From the National Review:  (It would be nice to know who the emailer to ‘the corner’ was who apparently carried out such an important military mission.)

Joe Biden threw out a lot of bunk on foreign policy tonight, too bad Gov Palin didn’t have the foreign policy wonkishness to call him on it.  Most ridiculous and downright strange was his contention that the Bush administration let Hezbollah into Lebanon, and then when “we threw them out” – whatever that means, he and Obama said NATO should go in but nobody took them up on it and now Hezbollah was all over Lebanon and that’s a problem.  What?

Well, Hezbollah’s been there since the early 1980’s of course, blossoming throughout the 1990’s to become now over a third of the population of Lebanon with 2 cabinet members, a host of parliamentarians, and schools, clinics, and basically an entirely separate governance infrastructure in all of southern Lebanon and elsewhere.  I suppose the throwing out of Hezbollah was the dismal and failed Israeli campaign of 2006 which dislodged nothing?  Or was it Israeli’s occupation of Southern Lebanon from 1982 – 1999?  Don’t remember an Obama position on NATO replacing Israeli occupation then.  As for NATO going in after the 2006 debacle, well, I’m the one who rounded up 8,000 French and Italians and a few thousand other Euros to go into Southern Lebanon along with an assortment of others in August 2006 and while working that issue for about 40 straight days I don’t remember a peep from Biden or Obama about NATO – which wouldn’t be budged despite our intense pressure in Mons.  So, we went straight to Rome and Paris.  Que sera, sera.

 From Little Green Footballs:

Another absurdly wrong statement from Joe “Foreign Policy Expert” Biden, who very obviously does not know the difference between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank:

Here’s what the president said when we said no. He insisted on elections on the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, “Big mistake. Hamas will win. You’ll legitimize them.” What happened? Hamas won.

 Rafael D Frankel, correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor, wrote in the August 12, 2008 edition:

"I want [the Israelis] to come back," says Riyad al-Laham, an unemployed father of eight who worked in the area’s Jewish settlements for nearly 20 years. "All the Mawassi people used to work in the settlements and make good money. Now there is nothing to do. Even our own agricultural land is barren."

Located in the middle of Gush Katif, the former block of Jewish settlements here, Mawassi fell within the security cordon the Israeli army threw around its citizens from 2002 to 2005, when attacks from the neighboring Palestinian town of Khan Yunis came almost daily.

During those years, the people of Mawassi continued to work in Gush Katif, mainly as farmhands in hundreds of greenhouses the Jewish settlers operated.

Mr. Laham and many others in Mawassi say they preferred the relative economic security of those days to the current destitution, even if they are now free from Israeli occupation.

"Freedom to go where?" Laham asks. "I have no fuel now for my car. Where can I go? Freedom is a slogan. Even for a donkey you need money – which I don’t have."

Three years ago, before Israel withdrew, Mawassi was a town of fertile corn crops and greenhouses, which – like the ones in the Jewish settlements – grew cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, and strawberries.

Now, in the ethnic Palestinian section of town, nearly half the land lies barren.

Only shells remain of many of the greenhouses that were stripped of valuable materials.

A city that fed itself with its produce and the money its men made from working with the settlers, Mawassi is now dependent on food handouts from the United Nations.

Like the rest of Gaza, its people lack cooking gas and petrol, even if they feel more secure without Israeli soldiers all around them.

In the Bedouin section of town, Salem al-Bahabsa sits with five of his 24 grandchildren in front of his chicken coop. Goats and sheep wander around the other parts of the Bedouin quarter, where people live mostly in tents with tin roofs.

"We are all now unemployed and depend on charity for food," Mr. Bahabsa says. "My sons were farmers in the greenhouses. We worked in the settlements and had resources. Now, I don’t think I could survive without [the UN]…. Before was better."

