Charles Krauthammer tells it like it is. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/15/AR2006061501794.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

 ...But the obvious question not being asked is this: Who is to blame if Palestinians are setting up rocket launchers to attack Israel -- and placing them 400 yards from a beach crowded with Palestinian families on the Muslim Sabbath? Answer: This is another example of the Palestinians' classic and cowardly human-shield tactic -- attacking innocent Israeli civilians while hiding behind innocent Palestinian civilians. For Palestinian terrorists -- and the Palestinian governments (both Fatah and Hamas) that allow them to operate unmolested -- it's a win-win: If their rockets aimed into Israeli towns kill innocent Jews, no one abroad notices and it's another success in the terrorist war against Israel. And if Israel's preventive and deterrent attacks on those rocket bases inadvertently kill Palestinian civilians, the iconic "Israeli massacre" picture makes the front page of the New York Times, and the Palestinians win the propaganda war. But there is an even larger question not asked. Whether the rocket bases are near civilian beaches or in remote areas, why are the Gazans launching any rockets at Israel in the first place -- about 1,000 in the past year? To get Israel to remove its settlers, end the occupation and let the Palestinians achieve dignity and independence? But Israel did exactly that in Gaza last year. It completely evacuated Gaza, dismantled all its military installations, removed its soldiers, destroyed all Israeli settlements and expelled all 7,000 Israeli settlers. Israel then declared the line that separates Israel from Gaza to be an international frontier. Gaza became the first independent Palestinian territory ever. And what have the Palestinians done with this independence, this judenrein territory under the Palestinians' control? They have used their freedom to launch rockets at civilians in nearby Israeli towns. Why? Because the Palestinians prefer victimhood to statehood. They have demonstrated that for 60 years, beginning with their rejection of the United Nations decision to establish a Palestinian state in 1947 because it would have also created a small Jewish state next door. They declared war instead.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\06\17\story_17-6-2006_pg1_3

 MUZAFFARGARH: A man accused of blasphemy was stabbed to death outside the Muzaffargarh district court on Friday. “A police team was taking blasphemy accused Abdul Sattar Gopang to the sessions court for a hearing when it was attacked by two men, Muhammad Imran and Muhammad Iqbal,” Acting District Police Officer Muhammad Zubair Dreshak said. Police have arrested the assailants. Gopang, a toll tax contractor, had been accused of making “blasphemous remarks” against God and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?section=subcontinent&xfile=data/subcontinent/2006/june/subcontinent_june571.xml

 MULTAN, Pakistan - A frenzied mob beat a teacher to death when he tried to help a Muslim cleric in a row over the alleged desecration of the Quran, a local police chief said on Friday. The prayer leader was attacked by more than 1,000 people at Hasilpur town in central Punjab province after claims that he burned pages from an old copy of the holy book near a drain, Nasir Sayal told AFP. “A retired school teacher came in and tried to save the cleric but he was also severely beaten by the mob and later died in hospital,” he said.

Militants hack off noses, tongues in Indian Kashmir

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DEL211295.htm

Given the ensuing anarchy and chaos, ironically if Israel still had control in Gaza, those that were killed on the beach would still be alive because terrorists would not have the freedom to launch rockets and plant mines. The fact is under Israeli control both the palestinians and Israelis would be alot safer. The palestinian population is endangered by their own terrorist thugs who rule them, use them as human shields, and indoctrinate their children to hatred and martyrdom. Also we never hear the moonbat left regarding the bombardment of rockets Israelis are facing on a daily basis. They don't seem to have a problem with Israelis being killed, or palestinians being killed by their own.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12611&print=yes

EXCERPTS: Sderot, Israel His city deluged by a shower of 80 Kassam rockets a month, Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal declared Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip last year a failure. Since April 2001, some 3,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel, most of them at Sderot, killing five residents. The attacks have ravaged the town’s economy, and started the trickle of an exodus. More residents would probably leave, say locals, if they could afford it. “This fell next to my house,” he said. “We are suffering on a daily basis. The life in Sderot is not normal.” Ask the children of Sderot what most scares them and the reply is often two words: “shachar adom,” Hebrew for red dawn, the name of the sirens that often sound throughout the city several times a night to warn of incoming Kassams. That gives residents just 15 seconds to take some sort of cover.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12611&print=yes

EXCPERTS:

According to the Israeli army, Qassams killed eight people within Israel between June 2004 and March 2006, including three children aged four or under. The heaviest bombardment came this May when 100 launches were recorded by the Israelis - but 98 attacks have already been registered this month.

http://www.honestreporting.ca/English/12241guessingaza.html

EXCPERTS:

58 years after achieving independence, Israel remains the target of deadly Arab attacks in the form of shootings, stabbings, suicide bombings and rocket attacks. Since 2001, about 5,000 Palestinian rockets have landed on Israel, terrifying local populations, threatening infrastructure and causing property damage. And a special BBC report entitled "Gaza's rocket threat to Israel" notes that "According to the Israeli army, Qassams killed eight people within Israel between June 2004 and March 2006, including three children aged four or under." Since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, Palestinians have escalated the threat by firing Katyushas -- military-grade missiles that have greater accuracy, range and firepower -- and firing from even closer proximity to Israel than they previously could. Israel continues to be pounded by missiles -- over 100 since the weekend, wounding at least two Israelis and causing damage to a number of buildings. Making matters worse, Palestinian rocket crews typically fire at Israel from populated civilian areas. This cynical exploitation of civilians as a shield against Israeli countermeasures creates a tragic situation in which civilians are bound to get hurt.

