Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Double-Dealing Durban

From Anne Bayefsky in Forbes:

Barack Obama just added double-dealing to his foreign policy repertoire. On Friday, administration officials led many Jewish leaders to believe that it had decided to boycott the United Nation's "anti-racism" conference known as Durban II. At the same time, however, human rights organizations were being led to believe that the administration was not pulling out and was looking for a way to "re-engage."

Durban II, scheduled for Geneva in April, is the U.N.'s attempt at a rerun of the 2001 global anti-Semitic hate fest held in Durban, South Africa.

After sowing confusion over the phone lines, the State Department chose late Friday night to put the real deal in print. Their release reads: "the current text of the draft outcome document is not salvageable," and "the United States will not ... participate in a conference based on this text," but we will "re-engage if a document that meets [our] criteria becomes the basis for deliberations." A new version must be: "shorter," "not reaffirm in toto the flawed 2001 Durban Declaration," "not single out any one country or conflict," and "not embrace the troubling concept of "defamation of religion."

And by the way, it continued, the U.S. will "participate" for the first time in the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Thus giving legitimacy to the most prominent anti-Israel NGO in the world.

All of this leaves the American people not knowing whether they're coming or going.

It does open a window, however, into Obama's gerrymandering. On one phone line with Assistant Secretary of State Karen Stewart were Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.N. Foundation, the UNA-USA Association and the Arab American Institute, among others. On the other line with National Security Council member Samantha Power were Jewish organizations. The dangerous message was that an Arab advocacy group does human rights, while Jewish organizations do Jews.

It also shows that "human rights" organizations would prefer to see the US participate in a festival of hate against Jews.

Read the whole thing. It is beyond scary.

Citizen journalism definitely has its downsides.

I just came across an article in something called The City Wire where the Jewish ownership of media companies is detailed. It was written by an anonymous writer called "Terrible Tommy" who, by sheer coincidence, also is big on pushing the USS Liberty as an Israeli conspiracy to kill Americans.

The article looked familiar to me. Sure enough, it was actually written by none other than David Duke, even though it was presented as original.

This sort of thing has been increasing a great deal lately. It used to be relatively rare to see outright anti-semitism in "news" sites indexed by Google - The People's Voice and Uruknet were exceptions. But now, this sort of thing is visible more and more.

Clearly, Jew-hatred is becoming more fashionable and more acceptable. The haters are no longer embarrassed to spout their vitriol in public, and they don't find the need to hide behind "anti-Zionism" as much as they did only a year ago.

UPDATE: It looks like that article and some other of Terrible Tommy's hate has been deleted from City Wire.

Another Hamas front group, plus other PalArab news

Two rockets fired this morning were claimed by the "Palestine Hizbollah" group. That group started in October, about a month before the "lull" ended, claiming that they would not respect any cease fire and castigating the groups that "abandoned resistance." Interestingly, they refrained from firing rockets until the lull ended in November. And now that there are daily rocket attacks against Israel, they have been the only group to claim responsibility for any of them.

Clearly, this group is a front. Their first operation was jointly claimed with Islamic Jihad - when Hamas was claiming that they were still holding by the "lull." But during the Gaza operation, it became clear that Islamic Jihad and the other major terror groups in Gaza had strong operational ties with Hamas, so it became harder for Hamas to claim that any rocket fire after the "unilateral cease fire" had nothing to do with them.

Hence, a new terror group pops up, at a very convenient time for Hamas. It is clear that rockets such as the improved Grads fired yesterday - that penetrated a fortified school in Ashkelon, and in all likelihood was aimed at exactly that target - were smuggled in by Hamas, which owns the weapons tunnels and which rules Gaza pretty comprehensively. Yet credulous people believe that Hamas is holding its end of the cease fire bargain.

In other news, a 40 year old man was abducted, tortured and killed in Gaza.

5 were killed in another tunnel collapse. Recent rains were blamed.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is now at 46.

PalArab news roundup 2-28-09

The PLO called a general strike on Friday to protest reports that Israel was going to demolish 90 houses in Jerusalem. How exactly these strikes hurt Jews and help Arabs is just as unclear as it was in the 1930s.

A young man was strangled to death in either an honor killing or some sort of revenge killing in Gaza City.

Another man was killed in a tunnel collapse under Rafah.

Abu Marzouq, an exiled Hamas leader based out of Damascus, entered Gaza on Thursday, apparently with Israeli permission.

