22-May-08: Facing down those who fashion the lies

The colossal damage done to the lives of innocent Israelis - including the parents writing these lines - by means of blood-libels fabricated by sober-seeming, mainstream media practitioners is the dirty secret behind the headlines of this ongoing war. If the editors, photographers, cartoonists, reporters and analysts who shape the reports delivered into the conventional news channels were obliged to face critical analysis, had to justify their frequently agenda-driven spinning, had to give an accounting for their prejudicial distortions and lies, then most of the venom directed at Israel and Israelis wouldn't be there. The al-Dura scandal is a powerful case in point. We've pointed visitors to this blog several times to the iconology that created a powerful image for the practitioners of lethal terror and their henchmen. See 7-Feb-08: Getting to the truth behind a lethal icon: the Al-Dura scandal, 28-May-07: The Ongoing Tragedy of Dead Palestinian-Arab Children, and 6-Sep-06: An unblinking look at French - and Western - values for three instances. The image of a cowering Al-Dura father and son has been invoked by the jihadists in countless murders and maimings of innocent Jews. Tom Gross, a fearless writer and analyst whom we've quoted here several times, points out that "Osama bin Laden referred to al-Dura in a post-9/11 video; the killers of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl placed a picture of him in their beheading video; streets, squares and academies have been named after al-Dura. He became a poster child" for what we know as the Second Arafat War that started in 2000. So how true was it? A French appeals court has been asked to rule on that question. This week they answered. Before we get into the background, let's point out that as important as the court decision is, it remains almost completely unknown to the great majority of people who need to know it. They mainly live in Western Europe and especially France where the story has gotten scant coverage - and certainly only a tiny fraction of the attention which the original 2000 report gained. The legal case is about a Frenchman by the name of Karsenty. He took a long, cool look at the way France's main television channel put to air a video clip (15 seconds, out of what turns out to be either an 18 minute film, as France 2 says, or a 27 minute film as some of its critics have said) allegedly captured by the channel's Jerusalem correspondent. France 2 asserted that the recorded the cold-blooded killing of an Arab child in Gaza by Israeli soldiers - about the most incendiary kind of allegation you can make in a war of the perceived-strong versus the perceived-weak. Karsenty came to a definitive view that the video is a fake, and that the French media people knew it but pushed ahead for the worst of ideological motivations. Prof. Richard Landes' outstanding Second Draft website, which mounted a far more detailed and careful investigative effort on the case than the France media establishment ever did, published a video clip in which the Gazan boy, whom Enderlin has already pronounced dead, lifts up his arm and head and looks around before resuming the "dead" position. Karsenty went public with his findings, and for his troubles was sued by France 2 and its correspondent. In 2006, a French court found that Karsenty had committed a libel against France 2 and its man in Jerusalem. Against this decision, Karsenty appealed and this week he won. In the wake of the almost entirely unreported verdict, he wrote an emotional and important opinion piece that was published yesterday under the title French Court Vindicates Al-Dura Hoax Critic. Here's the full text. May 21, 2008 Philippe Karsenty Today a French court ruled that I did not defame France 2 when I said that its news report was a staged hoax. Because I refused to be brainwashed, I was sued for defamation. Our victory today was a victory for freedom — the freedom to think and to speak one’s mind; the freedom to question what one is told; and the freedom to disbelieve the solemn pronouncements of others when the individual concludes that his reasoning is correct and that the state and the state-run media — and all of the institutions they represent — are wrong. The al-Dura lie is an assault on our ability to think, to criticize, to evaluate, and finally to reject information — especially the right to reject information on which we base our most cherished assumptions. One of Europe’s most cherished assumptions is that Israel is a vicious Nazi-like entity that deliberately murders Palestinian Arab children. Moreover, polls conducted in Europe have identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace, greater than Iran and North Korea, Pakistan and Syria. The al-Dura hoax is one of the pillars on which these assumptions rely. It is ironic that I, a private individual, had to lecture one of France’s most influential TV stations in order to demonstrate that a child cannot move; lift his head, arm, and leg; stare at the camera; and still be considered “dead” a good 10 seconds after the newscaster tells us “the child is dead.” One need only look at France 2’s own footage to realize that the “death” scene was faked. My only objective was to correct this error. However, on the part of the French media, it turned into a titanic battle against critical thinking and freedom of thought and expression. On my part, it became a battle for the right not to be brainwashed by the French media. Only a few weeks ago, a French television station produced a documentary “proving” that the al-Dura story is authentic. First, I was compared to a Holocaust denier, and then to the fringe elements that insist that 9/11 was an inside job. I, and others who share my opinion about the story, including Richard Landes, were labeled dangerous extremists and fanatics. All the while, viewers observed the “dead” boy move exactly as I just described it. I can only conclude that, in France, it is critical thinking that is either dead or dying. Every French citizen should be complaining about this insult to our intelligence. In fact, very few complain because mass brainwashing works. Where are the angry letters to the station for its absurd documentary? Do the citizens of France now believe that a “dead” boy can move? Or have they merely forgotten how to think and draw their own conclusions? The right to think, to speak, to evaluate, to accept, and to reject the conclusions of others goes to the very heart of what it means to be free. Now it is time for France 2 to acknowledge that it created and is continuing to perpetuate the worst anti-Semitic libel of our era. It’s the responsibility of the French government and, ultimately, the responsibility of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy — who is, for all practical purposes, the chief executive of French public television — to finally reveal the truth Philippe Karsenty is the founder and president of Media-Ratings, an agency that closely monitors French media outlets for anti-American and anti-Israeli bias.

19-May-08: Only part of what we're facing...

