is freedom.

Justice would not be revenge, it would be victory.

Finally, I wish to speak directly to those who came to London today to take life. I know that you personally do not fear giving up your own life in order to take others – that is why you are so dangerous.

To be fair, the rest of Livingstone’s speech was forceful and defiant in the face of terror. But I can’t help but wonder if he meant to stroke Al Quaeda’s egos with that statement, or if it was just an accident.

In the meantime, here’s CNSnews on why Livingstone is no Guiliani (via Israpundit):

London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s previous support of a Muslim cleric who advocates suicide bombings may cause him some embarrassment as he now must speak for the city in the wake of Thursday’s terrorist bombings.

Despite Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi’s support of suicide bombings and the targeting of American allies, Livingstone dubbed him a “man of peace” and a “moderate.”

The mayor invited Al-Qaradawi to London’s City Hall last year as an honored guest, and Livingstone appeared in a video shown at a solidarity conference for the sheikh on Feb. 17 of this year in Doha, Qatar. Livingstone has publicly defended the sheikh against critics in the media and various grassroots organizations.

Attacking Livingstone now may appear to be in bad taste. But in the coming days, as more people crawl out of the woodwork with their conspiracy theories, it’s useful to remember that appeasing terrorism can only ever lead to disaster.

But I’ve decided not to, and here’s why:

I don’t view today’s terorrist attacks in London as just an attack on Great Britain, just as I don’t view 9/11 as an attack only on the United States. On the contrary, those viewpoints are very risky because they allow others – including us Canadians – to divorce ourselves from the fight and think of ourselves as outside sympathizers instead of as members of what was attacked.

Make no mistake: we were attacked too today. All of us. Every time there’s a bus blast in Tel Aviv, it’s an attack on you and I. 9/11 was an attack on us personally, as was the Madrid train bombing, the blasts in Bali, and dozens of other terror attacks. They weren’t attacks on specific nations; they were attacks on general freedom.

If there were some sort of unifying symbol out there to represent our collective freedom that was attacked, I’d post it. But there aren’t any that I know of. So to the people of London, of England and of the UK: my thoughts and prayers are with you, but I won’t post your flag, because you’re not alone. An attack on freedom is an attack on each and every one of us.

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, responsible for many suicide attacks on Israelis, condemned the London bombings.

“Targeting civilians in their transport means and lives is denounced and rejected,” Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy chief of the group’s political bureau told Reuters in Damascus by telephone.

Is that so? So all those bus bombings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and Haifa and Beersheva were what if not attacks on “civilians in their transport means and lives”?

Excuse me, I think I’m going to be sick.

Okay, she didn’t say it exactly like that. But that’s essentially what the meaning was.

Us Canadians have been pretty smug this whole time, pointing fingers at our American neighbours as they try to fight a force that has yet to attack us on our soil. But if we think we’re exempt, then we need a serious reality check. I only hope people realize that before it’s too late.

In the meantime I had to shut off my radio in disgust, because the callers claiming that the terrorism would continue “until the US and Britain change their foreign policies” was making me angry and I was liable to punch something.

The claim of responsibility from an Al Quaeda group also contains threats against Italy and Denmark:

“We still warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all the crusader governments that they will receive the same punishment if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan,” it said. “We gave the warning, so we should not be blamed.”

Right… And, of course, the statement said that this was an attack on the “Zionist British government”. I wonder if their version of the “Zionist British government” includes the likes of George Galloway or Jenny Tonge?

Update: Speaking of George Galloway, I didn’t have to wait long to find out what his reaction would be:

Respect MP George Galloway says: “We argued, as did the security services in this country, that the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq would increase the threat of terrorist attack in Britain. Tragically Londoners have now paid the price of the Government ignoring such warnings.”

In other words, blaming Blair for the attacks. Pretty much what we’d expect from the likes of Galloway. (Via Democracy Guy and Instapundit).

A casualty is taken away on a stretcher at London's King Cross station in London (source: Reuters)

The phases will be familiar to people who have gone through it all before. Shock and horror at the news. Frantic checking on everyone we know who may have been in the area to make sure they’re okay. A wave of sadness and sympathy for the victims and their families.

