At least we know how HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, and independent elements of Al-Aqsa Brigades think about concessions for peace:

No concessions.

No peace.

That sure helps to clear up an unclear picture. They'll do anything to disrupt any accommodation with Israel. Count on the True Believers in Islam to ultimately defeat themselves.

Posted by: John C at December 31, 2007 12:41 AM

This illustrates perfectly why the IDF's border closures are an atrocious idea.
Fatah is split in two. There is a younger group of grassroots leaders that catalyzed the first and especially the second intifadah. One of the leading members of this group is Mumtaz Dughmoush, who runs Army of Islam, which captured Shalit and then held Alan Johnston. Then there is an older group of revolutionaries-turned-politicians that were original Palestinian nationalists. This included Arafat, and now includes Abbas and Fayyed.

From the second Intifadah and after, the younger group has wrested power from the older group. It is they, along with Islamic Jihad, who have executed a vast majority of attacks on Israel since the Gaza Coup--NOT Hamas. People in Army of Islam and Islamic Jihad are essentially mercenary gangs. Dughmoush has switched between Hamas and Fatah five times in the past 3 years or so. He sells his capacity for chaos to the highest bidder.

People like Dughmoush will fill the void if the Gaza border closure succeeds in causing Hamas's disintegration. That means more rocket attacks, and more influence for some of the most radical Islamists in the Palestinian Territories. None of us want that.

Posted by: Shlomo_Michael at December 31, 2007 12:45 AM

But Condi Rice says her church was bombed, so we're the same as them!

Posted by: Bingo at December 31, 2007 3:42 AM

"It also attacked him for allowing the PA security forces in Bethlehem to hand over to Israel three Israelis who had entered the city on Saturday."

....what a bunch of paranoid buffoons....ungrateful ingrates...they must have already forgotten the 400 or so Palestinian prisoners that Israel recently released---as a gesture of peace--Israel made no specific demands as a condition of the prisoner release.....

....It goes to show these Muslims do not want to even give one inch....it is either their way or death to you.....

...and everyone should note each and every one of these instances that clearly show that Islam is truly an intolerant religion...

...The Muslims still hold some Israeli soldiers kidnapped long ago....(of course, kidnapped soldiers may have died a slow torturous death long ago).....

....These Muslims worship death....they crave death....they are willing to create death...they love hate and violence and intolerance....

...Oh Islam...feel the love?.....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 31, 2007 6:37 AM

This illustrates perfectly why the IDF's border closures are an atrocious idea.
posted by schlomo

What say ye about Egypt's border closing?

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Dec31/0,4670,EgyptGazaPilgrims,00.html

Posted by: Aunt Bea at December 31, 2007 6:49 AM

"...That means more rocket attacks, and more influence for some of the most radical Islamists in the Palestinian Territories. None of us want that.

Posted by: Shlomo_Michael""

.....THe evidence shows many Muslims do.....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 31, 2007 8:03 AM

I can almost smell the Peace!

Posted by: alexb at December 31, 2007 9:10 AM

"Shlomo Michael" is back, apparently hoping to sneak in unperceived, and unanswered, by the management, as he makes his case for opening the border with Gaza and helping Hamas, because if Hamas "disintegrates" then, he says, things will be even worse for Israel.

His posting is a farrago of inaccuracies. Let's start with this:

"There is a younger group of grassroots leaders that catalyzed the first and especially the second intifadah."

The description of "first...intifada" as the result ("catalyzed") of "a younger group of grassroots leaders" when it was ordered by Arafat himself, is made still more farcical by the description of the collection of greedy lesser warlords and grasping foot-soldiers who make up Fatah as "grassroots leaders" -- a phrase more suitable for the Middle West but completely misleading when applied to the situation of Slow Jihadists (Fatah) or Fast Jihadists (Hamas) among the local Arabs who call themselves "Palestinians."

The posting is intended, in its confused way, to make the case for Israel to actually open the border with Gaza. In other words, to make life easier for the local Arabs, and to make life much more difficult, because of the certainty of more terrorism from those Muslim Arabs in Gaza who would no longer be sealed off from their intended victims, but allowed those open borders. From the viewpoint of Israel, such a measure makes no sense.

