Over at his blog, Challah Hu Akbar asks:

Thus far in December, there have been no rockets or mortars fired from Gaza into Israel. Will this be the first month in 5 plus years without a rocket or mortar being fired from Gaza into Israel?

He points out that we need to reach all the way back to 2007 for a month in which no rockets or mortars were fired into Israel from the armed-to-the-teeth Hamas enclave, the Gaza Strip.

Does this indicate better, safer times ahead? No, not if we consider the very latest opinion poll data released by the Ramallah-based Arab World for Research & Development (AWRAD) yesterday.

For this survey, 1,200 Palestinians were interviewed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  All socioeconomic groups were represented in the poll… The margin of error in this poll is plus or minus 3 percent.

The findings that seem of greatest significance to us do not appear in AWRAD’s own summary. You need to dig into the report itself to get to them. Referring to the November 2012 battles in and around Gaza:

* Optimism is widespread [but] the majority of respondents do not believe that the results of the conflict will lead to real change on the ground. 50 percent believe that the confrontations in Gaza will not lead to real change in the affairs of Palestinians. 46 percent believe otherwise.
* 73 percent believe that the Palestinian cause has been advanced by the recent events.
* 87 percent are optimistic that the conflict will lead to reconciliation and unity. [Between whom? Not stated.]
* More respondents in the West Bank say they prefer the Hamas approach (42 percent) over the Fatah/Abbas approach (28 percent). In contrast, Gazans prefer… the Fatah/Abbas approach (40 percent) over the Hamas approach (37 percent).

The kicker:

* 88 percent believe that the results of the confrontation in Gaza prove that armed struggle is the best means of achieving Palestinian independence.

Bottom line: the chances that Gazan mortars and rockets are being withdrawn from service? Not so great.

Visit This Ongoing War.

There’s a famous g’morah in which a certain rabbi loves his half witted mother so much that when she whips him with her sandal and the sandal drops on the ground, he picks it up and hands it back to her, which is how the sages illustrate how far one must go in observing the commandment to revere our parents.

I recalled that g’morah when reading an article put out on Thursday by the IDF Spokesperson’s office, headlined: 48,305 tons of goods entered Gaza last week.

“Last week (December 2 to 8),” the IDF item rejoiced, “1,702 trucks carrying 48,305 tons of goods entered the Gaza Strip from Israel through land crossings. The delivered goods included 654 truckloads of construction materials.

“Additionally, 38 truckloads of goods were exported from Gaza, including fresh produce, furniture and food products.” You give them goods and you buy their produce – life must go on. What a pleasure to have such peaceful, neighborly relations, at last.

Except for the date that was mentioned in the IDF happy announcement—December 8… What memorable thing happened on December 8? Wait, the BBC wrote something about it: “Tens of thousands of Gazans made their way to the rally at the al-Qatiba complex west of Gaza City to hear the speech by Mr Khaled Meshaal on December 8.” While 1,702 Israeli trucks were still busy unloading 48,305 tons of goods in that same Gaza Strip.

And what did Mr. Mashaal have to say that memorable day? Was he grateful to Israel for sending his wretched people those amazing supplies? Not exactly.

“As long as Palestine is ours and Palestine is the land of Arabism and Islam, we can never recognize the legitimacy of Israel’s occupation of it,” Mr. Mashaal told supporters.

“Palestine – from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea, from the north to the south [i.e. all of Israel] – is our land and our right and our homeland; there will be no surrender of even the smallest piece of it. Palestine was and still is Arab and Islamic. Since Palestine is ours, and it is the land of the Arabs and Islam, it is unthinkable that we would recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation of it.”

Darn. And here we thought peace was about to break out.

Of course, Mashaal and his Hamas government are the bad Palestinians. We knew from the start we couldn’t make peace with them. We’ve centered our efforts since 1994 on the good Palestinians, and, indeed, it paid off.

No, it didn’t. The good Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas applied for statehood at the UN and received it in fistfuls.

