Palestinian rocket kills Israeli woman

Shuli Katz, 70, of Kibbutz Gvaram, was killed Monday (12th) by a Palestinian Grad-type Katyusha rocket while she was visiting Moshav Yesha about 9 miles east of Gaza, near the Negev town of Ofakim.  She was getting out of the car when a rocket landed three feet from her, killing her.  Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack.

Shuli Katz’s funeral will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday (13th) in the Kibbutz Gvaram Clubhouse where she lived.  She will be buried in the kibbutz cemetery.

(Ynet, 5/13)

Israel asks the UN Security Council to condemn rocket attacks

Israel’s UN mission submitted a complaint Monday (12th) to the Security Council over Kassam attacks from Gaza, hours after Shuli Katz was killed by a Palestinian rocket.  Israel asked the UN to condemn Palestinian terror as well as those countries providing assistance to terror organizations.  It is the second such complaint filed by Israel in as many days.

(JP, 5/13)

Two rockets explode in Ashkelon

Two rockets were fired late Tuesday morning (13th) from Gaza at the Hof Ashkelon area in Israel.  A number of people were treated for shock by first aid workers, but no serious injuries were reported.

(REKA, News, 5/13)

IDF attacks Kassam launchers in Gaza – Hamas operative killed

A Hamas operative was killed in an IDF strike in central Gaza Tuesday (13th).  According to the IDF, forces targeted a cell of Kassam launchers.  Palestinian sources said the launch-members hit belonged to the Izz al-Din al-Qassam, Hamas’ military wing.

(Ynet, 5/13)

Hizbullah capture of Lebanese Mountain village seen as threat to Israel

Hizbullah Monday (12th) took control of the Druze village of Niha in the Chouf Mountains, 25 miles south of Beirut, after fierce fighting.  Analysts said the village provides Hizbullah with a crucial supply route between its stronghold in the eastern Bek Valley and the coastal highway that leads to Hizbullah’s bases in Beirut’s southern suburbs.  Hizbullah will very soon spread all over,” said Ahmad Moussali, a professor at the American University in Beirut.

(Guardian – UK, 5/13)

Bush calls Iran “single greatest threat” to Middle East peace

President Bush on Monday (12th) called Iran the “single biggest threat” to peace in the Middle East because of its nuclear program and its support for groups like the Lebanese Hizbullah militia.

(AFP, 5/13)

Lebanon Turns into Iranian Colony – Alex Fishman

The events in Lebanon are a painful reminder that in a year Iran will be officially situated on Israel’s northern border.  Barring any surprises, in the next parliamentary elections Lebanon will fall into the hands of Hizbullah and turn into an Iranian colony.  Hizbullah’s siege on government offices was meant to remind everyone who the master of the house is.

An Iranian base in Lebanon is a base for eliminating the State of Israel.  We should keep in mind that Israel’s ability to take care of this base while Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons is completely different from the abilities we shall have once Iran does possess nukes.  Therefore, the question is not whether we should be taking care of this problem, but rather, when.

(Ynet, 5/13)

Countering Iran – Reuel Marc Gerecht

Iran is on a roll and its development of a nuclear weapon progresses.  Anxiety in Tehran about the possibility of an American military strike against the regime’s nuclear facilities almost vanished in December with the publication of the National Intelligence Estimate, which incongruously asserted that Iran had stopped its quest for a bomb in 2003.  Spurred by its nuclear success against the Europeans and Americans, the clerical regime is causing trouble on the West Bank and in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq.  The Hamas-Hizbullah axis is a “dream come true” for Tehran.  They allow Iran’s rulers to be frontline combatants against the Jewish state.

(Weekly Standard, 5/13)

Why Israel is the World’s Happiest Country - Spengler

Envy surrounds no country on Earth like the State of Israel, and with good reason; by objective measures, Israel is the happiest nation on Earth.

It is one of the wealthiest, freest and best-educated; and it enjoys a higher life expectancy than Germany and the Netherlands.

But most remarkable is that Israelis appear to love life and hate death more than any other nation.

As a simple index of life-preference, I plotted the fertility rate versus the suicide rate of 35 industrial countries – that is, the proportion of people who choose life against the proportion who choose to destroy their own.  Israel stands alone at the top.

“As much as you love life, we love death,” Muslim clerics teach; the same formula is found in a Palestinian textbook for second graders.

Apart from the fact that the Arabs are the least free, least educated, and (apart from the oil states) poorest peoples in the world, they also are the unhappiest even in their wealthiest kingdoms.  Oil-rich Saudi Arabia ranks 171st on an international quality of life index, below Rwanda.

The contrast of Israeli happiness and Arab despondency is what makes peace an elusive goal in the region.

(Asia Times – Hong Kong, 5/13)

Israel’s Right to a State – Jeff Jacoby

• It is not unheard of for a nation to vanish from the map and later reappear.  Poland, for example, was partitioned out of existence in 1795 and regained its independence in 1918, but the restoration of Israel was unlike anything the world had ever seen.
• Through all the generations of dispersion that followed, the Jews never lost their self-awareness as a nation or their connection to the Land of Israel.  By the 1860s, a majority of Jerusalem’s population was Jewish once more.  Zionism – an organized movement to renew Jewish Independence in the Jewish homeland – was formally launched in 1897.  Five decades later, against steep odds and every historic precedent, Israel was reborn.
• Under siege since the day it was born, Israel has never known a day of true peace.  It is the only nation in the world whose legitimacy is routinely called into question.  It still has enemies who want it wiped off the map.  Uniquely, the Jewish state came into being with the imprimatur of both the League of Nations and the United Nations.  Few nations can present a birth certificate as storied as Israel’s.
• Ultimately, the right of statehood accrues only to those who can fashion and sustain a nation.  “Why does the United States belong to Americans?” Yale’s David Delernter wrote in 2002.  “Because we built it.  We conceived the idea and put it into practice bit by bit.”
• For the same reason, the Land of Israel belongs to Israelis: “Because Israelis conceived and built it – and what you create is yours.  If you want a homeland, you must create one.  You drain swamps, lay out farms, build houses, schools, roads, hospitals.”  “That’s how American got its homeland, and that is why Israel belongs to the Israelis.”

(Boston Globe, 5/13)