So, there's no military solution to terror?

Guess what? Sri Lanka just defeated terror militarily.
One of the primary assumptions of the Left went up in smoke yesterday, but don't expect to hear too much about it in the mainstream press.

For years, the Left has drummed it into our heads that "there is no military solution" to terror, hence Israel has no choice but to negotiate with those seeking our destruction.

But on the island nation of Sri Lanka, off the coast of India, the government there just succeeded in proving how wrong the Left is.

After a quarter-century long campaign of terror waged by a group called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the government crushed the terrorists once and for all, with Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rakapaksa triumphantly telling his people they were at long last "liberated from separatist terror".

The head of the LTTE, a murderous thug named Velupillai Prabhakaran, was found dead on the battlefield along with his top cronies, bringing an end to his attempt to carve out an independent Tamil state.

In effect, Sri Lanka defied the critics and the naysayers, rolled up its sleeves and fought to free its people from the grip of the terrorists. Of course, had they listened to the likes of Israel's Left, and followed its policy prescriptions, they would likely have capitulated to the terrorists long ago. Now, however, the people of Sri Lanka can look forward to a future free of suicide bombings, massacres of civilians and other terrorist outrages.

So the next time someone repeats the mantra and tells you: "But there is no military solution", just point them in the direction of the Indian Ocean and tell them to look at Sri Lanka.

Whose side is Obama on?

If Israel is America's closest ally in the region, then why is Obama trying to tie the Jewish state's hands in the face of an existential threat?
Even as the would-be Hitler of Persia, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, races towards the nuclear finish-line, the man sitting in the White House is doing little to stop him.

Indeed, as the Financial Times reports today, the Obama administration seems more concerned about Israel defending itself against Iran than about the Ayatollah's atomic ambitions.

According to the FT, CIA Chief Leon Panetta paid a secret visit to Israel two weeks ago. His goal was not to reassure the Jewish state or even allay its fears of a second Holocaust. Instead, his primary objective was to make sure that Israel does not attack Iran's nuclear installations without notifying the US in advance.

Doesn't the head of the CIA have better things to do with his time?

It seems that Washington is beginning to panic over a possible Israeli response much more than over the likelihood of Tehran being able to pull the nuclear trigger. Does this make sense?

If Israel is America's closest ally in the region, then why is Obama trying to tie the Jewish state's hands in the face of an existential threat? Whose side is Obama on?

To all those American Jews who cast their ballots for Barack Obama in last November's US Presidential election, it is time to admit the folly of your vote. By putting him in the Oval Office, you might just have endangered the future of the Jewish state.

Chutzpah of the Year Award

It may only be May, but I think we already have a winner for the 2009 Chutzpah of the Year Award.

Testifying yesterday before the national commission of inquiry into the treatment of the Jews expelled from Gaza, Yonatan Bassi, who headed the government agency which completely mishandled their resettlement, naturally decided to duck all responsibility for his failures and instead pointed the finger of blame at the victims themselves.

Bassi had the gall to declare that the former residents of Gush Katif, who were summarily thrown out of their homes back in August 2005, were "largely to blame for their own predicament" according to Ha'aretz.

He insisted that the government had done everything it could to help them rebuild their lives, and that they had chosen not to cooperate. "The cow," Bassi said, using a rather odd analogy, "wants to feed more than the calf wants to eat."

I had to read his remarks twice, and pinch myself on the arm, to make sure that this wasn't some kind of heartless joke.

The fact of the matter is that there is almost universal recognition that the so-called "resettlement" of Gaza's Jews was ill-conceived, poorly-planned and disastrously-administered. Indeed, at a press conference yesterday prior to the start of the hearings, Doron Ben Shlomi, the head of the commission of inquiry, revealed that some 30 to 40 percent of Gaza's former Jewish residents still do not have permanent housing despite the passage of nearly 4 years since they were compelled to leave their homes. He noted that there are 300 families who are still stuck in temporary quarters, without the means to find permanent housing.

For Bassi to blame these innocent people who were forcibly uprooted against their will is simply unconscionable and pathetic, and it says more about him than it does about those he is trying to defame.

It takes a real man to admit when he is wrong, the old saying goes. Well, I might add, it takes a real jerk to cast the blame on others for his own failings - as Yonatan Bassi has so clearly demonstrated.