The head of Israel's military intelligence, who has maintained a strict public silence since taking office more than two years ago, has gone public with deep concerns that he says need to be known to the Israeli public. He asserts that we currently face no fewer than five significant inter-related but nonetheless separate (and cumulative) threats. In addition to the weakened Palestinian Authority, these emanate from Hizbollah, Iran, Syria, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin describes them, according to an article in Haaretz entitled Future Imperfect, as comprising: Hizbollah: "There is a massive Hizbollah presence south of the Litani River... They have rockets south of the Litani. They have combat forces south of the Litani. They have observation points and intelligence in the villages along the border." "Hizbollah's steep-trajectory munitions now cover large areas of Israel," including "metropolitan Tel Aviv and even farther south." "If there is a future flare-up, Hizbollah will try to attack Israel not only from the area south of the Litani but from deep inside Lebanon as well." "Hizbollah did not intend to take over Lebanon last week. If it wanted to do that, it could. It has the capability to conquer the whole of Beirut within days. But it understands that if it seizes full control of the government it will bear responsibility...so a situation in which it possesses the power but not the authority is convenient for it." "The Iranian influence in Lebanon was greatly strengthened after the departure of the Syrians in 2005: the vacuum left by Syria was filled by Iranian ideology, financing, weapons and know-how." Iran: "I suggest that we do not talk about a nuclear Iran, but about the ways to prevent Iran from nuclearizing. Iran is not only a threat to Israel; it is a threat to a large number of states in the Middle East. And above all, Iran is a global threat. The Iranians are developing missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons to Europe, and in the future of crossing the Atlantic... An extremist regime with extremist weapons is an existential threat to the State of Israel - at this stage, a potential threat. Still, we must not exaggerate. We must not treat this threat as one that is going to end thousands of years of existence of the Jewish people. Absolutely not. Israel is capable and will be capable of coping with that threat in all dimensions." Syria: "Iran, which became Syria's strategic prop, now has Damascus in a bear hug, in terms of weapons supplies, training and money. Thus Bashar Assad's ability to sever himself from Iran and from Hizbullah is far more limited." Hamas: "Hamas is now preoccupied mainly with trying to smuggle standard-issue rockets into the Gaza Strip. The range of those... Katyushas is generally about 20 kilometers... However Hamas does not want to stop there. It wants to obtain rockets with a longer range... Given the present developments, every place that is within a range of up to 40 kilometers is liable to be targeted. Ashdod, Kiryat Gat, even Beersheba." "Hamas' long-term strategic goal is for the State of Israel to disappear and for the Palestinian state that will succeed it to be an Islamic theocracy. But Hamas has more immediate goals: to consolidate its rule in Gaza, to break the siege of Gaza, to seize control of Palestinian politics, to create deterrence against Israel and to continue the fighting against Israel. Take note of the order." Needless to say, this view of life in Israel is at complete odds with those far from here who paint the Arabs -v- Israel conflict as a David and Goliath affair, with Israel (improbably) as the Goliath. The reality is that we face an existential situation of great complexity and of immense seriousness. Or to put it more carefully: a situation that's deeply worrying in a life-and-death sense to those of us at actual, measurable risk.

18-May-08: Freeing murderers? Now?

With two Israelis dead and many more injured from missiles fired at Sderot and Ashkelon in the past two weeks, Israel should be fuming. Reason would demand that our forces stand poised for a massive assault against the terrorists in Hamas-ruled Gaza whose Qassams and Grads have brazenly violated our sovereignty. Instead we learn today that Israel is preparing to make yet another astonishing concession. As reported in today's Jerusalem Post ("Israel agreed to release 71 prisoners"), the government is close to signing a cease-fire agreement with Hamas that will include the release of Palestinians who murdered Israeli civilians. Inexplicably, at a moment when Hamas is shivering at the prospect of an all-out Israeli retaliation, a threat that our Minister for Defense, Ehud Barak, has been whispering aloud about for weeks, our leaders see fit to buckle under. The taboo against freeing "prisoners with blood on their hands", adhered to by Israel for years, is about to be violated. Now, when we are confronted by existential enemies looming on every border, is the worst time to reverse this policy. The message of weakness that this move conveys must be music to their ears. But the decision, perverse though it is, should not surprise us. Terrorism and its victims are rarely mentioned in Israel anymore. Certainly not by our leaders. Consequently, the prospect of freeing convicted terrorists "with blood on their hands" has grown quite acceptable. After all, the hundreds of lives those murderers cut short, the pain they inflicted on the grieving families, is for many here ancient history. And if the immediacy of those losses is not felt, why bother to keep their murderers imprisoned?

15-May-08: Celebrating a catastrophe

In what must count as one of the more successful public relations achievements of the Palestinian Arabs' political leadership, today was celebrated by them as Naqba Day - a day of honouring what they call the catastrophe of sixty years ago. The attention of much of the world's mainstream media was fixed on that victimhood to such an extent that very few of the real analytical questions that ought to be directed at the Pal-Arab leadership were raised in the media coverage. And what better way to celebrate your catastrophe than to point your weapons at the women and children of your enemy. So... On the morning after last night's barbaric attack on an Ashkelon shopping mall, and in a repetition of what must sound boring and mundane to people living far from the area, three more jihadist Palestinian-Arab rockets from Gaza crashed into southern Israel this morning. Fortunately no injuries or damage were reported from the area - the Sha'ar Hanegev region. But that certainly was not the intention of the terrorists. This evening (Thursday), three more Qassams were fired into Israel. These landed in the Israeli city that has the misfortune of being located closer to Gaza than any other - Sderot in Israel's western Negev. One rocket struck the yard of a pre-school adjacent to a synagogue, causing extensive damage to the building but no casualties. Haaretz says several passersby were treated for shock. The condition of two of yesterday's Israeli victims continues to be on the minds of many Israelis. Avital Afjan, a resident of Ashkelon aged 24 who was seriously injured when the roof of the shopping mall came crashing down on top of her is now in stable condition after undergoing surgery overnight. She is in the trauma unit of the Sheba Hospital in Tel-Aviv. Avital's two-year-old daughter Tair is still in serious condition but fortunately she has regained consciousness. The infant suffered serious shrapnel wounds to the head. For anyone paying attention to their sixty years of stagnation, poor hygiene, hopelessly misguided education and steady retreat into the Middle Ages, there's no doubt Palestinian Arab society's 'achievements' constitute a living catastrophe. The question that needs to be asked is: how did the world (explicitly including the other parts of the Arab world) get away with allowing the Palestinian Arab kleptocratic "leadership" to inflict such a disaster on their own kin over such a prolonged period of time, and continuing every single day into the foreseeable future?

