NEWS
October 21, 2011
The gaunt appearance of Israeli army Sgt. Gilad Shalit after five years illegal detention in Gaza without a single visit by the Red Cross or other international humanitarian organization threw into sharp contrast the full faces and healthy physiques of the Palestinian murderers released from Israeli prisons in exchange for his freedom. To see and hear the recently released terrorists and their supporters in Ramallah and Gaza vow to commit more kidnappings, murder and violence certainly should make us understand that the price of Mr. Shalit's freedom was very steep indeed.
NEWS
October 19, 2011
Both Israel and Hamas are claiming victory in the prisoner swap that will free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in exchange for Sgt. First Class Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped by militants five years ago and held captive ever since. But don't mistake that for anything that might advance the peace process. If anything it may foretell more violence. This deal, in which about half the Palestinians and Mr. Shalit were released Tuesday, wasn't conceived as a confidence-building move that was part of some larger, strategic vision to coax the two sides toward reconciliation.
NEWS
May 4, 2011
Your editorial bemoaning reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority as complicating, if not dooming, the Mideast peace process misses a key point ("Best of enemies," April 30): Hamas is a virulently anti-Semitic organization that hates Israel and America. The most recent evidence of Hamas' twisted world view was this week's announcement by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, in which he called Osama bin Laden an "Arab holy warrior" and condemned his killing by U.S. forces as "a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.
NEWS
May 3, 2011
Consider these two comments if you want to know who is our ally and who is our enemy. Hamas, which controls the Gaza strip and regularly fires rockets into neighboring Israel, has condemned the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden and said it "mourned him as an Arab holy warrior," according to news reports. "We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood," said Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas in Gaza. By contrast, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the U.S. operation a "resounding victory for justice, freedom and the values shared by all democratic countries fighting shoulder to shoulder against terror.
NEWS
April 30, 2011
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict underwent another evolution this week when the Fatah-backed Palestinian National Authority, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, the radical Islamic movement that rules the Gaza Strip, announced they would put aside their differences to make common cause for an independent Palestinian state. Whether the two groups can really end years of mutual enmity and distrust remains to be seen, but the mere fact that they are talking about cooperating again could spell trouble for U.S. diplomacy in the region.
NEWS
April 19, 2011
Commentary writer Laila El-Haddad feels "betrayed" by Judge Richard Goldstone's repudiation of the central allegation of the U.N.'s Goldstone commission investigation. Turns out the Israelis, as they said all along, did not intentionally target Palestinian civilians during the anti-terrorist Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009. El-Haddad quotes her father, from Gaza City, saying Israeli forces "destroyed everything living and beautiful and ordinary," and cites the displacement of "more than 50,000 people" to prove it. The population of the Gaza Strip is about 1.4 million.