And then, incredible anger at the terrorists and anger at the fact that their brand of terror is being allowed to succeed – at changing the G8 agenda, at getting people to point fingers the wrong way, maybe even at scaring other European countries into surrendering. What they don’t realize is that surrender isn’t an option; sooner or later there is a line that no country can cross, and by the time they reach it, it might be too late.

If the only defense against terrorism is its 100% failure rate, than what does it mean that it has been so incredibly successful as of late? What of the Gaza disengagement – agree or disagree, it is being interpreted by the Palestinian terror groups as a victory. What of Spain’s election of a leftist government that capitulated to the terrorist demands to withdraw troops from Iraq after the Madrid train bombings? What of small victory after small victory that has enabled the terrorists to isolate the US and Israel from the world, get other European countries to back down, and cause fear among millions of people?

Terrorism will contine as long as it keeps attaining victories. Tony Blair is vowing to stay resolute. But what will happen is anyone’s guess.

He didn’t have to wait long. Only thirty seconds later, Egbert Gay – who can always be counted on to disagree with Tommy on pretty much everything – started insisting that we view the attacks in a “global context”.

Well, I don’t have to tell anyone what that means.

In the meantime, we can always count on the idiots at Indymedia for conspiracy theories; within minutes of the news, there were comments over on their site blaming the CIA, MI5, and the Israeli Mossad for the attacks.

Blair says the terrorists won’t succeed. I sadly suspect they may have succeeded already.

Two people have been killed and scores have been injured after three blasts on the Underground network and another on a double-decker bus in London. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said it was “reasonably clear” there had been a series of terrorist attacks.

He said it was “particularly barbaric” that it was timed to coincide with the G8 summit. He is returning to London.

An Islamist website has posted a statement – purportedly from al-Qaeda – claiming it was behind the attacks.

There’s chaos right now and details are sketchy. There seems to be at least six separate attacks within minutes of each other, all in Central London on major buses or tube stations. It’s looking like the numbers of those dead or injured from the attacks is going to rise quickly as details emerge.

This is truly horrifying. Sadly it’s not nearly as shocking anymore as 9/11 was four years ago. The first priority will have to be treating the victims and assessing the damage. But Tony Blair is not likely to back down in the face of terror.

It’s too easy and hyperbolic to call this England’s 9/11, though I’m sure we’ll be hearing some of that shortly as well.

Update: CNN is now reporting at least 40 people dead and hundreds injured. These numbers are sadly sure to climb in the course of the day.

This will be the story everywhere today, without a doubt.

Israeli commandos killed eight Palestinian policemen in “eye for an eye” shootings three years ago that were ordered to avenge comrades slain in an ambush on an army checkpoint in the West Bank, a newspaper said on Friday.

[ . . . ]

After gunmen from the Palestinian faction Fatah killed six soldiers at a checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Ramallah on Feb. 19, 2002, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved stepping up the scale and variety of retaliations.

“The feeling was that this would be ‘an eye for an eye’,” an ex-soldier who took part in the shooting spree three years ago told Maariv.

Eighteen Palestinians were killed in various retaliatory attacks, including eight policemen shot while manning their checkpoints near Ramallah and Nablus, another West Bank city.

Whether this is true, sensationalized by the media, or even completely out of context, you can be sure we’re looking at a disaster. Palestinian terrorists will create a story of mythic proportions out of this, and nobody in the world will be surprised when they take to murdering innocent Israeli children in “revenge”. And the worst part is that, despite the pejorative spin that Reuters has inevitably tacked on, it seems to be based on fact this time.

As I said when details of the Abu Gharib prison scandal emerged in the media, if we condemn our enemies for wrongs, we must condemn our friends even louder. Not that the two episodes are on the same plane, but the point is that there can be no excusing wrongs or trying to explain them away. The Israeli army gets falsely accused of wrongdoing on a daily basis, but that’s no excuse.

Maybe it’s not “fair” that the world excuses terrorism while holding Israel to a higher moral standard. But the problem there is the excusing of terrorism, not the higher moral standard.

I’m already dreading the fallout of this.

Thanks to this “gesture”, which is sure to never be reciprocated, we can pretty much count on more innocent Israeli deaths at the hands of the freed terrorists.

Martin said Friday the money was targeted towards helping the Palestinians build democratic institutions, such as an independent judiciary, and to improve housing.

