In contrast to the awful deal approved the other day for the return of the bodies of Regev and Goldwasser, the Knesset finally did something intelligent they should have done a long time ago. They finally approved a law (52-24) that prevents any MK from traveling to an enemy country (as defined by Israel). Doing so prevents them from running for Knesset for the next 7 years (and from the Jpost article it seems to infer that it may be somewhat retroactive)

Whose up in arms about this? 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 »

I was a little sad to wake up this morning and see that the prisoner swap was passed by a huge majority of the cabinet over the objections of the Mossad and the GSS. I can’t say I 100% blame them for going that route. This puts an end to another chapter for both Israel and Lebanon. Israel gets back Goldwasser and Regev (and we get to see if they are actually alive) and some information on Ron Arad’s whereabouts. Read more »

Considering the current energy crisis, everyone is talking about ways to get off of oil and find alternative energy sources to power the world that won’t send us all to hell in a hand basket. There is great interest in the US and the world over in alternative energy sources.

One idea is building new nuclear reactors which are much safer than they have been in the past, yet no one wants one in their ‘backyard’. Then there are the advocates of wind turbines set along the coast to catch wind and convert it into energy. Not a bad idea, except they are huge monstrosities and they slice and dice birds mid-air. I won’t go into ethanol because that pretty much applies to car fuel alternatives exclusively. 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 »

So, if you read my post the other day, I had figured they were going to declare the soldiers dead to pressure Hizbullah to either put up or shut up as to Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev’s condition, and to make sure they if they were dead, Kuntar wouldn’t be released. 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 »

I’ll assume you’ve all been reading the papers:

“Israel offers full peace talks with Lebanon” (rejected) With Syria. A cease-fire with Hamas (we’ll see how long it lasts). Talks with Abbas to return the ‘West Bank’ to ‘Palestinian’ rule, whenever that was (hint: never). With all these overtures to loose itself of territory obtained through defensive wars, you’d think Olmert thought the country was on fire and he was just trying to put it out.

The media pushed this down everyones throat as the ONLY solution to piece…I mean peace. This article, by Yair Lapid, is particularly annoying, representative of the defeatist sentiment that seems to pervade the “peace-seeking” reporters in Israel. ‘Israel wants everything but doesn’t want to give up anything.’ ‘Our enemies are right, we are wrong.’ He basically accuses anyone who disagrees with him of “magical thinking”, and the only way to remedy this is to basically give up. THEN there will be peace. 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 »

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