Bush: "U.S. Would Defend Israel Against Iran"

The United States would come to Israel's defense if attacked by Iran said President George W. Bush Wednesday night. Bush went on to denounce Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying, "I am concerned about a person that, one, tries to rewrite the history of the Holocaust, and two, has made it clear that his intentions are to destroy Israel. Israel is a solid ally of the United States, we will rise to Israel's defense if need be. So this kind of menacing talk is disturbing. It's not only disturbing to the United States, it's disturbing for other countries in the world as well," he added.

Asked if he meant the United States would rise to Israel's defense militarily, Bush said: "You bet, we'll defend Israel." (Jerusalem Post)

Israeli Troops, Jewish Settlers Clash by Josef Federman

Thousands of club-wielding riot police began evacuated the illegal Israeli outpost of Amona on Wednesday, pulling stone-throwing settlers from rooftops in the fiercest confrontation over settlements since Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip last summer. The battle over Amona, an Israeli hilltop enclave in the heart of the West Bank, was seen as a test for acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has said he would act with determination against settlers violating the law. Olmert is widely expected to withdraw from more areas of the West Bank and dismantle additional Jewish settlements, whether unilaterally or in a deal with the Palestinians, if elected prime minister in March elections. (AP/Washington Post)

UN Opens to Israel on Holocaust Day by Judy Siegel

As the world community marked International Holocaust Memorial Day - set by the UN General Assembly - for the first time last week, Israeli professionals have begun to realize that they are now welcome partners of the UN, which generations of Israelis have so long regarded with despair and derision.

More Israeli physicians and other experts than ever are being included in the UN's special agencies, and a 10-member delegation of doctors (six Jews and four Arabs) is currently attending a health symposium in Geneva at the invitation of the UN.

Dr. Dorit Nitzan-Kalusky, head of the Health Ministry's Food and Nutrition Service, is currently in Belgrade running the World Health Organization's (WHO) office there. Dr. Bina Rabinovich, an infectious disease control specialist, has just been sent by the UN to Turkey to help that country deal with its avian flu epidemic.

The UN administration's growing warmth toward Israeli professionals is not limited to health agencies, but also includes UNESCO (UN Educational, Social and Cultural Organization) - which had long been hostile to Israel but has now appointed Israelis to four professional committees, including the World Heritage committee. (Jerusalem Post)

Boys Find Second Temple Burial Cave Near Beit Shemesh
by Etgar Lefkovitz

In a scene out of the Hollywood Indiana Jones, three Israeli children stumbled upon an ancient Second Temple cave in the Beit Shemesh area filled with skeletons and ossuaries, Israel's Antiquities Authority reported last week.

The boys, who discovered the heretofore unknown cave during a scout's cave-hunt, were awarded a certificate of recognition for reporting their finds to the Antiquities Authority. The cave was first uncovered last week by Or Perel, who came upon the unmarked cave during the scout's search for known caves, and discovered the ancient burial boxes and skeletal remains. "I screamed up to the sky when I saw what I saw," Perel recounted last week in a telephone interview.

Frightened by the gloomy find, he ran to fetch his friends, and together they summoned their instructor, he said. The cave was subsequently sealed by Antiquities Authority inspectors. (Jerusalem Post)

2,000-Year-Old Judean Date Seed Growing Successfully
by Ezra HaLevi

A 2,000-year-old date seed planted last Tu B'Shvat has sprouted and is over a foot tall. Being grown at Kibbutz Ketura in the Arava, it is the oldest seed to ever produce a viable young sapling.

The Judean date seed was found, together with a large number of other seeds, during archaeological excavations carried out close to Masada near the southern end of the Dead Sea. Masada was the last Jewish stronghold following the Roman destruction of the Holy Temple over 1,930 years ago. The seeds sat in storage for thirty years until Elaine Solowey of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies was asked to attempt to cultivate three of them.