The 2009 PalArab self-death count is at 40.

(For some reason I am having problems with Google Translate and cannot get to any Arabic websites.)

The water in the State Department

Remember when Condoleeza Rice was a hawk? When Condi was National Security Advisor she was pretty consistent in her rhetoric against terror, in her support of Israel and her impatience for Arab coddling of terrorism.

Then, once she became Secretary of State, she seemed to come down with State Department disease - an unremitting hostility towards Israel, and a single-minded notion that more pressure on Israel is the best way for achieving the nirvana of Middle East peace.

A large number of Secretaries of State throughout the years have spent a significant part of their time trying to pressure Israel, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. They will make empty declarations of demands for the Arabs (The PA must do X) but their pressure on Israel always comes with an implicit threat, that the US' friendliness to Israel (or aid) is on the line.

Now, we have a feeling of deja vu, as Hillary Clinton moves from her job as a senator cheerleader for Israel to another Secretary of State who seems to believe that Israel is the only side that has to make any concrete, permanent moves for peace.

What happens at State that causes these changes to occur?

The reason is that it is almost a part of the job description. The State Department is tasked with forging and maintaining friendly relations with other nations around the world. It is impolitic to alienate nations unless necessary.

And when this is one's mandate, the calculus changes from "doing what is right" to "doing what will please the most nations." It is a simple calculus that 20-odd Arab League members representing hundreds of millions of people are more important - within the State Department's defined mandate - than Israel is.

The Arab nations, whose members hate the US anyway, have nothing to lose by placing Israel on the front of their agendas when talking with State Department officials. And the State Department, desperate to make inroads in the Arab world, will listen to them and identify with these agendas. After all, if a mere statement that Israel must do X will make dozens of nations a little bit happier, isn't it worth it?

The State Department's job is not to moralize. Even though they will come out with occasional reports on human rights, the department is focused on building relationships.

Another of the State Department's jobs is to protect American citizens worldwide, and when a single slip of the tongue can cause Arabs to riot and kidnap Americans the department will do everything necessary to avoid such an outcome.

It isn't that the water at State is tainted with anti-Zionist cooties. This is literally a part of the job. And Israel, as always, needs to do what's best for her own people in the long run, whether it is at odds with State or succumbing to pressure.

Law and Order, Palestinian Arab style

According to a report in Palestine Today, a man was on trial in a courtroom in Ramallah for murder.

One of the witnesses against him was testifying, and during the testimony raised a gun and pointed it at the accused.

The court officers jumped on the witness, causing a general ruckus ... during which the accused murderer escaped.

Always time to learn

At a wedding I attended this week, I saw this during the bedeken (veiling of the bride):

You have to admire the dedication of people who learn Daf Yomi!

New Elder video site

After my banning from YouTube, I have placed most of my videos on NMA-TV, a conservative video hosting site run by Heritage New Media Partners. A few others are hosted on LiveLeak; when I get a chance I will upload those to NMA-TV as well.

I know I'm missing some, so I'm still looking to fill the gaps.

Jameel hits the big time

Jameel at the Muqata, who was one of the two major "warbloggers" from Israel during the Gaza operation (Aussie Dave at Israellycool was the other), gets interviewed.

Well, OK, the Yeshiva University newspaper is not the Times of London, but it still testifies that blogging is becoming more mainstream when a blogger merits an interview.

Hamas wanted the war (Dan Gordon)

A great analysis by an IDF soldier to expose a simple truth:

What major news outlets have completely missed is not the fact that Israel invaded. The story they have missed is that Hamas knowingly provoked Israel's incursion because this was to be their offensive. It had been planned and prepared for months. It was their strategy, their tactics, their battlefield, prepared according to their doctrine, to be fought at the time of their choosing.

I first put on the uniform of the Israel Defense Forces over 35 years ago. I have been involved in four wars and countless training exercises preparing for war. I have watched Israel's doctrine change and adapt to almost every new eventuality and the one thing I can say with absolute clarity and certainty is that Israel never goes to war in the winter time of its own accord. Never. When Israel can choose, its offensives take place in the spring and summer. It is as if there is a line drawn across the calendar that says from mid autumn and until well into the spring Israeli doctrine precludes offensive action.

