Breaking: Terrorists' Gunfire Kills Seven in Jerusalem; Sderot Under Rocket Attack

From Ha'aretz:

"In Gaza, Hamas welcomed the terrorist attack. 'We bless the [Jerusalem] operation. It will not be the last,' Hamas said in a statement.

In Gaza City, residents went out into the streets and fired rifles in celebration in the air after hearing news of the attack on the yeshiva."

Well, just according to CNN, this was carried out by "what Israeli police are calling a terrorist." So, ya know...it wasn't an actual terrorist, just what the Israelis see as a terrorist.

Hamas has already released a statement praising the attacks, I can only wonder what is going to happen in Gaza next. The situation can't continue as it is right now, yet what have the incursions accomplished? Rockets continue to fall, deeper and deeper into Israel. And Hamas' brave warriors continue to mix in with the general population. The options are so limited... 

Well, let's not jump to conclusions quite yet. As a friend of mine in the Clinton camp told me today, "Do we even know where Michelle Obama has been in the last few days?"

haha, I am sure that the photo of her waving a Hamas flag is not very far behind. 

"The options are so limited..."

Not really, Adam. Hamas has long had an offer of a truce on the table. A majority of Israelis-64%, to be exact-supports talking with Hamas. The parents of Gilad Shalit support talking with Hamas. Israel, with US encouragement, stupidly resists, preferring instead to carry out the destruction of Palestinian kids as innocent as those yeshiva buchers were.

I'm no fan of Hamas-I think "religious" and "political party" belong to entirely different realms and should remain unacquainted. Same goes for Shas and the NU parties, and, for different reasons, Likud. But the reality is that all those parties, Palestinian and Israeli, murderous as they've been to one another, are who must make peace. For Israel to ignore Hamas' overtures (in defiance, remember, of its own people's wishes) while hoping to gain advantage by propping up the feckless oaf Abbas is madness. (For an illuminating perspective on this, have a look at Henry Siegman's piece in yesterday's International Herald Tribune  http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/04/opinion/edsiegman.php)

Remember Pascal's wager? Why not behave like a believer in god, he said. If you're wrong, you're no worse off. If you're right, you get to go to heaven. Same principle here; if Israel treats Hamas' offer seriously, either they'd be right and the killing would stop, or they'd be wrong, and suffer no disadvantage at all-back to the status quo ante.

An obvious potential step forward, one with considerable support on both sides, has been systematically ignored by the Israeli gov't. Why? 

  

     

Hasn't an actual state been offered to the 'Palestinians' four times since 1948 and each time they have turned it down in favor of more conflict or all out war?

Do you know anything at all about the history of this region?

So Israeli forces attack schools? Unless the schools are houses for ammunition, just like the Palestinian ambulances carry weapons, just like anything that could possibly be used for peaceful purposes turns into a tool for killing in an adjacent room or basement. Or perhaps Israeli forces blow up school buses just like Arafat did?

History is so much cooler when you get to make it up on the spot, isn't it Ismail?

Let's make it easier for Pascal. How about Hamas stop firing rockets into Israel? Then you'd get to see if there was massive Israeli retaliation--which there hasn't been since 8500 rockets have been launched to land inside Israeli borders.

Status quo, oh forked tongued dude.

I guess Henry Siegman and Bernhard Avishai are to be offered a Mazeltov on the successful Palestinian terror attack. As for Ismail- no rockets, no retaliation, no killing of Palestinian kids being used as human shields

Ismail,

Given that the Hamas government praises infanticide -- including the murder of Palestinian children in the Islamic death cult of "suicide bombing" -- and given that Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel, please answer:

What is the purpose of these attacks?

What is the long-term objective of Hamas, beyond an immediate "truce"?

what are you negotiating?

"Well, we want all the Jews to get pushed into the sea..."

"Umm, well, that sounds good but...we kind of want to live..."

