And the winner is.....

Thanks to all of you who took part in the annual Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards and who voted for this blog, "Fundamentally Freund". The final results were published today, and I'm proud to say that this blog won the following three "medals":

1 - Winner - Gold Medal - Best Right-Wing Jewish Blog

2 - Winner - Silver Medal - Best Pro-Israel Advocacy Blog

3 - Winner - Bronze Medal - Best Overall Blog

             

Stay tuned, and keep checking in, as we fight the war of ideas one truth at a time.

Israel left Gaza - now Gaza attacks Israel

at last, it seems, there might be a slight flicker of recognition among senior Israeli officials that the withdrawal itself was a grave mistake and that Israel has no choice but to go back in to Gaza and clean house
A synagogue, a school and a person's home. These are among the structures in Sderot that have all been hit in the past 24 hours by Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza.

Hundreds of Israelis have been evacuated from the city in the wake of this latest terrorist assault, as Hamas and Islamic Jihad continue to act with virtual impunity.

And so, less than two years after Israel pulled out of Gaza, Gaza is now once again attacking Israel.

Of course, these rocket attacks have been going on nearly continuously since Israeli troops left the area, though you wouldn't know it from the mainstream media, which has downplayed and under-reported the attacks since the very start.

But at last, it seems, there might be a slight flicker of recognition among senior Israeli officials that the withdrawal itself was a grave mistake and that Israel has no choice but to go back in to Gaza and clean house.

In an interview yesterday on Israel Army Radio, Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said that in the wake of the latest Palestinian rocket attacks, "sooner or later the IDF will have to reenter the territory of the Gaza Strip."

And in an implicit admission of the failure of the withdrawal from Gaza to bring Israel greater security, Sneh acknowledged that, "a place that you left without an agreement or an arrangement is a place that you will have to return to in the end."

Of course, we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that the Government has truly woken up to the need to uproot the terrorist infrastructure and topple the Palestinian Authority - that far they have yet to come. But maybe, just maybe, this latest round of Palestinian rocket fire has planted the seeds, and brought our leadership one step closer to confronting the cold, hard truth that pulling out of Gaza and turning it over to our enemies was an act of remarkable folly.

Not Exactly a Cliffhanger of an Election...

Don't expect a cliffhanger of a result on election night in Damascus, unless you are intensely curious to know whether Mr. Assad's final tally will be 98.9% or 99.9% of the vote
Remember all that talk of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad being a brash, young reformer who would change the face of his country's politics after the he inherited the throne from his father seven years ago?

Well, guess what: old habits die hard, especially in dictatorships such as Syria.
Syria's parliament the other day unanimously approved presidential elections to be held throughout the country on May 27. But lest you think this will be an "election" in the true sense of the word, consider this: there will only be one candidate on the ballot, and his name is - drumroll, please - Bashar al-Assad.

So don't expect a cliffhanger of a result on election night in Damascus, unless you are intensely curious to know whether Mr. Assad's final tally will be 98.9% or 99.9% of the vote.

Just one more example of the kind of neighborhood in which Israel finds itself.....
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Thanks to your support, this blog - "Fundamentally Freund" - has now advanced to the Finals round in the annual "Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards".

Please take a moment to go to the following 3 links and vote for "Fundamentally Freund":

1 - Best Overall Blog category: http://www.jibawards.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=195

2 - Best Right-Wing Blog category: http://jibawards.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=208

3 - Best Pro-Israel Advocacy Blog category: http://jibawards.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=206

thanks,

Michael Freund

Beware of a Possible "Peace" Surprise!

we might very well find ourselves in a situation where the Government will be willing to make far-reaching concessions to our neighbors not because they believe them to be in the broader national interest, but rather because they serve their own narrow political self-interest.
Ehud Olmert is in trouble. Big trouble.
Between the findings of the Winograd Commission, and the slew of criminal investigations being conducted against him, the Prime Minister's popularity has sunk to all-time lows. His governing coalition appears increasingly fragile, and calls for him to resign grow louder with each passing day.
And this should have us all very, very worried - because in his hopelessly weakened state, the premier may very well decide to take rash or desperate steps in the diplomatic sphere in an attempt to stave off the possibility of being forced from office.
And the spurt of diplomatic activity over the past few days may just point in such a direction. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and agreed to a visit by an Arab League delegation in Israel. King Abdullah of Jordan will be meeting soon with PA Chairman Abu Mazen, and the Lebanese Prime Minister published an op-ed in the New York Times calling on Israel to accept the Saudi peace plan.
And so, we might very well find ourselves in a situation where the Government will be willing to make far-reaching concessions to our neighbors not because they believe them to be in the broader national interest, but rather because they serve their own narrow political self-interest.
Sound cynical? Perhaps. But it wouldn't be the first time that a prime minister made fateful decisions based on political, rather than strategic, calculations. So brace yourselves for a possible diplomatic surprise - one that is likely to be detrimental, rather than advantageous, to Israel and its interests.
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Thanks to your support, this blog - "Fundamentally Freund" - has now advanced to the Finals round in the annual "Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards".

Please take a moment to go to the following 3 links and vote for "Fundamentally Freund":

1 - Best Overall Blog category: http://www.jibawards.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=195

2 - Best Right-Wing Blog category: http://jibawards.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=208

3 - Best Pro-Israel Advocacy Blog category: http://jibawards.com/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=206

thanks,

Michael Freund

How About a Winograd Commission for the Oslo process?

with the Israeli media and public now busy talking about topics such as failed leadership, lack of strategic acumen and disastrous policymaking, perhaps it is at last time for a full-blown investigation of an even greater mess: the Oslo "peace process" with the Palestinians?
What a mess.

Essentially, the findings of the Winograd Commission only confirm what most of us have suspected all along: that the Government failed miserably in the prosecution of last summer's Lebanon war.

Only time will tell if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz will pay the ultimate political price for their actions and be sent into early retirement.

But with the Israeli media and public now busy talking about topics such as failed leadership, lack of strategic acumen and disastrous policymaking, perhaps it is at last time for a full-blown investigation of an even greater mess: the Oslo "peace process" with the Palestinians?

Since the signing of the Oslo Accords back in September 1993, Israel has endured increasing Palestinian terror and violence, yet successive governments have continued down the path of concessions, withdrawal and retreat.

Even more than the fiasco in Lebanon, this series of pull-outs has damaged Israel's security, weakened its deterrence, and underminded the nation's morale. Worse yet - it has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent Israelis, thanks to the misguided and short-sighted policies that have been carried out over the years, from Yitzhak Rabin's handshake with Yasser Arafat down to Ariel Sharon's expulsion of Gaza Jewry.

I say it is time for a commission of inquiry to be established to investigate just how the country has been led down the Oslo path of disaster over the past 14 years.

We the people deserve to know just why and how our government chose to give away parts of the homeland, even as our enemies continued to perpetrate unprecedented atrocities.

I have no illusions that this will occur any time soon - but that should not stop us from continuing to press for a full and complete accounting.