The reason is quite simple, the cloud cover and rain of winter time can neutralize Israel's advantage in air and armor. Even with the most advanced avionics, aircraft have a tough time taking out targets which they cannot see because of cloud cover. Rain can turn the terrain of southern Israel into a soupy mud that can bog down Israel's tanks and armored personnel carriers making them sitting ducks for anti tank rockets and missiles. Israel has never gone to war in the winter of its own choosing, which is precisely why Hamas chose the dead of winter for its offensive.

The villages of the Gaza strip were criss crossed with tunnels dug underneath the houses. Not weapons smuggling tunnels, mind you, these were kidnapping tunnels. They were communication tunnels through which Hamas militants could go unseen from house to house and carry out combat in a civilian environment disappearing from one house, as it came under fire, to pop up in another. Those tunnels were not dug after Israel invaded as a response to that invasion. No one in Hamas said "Quick let's dig these tunnels because the Israelis are coming!"

This was their battlefield and they prepared it according to a doctrine that said they would launch rockets from civilian areas in order to draw Israeli troops into those areas. They would turn whole villages into booby trapped battlefields while the villagers were still in them. Their hope was to kill two to three hundred Israeli soldiers and kidnap and take prisoner as many as fifty.

At the same time, because they were fighting in civilian areas, their plan was to maximize civilian casualties amongst their own people. In this way, any action Israel took against Hamas fighters would become a war crime. Photos of innocent Palestinians killed in an Israeli onslaught would arouse public sympathy and that sympathy in turn could be translated into political pressure to effectuate a cease fire advantageous to Hamas. In that way, they could at one and the same time, wear the mantle of victimhood and victor. ...

Hamas' plan was to fire from civilian houses, draw infantry into those houses which were booby trapped, and then kill and wound soldiers inside. There were kidnapping teams standing by in the tunnels to pop up from under a false floor and drag the wounded soldiers or the bodies of the dead into those tunnels which criss crossed the whole village. Once inside the tunnels, the dead and wounded Israeli soldiers could be whisked off and taken prisoner. I held the map the reporter referred to of the village and studied it with an intelligence officer. The entire village is laid out as a battlefield... with the villagers still in it, sometimes unaware that their own houses or the houses of neighbors have been rigged. This plan was duplicated throughout Gaza.

Read the whole thing.

Now, my turn for jokes

Thanks for the jokes, all. Since I have many new readers, here are the jokes I posted last year, after scouring the Internet (and links to the originals):

A rabbi and a priest are driving one day and, by a freak accident, have a head-on collision. Both cars are totally demolished, but amazingly, neither of the clerics has a scratch on him.

After they crawl out of their cars, the rabbi sees the priest's collar and says, "So you're a priest. I'm a rabbi. Just look at our cars. There is nothing left, yet we are here, unhurt. This must be a sign from God!"

Pointing to the sky, the rabbi continues, "God must have meant that we should meet and share our lives in peace and friendship for the rest of our days on earth."

The priest replies, "I agree with you completely. This must surely be a sign from God!"

The rabbi is looking at his car and exclaims, "And look at this! Here's another miracle! My car is completely demolished, but this bottle of Mogen David wine did not break. Surely, God wants us to drink this wine and to celebrate our good fortune."

The priest nods in agreement.

The rabbi hands the bottle to the priest, who drinks half the bottle and hands the bottle back to the rabbi.

The rabbi takes the bottle and immediately puts the cap on, then hands it back to the priest. The priest, baffled, asks, "Aren't you having any, Rabbi?"

The rabbi replies, "Nah... I think I'll wait for the police."

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls President Bush and tells him, "George, I had a wonderful dream last night. I could see America, the whole beautiful country, and on each house I saw a banner."

"What did it say on the banners?" Bush asks. Ahmadinejad replies, "UNITED STATES OF IRAN."

Bush says, "You know, Mahmoud, I am really happy you called, because believe it or not, last night I had a similar dream. I could see all of Tehran, and it was more beautiful than ever, and on each house flew an enormous banner."

"What did it say on the banners?" Ahmadinejad asks.

Bush replies, "I don't know. I can't read Hebrew."

A man arrives at Ben-Gurion Airport with two large bags.

The customs agent opens the first bag and finds it full with money so he asks the passenger, "How did you get this money?"

The man says, "You will not believe it, but I traveled all over Europe, went into public restrooms, each time I saw a man pee, I grabbed his organ and said, "donate money to Israel or I will cut off your testicles."

The customs agent is stunned and mumbles: "well...it's a very interesting story... what do you have in the other bag?"

The man says, "You would not believe how many people in Europe hate Israel..."