As this year's Tu B'Shvat (the Jewish new year for trees, the 15th of the Jewish month of Shvat) approaches, the young tree that sprouted from one of the three seeds now has five leaves (one was removed for scientific testing) and is 14 inches tall. Solowey has named it Metushelah after the 969-year-old grandfather of Noah, the oldest human being ever. (Israel National News)

Leading Kabbalist Rabbi Kadouri Dies by Matthew Wagner

Rabbi Yitzhak Kadouri, one of the best-known rabbis in Israel, and the leading Sephardic kabbalist of his time, died Saturday night at Jerusalem's Bikur Holim Hospital. Nobody knows precisely how old Kadouri was as the time of his death. Estimates range between 106 and 113. Kadouri's close circle of friends and family say he was one of the few known living kabbalists who use "practical kabbalah," a type of Jewish magic aimed at affecting a change in the world. (Jerusalem Post)

Israeli Troubadours Bond with Americans Via Music by David Brinn

It wasn't a common scene: bearded, religious Jewish Israeli musicians playing traditional Hebrew music together with a black Baptist choir in a Detroit church. But for one of the musicians - 54-year-old Yehudah Katz - it seemed perfectly natural, and was the ultimate proof that the "crazy" idea he had hatched the year before had been on the right track. The idea was - Artists and Musicians for Israel (AMI) - a performing arts organization that Katz founded to, in his words, to create "a unique educational experience about Israel."

A native Californian, Katz has been living in Israel since 1993, and Reva L'sheva has been a fixture on the spiritual jam band circuit throughout the country and on regular tours to the U.S. But his journey to bring the soul music of Israel to the non-Jewish population of the soul capital of the United States is a relatively new undertaking.

"My main goal is to show Americans a side of Israel they can't see on CNN," the bearded, earthy-looking Katz said. Katz began exploring the possibility of organizing a U.S. tour whereby his band would not just go and play, then leave for the next town, but would stay in the community for multiple days and interact with students in the area on a musical and personal level.

"I didn't want to just go in and do a show. That's what I do when I'm on tour - this is different. I wanted people to ask us 'what's your perspective of Israel from a apolitical perspective?'" said Katz. (Israel21c)

A New Kind of Desert Storm by Lauren Gelfond Feldinger

It is the only training camp of its kind in the Middle East desert.

A Palestinian raised in Saudi Arabia, an imam from Ramallah and the former body-double of Saddam Hussein's son are among a group of Middle Eastern Muslims joining forces this week in a Jordanian desert camp with Jewish Israelis and armed forces members from the West to take Middle East diplomacy on a new route.

As headlines ask if the Middle East peace process is once again at loggerheads, the unlikely crew of 10 is learning desert survival and conflict resolution skills at an unnamed location, before heading on a 5,500 kilometer-long desert trek across the Sahara to Tripoli, Libya.

The trek-mates hope to serve as an example of what is possible when rivals look past strong political opinions and painful and angry personal histories to help one another survive across unforgiving terrain. Jordan's King Abdullah gave his blessing for the mission and pushed all the necessary paperwork through his ministries. Closely guarding its plans over the last months for security reasons, the team plans to publicly announce the participants and its activities on February 1 in Amman, in advance of the month-long journey, according to the international not-for-profit sponsoring organization, Breaking the Ice.

Two years ago, the organization sponsored a similar mission to the Antarctic. (Jerusalem Post)

Infant Goes Home to Gaza after Birth, Surgery in Israel
by Rick Hellman

Mustafa Al-Dalau was released from Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem last week and traveled with his family to their home in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Arab infant's high-risk birth - and the surgery that was done soon thereafter to repair his heart defect - was made possible, in part, by the help from Jews and Christians in Kansas City and Israel, who used their connections to cut the red tape that stood between the Gaza family and the closest available help in Israel.

As a humanitarian gesture, Hadassah Medical Center is covering all the costs of the birth and surgery. The Al-Dalau family is quite poor and cannot pay, say officials of Shatil - the Israeli non-profit agency that has been working with the family.

Noa, from the staff of Shatil, wrote The Chronicle that the parents, "Emad and Intisar went back to their home a few weeks ago, and returned to Hadassah last week, after Mustafa was released from the intensive care unit." The family returned to Gaza Monday.

"I would really like to thank the Hadassah hospital, especially Dr. Yuval Weiss (the deputy director of the hospital), Prof. Azaria Rein (head of pediatric cardiology) and Dr. Ido Yatziv (head of the pediatric Intensive Care Unit), who were in constant touch with Emad and Intisar when they were in Gaza, gave them a room to sleep, helped them in getting the required authorizations, and, of course, agreed to perform the operation. The family is really thankful to all of those who were involved, both in the States and over here." (Kansas City Jewish Chronicle)

Sheikhing Up the Real Islam by Gail Lichtman

At a time when the Muslim world seems to have been taken over by Islamic extremism, worshipping shahidim (martyrs) and virulent hatred of Israel and the west, Sheikh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi is an outspoken critic of this fanaticism, suicide bombings and jihad and supports the "Jewish divine right" to the Land of Israel.