Then the good Palestinians invited the bad Palestinians to hold two-day rallies in the parts of Judea and Samaria governed by the PA, to mark the bad Palestinians’ movement’s 25th anniversary.

On Thursday, thousands turned out in Shchem to celebrate the founding of Hamas, the first time Hamas was authorized to hold a mass political event away from Gaza by the PLO government.

PLO officials took part in the Shchem rally, while the party’s representatives in Gaza, where Hamas rules, have also got the go-ahead for their own anniversary event which is expected next month.

Nothing but peace and brotherly love among Arabs everywhere. Bad Palestinians are hugging good Palestinians, and all their differences are forgotten.

Festivals were also held in Ramallah and Hebron to celebrate the Hamas anniversary, as well as what was seen locally as a victory for the party in its eight-day conflict with Israel last month.

The IDF story concludes with this bit of information:

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) is a unit within the IDF responsible for the transport of aid into both the Judea and Samaria region and the Gaza Strip. COGAT assists in matters of health, education, agriculture, and infrastructure on a daily basis. It works with the Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) of the Gaza Strip and the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria to facilitate the transfer of supplies including gas, building materials, electrical appliances, ceramic parts, hygienic products, wheat, and other foods.

That’s why I was reminded of the story of the rabbi who gives his mother back her sandal, so she’d whip him some more. I always felt uncomfortable with that story, because of the obvious dysfunctional theme there, of violence and madness. But I thought that the sages may have been right in picking the most extreme case of reverence to a parent, a parent who is disabled and crazy – and yet, she, too, must receive your reverence.

During Operation Pillar of Defense the heads of the Islamic terrorist organizations, led by Hamas’s Khaled Mashal and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Ramadan Shallah, could not stop repeating their support for Iran. Thanking Iran again and again, they extolled its role in arming them with missiles and money, which, in the service of that sponsor of terror and terrorists, Shi’ite Iran, enabled them to carry out their subversive activities against Israel.

The heads of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad did not realize that, at least for now, times had changed: the leaders of the Sunni Arab states of the Arab Spring have apparently decided that the plan to exterminate the “Crusader West” in Europe and the United States has been put on hold. The Islamic states, especially Mohamed Morsi’s Sunni Egypt, are in desperate need, just to survive, of the deep pockets of the infidel United States, to say nothing of fending off the perpetual threat from Shi’ite Iran.

For that reason, Khaled Mashal and Ramadan Shallah’s sincere support for Iran came at the worst possible time for the leaders of Sunni Islam in its confrontation with Iran. It put them in mind of Arafat’s catastrophic support of Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait and threatened the interests of the entire world, both Arab and Western. The Palestinians remember that Arafat did a great deal of damage to the Palestinian cause; after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, the Palestinian community was expelled from Kuwait.

The arms and money that the Iranians give the Palestinian terrorist organizations are a thorn in the side of the Egyptian and other Sunni Islamic regimes in the Middle East. It was Islamic terrorist operatives from the Gaza Strip, who had an affinity for Iran, that were behind the murder of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai Peninsula during the most recent Ramadan fast.

As far as the Egyptians are concerned, Iranian-linked terrorism would be acceptable if it targeted only Israel. However, Iran’s active intervention against Egypt was exhibited by a subversive network of pro-Iranians, exposed by Egypt on its own soil. The Iranian footprint was visible and obvious in the type of terrorism, the political subversion, and the encouragement of internal strife in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain — and which has now spread as well to Africa, Canada and South America and Europe.

As in the Thousand and One Nights, the Egyptians temporarily pushed the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad genie back into the bottle. By deliberately manipulating the Palestinians into accepting an Israeli/Palestinian-terrorist-organization ceasefire whose “understandings” were deliberately indistinct, Egypt hoped the Palestinians would sit quietly and wait for their eventual opportunity to attack Israel again. It hoped to neutralize the connection between the terrorist organizations and Iran; with a wink and a nod, Egypt ushered the leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad back into the fold of Sunni Islamic interests.

