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The world must be wondering, 17 days into Operation Cast Lead, why it is taking so long for Jerusalem to cave into pressure for a cease-fire in Gaza. From the UN Security Council, that renowned bastion of international probity, and the constellation of Muslim, Arab and non-aligned states to our unwavering European allies, the international community - and much of the media - wants Israel to stop fighting. Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Gabriela Shalev and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a Security Council meeting about the situation in Gaza, UN headquarters in New York, Tuesday. Photo:...

Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday. The official told The Jerusalem Post by phone that two senior Iranian officials who visited Damascus recently warned Hamas leaders against accepting the proposal.

The war of aggression waged by Hamas, against which Israel has commenced a robust response, must not be seen in a vacuum. Hamas is an agent of radical Islam's revolutionary jihad. Israel, the "little Satan," is a proxy of Western modernity. The conflict in Gaza is merely the latest round: a continuation of the war which flared up during the summer of 2006 and which rages still in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and other theaters. So what can the big Satan do to help? Obviously, we are not going to contribute military force. We already subsidize Israel's defense, and,...

Israel’s Worst Fears Its U.S. ambassador says the big threat is that Iran has almost enough fuel for its first nuclear weapon. NEWSWEEK Jan 12, 2009 Sallai Meridor has been Israel's ambassador to the United States since 2006. During that time, his government's main strategic worry has been Iran, and that remains so today despite the fighting in Gaza. Israel warns that Iran is making rapid progress toward a nuclear bomb—Meridor calculates that Tehran should have enough fuel for its first bomb sometime in 2009—and that Israel will take military action unless the United States and other allies step in.

Good evening!We're down to the last few days of the Bush Presidency. Who among us doesn't have some concern about our nation's security in the months ahead? And will those who criticized the President so constantly on this front not come to recognize the margin of safety he gave us?Israel continues to destroy Hamas terrorist sites and agents in Gaza,sadly, much to the world's apparent dismay and loathing.

Israel's continued offensive in Gaza - now in its third week - is drawing many Palestinians in the West Bank to support Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza. They accuse the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of not doing enough to defend the Palestinians of Gaza.

Prague - Twenty years following the fall of communism the Czech Republic is at EU's helm. But so far the EU member states have failed to agree on the form of the EU constitution. Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, the head of the Czech Roman Catholic Church, is adamant that behind the failure to adopt the euro-treaty is the absence of what Europe feels natural about - Christian values. "When the Irish said No to the Lisbon Treaty, they said it because the European Union and Lisbon Treaty have dropped the Christian roots," said Cardinal Vlk in an interview for Aktuálně.cz. Cardinal...

Mideast: Proponents of a French-Egyptian plan for a cease-fire in Gaza say it might stop the fighting. But for any chance at peace, Hamas must be defeated decisively.The idea behind French President Nicholas Sarkozy's plan was to call an immediate cease-fire to permit humanitarian aid into Gaza — which Israel did — then to hold urgent talks to stop the violence. Israel, with reservations, agreed; Hamas, however, rejected the idea. Don't worry. Israel will get blamed. Watching the world's reaction as a small nation surrounded by enemies defends itself from attack is a sickening thing. Along with celebrity Israel-haters such...

From The Times Israel acts because the world won't defend it The scenes from Gaza are heartbreaking. But the whole conflict could be avoided if the Palestinians said one small thingDaniel Finkelstein It was strictly forbidden to have a notebook in Belsen, but my Aunt Ruth had one anyway. Just a little pocket diary - an appointment book with one of those tiny pencils. And in it, in the autumn of 1944, she noted that Anne Frank and Anne's sister, Ruth's schoolfriend Margot, had arrived in the concentration camp. My mother and my aunt had been watching through the camp...

A Prophecy Fulfilled Fr. Stanislas de Lestapis, a French Jesuit, died in 1999 at the age of 94. He had been a member of the Papal Commission on Birth Control and was one of the signatories of its so-called Minority Report. He had published a book on Birth Control, of which the third edition appeared in 1962, long before Humanae Vitae (1968). In Chapter 7, on The Contraceptive Civilization, he made the following bold prophecies: 'We do not hesitate to say that the acceptance of contraception will produce profound changes in our civilization. These changes are already taking place in...

The Israeli war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza begs the question: what should a sovereign state do in response to terrorists? Well, we could listen to anti-Israel words. Or we could listen to deeds. For example, we could look at how Russia dealt with its Islamist threat in Grozny. In the mid-nineties, Russia basically shelled the city until it turned to rubble -- killing 27,000 Chechens. Oh -- and that was just one of three Russian attacks on the city. You can tool around on Google maps, satellite view, and still see flattened areas of the city. I'm sure the...