[ . . . ]

“It is just a down payment,” Martin told a news conference in Ottawa.

“Canada and the international community must clearly do much more at this crucial moment in the Middle East,” he said, explaining that any additional money will be contingent on Abbas following through on promised reforms.

Yeah right, cause the Palestinians have had such a great track record on that front in the past.

Mind you, Canada’s money pales in comparison to the $150 million aid package that Bush offered Abbas earlier this week. I guess now we know how the next round of bombs will be funded.

Palestinian police, enforcing a ceasefire with Israel, arrested two men from a suspected Hamas rocket squad after a gun battle in the Gaza Strip but freed the militants soon after, officials said on Tuesday.

[ . . . ]

In return for their freedom, the two militants, promised to abide by an agreement that militant factions reached with Abbas in Cairo in March to respect the ceasefire the Palestinian leader declared along with Sharon in February, Abu Khoussa said.

Yeah, right. Because that agreement has been respected oh-so-well:

Describing the clash, Abu Khoussa said, a third militant had escaped arrest: “The three were in a car, en route to fire rockets, when police waved for them to stop. Gunmen opened fire at the police, forcing policemen to fire back.

“Policemen controlled the situation, took away the car, arrested the gunmen and took away their arms,” he said, adding that the third man ran away and avoided the police.

A Palestinian security official said police found rockets in the vehicle.

The Hamas gunmen accused the police of opening fire first and said there was no plan to launch rockets. Another militant group, Islamic Jihad, said it carried out a rocket attack on Israel from nearby shortly before the Hamas men were arrested.

Oh yeah, that cease-fire. The nonexistent one. Why didn’t you just say so?

But the media continues to pretend that a cease-fire exists, just as they continue to pretend that Abbas is actually interested in fighting terrorism. Why tell the truth when the lies sound so much prettier?

Twin suicide car bombs killed at least 15 people during the morning rush hour in central Baghdad on Thursday, cutting short what had appeared to be a lull in violence since elections in January.

[ . . . ]

The blasts came a day after a series of explosions around the country that killed 15 people. Together they constitute one of the deadliest spates of guerrilla activity in six weeks.

The attacks would appear to mark a new surge in the violence that has been so common over the past two years in Iraq but which seemed to have subsided since the elections.

Democracy takes enormous effort, time and patience to build – and sadly, precious little effort to destroy. But I still believe that most of the people in Iraq want feedom. They showed up at the polls en masse in January to prove that, and now they will have to face down adversity to continue proving it every single day.

It’s the same old story, on a different day. There is no truce. Anyone who thinks there still is one, after this attack, the Tel Aviv nightclub bombing, and a host of other attacks and attempts, is either delusional or blind.

I notice one thing missing from this story though: a claim of responsibility. Could it be that the Palestinian terrorists are no longer eager to claim their handiwork because they fear the consequences of Abbas’s “crackdown”? If Abbas were truly cracking down, perhaps. But more likely, the terrorists were just embarrassed this time around at their utter failure to kill Jews.

Nothing much changes.

We’ve seen this movie before — the Palestinian Authority does nothing, Sharon and the government have no choice politically or militarily but to root out the terror itself, going into Gaza and the West Bank, resuming targeted assassinations, etc. And while they still say they are going ahead with disengagement, the political road to getting out of Gaza will get even rockier and they may have to slow down the pace.

Then the world gets all pissed off at us, and the sparks of potential for a real agreement and progress towards peace quickly get snuffed out.

I would love it if someone would change the script.

Lisa worries about the effects of becoming numb:

I told her that I’d let my guard down. I had lost the ability to shrug off the bombings, and I didn’t think I had the energy to deal with the rollercoaster of emotions again – the adrenalin rush and the grief and the fear.

But most of all, I am afraid of the numbness. Because when unspeakable events occur on a regular basis, survival mode kicks in: you can’t deal with those constant questions about meaning, so you don’t. You become numb. And that means that you lose a bit of your humanity. Because if you cry over every person who is killed, then you go cuckoo. But if you don’t cry, then you’ve lost something important. Empathy. Humanity.

And Imshin went to the site itself and took some horrifying photos.