As for the notion that if the Israelis do not open that border with Gaza, there will be more problems than Israel has already, Israel's military leaders (as opposed to its civilian politicians, who are capable of anything) have concluded that Gaza should be sealed off.

But "Shlomo_Michael" (a Muslim's caricaturish idea of an Israeli name) says, in defiance of all the evidence of our senses, that a local clan leader and warlord such as Dughmoush (to whom he attributes the seizure of the Israeli soldier Shalit, without offering any evidence -- perhaps thinking that if he couples the name of Shalit with that of the BBC Correspondewnt, Alan Johnston, who was seized and held by Dughmoush's clan, that will somehow do) would be still more of a danger than Hamas, and that is why it is in Israel's interest to open the border, and create conditions that will keep Hamas from disintegrating.

Really? We are to assume that a local, very large clan, run for no ideological reason (the switching back and forth from Hamas to Fatah by that clan's leaders had nothing to do with ideology, everything to do with the perception of how to maximize power and loot), will somehow be as malevolent and steadfast an enemy as the Fast Jihadists of Hamas?

Nonsense. It is in the disintegration not only of Hamas, but of the entire malign society in Gaza, one that is permanently unviable economically (and is kept alive on the artificial life support of Western aid that should be rmeoved), that Israel has an interest. As long as they are bottled up, and can do little harm -- that's what keeping bomb-making and rocket-making equipment out of their hands means -- they will disintegrate into violent factions, and among those factions, family clans such as that of the Dughmoushs are not to be deplored, nor to be encouraged. They are merely to be observed. as they play their wonted role -- observed with grim satisfaction, but from the outside, beyond a sealed border.

Posted by: Hugh at December 31, 2007 9:28 AM

Shlomo_Michael Said: "People like Dughmoush will fill the void if the Gaza border closure succeeds in causing Hamas's disintegration."

Rather than opening the border to deal with this guy (and his ilk), why not let the IDF kill him (them)? It seems that when the IDF is targeting and hitting group leaders is when the paleostinians are interested in peace talks. At which time I think Israel should tell them to f** off and keep killing them. And they should tell the U.N., Condi and the rest the same thing, and keep killing the pali leadership.

Targeting the leadership (and their families) seems to be the only thing they understand, and eventually, they'll run out of leaders willing to step up.

Posted by: walterc at December 31, 2007 11:54 AM

Hugh,

Arafat called for the first Intifadah, and then the local leaders actually carried it out. In the second Intifadah, the local leaders did not even wait for Arafat.

When I said "border closure", I was referring not to the border fence, which is a far more complex issue. I was referring to the recent declaration that Gaza was an "enemy entity", and subsequent restrictions on trade flows.
Before Gaza was declared an "enemy entity" there had been no suicide attacks for years. The restrictions include a blockade on Gazan strawberry exports. How is this an aid against terorrism? How is this anything less than an ad hominem against the people of Gaza?

Evidence that Dughmoush captured both Shalit and Johnston:
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/getfile.cfm?id=3246&tid=5234&type=pdf&l=1

On page 11:
"In June 2006 Dughmush’s group, operating for the first time
under the name Army of Islam, participated alongside
Hamas’s military wing and the PRC in a cross-border raid
to avenge Samhadana’s assassination, which resulted in the
capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit."

You also express skepticism that Israel should avoid undermining civil society. The reason why they should is that fighters like Mumtaz Dughmoush are more radical (less pragmatic) than even Hamas. If civil society were in good condition, people in Army of Islam would be learning the family trade. But since society is in such disarray--partly due to Israel's actions, partly due to Fatah's corruption, partly due to violence in the civil war--the elder, more moderate members of the clan can not influence Mumtaz.

For an example of this, see page 5:
In 2006 Mumtaz Dughmush, a 30-year-old member of the Dughmush clan, established an independent militia with young kinsmen, espousing a radical jihadist discourse and practicing forms of vigilantism which challenged the traditional hierarchy. Calls by clan elders, including his cousin, the mukhtar, to respect family codes of hospitality and release kidnapped BBC reporter Alan Johnston were ignored for months in 2007.

