Yeah, what he said. What happened there, just now?
Hamas Gaza rockets smash a shopping mall.

First Report: Gaza rocket injures at least 14 people at Ashkelon shopping mall
May 14, 2008, 6:39 PM (GMT+02:00)

Jihad Islami claimed attack by a Qods rocket.

According to provisional figures, falling walls injured at least three people seriously, including a baby. Two women suffered moderately injuries and 9 were slightly hurt. Panic-stricken parents and children milled about.

Emergency teams are seeking survivors under the debris. The mall was crowded when the Palestinian rockets struck the third floor without warning.

Chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi abruptly left prime minister's meeting with President George W. Bush.

DEBKA.com and other sources.

Montjoie.

Posted by: Godfrey Boullion at May 14, 2008 11:50 AM

Obama is also making strange statements. The same man who professes his support for Israel also describes it as a "wound" and a "sore".

"Asked if he thought Israel represented a drag on America's reputation overseas, Obama said: "No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy."

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=64236

Posted by: PMK at May 14, 2008 12:00 PM

"What happened here is possible everywhere"
"I suspect if you looked back 60 years ago and tried to guess where Israel would be at that time, it would be hard to be able to project such a prosperous, hopeful land"
"No question, people would have said, 'We'd be surrounded by hostile forces.'"...

Could he not either stay home or keep his mouth shut?

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at May 14, 2008 12:09 PM

If you can make it there,
You'll make it anywhere...

Posted by: MP at May 14, 2008 2:01 PM

Does Bush not realize how hostile the "Palestinians" and Israel's neighbors are?"

Still more important, does he understand not "how hostile" they are, but what prompts that hostility? It is the teachings of Islam, it is the refusal, the permanent inability, to accept the existence of an Infidel nation-state on land that was once part of Dar al-Islam, and what makes it particularly galling is that it is the despised-for-their-traditional-weakness Jews who have managed to stave off, for 60 years as a state, and before that, for almost thirty years, during the period of Mandatory Palestine, constant attacks by Arabs and Muslims inside Israel (or Mandatory Palestine) and from outside as well.

Bush, in his blissful ignorance and permanent naivete -- a naivete and an ignorance shared by many, including Jews, who think of themselves, and describe themselves, as "supporter" or even "strong supporters" of Israel, but who haven't learned enough to understand Israel's plight, and why pressuring it to give up control of the "West Bank" (or the Golan) makes no sense, because it will do nothing to assuage Arab and Muslim anger, nothing to sate Arab appetites, but have exactly the wrong effect, making the Arabs think that they can win, by clever peace-processing, more and more of Israel, making the position of its people ever more difficult, and eventunally unendurable, which is when, from within and from without, the Arabs intend -- there is no doubt about it -- to go in for the kill.

There is a "solution" but the "solution" does not involve giving some of the local Arabs, carefully renamed the "Palestinian people," a state or more territory to control, which will inevitably tend in the direction of what Hamas offers in Gaza, or what Hezbollah offers in Lebanon. It is to reverse the propagandistic victories of the Arabs made since June, 1967, to call into question and the undo the invented construct of the "Palestinian people" and to make clear the basis, in Islam, for permanent Muslim Arab opposition to Israel, to cease overlooking, and to restate support for, the legal and moral and historic claims of the Jews -- the basis, after all, for the Mandate for Palestine -- to what Israel has managed, at present, to hold onto, and to reject what should be, but apparently still is not, the transparent re-presentation or disguise of what is a classic, albeit Lesser (that is, local) Jihad, as something that it is not and never was, a quest for the "legitimate rights" of the soi-disant "Palestinian people."

This is doable. But it will require more knowledge of Islam, and leaders in the West -- who may not realize that their Infidel lands are also threatened by the same Muslim texts and tenets as is the tiny Jewish state, and that they have a vested interest in keeping that state from going under or being further weakened, for if Israel goes, the shrill ululations of triumph will show that this is not being seen as the end of Muslim grievances, now satisfied, but merely an example of Muslim inevitable triumph, which is how Arabs, and other Muslims too, will interpret the throwing of Israel to the Muslim wolves by fellow Infidels.

