Later, guy...


Mmmmmm...

He who made the decision to assassinate Sheikh Ahmed Yassin has made a decision to kill hundreds of Zionists.

So, let me get this straight, HAMAS which refused to recognize Israel and has been carrying out terrorist bombings now refuses to recognize Israel and carry out terrorist bombings? So, HAMAS was like, terrorism lite before now?

The whole idea of a cease-fire with Hamas, frankly I find ridiculous. Hamas has no place for Israel or the PA in its world view, and it will continue to adhere to that principle. All the cease-fire is going to do is give it time to reconstitute and rearm. There have been ten different attempts at cease-fires with Hamas. Every single one has been broken. And Professor Khalidi noted the terrible atrocities that have happened on both sides in the past few days. It's a little bit of a chicken and an egg. As it happens, in fact, in this case, the first attack was not by the Israeli army but by a Hamas attack on an Ares checkpoint at the same time that the Israelis were, to great political cost to them, dismantling illegal outposts. Clearly there is responsibility on both sides here. But I think the Israelis are responding to Hamas attacks, and I think if there is a lack of terrorism, there would be a lack of Israeli military activity.

I’m a little curious if that’s been tried.

In February and March 1996, Hamas carried out several bus bombings, killing nearly 60 Israelis. It was also blamed for attacks in 1997 in Jerusalem which killed 15 people, and brought the peace process grinding to a halt.

Condemnation rings somewhat hollow:

In Brussels, European Union foreign ministers condemned Israel for an "extra-judicial killing", which they said undermined the rule of law.

...and it’s interesting to note, Israelis have not been the sole target of HAMAS:

The Hamas (a word meaning courage and bravery) is a radical Islamic organization which became active in the early stages of the Intifada, operating primarily in the Gaza Strip but also in the West Bank. The Hamas has played a major role in violent fundamentalist subversion and radical terrorist operations against both Israelis and Arabs.

I’m sorry, I have little sympathy for people who were shown celebrating the attack on the World Trade Center, who burn our flag on a regular basis but have no problem taking our money:

The US has given $548,766,000 in direct aid to the PA, according to Palestinian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation figures[11]. But the total sum, including the amount given through relief and development organizations, is $1.1B.[12] In addition, following the 1998 Wye River Memorandum, the CIA has been training the Palestinian Authority Security Services.[13] The budget for this is unknown, though in September 2002, an additional $20 million has been allocated for an ostensible reform of the Palestinian security services.[14] Clearly, previous attempts to create a law-abiding security force for the Palestinian people have utterly failed. One hopes that this time better selection methods are being implemented to exclude the terrorists from the ranks of the PA security forces.