IRIS Blog

On the eve of Jerusalem Day, a barrage of "ineffectual Kassams" struck multiple buildings in Sderot including a school, causing a total of 21 injuries. In response, the IDF fired into empty fields, causing no damage or injuries. Despite essentially no change in the months-long missile siege from Gaza, Amir Peretz found it necessary to suddenly convene an "emergency meeting" to decide how to respond. Actually, there has been a significant development--it is now a news story, so that angle needs to be managed.

On a day plagued with Israeli casualties, Qassam rockets did not stop raining on Sderot and the vicinity. Late Tuesday night, eight Qassams landed in the region, in three separate salvos. No one was injured from this particular barrage, but earlier rockets wreaked havoc.

Tuesday evening, a Sderot resident was seriously wounded after a Qassam rocket launched from Gaza slammed into her house. Her young son was moderately wounded. Thirteen rockets landed in the vicinity of Sderot during this attack, causing no other injuries but substantial damage to an elementary school.

Less than an hour after the first attack terror groups launched five additional rockets from Gaza, directly hitting a second house in the city. The house was damaged but no injuries were reported. A third rocket landed in the city's commercial center and damaged several stores.

An additional Qassam hit a low-voltage powerline, causing a temporary black-out. Residents said the barrage was one of the worst in a long time.

Later in the evening Palestinians also fired two mortar shells at a kibbutz in the western Negev, no injuries or damage were reported and officials said the shells landed in an open field.

The 45-year-old Sderot woman who was seriously wounded was treated by an emergency medical team for a head injury. She and her wounded son were both evacuated to the Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon, where doctors now say her situation has improved and is now deemed as moderate.

Khaled Abu Toameh, a brave Muslim journalist, has a must-read on this Jerusalem Day. In it, he presents the first persuasive case that the security fence has actually achieved anything. It has apparently separated Jerusalem from the Palestinian Authority:

In the past four years, thousands of Arab Jerusalemites living outside the municipal boundaries of the city have moved back into Jerusalem for fear of being left on the other side of the security fence. Many abandoned large houses in favor of small and expensive apartments inside the city. "People see the anarchy and instability in the Palestinian Authority areas and prefer to leave to a safer place," explained Ibrahim Barakat, a businessman from Beit Hanina, a large Arab neighborhood in northern Jerusalem. "After all, life inside Israel is much better than the West Bank."

But perhaps the most significant change has been Israel's success in eliminating the presence of a Palestinian political address in eastern Jerusalem. The death of Faisal Husseini, the top PLO representative, and the subsequent closure by Israel of Orient House, the unofficial PLO headquarters in the city, eliminated one of the most prominent symbols of Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem.

The construction of the fence, together with strict Israeli security measures, also resulted in a sharp decline in the activities of PA security agents inside the city. Until a few years ago, hundreds of PA security agents were operating almost freely in the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, sometimes kidnapping residents to Ramallah or Jericho for "interrogation."

Israeli institutions remain the largest employer of Arab Jerusalemites. Thousands of teachers are employed by the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israel Ministry of Education, who receive higher salaries and better privileges than their colleagues who work for private or PA-controlled schools inside the city. In addition, scores of Israeli medical centers and clinics employ thousands of doctors, nurses, and administrative workers from eastern Jerusalem.

"Let's be honest, we have lost the battle for Jerusalem," admitted a Fatah legislator from the city. "The Palestinian Authority hasn't done anything to preserve the Arab and Islamic character of Jerusalem. The Arabs in Jerusalem have lost confidence in the Palestinian leadership and that's why most of them prefer to live under Israeli control. Frankly, when I see what's happening in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, I can understand why."

Read the whole thing, and then consider its impact on this good news:

Jerusalem Day Optimism: 87% 'Pleased with Lives'

The adult population of Jerusalem is more pleased with life and displays more optimism than the rest of Israel's adult population, according to a special Jerusalem Day press release issued by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)....

Also in 2006, 2,488 olim, constituting 13% of all olim who arrived in Israel during that time, settled in Jerusalem.

On the other hand, Caroline Glick is not so sanguine, noting that every Israeli government after Netanyahu's has ignored "Illegal building in East Jerusalem as a strategic tool of the Palestinian Authority in its struggle for the future of Jerusalem."

