Those who live by the Kassam die by explosion.

YnetNewsOnline is reporting that a commander of the “military wing” of the Popular Resistance Committee had died in an expulsion that reduced his Subaru to a smoking metal mush.

A car belonging to as senior commander of the Popular Resistance Committees exploded on Friday in Gaza and Palestinian officials said at least one person was killed. The Palestinians blamed Israel for the explosion.

The target of the explosion was Khalil al-Quqa, commander of the Salah e-Din Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees. Al-Quqa’s son said the shirt taken off the dead body belongs to his father.The Popular Resistance Committees initially refused to confirm whether their commander has been killed, but later vowed to avenge their commander's death. Hundreds gathered near the blazing white Subaru in which al-Quqa and another passenger had been. Gunmen affiliated with the Popular Resistance Committees marched in Gaza city and called for revenge. Firing shots in the air, gunmen said: “Israel will be attacked with a barrage of rockets in the coming hours.” The said “Israel killed him and it will ay for this.”

The spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees Abu Abir told Ynet that his group’s response will be “painful and unprecedented on every level.” This is not the first time that the IDF attempts to assassinate al-Quqa who is considered as one of the most wanted military commanders in the Gaza Strip. He was responsible for cells that fire Qassam rockets at southern Israel. He dispatched a cell to the West Bank to teach terrorists there how to make and launch Qassam rockets. Another cell was caught near Bethlehem few weeks ago.

The Popular Resistance Committee was set up by former members of Fatah and other factions. The groups is considered as Hamas’ satellite organization and supported Hamas’ in the elections to the Palestinian parliament.

The Jerusalem Post report is here. The IAF has denied involvement with al-Quqa’s death. Work related accident or divine intervention by the IAF – he is still one dead kassam maker.

No good deed goes unpunished in the West Bank

In the wake of the Israeli elections the attacks continue to come from Palestinian terrorists. Today an elderly Israeli couple were traveling by car towards the North West Bank Settlement of Kedumin where out of kindness and no doubt obedience to the mitzvah they picked up two separate hitchhikers reports YnetNews Online with tragic consequences.

Three Israelis, a couple and a young woman, were killed Thursday evening when a terrorist blew himself up inside the couple’s vehicle near a gas station at the entrance to the West Bank settlement of Kedumim.

The terrorist hitched a ride with the Israelis dressed up as a haredi man.The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's armed wing, claimed responsibility for the attack.

An IDF investigation into the attack revealed that the car contained an Israeli couple apparently traveling from Kfar Saba to Kedumim. They reportedly picked up a young woman and the disguised terrorist at a hitchhiking post near the Karnei Shomron settlement, a six minute drive from the entrance to Kedumim, where the terrorist blew himself up. It remains unclear whether the terrorist was wearing an explosives belt or a rucksack with explosives.

Senior al-Aqsa Brigades member Abu Rish confirmed to Ynet that the terrorist was disguised as an Israeli upon stepping into the vehicle, adding that “there were four other people who were killed besides the terrorists.” Palestinian sources reported that the terrorist, identified as 24-year-old bachelor Mahmoud Masharka from the El Bureij refugee camp near Hebron, was wanted by the IDF since almost the beginning of the intifada, mainly for his Islamic Jihad-related activity, but he was able to escape to Hebron and lived at the El Ein refugee camp in Nablus.

It is simply beyond the pale when civilians are deliberated targeted for cold blooded execution but to take advantage of the kindness of strangers while draping one’s body in the garb of the religious strikes me as so profane that mere words could never convey the ignominy of the act. If I have one regret beyond the wanton destruction of life; it is that the bomber did not live to die a 1,000 deaths daily.

Here's the deal

I finally broke down and bought an ipod. Yes, an ipod. I bought one for the Last Amazon a few months ago and while we were on holiday she loaned it to me to use. I was so impressed that I decided to go out and buy one for myself.