You statements on Gazan society are patently false. Islamist groups overwhelmingly control aid to Gazans now. Since Oslo, they have rushed to fill the void in civil society that was left by Fatah's corruption. Of course, the aid is distributed with a radical Islamist bent. Ending western aid would only accelerate JIhadi radicalization in Gaza.

Finally, you think that radicals in Gaza are "bottled up." Somehow, however, they keep finding rockets to fire at Sderot. As technology inevitable improves, they will eventually find rockets that will hit Tel Aviv. Therefore, the "bottling up" as it is presently taking place is nonsustainable.

Posted by: Shlomo_Michael at December 31, 2007 12:44 PM

"Ending western aid would only accelerate JIhadi radicalization in Gaza. "
Posted by: Shlomo_Michael

...bad news indeed for the ever decreasing Christian Population already decimated by Muslim violence...about 2500 Christians remain i Gaza....no aid given to the Palestians finds its way to the Christians....well, maybe bullets given to the Muslims by the Israelis....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 31, 2007 1:10 PM

"You[r] statements on Gazan society are patently false. Islamist groups overwhelmingly control aid to Gazans now. Since Oslo, they have rushed to fill the void in civil society that was left by Fatah's corruption. Of course, the aid is distributed with a radical Islamist bent. Ending western aid would only accelerate JIhadi radicalization in Gaza.

Finally, you think that radicals in Gaza are "bottled up." Somehow, however, they keep finding rockets to fire at Sderot. As technology inevitable improves, they will eventually find rockets that will hit Tel Aviv. Therefore, the "bottling up" "
-- from a posting above by "Shlomo Michael"

What statement did I make about Gaza that is "patently false"? You immediately write that "Islamist groups overwhelmingly control aid to Gazans now." Did I ever suggest otherwise? What I did, or at least meant to suggest, is that the solemn parsing of "Gazan society" into those of a "radical Islamist bent" and those of a merely "Islamist bent" and those of a "nationalist bent" and so on is a misleading, sillyexercise. The Muslim Arabs who call themselves, for obvious political reasons, "Palestinians,"differ in their levels of corruption, greed, and willingness to temporarily hide their long-term goals in order to have the tap of Western aid again turned on. But neither the mob-clans such as that of the Doughmush, nor the organized groups, such as the Fast Jihadists of Hamas and the Slow Jihadists of Fatah, will ever accept the permanence of the Infidel state of Israel. They differ on timing and on tactics. That's it.

You claim that I said that right now, the people in Gaza are "bottled up." I did not say that. You remind us - as if I, or anyone else, has forgotten for one minute, that the boys of Hamas and Fatah right now can keep firing rockets at Sderot. Did I ever deny that?

And then you offer your "solution," which is to open up the border for some kind of presumably free exchange of goods, and "Palestinian" Arabs (Gaza Division) being allowed to travel to, work in, Israel. But why? That's a crazy solution. You don't cut off your head just because you have a headache. Constant monitoring of smuggling points, constant attacks on leaders of any and all groups, and a final decision not to any longer tolerate any attacks, but to bomb with far less tender solicitude than before, in order to create a border strip that will push the Arabs back, creating a No-Man's-Land, at the same time doing nothing to save the "Palestinians" from their own carefully-cultivated barbarity which they will turn inward, upon themselves, should create a situation in which they are in a constant state of war with one another inside Gaza.

It is not only counter-intuitive for Israel, or any Infidels, to help any Muslims -- it is also wrong. We have a stake in the impoverishment, nay the hopelessness and despair, of the "Palestinians." If they have to scramble for their existence, as so many all over the world do, and have no extra funds for rockets and bombs and rifles, and everyone now in one of those so-called "armies" or "militias" or "forces" or "groups" can no longer rely on payment of a steady salary and might actually have to work for a most precarious living, and that condition is not relieved by idiotic Western and still more idiotic Israeli generosity and solicitude (the "Palestinians" are the spoiled children of every conceivable aid program, receiving far more per capita than any group, anywhere), then they will not "accept" Israel -- that's impossible -- but will lack the wherewithal to do much of anything to express their refusal to accept Israel.

