Look who's talking to Hamas....

Instead of talking to gangsters such as Hamas, Israel should be hunting them down and putting an end to the threat they pose to innocent life and limb.
Well, now it is official.

After months of media reports and speculation suggesting that the Israeli government was conducting talks with Hamas, along comes a senior cabinet member and confims it once and for all.

Speaking at a faction meeting of the ruling Kadima party, Vice Premier Haim Ramon acknowledged that the government is in fact holding talks with the terrorist group - even though this violates the terms of a cabinet decision proscribing such talks as long as Hamas refuses to renounce violence and recognize the Jewish state.

In a certain sense, I guess it should come as no surprise - after all, the government had little compunction making deals with Yasser Arafat, despite the rivers of innocent Jewish blood on his hands.

Nonetheless, Ramon's revelation is disheartening and even sickening. Hamas continues to fire rockets from Gaza at Israeli towns and cities, and remains inalterably committed to the Jewish state's destruction.

Instead of talking to gangsters such as Hamas, Israel should be hunting them down and putting an end to the threat they pose to innocent life and limb.

It is a sad indicator of just how much our current leadership has lost its way when it is willing to talk with Hamas terrorists, rather than eliminate them.

With a President Like This...

Why is the President of the State of Israel only in touch with his Jewishness as a result of external threats rather than internal conviction?
As the titular head of state, the president of Israel is meant to embody - or at least represent - the nation and its interests.

Sadly, as Israel turns 60, we can not claim to have such a leader in Shimon Peres.

In a revealing interview with Ha'aretz, Peres makes two statements that leave the reader shaking his head in complete and utter disbelief.

Speaking about the conflict with the Palestinians, Peres made the following pseudo-admission: "I believed the separation between the West Bank and Gaza would make things easier, not harder. I did not imagine that we would leave Gaza and they would fire Qassams from there; I did not imagine that Hamas would show so strongly in the elections."

He did not imagine it! This statement is utterly astonishing, if only because prior to the Gaza retreat, this is precisely the scenario that was forecast by both the Israeli right as well as the military. Day in and day out, the alarm was sounded, warning against the inevitable disastrous consequences of a unilateral withdrawal from the region, but neither Peres nor his cohorts on the Left was willing to listen. So it is not that Peres did not "imagine" how bad things would turn out - he simply did not want to accept reality.

And then there is this whopper, which interestingly enough, appears only in the Hebrew version of the interview and not in the English: Peres says that Hamas together with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "return me to the Jew within me".

As nice as it is to hear that Peres may be drawing closer to his "inner Jew", the question that comes to mind is: why does it take the threat of destruction and annihilation to do this? Why is the President of the State of Israel only in touch with his Jewishness as a result of external threats rather than internal conviction?

And there, my friends, is the true root of Israel's current problems - a leadership that has grown so detached from its heritage that it takes the threat of Qassam rockets and possible nuclear annihilation to remind them of who they are.

As Israel enters its 61st year, let's hope and pray that we will soon be blessed with true Jewish leaders - men who are anchored in faith and confident in the justness of our cause.

A Reminder of the Fight for Jerusalem

the tiny Davidka shell uncovered this week serves as a timely reminder that once upon a time, the Jewish people were willing to fight for Jerusalem
There was something immensely symbolic in the discovery made by archaeologists this week in the Old City of Jerusalem.

While carrying out excavations in the Western Wall Plaza, researchers unearthed a 60-year old Davidka mortar shell dating back to Israel's 1948 War of Independence.

The Davidka was a homemade 3-inch shell developed by Jewish freedom fighters which was known more for the noise it made than any damage that it caused. But more importantly, it proved effective in scaring off invading Arab units during the Independence War, when Israel was vastly outnumbered in the struggle for its survival.

Now, just six decades later, the sovereign government of the State of Israel is negotiating away the future of Jerusalem, determined to divide the Holy City and turn over its eastern section to our foes.

But the tiny Davidka shell uncovered this week serves as a timely reminder that once upon a time, the Jewish people were willing to fight for Jerusalem, the city we longed for throughout our dispersion.

Maybe, just maybe, this unexpected find will spark within our leadership the spirit of old, the spirit that cries out: Jerusalem is ours, and we shall never abandon her!