Fallujah’s civic leaders joined American officials Monday in calling for insurgents battling Marines here to surrender their heavy weapons — mortars and rockets for example — in return for an end to the U.S. siege of the city, according to a U.S. spokesman.
The committments appeared to be the first fruits of direct negotiations between U.S. officials and a group of civic leaders and professions representing Fallujah residents.
Now there’s a step in the right direction.
Even if you want to take Hamas at its word that it really is devoting itself to “100 unique retaliations” instead of trying to find “100 unique undisclosed locations,” the terrorist group was no less determined to kill Jews last month (or last year) than it is right now.
Want proof? Notice the similarity in reaction after the targeted killing of Hamas’ “wheelchair-bound” “spiritual leader” Sheikh Yassin on March 22.
Hamas promised to “kill hundreds of Zionists on every street, in every city and everywhere in the occupied lands.”
Only, it hasn’t happened. That’s not to say that Hamas won’t be successful in killing more Jews, but it most likely won’t be as successful as it has been.
With Hamas leadership preoccupied with staying alive—even Yassin essentially lived underground in the months before his death and Rantisi went to great precautions as well—strategy and attack coordination are bound to suffer.
In fact, that has already happened. The lone suicide bombing since Yassin’s death was over the weekend, on the same day Rantisi got to test that “72 virgins” theory. Only one Israeli died.
This month free of suicide bombings came not on the heels of a truce or a peace agreement, but after Hamas had pledged to “open the gates of hell.”
But I was told that the Hamas Leadership Renewal program has clearly not been working out for Israel!
[source]
With good reason, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini declares murdered hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi a hero:
As the gunman’s pistol was pointing at him the hostage “tried to take off his hood and shouted: ‘now I’ll show you how an Italian dies,’” [Frattini] said.
Puzzlingly, Al-Jazeera says that footage of Quattrocchi’s death is “too gruesome” to broadcast. Puzzling, because Al-Jazeera has never had problems before with screening gruesome footage. Maybe Al-Jazeera just can’t cope with Italian defiance.
It’s too gruesome for Al-Jazeera to show how small the Caliphascists are. Bravery under fire is the mark of heroism - this shows who has it and who does not.
If you’re interested in a well-paid job as [Dr. Mahmoud] Zahar’s successor, you can find out everything you need to know by skimming a few issues of Hamas Manager magazine (1-yr subscription $25; lifetime subscription $15).
Last week, Senator Mitch McConell, Republican of Kentucky, charged from the Senate floor that the commission, made up of five Democrats and five Republicans, had “become a political casualty of the electoral hunting season.” […]
[…] Mr. Kerrey, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, who said: “Mitch McConnell is the Republican whip of the Senate and he’s accusing us of being too partisan? He can go to hell for all I’m concerned.”
To me, the interesting bit here is that Senator Kerrey thinks that it’s reasonable to be as partisan on the commission as it is for a party whip to be partisan. That explains a lot…