14-May-08: The thugs hit the jackpot

A Katyusha missile fired from the jihadist-controlled Gaza Strip crashed into the Hutzot shopping center in Israel's southern city Ashkelon, injuring at least 15 people this evening (according to YNet). It's a busy mall, with upwards of ten thousand visitors a day. The reports so far say three of the injured are in serious condition, two in moderate condition and at least eleven suffered minor wounds. A woman and her young daughter are among the seriously injured, with severe head trauma. Some other people were trapped under the rubble. The rocket hit the mall's third floor where, according to Haaretz, a clinic takes up part of the floor and took the brunt of the hit. This is just the sort of result the barbarians of Hamas and its various proxies dream about. We'll be back with more. Thursday morning postscript: If you care to go to the BBC News website, and drill down to their dedicated Middle East coverage (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/default.stm), we invite you to try to find any mention of last night's jihadist rocket attack on an Ashkelon shopping mall. 15 hours after the direct hit on a women's health center, total silence from Bush House and its field agents. On the other hand, you'll have little difficulty finding hot BBC news reports like "Far from Palestine: Three generations of a refugee family talk about 60 years of exile"; "Shatila refugee camp (slideshow): Life in a Palestinian refugee camp after 60 years of exile"; and "Palestinians mark 'catastrophe': Palestinians are to mark al-Nakba, 'the catastrophe' of Israel's founding, as US leader George Bush visits the region"; and "Gazans discuss the fuel crisis". The Palestinians mark 'catastrophe' story is a featured item on the BBC News home page as well.

13-May-08: Another death by rockets

Taking yet another strategic step on the path to cementing a permanent place in the annals of barbarism, the Palestinian-Arab jihadists of Gaza murdered a seventy year-old Jewish woman in southern Israel this afternoon. (The site of her death is in the picture at right.) Thank you for taking the trouble to read these words here; there's an almost total absence of news coverage of this killing beyond the Israeli news channels. Ynet says the Islamic Jihad terror organization proudly claimed responsibility this evening for shedding this Jewish woman's blood. The ghoullish delight displayed by the terrorists in murdering Jews long ceased to be surprising. Nor is the fact that their self-serving press releases - carried by Iran news wires among a handful of others - routinely describe undisputed, peaceful towns and civilian settlements that have been Israeli since 1948, like Yesha where tonight's murder took place, as "occupied territories". The expression long ago ceased to have intrinsic meaning; like the rest of their rhetoric, it's worthless camouflage for a lust for blood, and for an appalling racism stemming from deep religious roots. This evening's Qassam fired from jihadist Gaza crashed into the backyard of a residential home in Yesha, a small community in the Eshkol region of southern Israel, near Ofakim. The woman had traveled to the small town with her son to visit a sister-in-law who was visiting from abroad. The two had originally planned to meet with relatives in nearby Ashkelon, but after Qassams struck that city, they changed their plans. Ynet says she was waiting outside one of the houses while her son went inside to determine if they had found the right address. The Qassam struck and killed her. 3 additional Qassams were fired into Israel in the earlier hours of today (Monday). One landed in the grounds of an elementary school in Ashkelon, damaging several buildings. Fortunately no injuries are reported.

12-May-08: Is it still a near-massacre even if they don't write about it?

The shooting gallery that is southern Israel came unbearably close to suffering two massacres of children in the past 24 hours. Unfortunately you would need to be a reader of Israeli news media to know it. Each of the two incidents remains almost completely unreported in any mainstream media. (Why is this?) Yesterday morning, two more Qassam rockets fired by the Palestinian Arab jihadists of the Gaza Strip landed inside Ashkelon , a substantial Israeli city. Sunday, it's important to note, is a regular working day and school day in this part of the world. Yesterday's two rockets landed in populated areas of the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council area. One landed near Sapir College and damaged a construction site. (A father of four who was a Sapir student was killed inside his car when it was struck in a similar attack on 26th February.) The second Qassam struck near a local gas station, causing damage to a school bus filled with children. Thankfully there were no casualties reported, though several people were treated for shock. This morning (Monday), around 7 o'clock, another Palestinian-Arab Qassam despatched from jihadist Gaza struck a section of Ashkelon that contains numerous schools and kindergartens, minutes before the area would have been filled with children. (The exact location is not being revealed for security reasons that don't really require explaining.) A second Qassam crashed into Ashkelon's national park. A woman was treated for shock and damage was caused to some homes. The intention of the Gaza jihadists can safely be said to have been thwarted. They're after blood and have never pretended differently. The brutish thugs responsible for the daily barrages on Israeli cities, towns and homes are immeasurably aided by the absence of intelligent daily news coverage of the intensity and frequency of their rocket strikes. How can anyone make sense of Israeli defensive measures if there is inadequate reporting of what we're being defended from?

11-May-08: "Cease-fire is only so we can prepare for the final battle..."

“It does not matter what the Jews do. We will not let them have peace,” Ibrahim Mudeiris, the imam of the Ijlin Mosque in Gaza, told me not long ago. We spoke after Friday prayers. The street outside the mosque was crowded with angry young men who had been excited by Mudeiris’s sermon, in which he identified Jews as “the sons of apes and pigs.” “They can be nice to us or they can kill us, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “If we have a cease-fire with the Jews, it is only so that we can prepare ourselves for the final battle.” The American writer Jeffrey Goldberg, in a 2008 essay in The Atlantic magazine, quoting the prominent Islamic leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris of the Sheikh 'Ijlin Mosque in Palestinian-Arab Gaza. Mudeiris routinely speaks on official Palestinian Authority TV, preaching a message of jihadist racism, hatred and incitement to murder. In 2005, Mudairis in his capacity as moral compass and definer of religious pathways on behalf of the Palestinian regime offered this gem of spiritual insight: We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again. The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world – except for the Jews. The Jews will not enjoy a life of tranquility under our rule, because they are treacherous by nature, as they have been throughout history. The day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews - even the stones and trees which were harmed by them. Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew. Sometimes, some of us need reminding of what it takes to create a people a majority of whom favour murdering their neighbors via suicide bombs. For an additional reminder, see our earlier blog entry "What the Palestinian-Arab silent majority really thinks".