Here is another great piece on Iraq from Fouad Ajami, a great Arab scholar of the Middle East:

Truth be known, American diplomacy can't reconcile the ruling order of power in Arab lands any more than it can sweet-talk the Arab "street" to accept the right of this new Iraq to its place among the nations. Hard as the Bush administration might try, there is no hope that those Arab neighbors will write off the debts incurred by Saddam Hussein in his ruinous wars. It is idle to think that the day is near when the Arab satellite channels, silent toward the misdeeds of Arab rulers, will cease the steady drumbeats against all that plays out in Baghdad.

Vice President Dick Cheney may descend on Arab capitals, as he did last week, and our secretary of state can assemble one huge diplomatic conclave after another in support of Iraq, but the great circle of enmity around this fragile Baghdad government will not be broken. We can warn the powers in Arab capitals of the dangers of failure and breakdown in Iraq, but we should understand that those neighbors may dread the prospects of Iraq's success more.

This region has been stubborn in its refusal to accept the stark verdicts of history. The State of Israel is a year away from its 60th anniversary, and still the Arab imagination denies Israel's legitimacy. Iraq is different, but a state that gives pride of place to the Shiites (and the Kurds) is still an oddity in the Arab landscape. For well over a millennium, the Shiite Arabs have not governed; they have been the stepchildren of the Arab world. But in their long years of defeat and subservience, the Shiites remained righteous in their claim to the Prophet Muhammad's mantle, in their stubborn hope that the day would come when the order of things would be righted.

True to those Shiite hopes, American power, in a moment of perfect innocence, struck into Baghdad and upended an entrenched order of power, granted the dispossessed a chance at a new history, delivered them a big country loaded with oil and possibilities.

The Sunni Arab rulers, and the angry men and women on the airwaves and in the "chat rooms" of the Arab world, insist that their animus toward this new Iraq derives from their opposition to the American presence. This is plain hypocrisy, for vast stretches of the Arab world are within the orbit of American power. Pax Americana, and the shadow and the reality of its power, underpin the security of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. In Amman, Jordan, and Cairo, American largess and security networks uphold these regimes. In the Arabian Peninsula, the American presence-military and economic and cultural-dates back decades.

Those angry preachers and pundits who take to the pages of the Arabic dailies or to the ceaseless agitation of al Jazeera television to brand Iraq's leaders American "collaborators" and stooges look past the entire edifice of American power all around them. They shout in the knowledge that America is too unschooled in Arab malice and evasions to see through their mischief and belligerence. If anything, it is the prospect that America may forge a bond with those embattled Iraqis that unsettles Iraq's Arab neighbors.

Against the background of a cruel war, and in a region addicted to failure and self-pity, American power has brought forth in Baghdad a political order alien to its habitat-a state that does not belong to a ruling caste or a single master. That state fights for its life, but a secular Kurd of great civility and learning, Jalal Talabani, is the constitutional head of state, and a modest Shiite man who has risen from the depths of Iraqi society, Nouri al-Maliki, is the head of government. Around them are political figures drawn from practically all of Iraq's checkered communities-a Kurdish foreign minister, a Sunni speaker of parliament, etc. To be sure, the Sunni Arabs are no longer masters of this turbulent country, but no one in Iraq thinks that a new, tranquil order could be had without them.

This new Iraqi history will stand or fall of its own weight; the specter of an Iranian-dominated Iraq peddled by the Arabs is a scarecrow. Now the Arab regimes are openly campaigning for nothing less than an American coup d'?tat against the Maliki government and for the return of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a man at ease with Arab rulers and intelligence services. But Allawi, who spends more time in Amman and the United Arab Emirates than in Baghdad, is anathema to his own Shiite community, and America has not waded deep into Iraq to perpetuate those old Arab ways.

Here's an important piece from Thomas Sowell:

That people on the political left have a certain set of opinions, just as people do in other parts of the ideological spectrum, is not surprising. What is surprising, however, is how often the opinions of those on the left are accompanied by hostility and even hatred.

Particular issues can arouse passions here and there for anyone with any political views. But, for many on the left, indignation is not a sometime thing. It is a way of life.

How often have you seen conservatives or libertarians take to the streets, shouting angry slogans? How often have conservative students on campus shouted down a visiting speaker or rioted to prevent the visitor from speaking at all?

