From the Jerusalem Post:

"Hundreds of terrorists have been killed and weapons and ammunition stocks have been destroyed, along with tunnels and rocket manufacturing facilities," Military Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin told the cabinet.

"The Hamas government isn’t functioning, and the group’s leaders aren’t serving the citizens but themselves alone. There is much criticism of Hamas amongst Palestinians for bringing on this situation," Yadlin said.

The MI chief also noted that throughout the operation, Hamas has continued to use citizens as human shields.

Yuval Diskin, head of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), assessed that Hamas leaders were now less determined to continue fighting, and that there were senior leaders among them who support moving towards a cease-fire. 

 From ICJS (Issues of Concern for Justice & Society), Australia, an article by Farid Ghadry, President of the Reform Party of Syria: 

During this Israeli campaign to silence the terror of Hamas, one can discern two voices coming out of the Middle East against or in support of the Gaza operations.

The boisterous voices are those of Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah leader, who a few days ago, verbally attacked Egypt’s leadership for not standing by Gazans by opening the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt. The attack was unprecedented in scope and intensity because it just fell short of asking Egyptians to overthrow the rule of Mubarak. It did, however, heighten anger amongst the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt enough to incite them to rise against their own government.

Other noises come from Damascus and Iran, where the "resistance" has its center of gravity. Both Assad and Ahmadinejad know that a Hamas defeat is their defeat. Those two have incited the Arab street in a show of force and complicity with extremism. And while many believe the fate of Hamas parallels the fate of Hizbullah, reality is that short of a total defeat of Hamas, not to exclude regime change, Palestinians and Israelis will continue to suffer the consequences of an election that brought them more misery than they imagined on that fateful day: January 23, 2006.

On the other side, the majority of voices approving of the Israeli campaign are those who have remained quiet or convoluted in their objections. Many Arab leaders, intellectuals, businesspeople, and even commoners from Iraq to Lebanon, from Egypt to Morocco, from Bahrain to Yemen, believe that Hamas represents deformity of an Arab civilization, one that is in dire need of an overhaul by existing homegrown leadership in Palestine, Syria and Iran capable of that solemn responsibility.

Many ask why fellow Arabs would support the destruction of Hamas and Hizbullah. The answer is simple. Both organizations, in addition to the rule in Damascus and Iran, represent everything that is wrong in the Middle East today: Morally weak organizations or states seeking revenge, extolling resistance, and abetting violence against those who have surpassed us in knowledge and technology.

Hamas, Hizbullah must be destroyed … and the regimes in Damascus and Tehran must be changed for all Arabs and Farsi people to survive and prosper …

We Arabs must be the ones to stop Hamas and Hizbullah, rather than support their demonic and twisted logic of resisting development, enlightenment, and progress of the region. Even when development and enlightenment stare them in the face, their instinct is to destroy them pretending to safeguard their honor, the mechanics of which supersede all else including a happy life of fulfillment and accomplishments.

So while we abhor violence of all kind, Israel’s campaign against Hamas must continue to the bitter end not only for the sake of peace but also to help Arabs realize they have a choice: Destroy like Gaza or develop like Dubai. Will this happen soon? Maybe not, but if a wake-up call and a nudge, once in a while, to pierce through the fog of deceit perpetrated by Syria and Iran is what it takes to see the light, then we stand by the West and Israel in the only hope that an Arab Renaissance in the Levant may actually have a chance of resurrection.

 Victor Davis Hanson writes:

There is something especially nauseating about the latest Middle East war — scenes of worldwide Islamic protests with photos of Jews as apes, protesters (in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida of all places!) screaming about nuking Israel and putting Jews in ovens, parades of children dressed up with suicide vests and fake rockets, near constant anti-Semitic vicious sloganeering, Gaza mosques stuffed with rockets to be used against civilians — all to be collated with creepy Hamas rhetoric about the annihilation of Israel. This is the world in which we now live.

Almost no other issue in recent memory has illustrated the moral bankruptcy of much of the international community. Hamas has no pretensions, like the PA, of being a governing authority; it used violence to rout the PA and then bragged that its charter pledging the destruction of Israel remained unchanged. Israel evacuated Gaza; Gazans in response looted their own infrastructure, alienated both the PA and Egypt,and then sent off more than 6,000 rockets against Israeli civilians, while eagerly becoming a terrorist puppet of theocratic Iran.