11-May-08: An ongoing, self-inflicted disaster

As the joyful celebrations of Israel's sixtieth anniversary as an independent state continue, the ongoing tragedy of self-inflicted damage in Palestinian Arab society is largely ignored or misunderstood. Friday's Jerusalem Post editorial, headlined "Self-harm as strategy" provides an important and clear-spoken comment that we think is powerful enough to warrant being reproduced in full here. Ever since the Trojans welcomed the Wooden Horse, full of armed Greeks, into their city, rulers and regimes have unintentionally defeated themselves. But as the last month has made obvious, with the rule of Hamas in Gaza we have something else entirely: not folly, but a strategy designed to inflict self-harm. The clearest, but by no means the only example of this is the fuel crisis that has brought transportation in Gaza to a virtual standstill. Even as it harshly condemned the Israeli "siege" of the Gaza Strip, Hamas acted to exacerbate the problem by repeatedly confiscating fuel trucks and carrying out attacks on border crossings. On April 9, it launched an assault on the fuel terminal at Nahal Oz, which provides gas and fuel to the residents of the Strip. Last week, Hamas militiamen attacked trucks heading toward the Nahal Oz crossing that carried fuel intended for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and hospitals in the Gaza Strip. And the IDF was forced on Sunday to halt deliveries through the Karni crossing after vehicles came under Palestinian mortar fire while attempting to deliver food and fuel to Gazans. Hamas, of course, does not have a monopoly on such self-harm; in one form or another, the tactic is shared by all terrorist movements, including the intifadas that brought such ruin to the Palestinian population. How then are we to understand such self-defeating behavior? There are two ways, as political scientist James Q. Wilson has said, of thinking about terrorism. One is to see terrorism as an extreme expression of underlying injustices, and to assume that if the root problem is solved, the symptom will disappear. The second, and more realistic, is to understand that whatever the underlying injustice, there are terrorists who by their very nature oppose solutions that would remedy that injustice. Any reform or amelioration, short of destroying the state, threatens their raison d'etre. THIS LESSON must guide Israel's response to Hamas's offer of a truce. Khaled Mashaal, the group's Damascus-based leader, said Monday that his movement would offer Israel a 10-year hudna if it withdrew from all areas it captured in 1967. Gaza-based Hamas representatives Mahmoud Zahar and Saeed Seyam have been in Cairo as part of Egyptian mediation efforts toward a cease-fire. The problem with such offers is not merely that Hamas would use a truce to rearm and regroup. Mashaal himself, after all, has proclaimed as much. "It is a tactic in conducting the struggle; it is normal for any resistance that operates in its people's interest... to sometimes escalate, other times retreat a bit," he said in a recent interview with Al-Jazeera television. Nor is it merely that the offer is accompanied by further threats of violence. Hamas has warned of an "unprecedented escalation" against Israel if it does not agree soon to the cease-fire offer, the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported Sunday. It is also an offer that exploits both Israel's justified fear of further terrorist attacks and our sense of concern vis-à-vis Gaza's growing humanitarian crisis. The real problem, however, is that here too, Hamas's aim is not to reach a lasting resolution to the conflict, but precisely to exacerbate it - to weaken the Israeli adversary and foster the illusion that the next set of concessions will be the last. "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill," Sun Tzu said in the 4th century BCE. IN INTERNATIONAL relations, as in other dimensions of life, the good intentions of others alone cannot aid those who refuse to help themselves. As the US is now learning in Iraq, for instance, democracy cannot be imposed on Arab societies from without. Much as Israel may wish for progressive reforms in Palestinian Arab society and for the concomitant relief of Palestinian suffering, such salvation need come from within. Civilized nations are in an unenviable position when confronting regimes dedicated to the tragic ethos of self-harm. In the case of Hamas, the best approach remains continued adherence to the Quartet's policy of no contact with Hamas until it accepts the international community's three conditions for engagement: recognizing Israel's right to exist, renouncing terrorism and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

11-May-08: A death in Sderot and business as usual

It's been business as usual for the terrorists of Gaza this weekend. On Friday, three Qassam rockets and four mortar shells struck Israel, landing in the western Negev area. To be clear - this is a region whose legal and political status has never been in dispute, and that has no military targets; it's simply Jewish land, and maybe inhabited by Jews. That's enough of a justification for the jihadists. One Israeli was lightly wounded in the barrage and taken to Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital for treatment. A vehicle was damaged when struck by a rocket in Ashkelon, a southern (and major) Israeli city. Two Israeli were wounded. On Friday evening, Israel's national powered paragliding champion, Jimmy Kdoshim, 48, was killed in his own home (see the photo at right) by an incoming Palestinian-Arab mortar shell fired from jihadist-controlled Gaza. He leaves three children behind. Three others were wounded in that attack on Kibbutz Kfar Aza. The Jerusalem Post says one is moderately injured and two lightly. Ambulance teams at the kibbutz treated a number of people for shock and several kibbutz buildings were damaged in the barrage. Hamas, the jihadist regime that runs Gaza with backing from terrorist states in our region, claimed full responsibility for the killing in a Friday evening broadcast. Dead Jews makes for headline news in their ghoullish circles. 20 rockets and five mortar shells were fired into Israel on Saturday, damaging numerous buildings. Two civilian Israeli residents of beleagured Sderot had to be treated for shock as a barrage landed in their city and in the neaby Sha'ar Hanegev region. One struck and damaged the courtyard of Sapir College in Sderot where a student was killed in his car a month ago by another Palestinian-Arab Gazan missile. Another of today's rockets landed next to a synagogue and a third hit a house in Sderot, damaging the building. Saturday's other rockets landed in open areas with no casualties reported. Hamas brazenly claimed responsibility for Saturday morning's rocket fire too, according to the Jerusalem Post.