With a doctorate in Islamic sciences from the Institute for Islamic Studies and Research in Naples (by authorization of the former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia), and ijazzah (authorization to teach) both Koranic exegesis and Islamic law from the prestigious University of al-Azhar as-Sharif in Cairo, Palazzi backs his somewhat surprising positions with citations from the Koran and traditional Muslim sources.

The 45-year-old Sunni scholar was in Israel earlier this month, his first visit since shortly before 9/11, to attend a meeting of the newly-reconstituted Sanhedrin (religious high court, led by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz), lecture on Wahhabi terrorism and visit the Jewish community in Hebron.

Speaking with In Jerusalem, Palazzi states that he views the dominance of Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabi heresy as the main problem facing the Islamic world today. He views Wahhabi as a "totalitarian cult that stands for terror, massacre of civilians and permanent war against Jews, Christians and non-Wahhabi Muslims." (Jerusalem Post)

Iranian Blogs His Way to Israel by Orly Halpern

As he walked around the streets of west Jerusalem, Hossein Derakhshan blended in easily. No one turned their head when he passed by. No one commented. Yet, Derakhshan is no ordinary visitor. He is an Iranian Muslim visiting Israel knowing that it may mean he can never return to his homeland.

"But it's worth it," said the friendly-faced Derakhshan in an interview over lunch at a trendy restaurant off Jaffa Street.

The 31-year-old reformist came here at a time when tension between Iran and Israel can almost be cut with a knife. He came with a mission. He wants to stop an Israeli attack on Iran and he wants Iranians to understand that "Israelis are not evil."

"I've publicly come to Israel to break a big taboo and to be a bridge between Iranian and Israeli people who are manipulated by their own governments' and media's dehumanizing attitude, especially now that the possibility of some sort of violent clash is higher than ever," he wrote for all to see on his personal Internet diary shortly after landing in Tel-Aviv. (Jerusalem Post)

Visiting Astronauts Wow Israeli Kids by Judy Siegel and Greer Fay Cashman

Half a year after returning from space to resupply the International Space Station, three U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronauts landed at the Jerusalem Science and the Arts High School, telling pupils that they should aspire to be stars.

"Everyone has something special," said Rona Ramon, widow of Israel's first astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon (pictured), who died along with six NASA astronauts in the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle crash on February 1, 2003. "You will go far if you always do your best," said Ramon, who initiated the unusual encounter between the astronauts and high-achieving youths from around the country.

Retired US Air Force Col. Eileen Collins, who was commander of the recent STS-114 Discovery shuttle, and mission specialists Dr. Stephen Robinson and Dr. Andrew Thomas (pictured with Israeli President Katzav) arrived at the high school in royal blue zip-up uniforms. They narrated a breathtaking video film showing their mission from blastoff to landing, including a successful emergency repair on bits of filling between tiles that threatened to cause dangerous heat buildup upon re-entry.

The three arrived in Israel to attend a Herzliya conference last week that will mark the third anniversary of Ramon's death and to name seven hills in the Ramon Crater near Mitzpe Ramon in memory of the fallen astronauts - Ramon, Rick Husband, William McCool, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, Laurel Clark and David Brown. (Jerusalem Post)

Physically Challenged Youth Invited to Tour Israel by Arlene Fine

Physically challenged children who are interested in visiting Israel will be given a chance to do so, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Peter Pezaro, executive director of the Jordan Valley College in Israel. Pezaro is the father of a wheelchair-bound daughter, 18, who was an International para-Olympic medalist for the Israeli swim team. Her success and determination to overcome physical obstacles convinced Pezaro that other teens could do so as well.

"One of the most daunting obstacles for handicapped teens is to take a trip to Israel," says Pezaro. "Because of their obvious mobility limitations, they find it very difficult to participate in typical youth group teen trips."

Addressing the requirements of these special-needs children, Pezaro created a program called "Adventure Sports in Israel for Disabled Youth." This two-week tour will allow physically challenged teens with mobility problems to have a full Israeli experience. With the appropriate technical and medical support systems in place, they will tour historic sights, participate in sports activities, and swim with dolphins. The American teens will be paired with Israeli youth who share similar disabilities and will enjoy home hospitality with their Israeli counterparts.

Etgarim, an organization specializing in providing such services to disabled young Israelis, will administer all adventure sports activities. (Cleveland Jewish News)

Westchester NY Solomon Schechter's Season Cut Short as Seniors Head to Israel by Josh Thomson

You usually won't see scenes like this until the middle of February, but during the winter sports season at Solomon Schechter, Senior nights come early. That's because each February most of the senior class — athletes and non-athletes — take a two-month trip to Israel and Eastern Europe so students can visit their ancestral homelands.