The Egyptians forced Khaled Mashal and Ramadan Shallah to postpone, temporarily, the instant gratification they get from killing Israeli civilians, and to act with restraint as having won a “victory” brokered by Mohamed Morsi, the new dictator anointed by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. That strategic Egyptian hug caused a temporary shift away from the slippery terrorist organizations’ self-serving loyalty to, and support of, Iran and Syria. That was after they had succeeded, in a confrontation they initiated against Israel in the service of Iran, to draw the attention of the world away from both Iran’s atom bomb and Syria’s accelerating slaughter of its own people.

The new leaders of the Islamic countries, who rose to power on the backs of the Islamists during the Arab Spring, identify with the Palestinian terrorist organizations’ ideological and operative platforms. Their joint, ultimate mission is to Islamize or destroy the “infidel Crusader world” and its local branch, Israel.

In the meantime, the Sunni leaders are worried about the danger of a nuclear Iran and its negative influence on the internal security of their countries.

They are also more worried than is publicly recognized by the intensive, silent, slow invasion of articles of Shi’ite Islamic faith into the Sunni landscape by means of taqiyya [dissimulation], whereby Shi’ite clerics pretend to be Sunnis and insinuate Shi’a into their sermons, stealthily converting the unaware Sunnis.

The wink and nod the leaders of the Arab Spring have given to Hamas reinforced its impression that they had chosen the movement as an ideological partner, having closed up shop for Mahmoud Abbas after slapping him on the back and giving him a goodbye Mafia kiss. Hamas, it turns out, took the hint, and is apparently willing to wait like a genie in a smoking bottle.

That new alliance is the reason Hamas, which until very recently opposed the Palestinian Authority’s move to gain recognition from the UN, suddenly supported Mahmoud Abbas’ initiative. An Islamic emirate in the Gaza Strip and West Bank will eventually drop like a ripe fruit into Hamas’s lap, while in the meantime Hamas plots the “liberation” of all of “Palestine.”

Now, exploiting the impetus gained by the UN’s recognition of “Palestine” as a non-member observer state, Hamas’s “prime minister,” Ismail Haniya, wants to milk the sympathy of the West for the Palestinians, by demanding that Western countries delete Hamas from their lists of designated terrorist organizations.

With the buildup of support for Hamas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority feels a pan-Arab noose around his neck. It spurred the Palestinian Authority to achieve a “historic victory,” a political gain, and to receive recognition for “Palestine.” With his return to Ramallah as a “victor,” with a “Palestinian state” in his briefcase, Mahmoud Abbas was quick to announce — in response to Israel’s announcement that it would build in the settlements in Judea and Samaria — that he would no long arrest Hamas operatives in the West Bank.

Even as the masses rallied in the squares of the West Bank and called for the “liberation of Palestine,” it was clear that Mahmoud Abbas’s role was over and that a non-alcoholic toast could be proposed to the forthcoming Hamastan, with the blessings of the UN and Allah.

Khaled Mashal now supports the recognition of “Palestine” as a state, but subject to the ideology of an armed campaign for “the liberation of all Palestine.” As part of a new policy of changing directions like a weathervane, Hamas and Palestinian Authority leaders now propose a Palestinian national unity, elections in the territories, and more national achievements and changes, such as restoring the principle of the “liberation of Palestine” through “armed struggle” to the Palestinian Charter, and plan to wring the last benefit to themselves from the West’s motivation for quiet. Quiet also serves Western strategy, but when the time comes and they have amassed military and economic force, they will betray their Western benefactors, violate all agreements, the ceasefire included, because their ideology commits them to fight both the infidel Crusader West and Israel. The Hamas leadership even had a fatwa (religious edict) issued by a Gazan sheikh and acceptable to the extremist Islamic Salafists, which forbids violating — at this point — the ceasefire, unless Israel violates it first.

When will the Hamas genie be let out of the bottle? That will apparently be the decision of the leaders of the Arab Spring’s new Islam, along with the Muslim Brotherhood, in accordance with the strategic needs of Sunni Islam.

