The Israelis continue to go with a strategy of making life as miserable for the Palestinians as possible in the hopes that they will release Corporal Shalit. This is an error in my opinion...because the Palestinians will probably not release him voluntarily, and it gives them more time to dig in and prepare defences against an assault, as well as effecting the morale of the IDF, who have always been the sort of people who like to get down to business and get things done.
Yesterday, the Israeli air force took out Palestinian prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's office in Gaza and leveled it. That was obviously intended as a direct and personal message...since it was done in the late evening, when no one was likely to be there.
Walking though what was left of his office the next day, Haniyeh was a little bit upset... "They have targeted a symbol for the Palestinian people," he said.
The air force also continues its policy of generating sonic booms at all hours. As Israeli Prime Minister Olmert said `No one will sleep in Gaza until Corporal Shalit is released'.
Two Qassams were fired from Gaza yesterday at Sderot and one at nearby Kibbutz Nir Am, and the Palestinians attempted again yesterday to kidnap an Israeli soldier in Israel...an attempt that was foiled by the Shin Bet and added three more to the total of Palestinian `prisoners'.
Hamas's armed wing, Izzadin al-Kassam, threatened Sunday that they would strike Israeli schools, various institutions, and power stations if the Israelis didn't pull out of Gaza.
Now, as always, the story behind the story...
As Corporal Gilad Shalit enters his second week of captivity, Israel is in something of an uneviable position. It cannot go back, and has little choice but to go forward and embark on a full-scale war to fight Hamas and its terrorist allies to the finish, something Olmert would prefer not to do because of the likelyhood of severe Palestinian casualties (milked, as always, for the world press by Pallywood) and disagreements with Defense Minister Peretz and the Labor party end of Kadima's political majority. This entire week was pretty much wasted time for the IDF.
The Palestinians are very aware of all this, which is why any attempts at mediation have failed dismally. The Palestinians successfully played for time to build up thier defences by getting the Olmert government to hang on and wait for Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to come up with results...something was never going to happen. The last thing Mubarek wants is a strong and powerful Hamas govenm,ent next door to Egypt...and allied with his foes, the Muslim Brotherhood, who are the father organization of Hamas.
Israel is now in the position of having to take out Hamas and thereby consolidate the reign of `moderate' Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah....thus doing exactly what Abbas and Mubarek wanted.
Fatah is just as much a terrorist organization as Hamas, Fatah participated in the attackonthe militaty base that took Corporal Shalit hostage and it was Fatah that murdered two Israeli hostages this week outside the Palestinian capitol of Ramallah.
The Olmert government should have gone after both Fatah and Hamas and has miscalculated things by merely singling out Hamas for destruction. I'm very much afraid that may come back to haunt them.
Hopefully I'm mistaken.
The person who wrote this is clearly a foolish and ignorant person, who is saying things as if every muslim country is full of savages and only exposes the desperate side of things. If you had the brains or courage to say anything at all, you would say the reality. Not all muslims are terrorists as you foolishly believe. As a matter of fact, I know many muslims who think much higher of western societies and respect both Christianity and Judaism more than most Christians and Jews respect their own religion. And Again, I say, if you had Courage, you would show both sides of each of the stories which you so boldly criticize.
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