I'm all for negotiating political issues...I'm thinking that the difference between existence and non-existence is one of those untenable debates. 

Look, Ismail...I realize that we disagree on the fundamental issue at stake here (namely, the existence of a Jewish state), but practically speaking, do you not see a fundamental problem in negotiating with a group who makes no qualms about its position; whose constitution quotes from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? What is there to really be negotiated there?

Re: Pascal's wager, there is a fundamental difference here. The implication in negotiating with a group is that one is avoiding the military option, no? Is it possibly to really negotiate while waging war?  These supposed Hamas hudnas always seem to pop up precisely at the moments when their military capabilities are stunted. They attack, propose a hudna, and then re-arm. It leads no where, and unfortunately will eventually lead to a Hezbollah-esque level of escalation.  My one level of hope is that given the Palestinians' reliance upon Iran, I wonder if the rest of the region has grown weary of such antics and won't--say unlike '67--get dragged into a larger regional war.

Eli-

To the extent that the Hamas gov't praises infanticide, it is wrong and ought to be condemned.

The charters of Likud and the NU parties explicitly call for a greater Israel from the Jordan to the sea (i.e., the destruction of Palestine).

The purpose of the attacks? I imagine it's retaliation for Israel's relentless assault on Gaza, about which Israeli human rights groups say that over half of the dead were non-combatants and 1 in 3 children.

I am sure that Hamas would prefer an Islamic state in all of Palestine/Israel. I am equally sure that vast swaths of Israeli society would prefer never again to see an Arab from the Jordan to the sea. Fortunately, both societies contain ordinary people who want peace and grudging, cranky co-existence.

And I'm not so philosophical as you. I find it....well, arrogant to be speculating about long term objectives when that speculation functions to forestall something so prosaic as the possibility of fewer kids perishing right now. But some Zionists seem to have a death cult mentality about these sorts of things; let the kids-Israeli kids-continue to die, they seem to say, their sacrifice is worth our principles. Sort of like Ben-Gurion's notorious claim that, given the chance to save half of Europe's Jews by bringing them to Palestine or all of them by bringing them to the US, he'd choose the former. Kinda death-cultish, no?

I'm assuming that the point of your comment is to question the intentions and bona fides of the Palestinians. 

Imagine you're a Palestinian. Your leaders have made grandiose and ineffective threats against an infinitely stronger enemy. Israel, on the other hand, has relentlessly grabbed more and more Palestinian land (have a look at the current map of the West Bank-does it say "potential viable state" to you?), acts lawlessly in murdering whom it wishes despite the "collateral damage", flouts international law as only a bully with a large and powerful friend does, and on and on. 

Where I come from, actions still speak louder than words.

The difference is that Palestinians make a point of targeting civilians, while Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties. When Israelis accidently kill civilians, (Shehadeh), there is questioning whether the civilian casualties could have been avoided. In contrast, Palestinians pass out candy when Jewish civilians are killed. The Palestinians are descendants of the Amalekites, who wage war against Jews because they hate Jewish values. For Palestinians to make peace with Jews would mean to sacrifice their national identity. Therefore, no compromise is possible.

The responses to this terror attack should be

1) Orient House should be completely leveled, and the land given to the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva

2) A security tax should be imposed upon the residents of E Jerusalem for supporting this terrorist.

3) Jews expelled from Gaza should be resettled in E Jerusalem.. The Palestinian nation is the only nation whose raison d etre is eternal warfare against Jews. Let the Palestinian people become Jordanians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Canadians, etc. This is the only peaceful solution.

"When Israelis accidently kill civilians, (Shehadeh), there is questioning whether the civilian casualties could have been avoided."

Ah, yes, the assassination of Shehadeh. Of course you recall that Dan Halutz, the Israeli chief of staff, was asked what he felt when an Israeli plane dropped a one ton bomb on a Palestinian apartment building, killing 14 innocents, among them several kids, in order to finish off Shehadeh. "What did I feel?", the noble titan of morality asked. "I felt a slight bump to the plane as a result of the bomb's release. That's what I felt."