 Jim Brown reports on ONENEWSNOW:

The moment Samir Kuntar walked into Lebanon as a free man spelt the end of a hard earned 60 years cultivating the image of Israel as a capable, tough and proud state. Samir Kuntar is one of the most despised villains of Israeli society: a vicious murderer, his crimes included the inhuman beating to death of a three year old Israeli girl in front of horrified witnesses. In the eyes of the Arab countries and even among Western Arab communities, Samir Kuntar is the darling of the defenders of Islam – a brave resistance fighter.

My horror at the release of this epitome of evil is not the support for his crimes that is propagated among the Arabs; it is not even shock at the (frankly expected) Western indifference for this monster – instead I am appalled by the virus that goes by the name of appeasement that has risen again to infect the integrity or lack thereof, manifested by the weak politicians and the morally bankrupt Left of the “liberal” West.

One particular historical parallel that can now be applied to the Arab-Israeli conflict by supporters of Israel is the disastrous policy of appeasement practised noticeably by one of its true founders: Neville Chamberlain. Once the understanding of the West and even the byline of slightly cringe-worthy Hollywood films was ‘Never negotiate with terrorism’. Now appeasement and negotiation appears to govern international politics: from the hundreds of incentives made to the Iran by the EU, hoping to curb Iran’s nuclear weapons research, each new offer giving more and more away to the Iranians; to the ‘quiet diplomacy’ pursued by Thabo Mbeki with Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.

The release of Samir Kuntar, four other terrorists and the hundreds of remains of dead Lebanese murderers marks the beginning of the end. Israel, more than any country, should realise that appeasement is a policy that will never work to their advantage. It betrays the teachings of Machiavelli: “…one should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for war is not avoided thereby but merely deferred to one’s own disadvantage.” And it sends chilling reminders of Chamberlain’s efforts to secure peace; or the IRA murderers given their ill-gotten freedom by Blair’s government; the US government’s protection of Arafat in 1982; the attempted appeasement of Saddam Hussein before the 1990 Gulf War; the encouraged promotion of Islamic culture above all others in Western countries by Western governments; the suggestions of British judges for allowing some form of sharia law in Britain – the last hundred years have shown a frightening propensity for the West to fail to learn from its mistakes and to allow the forces of evil a chance to exist and prosper.

So why is Olmert’s government meeting Hezbollah’s demands? Why is it appeasing its enemies? Israel has owed 60 years of remarkable existence to ‘disproportionate’ response and a tough and no-nonsense attitude towards its enemies. Many would argue this is a key reason for her survival. The release of the five terrorists by Israel met one of Hezbollah’s few demands, another being the return of the Sheba farms to Lebanon. Is it that these unforgettable years of terrorism, torture, murder, cruelty unimaginable to civilized society have all just been for the return of a few hundred yards of farm and a child murderer? – the truth of course, is that Hezbollah, like the rest of the Arab world, seeks the destruction of Israel and its people. Olmert seems to have forgotten this. They have reversed the direction of sixty years of policies based on reality and common sense, and are taking an ill-fated chance with the future of their country.

For the despairing results of this cruel act of appeasement we have not even had to wait a few days. Immediately Hamas decided it was no longer going to agree to Israeli terms for the return of Gilad Shalit and was to demand greater returns for the terrorist group. Furthermore, a group of British MPs called for a dialogue with Palestinian terror groups, Hamas included; breaking the policy of no recognition that most Western countries have pursued.

But this author is not completely a pessimist and his writings shall not just be a harbinger of Israel’s complete failure – there is still a chance: Olmert and his coalition must be removed, a strong leader (preferably Netanyahu) must be elected, Kuntar must be assassinated, Hamas must be destroyed, Hezbollah must be removed, Iran’s nuke and missile sites must be obliterated and the supply of armaments to the Gaza Strip and West Bank must be stopped. Tough orders? These are problems all created by appeasement; it is war deferred to Israel’s disadvantage, and now Israel is forced to deal with it.

Read here how the billions donated by US tax payers to Fatah and put to no useful purpose whatseover may soon be put at the disposal of Hamas.

Some consolation might might be found in the improbability of Fatah and Hamas staying reconciled for very long.

But as both Hamas and Fatah are terrorist organizations, one way or another the money supports evil.