Nothing underscores Hamas incompetence more than the current war. Hamas chose this war, yet what does it have to show for it other than a few score Israelis killed? How foolish does Hamas look for building and maintaining a huge rocket arsenal that has turned out to be mostly impotent against Israel’s Iron Dome?
Hamas
CELEBRATING A KIDNAPPING
On the “Three Schalits” Facebook page appear dozens of photos of smiling Palestinians holding up the three-fingered symbol in various locales. Israelis know how to read between the lines.
Many of those photographed flashing the sign are young children. Sweet-looking children. Palestinian children. Celebrating the kidnapping of Israeli children. Continue reading
Stop Blaming Israel And America For Fayyad’s Fall
This column was originally published in The Daily Beast.
Popular as he was in international aid circles and New York Times (and Daily Beast) op-eds—and even among Israelis—Fayyad had no democratic Palestinian constituency to speak of. As Archie Bunker once said of then-President Gerald Ford, “He’s doing a great job for a guy nobody voted for.”
Who lost Salam Fayyad? The resignation-dismissal of the respected Palestinian Prime Minister has provoked plenty of finger-pointing. Continue reading
Happy Veterans Day, Gilad Shalit
This column was originally published in American Thinker magazine.
Israeli proponents of the Shalit deal argued that “we are all Gilad Shalit.” That is truer than we realize: in fact, we all owe our existence and our freedom to the ultimate sacrifice of countless others every bit as much as Gilad Shalit owes his to the awful sacrifices made on his behalf.
We are oddly fortunate in that the vast majority of sacrifices are but abstractions to us — statistics, ceremonies, or images of neat rows of crosses and Stars of David on the Normandy cliffs.
Constant awareness of the enormity of the sacrifices made on our behalf would paralyze us; we know we can never earn it. So, we cope by compartmentalizing. We go on living normally by not focusing on those sacrifices too much, yet not taking them for granted. We in the free world carve out Veterans/Armistice Days to recognize our awesome debts, and designate moments of reflection, memory and honor of those who sacrificed so we can live. And then we go back to the business of living.
Perhaps, one day, Gilad Shalit will be able to do the same. Continue reading
Another country heard from: Abe Katsman weighs in 