Tonight in Tel Aviv, a bunch of people decided to go out to the promenade by the beach, maybe have a drink or two. Now, 4 are dead and over 50 injured because of a suicide bomber who decided to take advantage of the ease in restrictions by the Israelis to go out and murder them:

About 20 to 30 people queued up outside the “Stage” club on the generally packed Herbert Samuel Boulevard shortly after 11 pm Friday night when the bomber, dressed as a reveler himself, struck. As he reached the front of the line he detonated a nail-packed device just before being searched by one of the club’s guards. The force of the blast ripped cars open like cans, and sprayed the victims’ blood onto the club’s smashed front fa ade. Shops and windows of nearby buildings were obliterated.

Israel agreed to speed up the pullout from Gaza. Israel released Palestinian prisoners. Israel agreed to resume security talks. Israel eased border restrictions.

The Palestinians responded as expected… with more terror, more violence.

Anyone who had dared to hope that maybe this time would be different – despite all evidence to the contrary – well, I don’t know what to say. Because we all continue hoping. We’re human. We think that there’s got to be a way out of this mess and we’ll grasp at straws to find one.

What is there left to even hope for anymore?

Security forces quickly blamed Abu Sayyaf, a small Muslim rebel group associated with al Qaeda, for the improvised bomb in General Santos and a grenade attack at a bus terminal in Davao that killed a young boy.

In Manila, six people were killed in an explosion on a bus at a commuter terminal near the crowded Glorietta mall, major hotels and the nation’s financial and diplomatic core.

“There’s a strong possibility the attacks could all be linked,” said Norberto Gonzales, the national security adviser.

“They have admitted two. We will know more later.”

Also, a car bomb in Lebanon killed at least 13 people, including former Lebanese Prime Minister (and presumptive target) Rafik al-Hariri:

A previously unknown Islamist group said in a videotape aired by Al Jazeera television that it carried out the attack because of Hariri’s support for the Saudi government. The claim could not be confirmed.

Hariri had remained politically influential since his resignation and recently joined opposition calls for Syrian troops to quit Lebanon in the run-up to a May general election.

Widespread speculation that the Syrians are involved cannot yet be confirmed, but I wouldn’t be too surprised. There’s a long tradition among terrorist governments to dissociate themselves with the bands of terrorists that they directly fund and control.

And I will never stop wondering why there aren’t massive international “end the occupation” rallies against Syria’s occupation of Lebanon.

Israel cancelled a meeting with Palestinian negotiators on Thursday following a mortar attack on a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian official said.

Ha’aretz reports that Abbas fired his security commanders in response to the mortar attacks:

Palestinian Cabinet Secretary Hassan Abu Libdeh said Abbas took “punitive measures against officers who did not undertake their responsibilities, which led to the latest developments in Gaza,” dismissing several commanders and accepting the resignations of others.

“These are very dangerous developments, and they violate the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority,” Abu Libdeh said. “No one can continue with these violations.

Excuse me but, what does Abbas expect? Most of his so-called “security forces” are terrorists or terrorist wannabes, and he’s already made it clear that he has no intention of cracking down on terrorism. Either Abbas is incredibly naive or – more likely – expected this all along and is welcoming the excuse to avoid the bargaining table.

Opportunity for peace? Yeah, sure. As Allison says, it’s more like Groundhog Day:

Over the past four years, we’ve been burned and we’ve been hurt. We’ve tried to believe in ceasefires and been disappointed. And while it did us good to see what happened in Sharm el-Sheikh, it’s going to take more than fancy speeches to make us believe we are finally headed towards a real peace.

When it comes to the Mideast, unfortunately the lesson is that if you never expect anything, you’ll never be disappointed.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will declare a formal end to more than four years of fighting at a summit in Egypt on Tuesday, officials from both sides said Monday.

[ . . . ]

“The most important thing at the summit will be a mutual declaration of cessation of violence against each other,” said Palestinian Minister Saeb Erekat.

An Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the cease-fire agreement, adding that the deal would also include an end to Palestinian incitement against Israel.

So why am I skeptical here? Is it because previous cease-fire attempts have only led to more bloodshed? Is it because despite the signs of hope, the lessons learned the hard way from Oslo teach us that there are no easy answers? Or am I just too much of a pessimist? Nah… couldn’t be. Especially with news like this.

