Blogging the Conflict: June 1st, 2007

Latest updates here.

5:40PM: Palestinian Ma’an News agency: Gaza gunmen shoot dead one man, injure two, bomb a sports club

Other than that, as well as all the other incidences I have been reporting over the last week or so, the palestinian ceasefire is going well.

5:05PM: Just when I thought my opinion of the UK could not get any lower after recent events, along comes a story like this:

Newly released British documents contain a claim by an unnamed contact that the Shin Bet security service collaborated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to hijack the June 1976 flight from Israel that was diverted to Entebbe, Uganda, the BBC reported Friday.

Israel’s rescue of the dozens of hostages taken in the hijacking of the Air France plane, popularly known as the Entebbe raid, is considered one of the most daring and successful operations in Israeli history. Elite Israel Defense Forces troops stormed the airport where the hostages, many of them Israeli, were held and overpowered the hijackers and Ugandan soldiers.

Although the captors used the hijacking to demand the release of Palestinians or Palestinian supporters, a British government file on the incident quotes the unnamed source as telling a British diplomat in Paris that Israel was behind the hijacking. The claim is not known to be backed up by corroborating evidence, and the file does not make it clear whether the British government took the claim seriously.

“The operation was designed to torpedo the PLO’s standing in France and to prevent what they see as a growing rapprochement between the PLO and the Americans,” the BBC report said British diplomat D.H. Colvin wrote in the document, citing his source.

“My contact said the PFLP had attracted all sorts of wild elements, some of whom had been planted by the Israelis,” Colvin reportedly wrote. “According to his information, the hijack was the work of the PFLP, with help from the Israeli Secret Service, the Shin Beit.”

And the US government was behind 9-11.

5:00PM: The IDF has killed 2 palestinians trying to place a bomb near the Gaza Strip border fence. It seems the two were in their teens, with different outlets reporting different ages. The Jerusalem Post quotes an IDF army spokesman who stated that soldiers shot at several palestinians who were spotted crawling “in a suspicious manner” toward the fence, planted an object near the fence, and did not answer orders to stop moving toward the fence. Of course, the palestinians have their own version, claiming the children were looking for aluminum and iron to sell in the market.

2:35PM: A Hamas spokesman has said that his organization will not cease firing Qassams at Israel without an “appropriate reciprocation” on Israel’s part.

Shouldn’t be a problem. I am sure Israel can agree not to fire Qassams at palestinian civilians.

12:55PM: Another Qassam was fired at Israel over half an hour ago.

12:35PM: Here’s a full transcript of the Alan Johnston video, in which he reaffirms where his sympathies lie:

First of all my captors have treated me very well. They’ve fed me well. There’s been no violence towards me at all, and I’m in good health.

In three years here in the Palestinian territories, I’ve witnessed the huge suffering of the Palestinian people.

And my message is that their suffering is continuing, and that it is unacceptable.

Everyday there are Palestinians arrested, imprisoned for no reason. People are killed on a daily basis.

The economic suffering is terrible, especially here in Gaza where there’s an Israeli absolute despair after nearly 40 years of Israeli occupation which has been supported by the West.

The situation in Iraq is even worse, we see every day maybe 100 or more Iraqis being killed, in the violence there which followed the failed invasion of Iraq by America and Britain.

Ordinary people who are losing everything and can’t live their lives properly. Because of not just the violence, but the shortage of everything they need for normal lives for bringing up their children.

Errr… Afghanistan, the situation again terrible.

You see on your television screens ordinary people suffering as the armies of America and Brit… attack.

In all this, we can see the British government endlessly working to occupy, err, the Muslim lands, against the will of the people in those places.

From history, the British worked to bring about the state of Israel, which is the cause of all the suffering of the Israe… err of the Palestinian people, and we, the British, are completely to blame, along with the Americans, for the situation in Iraq, and the British are the main force in Afghanistan, causing all the trouble to ordinary, simple Afghans who simply want to live.

To my family, my family… ”

You can view the video here.

Note how he is not just talking of the so-called”occupation” since 1967, but laments the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

Mark my words. The terrorists will not kill Johnston. There is more chance of Johnston volunteering to become a martyr.
 
12:25PM: According to Ha’aretz, PA negotiator Erekat stated that all palestinians are ashamed of Alan Johnston’s abduction.

Things all palestinians are not ashamed of:

Just off the top of my head.

10:38AM: Reuters reports:

BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston said in an Internet video issued by his captors on Friday that they had treated him well.

Oh, I bet they have.

10:27AM: Approximately 100 IDF reservists from Sderot have written a letter to Prime Minister Olmert, stating they they refuse to do reserves duty as long as the government continues to “abandon Sderot’s residents.”

9:56AM: A Qassam has hit a structure used as a warehouse in a Negev kibbutz, causing considerable damage to the building, but thankfully no injuries.

9:15AM: Via LGF comes this post on the current situation here in Israel, from alleged GOP Presidential candidate Fred Thompson:

Let me ask you a hypothetical question. What do you think America would do if Canadian soldiers were firing dozens of missiles every day into Buffalo, N.Y.? What do you think our response would be if Mexican troops for two years had launched daily rocket attacks on San Diego — and bragged about it?

I can tell you, our response would look nothing like Israel’s restrained and pinpoint reactions to daily missile attacks from Gaza. We would use whatever means necessary to win the war. There would likely be numerous casualties on our enemy’s side, but we would rightfully hold those who attacked us responsible.

More than 1,300 rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza since Palestinians were given control two years ago. Israelis, however, have gone to incredible lengths to stop the war against them without harming Palestinian non-combatants. But make no mistake, Israel is at war. The elected Hamas government regularly repeats its official promise to destroy Israel entirely and replace it with an Islamic state. Hamas openly took credit for killing one woman and wounding dozens more last week alone.

The Palestinian strategy is to purposely target and kill Israeli civilians. Then, when Israel goes after those launching the attacks, Palestinians claim to be the victims. If Palestinian civilians aren’t hurt in the Israeli attacks, they stage injuries and deaths. Too often, they garner sympathy and support from a gullible or anti-Semitic media in the international community.

Israelis, themselves, are often incapable of facing the damage they inflict in self-defense. Knowing this, Islamic extremists are using their own populations as human shields.

I’m beginning to wonder how much longer this vicious plot will work though. International sympathy for Palestinians has diminished as the same Islamofascist extremists have brought havoc to Madrid, Bali, Somalia, London and elsewhere. More importantly, Israelis themselves are suffering so badly, they may be on the verge of losing their sympathy for the people who have sworn to kill them.

Imagine what it would be like to live, knowing that a rocket could fall on you or your children at any minute. Half of those who live nearest to Gaza have fled their homes. Those remaining are traumatized by daily warning sirens and explosions.

The irony is that Israel has the military might to easily win the war that is being waged against them today. They haven’t used that might, in the past, out of compassion for Palestinian civilians and because it could trigger a wider regional conflict.

That balance of power is about to change, though. If Iran develops nuclear weapons, the very existence of this tiny nation of Israel will be threatened. The Iranian regime has left little doubt that it intends to see Israel “wiped off the map.‚Äù Hamas is using the same language, not coincidentally, and has announced it will begin launching missiles into Israel from the West Bank too.

If the world doesn’t act to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it must be prepared for the consequences of Israel defending itself.

How come we don’t hear similar sentiments from our leaders? How can Israel explain to the world how we are defending ourselves from terrorists when at the same time, our leaders are openly supporting one of the terrorist gangs (Fatah)? How can we explain that we are really facing an existential threat when we don’t react to it in a meaningful way?

As far as I am concerned, we need a Fred Thompson in power over here. Thank you, sir.