The source of the anger of liberals, "progressives" or radicals is by no means readily apparent. The targets of their anger have included people who are non-confrontational or even genial, such as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

It is hard to think of a time when Karl Rove or Dick Cheney has even raised his voice but they are hated like the devil incarnate.

There doesn't even have to be any identifiable individual to arouse the ire of the left. "Tax cuts for the rich" is more than a political slogan. It is incitement to anger.

Precisely as predicted, the international disarmament force was an obvious farce and Hezbollah is fixated on raining missiles on Israel. Meanwhile, preparation by Israel's leadership asymptotically approaches zero:

Hezbollah "could launch between 1,000 and 3,000 rockets daily," its secretary general Hassan Nasrallah claimed in an interview with a Dubai satellite TV station last week.

Nasrallah's comments were reproduced on Hezbollah's Arabic language website on Saturday, under the heading: "We could launch...3,000 rockets daily in a war in July."

When war comes, blame must be placed on the inadequate efforts of the Israeli public to remove the documentedly negligent Kadima government whose head, Olmert, was quoted today saying 'Northerners Feel Safer.'

Unconfirmed Report: Libyan Leader Gaddafi in Coma

Jewish Teacher Slain in St. Petersburg
The evidence indicates it was a hate crime, yet another reason that every Jew should be armed

FBI, Security Officials Warn of Growing Threat from Islamic Extremists 'Next Door'
As IRIS has been saying forever, they don't need membership in a terror group when they are motivated by mainstream Islam

As Surge Begins To Take Hold Tribal Leaders Turn on Qaeda
Somehow the mainstream media forgot to report this turn for the better in Iraq

Precisely as we have predicted all along. The Global Jihad is unified by a common ideology, normative Islam. Yasir Arafat was the inventor of the idea of confusing the enemy by pretending to have separate groups with unique names. (He also pioneered airline hijackings and suicide attacks.)

Hamas and a branch of al-Qaeda are cooperating for terror attacks against Israel.

A Palestinian security source has confirmed that the Army of Islam is a branch of al-Qaeda and was responsible for the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in a joint operation with Hamas, and also for the kidnapping of the British journalist.

(Translated from Hebrew)

How ironic that Barack Obama is openly proposing increased funding for "the Palestinians," which inevitably means Hamas.

This Hebrew source provides more evidence: Hamas Activists Moving Over to Al-Qaeda

A dose of reality for those who believe that Iraq has nothing to do with the War on Terror:

Al-Qaeda Planning Militant Islamic State within Iraq

A RADICAL plan by Al-Qaeda to take over the Sunni heartland of Iraq and turn it into a militant Islamic state once American troops have withdrawn is causing alarm among US intelligence officials.

A power struggle has emerged between the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq, an organisation with ambitions to become a state which has been set up by Al-Qaeda, and more moderate Sunni groups. They are battling for the long-term control of central and western areas which they believe could break away from Kurdish and Shi?ite-dominated provinces once the coalition forces depart.

According to an analysis compiled by US intelligence agencies, the Islamic State has ambitions to create a terrorist enclave in the Iraqi provinces of Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala, Salah al-Din, Nineveh and parts of Babil.

?Al-Qaeda are on the way to establish their first stronghold in the Middle East,? warned an American official. ?If they succeed, it will be a catastrophe and an imminent danger to Saudi Arabia and Jordan.?

The US conviction that the Islamic State could seize power is based on its use of classic Al-Qaeda tactics and its adoption last October of a draft constitution. This was entitled Notifying Mankind of the Birth of the Islamic State and was posted on a website based in Britain. The group named 10 ministers under its emir, Abu Amer Al-Baghdadi. They included a war minister, Abu Hamza Al-Muhajer who is also known as Abu Ayub al-Masri and is Al-Qaeda?s commander in Iraq.

Someone should tell the Democratic presidential candidates who indicated they don't believe there is a Global War on Terror (including John Edwards) about this success against jihadis in the Philippines:

US Efforts Bear Fruit in Philippines

A wanted poster printed four years ago has half of the 24 portraits crossed out. Seven of the suspected terrorists are dead, the other five in custody.

And the hunt continues apace: Philippine troops, often guided from above by U.S. Predator drones, have the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group almost constantly on the run and suffering steady losses.