How ethically refined are the rulers of Israel! And how ungracious are the Palestinians, who ought to be flattered that their slaughter is being undertaken by such paragons of virtue.

And Vyvyan, your own vicious and archaic notions of justice put you right down there with soulless monsters like Halutz. Quite a disgusting performance. Had you the capacity for shame, you'd know what I was talking about, but like the dog who is present during a discussion of Kant but can think only of kibble or tennis balls, I'm afraid you don't have the ear for it.  

Adam-

Regarding your first comment, nice try but a straw man is a straw man. The initial negotiation would be about a truce-that's all. You know, like Sinn Fein and the Brits agreed upon while they were still armed and were far from a settlement. Now, there are surely hardline Hamas types who do no one any good by wishing for a Jew-free Levant, just as there are similar cretins on the other side-quite highly placed ones like Rabbi Josef, in fact. But as I hope you know, there are Hamas elements that are more realistic and who've given the kind of diplomatic signals that are used all the time in these circumstances-for example, agreeing to abide by plebiscites regarding the outcome of Fatah negotiations when numerous polls show that such plebiscites would result in endorsement of a two-state solution.

And the only existence/non-existence issue that bears any resemblance to reality involves Palestine, not Israel.

Re your second comment, it's revealing that you take for granted that the fundamental issue is the existence of the Jewish state. Call me crazy, but I had the distinct impression that it already existed, and furthermore that it was hell-bent on preventing the emergence of a Palestinian state (again, check out any recent map of the West Bank and tell me with a straight face that you see a viable state there).

Hamas has Protocols drivel in its charter, Israelis believe that a temperamental martinet in the sky was their real estate agent-plenty of lunacy to go around.

Not sure I follow your point about waging war while negotiating. Remember, these initial negotiations are about a truce, about which it's logically impossible to decide if there are no ongoing bellicosities-a truce from what?

As for your notions about the timing of truces, I'd suggest you take a few minutes and research same. You'll find that Hamas has observed unilateral truces in the face of low-level Israeli provocation, breaking the truce only when Israel escalates, which it does precisely to get back to hostilities, its preferred geopolitical state.

Finally, in the manner of many American Zionists, both Jewish and Christian, you appear to be somewhat cavalier about the lives of Israelis. You can sit in a Starbuck's in Chi-town and declaim about Hamas' perfidy, counselling Israelis to suck up further casualties rather than agree to talk with their adversaries, while the majority of Israelis support truce talks with Hamas.

What do you know that they don't? 

 

Dear Ismail

I hope Im not too late to join the parties that are going on in Palestine right now. I heard that these martyrdom parties can be quite fun. The Iranian pistachios (imported with Iranian grad missiles) are scrumptious. All I am saying is that most Palestinians feel joy when civilians are killed, Israelis do not. If you dont want to be killed by Israelis, dont attack them with rockets and hide behind women and children. This moral equivalence argument of yours is just nauseating and fuels more terror

Shehadeh was a watershed event.  Never in the history of the Air Force had pilots ever publicly questioned authority. In it's wake, several of the Air Force's most decorated pilotswent as far as  holding a news conference voicing their doubt and disapproval as to the methods employed.  The result was dishonorable discharges.  There is no joy in such tragedy, not for the army, not for the public.  Halutz's indifference is indeed inappropriate and disgusting; but he wasn't joyful, and his society doesn't dance in the candy strewn streets, quite the opposite. 

All you have to do is say that an attack on a school, killing people who are busy studying is a horrible, cowardly act, and the people who celebrate such an act are showing a shocking lack of basic humanity period.  32 words.

How simple that would be.  And you don't have to twist your mind tight like a rubber band getting ready to break.

On second thought, keep writing. 

