"If the crossings remain closed, the truce will collapse," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Palestinians broke the truce.

At the end of a meeting in Gaza between representatives of both groups, Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shihab said that while his Gaza faction could not, therefore, immediately respond to Israeli actions, the move would not stop the Islamic Jihad from operating in the West Bank.

So why should Israel negotiate with Palestinians at all? Hamas will retain plausible deniability. So will Fatah. So will Islamic Jihad. So will any other group that springs up. Each can blame attacks on Israel on someone else and then attack Israel itself if the Israelis dare to respond to repeated provocations.

Nevertheless, Israel has stated on numerous occasions that it holds Hamas responsible for any attack emanating from Gaza, irrespective of which faction carries it out.

Seeing is believing. Who will be held responsible for attacks emanating from the West Bank? Given the negotiations that have obviously taken place, why isn't Hamas held responsible for those as well? Hamas controls Gaza. The meetings took place in Gaza. Hamas should be held responsible. If people in the West Bank reserve to themselves the right to attack Israel for anything that takes place in Gaza then why isn't Israel allowed to attack the West Bank for attacks that emanate from Gaza, and vice versa?

Posted by: PMK at June 26, 2008 10:40 AM

Israel has to respond with force. It does not matter what the "world" thinks, they have no other options.

Posted by: tanstaafl at June 26, 2008 11:14 AM

Understand, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Fatah are never responsible for their actions. The Palestinians were told in 48 to leave the country by the rest of the surrounding Arab nations who believed that they would demolish the Israeli state, and hence, left of their own free will, only to find out the rest of the Arab states had not accounted for the resolve of the Jewish nation. 60 years later, they are still blaming their living conditions on Israel, even though they and their ancestors chose the tune.

Only children blame their problems on another: adults find ways to solve the problems without creating more damage. Adults understand that problems get solved through mutual trust: children seek advantage by lying.

Posted by: OolongChung at June 26, 2008 11:47 AM

The Fast Jihadists of Hamas want all the goodies and services to start up again from Israel. They are genuinely puzzled why anyone would find it peculiar that Israel should be expected to supply food, medicines, electricity, free medical care for emergency cases, and all the rest, to those whose highest goal is to destroy Israel, and kill or force to endure a lifetime of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity as dhimmis under a ruthless Muslim state, run by people who have primitived themselves, selectively bred themselves for the purest kind of hate, like no other people on earth.

And here comes another group, the fighting "wing" of the Slow Jihadists of Fatah, who nonetheless like to keep their hand in, while the leaders -- Mahmoud Abbas of the Holocaust-denying MGU thesis, the collaborator and henchman, over many decades of of the thieving murderer Yassir Arafat himself -- can present themselves to Western donors of Jizyah (foreign aid) as no-one-here-but-us-accountants school of demure foreign aid recipients, the ones who have "chosen peace as a strategic option" (without the dimwitted rices of this world wondering what that phrase might mean, might mean to those who recognize the significance of the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya).

And so the "military wing" of the Slow Jihadists of Fatah, who still rule over Fatahstan in the "West Bank," fires rockets into Israel, but does so from Gaza, where the Fast Jihadists of Hamas lord it over the Slow Jihadists of Fatah, like the Bloods with the Crips, or the Crips with the Bloods, and who knows what the "military wing" of Fatah, the Al-Aksa Martyr's Brigade, as they call it, was up to? Was it a case of trying to show up the Fast Jihadists as namby-pambies willing to make a hudna for a mess of pottage -- to wit, electricity, medicines, foods, and no doubt resupplies for the DVD stores in those cities that the Western press insists on calling "refugee camps" that live entirely on quite a dole, paid for by the U.N. now, and in the past, and apparently forever. Or was it merely a case of Boys Just Want To Have Fun, and what could be more fun, for Gazan Arabs, or "West Bank" Arabs, then killing, or at trying to kill, with the old college try, as many Jews as possible?

Posted by: Hugh at June 26, 2008 11:55 AM

Oolongchung said...
Only children blame their problems on another: adults find ways to solve the problems without creating more damage. Adults understand that problems get solved through mutual trust: children seek advantage by lying.

I'm sure he meant to say "Only children and muslims..

Posted by: Rick at June 26, 2008 12:04 PM

Sounds like the "jihadists" are up to their old tricks. Call for peace, regroup and then attack Israel here and there. The government of Israel is in a bind, if they go after the attackers, they are deemed to be picking on a poor group of defenseless people. They lost their backbone, if attacked they should defend themselves and forgot what the international community thinks!

Posted by: twoedgesword at June 26, 2008 12:25 PM

Good faith. The spirit of the agreement. Honorable intentions. A peace agreement based on a common yearning for peace. Accountability.