The right address for all the oil-poor Arabs is not the Infidels, but rather the Saudis, who every day take in a billion dollars without having done a thing to deserve it. Let's see how they fare asking for aid from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and so on. Muslim solidarity, the solidarity of the Umma - does it go beyond support for spreading Islam through mosques, madrasas, campaigns of Da'wa, and beyond funds given to the families of suicide bombers? Will it go for other purposes? Let's put it to the test.

Posted by: Hugh at December 31, 2007 1:54 PM

But Condi Rice says her church was bombed, so we're the same as them!"

Posted by: Bingo

That rumor is floating around the blogosphere; I saw it in a couple of places. But knowing how supporters of candidates for this and that will try to make their candidate appear to be larger than life, I was a bit suspicious of this item. It was just too coincidental to be true.

So, I checked around, and I found a Times Online article which reads:

"On Sunday, September 15, 1963, a bomb blew a hole in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing four girls and injuring dozens of children and adults.

The blast was felt throughout the city. Two miles away at Westminster Presbyterian church the floor fluttered beneath Condi Rice’s feet as she worshipped with her parents. She later found out that one of her friends was among the dead."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1367314,00.html

(emphasis in bold is mine)

Condi's father was the Reverend of the Westminster Presbytarian Church, which was founded by his father.

As I didn't read of Condi herself make any claims of being a member of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (though she has mentioned the loss of her childhood friend), I'm opining that this is a misunderstanding on the part of Condiphiles.

Posted by: Abscedere at December 31, 2007 3:09 PM

Hugh,

What is patently false is your idea that if we just increase Gazan suffering a little more, and bomb Palestinians a little harder, things will work themselves out because people will get too tired to fight Israel. That strategy's already been tried. As aid money to Gaza has decreased since Oslo, the percentage of social services provided by Islamists has increased--leading to radicalization. Now, you come along, observe that Gaza is more radicalized, and conclude that to solve this we should cut aid to Gaza. We've already gone from Fatahland to Hamastan. Are you gunning for an Al-Quiadastan as Israel's neighbor?

It's fascinating to me the principle you lay forth, that further impoverishment will reduce unrest. Have you seen any major insurgencies in Norway or Sweden lately? Those are the world's richest nations. OK, how about Somalia or Sierra Leone?

One point you make is quite incisive, however:
"The right address for all the oil-poor Arabs is not the Infidels, but rather the Saudis, who every day take in a billion dollars without having done a thing to deserve it. Let's see how they fare asking for aid from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and so on. Muslim solidarity, the solidarity of the Umma - does it go beyond support for spreading Islam through mosques, madrasas, campaigns of Da'wa, and beyond funds given to the families of suicide bombers? Will it go for other purposes? Let's put it to the test."

Well said. Muslim solidarity does not extend far beyond general support for Islamic proseletyzing, and in some cases, radical bombings. Beyond that, the area someties called the "Muslim World" has plenty of internal divisions. Sa'udi, Egyptian, and Jordanian interests are not equivalent to Palestinian interests. The interests of "Fast Jihadi" Palestinians are not the same as those of the "Slow Jihadis". There's plenty of room for us "Infidels" to play one group off the other, and to live in peace with one group so we can team up against a mutual enemy.

Finally, you say:
"What I did, or at least meant to suggest, is that the solemn parsing of "Gazan society" into those of a "radical Islamist bent" and those of a merely "Islamist bent" and those of a "nationalist bent" and so on is a misleading, sillyexercise...neither the mob-clans such as that of the Doughmush, nor the organized groups, such as the Fast Jihadists of Hamas and the Slow Jihadists of Fatah, will ever accept the permanence of the Infidel state of Israel. They differ on timing and on tactics. That's it."

I read in the Bible that Christians want to convert me. Over time, various method have been used to convert Jews. Until around the Enlightenment, the favored method involved the Inquisition and a burning stake. Nowadays, the favored method is pursuasion and inducement.
Hugh, let me ask your advice:
When evangelical preachers knock on my door, I usually politely say "Well, I'll take any literature you have, but it's probably better for you to keep it, because I'm happy with my religion now." If, tomorrow, a Dominican monk with a flaming torch knocks on my door and asks me to convert or die, should I treat him the same way? After all, "they differ on timing and on tactics. That's it."

I would honestly like to hear your insights on this. Thanks!