Why even attempt to talk to this evil Jew-hating Islamofacist?  He's a pyshcotic terrorist suporter.  He's obssessed with Israel and the Jews because the loser is stuck in his basement with nothing else to do. 

He loves when Jewish boys are murdered because he's a blood-thirsty anti-semitic pig.  He has no concept of reality and needs mental help. 

Hey loony THERE IS NO PALESTINE OR PALESTINIANS!  When did a Palestinian country exist?  Of course it only existed in your warped psychotic mind.

 DEPORT ALL ARABS BACK TO ARABIA NOW!

I'm trying to lock him up like Windows 3.1.

Author Thomas Cahill has written an excellent book "The Gifts of the Jews". What would happen if he wrote a book called "The Gifts of the Palestinians". Other than being a really short book, even shorter than "French Military Victories", it would have to include the following

1) Killing civilians to let off steam-and getting the world to accept it as a legitimate cultural phenomenon

2) Redefining kidnapping as a form of hospitality

3) Redeeming socially troubled individuals as suicide bombers

4) Unique forms of gratitude, such as the captured Palestinian suicide bomber "Hotpants" who was concealing explosives to blow up the hospital where she received treatment

5) Hajj Amin el Husseini, who raised 3 SS divisions among Bosnian Muslims to kill Jews in Yugoslavia, before the so-called occupation and even before the establishment of the "zionist entity"

6) Poisoning oranges with a novel Palestinian spice-mercuric chloride

7) Introducing a new Olympic event, shooting of hostages, in the Munich Olympics in 1972

8) Novel forms of charity, such as purchasing explosives

9) Novel forms of medicine, such as draining blood from Lebanese for transfusions when the PLO had a ministate in Lebanon in the 1970s

10) Novel forms of corruption-see Suha Arafat

11) Novel literature- The Protocols of the Elders of Zion-childrens edition

12) Novel Palestinian films- see Oscarwinner Mohammed al Dura, Jenin, Jenin, etc

13) Palestinian contributions to archeology-destruction on the Temple Mount, destruction of Josephs Tomb in Nablus

Ismail...

I'll endure your mocking of my vegetarianism, your disgust with my Zionism...but accusing me of drinking the swill that is Starbucks...this I will not stand for!

Your point vis-a-vis a cease fire is somewhat valid...though there is this that you are conveniently ignoring..namely that Hamas has been lobbing rockets from Gaza consistently since the withdrawal. The supposed hudna that they have been following have been a sham. Now, just because they are ultimately ineffective in such attacks in terms of casualties, does not lessen the fact that a hostile government is lobbing rockets across the border into another sovereign nation.

Yes there are differences within Hamas...it is clearly not a monolith (particularly those people who ran under the "reform" ticket throughout Gaza). And perhaps those are the people worth negotiating with (I have a funny feeling that back channel diplomacy of this type is constantly going on, if not through Damascus).

You have this sense that Americans somehow break significantly from their Israeli counterparts when it comes to policy. Surely there is much that separates the two groups (umm, ok just about everything). When it comes to the security of the state, there is no such split. In fact, if anything, Israelis have grown weary of its government's inability to provide the most basic service that the state is suppose to provide...basic safety and protection.  The model that you propse with Hamas (regarding its ideological diversity), somehow you ignore when it comes to American Jewry?

Now, for some perspective. Merkaz Harav was founded by the delightfully-named Kook dynasty of rabbis, closely associated with Gush Emunim and other retrograde elements of the settler movement. Its stewardship passed down to Rabbi Shapira, among whose religious edicts was the forbidding of ceding land in the West Bank to its rightful owners, the Palestinians. So we have a center of learning whose religious purposes were intimately tied in to a political agenda whose raison d'etre was the disenfranchisement of an entire people.

