The Daily Grind - 1st of Tammuz/ 27th of June

Welcome back to The Daily Grind.

Today we'll be recapping some of the more interesting articles from the last few days, covering, among other things, the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas, Qassam rockets falling on Sderot, and why there's no better place in the world than Israel to live.

Let's get started.

On the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit:

1) Sidelining convergence - Aluf Benn - Ha'aretz

The political outcome of Hamas' raid on Israelis at Kerem Shalom yesterday is that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's convergence plan is being set aside for now...

Three elements have foiled Olmert's scheme. First, the government and the Israel Defense Forces failed to formulate a convincing security response to the continued attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip...

Second, Olmert's leadership in the face of the escalation of violence in the south has been problematic...

Third, the convergence was greeted without enthusiasm abroad...

2) Deterrence: A precious commodity - Benjamin Netanyahu - Yediot Achronot

The Israeli government must immediately get back two precious commodities it has lost: Gilad Shalit, and its power of deterrence.

3) Analysis: Israel's hostage complex - Anshel Pfeifer - Jerusalem Post

While dozens of Kassam rockets fell daily on Sderot and the neighboring kibbutzim for months and, miraculously, casualties haven't been serious, the missiles haven't warranted a major operation in the Gaza Strip. If Sunday's raid on the IDF outpost had failed, the IDF would probably not be poised to strike now. But because the Palestinians have captured a soldier, the situation has changed completely...

Why does it take the abduction of an Israeli solder to compel the government of Israel to act against our enemies? Daily rocket attacks don't count?

4) Tie a blue ribbon for Gilad - Bradley Burston - Ha'aretz

When the missile hit his tank, Gilad Shalit was guarding our pre-1967 war border...

The border that Hamas has been talking about for months. The one to which, should we withdraw, they would make peace with us for generations...

When the missile hit, there was this kid, stationed at a quiet IDF position, not in the territories, nowhere near Palestinians...

Ignore the voices - you can hear them already - saying that he had it coming, as a member of a military that attacks Palestinians - the Palestinians that fire Qassams into homes, schools and medical clinics, the Palestinians that fire Qassams every single day, sometimes as many as seven times a day.

The world doesn't give a fallen fig.

5) State Department: US urges Israeli restraint - IMRA

With friends like these...

Qassams in Sderot

6) Morality requires: Hurt hostile population - Yisrael Rosen - Yediot Achronot

Jewish ethics are saturated with the ethical message "if someone comes to kill you, kill him first." The Torah and the prophets, Jewish law, rabbinic tales and Jewish thought all treat war as a struggle between two peoples, not between two individuals who happen to have guns...

And in war as in war. Civilians get hurt in war – including women, children and the elderly. Only a population that forcibly vomits out terrorists from its midst, that waves a white flag, that expresses strong protest against being dragged into violent conflict – only such a population will be protected, according to any measure of Jewish morality.

7) Terrorists want Israel to kill civilians - Alan Dershowitz - Jerusalem Post

The increasing number of Palestinian civilian casualties unintentionally inflicted by Israel in its effort to stop rocket attacks against its own civilians reflects the success of the terrorists' policy.

The goal of Palestinian terrorism is to increase the number of civilian deaths on both sides... Every time the Israeli military accidentally kills a Palestinian civilian, the Palestinian terrorists win a propaganda and political victory...

What then should Israel do? It cannot simply tolerate the killing of its civilian population...

Despite the risks of increased terrorism, every effort should be made to pursue the possibility of a two-state solution... If a negotiated two-state solution isn't possible with Hamas calling the shots, then Israel should go forward with the plan for unilateral withdrawal behind the security barrier.

It's amazing that even the smartest of individuals can be so clueless. Dershowitz recognizes that the Hamas led "Palestinian Authority" is committed to wiping out the Jewish State, but even so, he won't give up his dream of an Israel and "Palestine" living side by side, even if it comes at the price of expelling tens of thousands of Jews and endangering the very existence of the Jewish State.

Misc.

8) The Israel no one sees - Dr. Eugene Narrett - World Net Daily

The land is astonishingly beautiful, with a uniquely stark, colorful, eye-arresting mix of hills, ridges, winding valleys and stream beds. And, yes, wherever Jews have settled and worked the land it is green, from the tomato, mango, date palm and orange plantings in the sun-baked Dead Sea valley, to the wheat fields, vineyards, herbs and flowers of the Negev, to the olive, fig and almond orchards of the Golan and Samaria. Perhaps this is what the powers of the world don't want people to see: that the promises of the Creator are real; that His covenant is real and everlasting.

Here in the Jewish towns, vineyards, farms and orchards of Samaria are the true beautiful people so much sought since those times: balanced, simple, quietly glad. They know who they are; they know what they are doing and that it's right. They live free, simply and with faith. They have a lot to offer the world, though they would never say so and probably don't think about it.

A must read article.

9) Our World: Israel's rude awakening - Caroline Glick - Jerusalem Post

...Then there is the doctrine of the security fence. Olmert and his colleagues are big proponents of replacing defensive strategies with slogans and one of their favorite ones is "We'll be here and they will be there." Israel will build a fence and we'll never have to deal with the Palestinians again. But then those mean old Palestinians showed us on Sunday that they can dig beneath our fence. They show us daily that they can launch missiles and rockets and mortars above the fence. They can build ladders to climb over the fence. And of course, they can simply subcontract their killing to their collaborators on our side of the fence...

Caroline Glick shatters many of the myths of the Israeli left.

10) The Region: A review that speaks volumes - Barry Rubin - Jerusalem Post

In a shocking anti-Israel diatribe, the New York Times correspondent in Jerusalem has revealed both his profound personal bias and basic acceptance of Hamas's political claims.

Par for the course when it comes to coverage of Israel by "The Paper of Record" - the New York Times.

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