8-May-08: An Independence Day thought

We wrote yesterday about the current state of security warnings. These disconcerting reports and headlines are far from unusual. Every Jewish holiday and some ordinary days bring similar security alerts. This state of affairs leaves many Israelis wondering what will happen if and when American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush manage to steam-roller Palestinian State on the West Bank into existence before Bush leaves office. Our lifeline, the curfew, will obviously no longer be an option. How will we defend ourselves then against a "moderate" neighbor who from time to time is smitten with the urge to murder a few more Israelis? The "partners for peace" do not seem overly troubled by that possibility. On a somewhat more personal note, we learned something new about Malki's murderer this week. In an August 2007 column which listed the public swimming pools that exist in the West Bank, Avi Issacharoff wrote: Nowadays, every city in the West Bank has a pool or a recreational complex: Bethlehem has one similar to Al-Khaluf [a clover-leaf-shaped pool in Dura, near Hebron], while Ramallah has more than 10. One of Jenin's swimming champs committed a suicide bombing at Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant in August 2001. Nablus has a pool reserved for women, and an Olympic pool. Another pool and recreation complex sits between Nablus and Tubas. Al Khaluf draws more than 2,500 people on an average weekend day, [lifeguard Ahmed] Rajoub says. ("West Bank swimming pools help Palestinians brave the heat") This detail (the text in red above) joins another we already knew about our daughter's murderer: that he was the son of a well-to-do restaurant owner. Together they punch holes in the popular conception of Palestinian terrorists as desperate and demoralized rather than merely evil and blood-thirsty. The reason Issacharoff's 2007 piece is circulating on the Internet again now is that it proves that Gidon Levy, his colleague at Haaretz, lied brazenly in his latest anti-Israel rant. In a May 1, 2008 Haaretz piece, entitled "Twilight Zone/Last Refuge", Levy writes that the swimming complex, Banana Land, a "pathetic" affair located in the northern outskirts of Jericho, is the only place where West Bank Palestinian children can swim: So Barak promised, so what. The checkpoint was open for two days and closed again. Now the only thing left is this water park as a last refuge for the hundreds of thousands of children and families in the West Bank to come and take a momentary break from life's tribulations. An oasis in the occupation, in the Jordan Valley. (Emphasis added.) This brazen canard is just another of a steady flow of similar writing churned out tirelessly by Levy over several decades. He is determined to portray the Palestinians as pitiful and oppressed victims come hell, high water or, as in this case, the disturbing truth. He is incapable of commiserating with his fellow Jews for their suffering at the hands of their enemies. On the contrary, this year he exhorted us to treat Independence Day as Naqba Day (i.e. Catastrophe Day) along with the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. Likewise, several years ago on Tisha B'av, while hosting a television special, Levy urged Jews to cease their mourning on that day over the destruction of the Holy Temple. He considered that to have gone on long enough and preferred that his people devote the day instead to mourning for the Palestinians. His latest lie-riddled column should alert all Haaretz readers to the dangers of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish drivel that is routinely disseminated by self-hating Jewish staff-writers like Gidon Levy and his soul-mate, Amira Hass. Their material, reprinted and widely disseminated by our enemies, enhances the impact of their own propaganda exponentially. Undoubtedly, some of our most lethal enemies are the home-grown variety.

7-May-08: Remembrance

The 11 o'clock Remembrance Day siren has just completed its two-minute wail. Time to remind ourselves what it signifies... Security (says Haaretz this morning) has been stepped up in recent days following an increase in intelligence warnings of terrorist plans to carry out attacks during the Independence Day holiday. The number of specific warnings has risen to 11, from seven two weeks ago according to un-named security sources. Those warnings have led the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Defense Forces to raise their levels of preparedness. In parallel to the specific threats, there are dozens more warnings that intelligence assessments call "general". Remembering, in this part of the world, is an indispensable part of the daily routine.

1-May-08: Seven thousand medical treatments

Before you read the brief report below, go back and remind yourself of a report we carried here ten days ago (21-Apr-08: What the Palestinian-Arab silent majority really thinks). We wrote there that Palestinian Arab support for killing-by-bombing jihadist attacks against Israeli civilians stands at 51% according to a Palestinian Arab poll carried out in April 2008. In simple terms, the "silent majority" of men, women and children walking the streets of the Palestinian-Arab villages, towns and cities are comfortable with one of the modern world's most barbaric activities. Keep this in mind as you read the next two paragraphs. Israel Treats Thousands of Sick Gazans ...Ahmed was first taken to Gaza's Shifa Hospital, but his only hope for life-saving treatment lay in Israel. "We got our permit from the Israeli authorities within 24 hours," said Ahmed's father, Muhammad. In 2007, more than 7,000 Palestinians were allowed into Israel for medical treatment - a 50% increase on 2006. "We treat hundreds of Gazans here each year," says Dr. Ron Lobel, deputy director of Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon. He says there are some five to 15 Gazan patients there at any given time. Many cases are treated by Israel for free. "The Israeli policy is to facilitate all the medical needs for Gaza," said Maj. Peter Lerner, spokesman for the Coordinator of Activities in the Territories. However, he says militants have repeatedly tried to exploit Israel's humanitarian policy to carry out attacks inside Israel. In June 2007, two Palestinian women who had received medical entry permits were arrested after it was discovered they planned to blow themselves up in an Israeli hospital. (Extracted from BBC report)

1-May-08: Little noticed side-issue

Israel Hits Palestinian Rocket Factory Yesterday (Wednesday) the Israel Air Force precision-bombed a rocket-manufacturing plant in Rafah in Gaza, killing one person and wounding three. Islamic Jihad Commander Was Headmaster at UN School The person killed in Wednesday's Rafah airstrike was the deputy commander of the Islamic Jihad military wing, according to Palestinian sources quoted by CNN who said he also served as a school headmaster at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school.

1-May-08: Wednesday war

15 Gazan Palestinian Arab rockets have crashed into Israel so far today (Wednesday), one of them landing in the yard of a residence on the southern side of Ashkelon, causing light damage to the home and sending a woman into shock. 2 other rockets landed near Sderot tonight, shortly after the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony began in the town's cultural center. Fortunately no injuries or casualties were reported, which was not the intention of the terrorists.

29-Apr-08: More and more rocket-borne terrorism

9 Qassam rockets and six mortar shells have slammed into Israeli territory so far today (Tuesday). There's been property damage in three different places, but thankfully no injuries. This was not the intention of the Gazan Palestinian-Arab terrorists who did the firing. One Qassam scored a direct hit on a house in Sderot. There are no injuries but several of the town's beleaguered residents have had to be treated for shock. Another rocket hit a guard post on the grounds of Kibbutz Sha'ar Hanegev and yet another hit an infirmary at another (un-named for security reasons) kibbutz. Yesterday (Monday) 18 rockets and dozens of mortar shells were fired into Israel by the Gazan Palestinian Arabs. They have absolutely no concern over who or what is hit which is one of the things that makes them terrorists.