I didn’t study the issue and I have no idea if it was a wise consumer choice and I don’t care. I liked hers. I don’t need an mp3 player that will send email, play videos or make coffee. At my age the last thing I want is to look at anything visually that is only 2 inches by 2 inches so the ipod shuffle is perfect for me. It’s light, completely portable and comfortable to wear. I don’t need more than a Gig of memory and the sound quality for my much abused ears suits me just fine.

Apple has dropped the prices since I last bought one in December and the one advantage I have working for a really large company thatI never considered before is that companies like Apple offer discounts to the employees of large firms. The lack of posts in the last few days is because I am busy loading up the ipod so I am good to go. So rather that reading here I suggest that you visit the latest Carnival of Liberties hosted by the Searchlight Crusade.

It’s official. Canadian Human Rights Tribunals have now jumped the shark.

A complaint has been filed with the Albert Human Rights Commission by Iman Syed Soharwardy against the Canadian Western Standard magazine for publishing the Danish looney tunes. Here’s the announcement from Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant:

Earlier this month, the Western Standard was sued in human rights court for publishing the Danish cartoons. It's been ten years since I've graduated from law school, and I've never seen a more frivolous, vexatious, infantile suit than this.

But that's the point -- this complaint is not about beating us in the law. Freedom of speech is still in our constitution; we'll win in the end. It's a nuisance suit, designed to grind us down, cost us money, and serve as a warning to other, more timid media.

The hand-written scrawl and the spelling errors were what first disgusted me with the suit; but the arguments were what really got me. The complainant, Imam Syed Soharwardy, a former professor at an anti-Semitic university in Saudi Arabia, doesn't just argue that we shouldn't have published the cartoons. He argues that we shouldn't be able to defend our right to publish the cartoons. The bulk of his complaint was that we dared to try to justify it.

He argues that advocating a free press should be a thought crime.

Levant has more here. Talk about an abuse of system and process. Sad to say, it seems that our system lends itself so easily to any half-witted twit with an aggravated and delusional sense of rational attempting to push the envelope on the absurd on the taxpayer’s dime. If the Iman was any kind of man he would have two choices. Call Ezra out and arrange to meet him in the back of the building man on man or sue the magazine in civil court on his own dime and call for costs.

The Western Standard is accepting donations for their legal defense fund or I would suggest that you take out a subscription to one of the few magazines that dared to publish the cartoons in Canada.

And the winner is....Grey Power

The first television exit polls results are in according to this Jerusalem Post article which puts Kadima 29 seats, Labor 22, and the Likud party with 11 seats but:

The accuracy of the TV exit poll has been marred in the past, most memorably in 1996 when it incorrectly showed Shimon Peres to have narrowly defeated Binyamin Netanyahu for the prime ministership. Final results are expected to flow in the course of the night.

The real surprise/winners are:

Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party won 14 seats, making it the third largest party in the next Knesset. Lieberman has expressed an interest in joining any coalition formed despite his opposition to Olmert's convergence plan. The surprise of the election was the Gil pensioners' party, led by 79-year-old former senior Mossad agent Rafi Eitan, which won 8 seats.

E-Day

Election day is a state holiday in Israel and the Jerusalem Post is reporting by noon only 21.7% of eligible voters had cast their ballots making it one of the lowest turnouts yet.

While it may be a low turn out there were enough Kadima and National Union supporters on hand in the French Hill intersection of Jerusalem to start a brawl.

Islamic Jihad is claiming responsibility for a Kassam rocket attack in southern Israel that killed a father and son near the Karni border crossing.

Israeli Elections

Israelis will be going to the polls tomorrow and the interesting thing is that no one really knows who is going to actually win. Most pollsters are giving Ehud Olmert lead Kadima (previously Ariel Sharon’s Forward Party) the lead in Knesset seats in (30-34 range) which is still a significant drop from the 40+ seats approval rating that Kadima enjoyed under the Sharon leadership. But a 30+ seat count in the Israeli parliament could allow Kadima to go ahead and form the next government coalition.