"Of course we all want the same thing. A better world for our children. At least we can agree on that."

All the above, once so true they were trite expressions of 'the good'. Are being made alien TO OURSELVES from dealing with these...moral monsters.

Posted by: poetcomic1 at June 26, 2008 12:26 PM

Just more evidence that Israel remains in drift mode as long as Olmert remains PM.

Posted by: Wellington at June 26, 2008 12:50 PM

Kuwait's Al-Qabas newspaper, according to which Israel had agreed to refrain from responding to Tuesday's rocket attacks.

Israel elites in gov't are the appeasers, and need to thrown out with the bath water!

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at June 26, 2008 1:23 PM

Obama: Apparently He Was Against the Constitution Before He Was For It - or - Our Schizophrenic Supreme Court

Posted by: Lumpy at June 26, 2008 2:40 PM

The moon worshipers just can't help themselves, can they?

How dare Israel break the ceasefire by making themselves targets of palestinian aggression!?

Posted by: Grafted at June 26, 2008 3:18 PM

"The Fast Jihadists of Hamas want all the goodies and services to start up again from Israel. They are genuinely puzzled why anyone would find it peculiar that Israel should be expected to supply food, medicines, electricity, free medical care for emergency cases, and all the rest, to those whose highest goal is to destroy Israel, and kill or force to endure a lifetime of humiliation, degradation, and physical insecurity as dhimmis under a ruthless Muslim state, run by people who have primitived themselves, selectively bred themselves for the purest kind of hate, like no other people on earth."

It will seem inexplicable to a lot of unknowing people all over the world why Israel would help those who are trying to eradicate Israel.

Posted by: Spot on at June 26, 2008 4:53 PM

It will seem inexplicable to a lot of unknowing people all over the world why Israel would help those who are trying to eradicate Israel."

"Seem"?

Or to quote an old poet:

"Seems, Madame. Nay,it is. I know not seems."

It is inexplicable, it is intolerable.

And there are those in Israel who may think that their forbearance and willingness always to negotiate, always to compromise, never to raise the real issue -- the issue of Islam, the issue of a permanent Jihad against Israel, which cannot be assuaged, and which Jihad will only be encouraged, with those conducting it having their appetites whetted, not sated, by every new surrender by the Israelis-- wins them points with the outside world.

It wins them absolutely nothing. Instead, in the outside world, people assume that if Israel surrenders, then Israel does not have a case. And they think that if Israel does not point out how many times the Arabs have broken previous treaties, and does not explain why (see under "Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya"), then of course the Arabs always did fulfill their agreements. And if, furthermore, the Israelis themselves talk about the "Palestinians" and the "Palestinian people" and some even describe their desire for a "Palestinian state" -- well, that cuts no ice.

That makes things worse, for Israel, all over the world.

Posted by: Hugh at June 26, 2008 6:40 PM

Holy War explained by Israeli Arabist- 'Islam is supremacism; crusading to establish Muslim domination over others; Christianity and especially the dhimmi Jewish state in their mindst

Israeli Arabist, Prof. Mordy Kedar explains Muslim shock from his al-Jazeera interview assertion: "Jerusalem belongs to the Jews- period."

"This was very aggravating" for the Al-Jazeera interviewer, Kedar explained, "because in the Islamic view, Islam came into the world to replace Judaism and Christianity, not to live side by side with them. And here, all of a sudden, the Jews are coming from exile and building their state again- and they also regained Jerusalem!"

Judaism is thus regaining its meaning, and Islam is challenged by this, the Bar-Ilan professor explained.

"The mere existence of the State of Israel and the fact that we are in Jerusalem is some kind of challenge to the legitimacy of Islam in their eyes," Kedar explained.

Prof. Kedar feels that Israel is losing the media war because the government failed to prioritize the value of arguing its case directly around the globe.

"This is not hasbara (explaning). This is a battle. A battle for the Arab heart. Which Israel, apparently, is losing because Israel gave up on the main tool which would have served it in this battle: which is an independent, Israeli, Zionist Satellite Channel in Arabic. This is a very hard battle. However, there are many Arabs who would listen to Israelis and would consider, maybe, changing their views- and they are not carried away by Arab propaganda."

http://democracybroadcasting.blogspot.com/2008/06/holy-war-explained-by-israeli-arabist.html

Posted by: DemoCast at June 26, 2008 7:47 PM

Any gatherings of Hamas members should immediately be bombed by Israel.

Posted by: Exposing Islam at June 26, 2008 11:45 PM

Hugh regarding "Seems"

Very well said.

Posted by: Spot on at June 27, 2008 12:47 PM