Acts of War

As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, I'm reminded of terrorist sympathizers like Jimmy Carter and the United Nations and some members of the EU.
Carter's February 1, 2006 appearance on Larry King Live belongs in the "Totally Clueless" museum.

Hamas deserves to be recognized by the international community, and despite the group's militant history, there is a chance the soon-to-be Palestinian leaders could turn away from violence, former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday.

Carter, who monitored last week's Palestinian elections in which Hamas handily toppled the ruling Fatah, added that the United States should not cut off aid to the Palestinian people, but rather funnel it through third parties like the U.N.

"If you sponsor an election or promote democracy and freedom around the world, then when people make their own decision about their leaders, I think that all the governments should recognize that administration and let them form their government," Carter said.

...Carter said "there's a good chance" that Hamas, which has operated a network of successful social and charitable organizations for Palestinians, could become a nonviolent organization...

The 39th U.S. president said he met with Hamas leaders in Ramallah, in the West Bank, after last week's elections.

"They told me they want to have a peaceful administration. They want to have a unity government, bring in Fatah members and independent members," Carter said. But he added that "what they say and what they do is two different matters."

However, Carter noted, Hamas has adhered to a cease-fire since August 2004, which "indicates what they might do in the future." He said Hamas is "highly disciplined" and capable of keeping any promise of nonviolence it might make.

Transcript

It's stunning just how WRONG Jimmy Carter's judgments and predictions were.

Jimmy with Hamas leader (RJL Conservative)
The "highly disciplined" and "capable of keeping any promise of nonviolence" Hamas sparked the current crisis.

Palestinian militants took Israeli soldier Galid Shalit hostage and demanded a prisoner exchange.

Over two weeks ago, The Christian Science Monitor offered an analysis:

With one of their soldiers in captivity for the first time in more than a decade, Israeli officials are facing one of the greatest dilemmas in a time of conflict: whether or not to negotiate with a group who has taken someone hostage.

The predicament arose Sunday when Palestinian militants kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit and then dragged him away to a kilometer-long tunnel infiltrating Israel from Gaza.

Three Hamas-linked militant groups demanded Monday that Israel release all Palestinian women and minors in exchange for the soldier.

...Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other government ministers have been quick to reiterate the official policy of Israel as well as a plethora of Western nations, including the US: no negotiations with terrorists, including an exchange of prisoners.

...[However,] Israel has a long history of negotiating with groups it considers to be terrorist organizations, even making lopsided exchanges to bring soldiers and other citizens home.

In 2004, the Lebanon-based Hizbullah won the release of several dozen of its militants held by Israel in exchange for one Israeli citizen, Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was lured to Lebanon as part of a drug deal gone awry. The exchange also included the remains of three Israeli soldiers. Israeli experts of prisoner exchanges also point to the Jibril Deal of 1985, in which Israeli won the release of three of its soldiers in return for setting free more than 1,100 Palestinian and other prisoners.

...Israel has threatened a major military operation in retaliation for the kidnapping, during which two other soldiers were killed, and there has been a significant buildup of forces around the Gaza Strip.

Clearly, Israel is not trigger happy, as its critics are quick to suggest.

Some questions:

What good did Israel's withdrawal from Gaza last August accomplish?

Was that concession by Israel a step toward peace?

NO.

Obviously, Israel's threat to retaliate militarily wasn't an empty one.

...The territory, from which Israel withdrew last August, has seen increasingly deadly clashes, with at least 14 Palestinian civilian casualties over the past two weeks. More than 150 rockets have been fired by Palestinians on southern Israeli towns in the past month.

And in spite of this aggression, Israel is being attacked for defending itself.

PARIS (Reuters) -- Russia and France condemned Israel's strikes in Lebanon on Thursday as a dangerous escalation of the Middle East conflict but the United States said Israel had the right to defend itself.

President Bush defended Israel's attack on Beirut airport, but warned the Israelis they should be careful not to weaken the fragile Lebanese government.

"Israel has the right to defend herself," Bush told a news conference after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Secondly, whatever Israel does should not weaken the ... government in Lebanon."

Bush and Merkel made clear at a joint news conference they felt Israel's actions in seeking kidnapped soldiers and responding to Hizbollah rocket attacks were justified.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced both Israel's attack on Lebanon and its operations against the Palestinian territories.

"This is a disproportionate response to what has happened and if both sides are going to drive each other into a tight corner then I think that all this will develop in a very dramatic and tragic way," he told reporters on a flight from Paris to Moscow, Interfax news agency reported.

...French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called Israel's bombardment of Beirut airport "a disproportionate act of war", saying there was a real risk of a regional war.

I think that the critics of Israel's actions are unjustified in their condemnation.

When Egypt offered to help arrange Shalit's release, Israel accepted in order to avoid military action.
Haaretz reveals that the terrorists -- Hamas -- had no interest in a peaceful solution.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak yesterday told the Cairo daily Al Ahram that he had drafted an agreement for the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, but that it had been scuttled by outside pressure on Hamas.

"I would not be revealing any secrets by saying I had written portions of a dignified resolution to the soldier crisis," Mubarak said in the interview.

According to the Egyptian leader, Israel promised to release numerous Palestinian prisoners, and Hamas leader Khaled Meshal and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had both been told. However, the agreement was not implemented due to pressure on Hamas.

"Then Hamas was pressured and entities I do not want to name intervened in the mediation. This blocked the impending agreement," Mubarak said.

Meshal denied at a press conference on Monday that external entities such as Syria or Iran were making decisions for Hamas. He also said Shalit must be released as part of a prisoner swap and thanked Egypt for its efforts.

Meshal is a liar.

Hamas does not want peace.

Now, the Iran connection is being exposed.

From The Jerusalem Post:

Israel has information that Hizbullah guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers are trying to transfer them to Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.

Does this mean that Israel's next step might be a military strike on Iran?

The way these hostage crises have unfolded shows the extent of the threat that Israel faces from its neighbors.
Mark Levin writes:

I think all serious people can now agree that the so-called "two-state solution," in which Israel cedes territory to the Palestinians in supposed exchange for peace in our time, was never a solution.

Starting with Jimmy Carter and with varying degrees of pressure, U.S. policy under every president has urged the two-state solution on Israel, which eventually embraced it — until today (I hope). If country X agrees to the creation of country Y on its border, but new country Y refuses to accept the existence of country X, there can be no two-state solution. The Palestinian leadership is a who's who of terrorists (with rare exceptions). Israel ceded the Gaza area to it, and it immediately became a launching base for attacks against Israel's civilians and military. Hezbollah has intensified its attacks from Lebanon. And Israel now has to amass its forces for yet another war.

The Palestinian leadership is answerable to Iran and Syria. (Attention State Department: They don't want peace.) The only two-state solution that will work is the dissolution of these two terrorist states.

Levin is right.

They don't want peace.

They want Israel annihilated.

Should Israel defend itself or surrender?

Israel should fight for its right to exist.

Another lesson from this--

The War on Terror is not like wars of the past, with clear borders. We are fighting an ideology, one that worships death.

The borders of this war exist in the minds of Islamic militants. The battles spill across countries. They aren't confined to an easily defined geographical territory.

Pay attention Russ Feingold, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, etc.

Try and understand the nature of this war against terrorism, or take your place alongside Jimmy Carter in the "Totally Clueless" museum.