According to this Arutz Sheva article there is a valid reason why everyone (including the Israeli pollsters) are refusing to take the poll numbers seriously. 75% of all those Israelis contacted by various pollsters refused to answer or participate in poll questions. Of those who did respond; 25% remained undecided which translates roughly into approximately 28 seats up for grabs. Furthermore, of the 15-18% of Israelis who were polled that did have a clear political preference also stated that they would not hesitate to change their mind right up to the moment before they marked their ballot.

Evelyn Gordon has probably the best articles I have read recently on the potential right wing coalition/ alliances for control of the Knesset in the Jerusalem Post. One thing to bear in mind when discussing Israeli politics is that the political spectrum is shifted so far leftward that even the alleged “right-wing” parties come in to slightly left of the Canadian NDP.

Already pundits are predicting a potentially lower than average voter turnout which traditionally favours the more “right wing” political parties but with the 22,000 Israeli securities forces mobilized over the country and 85 terror alerts issued (and the IDF is claiming that 14 of the alerts represent “concrete” threats) who really knows?

Unlike Hamas or Fatah, I am hoping for a Kadima/Labor loss and am prayering for a Likud Coalition win.

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

As hard as it is to believe Hugo Chavez has gone and taken anti-American rhetoric to a whole new level according to this report from Reuters:

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said he would have a nasty welcome waiting for U.S. forces he insists are preparing to invade his country -- arrows laced with Indian poison.

The left-wing former soldier, who has ordered his military to train civilian reserves for a guerrilla war, including the use of bows and arrows, often accuses Washington of planning to invade to control Venezuela's vast oil reserves. U.S. officials dismiss his assassination and invasion charges as populist rhetoric meant to mobilise supporters before presidential elections in December. But they say Chavez is an anti-democratic threat to the region.

With an audience of ministers, army officers and local officials chuckling, Chavez remarked on how he would target U.S. soldiers with arrows covered with curare, an Amazon Indian poison made from plants. "I am going to practice with a bow and arrow. If we have to put a few arrows into any invading gringo, then you'll be done in 30 seconds, my dear gringo," Chavez said pointing to his neck during his regular Sunday television broadcast.

Bows and poison arrows against the imaginary Marine Corps force that will soon be invading Venezuela? Got to be early onset Alzheimer’s.

(Via Neale News)

Let it Bleed is back and changing lanes.

One thing I'd like to accomplish over the next few months is making LIB a focal point for local conservative politics.* I whipped up the following piece a few weeks back and it never really went anywhere (probably because it still needs work), but in an effort to get this puppy fired up again, here it is. Oh, and if you know any local pols who would be interested in a smidgen of internet exposure, let me know.

A little over eight months remain until one of the most important dates on the Toronto calendar: November 13. The fact that the date doesn’t seem familiar to most Torontonians is indicative of a major problem: it’s the next municipal election. It’s a sad fact that the level of government which most directly impacts our daily lives is also the one which receives the least attention from voters – less than 40% of eligible voters turned out for the last election.
….

Of course, in order to accomplish this, dedicated conservatives are needed. And they’re out there: but attention is often focused on Queen’s Park and Ottawa, rather than Nathan Phillips Square. So perhaps the first step in the process is that conservatives need to convince themselves of the value and prestige of city politics – and the positive impact that they can deliver for people on a daily basis.

The conservative message of smaller, more focused and therefore more competent government is one that Torontonians need to hear – and one which can improve the experience of living in this great city. But it’s up to conservatives to get that story out there. And with elections looming, there’s no time like the present to get started.

Bob’s is most decidedly right. I live and work in this city and the choices we make come November 13th (municipal election date) are going to impact the quality of every day life in this city, up front and personal, in a ways we have not seen before as the City of Toronto has received new powers of taxation unheard of before in Canadian municipal politics from the province. Frankly, the idea that a municipal sales tax of say 5% be jacked on to the cost of services sold within the municipality of Toronto on top of the provincial and federal sales taxes in order to finance an already unsustainable and ever burgeoning municipal budget should be one that makes the blood run cold.

