Yesterday I spoke of disturbing news to me that Israel was considering giving up half of Jerusalem to the Palestinians to use as their capitol.

It seems the Israeli people are not that happy with this bone-headed idea either.

Israeli opposition leaders are stepping up their criticism in the face of the first real negotiations with the Palestinians in nearly seven years and government steps to prepare the public for “difficult decisions” ahead.

Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu has assailed the ruling coalition — particularly Prime Minister Ehud Olmert”s conservative partners — for proposing to hand back most of the West Bank to the Palestinians. He predicts that the territory will eventually fall under the control of Islamic extremists from Hamas.

At the same time, a close Olmert associate, Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon, was subjected to a political lashing after he said in an interview that Israel has no choice but to share control of Jerusalem with the Palestinians.

Mr. Olmert himself told Israel’s parliament yesterday that “difficult decisions lie ahead of us” in peace negotiations with the Palestinians, which got under way yesterday.

“Do you really agree that Hamas will control neighborhoods in Jerusalem?” asked Mr. Netanyahu. “Do you really agree that they will sit on hilltops overlooking Kfar Saba, Ra’anana, and Tel Aviv?”

Here’s hoping and praying the political opposition is successful in stopping this outrage.

I was distressed to read that Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon wants to cede part of control of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority.

“The government does not have a majority (to support) Haim Ramon’s opinions on anything to do with Jerusalem,” Pensioners Party Chairman Rafi Eitan said Tuesday following the exposure of the vice premier’s letter calling for the division of Jerusalem and the establishment of joint sovereignty over the city’s holy sites.

I totally agree with that statement.

Where does this man get off thinking he can give away one grain of sand of the land given to the Jews by God Almighty Himself? He holds the deed to that property and Jesus even instructed us to pray for peace in Jerusalem, the city He loves so much.

There will never be real peace in that city until Jesus sets foot on it again, but praying for the peace in Jerusalem is something I do daily.

Israelis shed their blood and lost their sons and daughters in battles brought against them when they recaptured the land that had been taken from them for 2000 years.

Since the election of Olmert we are seeing a policy which is disturbing in that he seems willing to bend over backwards to do the bidding of the Palestinians, all in the name of a peace that will never come.

The Palestinians and all Muslims are sworn to destroy Israel. Not just destroy it, but push the people into the sea.

Now it seems members of the government are doing their level best to see to it the Palestinians get their way.

I’m not an Israeli citizen so I have no say in their internal affairs, but I can say I hope someone who is stronger against the threats to Israel will get elected and soon.

I have read reports Olmert is even considering granting the right of return to Palestinians who left Israel of their own accord when the state of Israel was re-created.

These people or their ancestors were given the opportunity in 1948 to remain in their homes on their property and become a part of Israel.

They can be elected to the Knesset and enjoy full citizenship. That’s for those who decided to stay. The others left and gave up any claim to the land when they did.

If they were to get the right of return to Israel it wouldn’t be long before they would take over the government and run the Jews into the sea.

I don’t see God allowing that to happen.

The citizens of Israel are among some of the bravest in the world. They live daily with the threat of suicide bombers, rocket attacks and are surrounded by countries hostile to their very existence.

They field an exceptional army and have intelligence services which some consider in the top tier, but even they are little consolation when an attack like the one yesterday occurs. Who but a murderous thug with no regard for human life would fire these rockets at all let alone into populated areas? One rocket fired on Monday exploded near a day care center. Viewing this video brought home the reality these people live with every day.

Thankfully no one was injured in this attack as is noted in this article.

A Palestinian rocket landed in a courtyard next to a crowded day care center on Monday, sending panicked mothers scrambling to take their screaming toddlers to safety and bringing warnings of retribution from Israeli leaders.

None of the 15 children at the center was hurt. But frantic parents in Sderot—already furious over the government’s failure to protect them and their children from the near-daily rocket fire—pulled their children out of schools on the second day of the academic year. It was unclear when studies would resume.

Imagine for a moment watching your child step on a school bus every morning and knowing that there is a constant threat of violence targeted at the very area in which their school is located.

One wonders how long it would take before we would all be home schooling our children. This is no doubt a universal feeling and it seems the parents in Sderot have also reached their limit.

The Education Ministry said studies would continue normally. But Batya Katar, head of the Sderot Parents Association, said parents were pulling all 2,500 of the town’s students out of school.

