Raining on the Peace Parade

Welcome to Ceasefire-Land, where the Palestinians talk about peace even as they continue shooting at Jews.

Just hours after Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) yesterday declared an end to violence at the summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Palestinian terrorists opened fire at an Israeli army checkpoint in northern Samaria.

I guess they didn’t get the memo.

Then, late yesterday evening, the army announced the arrest of a Palestinian terrorist from Abu Mazen’s own Fatah faction who was planning to carry out a bomb attack against Israelis near Jenin.

Shortly thereafter, Palestinian gunmen fired at an IDF outpost near the Jewish village of Har Bracha, on the outskirts of Shechem (Nablus).

Earlier today, Palestinians opened fire on Israeli soldiers near the village of Kadim in northern Samaria, a Hamas terrorist near the Kissufim junction in Gaza was killed as he tried to fire a rocket at an Israeli vehicle, and an Israeli was injured by rock-throwing Palestinians northwest of Ramallah.

Call me a cynic, but I thought that a “ceasefire” meant that the terrorists would actually, well, cease to fire. Of course, that has yet to occur.

But don’t expect to read about the any of this in your friendly, neighborhood newspaper, as the last thing the mainstream media wants is to rain on the peace parade that began at yesterday’s summit.

But don’t be fooled by all the pageantry and handshakes. What counts is not what the Palestinians promise, but what they do. And thus far, they have continued to shoot. Stay tuned.

A Hidden "Bombshell"

Buried away in a recent news item were two sentences that should shake the Israeli left out of its slumber.

The other day, Israeli media reported that the security services had captured 3 Palestinian terrorists from Gaza who had been sent to Judea and Samaria to establish factories for the manufacture of Qassam rockets and mortar shells.

Their mission, they said, was to build the rockets and then fire them straight into Israel’s major metropolitan areas, as well as carry out a range of other heinous attacks. Had they succeeded, places such as Tel Aviv, Netanya and Kfar Saba might all have come under enemy fire.

But it was the left-wing Ha’aretz, of all places, that contained the hidden “bombshell”, if you’ll pardon the pun. The paper’s military correspondent, Amos Harel, noted that, “Palestinian terror organizations have been trying for years to set up Qassam factories in the West Bank. These efforts have increased since Israel withdrew from Gaza.”

So, in effect, rather than making “central Israel” safer, the Gaza retreat has only brought the threat posed by Palestinian terror even closer to Israel’s financial and industrial heartland, giving the terrorists greater opportunities, and incentives, to launch attacks.

Something to think about, especially for all those who supported Israel’s retreat.

This time around, thank G-d, the terrorists were caught before they could do any harm. But who knows if we’ll all be so fortunate in the future.

The Real Shimon Peres

After decades of artifice, Israelis and people around the world yesterday finally got to see the real Shimon Peres.

With a straight face and a dour demeanor, Peres intoned about the need “to put country before party”, thereby seeking to explain his dramatic decision to leave the Labor Party and back Ariel Sharon for Prime Minister.

But those words are merely an empty facade, a transparent ruse that no one can take seriously.

And here is why: it was just two weeks ago that Peres sought to be elected Chairman of Labor, and its candidate for Prime Minister, in the party’s primaries.

In other words – had Peres won that vote, rather than enduring an embarrassing defeat to Amir Peretz – he would now be running against Sharon in the upcoming election.

But because he lost, and Peretz refused to guarantee him a safe slot on Labor’s Knesset list, Peres was left with no choice but to cut and bolt, throwing his support behind Sharon in the hopes of salvaging his own political future.

So, you see, it has everything to do with power, and very little, in fact, to do with principle.

“Country before party”? Hardly. It was more like “Peres before party”.

And that, at the end of the day, is what the real Shimon Peres is truly all about.