I hope that this is a step towards peace. Unfortunately, I fear that it’s just another futile effort.

Update: “You may say I’m a pessimist… but I’m not the only one”. Here’s Caroline Glick (via Lynn B.):

So, here we are again, at the dawn of a new peace process which will bring no peace; will legitimize terrorists and the authoritarian regimes that support them; will weaken Israel’s democratic institutions while endangering its citizenry; and will engender scorn for America and faith in Israel’s eventual destruction in the hearts of millions of people who today waver between support for freedom and support for terror.

I hope she’s wrong. But sadly, I know she’s probably right.

“Israel is severing all planned contacts with the Palestinians on all levels, from security to government leadership,” spokesman Assaf Shariv said, a day after the assault that defied Abbas’s calls for non-violence.

“Everything is canceled until they take steps against terror, so we can see there is not only talk but also action. Abbas knows who carried out the attack, so he will be the one to stop them. It’s very easy,” he said.

Sharon has known all along that Abbas is no “moderate”. He had to give it the old college try for the record, but it certainly didn’t last long for Abbas to muck it up.

As far as mideast politics is concerned, looks like we’re back to regularly-scheduled programming.

Big news, right?

Excuse me if my skepticism causes me to read a little further:

A senior Hamas leader indicated Monday that the extremist group is halting attacks on Israelis while the Palestinians prepare to choose a new leader (emphasis mine).

So this isn’t a cease-fire, it’s a temporary ploy for Hamas to jockey for political power in the leadership struggle among the Palestinians.

Ok, reading on:

He also said that Hamas would consider a formal ceasefire if Israel reciprocated. He said Israel must be prepared to release Palestinian prisoners, withdraw from occupied land and stop assassinations of militants.

“The truce should have a price,” he said. “There is no truce from one side. The truce should be two-way. But “a truce with continued Israeli aggression is not acceptable to us.” (All emphasis, again, is mine).

In case you haven’t read Hamas’s charter lately, “withdraw from occupied land” is Hamas-speak for all Jews out of Israel, since Hamas considers all of Israel “occupied land”. When they say end the occupation, they don’t mean Gaza, they mean Tel Aviv.

Ok, so we’re back on familiar ground here. So much for the halting of attacks and talks of truce.

But being a curious type, I decided to check out what the Israeli press has to say on the subject. This from Ha’aretz:

Senior Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yusef told Israel Radio that the militant Islamic organization is interested in joining a national unity government with the Palestinian leadership, and to that end would agree to a hudna (ceasefire) that would last 10 years.

So now it’s not a halting, it’s a “hudna”. I should think that the last “hudna” should have taught everyone a lesson. This article from last year should quell any lingering notions anyone might still have about Hamas’s sincerity:

Has Hamas seen the light? Has this determined band of killers finally grasped that its suicide bombings and jihad rhetoric make its goal of a Palestinian state ever less likely to be realized?

[ . . . ]

Has Hamas renounced all this — suicide bombing, martyrdom, jihad, extinguishing Israel, spreading Islam to the four corners of the globe? No, it hasn’t. Its three-month cease-fire isn’t even in any meaningful way a first step to doing so. Consequently it is still dead set against the old Arab nationalism on which the Palestinian Authority is now ostensibly based. The successor of this nationalism, if Hamas remains true to its Charter and has its way, will be its intransigent and bloody form of Islamic radicalism. Nothing indicates that this is no longer its goal.

That’s why the Hamas truce is not worth the paper it’s printed on.

And that’s why any new truce wouldn’t be, either.

But let the spin continue.

Update: Damian Penny has the story of how Canadian taxpayers are funding Hamas.

An Egyptian helicopter flew Arafat’s coffin from Egypt, where a funeral service was held, to his Muqata headquarters. The aircraft was quickly surrounding by a surging crowd of thousands chanting Arafat’s name.

Firing into the air, Palestinian security men struggled earlier to remove the coffin from the aircraft and then held on to it tight as they placed it on a vehicle that plied its way through a dense throng of weeping mourners.

“With our blood and soul we redeem you, Abu Ammar,” the crowd chanted, using the nom de guerre of their leader, who fought for decades for a state he never achieved.

At least nine Palestinians were wounded by shots fired by the security forces or gunmen. Medics said hundreds were treated after fainting or for minor injuries during the crush.