“The school year is over. We can’t hold on any more,” Katar told The Associated Press by telephone, the voices of panicked parents audible in the background.

At one Sderot school, Nahum Bitton arrived to take his children home.

“Of course I’ll take them out. Should I leave them in the hands of Hamas?” Bitton told AP Television News.

As a parent and grandparent let me answer your question Mr. Bitton. No, you should not.

Fleeing Gazans, trying to get to the Israeli side of the border, have been holed up in a tunnel of two walls ten feet apart.

On one end are the Hamas and on the other are the Israeli soldiers. They are in what is really known as a no-man’s land.

Living conditions are horrible, as people are using the walls for toilets, nerves are frayed and they are fighting over food.

About 200 Gazans, petrified by the chaos in the Hamas-controlled coastal strip, have been camped out for six days in a tunnel reeking of trash, urine and sweat on the Palestinian side of the Erez crossing with Israel, pleading with Israeli authorities to grant them safe passage to the West Bank.

Hamas’ defeat of security forces from the rival Fatah faction has left many Gazans anticipating further chaos and violence. Some in the tunnel feared for their lives because of their Fatah loyalties; others sought a better life than volatile Gaza can offer.

Among them were people wounded in gunbattles between the rival factions.

On Wednesday, Barak instructed officials to let in “humanitarian cases” at the crossing, the Defense Ministry said.

No numbers were specified, and specific guidelines for determining urgency were not released.

On one end is freedom; on the other is oppression by their own countrymen.

Ehud Barak has agreed to allow foreign nationals and Gazans who need medical attention to enter Israel for humanitarian purposes.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak ordered the army on Wednesday to allow into Israel any of the hundreds of Gazans holed up at a fetid crossing who might desperately need medical treatment.
A teenager with leukemia was on his way through shortly after, the military said. Additionally, Israeli officials allowed all foreign nationals in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to cross over to Israel.

In related news, Israel’s Supreme Court was hearing a petition Wednesday by a human rights group, demanding that Israeli authorities offer immediate medical treatment to 26 critically ill Palestinians hospitalized in Gaza.

I pray the Israeli government is as compassionate as possible and will allow those they determine not to be a risk to their safety into their country.

Guss Adds: If roles were reversed, I wonder how many Israelis would be let into Gaza.
This is a very interesting story that I am following with enthusiasm, just to see how things are going to turn out.

The violence going on in Gaza, with Palestinians fighting and killing Palestinians has been a story kind of on the back burner of the newspapers, and we haven’t discussed it here.

Two years ago Israel forcibly pulled the remaining Jewish “settlers” out of Gaza and turned the territory over to the Palestinians.

Now the Palestinian political forces of Hamas and Fatah are warring with each other, putting the innocent Palestinians in the middle as is their habit.

Those Palestinians who can afford it are leaving for Egypt or any other Muslim country that will take them.

Palestinian infighting, almost daily Israeli air strikes, and a steadily worsening economic situation triggered by an international aid boycott has made life unbearable for many Palestinians. Those who can are leaving.

European Union monitors at the Rafah border crossing from the Gaza Strip to Egypt say that more than 14,000 Palestinians have fled Gaza since Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers in 2005 and the rise to power of the Islamist Hamas five months later. In the past year alone, the average number of people leaving Gaza per day has doubled from 15 to 30.

The rising number of Palestinians seeking to emigrate has prompted Jerusalem’s Mufti, Mohammad Ahmed Hussein, to issue a fatwa prohibiting Palestinians from leaving Palestinian territories.

“Immigration from this blessed land is not permissible according to Islamic law,” said the religious edict. “People who live in this land should not leave it for the invaders and occupiers.”

It should be noted the Israelis are using air strikes because the fighting has overflowed into Israel and they are just protecting their own territory and not participating in this civil war.

One of the great leaders of Israel past, Abba Eban once said, “Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

When the Palestinians elected Hamas they should have known this would happen, but they did it willingly anyway. How many of their sons and daughters will have to die before they try to fix the mistake?

The problem is they will be unable to fix the mistake as the Hamas are firmly entrenched and will kill every last person if that’s what it takes for them to “win” and have their style of government.

What a shame. They have frittered away the land they got and now they are frittering away their most valuable resource: their people.

Hat Tip to Captain’s Quarters.

I read here about the return of al-Sadr to Iraq and his call for Americans to leave the country.