Posted by: Shlomo_Michael at December 31, 2007 7:53 PM

I hope everyone here is enjoying observing, as I am, the dialogue between Mr Fitzgerald and our latest shapeshifter.

Let's think through the likely results if what the shapeshifter wants - a removal of all border restrictions between Israel and Gaza - were to be done.

Think, too, that the argument that the smallest attempt to crush, resist or confine this or that manifestation of Jihad will only result in more and worse Jihad, is not that different from the argument that was made in Britain not so long ago, that unless the Government refrained from actions that offended Muslims, the 'moderate' Muslims would be unable to restrain the anger of the hotheads. Which boiled down to a barefaced threat: do what we tell you, or we will turn our thugs loose to blow up more buses and trains.

The overall Infidel goal is to defend ourselves against the Jihad, with a minimum of waste and expense, and to prevent sharia law from being imposed within our own Infidel-controlled territories. Every action we, or any other Infidel community or State take vis a vis the Ummah and its demands, its blandishments or its threats, should have that double goal clearly in mind.

Greater freedom of movement for the Muslims of Gaza, into Israel, automatically means greater freedom of movement for guns, explosives, suicide murderers and saboteurs, and greater danger for the Jewish Infidels and their State. Ergo, the border with Israel stays firmly closed.

What happens among the 'Palestinian' Arab Muslims is their own business. In the end they themselves are responsible for their actions. No-one is compelling them to engage in ferocious clan warfare, or in organised crime, or in running round playing war, rather than using wastewater to irrigate vegetable gardens, cornfields and orchards.

Any reader of Moshe Gil or of James Parkes or of any other historian or observer of Arab Muslim life in the entire Arabised region from the Barbary States to Mesopotamia, including the land of Israel prior to 1948, knows that ceaseless warfare between dynasties, sects, clans and between one Arab Muslim village and the next, besides the depredations of standover thugs and warlords, and the practice of succession by assassination, have been a depressing constant of Arab Muslim 'culture' from the 7th century to the present day, and so have nothing to do with the presence or absence of Jews!

Gaza has merely reverted to type.

Is the rampant criminal activity, the ferocious and neverending clan warfare in Somalia to be blamed on their Christian-majority neighbours in Kenya and Ethiopia? - or does it arise from, or is it made worse by, the aggression and suspicion and fatalism and permission of expediency that one finds in the Muslim sacred texts?

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at December 31, 2007 9:38 PM

dumbledore,

Nice straw-man. I never advocated for "all border restrictions" to be lifted, instantaneously. I also don't think that Israel should adopt a pacifistic attitude toward Gaza. We both know that would be foolish.

What I object to is the Israeli obsession with using coercive methods, to the extent of ad hominem attacks against the general Gazan population. This only drives Gazans into the arms of Islamist groups. It may well be that Gazans are solely responsible for their actions. But Israel still can influence these actions, and has certainly done so in the past twenty years.

Do you really believe the overall goal of our society should be to avoid Islam? No "greatest good for the greatest number", no "eudemonia", no "Kingdom of God" or Halacha?

I am also wondering why you think Islam explains the current violence in Somalia. In the past 15 years, there have also been high levels of violence in Sierra Leone (60% Muslim, but conflict not along religious lines), Democratic Republic of Congo (90% Christian), and Rwanda (85% Christian, with churches centers of genocide). What is special about the current violence in Somalia that is due to Islam? How did these other conflicts occur in Islam's absence?

Posted by: Shlomo_Michael at December 31, 2007 10:22 PM

'shlomo'

I do not believe that christian charity requires me and my society to commit spiritual and political suicide. Nor should the Jewish commitment to peace be used to manipulate the Jewish state into actions that amount to communal suicide, or a return to the seven hells of dhimmitude.

I therefore reply to you only with the same words as I employed before:

"The overall Infidel goal is to defend ourselves against the Jihad, with a minimum of waste and expense, and to prevent sharia law from being imposed within our own Infidel-controlled territories. Every action we, or any other Infidel community or State take vis a vis the Ummah and its demands, its blandishments or its threats, should have that double goal clearly in mind."

In all matters prudential and political, and in particular those relating to the Jewish state of Israel, I refer you back to Mr Hugh Fitzgerald.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at January 1, 2008 6:33 PM