In the meantime, Ma’ariv has printed the details of Suha’s meeting with PA leaders before the announcement of Arafat’s death:

As soon as the delegation arrived in the French Capital, an extremely tense meeting was held between Suha and Arafat’s chief financial advisor and confidante, Mohmmanad Rashid, and the Palestinian leaders.

“The Palestinian people will never forgive you for what you are doing”, they told Suha. The Rais’s wife began crying and told them, after regaining her composure, that she cannot return to live in Gaza with their daughter: “She has no future there”.

Suha told the PA leaders that she was in need of financial security that would allow her to continue living in the same level she has been used to. “We will allow you to live in the same level”, one of the senior leaders told her, “But you must sign an agreement and reveal all of your husband’s bank accounts and investments, and enable the transfer of the funds that belong to the PA. Do not rob this money from the Palestinian people”.

At some point, the leaders even warned her that if she would refuse to sign the papers, “The Palestinian people all over the world will never give you peace and quiet”. She then conferred with her lawyers and family members, after which she returned to the room and signed the papers. As first revealed by NRG Maariv, she received a considerable portion of Arafat’s fortune.

So they paid her off to disappear, essentially. She must be so proud.

YASSER ARAFAT is dying at age 75, lying in bed surrounded by familiar faces. He will leave this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims he sent to early graves.

In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, “God bless his soul.”

God bless his soul? What a grotesque idea! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil — as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize — but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.

Read the whole thing.

But I refuse to rejoice at the news of his death. I won’t cry but I won’t dance for joy either.

Of course, there’s a practical reason. Arafat’s death likely means civil war for the Palestinians. As the various factions fracture and try to outdo each other, I fear more Israeli deaths amidst the chaos – both of Zahal soldiers and of civilians. There is no reason to rejoice even the prospect of this.

But beyond that, I find it gruesome and morally reprehensible to rejoice at the death of anyone, even an enemy. Maybe even especially an enemy. That’s what gives us our humanity. That’s what gives us our respect for life and our love of life and our unwavering commitment to celebrating life, not death.

Arafat embraced death. He wanted to die a “martyr”. He sent scores of Palestinians out to murder Israelis with bombs strapped to their chests. In his arithmetic, every Israeli death was a Palestinian victory and every Palestinian death was a Palestinian victory.

When I see footage of Palestinians dancing in the streets after 9/11 or after a suicide bombing against Israelis, it makes my stomach turn. When I hear firing of guns in the air and cries of revenge at every funeral for a “martyr”, it makes me realize that there are those who view loving life as Israel’s weakness.

It’s not a weakness. It’s a strength. And that is why I will not share in the sentiment that is being expressed in some circles of happiness at the news of Arafat’s death.

But Israelis do not dance and rejoice at death. They dance and rejoice at life. They love life. They embrace life, living it to its fullest and then some. It’s a marked difference that’s obvious to even the casual observer.

I’m not sorry Arafat’s dead. But I refuse to celebrate death in even the smallest way. I prefer to celebrate life.

Update: In case you’re wondering, I don’t view participation in Meryl’s call to donate $25 to Magen David Adom as a celebration of death. To me, that’s the ultimate way to affirm the protection of life in the face of news of the death of a terrorist. If Arafat caused so many thousands of people to need ambulances, it is the support of people who care that will provide the ambulances to help them. Personally, I can’t think of anything more fitting.

Update: Watching CTV’s pre-prepared obituary on the 11 o’ clock news. I think I need an aspirin cause the whitewashing is giving me a headache. For some perspective, see the Canadian Jewish News’s retrospective of the terrorist’s life of failures.

Update #2: CNN has it now. So does Reuters, BBC, Ha’aretz, and Associated Press. Prepare for more sickeningly whitewashed obits.

Update #3: The Suha Arafat soap opera plot sickens. Allison has reports of bribes offered to her to agree to pull the plug on her husband, and the supposed affair that she’s been having with her financial advisor. Israel Insider reports that her boyfriend, Pierre Rizk, was directly implicated in the massacre at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982. You know, the one that Ariel Sharon gets constantly blamed for, even though it was actually carried out by Maronite Phalangists – apparently including Rizk. Something tells me that the details are just starting to emerge on this one.