Originally published at the Gatestone Institute.

Before a radio interview this week, the host sent me a list of questions that might come up on the show. The answer to an extraordinary number of them was, “Because they could.” Because bad actors were reasonably sure no one (read: United States) would protest and even more sure no one would stop them.

For example: Why did Jordanian Palestinians join the protest calling for the overthrow King Abdullah II of Jordan? Why did Iran attack a U.S. drone in the international waters of the Persian Gulf? Why did Mahmoud Abbas go ahead with the U.N. General Assembly vote on observer status over pointed U.S. objections? Why did the Emir of Qatar visit Gaza and give Hamas $400 million? Why did Ansar al Shariah attack the U.S. Consulate/CIA Annex on 9-11? Why did Mohammad Morsi take on dictatorial powers in Egypt? Why is Iran using Sudan as its staging base for the export of arms to Gaza?

That is not to say there are no other answers, and indeed, there are many, but the abdication of American leadership in the Middle East/Persian Gulf region encourages those whose aims are inimical to the West to believe they can advance themselves with impunity.

This stands in odd contrast to the questions about Israel: Why did Israel bomb Gaza? Why didn’t Israel take its ground forces into Gaza?

The answer to the first set of questions is, “Because it had to.” The answer to the second is, “Because it didn’t have to.”

Because Israel Had To

Operation Pillar of Defense was not only retaliation for Hamas rocket fire — although that would have been reason enough for a civilized country to go to war. The attack was a response to the discovery that Hamas had acquired perhaps 100 Iranian Fajr-5 rockets. These are the same type of rockets that someone destroyed in a Sudanese weapons factory in October, and their presence in Gaza was unacceptable to Israel.

By way of comparison: The other rockets and mortars in Hamas’s arsenal made life difficult for more than a million Israelis across the southern part of the country — the U.S. equivalent is 44,000,000 people. Every one of them would have 15 seconds to find shelter and shelter their children and elderly parents. Geographically, the radius of the otherHamas rockets superimposed on New York would cover Hurricane Sandy-land and more.

The Iranian Fajr-5 added Tel Aviv (Israel’s commercial center) and Jerusalem (its capital) to rocket range — over 1,200,000 residents in the cities, plus suburbs with over half a million more. The equivalent of an additional 75,000,000 Americans, give or take.

Of course, there are those who do not have a problem with Israelis facing attack at the whim of an enemy determined to kill as many civilians as possible. Washington Post Ombudsman Patrick Pexton acknowledged that, well, okay, rocket fire from Gaza is “reprehensible,” but “let’s be clear: The overwhelming majority of rockets fired from Gaza are like bee stings on the Israeli bear’s behind.” You wonder what he would think if it were 130 million Americans having to rush for shelter on 15 seconds’ notice.

Because Israel Didn’t Have To

Hamas tried desperately to lure Israeli troops into Gaza. Having trained for a ground invasion, laid mines and planted booby-traps, Hamas wanted nothing more than IDF trophies, dead or alive. Increased rocket fire (more than 1,500 rockets between November 14th and 21st – an average of eight per hour or one every eight minutes) was intended to create not only an increase in Israeli civilian casualties, but irresistible pressure from the citizenry on the government to “do something.”

Although the Israeli public strongly favored a ground incursion and the government mobilized the reserves, it did not happen. Why?

The Israeli Air Force removed the Fajr-5 threat and decapitated Hamas leadership without a ground offensive. More than 1,600 targets in Gaza were hit, including rocket launching sites, storage facilities and terrorist infrastructure. Thirty senior Hamas operatives trained in Iran were killed, unable to transmit their knowledge. Iron Dome’s 85% success rate intercepting rockets aimed at population centers allowed the Israeli government to make decisions without the pressure of civilian casualties. And finally, knowledge that there were 75,000 soldiers mobilized and ready reassured the Israeli public that the government was prepared to do more if necessary.