29-Apr-08: Ins and outs of Palestinian Authority incarceration

It's been revealed (though almost no one in the media seems to have noticed) that the shooting attack at the Nitzanei Shalom industrial zone on Friday that cost the lives of two Israelis was carried out by a Palestinian Arab terrorist who had "escaped" from the PA prison in Jericho. YNet quotes Palestinian sources saying the terrorist made his post-"escape" way from Jericho disguised as a woman. In Kalansua, he changed back into male clothing, going from there to Nitzanei Shalom where he carried out the attack. Three additional terrorists, members of the Fatah-controlled al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, also "escaped" yesterday (Monday) morning from the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho. (The PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, is the head of Fatah.) Palestinian security forces are now "combing the area in search of the inmates" according to one report. YNet explains that friends of the terrorists from the Jericho prison said all three had complained of their imprisonment conditions. Even worse, they felt rage over the fact that their requests to be included in an amnesty list were not met. Solution: why, somehow to escape of course. The PA (according to YNet) is "looking into the incident". So, presumably, are the widows of Shimon Mizrachi and Eli Wasserman, the two murdered Israelis.

25-Apr-08: Gunmen at work

It's been a busy Friday Passover-week morning in this ongoing war. Israelis driving their vehicle in the Samaria district were attacked early this morning by Palestinians hurling fire-bombs (home-made weapons in the language of the mainstream media). No injuries, thankfully, but that was not the intention of the terrorists. In the southern city of Ashkelon (home to 110,000 Israelis), three Qassam rockets fired by Gazan-Palestinian-Arabs crashed this morning. One struck a cemetery on the city's southern side, damaging tombstones. A fourth Friday morning Qassam rocket was fired into Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, not far from Ashkelon. Fortunately no injuries in any of today's Qassam landings. In the Nitzanei Shalom industrial park (the name means buds of peace), near the West Bank city of Tul Karm, the outcome of this morning's terrorism was less banal. Two Israelis who worked there as security personnel were shot dead. Terrorists sent by Islamic Jihad infiltrated the industrial zone overnight and shot them dead at close range. Their intent, it appears, was to carry out a larger massacre, but the factories were shut down and mainly deserted for the Passover week. The dead men are Shimon Mizrahi, 53, of Beit Hefer, and Eli Wasserman, 50, of Alfei Menashe. In August 2002, another Israeli, a truck driver working in that industrial park - Shani Ladani, 27 - was killed, shot dead at close range by Palestinian-Arab terrorists in the same place. It's unlikely anyone from the mainstream media will pay much attention to this aspect of the killings, but the fact is the industrial park at Nitzanei Shalom was one of nine industrial zones established in 1995 by the government of Israel to provide work and economic advancement for Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Seven factories are located today in Nitzanei Shalom. They make cartons, plastic parts, exterminator sprays and other items while coping with an ongoing war against them, brought on by the same sort of logic that leads the Palestinian-Arabs of Gaza to repeatedly attack Israeli fuel-transfer points (for transfer into Gaza) and then wail that there's insufficient fuel. Some 700 Palestinian-Arabs are today employed in the park where today's killings were carried out. The premises are secured by Israelis like the men murdered this morning.

23-Apr-08: Stop Playing with Puppets

An opinion piece written by one of this blog's two authors is published today on the FrontPageMag website. The full text of Frimet Roth's article is reproduced below. Stop Playing with Puppets By Frimet Roth The Palestinian Authority makes a special award for valor to the murderer of my daughter FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, April 23, 2008 We are all familiar with PA President Mahmoud Abbas' game. There was no need for more evidence that he is far from the "moderate" that the West has dubbed him. Arafat's loyal apprentice would be a more apt epithet though Abbas has even surpassed his mentor: Arafat never garnered the unflinching support and admiration of the West that his successor has. Nevertheless, Abbas has provided yet more incontrovertible proof that President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and our own Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are hawking a fantasy. Last week's announcement that Abbas is awarding the Palestinian Authority's highest medal, the Al Quds Mark of Honor, to two convicted female terrorists currently serving terms for murder in Israeli prison left me trembling with rage. One of them, Ahlam Tamimi, murdered fifteen men, women and children in the terror attack on Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant in August, 2001. Among the victims was my own fifteen year old daughter, Malki. True to form, Abbas felt which way the western winds were blowing and realized he'd better do a hasty 180. The following day, he canceled the awards. As always he has managed to convey one message to the Arab world – that terrorist are heroes – and precisely the opposite to the West – that he will not actually confer any honors on them. Once again, his reputation escaped unscathed. My wrath is not directed at Abbas, of whom I had no other expectations, but at all the Western leaders who by now should know better. Breathless from their propping, buttressing, bolstering and even kissing and hugging of that duplicitous Palestinian, they seem blind to his brazen support of terrorism. Western leaders will no doubt praise Abbas for canceling the awards and ignore the message conveyed in the original announcement. Unable to withstand foreign pressure, Israel's own leaders have been touting the "moderate Abbas" fantasy with equal zeal. Speaking at the Doha Forum in Qatar last week, Foreign Minister, Livni said that Israel is negotiating "with the pragmatic Palestinians, who recognize Israel's right to exist, who seek to realize their national rights but choose the path of peace over terrorism. With such partners, who support the two-state solution, peace can be attained." There seem to be no limits to the risks Israel will take to pump life into this farce. One of the many is releasing convicted terrorists, the most famous being Marwan Barghouti. He too has been billed a "moderate" and essential figure, despite damning evidence to the contrary. We have watched a steady succession of of Israeli politicians jump on the "Free Barghouti" bandwagon. Yossi Beilin, who hitched up the wagon was the first. Then over a year ago Minister Meir Shitreet suggested that Barghouti will likely be released as part of future peace negotiations. Not to be outdone, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres declared in June, 2007, that he would sign a presidential pardon for Marwan Barghouti if elected to the Israeli presidency. More recently Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer declared that if Israel was interested in achieving peace it had to recognize that "only the release of Barghouti could change things around." And last week Amir Peretz magnanimously promised to visit all of Barghouti's victims' families after Passover to enlist their support for his personal "free Barghouti campaign". What do we know about Barghouti? Start with the fact that he was convicted by an Israeli court in May 2004 on five counts of murder, one of attempted murder, conspiracy to murder and activity and member ship in a terrorist organization. But for a more intimate glimpse of the man, Yossi Beilin is, surprisingly, an objective source. Shortly after Barghouti was sentenced to five life sentences, plus 40 years, Beilin had this to say to NY Times reporter, Steven Erlanger: "Barghouti told me that he wanted to continue the use of violence...he thought he could control the violence he unleashed and end the intifada in a few weeks.." In 2005, Beilin wrote: "The evidence that he was responsible for directing terrorist acts was overwhelming and his punishment was determined accordingly." Notwithstanding this bleak report card, Beilin does not stop hankering for Barghouti's release stating in 2007: "In spite of the fact that Barghouti was responsible for the Second Intifada... we are nonetheless talking about the most important elected parliamentarian and the most pragmatic and influential on the Palestinian street. His arrest was a big mistake and an act of stupidity. .. not releasing him would be an even larger mistake." This week we learned the results of a poll conducted by the Palestinian organization, the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center. 1,190 West Bank and Gazan Palestinians were surveyed by the center between April 8-13, 2008. The results prove that even the Palestinian on the street doesn't buy Beilin's hype about Barghouti's indispensability. His popularity fell from 14.3% in November, 2007 to 12.8%. During that same period, Abbas' ratings dropped from 18.3% to 11.7%. It is not likely that the above statistics will alter the course of events in this region. These moderate marionette puppets serve many political careers too well. The beaten and battered Bush and Olmert have undeniably won a transfusion of support on the back of the Annapolis negotiations. But they are traveling a dangerous path offering only short term rewards. Terror groups in Hamas-ruled Gaza are stronger and better equipped than ever. And Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak cautioned just three weeks ago: "We need to keep in mind the possibility that after all we have done, Hamas will take over the West Bank, not only by force but even in the upcoming general elections". But apparently everybody was too busy planning the next Olmert-Abbas tete-a-tete to listen. Above all else, the puppet show must go on. ... This article first appeared in Front Page Magazine on 23rd April 2008. Frimet Roth, a freelance writer, lives in Jerusalem. She and her husband founded the Malki Foundation in their daughter's memory. Malki Roth was murdered at the age of fifteen in the Sbarro Jerusalem restaurant massacre in 2001. The foundation in her name provides concrete support for Israeli families of all faiths who care at home for a special-needs child.