Israeli tanks and infantry battalions swept up to the edges of Gaza City yesterday, battling Hamas fighters and sealing off the bomb-scarred capital city from the rest of the coastal territory. With the civilian death toll rising by the hour and diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting making no headway, the head of the UN refugee agency called the situation a catastrophe. Israel made clear that it was not about to heed calls for a swift ceasefire. It insisted that it needed to smash Hamas and destroy its weapons stockpile to ensure a lasting peace not just for its citizens,...

What's unfortunate about the world-wide condemnation of Israel for invading Gaza is that there was so little condemnation of Hamas during its years of firing rockets into Israel. Had international outrage been directed at Hamas provocations, it might have dissuaded Hamas from thinking it was invulnerable to Israel's displeasure. It was the thousands of rockets fired indiscriminately at civilian targets in Israel over the years -- intensified since mid-December when the Egyptian-brokered six month ceasefire was terminated by Hamas -- that led to the air attacks and now land invasion by Israel. Despite urgings by the Pope, the UN and...

Sunday Jan 04, 2009 Rosner's Domain: Republicans support Gaza op, Democrats much less so Posted by SHMUEL ROSNER Comments: 54 Updated!!! Election 2009: Rosner's Poll Trend Rasmussen polled Americans on the Gaza War and found this: Forty-four percent (44%) say Israel should have taken military action against the Palestinians, but 41% say it should have tried to find a diplomatic solution to the problems there, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided. This striking split might be explained in terms of two factors. First: for America, this is the era of diplomacy. Obama...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke Sunday with the Quartet's Middle East envoy Tony Blair, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in view of the international community's efforts to achieve an armistice in the Gaza Strip. The Prime Minister's Office said that Olmert presented the three with Israel's demands for a truce: The end of all projectile fire on Israel, the end of all terror acts, international monitoring of Gaza and the complete disarmament of Hamas. Olmert stressed that Israel will continue its operation in Gaza until its conditions are met.

President George W Bush, in his last fortnight in office, is providing Israel with the diplomatic support the country needs to continue its offensive in the Gaza Strip. Late on Saturday, America prevented the United Nations Security Council from passing a statement urging an immediate ceasefire on both sides and expressing deep concern at the escalation of violence between Israel and Hamas. Britain has moved away from America and joined the consensus of European governments, who favour a ceasefire. Deprived of Britain's support, America was isolated on the 15-member Council. Alejandro Wolff, the deputy US Ambassador at the UN, said...

Israel's attempt to wipe out Hamas is understandable, but stupid. No country in the world is going to ignore the provocation of rockets being launched from neighbouring territory day after day. If Mexico had a group of anti-imperialists bombing Texas, imagine how long it would take for America to mobilise a counterattack. Israel has every right to respond. But the kind of response matters. Killing 500 Palestinians and wounding 2,000 others (at the time of writing) is disproportionate. Hamas can harass, but it cannot pose any threat to the existence of Israel. And just as Hamas's indiscriminate bombing of population...

For pacifists who believe that all wars are immoral, Israel's self-defense operation against Hamas in Gaza is necessarily wrong. To such people we invoke the 18th-century philosopher Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Confronted by a movement that amalgamates fascism with religious extremism and a genocidal platform, our moral imperative demands Jewish self-defense. Few of the voices slamming Israel for conducting an "immoral" war in Gaza are those of pacifists. Take Riyad Mansour, Mahmoud Abbas's man at the UN. He claimed on CNN that "3,000 Palestinians had been killed...

You know you are biased when the NY Times coverage is compared favorably to yours. But such is the case of the LA Times, the Newspaper made famous during the campaign for protecting Barack Obama's anti-Israel feelings. Now the newspaper is protecting terrorist Nizar Rayan and the people who were killed with him at the expense of the truth. LA Times reporter/propagandists Ashraf Khalid wrote about the targeted killing of the terrorist and neglected to mention a few salient facts, such as Israel warned people to get out of the house and the basment of the residence contained a Hamas...

A week of aerial bombardment of Gaza left no doubt about Israel's ability to inflict serious physical damage to the Hamas leadership and its arsenals of weaponry. On Thursday, militant Hamas leader Nizar Rayan - who reportedly once sent his own son on a suicide mission that left two Israelis dead - was killed when a one-ton bomb crashed into his home, also claiming the lives of four of his wives and 11 of his children. On Friday, Israel bombed the homes of a dozen more Hamas operatives and leveled a mosque that was believed to be a weapons storage...