A rabbi, a priest, and a minister were talking one day. The priest told of an occasion when he was caught in a snowstorm so terrible that he couldn't see a foot in front of him. He was completely confused, unsure even of which direction he needed to walk. He prayed to God, and miraculously, while the storm continued for miles in every direction, he could clearly see his home 20 feet away.

The minister told a similar story. He had been out on a small boat when a hurricane struck. There were 40-foot high waves, and the boat was sure to capsize. He prayed to God, and, while the storm continued all around, for several feet in each direction, the sea calmed, and the minister was able to return safely to port.

The rabbi, too, had such a story. One Saturday morning, on the way home from the synagogue, he saw a very thick wad of $100 bills on the sidewalk.

Of course, since it was Shabbat, the rabbi wasn't able to touch the money.

So he prayed to God, and everywhere, for miles in every direction, it was still Shabbat, but for 10 feet around him, it was Thursday.

On the sixth day, G-d turned to the angel Gabriel....

"On this day, I shall create a magic land. It shall be called "Israel". It will stand as holy. Its magnificence will be known the world over. I will choose to send to this land special people of goodness, intelligence and conviction, so the land shall prosper. I shall call these inhabitants Jews."

"Pardon me, Lord", asked Gabriel, "but aren't you being too generous to these Jews?"

"Not really. Wait and see the neighbors I'm giving them."

A Texan, a Frenchman and an Israeli are on a plane flying over the Pacific Ocean when the engines stop functioning. The plane crash lands on a Pacific Island and the 3 are immediately captured by a tribe of cannibals and taken to their village. The Chief tells the 3 captives that these cannibals are civilized and they have a custom on their island that before they eat anyone, they grant that person his or her last wishes?no matter what they are.

He asks the Texan, "What is your last wish?"
The Texan replies: "I want a 2 inch thick steak with all the trimmings, Cajun fries and a case of Bud." The Chief motions to some of his tribesmen who immediately run into the jungle and come back with the steak, the fries and the beer. The Texan eats his meal and he is thrown in the pot.

The Frenchman is asked: "What is your last wish?"
He replies: "I'd like a case of Dom Perignon and I'd also like a big plate of escargots cooked in the French manner." The Chief motions to his tribesmen who immediately rush off into the jungle and bring back everything the Frenchman asked for. He eats and drinks his fill, and he is then thrown in the pot.

The Chief turns to the Israeli and asks, "And what is your wish?"
The Israeli looks the Chief squarely in the eyes and replies: "I want you to kick me in the behind as hard as you can." The Chief is bewildered and asks the Israeli again, only to receive the same reply. "I want you to kick me in the behind as hard as you can." The Chief shrugs his shoulders, asks the Israeli to turn around, and kicks him as hard as he can. With that the Israeli pulls out a gun and kills the Chief and all of the other cannibals.

The Texan and the Frenchman get out of the pot, look at the Israeli and say: "If you had that gun why didn't you do anything sooner?"

The Israeli replies: "What? And risk being condemned by the UN, EU and the State Department for 'overreacting' to insufficient provocation?"

Two Jews, one old and one young, travel in a train in old Europe.

The young Jew asks the old Jew: -What time is it?

The old Jew does not answer.

After asking him 25 times, the young Jew seem to give up and asks the old Jew: - Tell me, why don't you want to tell me what time it is?

The old Jew answers: - Because then you are going to ask me where I am going to and I will have to answer that I am going to Zlabodka to visit my beautiful daughter Lea and you will certainly ask if she is single and I will have to say that she is single and you will certainly ask to meet her for a Shiduch and the last thing I want in my life is my beautiful Lea to marry someone who does not have money even to buy himself a watch!

Not specifically a Jewish joke, but at least I hadn't heard it before...

Bill Gates came up to heaven and God wasn't sure what to do with him. On one hand, he gave a lot of charity, but on the other hand, he created Microsoft Windows which is a terrible operating system.

So God decided to give Bill a choice, let him decide whether he wanted to go to heaven or hell.

"Well, what are heaven and hell like?" asks Gates.

God takes Bill Gates to heaven where he sees a bunch of rabbis pouring over Talmudic texts. Then, he takes him to hell where he sees a beautiful beach with palm trees.

Without giving it much thought, Gates concludes, "I'll take hell."

A couple days later, God goes down to see how Gates is doing, and he's furious.

"I'm burning to a crisp down here! This isn't what I saw before!"