21-Apr-08: What the Palestinian-Arab silent majority really thinks

An opinion poll of Palestinian-Arabs has reported that as of this month, April 2008, more than half of Palestinian Arabs are in favor of suicide bombings of Jews. What this means about the silent majority of Palestinian Arabs who secretly yearn for peace with their neighbors is anyone's guess. We're speaking of a poll conducted by a respected Palestinian Arab organization, the Jerusalem Media & Communications Center. Its survey covers 1,190 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and was conducted between April 8 and 13, 2008. There are no signs of the poll's findings in the English-language section of the JMCC's website. The news report of the survey comes via the invaluable Khaled Abu Toameh of the Jerusalem Post. As we've mentioned before, he's a courageous Palestinian Arab journalist who has a track record of shining bright lights on the things we need to know about terrorism among the Palestinian Arabs even when many consider them politically not correct. (Let's see how widely this latest report of his gets covered outside Israel. A Google News search just now shows the Jerusalem Post as the only source in the global media world that's reporting the story at present.) Among other results of the survey: The percentage of Palestinians who support "resistance operations" against Israeli targets rose from 43.1 percent in September 2006 to 49.5% at present. Support for "resistance" is highest in the Gaza Strip, at 58.1%, with 24.5% in the West Bank agreeing. Palestinian Arabs who support bombing attacks against Israeli civilians rose from 44.8% in June 2006 to 48% in September 2006. In April 2008, it stands at 50.7%. That is, a majority of the men, women and children walking the streets of the Palestinian-Arab villages, towns and cities are comfortable with one of the modern world's most barbaric activities. Something to keep in mind when their representatives appear on news and analysis programs in your community. Support for suicide bombings is higher among Gazans (65.1%) than among the Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank do (42.3%). Regarding the thousands of rocket attacks delivered onto Israel in the past several years, 39.3% find them "useful" to Palestinian national interests. 35.7% see them as harmful. Support for Mahmoud Abbas fell from 18.3% in November 2007 to 11.7% in April 2008. Remind us again why such enormous risks are being taken to prop up the Abbas regime? Support for Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas dipped from 16.3% in November 2007 to 13.3% in April 2008. A catastrophic number for a politicians, but it still makes him more popular than Abbas. Support for Marwan Barghouti (a convicted murderer serving his sentence in an Israeli prison) which stood at 14.3% in November 2007 has now descended to 12.8%. Makes us wonder yet again why such energetic efforts are being made by failed politicians on Israel's left including Amir Peretz, Joseph Beilin, Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Naomi Hazan and others to have him pardoned and released immediately. (What powers of insight and understanding do such politicians have that let them see things the rest of us somehow cannot?) Fatah's support among Palestinian Arabs decreased from 40% in November '07 to 32.5% in April '08. Hamas's popularity went down from 19.7% to 17.8%. (Reminder: When people speak about the allegedly-democratic decision of the Palestinian Arabs to elect a Hamas government, it's this 17.8% party they're referring to.) There's little point in discussing whether any of this is good or bad for peace. It's reality, and it needs to be analyzed and understood. Unlikely that that will happen, based on past performance.

21-Apr-08: And by the way...

It may be Passover, when the entire community of Israel is at rest, commemorating tumultuous events of long ago. But it's always the right time for the jihadists of Gaza to be lobbing explosives into Israel. Any place, any time. JPost reports that two Qassam rockets struck open areas in the western Negev late last night (Sunday). Nobody was wounded in the attack, and no damage was reported. This was not the terrorists' intention. Five additional Qassams landed in open areas of southern Israel earlier in the day on Sunday, YNet says.