Last week we saw the provincial government earmark $1.2 billion for the City of Toronto for infrastructure repair and at city hall all hailed this as a good beginning. But think about this; just why is Toronto’s infrastructure been serially neglected by successions of municipal councils that it needs such an infusion? One should be asking oneself just what have municipal politicians been financing in lieu of basic spending on infrastructure repair. We could start with the free crack kits and go from there.

Leaving the Golan

Canadian forces are leaving the Golan Heights after 32 years without peace being withing sight. I can remember when Canadian forces were first deployed and so it was a bit of shock to realize that it has actually been 32 years since their original arrival. The Toronto Star carries a report of the Canadian forces pull-out but it has made no mention that the Canadian deployment as UN peacekeepers to the Golan Heights mission also represented the largest single loss of life for Canadian forces engaged in peacekeeping abroad when Syria fired on an unarmed transport carrying Canadian peacekeepers to deployment.

The Toronto Star contends that the Israelis originally acquired the Golan Heights in the Six Days War:

More than 12,000 Canadian troops passed through the Golan's narrow UN Disengagement Observer Force buffer zone during Canada's decades-long presence on the escarpment east of the Sea of Galilee. The 1,150 square-kilometre territory, although part of Syria, has been under Israeli military occupation since it was captured during the final two days of the 1967 Six Day War. Israel unilaterally annexed the part of the Golan under its control in 1981.

But this is not entirely accurate. Only the southern portion of the Golan Heights plateau came under Israeli control in 1967. It was not until the Yom Kippur War when Syria attacked Israel that almost the entirety of the Golan Heights came under Israeli control. Under the UN ceasefire agreement of 1974 a small narrow section was returned to Syria as a demilitarized zone.

But the Toronto Star cannot leave well enough alone and cannot pass up an opportunity to take a cheap shot at the Israeli governments.

Several Israeli governments have indicated a willingness to return the Golan to Syria as part of a comprehensive peace agreement. But the territory, representing one of the few tracts of sparsely populated green space in Israel's possession, also provides Israel with exclusive access to the Galilee watershed, one of the region's most precious water sources.

But here's the other side of the deal. Despite the Annexation of the Golan Heights in 1981 by the Israeli Begin government successive Israeli administrations have offered to returned most of the Golan Heights to Syrian control providing Syria will sign a peace agreement with Israel and will not re-militarize the Golan Heights. In fact, the US attempted to broker a deal concerning the return of the Golan Heights in 1999-2000 but guess who refused to get on board and I will give you a hint; it was not Israelis.

The Golan Heights may represent a “green area” and access to the Galilee watershed but a people who made the desert bloom and are also world leaders in desalination techniques can certainly go back to living without the green or blue of the Golan Heights but what they cannot accept is militarization of the plateau by a country that has a long and belligerent history of threatening the security of her citizens.

May this be only the beginnings of many ‘morning time in Canada’ to come

I voted CPC not so much as I thought they would show outstanding leadership initiative in governing this country or because I instinctively sympathized with middle-aged men with a paunch. It was simply the lesser evil of all possible voting choices. I am no one’s party hack and I would not hesitate to vote NDP tomorrow if they promised to drastically slash my taxes and get the government out of the habit of regulating the every day lives of its citizenry. Of course, if that were the case the NDP would still have to overcome the highly incredulous factor for my $1.75 vote.

That being said I am really starting to like this new Canada under the CPC. I may not agree with everything but at last I can see a new day dawning somewhere over the horizon. Taken from the Globe and Mail:

In addition to members of the RCMP and the military's special forces, the team included diplomats and intelligence officers, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said. "We were there with our very best," Mr. MacKay said in an interview. "We had everyone fully engaged in this operation from Day 1."The extraordinary effort, he said, sends a message: "Canada should not [be], and is not passive when it comes to its own citizens and the protection of their lives."

