Hamas

COMMENTARY
Among the many sorry gifts George W. Bush passed on to President Barack Obama, the next prime minister of Israel is among the most dubious.

The hearing is wrapping up. Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) laments that some of the Republican senators have left “thinking they wouldn’t get a chance to ask questions.” He wants another bite of the apple on CIA Director-Designate Leon Panetta’s rendition history. “Were you fully advised of the extraordinary renditions that went on” in the Clinton [...]

There’s no question that international law is supposed to govern the Israel-Hamas conflict; but the persistent recriminations raise an important question: Does it matter?

Bill Kristol speaks to American Jewry:
As we recited this on Saturday, I couldn’t help but reflect that a distressingly small number of my fellow Jews seem to have given much thought at all to the fact that President Bush is one of the greatest friends the state of Israel — and, yes, the Jewish people [...]

CNN reports that Osama bin Laden’s latest audiotape is about Gaza:
The message is “an invitation” from bin Laden to take part in “jihad to stop the aggression against Gaza.”
The terrorist leader has attempted to hijack the cause of the Palestinians before, so this was probably inevitable.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), drawing the hearing to a conclusion, remembers being with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2005, and hearing about how he was expected to disarm Hamas when Hamas was more capable than his Fatah Party and much of the Palestinian Authority. “We have to recognize the threat that Hamas may become more [...]

Finally, a sovereignty question! I was starting to think the GOP wasn’t what it used to be. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is concerned about American sovereignty at the hands of these globalists, dadgummit.
“I think there are ways we can cooperate more than we have without impeding our sovereignty, our security or our values,” Clinton says, [...]

In the past three months, Joe Wurzelbacher has gone from plumber to pundit to potential Congressman. The logical next step? War correspondent, of course.
The Associated Press reports that the conservative PajamasTV Website is sending Wurzelbacher to Israel to cover the Gaza invasion. He plans to spend ten days there to let “‘Average Joes’ share their [...]

In the midst of this confused New York Times piece on Israel’s objectives in Gaza — “Mr. Olmert has been far more careful this time to state ambiguous and modest goals for the war,” apparently, even though his defense minister says it’s an “all-out war” to the “bitter end” and from the perspective of a [...]

Ha’aretz correspondents Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff think Israel, despite the apocalyptic rhetoric, is actually prepared to pull back when the Air Force exhausts its bombing targets. (They name Ehud Barak as an advocate of “caution.”) That’s because if Israel doesn’t accept a ceasefire soon, it will have no choice but to invade, which Hamas [...]