BAGHDAD — A day after radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr resurfaced to end nearly four months in hiding and demand U.S. troops leave Iraq, American forces raided his Sadr City stronghold and killed five suspected militia fighters in air strikes Saturday.

U.S. and Iraqi forces called in the air strikes after a raid in which they captured a “suspected terrorist cell leader,” the U.S. military said in statement.

The statement claimed the captured man was “the suspected leader in a secret cell terrorist network known for facilitating the transport of weapons and explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran to Iraq, as well as bringing militants from Iraq to Iran for terrorist training.”

EFP’s are deadly roadside bombs that hurl a fist-size slug of molten copper that penetrates armor, a weapon that has been highly effective against American forces over the past year.

The militia fighters were killed in air strikes on nine cars that were seen positioning themselves to attack American forces after the raid, the military said.

Al-Sadr’s reappearance in the fourth month of the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown on Baghdad and environs was expected to complicate the mission to crack down on violence and broker political compromise in the country.

Hopefully, we’ll capture al-Sadr, but since al-Maliki thinks so highly of him maybe the best solution would be to fatally wound him.

There is another story I admit I haven’t had the time to really get informed about.

It seems the Palestinians are taking target practice on each other and have gotten Lebanon’s Army and the Israeli’s involved by firing missiles into their territories.

I’m going to bone up on that story so I can give some sort of opinion. You and I probably already know what my opinion will be.

We read this disturbing report in the Jerusalem Post today:

A Palestinian from the Gaza Strip who works for the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders has been arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed Thursday.

Mazab Bashir, 25, from Deir el-Balah began working with Doctors Without Borders five years ago.

On April 19, he confessed during a Shin Bet interrogation that for months, he had been collecting intelligence on senior Israeli officials - including Olmert and a number of Knesset members.

Bashir met with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in September 2006, and said that the assassination was meant to avenge the deaths of Palestinian civilians.

Bashir also underwent arms training with the PFLP, and was picked to carry out the planned assassination.

He told the Shin Bet that he had collected information on the Internet to use to target MKs, but then realized that the MKs in question did not live in Jerusalem, the only Israeli city to which his permit granted him access.

According to the officials, after the doctor realized that the security surrounding Olmert was impenetrable, Bashir decided in December 2006 to kill David Be’eri, head of the Elad organization, a group involved in purchasing Arab homes in Jerusalem’s Old City.

That same month, he underwent combat training in the Gaza Strip in order to learn to kill without using weapons.

In January 2007, Bashir again entered Israel again on behalf of Doctors Without Borders, and began collecting information on Be’eri. He made additional trips to Jerusalem in February and March, and on April 18. He was arrested on April 19.

During his interrogation, Bashir said he had planned to return to Gaza to complete his combat training and learn, among other things, how to break necks. He said he intended to use his skills to kill Be’eri.

How very compassionate of him.

From today’s Omega Letter, a Christian subscription newsletter:

A Cup of Drunkenness

An Israeli-Arab member of the Israeli Knesset resigned his seat recently under suspicion that he aided Hezbollah during the 2nd Lebanon War last summer.

Azmi Bishara is suspected of transferring information to Hezbollah during time of war, maintaining contacts with a foreign agent and money-laundering.

Bishara has a long record of treason against the government of which he is a member.

In 2002, he was charged with organizing an illegal delegation to Syria, with whom Israel is still officially at war, and for calling on other Arab states to intensify their conflict with Israel.

The Palestinian side argues that Bishara isn’t a traitor to Israel, but rather a patriot to the Palestinian cause. Bishara swore an oath to Israel when he assumed his office, and, while still bound by that oath, he broke it.

Had Bishara resigned his seat first, and then went to work for the Islamic-Arab cause, the annihilation of Israel, then Bishara could lay claim to being a Palestinian patriot. But he didn’t.

Under any reading of the rules of war, that makes him a traitor to his oath, and a traitor to the country to which, as a citizen, his primary allegiance is due.

Bishara was born to Palestinian-Christian parents in Nazareth, where he attended the Nazareth Baptist school before going on to attend Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 1997, Bishara received a kidney transplant at the Jewish Hadassah Medical Center in a operation performed by Israeli doctors.

He demonstrated his gratitude by working actively to destroy the state that gave him so much.

It is one of the peculiar ironies of the Israeli-Arab conflict that Israel is not only willing, but is expected, to treat its enemies better than its enemies treat each other. (more…)