So what does that mean? Solomon Schechter's seniors won't participate in the Section 1 playoffs in any sport during the winter season.

The school fields boys and girls basketball and skiing teams, all of which will have to compete without seniors beginning today. Students fund the trip so they aren't required to go, but almost all of them do. "I definitely feel very torn," senior Tal Cushmaro said Monday by phone. Cushmaro is one of two starting senior guards on the Lions' boys basketball team.

"My loyalty is to the team and to Coach (George) Price. This season all I did was try to teach the younger guys as much as I could so they'd be ready for the playoffs. Still, it's important to go to Israel to find where part of my Jewish identity comes from."

The seniors on the boys team finished their season yesterday while the girls team had a game against Keio but played without its seniors. The skiers had their last race on Monday. The seniors — about 50 of them — are scheduled to leave from school today and fly to Eastern Europe where they'll spend a week in Prague and a week in Poland. After that, they shift to Israel, where they'll live at a school near Tel Aviv. (Journal News)

Travel Tales
A Moment Atop Har Tzfachot by Ari Polsky

This past summer I went on Ramah Israel Seminar, a six week program which unites former Ramah campers from all camps in Israel, where they tour together in eight kvutzot (groups).

One of my favorite memories from the trip was a hike we had in the Negev, just outside of Eilat. We woke early that morning in Kibbutz Yahel, and drove to a point at the bottom of a hill outside of Eilat. We hiked for about 20 minutes and were approaching the peak of the hill, called Har Tzfachot, when suddenly our tour guide Sharon stopped us. She asked us to keep walking to the top and not to look up until we got there, when she would announce when to look up.

It took about five minutes before I reached that point, and I was greeted by a sweeping view of the Red Sea along with four different countries: Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Once the whole group reached the peak, and we all caught our breath, we split up to pray Shachrit on our own, atop Har Tzfachot, overlooking the Red Sea. This was among the most powerful prayer I personally have ever had, with my tallis whipping in the wind, so much so that I had to tie it around my neck to keep it from falling off. I stood there in prayer thinking about our history, the desert, and how a barren area makes one think about things never thought about before, and the significance of the location.

Here we were, a bunch of Jews standing in the desert, overlooking the Red Sea which our people crossed centuries ago. It is hard to describe what it was like to say Az Yashir, the prayer describing the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea, staring at the very body of water that it describes. One can almost hear the sounds of Moshe leading our people across the Sea, and can almost see Miriam dancing.

We continued down the hill to our bus and headed toward a protected area of Eilat, where people can snorkel (or, as they call it in Israel, "shnorkel") and swim around. We went on to have a fun rest of the day, but I'll never forget that moment atop Har Tzfachot, where the silence of the desert is filled with the voices of the past.

Ari Polsky is a Junior at Birmingham High School in Los Angeles, CA. He is active in USY's Far West Region. (Special to the Israel HighWay)

Doing It the Subliminal Way by Leslie Bunder

He's been described as the prince of Israeli hip-hop and in less than a decade, Subliminal has grown from rapping in his native Israel to an international audience and in the process setting up a whole lifestyle brand based around his success. Born Kobi Shimoni in 1979 (his father was from Tunisia and his mother was from Iran - both had to flee persecution in both countries),

In 2001 he released his debut album Ha'or M'tzion - The Light from Zion - and since then it has been success upon success. Part of his success is due to a successful partnership with Yoav Eliasi aka The Shadow. When it comes to gigging across Israel, he is a stadium artist and gets tens of thousands to see him and his crew. A gig in Tel Aviv attracted over 34,000 people.

He likes to wear a large Star of David necklace. "Everybody is now talking about being Jewish and wearing Star of David necklace," he says. To encourage more people to wear them, he even gave away 20,000 Star of David necklaces to purchasers of his CD. According to Subliminal, a few years back even in Israel people would only wear a small discreet Star of David but now it is all changing. "Back in the day it was small and inside your shirt, so nobody should say it out loud you are Jewish, but now it is different."

And with Star of David proudly around his neck, a roster of artists on his label, Subliminal is giving a nation of Israeli hip-hop fans music that is inspirational as well as original rather than just trying to emulate American culture. (Daily Jews/Ynet News)

Gobuty Has Will to Succeed by Mike Henry

Working with NBA stars such as Kevin Garnett and Chauncey Billups did little to prepare The Basketball Academy director Joe Abunassar for his introduction to Marisa Gobuty.