Nothing could be more clear: either the fact that a constitutional republic was trying to avoid civilian casualties while a terrorist organization was intent on killing Jewish civilians as it used its own citizens as shields to protect mostly young male terrorists; or the world’s craven reaction to all this.

Again all very creepy — the stuff of Tolkien’s Mordor. It is now clear that the so-called and much praised "international community," the hallowed U.N., the revered EU, all pretty much are indifferent to the survival of a democratic Israel, or are actively supportive of its terrorist Hamas enemy. Only the U.S. (for now) stands by a constitutional state in its war against a murderous terrorist clique, with annihilation its aim and religious fascism its creed.

‘Only the US (for now) …’  President-elect Obama might change that. He keeps silent, aloof. But the moment is coming when he will have to make decisions at last. It will be as interesting to see that he can as to see what they will be. 

This is part of a report from Israel by Ari Bussel (read the whole Canada Free Press article here):

Israel is at war simultaneously in several fronts:  Hamas in Gaza; the Home Front in the ever-expanding radius around Gaza (currently 26 miles); the Fifth Column of Israeli Arabs, now acting like the Islamists in Europe; and the world public opinion in the Public Diplomacy Front.  In all fronts, the enemies are aided and abetted by Jews and Israelis.  In all fronts – we lose.

Hamas needs to do nothing more than continue what it does now with little or no effort:

· leisurely launching up to 100 rockets a day from a well protected cache; 
· produce cartoons and other programs for children in which hatred is preached; 
· showcase pictures of body parts, people alive and seemingly dead soaking in what looks like blood, at times bodies exhumed from graves; 
· and keep bombarding the world with fallacies, accusations and allegations that are more reminiscent of a thousand and one Arabian nights.

The world is fighting unabashedly on behalf of Hamas, with fierce determination.  Israeli Arabs are holding violent demonstrations, trying to excuse the ever increasing violence as the youthful indiscretions.  Israelis – a fringe of the political left – are doing all they can to destroy Israel from within.

Early this morning I took the bus to Sderot where I spent the day.  The feeling was of a deserted city of its regular inhabitants.  Young volunteers wearing white shirts distributing presents to the residents, female soldiers from the Home Front Command distributing Israeli flags, Fire and Rescue Service personnel, police, military, numerous others – none from Sderot.

Foreign journalists came in hoards as well, one even asking with some disgust:  Are we in any imminent danger?  “No,” I replied, we came shopping for Chala-bread for Shabbat.

The picture is surreal.  On the bus to Beer Sheva, I was the one passenger who went off in Sderot.  Other than one soldier and two others, the bus was empty.  The bus station made of cement, also acts as a shelter.  You start looking at these things, the next COLOR RED siren can be announced any second.  You have exactly 15 seconds to take cover.  In the city of Ashkelon 30 seconds, in the port city of Ashdod 45 seconds, in Beer Sheva 60 seconds.  Mal functions are possible, so never take a chance – it is a life and death situation.

Interestingly, I realize in retrospect that I have seen no children in Sderot today, only adults.  The locals have lived through this hell for eight years.  We come, take a glimpse into their lives, say how horrible it must be, take some pictures and we rush to leave as soon as the purpose for which we came had been accomplished.  Many come for photo-ops, others to interview a family whose house was hit, yet others to see what is Israel doing, not so much interested in the ongoing plight of the residents but how can they twist anything they see to Hamas’s advantage.

Earlier today Hamas came out in a statement to the foreign press that Israel is preventing the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza.  Over the last few days, Israel has transferred all aid sent by international organizations.  On Monday, 23 trucks with food, medicines and medical supplies were transferred via Kerem Shalom Crossing into Gaza.  On Tueday 63 trucks and five ambulances, on Wednesday 93 trucks and the same on Thursday. There is so much aid that the receiving organizations have declined any further aid at the moment – the warehouses are over flowing.

While we had to take cover, running to the nearest shelter, Gazans are given advance warning by the IDF.  Surrealism at its best.  The IDF gives ample opportunity to vacate buildings that are about to be hit.  A telephone call from the IDF is received telling one that the building will be hit in a few minutes since there is an explosive lab or an ammunition cache or a terrorist in hiding.  Sure enough, the building is bombarded and hit.  Where else does an army warn its enemy of an incoming strike to avoid any unnecessary innocent casualties?  Where else would human beings use hospitals and mosques as operation centers, hiding places, and warehouses for explosives, ammunition and advanced weaponry?

