Noteworthy Headlines

Olmert: No Overall Solution to Qassams

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, and spoke in detail about the ongoing Qassam attacks on Sderot.

After being criticized for not visiting the Qassam-stricken city, Olmert expressed empathy with residents of the city, and said that the rockets are set to continue.

"You know well that with all of the hardship and pain, there is no overall and permanent solution that will end this threat once and for all," the prime minister said.

IDF Places Responsibility for Civilian Deaths on Terrorists
"In a press release following the air strike, the IDF spokesman wrote: 'The IDF regrets any civilian casualties caused by the operation. However, it must be stressed that responsibility for the current situation lies with the terror organizations which operate from within the civilian population, and with the Hamas government which has refused to stop the rocket fire.'"

'PA Doctors Cut Victim Needlessly'
"Representatives of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov) said on Tuesday that Ralia Niham, a 21-year-old woman who was seriously wounded in the Gaza beach explosion on June 9 that is at the center of a continuing controversy over who is to blame, suffered unnecessary cuts at the hands of the Palestinian doctors who treated her initially."

Soccer and Sderot, by Michael Freund

... There's a lot one can learn from a watching a soccer match involving nearly two dozen six-year-olds - not so much about the game per se, but about Israeli society.

It is clear that, at such a tender age, the concept of teamwork has yet to sink in. Though all might be wearing the same uniform, each player is in effect a team unto himself, with little regard for the niceties and rules that go along with being part of a larger group effort.

Where is the uproar and the outrage, where is our collective sense of indignation at the government's inability, or unwillingness, to stop the attacks? If the same thing were happening to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem or Haifa, would we be equally silent?

IT ALL GOES back to what was taking place on that kindergarten soccer field. Instead of viewing Sderot's residents as fellow teammates, requiring help and support, they are seen as just another guy vying for the ball. They might be wearing the same outfits as the rest of us, but their right to security gets in the way.

Our leaders have failed them for the simple reason that they are so focused on their own personal or ideological interests that they brusquely push aside the greater national good.

And so the option of retaking northern Gaza, and creating a security zone in the area that would restore life to normal for residents of the Negev, is roundly dismissed. That, after all, would mean admitting, implicitly at least, that the retreat from Gaza had failed to bring Israel greater security.

It would also undercut the conceptual foundations of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's proposed retreat from much of Judea and Samaria, and underscore yet again the futility of turning land over to Palestinian control.

More worrisome, though, is the emotional and communal disconnect at work here, signifying a dangerous trend toward the splintering of Israeli society.

To read the full article, click Soccer and Sderot

Israel May Be In Hot Water With U.S.
For context, click here.

... One of Al Aksa's leaders, Abu Yousuf, bragged to native Philadelphia journalist Aaron Klein, bureau chief of World Net Daily's Jerusalem bureau, that weapons supplied by Israel were used in two shooting attacks the past few days in which one Israeli civilian was killed and another wounded.

"These weapons will not be used in an internal war but against Israelis," Yousuf told Klein.

Yousuf told Klein that Israel transferred the weapons to his Force 17 unit "for its own political purposes. We are not concerned with the reasons. The weapons will not be used against our brothers, only [against] Israelis."

Numerous queries from The Evening Bulletin to the office of the Israeli Prime Minister to comment on the Damra appointment have gone unanswered.

Meanwhile, the Evening Bulletin has made a formal inquiry to the U.S. State Department as to whether the U.S. government had approved the transfer of American made weaponry to a terrorist organization that appears on the U.S. State Department Terrorist Organization Watch list. While a source at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told the Evening Bulletin that any such action would be viewed as a serious felony, the Evening Bulletin awaits a formal response from the U.S. State Department.

The implication of Israel's supply of weapons to a terrorist organization could result in severe U.S. sanctions against Israel - something that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may not have considered.

Our World: The Judicial Overthrow of Democracy, by Caroline Glick

Sunday morning Israel Radio reported that a delegation of judges met with Justice Minister Haim Ramon and demanded that he defend them from what they consider to be unprecedented media attacks against them.

Last month in an interview with Haaretz, retiring Justice Mishael Cheshin had this to say about Chief Justice Aharon Barak's view of human rights: "He is ready for 30, 50 people to be blown up - but we will have human rights."

Of Barak's view of the Court's oversight of the Knesset Cheshin said, "For Barak, if the Knesset passes a law by a majority of a hundred to two, he can come and assert that the law is annulled."

Cheshin attacked his colleagues on the Court collectively when he strongly hinted that his fellow justices' political views were what kept them from overturning Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz's decision last year not to indict then prime minister Ariel Sharon and his son Gilad on corruption charges. Of Mazuz's decision to close the investigation of the so-called Greek Island affair Cheshin said, "I can say only that when someone gets $600,000 and the promise of $2 million more for surfing the Internet, [Gilad Sharon's payments from businessman David Appel] one has to be a fool to think that he really received the money for that work."

Of his colleagues' decision not to overturn Mazuz's decision he noted, "If Sharon had stood trial, there would have been no disengagement [from Gaza and northern Samaria].

SADLY, THE ideological conformity and anti-democratic tendencies that Cheshin admitted plague the Supreme Court extend throughout the judicial system and state prosecution.

To read the full article, click Our World: The Judicial Overthrow of Democracy

Why MSM Ignores Bombing of Basra Elderly
"How is it that the champions of the Third World underdogs show so much interest in the death of two American soldiers but so little interest in the fate of Basra's elderly victims?

Just imagine how different the response would have been if an Israeli or American artillery shell had been the culprit. Actually, you do not need to imagine. The extreme rush to judgment by both MSM and HRW is there for all to see as is their extreme disinterest in the mendacity of Islamist terror."