The Pendleton School junior point guard arrived on the IMG Academies campus from her hometown of Herzeliya, Israel, for a summer camp in 2004. Although she was the only female at the camp, Gobuty made a quick impression with her boundless energy and passion for the game.

"She has an extreme focus on her goals, which is something you can't teach," Abunassar said. "It is similar to what I see with a lot of NBA players. She has the toughness you want to see as a coach. You can yell at her, and she doesn't flinch because she wants to get better.

"Marisa is the type of person who is going to get the most out of this place by taking advantage of everything here. Where I see her in a couple of years is as a definite Division I-college contributor."

Although she often finds herself in awe of Abunassar's NBA clients when they come to IMG Academies to train, Gobuty - a citizen of the United States, Israel and Canada - feels most at home on the court.

"Basketball has never stopped being fun for me," said the 5-foot-6 Gobuty, the starting point guard last year for Israel's 16-and-under girls national team. "I'm getting to live out my dream here playing five hours a day. I love it, and it makes me happy, and if I have an opportunity to succeed, I'm going to give it my best." (Brandenton Herald)

Champions of a New Holocaust by Abraham Cooper and Leo Adler

The UN-sanctioned establishment of January 27 as Holocaust Remembrance Day is a welcome development and long overdue. But as the success of Hamas in this week's Palestinian elections shows, memorials for Holocaust victims must be coupled with a response to the existential threats to the survival of the Jewish people posed by Middle Eastern Islamists.

The fact that Palestinian voters would give so much support to a murderous terrorist organization is telling. Consider Hamas' 1988 founding covenant, in which it approvingly quotes Imam Hassan al-Banna's invocation that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it."

In effect, many Palestinians were voting for the extermination of the Jewish state.

Of course, Hamas does not yet have the means to make good on this goal. Nor will it anytime soon. But the same is not true of the group's patrons in Tehran. (Ynet News)

We Don't Need Any Favors by Yoel Marcus

Israel doesn't need permission to exist, certainly not from the primitive, fundamentalist societies that live around it. Israel is perceived as one of the strongest, stablest, most technologically advanced countries in the world, not least in view of where it stands on the list of nuclear powers. So who is it, exactly, who thinks they can destroy us? Hamas? Hizballah? Islamic Jihad? Why does Israel have to be in this situation altogether, pleading with the Arabs for recognition?

Many take off their hat to a nation that has spent decades confronting terrorism and war but has managed to chalk up incredible achievements in every sphere despite it all. When partners were found, Israel knew how to make the "peace of the brave" with its fiercest enemies, although it had to bend and make tremendous concessions. Israelis have stood up admirably and bravely in the face of suicide bombings and other acts of terror perpetrated by Islamic militants, dredging up the emotional strength to return to normal life after every blow. (Ha'aretz)

Voting Isn't Democracy by Eytan Gilboa

Hamas' victory reveals a major strategic deficiency in the American design for democracy in the Middle East. Current U.S. policy will not lead to democracy because democracy is much more than elections. Democracy is based on values, institutions, and constitutions - that by their very democratic nature cannot empower Islamic terrorist organizations such as Hamas. Commentators have suggested that radical Islamic movements become more moderate and pragmatic when they assume power. After 25 years, the Islamic theocracy in Iran is still extremist; the Taliban established a repressive regime in Afghanistan; and Hizballah remains a terrorist organization, although it has representatives in the Lebanese government.

In the months ahead, Hamas is more likely to create a strategic relationship with Islamic radical forces such as Iran and Hizballah than to forge serious ties with the West. Democratizing the Middle East will take many years, and instant elections, however successful and legitimate, will prove insufficient in the quest for true democracy.

The writer, a professor of politics and communication at Bar-Ilan University, currently is a visiting professor of public diplomacy at the Annenberg School for Communication at USC. (Los Angeles Times)

Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar (pictured) vowed on Al-Manar TV last week to carry on the war against Israel. "Palestine means Palestine in its entirety - from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River," Al-Zahar declared, "We cannot give up a single inch of it. Therefore, we will not recognize the Israeli enemy's [right] to a single inch."

Are All Elections Democratic?

According to the rules for Palestinian elections laid out in the Oslo Accords, Hamas should not have even participated in the elections. The Oslo Interim Agreement outlines eligibility for elected office in the Palestinian Authority: "The nomination of any candidates, parties or coalitions will be refused, and such nomination or registration once made will be canceled, if such candidates, parties or coalitions: (1) commit or advocate racism; or (2) pursue the implementation of their aims by unlawful or non-democratic means."