British troops led the final phase of the delicate operation that unfolded yesterday morning in a neighbourhood in Baghdad. The international team found Canadians James Loney, 41, Harmeet Singh Sooden, 33, and Briton Norman Kember, 74, in a building. They were bound. Their captors were not around. Mr. MacKay said joy at the rescue was tempered by the fact that the operation came too late to save the life of one of the hostages, American Tom Fox. His body was found two weeks ago.

All four men came to Baghdad last year to work for a pacifist organization, the Christian Peacemakers Team. They were taken hostage by a group demanding the release of Iraqi prisoners held by U.S. forces. Mr. MacKay said yesterday's rescue involved close co-operation between the governments of Britain, the United States and Iraq. The final raid was led by the British.

Canadian intelligence officers involved at various times included specialists from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Communications Security Establishment, a secretive branch of the Defence Department that intercepts international telecommunications. The Foreign Affairs Department combed its ranks to find staff who had experience with these types of situations, The Canadian Press reported. They dispatched a team in early December that included foreign officers, workers from the Jordanian embassy and some RCMP officers. That team stayed in Baghdad through Christmas and into this year.

Liberal MP Dan McTeague, a former parliamentary secretary responsible for Canadians abroad, said the group discreetly made inquiries around Baghdad about the disappearance. They also communicated again and again that the hostages were Canadian, they were humanitarian workers and that Canada was not party to the war.

"This was a remarkable international effort involving our allies, the Americans, the British and the Iraqis," Mr. MacKay said. "This is certainly a great day for Canadians." But the new Conservative government is keeping a tight lid on operational details on the advice of federal security experts. They warn that talk of Canadian military activity in Iraq can make Canadians targets for terrorists. The security experts also say that they want to keep techniques secret that might be needed again if another rescue operation ever has to be mounted. Prime Minister Stephen Harper hinted broadly at Canadian military involvement at a news conference earlier in the day. "I'm not free to say more than that because of national security.

No doubt the naysayers and pooh-poohers will try to twist this into some kind of liberal initiative but if the liberals were still running Canada would Canadian security forces taken a significant role in the hostage rescue? I just cannot envision a Martin Liberal government which would have allowed all levels of our securities forces to operate freely in IRAQ (of all places) in tangent with American and British forces. I think not unless they were able to cruise from afar at a safe hand washing distance. Just think William Sampson, Mahrer Arar or just ask Zahra Kazemi – oops, my bad, you can’t ask Kazemi, as she’s dead.

Only one more thing for the Canadian government to do and I will be content. Send the bill to Christian Peacemakers for the rescue operation.

Bored of the Rings

The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star have both waded in on Lord of the Rights – The Musical and pronounced it boring despite its’ $28 million price tag. I ask if anyone is truly and really surprised?

It took multiple attempts for movie makers to finally turn out a half-way decent film on the Lord of the Rings, and then, it still took 3 – 3 hour movies to tell the tale. I think my son called it right last summer when he saw the billboards that were advertising LOTR: The Musical and said, “Some things are just wrong.”

Well, actually I am relieved in a way. If nothing else perhaps this will put the kibosh on the current provincial liberal government’s attempts to become theatre promoters and discourage future provincial governments from going down the same path holding the taxpayer’s purse wide open but considering that I live in a province whose motto should be “Yours to Plunder” I will not be holding my breath.

Talk about your gotchie control

I can understand completely why Cuban ex-pat and former Castro "gofer" Delfín Fernández has made a name for himself on Miami cable television according to this Miami Herald article.

I recognize that its completely feasible for paranoids to have enemies, and Fidel Castro has done more to earn enemies than most people - but I got to ask; who would have thought that Fidel burned his dirty underwear every day to foil any some of chemical assassination attempt?

Is it even feasible to kill by poisoned gotchies? You know, I really would have thought that Castro was more of a "commando" rather than a fruit of the loom type - which just goes to show one can never judge a book by its cover.

Now that this story is out how long before the Palestinians claim the Israelis are killing them by their Hanes?