As of last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will think twice before he condemns any rocket or terror attack on Israel.

Alarmed by Hamas’s growing popularity among Palestinians, especially in wake of its purported “victory,” Abbas appears to have completely changed his attitude toward the Islamist movement and its terror attacks against Israel.

Abbas’s new attitude toward Hamas has prompted some Palestinians to wonder, quite sarcastically, whether he was planning to grow a beard and join the Islamist movement.

They pointed out that this was the same Abbas who, on more than one occasion, had accused Hamas of plotting to assassinate him and topple his regime in the West Bank. They also noted that this was the same Abbas whom Hamas had expelled from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007.

Abbas was one of the first Arab leaders to congratulate Hamas on its “victory” over Israel during the recent eight-day confrontation.

Hamas announced that Abbas phoned its prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, one day after the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire went into effect to “congratulate him on Hamas’s victory and offer condolences for the martyrs.”

Abbas’s phone call to the Hamas leader did not come as a surprise.

Since the beginning of the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip, Abbas has been begging Hamas to forget about its differences with his Fatah faction and agree to “national unity.”

Until recently, Abbas used to mock Hamas’s rockets, calling them “ineffective.” It is not that Abbas was opposed to the idea of launching rockets at Israel; rather, his position was based on the argument that these rockets were not inflicting enough casualties and damage on the Israeli side.

Over the past few years, Abbas had publicly denounced Hamas for providing Israel with an “excuse” to attack the Gaza Strip by launching the “ineffective” rockets at Israeli cities and towns.

But during the last confrontation, Abbas did not utter a word against Hamas and other radical groups in the Gaza Strip.

Instead, he chose to issue strong condemnations against Israel, holding it fully responsible for initiating the violence.

In public statements, Abbas and his top aides in the West Bank accused Israel of perpetrating “war crimes” by targeting “innocent civilians.” They also heaped praise on Hamas and Islamic Jihad for their “steadfastness in the face of Israeli aggression.”

Not once did Abbas and his aides denounce Hamas and Islamic Jihad for firing rockets at Israel. The rockets, from their perspective, were no longer “ineffective” because this time they were extracting a heavy price from Israel.

As soon as the cease-fire went into effect, Abbas’s top Fatah officials joined Hamas supporters in the Gaza Strip who took to the streets to celebrate “victory” over Israel.

Zakariya al-Agha, a senior Fatah leader, praised Hamas and Islamic Jihad for launching rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv “until Israel asked for a cease-fire.”

Abbas Zaki, another Fatah official, boasted that Abbas and the Fatah leadership in the West Bank had helped provide “political justification” for the rocket attacks against Israel.

Until the last round of violence, Abbas considered Hamas to be his number one enemy. That view was why his security forces had been waging a relentless crackdown on Hamas supporters in the West Bank.

Obviously, Abbas has now changed his policy and Hamas is no longer a threat to him and his regime. Now he will have to stop arresting — and torturing — Hamas members in the West Bank in the hope that the Islamist movement will forgive him for “collaborating” with Israel.

It now remains to be seen whether Hamas will forgive Abbas for his “sins,” and join forces with him.

Originally published at the Gatestone Institute.

Jerome Valcke, the secretary-general of FIFA (the International governing body of Soccer) has pledged to rebuild the Gaza soccer stadium that was destroyed by Israel in Operation Pillars of Defence.

On the FIFA site they write,

“We see it our mandate to rebuild football infrastructure which has been destroyed. We will also rebuild the stadium in Gaza, which has been destroyed. Football brings people together and we will support any re-construction necessary when football infrastructure is destroyed through disasters.”

The IDF targeted the Gaza soccer stadium on November 19, 2012, as its field constituted a dual-purpose platform, the first was obviously soccer, while the second use was as a launching pad for long-range rockets that hit Tel Aviv and Gush Etzion (while aiming for Jerusalem).

Hamas uses civilian areas for weapons and terror staging grounds, as well as “human shields” as a matter of policy.