Meanwhile, a sustained U.S. military presence has fostered a long-missing sense of security across Mindanao, heartland of the Philippines? restive Muslim minority. The wrenching poverty in this sprawling, southern part of the Philippine archipelago has created a rich recruiting ground for extremist groups, and the poverty remains, but there are hopes that U.S.-funded aid projects may make a difference.

Compared to the huge operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.-backed effort in the Philippines is tiny, only about 200 troops.

But unlike the other missions, this intervention is generally accepted, even though U.S. interference is an emotional issue in the Philippines, a former American colony.

?They?re really contributing a lot to the overall security,? said Hermogenes Esperon, the Philippine military chief of staff. ?They?ve spent so much for their deployment. We should be reciprocating, but they?re not demanding anything in return but our commitment to work with them in the fight against terrorism.?

Khaled Abu Toameh continues his singlehanded coverage of the barbarity occurring in the Palestinian areas. Note that I did not say alleged barbarity--the parents of the girls not only admitted the deed, they also justified it under Arab Muslim tradition.

A local husband and his wife have been arrested by the Palestinian Authority police on charges of selling their two daughters to young men.

The two girls, aged 12 and 13, were sold for 2,700 Jordanian dinars [approximately NIS 15,000] and NIS 7,000, said Col. Issa Hijo, commander of the Ramallah District Police Force.

He said the two men who bought the girls were brothers aged 23 and 25 and that they had been arrested on charges of raping minors.

"What is astonishing about this case is the fact that the two girls were sold with the approval of their mother and the parents of the two men," Hijo said. "This incident takes us back to the period of slavery. What is even more shocking is the fact that the two men's mother argued that this was an accepted custom."

Oh, the joys of multiculturalism...

Exactly as predicted here:

Over the past few months, a slew of Internet cafes and video stores have been attacked and forced to close.

Earlier this week, Islamists opened fire on an elementary school, killing one bodyguard and wounding seven, while the most senior UN official in Gaza was visiting the institution.

The startling events point in a direction that, until recently, many Palestinians thought was far from their reality: the appearance of groups driven by a fundamentalist, anti-Western agenda aligned with that of al-Qaeda.

In the past half year, more than 70 establishments seen as representing "infidel" culture have been attacked, including Internet cafes, video shops, an American school, and a Christian center that distributed Bibles.

This news is years old, but at least it is making a rare appearance in the mainstream news media:

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia has taken root in South America, fostering a well-financed force of Islamist radicals boiling with hatred for the U.S. and ready to die to prove it.

An extensive smuggling network run by Hezbollah funnels large sums of money to militia leaders in the Middle East and finances training camps, propaganda operations and bomb attacks in South America, according to U.S. and South American officials.

U.S. officials fear the poorly patrolled Tri-border region could make it easy for Hezbollah terrorists to infiltrate the southern U.S. border.

The CIA singles out the Mexican border as an especially inviting target for Hezbollah operatives. "Many alien smuggling networks that facilitate the movement of non-Mexicans have established links to Muslim communities in Mexico," its Counter Terrorism Center said in a 2004 threat paper.

In 1992 and 1994, terrorists linked to Hezbollah carried out two attacks against Jewish targets in Buenos Aires, with Iran's involvement, as well.

The Argentine prosecutor's office said the Iranian president at the time, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, ordered the attack to retaliate against Argentina for suspending nuclear cooperation with Iran.

A warrant for Rafsanjani's arrest remains outstanding, and the prosecutor's office continues its investigation 13 years later.

That's peculiar, given that we have been told incessantly by the media that Hezbollah is a "purely defensive" group formed only in the wake of Israel's original Lebanese incursion.

Unfortunately the Israeli defense establishment bought into the Leftist ideology:

It was hoped that Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 would erode the legitimacy of any continuing military activity by Hezbollah, especially in Lebanon's internal politics.

They also "hoped" that Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza would erode the legitimacy of Hamas' aggressive stance, and look what that has wrought.

Perhaps the Who song "We won't get fooled again" would be helpful in this situation.

U.S. Divorce Rate Lowest Since 1970
The rate peaked at 5.3 divorces per 1,000 people in 1981. It's 3.6 currently.

Tony Blair Resigns

Global Warming: Not the End of the World as We Know It
Biologist Reichholf: "Personally, I'm even looking forward to a milder climate. But it will also not pose any major problems for mankind as a whole."

