The continued description of the Palestinian Arabs as anyone’s peace partners, especially Israel’s, becomes more ludicrous by the day.

“Palestinians” in the Samarian town of Shechem erupted in mass celebration Sunday upon hearing of the deaths of 10 Israeli reservists in a Hizb’allah missile strike in northern Israel. Fireworks were set off, rifles were fired in the air, and candies were passed out to kids - the same kids that will one day be expected by Israel and the West to live in peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state. Yeah, right.

Oh, and by the way America, all those millions you are pumping into the Palestinian Authority are not buying many hearts and minds. They roared with delight, too, when 3,000 of your own were slaughtered by Osama bin Laden’s minions.

Seems Israel’s bombing of Beirut was not intense enough for Beirut, so they published some doctored photos to make the destruction appear more widespread.

Charles over at Little Green Footballs has a long, in-depth post on the issue with a series of examples, so I will not repost and rehash here what is already being hammered throughout the conservative blogosphere.

Suffice it to say this is not the first time the MSM has willfully disseminated such distortions in its quest to discredit Israel. This map of Beirut shows that while the MSM would have you believe the entire city is being obliterated, Israel is in fact attacking only a very small corner of the Lebanese capital, leaving 99% of it virtually untouched.

Nor is the phenomenon isolated to the current Israel-Hizb’allah conflict. When Israel really went after “Palestinian” terrorists during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, the Palestinian Authority told the MSM that the town of Jenin was being flattened and its citizens massacred by the Israelis. The story was reported as dictated. But aerial photographs of Jenin later released by the IDF showed that the fighting and destruction in that city had in fact been confined to an extremely small area.

Israel has lost a fair number of its finest young soldiers during the current war in Lebanon. How they died certainly varies from individual to individual, but recent accounts of how Major Roi Klein died while leading his troops against Hizb’allah in Bint Jbeil is characteristic of other stories I have heard about the conduct of seasoned Israeli commanders who possess a deep sense of what they are fighting for.

According to personal accounts of some of the soldiers present in the fierce battle on July 26, Klein not only displayed tremendous self-sacrifice by falling on a grenade lobbed at his platoon, but made sure the last thing he did in this life was honor God by reciting the Sh’ma - “Here Oh Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One.”

The spirit of Israel’s great biblical warriors appears to be alive and well in this nation.

Much of the world is continuing to have trouble deciding if Islamic terrorism is a mere crime, or an act of war. This stems from the fact that while major terror groups usually have state sponsors, their actions are not carried out on behalf of any particular nation.

Even so, the real problem is the liberal humanistic mindset that now dominates international decision making. It insists on seeing the world according to national boundaries, when in fact the enemy is spiritual, transcending current borders. This has started to change in both Israel and the US, though both nations continue to resist the notion that the world is experiencing a clash of civilizations or religions. Continue reading »

Israel’s ability to deter Muslim terrorist aggression against its people is on the line in a big way in southern Lebanon. If Hizb’allah survives its fight with Israel, terrorists everywhere will get the message that they can hit the Jewish state hard without fear of suffering annihilation in response. They will understand that Israel will never be allowed to do to them what America is doing to Al Qaeda and its allies.

Eli Hertz summarizes the issue well:

“Unfortunately, Israel’s power of deterrent against ‘low signature’ guerrilla warfare that uses Palestinian civilians as shelter and terrorism as a political weapon has been diminished by a host of factors, external and internal: Israel’s isolation in the international arena (and apologists for Arab terrorism abroad and at home) are interpreted as an ‘insurance policy’ that Israel’s hands will be tied or partially tied in its response.

“In addition, despotic leaders’ misunderstand democratic debate and Israeli society’s genuine strengths and weaknesses and they misread limitations on the use of force stemming from Israel’s Jewish and democratic ethos. Well-intentioned policy decisions Israel has taken to defuse conflict and avoid friction have ‘boomeranged’ - perceived as cowering feeble-heartedness, undermining Israel’s power of deterrent.”

No one likes to see innocent civilians suffer, especially those who are held hostage by and oppose the actions of the terrorists in their midst. But if Israel does not put aside all other concerns and smash Hizb’allah now, this particular battle is just going to continue repeating itself, ultimately at the cost of far more civilian lives on both sides.

Iranian demagogue Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is either a really bad poker player, or he is utterly confident that he is holding the winning hand as he continues to make no secret whatsoever of his agenda to see the “Zionist regime” eliminated.

He even goes so far, as the leader of a sovereign nation, to question the Jews’ status as human beings. Another leader once spoke this way. His name was Hitler.

With Ahmadinejad showing all his cards, the question now is whether Israel and the West will continue to hide behind the false defenses of never-ending diplomacy or face their enemy head on.