Many Gazans are indeed involuntary participants:  They do not agree with Hamas, yet if they object they will be shot as traitors and if they cooperate they become human shields.  Hamas wins either way – human life has no consequence to it – neither the lives of its enemy nor the lives of its own people.

The situation is reminiscent of a chess player playing solitarily.  All moves must be considered.  First one needs to take care of one’s own, then one needs to take care of the enemy, since the enemy does not care about its own (unless in their death, sorrow and misery they can be made to reflect badly on Israel).

Minister Avi Dichter stated: “All countries should open their eyes and see very carefully what is really happening.  If Israel will not block Hamas and Hizbollah who serve the interests of Iran, they will face a very tough problem in the years ahead.” He added, “Israel knows very well how to go forward with both air strikes and ground operations.”

Minister Dichter’s statement is not much different than Senator McCain’s:  Israel is the canary in the coal mine.

We went on a “hill” overlooking the area.  We saw the power plant in Ashkelon supplying some of the electricity to Gaza, a constant target of the racketeers (rocket-eers); the area that used to be green houses employing Arabs and exporting fruits, vegetables and flowers from the desert, now terrorist training camps and launching areas to rockets; a black and white kitten eating oblivious to anything happening around it; protection structures built around public schools now empty; houses which were once occupied and are now a mere shadow of yesteryears; and an inner strength of those of suffered for eight years but stayed and the urge to run away by those of us who only came to spend a few hours.

When one says “no sane country would have allowed it unto its citizens,” one must wonder how to make the world understand that Israel’s Operation Cast Lead is justified, is the only resort it was given, and must be continued to its conclusion. 

 Here is news worth  reporting because such understanding, and such plain speaking of the truth, is unusual among EU leaders.         

 The Czech foreign minister has taken over the presidency of the EU – not the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, as was expected.  Fortunately, Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg shares some vital principles with President Klaus.  

In reply to the out-going EU president, Sarkozy of France, who condemned Israel’s operation against Hamas, Schwarzenberg said: ‘Let us realize one thing. Hamas increased steeply the number of rockets fired at Israel since the cease-fire ended on December 19. That is not acceptable any more. Israel has the right to defend itself.’ 

He also blamed Hamas for the civilian death toll in Gaza, pointing out that the terrorist organization put its bases and gun warehouses in densely populated areas.

 Ralph Peters writes in the New York Post:

Israel’s airstrikes against confirmed Hamas terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip were overdue, discriminating and skillful. So far, this retaliatory campaign has been a superb example of how to employ postmodern airpower.

Instead of bombing empty buildings in the dead of night in the hope of convincing bloodthirsty monsters to become peace-loving floral arrangers – the US Air Force version of "Shock and Awe" – the Israeli Defense Force aimed to kill terrorists.

Israel’s attack aircraft appear to have accomplished that part of the mission. As I write, some 300 terrorist dead have been reported in Gaza, while the propaganda-savvy information office of Hamas has strug- gled to prove that 20 civilians died.

Given the fact that Hamas adheres to the terrorist practice of locating command sites, arsenals and training facilities in heavily populated areas, the results suggest that the IDF – supported by first-rate intelligence work – may have executed the most accurate wave of airstrikes in history, with a 15-to-1 terrorist-to-civilian kill ratio.

The bad news is that it still won’t be enough. While Israel has delivered a painful blow against Hamas, it’s still not a paralyzing hit. The only way to neuter such a terror threat – even temporarily – is to go in on the ground and scour every room, basement and underground tunnel in a region.

That would mean high Israeli casualties and, of course, condemnation of Israel’s self-defense efforts by every self-righteous, corrupt and bigoted organization and government on earth, from Turtle Bay to Tehran.

What have been Israel’s "crimes?" Not "stealing Palestinian land," but making that land productive, while exposing the incompetence and sloth of Arab culture.

Israel’s crime isn’t striking back at terror, but demonstrating, year after year, that a country in the Middle East can be governed without resort to terror. Israel’s crime hasn’t been denying Arab rights, but insisting on human rights for women and minorities.

Israel’s crime has been making democracy work where tyranny prevailed for 5,000 years. Israel’s crime has been survival against overwhelming odds, while legions of Arab nationalists, Islamist extremists and Western leftists want every Jew dead.

