Not that this is news to anyone, but you knew after the miserable terms of the swap last week with Hezbollah, that the way would be paved for Israel acceding to Hamas’ increased demands for the release of Gilad Shalit.  Read here if you think the Israeli government has learned it’s lesson about what one bad deal entails.  No deal is an island unto itself….it will cascade into policy for the terrorist groups who will all demand the increased terms of the deal that preceded the one they want.

Now that Israel gave Hezbollah everything it wanted for 2 dead bodies and a box of various body parts of other soldiers, other groups are taking the hint.  Can anyone give me one reason Hamas still has to keep Gilad alive?  Give up?  Then you are on the money. Read more »

In yet another truce violation emanating from Gaza, a farmer in Nachal Oz was fired upon by a sniper while he tilled his field. The tractor was hit several times, but the farmer managed to get out of the way and avoid any serious injury. This, of course, just a few hours after Israel re-opened the Gaza border after missile attacks that also weren’t supposed to occur during this ‘period of calm’. Read more »

Hamas seemed to be making gestures earlier this week vis a vis the ‘truce’ with Israel. Israel was making more regular *boom* supply deliveries *boom* to Gaza and *BOOM*.. HEY!! Can we stop those damn Qassams already…we’re trying to have a truce over here!!! Anyway, as I was saying, the ‘truce’ continues on and earlier in the week, Hamas had passed some signs of life regarding Shalit and Israel was attempting to open the crossing for more than a day while yet more rockets were being sent into Israel. Yes, I know..its only 11 of them, but there shouldnt be any flying in…right? Read more »

On the day after the prisoner swap, there has been a ton of hand- wringing in the media. Did Israel or didn’t Israel do the right thing? Was too high a price paid or was this the only move they could have made? There were some surprises. Read more »

Mortars continue to rain down on the areas surrounding Gaza still, in blatant violation of the cease-fire that Hamas pushed so hard for.  Why these morons wash their hands of these violations, if they are truly serious, is beyond me.  Jihad Islami on Tuesday, Fatah on Thursday, G-d knows who today. Read more »

I don’t think anyone expected the cease-fire that went into effect recently to last very long, so we can do away with pretending to be surprised that Qassams are being launched into Israel. How long did that take…72 hours? 96 hours?  As I said in this post:

…the ‘truce’ will be short lived. Someone in Gaza won’t be able to stop themselves from firing a Qassam or a GRAD rocket that will hurt or kill an Israeli or a foreign worker.

Read more »

I was all set to head to sleep this evening, but a last minute reading of the news prompted me to post again once more before I go to sleep. I have said for the last 2 days that the deals being considered for the release of Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev and even Gilad Shalit are too steep to truly make sense. This applies more to the case of those kidnapped by Nasrallah’s gang of criminals, as at least we know Gilad Shalit is alive. Read more »

Reading the news today garnered one interesting story about what’s going on in Israel. More specifically with the deal Israel is trying to complete with Hizbullah for the return of Goldwasser and Regev for Kuntar and others.

There is an apparent push by the IDF Chief Rabbi to declare the soldiers missing in action and dead. Why this comes up right now seems to be a mystery as there has been plenty of time to do so beforehand. My guess? Israel didn’t want to prejudice the negotiations with Hizbullah and set the bar too low in terms of what Nasrallah would ask as his price for their return. At least if they gave Nasrallah hope, Israel might have hope to regain their stolen sons. Read more »

Ah, sweet surrender. No, not to love or to the beautiful weather we’ve been having. This is what Hamas must be thinking today now that the Defense Minister Ehud Barak seems to have caved on pretty much everything Hamas demanded. Israel basically asked them to “pretty please” not smuggle in arms, and agreed to hand back most of the 450 prisoners Hamas has been demanding, many with blood on their hands. Israel will also have to stop monitoring the Rafah crossing. Egypt will. I’m sure they’ll do as good a job at that as they have preventing smuggling.

Quiet is supposed to come first and if the truce holds, I can’t imagine Gilad Shalit won’t come back for those 450 scumbags. To be fair, since we are all not a fly on the wall to all the security discussions, perhaps after almost 2 years of deliberation, this is the ONLY way to get Shalit back safely.

Yes, I’m sure that those 450 prisoners will return to their bombing ways. But, the ‘truce’ will be short lived. Someone in Gaza won’t be able to stop themselves from firing a Qassam or a GRAD rocket that will hurt or kill an Israeli or a foreign worker. I can’t image at least some of the murderers won’t meet their end in a ‘work accident’ or in a fireball sent to them courtesy of the IDF. They wont be returning to Gaza to become Rhodes scholars, that’s for sure. Read more »

I’m sure everyone read about the crazy Qassam and mortar salvo fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip the other day. The initial reason for this salvo given was it was ‘retaliation’ for an explosion in Beit Lahiya yesterday that killed about 7 people and wounded about 40. Of course the first reaction to all this was that it was due to Israeli tank fire….I mean in Gaza what isn’t these days?

“The Beit Lahiya massacre was caused by an Israeli strike that targeted a Qassam leader,” Hamas said in a statement, referring to its armed wing.

An IDF spokeswoman denied any Israeli involvement.

“It was not related to the IDF. There were no IDF operations. It was an internal explosion,” an IDF spokeswoman said in Tel Aviv.

You read these quotes every time there’s a ‘work accident’, and they get picked up immediately by all the news services. If it rained in Gaza, it’d be blamed on Israeli tank shells destroying ‘Palestinian’ clouds. Read more »

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