Posted by: Hugh at May 14, 2008 2:27 PM

I read the President's statement on Drudge and was scratching my head before I ever came here. It's disheartening to witness the extent of his disconnect.

Posted by: Cornelius at May 14, 2008 2:54 PM

C'mon people. Give Bush a break on this. He was merely extending a public compliment to his Israeli hosts. He may not have exactly hit the bull's eye with it in the terms we here on JW understand the situation, but I'm sure the sentiments behind the remarks were understood and much appreciated by most Israelis.

Posted by: Eastview at May 14, 2008 5:45 PM

Obama is also making strange statements. The same man who professes his support for Israel also describes it as a "wound" and a "sore".

"Asked if he thought Israel represented a drag on America's reputation overseas, Obama said: "No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy." -- PMK

Uh Huh. Muslim.

Posted by: darcy at May 14, 2008 6:20 PM

If he had said it was a cause for hope, or an example it would have been a compliment. A goofy inappropriate one to be sure, but a compliment of sorts.

To call it a cause for optimism is plain dumb -- insultingly so.

It is to compare the dominant popular culture of Israel, which is modern, western and largely free and rational with that of the mohammedan block, which is medieval, dark and anti-human.

He was speaking more about his fantasies than anything real, and that's to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Israel a cause for optimism about what is possible in the mohammedan block?

I think not.

Nor do I think the comparison flattering.

Posted by: joeblough at May 14, 2008 8:52 PM

Did Bush say that before or after he prayed at the mosque?

Posted by: duh_swami at May 14, 2008 10:49 PM

Clumsy about the "hostile forces", but dead right about this:

"What happened here is possible everywhere,"

If they got their acts together and focused on building wealth and achievements, instead of religious fanticism, they could become prosperous nations. He's rubbing their noses in their utter lack of achievement, quite rightly.

Posted by: Lili at May 15, 2008 1:55 AM

Bush's comment might end up in the Oliver Stone movie...

He just ain't the brightest bulb, is he?

Posted by: Bingo at May 15, 2008 5:53 AM

Godfrey - I must say I took the headline exactly as you did.

What happened - and is happening, now, to Israel, since their present leadership appears to have been threatened, or bribed, or deluded, into a state of craven dhimmitude which prevents them from defending themselves, from making a thoroughgoing, crushing response to the Muslim assaults (the murders of Yeshiva boys, the rockets killing people here, and there, and anywhere) - is, indeed, possible everywhere.

9/11. Bali. Madrid. Bombay. Jaipur. London subway and buses. And so on. And so on.

We are all Sderot. We are all Israel. We are all India, and Europe, Thailand and Philippines. We have got to stop being frightened and tricked into thinking it's 'wrong' to hit back, HARD, against Muslim aggression.

The only way we'll win is if we remember, for example, Orde Wingate and the Night Patrols, and the sustained and courageous self-defence of the Jews that gained them decisive victory in 1948, 1967, 1973. Or other heroes from the successful counter-jihad campaigns of the past, not only in the West but in the East. Greece and Spain shook off the Muslim yoke. Rajputs and Sikhs fought like lions in the East.

Bush forgets that modern Israel's achievements were built with the trowel in one hand and the rifle in the other - just like in Nehemiah 4 (read it).

Just like the Jews, we of Naipaul's 'universal civilisation' want to build, create, grow stuff, make music, do science...but for 1400 years the non-Muslim civilisations have had to do that whilst fending off ha-Meshugga's Destroyers who want to steal or ruin everything that others have built or made, and replace it with...nothing. If we want to be free to keep on thinking, playing and building, well, at the same time, we'll just have to keep hammering away at the Destroyers - hard enough to stop them from hammering *us*.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 16, 2008 4:01 AM