Palestinians senior sources in Paris report Yasser Arafat is dead. Palestinian leader is said to have expired minutes after Palestinian PM Qureia visited him at Percy hospital in Paris.

Latest word is that Arafat will be buried in Ramallah. Palestinian delegation will fly home Tuesday night after reaching agreement with Suha Arafat’s lawyers. News conference cancelled.

Or then again, maybe not:

A Percy Hospital spokesman has refuted reports that Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat had died. The statement was made after a flurry of rumors began circulating about his death, which were then denied by Palestinian officials.

You know, this whole thing has caused an additional state of existence to come into creation. Before, there were two: dead or alive. Now there are three: dead, alive, or Arafat.

To counteract all that nonsense, Meryl has a roundup on pieces on Arafat’s true legacy.

Yasser Arafat was a mass-murderer and a terrorist. He lied to the entire world, promising peace while plotting war. He thwarted his people’s attempt for statehood at every single turn. He massacred Olympic athletes, hijaked planes, sent thousands of suicide bombers to blow up innocent Israelis, and murdered tens of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese. His legacies consist of little other than terrorism and hatred, and that’s exactly how he deserves to be remembered.

Update: Irreverantly hysterical quote of the day from Meryl: “He’s no longer an Arafish, he’s an Aravegetable. And he’s going to be rotten soon enough.”

This is even worse than trying to predict the US election winner.

For Canadian readers, you can send your donations to CMDA. (And yes, contrary to the issues of a couple of years ago, it’s tax-deductible.)

Reuters, by the way, is calling this the “possible Arafat death”. It’s almost funny watching the reporters falling all over each other to get the contradictory news straight.

I can’t say I will grieve for him or mourn him. He was a terrorist responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent people – including large numbers of his own people.

But this is as much the end of an era as the beginning of one. Palestinians are sure to mourn en masse, even the majority of them who hated the man. He’s the only leader they’ve ever really had. And his death creates an enormous power vacuum that’s sure to lead to Palestinian civil war. What the next 72 hours will bring is anyone’s guess.

Update: The various media networks can’t seem to agree yet even on whether Arafat is dead or alive. CNN says he’s in a coma in critical condition. Reuters cites Israeli TV in saying he’s “clinically dead”. But Ahmed Qurie is denying this saying he’s critical but still alive. One thing for sure: if he comes out of a coma after being declared dead, Arafat will have achieved the one thing still eluding him: godlike status.

Update #2: AP confirms that French media are reporting Arafat clinically dead, in an irreversible coma.

Update #3: Reuters now says he’s still alive, making Arafat the only man in the world who can be both dead and alive at the same time.

The NHLPA met again yesterday, supposedly to discuss “strategy” but in reality to browbeat dissenting members into submission (perhaps by tattooing “no salary cap” into their skulls… for any players who might have been confused on that point).

And a suggestion for the SAQ workers planning to strike: consider as an alternative… a drink-in.

Looking back at the last four years, the world can learn some invaluable lessons from Israel’s war on terror.

The first is, quite simply, recognizing that this is a war — a total war, an existential war, a war of survival. A national leader, accordingly, must put virtually all other considerations aside. He or she must seek to create a national consensus and to maintain vital alliances — to emulate Churchill in 1940 and Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor. Even then, the state and its leaders must be prepared to endure significant stress internally and bitter condemnations in the international arena.

Secondly, victories can be won against terror without totally devastating the host society. Victory is possible while maintaining basic moral and democratic values. This, arguably, is Israel’s greatest achievement in this war, for though the Palestinian people declared war against not just the state but also the people of Israel, we did not retaliate with war against the Palestinians. Throughout, Israel used only a fraction of its military force, and never fired a single artillery shell at a Palestinian target. And though some Palestinian neighbourhoods, particularly in Gaza, have suffered extensive damage, Palestinian society has not been reduced to rubble — no place in the territories even remotely resembles Dresden in 1945 or Hanoi in 1972 or Chechnya today. No place evokes a sense of what a country would look like after it had sent successive waves of suicide bombers against the civilian populations of France or Russia or the United States.