For comparison, you might imagine an Israeli attack on a madrassa whose imam preaches unstinting resistance to accommodation with Israelis and whose religious/political teachings materially support the taking by force of Israeli territory. I would imagine that most of you (excepting, of course, that hyena who comments now as "Palestine is a Myth" and who unaccountably switches identity with each post) would oppose such a strike, but would have some understanding of why it was undertaken that went beyond "Israelis are subhuman brutes".

To make this very clear to the short bus riders (and there seem to be an awful lot of them among this site's commenters), none of this is to be construed as as an exculpation of the assassins who perpetrated yesterday's crime. This ability to include context into the understanding of an historical event without excusing the bad actors seems to be an insurmountable cognitive achievement for many of you. As with US slackjaws who explain racial differences in crime rates by appealing to the naturally baser moral constitutions of black people (and I suspect there is considerable overlap between them and my more feral critics here on that score) and who have no patience with the idea that one can locate these observations within an historical context without giving a pass to the perpetrators, so too with my critics here. 

Yesterday's tragedy occurred after a relentless assault on Gaza, condemned by most of the civilized world. It was the wrong response, both ethically and politically, to an intolerable provocation. There is more to say than, "Arabs are monsters". 

But when I point this out, I'm excusing terrorism, or performing contortions to justify the unforgivable, etc. Of course, when Israeli teenagers hold ambulances for hours at checkpoints at their whim, resulting in deaths of innocents, well, context is king! I must understand Israel's security concerns. When families are shelled into pulp while picnicking, I shouldn't mind because Israel really regrets the error. But it'll probably have to do it again-you understand.

I would ask that supporters of Israel's ceaseless expansionism and its depraved indifference to human life refrain from giving me lectures in ethics.

To specific posters:

Naftali has generously revealed his lack of interest in conversation, so I will continue to ignore him. 

Vyvyan, I regret that you took my comments to suggest a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians. Along with most rational observers, I believe Israel's behavior is far, far more ethically idiotic than that of the Palestinians.

 

Adam-

I share your disdain for Starbuck's and deeply regret painting you as a fan of that overpriced and undrinkable sewage. My apologies.

I never suggested that Hamas had currently declared a ceasefire; I was referring to events in the past.  

"...you are conveniently ignoring... that Hamas has been lobbing rockets from Gaza consistently since the withdrawal."

And you are ignoring that only vegetarian Zionist would call a circumstance in which Israel controls borders, airspace and ports, initiates bombing runs and similar military adventures at will, carries out assassinations that regularly include infants and other innocents (but, oh, how sorry they are!), controls the availability of food, fuel, medicine, access to medical care, passage in and out, etc-only such a blinkered individual would call that circumstance a withdrawal. 

I'm not sure I follow your point about American and Israeli Jews. I agree that American Jewry includes a wide range of opinion and in no way meant to deny this. I was merely noting what I believe is a fairly uncontroversial observation, one often made by Israelis, namely, that the most vocal American Jews express a Zionism that is narrower and more fierce than the variants found among Israelis. And of course Israelis, like all people, are concerned about their security. Most of them, as it turns out, are wise enough to see that speaking with their adversaries is more likely to strenghthen that security than pursuing the military option, an insight that appears to have eluded their American cousins.    

This should be the comment of the week:

Ismail: "Israelis believe that a temperamental martinet in the sky was their real estate agent-plenty of lunacy to go around"

It's not that easy to trash the Bible and the God of at least several Billion people all in one sentence.

Ismail should be awarded the comment of the week:

Ismail: "Israelis believe that a temperamental martinet in the sky was their real estate agent-plenty of lunacy to go around"

It's not that easy to trash the Bible and the God of at least several Billion people all in one sentence.

Ignore me. Don't publicly say you're ignoring me, because that's not ignoring me. That's provocation. What you say you are going to do is the opposite of what you are actually doing. I don't expect otherwise.

But as I said, I'm not giving you an 8500 lie head start before I respond with the simple truth--that you can't tell right from wrong, and that you don't even know how to put an event in context because you won't even do the minimal amount of research to know the history of the region. Once again, I don't expect otherwise.