But Israel’s greatest crime was to expose the global cult of victimhood, to prove that hard work, fortitude and courage could overcome even history’s grimmest disaster.

 Noticing in passing the effectiveness of hitting the Arab terrorists hard, Noah Pollak writes at Commentary’s ‘contentions’ website:

The Juicebox Mafia is working shifts on the Gaza crisis. Matthew Yglesias writes something dumb enough that it needs no elaboration:

But already the number of Israelis killed by Hamas rockets has increased (from a baseline of zero) since the retaliatory attack that was supposed to prevent such killings.

Spencer Ackerman, who becomes very Jewish when it comes time to condemn Israel:

Fellow lit’ry tribesman: do you believe for a moment that leveling Gaza will stop the rockets? Well, then you’ve lost your right to call the peaceniks naive.

As a matter of fact, it’s interesting to note that since the summer 2006 war, Hezbollah has been completely quiet on Israel’s border — even after their terrorist superhero, Imad Mughniyah, was assassinated, and Syria’s nuclear reactor was bombed, and Hezbollah’s liason to Damascus had an unfortunate run-in with a rifle bullet on his balcony one afternoon. Right now, Nasrallah futilely rants from Lebanon, while Hezbollah watches its ally in Gaza get pummeled. Deterrence is a real thing, and while it’s too early to judge the outcome of the current engagement, it’s also too early to declare that Hamas’ experience of being whipped and humiliated — the first time in the group’s history — will not establish some new behavioral guidelines.

Ezra Klein:

Hamas lacks the technology to aim its rockets. They’re taking potshots. In response, the Israeli government launched air strikes that have now killed more than 280 Palestinians…There is nothing proportionate in this response. No way to fit it into a larger strategy that leads towards eventual peace. No way to fool ourselves into believing that it will reduce bloodshed and stop terrorist attacks. It is simple vengeance. There’s a saying in the Jewish community: “Israel, right or wrong.” But sometimes Israel is simply wrong.

Ignore the fact that nobody in the history of the Jewish community has ever actually uttered the words, “Israel, right or wrong,” and ignore the disgraceful apologetic for Hamas’ rocket war (Klein should go to Sderot and tell the people living in bomb shelters to come out from hiding, because Hamas is only taking potshots).

No, what is interesting about the collective opinion of the Juicebox Mafia is the proposed rule of just war: Whoever kills more is the guilty party. This amounts to a total rejection of the distinction between aggression and self-defense and indeed the entire concept of deterrence. Taken to its logical conclusion, moral victory becomes impossible, because the moment one side has dispatched with a greater number of enemy than casualties have been suffered, justice has been forfeited. The only means of ethical conduct is pure immolation — which is indeed the prescription for Israel, expected to behave as the only true Christian nation on earth, responding to attacks by endlessly turning the other cheek.

There is something else about the Juicebox Mafia that is grating beyond its simple inanity: The only time its members write about Israel is when they can condemn it. The truth of the matter is that they have nothing invested in Israel other than their American liberalism and their Jewish surnames. Being a Jewish critic of Israel is ever so much more compelling and melodramatic than being just another leftist critic of Israel: Instead of trafficking in banalities, one can claim disillusionment, embarrassment, and betrayal. Pardon me if I call this out for what it is — moral preening and pure cynicism.

 From Debkafile:

Israeli bombers hit Hamas’ film center in southern Gaza Saturday night, Dec. 27, after massive air raids destroyed Hamas compounds across the enclave leaving 205 killed, 330 injured and thousands of shock victims. The operation followed a week in which Hamas fired 200 missiles at Israeli civilian targets.

The Israeli Air Force planes struck Hamas security headquarters in Gaza City and compounds, police stations and ports. Several Hamas commanders were killed in the bombardment of a Hamas military passing-out ceremony. Among them was Hamas police chief Tawfiq Jabber.

The Israeli military spokesman said the Gaza operation is "just beginning" and would be expanded and intensified as necessary.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions ordered its "fighters to avenge Israeli attacks." An Israeli was killed in Netivot in its first reprisal.

Egypt has condemned Israel for its military attack, but held Hamas responsible for refusing to heed warnings and failing to protect the Palestinian people. It has mobilized its rescue and medical services in Sinai, including hospitals for aid to casualties for the Israeli air bombardment of Gaza. Egyptian ambulances stood by at the Rafah crossing to transport wounded Hamas operatives.