20-Apr-08: Saying no to Carter... and meaning it

If you read our blog entry from Friday ("Removing the leaven"), you'll have an idea of just how incensed we are by the irresponsible antics and double-dealing hypocrisy of a certain former president of the United States. The Haaretz Washington columnist Shmuel Rosner has penned some paragraphs that we feel an obligation to share here. Just say no to Carter Shmuel Rosner Senior Israeli officials were not the first to try to get out of meeting Jimmy Carter. A number of members of Bill Clinton's administration have already tried, including the former president and his wife the candidate; most members of Bush senior's administration, including George H. W. himself; and it goes without saying the same applies to his son and his administration. Carter has a strange characteristic: He finds it easier to make friends with dictators. If a person's companions testify to his personality and character, then here is a partial list of people with whom Carter has gotten along well: Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and Kim Il Jong. Carter has helped in no small number of humanitarian activities, said Brent Scowcroft, George H. W. Bush's former U.S. National Security Adviser, but "his political judgment was just awful." After Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, Carter objected to using force to remove the invaders. He even had a creative idea of how to solve the crisis: "Now is a propitious time for Israel to come forward with a genuine peace initiative." In simple terms, an Israeli withdrawal from the territories in return for an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. He had quite a lot of such creative ideas, few of them useful, a few dangerous and most just eccentric. American administrations from Reagan to the second Bush were forced to grit their teeth and live with his endless activities, and in particular his amazing talent for public relations. When the Clinton administration reached a deal with North Korea, Carter played a role in reaching the controversial agreement. Senior officials then had to watch the ex-president steal the credit in a broadcast to the nation by a CNN crew Carter had invited in advance. Carter has turned self-promotion through scandalous behavior into an art form. This is exactly how he sold his books, including the one presenting Israel as an apartheid state. A book which revealed, even if that was not what he meant to do, the fundamental hypocrisy which is the basis for the political partisanship concerning Carter. Whoever attacks a president such as Bush for distorting facts in order to push a political goal has no problem accepting Carter's book, which is nothing but a concoction of exaggerations, inventions, distortions and lies. Whoever disagrees with Bush because of the religious faith that serves as the foundation of his political actions has no problem with the same religious motives of Carter's messianism. The mistake the Americans made when they elected him president in 1976 was mostly an act to punish the Republican Party after the Watergate affair, and they corrected their mistake at the next available opportunity. But Carter is a gift that continues to give - even when no one wants to receive it any more. The honor due Carter for his help in reaching the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt is written in the history books, but he did not come to the Middle East this week for honor, but to work. And his work, for years, has had one goal: undermining the status of Israel, thwarting its policies and ridiculing its hopes. That is why Israel acted correctly in having him meet with only the ceremonial echelon - President Shimon Peres - and avoided having him meet with those who are supposed to be doing the work: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. In an interview earlier this week, Carter told Haaretz's Akiva Eldar a number of amazing things. Carter seemingly was not particularly distressed by the refusal to meet with him: "In a democracy, I realize that you don't need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels. When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that's the dictator, because he speaks for all the people," explained Carter knowledgeably. The words were very well chosen, with a malicious message wrapped up inside: in a dictatorship it is impossible to trust the ruler to express society's views, but in a democracy such as Israel the opposite is true - the elected government is that which expresses the public's mood, otherwise it would not have been elected. Carter, once the exaggerated attention is stripped away, is nothing but a nuisance. A painful reminder of the electorate's failure. His views do not represent the American public, his actions are not viewed favorably by the administrations that followed him - Democrats and Republicans alike - and his righteous trouble making is just a guise for continued hostility to Israel, which he views as partially responsible for ending his presidential career after only a single term. In any case, the choice of those who still continue to insist on the need to listen to Carter is based on lies - it is possible to ignore him, protest his manipulative tricks, and still continue to work for true peace between Israel and the Arabs. There is no contradiction. Carter spent the past two days in meetings with the Syrian dictator and with a Damascus-based Hamas terrorist ring-leader. Feh.

20-Apr-08: Putting an attack on a humanitarian crossing into perspective

To put Saturday's "smash-and-grab" terrorist attack on Kerem Shalom into some useful context, a little background is needed. The place-name is Hebrew for "vineyard of peace", and refers both to a kibbutz founded in 1966 adjacent to the tri-border Gaza/Egypt/Israel area by members of a Zionist youth movement called Hashomer Hatzair, and to a border-crossing. Both are called Kerem Shalom. The kibbutz members chose the name because the word shalom conveys the idea that the location would play a role in establishing peace and ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israeli optimism has never been in short supply. As a border crossing, Kerem Shalom plays a vital humanitarian role. Since March 2006, it has been used to bring cargo - in particular, humanitarian supplies - from Egypt into Gaza. Pallets arriving on trucks from Egypt are offloaded in Kerem Shalom and Palestinian trucks carry them from there into the Gaza Strip. The turnaround time for the transfer is about 45 minutes, which allows between 15 and 50 truckloads daily. The crossing is managed by the Israel Airports Authority and supervised by European monitors from the European Union Border Assistance Mission Rafah who use it to get to the Rafah Border Crossing. When Kerem Shalom is closed, the Rafah crossing also closes. Did we say humanitarian? Given the barbaric nature of terrorism in general and of Hamas in particular, any place that fulfills a humanitarian role for the benefit of the Gazan Palestinian Arabs is, by definition, going to be a prime terror target for them. And so it has been. On 25-Jun-06, an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit was abducted by terrorists near Kerem Shalom who crossed into Israel via a tunnel from Gaza and killed two of his companions. The 19 year-old has been held hostage since then. In January, Palestinian Arab terrorist materials were intercepted at the crossing, hidden in a consignment of humanitarian materials. This brings us to yesterday (Saturday), the eve of Passover, a day on which Jews throughout the world make final preparations for the festive retelling of the Exodus narrative. In other words, the day we recall the transition from tribe to peoplehood. What better day for the Hamas to mount a sophisticated attack intending to grab additional hostages? And if the humanitarian crossing that provides Gaza's families with their meager supplies is destroyed or shut down - well then, that's just a bonus for the terrorists. Hamas sent two explosives-packed jeeps and two armored vehicles. The jeeps, which were detonated by suicide drivers, broke through to the Israeli side of the Kerem Shalom goods crossing early Saturday, April 19. Terrorists jumped out of the first armored vehicle under cover of the explosions as well as mortar fire and heavy mist, and attacked the Israeli position guarding the terminal. This vehicle, painted in IDF colors, was captured and the assailants driven back. The second armored vehicle, rigged with explosives, headed for the Kissufim crossing further north. IDF tank fire blew it up before it reached its target. (Thanks to Israel Insider for the narrative.) Thirteen IDF soldiers were lightly or moderately wounded in foiling Saturday's attack. A senior IDF official quoted by Ynet said: "This was an obvious attempt to make an operational statement. The creativity demonstrated by the terrori