And only by your logic could you transform a school where people sit at long tables and study from heavy books all day and all night--and that's just about all they do there--with the exception of the guy who brews the militarily significant pot of coffee--only you could turn this into a justifiable military target.

But, of course, I don't expect otherwise.

naftali: "...only you could turn this into a justifiable military target."

me:      "...none of this is to be construed as as an exculpation of the assassins who perpetrated yesterday's crime."  

case closed 

"I would ask that supporters of Israel's ceaseless expansionism and its depraved indifference to human life refrain from giving me lectures in ethics." -- Ismail

I don't support Israel's expansionism, but neither do I agree that it exhibits a "depraved indifference to human life." If it did exhibit a "depraved indifference to human life," it would have responded to the ongoing war crimes perpetrated by Gazan Democacy the way Russia responded to Chechnya, or, to use an example closer to home, the way Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia deal with dissent. With this in mind, I feel more than comfortable lecturing you. Please enjoy!

"For comparison, you might imagine an Israeli attack on a madrassa whose imam preaches unstinting resistance to accommodation with Israelis and whose religious/political teachings materially support the taking by force of Israeli territory."

Even if we're going to accept this new universal law of ethics -- that it's not quite so bad to punish pupils for that which is taught in their schools -- we have to ask: Has this ever happened? Has Israel ever, in its 60 year history, attacked a place of learning, murdering innocent civilians, purely because of what was taught there? If it hasn't happened -- and it hasn't -- then how does this example serve your apparent purpose of moral equivalence? Doesn't it actually hurt your argument, revealing the tactics and ethics of the noble victims of Palestine to be, well, not quite so noble and maybe even beneath contempt?

"When families are shelled into pulp while picnicking, I shouldn't mind because Israel really regrets the error. But it'll probably have to do it again-you understand."

Actually, Israel wouldn't "have do it again" -- ever -- if the psycho-religious Islamic death cult would cease (and I mean really cease -- take it out of the madrassa, banish it from children's television, exile it from the government). But do you truly believe that Israel targets these ambulances and families picnicking because it has -- to borrow a concept popular in the Arab world -- bloodlust for the murder of infidels who happen to be on the same land as them? Do you believe Israeli military planners sit down with civilian targets and devise strategies -- to borrow a concept popular in the Hamas government -- that are designed to maximize civilian casualties? I'm really curious if you think this is how Israel operates.

"Israel controls borders, airspace and ports, initiates bombing runs and similar military adventures at will, carries out assassinations that regularly include infants and other innocents (but, oh, how sorry they are!), controls the availability of food, fuel, medicine, access to medical care, passage in and out, etc-only such a blinkered individual would call that circumstance a withdrawal."

Final question: On the few occasions that Israel has let up its tight controls, has the Palestinian population used its freedom to get on with life, or has it raced to acquire materials for the purpose of mass murdering random citizens of the Zionist Entity? There's a reason the security barrier, for all the pain it has caused Palestinians and for all the misguided ways it has been implemented, works. It was, after all, invented by the Israeli Left that you so approvingly speak of, as a way of separating Israel from a society that exports mass murderers and as a way to ensure the security of its citizens.

(This is your cue to reply that murdering students has to be taken in the same context, that it's really just to ensure the security of Palestinians. Go!)

Perhaps taking a course in writing--because your first paragraph starting with Rav Kook then contradicts the rest of your post.  Any why aren't you ignoring me?  You said you would.

Just because you say something, and by now I think we know how much that's worth, doesn't mean you actually believe it.  Since you know many many different ways of lying.

Those picnic folk stepped on a Palestinian, Fatah, Jihadi, Hamas, (Damn, so many armies for such a small area, why's that?) land mine planted when they were afraid of an Israeli invasion.  Oops, that truth thing keep biting you in the tuches.