The Israeli air attack launching some 40 missiles began 11.30 a.m. local time Saturday, eight days after Hamas terminated the informal Gaza ceasefire by showering missiles and mortar rounds on 250,000 Israeli civilians day after day.

Last week, the Israeli cabinet gave the Israeli military the green light for reprisals as Palestinian missile attacks escalated, 13 mortar rounds fired Friday, when Israel allowed 90 trucks of food and medicines to cross into the Gaza Strip.

Since Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip in 2005, the Palestinians have fired 5,000 missiles.

… and how would it serve Hamas to lie?

David Hornik writes at PajamasMedia: 

In an interview published Tuesday in the London-based Al-Hayat, Dr. Ahmad Yousef, political adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said senior Hamas figures had held a secret meeting with advisers to Barack Obama in Gaza before the U.S. elections.

Throughout his campaign Obama’s official line was that he would “only talk with Hamas if it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and agrees to abide by past agreements.”

Yet Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal responded to Obama’s win on an optimistic note, telling Australia’s Sky News on Saturday that his organization was “ready for dialogue with President Obama and with the new American administration with an open mind.”

On Saturday night, though, Obama’s senior foreign policy coordinator Denis McDonough seemed to hold the fort, deflecting Mashaal’s amiability by reiterating Obama’s three-part formula for making Hamas acceptable.

For those who don’t want America to have dealings with an Islamist terror organization like Hamas, that may have sounded reassuring. But now it seems it may be too soon to feel reassured.

According to Yousef in the Al-Hayat interview, the Obama-Hamas talks were already ongoing during the U.S. election campaign: “We were in contact with a number of Obama’s aides through the Internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza, but they advised us not to reveal this information as it may influence the elections or become manipulated by McCain’s campaign.”

Yousef also claimed he personally had friendly relations with some of Obama’s advisers and that “Haniyeh will draft a congratulatory letter to Obama for his victory.”

Yousef added: “The policy Obama will instate in the Middle East will differ from that of his predecessor George W. Bush, although it is clear that the region and the Palestinian issue will not be at the top of his agenda. [Obama] will focus more on the economic crisis, Iraq, and Afghanistan.”

A clash between Obama’s public, anodyne, mainstream statements and behind-the-scenes activities of a different nature would confirm the fears of those concerned about Obama’s history of association with radical people and ideologies.

He has already begun to shape Obama’s Middle East policy. 

Who is he? What is his background? What is to be expected of his advice to the next president?  John Perazzo provides some answers in Front Page Magazine:   

Robert Malley was raised in France. His lineage is noteworthy. His father, Simon Malley (1923-2006), was a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. A passionate hater of Israel, the elder Malley was a close friend and confidante of the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of “Western imperialism”; a supporter of various revolutionary “liberation movements,” particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. According to American Thinker news editor Ed Lasky, Simon Malley “participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World [and] … wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations.”

In a July 2001 op-ed which [Robert] Malley penned for the New York Times, he alleged that Israeli—not Palestinian—inflexibility had caused the previous year’s Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fall apart. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written—some he co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat—blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat for the failure of the peace process.

Malley’s identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David impasse has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. It should be noted that Malley’s account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks—specifically, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, and then-U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton’s Middle East envoy).

Malley also has written numerous op-eds urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah (a creature of Iran dedicated to the extermination of the Jews and death to America), and Muqtada al-Sadr (the Shiite terrorist leader in Iraq). 

In addition, Malley has advised nations around the world to establish relationships with, and to send financial aid to, the Hamas-led Palestinian government in Gaza. In Malley’s calculus, the electoral victory that swept Hamas into power in January 2006 was a manifestation of legitimate Palestinian “anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat’s imprisonment, Israel’s incursions, [and] Western lecturing …”

Moreover, Malley contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Iran. Rather, he suggests that if Israel were to return the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War—two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression which sought so permanently wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth) to Syrian control, Damascus would be inclined to pursue peace with Israel.

Malley has criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining “on the sidelines” and being a “no-show” in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley wrote in July 2006: “Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran, Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hezbollah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue.”

This inclination to negotiate with any and all enemies of the U.S. and Israel—an impulse which Malley has outlined clearly and consistently—clearly has had a powerful influence on Barack Obama.