Will Iran & Syria Get Away with Murder?

Irrespective of whether the UN-mandated ceasefire in Lebanon holds up in the coming days, a grave injustice has already been done to the people of the region, and it can not be allowed to stand.

The two main state sponsors of this entire bloody affair – Syria and Iran – have gotten off scot-free despite wreaking havoc and sowing instability throughout the entire Middle East.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 does not even mention either of these countries, nor does it impose any form of punishment on them for their nefarious actions.

As various observers have already pointed out, the terrorists of Hizbullah are proxies carrying out the will of their paymasters in Damascus and Teheran.

It was the Baathist regime in Syria and the Khomeinist regime in Iran which planned, financed and orchestrated the past month of violence and bloodshed, and they can not, and must not, be permitted to have done so with impunity.

Allowing Bashar al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to get away with murder is not only a gross act of injustice – it is also an invitation to these two madmen to connive and scheme still further, and plan future atrocities against Israel and the West.

The value of the piece of paper approved by the UN will presumably become apparent in the coming days.

But of one thing we can already be certain: Assad and Ahmadinejad are surely having a good laugh together, knowing full well that while they may have done the crime, it is someone else entirely that is being forced to pay the price.

Ignore Blair's Bullying

Under fire at home for refusing to state when he will step down as premier, Britain's Tony Blair will visit Israel this weekend to try and squeeze the Jewish state into making concessions to the Palestinians.

Facing a revolt from within his own Labor party, many of whose members have opposed his support for the war in Iraq, Blair may well be tempted to try and calm their fury by pressing Israel.

According to media reports, Blair will stress to Olmert that progress in talks with the Palestinian Authority is "vital", even as Olmert seeks to focus on the Iranian threat in their discussions.

Simply put – Israel should ignore Blair and not take his demands all too seriously. He is a lame-duck Prime Minister who is vastly unpopular at home and who will be out of office within a year, at most.

Tossing Blair a political bone won't appease the British premier's critics at home, and it certainly won't help Israel's interests, either.

The best thing Olmert can do is to be a gracious host, offer Mr. Blair some tea, and when he starts making demands, simply show him the door and send him back into the waiting arms of his Labor party rebels back home in London.

Yawn - it's just another rocket attack

Ho hum. It has been just another day of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, and it seems as if no one really cares.

One after another, in broad daylight, four Qassam rockets were fired this morning by Palestinian terrorists aiming in the direction of the city of Ashkelon.

The projectiles landed in open fields near Kibbutz Karmiya and Kibbutz Zikim. Thankfully, no one was killed or injured in the assaults.

Needless to say, the ongoing attacks, which have only intensified since Israel withdrew from Gaza, have disrupted life in the Western Negev for untold thousands of Israelis.

Indeed, just yesterday, parents and children from Kibbutz Yad Mordechai held a demonstration to protest the fact that the Government has yet to reinforce the community’s school against rockets, even though it has already been hit several times in the past.

The rally came after the “Red Dawn” early warning system went off, signaling that rockets had been launched in the vicinity of the kibbutz.

One of the parents who took part in the demonstration told Yediot Aharonot that “there was great panic in the classrooms. Unfortunately, the kids have nowhere to escape to in the case of a Qassam attack. We call on the government and the defense establishment again to urgently fortify the classrooms."

So there you have it – not only has the Government failed to halt the rocket barrages, it has not even bothered to provide the most elementary of protection to its citizens who are being bombarded on a daily basis.

Sorry if we are boring you, Prime Minister Olmert, but isn't it time you did something about this?

Israelis Streaming into Judea & Samaria

These are trying times for Israel, as our Prime Minister lies in a hospital intensive care unit and his fate remains uncertain.

But even in these difficult days, there was a bit of good news last week which went largely unreported but which is worthy of our attention.

At first glance, you might find it hard to believe, but the facts speak for themselves: despite the forcible eviction of thousands of Jews from Gaza this past August, the total number of Jews living over the so-called Green Line nonetheless grew in 2005.

According to statistics released last Thursday by Israel’s Population Registry, the number of Israelis living in the territories increased by 1.5% in the last six months of the year, rising from 250,179 before the Gaza withdrawal, to 253,074 at the year’s end.

Since the former figure included the over 9,000 Jews who then lived in Gaza and northern Samaria and were subsequently expelled, the increase is actually much larger than the statistics suggest.

This is a remarkable development, because it shows that the Gaza pullout not only failed to deter Israelis from moving to Judea and Samaria - it also did not push those already living there to pack up and leave, either.

Indeed, according to the Population Registry, nearly all the communities in Judea and Samaria experienced growth, with some registering double-digit expansion.

The trend, then, is clear. Even with setbacks such as the Gaza retreat, the Jewish people are continuing to return home.

Is Israel Refusing to Win?

Is Israel's political leadership refusing to win in Lebanon?

It has only been two weeks since the start of the counter-offensive against Hizbullah terror, and already Israel's government is rejecting the military's professional recommendations for how to achieve victory.

At a meeting held late into the night on Wednesday, Israel's security cabinet denied the army's request to launch a more expansive ground operation in southern Lebanon with the aim of clearing the area entirely of Hizbullah's terrorist infrastructure.

Instead, the cabinet prefers to continue using airpower combined with pinprick ground incursions against select Hizbullah targets.

The result, of course, has been that Hizbullah continues to succeed in firing some 100 rockets each day into Israel. Because they do not face a concerted Israeli ground offensive, Hizbullah does not have to throw everything it has into fighting off the Israeli army.

Consequently, they can deploy men and resources to shoot rockets into northern Israel with the aim of terrorizing the country.

Don’t get me wrong – a ground offensive aimed at carving out a security zone in southern Lebanon would not be simple or risk-free. But Israel's limited operations thus far have failed to stop the attacks, and the army's experts are saying that the only way to do so over the long-term is to go in full force.

If that is the key to stopping Hizbullah terror, then that is what the army must do. Let's just hope the politicians don't stand in the way, and prevent Israel from winning this all-important battle.