Hamas should have been disqualified on both counts. Its official charter quotes from one of the most odious anti-Semitic pamphlets ever written: "After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'"

The Hamas charter calls for military rather than political actions to attain Hamas' goals. "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad," the charter states. "Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

Can Hamas Become Moderate?

The elections are over and the results are final. Some see the Hamas electoral triumph as a turning point for the organization, one that will force the organization to act more responsibly. Speaking at the recent World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, former U.S. President Bill Clinton said, "You've got to find a way to at least open doors ... and I don't see how we can do it without more contact." Hamas, he continued, might "acquire a greater sense of responsibility, and as they do, we have to be willing to act on that."

Clinton's optimism was echoed by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) who told ABC earlier this week: "My hope is that as a consequence of now being responsible for electricity and picking up garbage and basic services to the Palestinian people, that they recognize it's time to moderate their stance."

Columnist George Will labeled this hope "the Garbage Collection Theory of History....Perhaps," wrote Will, "but their stance - Israel must die - is, they say, the will of God, who has not authorized moderation."

International Opposition to Hamas

On the opposite side of the debate stand policymakers and commentators in the United States, Europe and Israel who reject Hamas as a legitimate international player. Some cite the past century's examples of Communist (the Soviet Union), Fascist (Nazi Germany) and Islamist (Iran) regimes, which all attained power without diluting any of their ideological or repressive zeal.

Columnist Richard Cohen compares Hamas to the Nazis of the 1930s. In his column "Believe It: Hamas' Target Is Israel" Cohen writes, "If you would have asked a random German in 1932 if he was voting for the murder of Jews, he would have said, ‘Nein!' What he really wanted was an end to the brawling in the streets and a big thumbs-up to traditional German culture. In due course we will be told that what Hamas has been insisting on for years - the utter destruction of Israel - is not really a serious goal, and that Hamas will be forced to moderate by the reality of governing. The leaders of Hamas brim with the word of God and the certainty of their cause. From here on they will lie about their ultimate aim and smilingly assure us that what they have always said they no longer mean. All over the world, people will believe them and urge the U.S. and Israel to do the same. Take my word for this. Anyone can see the future. It's all in the past."

Middle East expert Barry Rubin claims that power may make Hamas even more violent and ideologically rampant. Rubin wrote, "contrary to such expectations, rulers have used guns and ideology to keep their welcomes from wearing thin, as substitutes for high living standards and broad civil rights. This combination has long worked in the Middle East."

World Leaders Speak Out against Hamas

U.S. President George W. Bush said on Monday, "The Hamas Party has made it clear that they do not support the right of Israel to exist, and I have made it clear, so long as that's their policy, that we will not support a Palestinian government made up of Hamas." In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, he reiterated, "The leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Israel this week and reiterated European opposition to Hamas. She stated that EU aid to the Palestinians is contingent on Hamas giving up its violent and rejectionist ideas and until that time, "such a Palestinian Authority cannot be directly supported by money from the EU."

Hamas' victory represents a severe setback for those who seek a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian voters were clearly fed up with the corruption of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority. But ultimately, the Palestinian public chose a party known for its terrorism and opposition to Israel's existence. "Hamas's lopsided win," columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote, "is an unambiguous reality check into the nature of Palestinian society. If there is one thing that the West badly needs, it is more realism and less delusion about the Palestinians. Palestinians are not stupid, and it insults their intelligence to pretend that when they vote to empower a genocidal organization with a platform straight out of Mein Kampf, what they're really after is better healthcare."

There's an old American saying, "All politics is local." Yes, Hamas won because of its healthcare and anti-corruption campaign. But in the narrow confines of the Middle East, "local politics" includes the safety of Israel's citizens, the fate of Jerusalem, and the continued existence of the Jewish State. (The Israel HighWay)

Additional Information:

Hamas, a Policy Puzzle for the West by Steven Erlanger, The New York Times

Can Hamas Be Tamed? by Brig.-Gen. Michael Herzog, Foreign Affairs

Hamas Without Veils: No More Hiding Behind the PA by Emanuele Ottolenghi, National Review

The Hamas Electoral Victory - How Should Israel Respond? Jerusalem Post

EU Won't Cut PA Aid Yet, Demands Hamas Reform, by Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post

Hamas Rejects Call to Disarm, Recognize Israel, Daily Times (Pakistan)

Who's Who in Hamas, Times - UK

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