From a state of near-paralysis at the end of 2000, Israel has rebounded. The hotels are filled and the restaurants, though now gated and guarded, are packed. In this year alone, Israelis garnered the country’s first Nobel Prizes in chemistry, its first Olympic gold medal and the championships of both European basketball leagues — heady achievements for a nation at war.

I would urge other Western nations to take a close look. Israel has been your litmus, your laboratory. We have shown the world that you can prevail against terror.

Powerful words and food for thought, especially in the wake of this morning’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that has claimed three more innocent lives.

Osama bin Laden accused President Bush of deceiving the American people and said the Sept. 11 attacks would not have been so severe if the president had been alert.

This is too funny to not be an elaborate spoof. Especially since I still believe Bin Laden’s been dead for two years. Some lookalike probably wondered if Reuters would be fooled and report this verbatim.

In any case, I bet in next week’s Onion, we’ll see the logical comeback:

Bush Accuses Bin Laden of Attacking Americans.

Foreign doctors rushed to Yasser Arafat’s side on Thursday to tend to the seriously ill Palestinian leader, who for decades has symbolized his people’s struggle for statehood. [ . . . ] The ex-guerrilla, loved by most of his people and reviled by many Israelis, has had stomach pains since last week.

Let’s deconstruct that short, seemingly innocuous excerpt, shall we?

Symbolized his people’s struggle for statehood – is that so? Then why has he repeatedly not only rejected every single offer that would have led to Palestinian statehood, but done everything in his power to sabotage them? Why did he walk away from 97% of the West Bank, all of Gaza, and half of Jerusalem at Camp David in 2000 without so much as a counter-proposal, and instead launch a 4-year campaign of terror? Because he doesn’t symbolize the Palestinian “struggle for statehood”, he symbolizes the Palestinian struggle to wipe Israel off the map.

Ex-guerrilla – really? In one sense, Arafat is still a guerrilla, strictly speaking. He’s not the legitimate leader of a state, because he has no state. He’s not reformed. He hasn’t renounced violence – in fact, he encourages violent guerrilla tactics. In another sense, he was never a guerrilla, because that term implies that he’s fighting a war against a military enemy. By directing his fight against innocent civilians, Arafat never earned the description of guerrilla. Isn’t it time to call a terrorist a terrorist?

Loved by most of his people – only in his own mind, perhaps. Certainly not according to a recent PCPSR poll, which puts his popular support down at around 35%, and support for his Fatah party at about 25%. Anecdotal evidence suggests widespread disgust with Arafat among Palestinians, belief that he led them astray, and contempt that his Palestinian Authority is corrupt and lines its own pockets. Many believe he isn’t extreme enough, and cast their support with groups like Hamas. But to suggest he’s “loved by most of his people” is a gross misrepresentation, to say the least.

Reviled by most Israelis – I suppose Israelis revile him for the colour of his keffiyah. Yeah, that must be it. The thousands of Israelis who he was directly responsible for murdering must have nothing to do with it.

Look for more of this nonsense if Arafat’s condition worsens. In fact, most newspapers keep pre-written obituaries handy for public figures in poor health, just in case. I can’t imagine what praises and glorifications the staff at Reuters, the Guardian, and the CBC are working on now.

11/01 – Update: I guess I don’t have to wonder anymore what drivel the BBC will come up with. This makes my point nicely. Excuse me, I think I’m going to be sick.

A team of doctors, some from Tunisia, Jordan, and the director of the Ramallah hospital arrived at the Muqata in Ramallah to treat Arafat. Arafat’s personal physician, Dr. Ashraf Al-Kurdi, is scheduled to arrive from Jordan.

[ . . . ]

Arafat spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh told reporters that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah had offered to send medical teams Thursday for follow-up checks.

As doctors from Tunisia, Jordan, and Ramallah, “fight to save his life”, there’s one question that nobody’s asking – because the answer is self-evident. That is, would Arafat see a Jewish doctor or be treated in an Israeli hospital to save his life. Because the Palestinian medical system leaves what to be desired, and the Israeli one is envied throughout the world for the advanced level of care that it provides.

Hey, for all I know, maybe the best specialists for Arafat’s condition are in Tunisia, Jordan, or Egypt. But something tells me that if they were in Tel Aviv, they would help Arafat if he asked them to. And that Arafat would rather die than accept their help.

That, in a nutshell, says everything one needs to know about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.