(t/ Neal News)

Talk about a Sour Zerb

The Zerb aka Toronto Star’s “Media Critic” blogging on Mark Steyn in MacLean's magazine:

We know he's recently lost his gigs in most of the old Conrad Black empire. He burned his bridges at the National Post when the Aspers/Matthew Fraser took over from his Lordness and founding editor Ken Whyte. (The latter has given him a sinecure at Maclean's where he's been writing rambling, self-indulgent prose.)

“Rambling, self-indulgent prose” which I think is a much fairer assessment of what the Zerb’s has written in her “Steyn in my Eye” post than anything that Steyn has written for MacLean’s magazine. And just in case we miss her point in the next paragraph - she goes the extra adjective mile in describing the stylistic substance of Steyn’s Globe and Mail column yesterday and I quote.

So guess where Steyn turns up yesterday, dominating the Comment page with a rambling, self-indulgent 1,500 words, more or less, under the headline "The Cost of Not whacking Saddam was too high"?

Let’s face facts; not even on her best day, when she’s at the top of her game, can she play in the same league as Steyn. She’s a pure bush leaguer whose best column will never measure up to his worst, and isn’t envy one of the ugliest sins to observe in the eyes of others? I'll take lust and greed over envy any day.

Shalom to Moshe Ya’alon and Welcome to Canada

There is something ironic about reading an Israeli paper to find out what Canadian moonbats are up to but life is full of those little ironies. Taken from YnetNewsOnline:

A group of left-wing organizations, mostly Arabs, some Jewish, called on the Canadian government to detain former Chief of Staff Moshe (Bugi) Yaalon who is planning to visit Toronto on Wednesday to appear in synagogue for a fundraising event for the benefit of IDF wounded soldiers.

The organizations claim that their request to ban Yaalon from entering Canada is based on the Canadian law which prohibits entrance of people suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They asked authorities to detain Yaalon if he enters Canada.

Yaalon consulted with the Israeli ambassador to Canada, Alan Baker, who is an expert in international law and served up to two year ago as the Foreign Ministry's legal advisor on the subject, opposite the British, the Belgians, and others. Baker said that that he has no knowledge of any request to the Canadian officials on the matter and added that in practicality, the Canadian law is very strict and in order ban Yaalon from entering, there is need for a signature of the Canadian immigration minister.

In order to detain Yaalon on Canadian soil, a court order signed by the Canadian minister of justice is needed. Yaalon, on his part, decided to make the trip to Canada and speak in "Bet Emeth" synagogue. He will be greeted outside the synagogue by many protestors planning to jeer him and carry signs like "war criminal, you're not welcome in Canada."

I know that there were a few faint-hearted threats bantered about to have US President George W. Bush arrested as a war criminal on his first state visit to Canada, but this is the first I’ve heard that Canadian lefties want to arrest former IDF Chief Moshe Yaalon as a war criminal when he visits Canada. Can’t say claim that I am surprised by the suggestion though it is a bit puzzling why the Toronto Star hasn’t run with the story yet. The one frustrating point in the YnetNewsOnline article is that paper does not carry the name of the organization(s) but a quick google search did come with the usual suspects.
All I can say is Good Luck getting Monte to sign the order.

Memo to Online Desk Editor of Zaman: Your veil is slipping!

I have written a few posts recently concerning the Israeli Karni border crossing dispute so when I saw this piece in the Zaman Online News I knew I would have to post it:

With the closure of the Karni border crossing point, the only ammunitions route to Gaza, for security reasons, Palestinians living in the area are in danger of starving.

Freudian, eh?

(Via Meryl Yourish)

There is finally a reason to pay for the Globe and Mail.

Well, at least for today’s dead tree issue – A31. Mark Steyn has been picked up as a guest columnist by the Globe and Mail. Of all the Canadian dailies, who would have guessed that the G&M would be the one to pony up? I can’t find a link online to his column on “The cost of not whacking Saddam was too high” but I can already imagine all the lights popping in the heads of the G&M’s regular readers and whatever would Rick Salutin think?