To which God replies, "I'm sorry, you must have seen a screen saver!"

The only cow in a small town in Poland stopped giving milk. The people did some research and found that they could buy a cow from Moscow for 2,000 rubles, or one from Minsk for 1,000 rubles. Being frugal, they bought the cow from Minsk.

The cow was wonderful. It produced lots of milk all the time, and the people were amazed and very happy. They decided to acquire a bull to mate with the cow and produce more cows like it. Then they would never have to worry about the milk supply again.

They bought a bull and put it in the pasture with their beloved cow. However, whenever the bull came close to the cow, the cow would move away. No matter what approach the bull tried, the cow would move away from the bull and he could not succeed in his quest.

The people were very upset and decided to ask their wise rabbi, what to do. They told the rabbi what was happening. "Whenever the bull approaches our cow, she moves away. If he approaches from the back, she moves forward.

When he approaches her from the front, she backs off. An approach from the side and she just walks away to the other side."

The rabbi thought about this for a minute and asked, "Did you buy this cow from Minsk?"

The people were dumbfounded, since they had never mentioned where they had gotten the cow. "You are truly a wise rabbi," they said.

"How did you know we got the cow from Minsk?"

The rabbi answered sadly, "My wife is from Minsk."

Ethel, a little old lady with a lovely smile, makes a living selling roses on the corner of Middlesex Street for £1 a rose. Maurice, on the other hand, works for a bank in Middlesex Street and is doing very well for himself.

Maurice has always felt sorry for Ethel and whenever he leaves his office for lunch and passes Ethel, he always gives her £1. But Maurice never takes a rose from her and although this has been going on for 2 years, the two of them have never spoken to each other.

One day, as Maurice passes Ethel and leaves his usual £1, Ethel speaks to him for the first time. "I appreciate your business, sir. You really are my best customer, but I must point out to you that the price of a rose has now gone up to £1.50."

A minister, a priest and a rabbi go into a bar. After a couple of drinks they get somewhat philosophical. The bartender asks them, "What would you want people to say at your funeral?"

The minister says, "I would hope that they would say that I was a good family man and that I always found the time for my congregants."

The priest says, "I would hope that they would say that I was kind, charitable and always thoughtful."

The rabbi says, "I would want them to say, 'Look! He's moving!'"

(Told by a rabbi on The Tonight Show, as Jay Leno asked a priest, a minister and a rabbi to tel priest/minister/rabbi jokes.)

During his school holidays, 17 year-old Avrohom decides to take a temporary job as a delivery boy for Minky’s Restaurant. One evening he delivers a meal to Bernie’s house. He hands over the meal and Bernie pays the bill. Then Bernie looks at Avrohom for a few seconds and somewhat begrudgingly says, "I suppose you also want me to give you a tip?"

Avrohom doesn’t answer immediately, but looks at Bernie for a few seconds before replying. "Yes, sir, that would be most appreciated, especially as the guy who normally delivers to this area told me that I shouldn’t expect much from you. He said I should be thankful if I got 10p."

"Well," says Bernie, "just to prove your friend wrong, here’s £2 for your efforts."

"Thank you very much," says Avrohom. "This will go into the fund I’m building up to pay for my future education."

"Really?" says Bernie. "So what are you going to study?"

"Applied Psychology," replies Avrohom.

Feel free to add more to the comment thread!

Happy Adar!

Wisdom from Paul Berman

Joem in the comments pointed me (via Yaakov Lozowick's blog) pointed me to this lengthy interview with Paul Berman, a liberal who gets it. Here is a small sample:

People ought to have noticed by now that any number of humanitarian catastrophes lie just over the horizon and are perfectly predictable - the catastrophes that will follow ineluctably from any future wars in Gaza or Lebanon, or from an attack that Israel, out of fear of the Iranian nuclear program, could conceivably launch on Iran.
Now, if the rest of the world really wants to worry and be upset over humanitarian disasters, there would be every reason to start worrying right now over the prospect of those future wars. A humanitarian logic ought to lead us to ask, how can those wars be stopped, pre-emptively, so to speak - instead of merely deploring them, after the fact. I know that a lot of people would say that, well, Israel ought to dismantle its West Bank settlements and do a thousand other things to allow their enemies to calm down. Me, I've never had any patience for West Bank settlements, and I can picture a lot of ways that Israel could improve.

