How Fast Can You Run In 10 Seconds?

From the news media:

Item One: Two Israeli schoolchildren , both aged 14, were seriously injured on their way home from a study session by Kassam rockets launched (again) into Sderot from the Gaza Strip. This follows 56 other rocket attacks launched by Gazans since the "cease-fire" went into effect near the end of November.

One writer on the scene described this latest attack and it's aftermath. The two children were running for cover as soon as the sirens sounded. They didn't make it to cover. The siren gives about 10 seconds warning before the rockets hit.

Afik Zahavi, aged 4, killed June 28, 2004 by a Kassam rocket near his nursery school. The boy's mother, Ruth, was taking him to the Lilach nursery school when the rocket hit, critically wounding her. Ten other Sderot residents were lightly hurt.




Item Two: Palestinians warned Wednesday that Israel's decision to target Kassam cells in the Gaza Strip will lead to the total collapse of the current cease-fire.

WHAT "cease-fire"? The American Heritage Dictionary provides the following definitions of the word "cease-fire":

(1) An order to stop firing.
(2) Suspension of active hostilities; a truce.

When over 60 rockets are launched at a civilian town within the borders of Israel, it's hard to fathom the diplo-speak that calls this a "cease-fire." For the Palestinians to then go on record and warn that any retaliation by the IDF will lead to the "total collapse" of this putative cease-fire is laughable. Let's get this right -- we withdraw from Gaza, you respond by shooting rockets at our towns, routinely maiming and killing civilians, among them children; you kill several soldiers and kidnap one wounded soldier from within Israel; we send in our military to hunt for our soldier and take out your rocket launchers and the men who fire those rockets; you propose a cease-fire about 24 hours before the IDF is going to launch a full invasion of Gaza, which our idiot prime minister agrees to; you use that cease-fire to flood Gaza with more sophisticated weapons and continue firing at our towns.

This is NOT anyone's idea of a "cease-fire" and Olmert should be run out of town on a rail for pretending it is one.

Yuval Abebeh, aged 4, killed in Sderot by a Kassam rocket on September 29, 2004, as he and his cousin Dori played beneath an olive tree during a visit to their grandmother's home.






And the Palestinians have the absolute chutzpah to tell us off for announcing that in the future we will retaliate?

Item Three: Islamic Jihad, in the same story, announced that it will continue its rocket attacks on Israeli towns as it doesn't recognize the cease-fire. Al Aksa Brigades chimed in with "me, too" stating that they will resume their attacks if Israel tries to use military force to stop the Kassam launches.

In other words, if Israel takes any military action to defend itself in the face of ceaseless rocket attacks against its civilian population, then the Palestinians claim WE are in breach of the cease-fire-that-isn't. Go figure.

Dorit Benisian was killed in the same Kassam attack that killed her cousin, Yuval. She was only two years old. Her family described her as the youngest of six children, always happy, always smiling. She liked to dance and sing, and to play ball. Her family said she was mature for her age, and shared her toys and candies with her older brothers and sisters.



Peace plans don't work with people who don't want peace. Dismantling settlements has done nothing for peace and only brought the rocket launchers closer to the borders. The Palestinians have cried for years that they suffer from "collective punishment" because of house demolitions and checkpoints and road closures.

The world has paid so much attention to this calumny that it has failed to notice that Israel has suffered from collective punishment for 58 years; Israelis have been killed by snipers on their own roads; their buses have been shot up; their children have burned to death on bombed buses and in bombed pizza parlors; Israelis stand in the same security lines and go through the same searches as Palestinians because anyone entering a building must be checked for a bomb or weapon. Palestinians complain about the security fence, crying that it keeps them from finding work in Israel. (It also keeps suicide bombers out and the auto theft rate has plummeted).Well, Israelis can't travel across the border in the other direction either--when was the last time an Israeli had a job offer in Ramallah or Amman?

Note to the Palestinians: quit trying to kill us, conquer us, terrorize us, invade us; quit massacring our children and old people; quit launching rockets and suicide bombers at us. We're here to stay. The United Nations created two lands, and we're entitled to ours and intend to keep it. The Arab world's 58-year-old collective temper tantrum over the creation of a Jewish democracy in its midst is itself state-funded "collective punishment" -- Israel is to be punished with unceasing terror for simply existing.

Photos and notations courtesy of Gamla