Putin Likens America's Foreign Policy to Third Reich

Peretz: 'I was Not told Army was Under-Trained'
He had also claimed no one told him there were Hezbollah missiles in Lebanon even though this prophetic chart has been posted at IRIS for 11 years.

Olmert: Halutz told me Army was Ready
This is sounding reminiscent of the post-apple eating inquiry in the Garden of Eden

Benchmarks for a Bloodbath, by Evelyn Gordon
"US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is not purposely trying to destroy all of Israel's hard-won security gains of the last five years. But if she were, she could hardly have improved on her new benchmark proposal."

Jihadists planned Copenhagen bomb because of Muhammad Cartoons
The plotters were based on a mosque

Defense Secretary Amir Peretz has really crossed the line this time. Apparently he forgot the "really, really hard" bluster that has been a fixture of Israeli leaders' talking points:

Defense Minister Amir Peretz commented on State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss' report in which he criticized the IDF, saying it had failed in dealing with the Qassam threat.

"If Israel had the right means to deal with the rocket threat, there is no doubt that things would look completely different," said Peretz. Peretz further said that he had set up a team to examine a solution to the Qassam problem before the comptroller's report was published.

As Defense Minister, surely he must realize that the problem of enemy missiles falling on one's territory should have something to do with the Ministry of Defense.

His casualty number was an order of magnitude greater than the deadliest tornado in world history. Like many liberals, he has received adulation from the mainstream media unrelated to any actual accomplishment. His profession consists essentially of giving speeches, and they read as though they were composed by a random cliche generator. Here is a humorous piece on the topic from Ann Coulter in February:

I've caught Obama fever! Obamamania, Obamarama, Obama, Obama, Obama. (I just pray to God this is clean, renewable electricity I'm feeling.)

Only white guilt could explain the insanely hyperbolic descriptions of Obama's "eloquence." His speeches are a run-on string of embarrassing, sophomoric Hallmark bromides.

In announcing his candidacy last week, Obama confirmed that he believes in "the basic decency of the American people." And let the chips fall where they may!

Obama forthrightly decried "a smallness of our politics" ? deftly slipping a sword into the sides of the smallness-in-politics advocates. (To his credit, he somehow avoided saying, "My fellow Americans, size does matter.")

He took a strong stand against the anti-hope crowd, saying: "There are those who don't believe in talking about hope." Take that, Hillary!

Most weirdly, he said: "I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness in this ? a certain audacity ? to this announcement."

What is so audacious about announcing that you're running for president? Any idiot can run for president. Dennis Kucinich is running for president. Until he was imprisoned, Lyndon LaRouche used to run for president constantly. John Kerry ran for president. Today, all you have to do is suggest a date by which U.S. forces in Iraq should surrender, and you're officially a Democratic candidate for president.

Obama made his announcement surrounded by hundreds of adoring Democratic voters. And those were just the reporters. There were about 400 more reporters at Obama's announcement than Mitt Romney's, who, by the way, is more likely to be sworn in as our next president than B. Hussein Obama.

Obama has locked up the Hollywood money. Even Miss America has endorsed Obama. (John "Two Americas" Edwards is still hoping for the other Miss America to endorse him.)

But Obama tells us he's brave for announcing that he's running for president. And if life gives you lemons, make lemonade!

I don't want to say that Obama didn't say anything in his announcement, but afterward, even Jesse Jackson was asking, "What did he say?" There was one refreshing aspect to Obama's announcement: It was nice to see a man call a press conference this week to announce something other than he was the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby.

B. Hussein Obama's announcement also included this gem: "I know that I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change." As long as Obama insists on using Hallmark card greetings in his speeches, he could at least get Jesse Jackson to help him with the rhyming.

If Obama's biggest asset is his inexperience, then if by the slightest chance he were elected and were to run for a second term, he will have to claim he didn't learn anything the first four years.

There was also this inspirational nugget: "Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what's needed to be done. Today we are called once more, and it is time for our generation to answer that call." Is this guy running for president or trying to get people to switch to a new long-distance provider?

He said that "we learned to disagree without being disagreeable." (There goes Howard Dean's endorsement.) This was an improvement on the first draft, which read, "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice."

This guy's like the ANWR of trite political aphorisms. There's no telling exactly how many he's sitting on, but it could be in the billions.