The IDF said it wonders if FIFA is aware that the stadium was used as a rocket launching site.

There’s no word at this time if FIFA plans to also rebuild the launch infrastructure for the Fajr-5 rockets when it rebuilds the rest of the stadium.

See how Israeli kids cope with rockets being shot at them around the clock…and the songs they sing.

Here are the songs and poems the Hamas and Palestinian Authority teach their children to sing…

Visit the Muqata.

I still remember, when I was a boy of just seven, walking with my father, early on the morning of 6th October, 1973, to synagogue. He had promised me that I could break my fast shortly after arriving. Now, he stopped me en route and told me a war had just broke out in Israel and the small Jewish nation was fighting for its very life. The situation was dire. I should show God added devotion by fasting longer in deference to the life mortal struggle of my fellow Jews. I was upset, I was starving, but I did as he asked and broke my fast after mid-day.

That Yom Kippur was my first memory of an Israeli war. We feverishly watched the news over the next few days until Israel finally began to turn the tide and push its enemies back.

There were moments of elation as well. I remember being in Chabad sleep away camp in Homestead, Florida on 4 July, 1976, American’s Bicentennial, when an excited head counselor started screaming over the loudspeaker that Israel had pulled off a daring rescue of Jewish hostages in some far-off place called Entebbe in Africa.

Fast forward to November, 1982, when I was a student at Chabad High School in Los Angeles. I traveled on a Friday, at the height of Israel’s war in Lebanon, to witness the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the Century Plaza hotel before the Sabbath to show my solidarity with the beleaguered leader. I still remember Begin arriving in his dark limousine looking ashen-faced, having just heard the terrible news that tens of soldiers had died in an explosion when a building had collapsed in Lebanon. Still, he nodded his head in his car to me as he passed. Tragically, even more bad news would await him as his wife Aliza would pass away while he was in Los Angeles a few days later.

There were other pressing moments in Israeli history that I remember well. But none comes near the current action against the terrorists of Hamas which has touched deeper than any previous occurrence. This time, we have a daughter in the Israeli army and her base in just a few kilometers outside of Gaza.

She was standing at a ceremony on Thursday morning when Hamas’ murderous rockets began to rain down near her base. The sirens went off and everyone was ordered to a bunker. They watched as Israel’s ingenious Iron Dome went to work. Tragically, it was not enough to stop a rocket from hitting Kiryat Malachi and murdering three Chabad Chassidim, including a pregnant woman. My daughter heard the explosion. She can still see the hole in the roof of the apartment building easily from her base.

The base was evacuated and my daughter moved to the relative safety of Jerusalem on Thursday night. My wife and I breathed a sigh of relief. But then, before the Sabbath came in, we were informed that she and a skeletal crew were ordered back to the base on Saturday night for guard duty. She would have to remain for a few days thereafter. That Sabbath, I was a scholar-in-residence in Palm Beach, Florida and, during one of my speeches, I asked the Synagogue to pray with me for her safety and the safety of all Israel’s soldiers. Never before had the prayer for Israel’s Defense Forces meant so much or been felt so deeply.

Over the next few days when I called my daughter on the base the phone conversations were interrupted many times as the alarm sounded and she had to rush to safety in a nearby bunker. I was amazed at her courage and sense of normalcy. This was her new life and she would get used to it without panic.

Beginning in 1988 at the University of Oxford I made defending the State of Israel against its enemies a central calling in my life. I have given countless lectures on Israel’s safety, security, and right to defend itself and written even more columns on the subject. But it’s different now. It’s gone from the abstract to the very tangible and real.

I have always heard about parents who have children in the military during a war. You try not to think about it. You tell yourself the chances of God forbid anything happening are negligible as to not be worth worrying about. But you are forever aware that you and your child are in God’s hands. You turn to Him for comfort and safety. Your daughter is an adult. She has made their decision to serve. You honor and respect it even as it engenders serious discomfort and leaves a pit in your stomach at all times.