Conservatives Abandon Alien Amnesty Plan - NOT!

The lead into this article at the Toronto Star reads:

Hard workers can't stay

Illegal workers in Toronto's underground economy are being deported as the new Conservative government abandons a Liberal amnesty plan, immigration lawyers and consultants say.

Which is why this article grabbed my attention. Who knew that that the Liberals had an amnesty plan for the Conservatives to abandon? I didn’t. At one point I recall reading that the Liberals were going to examine the possibility of a general amnesty for illegal aliens and that’s as much as I read. Now I will admit that I am not necessarily the most informed person on the planet but I would bet the rent money if the Liberals had a solid proposal to offer as an immigration amnesty policy it would have been a major campaign issue. And it never came up during the campaign. Not once.

It is not until you get past the first five paragraphs that one learns that Joe Volpe, former Liberal Minister of Immigration had a draft proposal that was never sent to the Liberal cabinet to consider.

Furthermore, unlike the Toronto Star, I am not much interested in the government taking charge and managing the economics of the “underground economy”. I figure the government’s efforts are better spent managing the above ground economy. Nor do I have much sympathy for the plight of the construction industry in Toronto which this article suggests has made illegal aliens a staple of their worker base - not while the general youth unemployment rate is at 11.4% and I suspect it is even considerably higher among black youth in Toronto but I can’t find any race base statistics. Though I would be curious to see exactly how diverse the construction industry in Toronto actually is.

The Neverending Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza Part xxxxxxxxxx

The Toronto Star weighs in on the Karni border crossing dispute and I quote the highlights:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The incoming Palestinian prime minister presented a Hamas government likely to trigger painful economic sanctions, just as a solution appeared possible for a Gaza border crossing crisis that has caused shortages of vital food products.
…
On Monday, negotiators are to work out the details of opening at least one crossing to get humanitarian aid into Gaza. Tentative agreement was reached Sunday at a meeting called by the United States to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
…
Also Sunday, Israel, Palestinian and U.S. negotiators came to a tentative agreement to resolve a border-crossing crisis that has caused shortages of vital food products in Gaza, the U.S. ambassador said.

The vital Karni cargo crossing between Israel and Gaza has been closed for most of the past two months, shutting down almost all exports and imports from the poverty-stricken seaside territory. Palestinians charge Israel is punishing the Palestinians for the Hamas victory, but Israel insists it is keeping the crossing shut because of warnings of terror attacks. The lengthy shutdown has led to shortages of flour and milk, among other products, and bakeries are closing, the United Nations said.

While the Karni border was opened briefly today it was closed just as quickly and for the same reasons it keeps being closed by the Israelis. Security alerts.

But the Karni border crossing is not the only border crossing available to the Palestinians. There is another border crossing at the southern end of the Gaza Strip but the Palestinians consistently refuse to consider it as a viable option. Why you may ask? The Kerem Shalom terminal is a heavily fortified crossing unlike the Karni Terminal, and consequently, the opportunity to inflict physical harm to any IDF personnel manning the stations on the Israeli side is minimal at best. But here’s another thought; why don’t the Palestinians expend their markets south to Egypt or North Africa rather than blindly insisting on tunneling only north into Israel?

If there really is a food shortage in the Gaza Strip it is a totally manufactured one caused by the Palestinian Authority who would rather play politics as their citizens starve. Of course, there is a greater irony and that is while the Israelis lived in the Gaza the desert bloomed into an agricultural cornucopia of bounty. I guess you could say those days are long gone.

The Graff Never Ends

Apparently the European Union has stepped up to the plate to the tune for another $78 million for the Palestinian Authority but not to fret as the EU has not revered their previous stance and will not finance a terrorist government, ergo, all future welfare handouts will hinge on whether Hamas decides to sing a different tune reports the Jerusalem Post.

I could have sworn that what they said last month. The real question is how long can the EU keep this up? I personally believe they will never stop the handouts which is just another reason why I am eternally grateful my ancestors left Old Europe for the New World.