Still, it would be disingenuous not to notice another obvious reality. An Iran without a nuclear program would be in no danger of Israeli attack. Here is an impending war that rests on a single variable. Why not alter the variable? Equally obvious: Israel is not going to launch a war against any of the groups on its own borders that remain at peace. Why not do everything possible to disarm those groups? Protests, moral pressures, diplomatic pressures, not to mention grand international alliances, not to mention human rights reports! There are a lot of things that could be done. But it may be that, around the world, some of the people who weep over the sufferings caused by war would rather see still further wars than undertake even the simplest and most obvious steps to avoid the wars.

There is more wisdom in this one interview than in a thousand NYT op-eds.

Read the whole thing.

NYT op-ed: Stop using the word "terrorism"

I was going to comment on this insipid piece by Michael Slackman, but others have done it better than I would have.

On the plus side, I got to use the word "insipid."

UPDATE: One more take (h/t joem)

PalArab news roundup

Palestine Today quotes Yediot Aharonot as saying that Hamas established its new headquarters in a psychiatric hospital in Gaza, secure in the knowledge that it wouldn't be attacked.

PalToday also reports that there was a clash between Arabs and Jews on the Temple Mount, as the Jews tried to pray. I'm sure that the prayers were very violent, though, justifying the scuffle. Of course, PalToday says that the "extremist Jewish settlers" "stormed" the mosque. They were apparently arrested by Israeli police for this heinous crime.

(By the way, Arutz-7 reports that Jews managed to pray at an ancient Jericho synagogue, now under PA control, for the first time in nearly nine years.)

Palestine Press Agency quotes Israel's Channel Two that hamas is again managing to smuggle Grad rockets and other weapons into Gaza.

"Peace negotiator" idiots say: "Talk with Hamas"

From Reuters:

The United States and Israel must change policy toward Hamas and engage the Palestinian militant group if progress is to be made on peace in the Middle East, a group of former peace negotiators said on Thursday.
Writing in Britain's Times newspaper, 14 former foreign ministers and peace negotiators said the three-year policy under which Hamas has been ostracized by the international community had backfired and needed to be changed.

"There can be no meaningful peace process that involves negotiating with the representatives of one part of the Palestinians while simultaneously trying to destroy the other," wrote the signatories, who include Britain's Paddy Ashdown, a former negotiator in Bosnia, and Michael Ancram, who helped broker peace with the IRA in Northern Ireland.

Hamas, a militant group whose founding charter calls for Israel's destruction, won a Palestinian parliamentary election in January 2006, defeating long-time rival Fatah.

But the group was immediately cut off by Israel, the United States and the European Union, which regard it as a terrorist organization. Peace negotiations have, however, continued with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads Fatah.

The letter's signatories said Israel's recent war against Hamas in Gaza had "demonstrated that the policy of isolating Hamas cannot bring about stability."

"Bringing Hamas into the process does not amount to condoning terrorism or attacks on civilians," the letter will say, according to excerpts provided in advance.

"It can strengthen pragmatic elements and their ability to strike the hard compromises needed for peace."

To put it bluntly, these people are idiots.

The desperate desire to see progress towards peace, combined with a penchant to naively believe that every conflict can be solved through negotiations, plus years of obfuscation of the nature of Hamas by "even-handed" journalists and diplomats, cause otherwise smart people to lose their minds.

Here is what they have chosen to ignore:

Hamas is not a movement to create an independent Palestinian Arab state. It is a radical Islamic movement to destroy an independent Jewish state, and then join with other Islamic movements to destroy neighboring Arab states to create a single Islamic 'ummah.

Hamas' goals and means have been stated explicitly for decades, and they have not changed one iota. There are no "pragmatic" Hamas leaders, unless your definition of pragmatic means that they are willing to wait an additional decade or so before their goals are met.

Hamas' and its sister terror groups are exactly the same as Al Qaeda, with the exception that Hamas is concentrating on exclusively killing Israeli Jews in their attacks. Hamas, Al Qaeda and all of the other groups that originally came from the Muslim Brotherhood agree on their goals, their strategy and their tactics. Therefore, to advocate bringing Hamas in for negotiations is the same as asking to negotiate with Bin Laden's more "pragmatic" deputies.

Israel is negotiating with Hamas, through Egypt, to make an accommodation with the de facto rulers of Gaza. This is the way it should be for specific issues that can be solved. But to engage Hamas without the Quartet's preconditions means that these morons are demanding that Israel negotiate its own destruction.