The New York Times reports today on efforts by Hamas in Gaza to marry off women affiliated with the terrorist movement–preferably to the men employed as rocket launchers or smugglers.  The article goes on to say that Hamas provides each couple with a cash gift to help encourage further marriages.  Of course, the goal of this matchmaking activity is to bring into the world children who will carry on the single-minded goal of fighting Israel.  Or, in the case of one couple, to engage in a joint suicide bombing.  While Israel herself has been working for peace, it’s clear that her enemies have their focus elsewhere.

The Hamas regime in Gaza has come up with another tool to spread its ideology: A video web-sharing service for waging a terror war.  Entitled AqsaTube (clearly inspired by YouTube), the videos promoted terrorists and the idea of global jihad.  Amir Mizroch, editor of the Jerusalem Post, writes in his blog Forecast Highs of the efforts to combat the website and the ideology it espouses.  The challenges he mentions represent the newest face of the efforts to curtail the spread of this insidious ideology.

Last week, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ron Prosor, published an op-ed in the Guardian calling for an honest discussion of the situation in Gaza. In contrast to those challenging Israel’s policies regarding Hamas, Prosor argues that Hamas is a danger not only to Israel but also to its own people. Hamas has retained its hold on power by eliminating rights to speech and expression and by misappropriating the very aid–supplied by Israel–meant to help the Palestinian people. The Western world, he writes, would do well to take Hamas and its threats to its neighbors at face value.

Showboating over Gaza
Israel last Saturday permitted two boats of protesters to land on the shores of Gaza. This disappointed the more aggressive agitators in the party, as they hankered for a confrontation with the Israeli navy that never came. Yvonne Ridley, on board making a documentary for an Iranian state-funded broadcaster, must have been particularly frustrated.
Having thoroughly assessed the security risks, Israel granted the ships safe passage. The protesters came ashore with enough hot air to fill the 5,000 balloons they’d brought for the children of Gaza. They also delivered 200 hearing aids. Yet their silence regarding Hamas’s abuse of its own people, let alone Israeli civilians, has been deafening.

In this unprecedented internet address, Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, addresses the Iranian people directly. The video, in English with Arabic and Farsi subtitles, expresses goodwill and friendship towards the Iranian people while emphasizign the serious problems with the government in Tehran.
For more information, see Jerusalem Online.

For a broader look at what Israel’s 60th birthday signifies, have a look at this NYPost section made specially for the occasion.  With articles on history, democracy, and technology–and more!–we’re reminded how much Israel really has done in just a short time.

Check out this video for a rare look inside the Israel Air Force (IAF) and learn about its role in defending Israel from neighboring terrorists and nuclear threats.

Just as we saw in January, Hamas is artificially producing a situation in Gaza that hurts its own civilians in order to put pressure on Israel.  The following is an official report from the Coordination and Liaison Administration, which is in charge of the crossings from Gaza into Israel:

The Hamas organization is staging a situation of crisis and distress, and harming the civilian population in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to divert pressure onto Israel.
Colonel Nir Press, Head of the Coordination and Liaison Administration: “The State of Israel has permitted the steady and continuous flow of fuel into the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.”

2,200,000 liters of diesel fuel are transferred through the Nahal Oz fuel terminal to the Gaza Strip power plant weekly. This power plant is capable of supplying 30% of the total electricity requirements of the Gaza Strip. The remaining power needs are supplied by Israel and Egypt. In addition, unlimited quantities of cooking gas, 800,000 liters of diesel fuel for transportation and 75,000 liters of gasoline are transferred weekly.

Check out this YouTube video showing some of Livni’s speech in Boston to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. She addresses many of the most important issues, like Israel’s commitment to peace and to combating terrorism.

On Feb. 28, Israeli and American celebrities rallied at a benefit concert in Los Angeles for the rocket-weary citizens of Sderot. We heard from A-listers including Sylvester Stallone, Jon Voight and Valerie Harper, as well as comedian Larry Miller and Israeli singer Ninet Tayeb, plus special video messages from our Presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. Teenagers from Sderot were flown over for the concert in a bid to highlight the daily suffering that Gaza militants cause through Qassam attacks on the Negev town.

From today’s Journal:

The Israeli Lesson
February 5, 2008; Page A16
The news about yesterday’s suicide bombing in the Israeli town of Dimona is that it’s news. In 2002, at the height of the second intifada, 451 Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks, including 14 suicide bombings. By contrast, yesterday’s attack, which killed one and injured 11, was the first of its kind in more than a year.

This didn’t happen by accident, or because Palestinian radicals have somehow become less hostile to Israel. Responsibility for yesterday’s attack was claimed by the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, which is affiliated with President Mahmoud Abbas’s ostensibly moderate Fatah party. Islamist Hamas remains even more ardently dedicated to Israel’s destruction, a point it emphasizes with its rocket barrages at southern Israeli cities close to the Gaza Strip.

Instead, the difference has come because of Israel’s increasingly successful antiterrorist efforts. Key to that success has been the construction of its ostensibly “illegal” security fence, its equally “illegal” targeted assassinations of key terrorist leaders, its “disproportional” attacks on terrorist enclaves in Jenin and elsewhere, and other actions that saved innocent lives but which much of the international community deplored.

One of the most common arguments against Israel’s actions is that it would feed a “cycle of violence.” It’s fair to say that what happened is closer to the opposite. As Israel put pressure on terrorist leaders, they were forced to spend their time running for their lives rather than planning the next attack. As Israel set up physical obstacles to terrorism, the need for large-scale military incursions declined, allowing a semblance of normal life to return for Israelis as well as Palestinians. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Israel proved that terrorists can be defeated — a lesson that applies equally in Iraq.

See all of today’s editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on The Editorial Page.