Everyone was so quick to blame Israel without a shred of evidence that it was responsible for the deaths on the Gaza beach. Evidence emerges, however, that hamas or some other palestinian terrorist entity was responsible, and subsequently those deaths were exploited by the palestinians and western leftist useful idiots, for propaganda purposes. I don't expect this matters at all to most of the far left ideologues in this crowd, but perhaps there just may be some open-minded people who are willing to consider facts and evidence.

http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Gaza_Beach_Libel.asp

EXCERPTS:

1) Shrapnel removed from two of the wounded Palestinians evacuated to Israeli hospitals was not from Israeli-made ordinance. 2) No large crater was evident on the beach as would be expected from the impact of an artillery shell landing from above. The blast site would suggest the likelihood of a mine exploding from below the sand rather than above. 3) The IDF fired six shells towards the Gaza area, one of which remained unaccounted for. All of the shells were fired, however, more than 10 minutes before the blast that killed the Palestinians.

 1) Palestinian Television broadcast doctored scenes showing file footage of Israeli naval vessels shelling Gaza, interspersed with video of the beach victims, despite the fact that the Israeli Navy was not responsible for any shelling at the time. Click here to see the footage courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch.

2) Suspicions were initially raised by the Palestinian refusal to cooperate with Israeli investigators and the remarkably swift cleansing of evidence from the blast scene by Hamas gunmen who arrived shortly after the incident. Palestinian spokespeople usually display parts of Israeli shells to the international media - but not this time. 3) Israeli intelligence suggests that Hamas had mined the beach area in order to prevent Israeli naval commandos from landing there as part of anti-terror operations to prevent Qassam missile launches.

The fact is those who we now refer to as "palestinians" never had any claims to the land of Israel. Here is an article on the modern history of palestine.

http://americandaily.com/article/13952

...EXCERPTS:It’s useful to recall how those Auschwitz lines Abbas refers to came to be.

Having rejected the 1947 partition plan for the remaining 20% of the Mandate left after Arabs already received the bulk of “Palestine” in 1922 with the creation of Transjordan, a half dozen Arab states--armed to the teeth with weapons left over by the Allies in World War II and even led, in Transjordan, by British officers--then attacked a reborn Israel in 1948. This attack and rejection of the partition (at the same time that a predominantly Hindu India and a Muslim Pakistan were being created for similar reasons) created a refugee problem that the whole world has become quite familiar with…that of Arab refugees.

...Now, about those Arab refugees…

When the United Nations Relief Works Agency--UNRWA--was set up to assist Arab refugees created as a result of the Arab attempt on Israel’s life which backfired, the very word refugee had to be redefined to assist those people.

So many Arabs were recent arrivals into the Palestine Mandate themselves that UNRWA had to adjust the very definition of "refugee" from its prior meaning of persons normally and traditionally resident to those who lived in the Mandate for a minimum of only two years prior to 1948...Please read that last line again.

Recall that there were hundreds of millions of people who became refugees all over the world during the last few violent centuries. And, even more to the point, for every Arab who was forced to flee the fighting that Arabs started (after all, how dare Jews want in one tiny, resurrected state what Arabs demand for themselves in some two dozen others), a Jewish refugee was forced to flee “Arab”/Muslim lands into Israel and elsewhere...but with no UNRWA set up to assist them.

...Scores of thousands of other Arabs came from Egypt earlier in the latter 19th century with Muhammad Ali and son's Ibrahim Pasha's armies and, like Arafat a bit later, settled in "Palestine." Please refer to this url in Pakistan Today for the derivation of this name http://www.paktoday.com/honig16.htm.

During the mandatory period after World War I, the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission recorded additional scores of thousands of Egyptian, Syrian, and other Arabs entering into Palestine and settling there.

...So, many of the villages set up in the "West Bank" and elsewhere were settlements established by Arab settlers. Read that last sentence again also…

There were Jews whose families never left Israel/Judaea/Palestine over the centuries, despite the tragedies of two, well-documented major wars for their freedom and independence with Rome, forced conversions of the Byzantines, the Diaspora, Crusades, and other nightmares.

So, why is it supposedly now acceptable for Arabs from surrounding lands to settle in Palestine, but not for Israel's Jews, half of whom were refugees themselves from Arab/Muslim lands…the other side of the refugee coin nobody talks about.

Jews owned land and lived in Judea (Judean=Jew) and Samaria until they were massacred by Arabs in the 1920s and 1930s. And that brings me back to the issue of the ‘49 Auschwitz/armistice lines…

...

Despite Abbas' fantasies, Arabs certainly did not exclusively own this land, and when Transjordan grabbed it in the 1948 fighting, it was an illegal occupier (indeed, at the time, only two states recognized its land grab). Keep all of this in mind when you hear Abbas proclaim that Israel must withdraw from every inch of “Arab” land.

As a result of that 1948 land grab, “Trans“ (across ) was dropped from the name of the Arab state which thus came to exist on both banks of the Jordan River (80% of “Palestine”), and Jordan saw to it that Jews were ousted from these lands. At the same time, more Arabs poured in.

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=470

EXCERPT: The NUS and universities have condemned such extremism, but often they have acted only after repeated pleas. The Union of Jewish Students is critical of the example some academics have set, citing Andrew Wilkie, professor of pathology at Oxford University, who refused to supervise an Israeli student for a PhD, and Mona Baker, a translation expert at what was then the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, who purged Israeli Jews from her journal. The UJS complains that "radical and violent groups on campus have been emboldened by perceived support from their surroundings". This support ranges from the endorsement of murderous attacks on Jews to double standards that suggest Jewish sensitivities matter less. For example, Ted Honderich, professor emeritus at University College London, deems the massacre of Israeli civilians by Palestinian suicide bombers "a paradigm case of terrorism for humanity" while asserting that "9/11 was wrong". UK universities have hosted meetings at which Azzam Tamimi, a leading member of the Muslim Association of Britain, has extolled the killing of Jews in Israel.