Monday

Fatah terrorists took responsibility for murdering a Jewish police Monday, but then denied it. Fayyad denounced the killing – 12 hours afterwards.

The dark days of the Middle Ages "are raging” against Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told Likud party Knesset Members Monday.

"Where is the balance between wisdom and force?"

I've thought of that question several times over the last few days, as accusations and counteraccusations fly over Israel's May 31 fatal commando operation against the flotilla of humanitarian aid ships attempting to break the blockade of Gaza. Nine civilians were killed, including a 19-year-old American citizen of Turkish descent.

JERUSALEM — The United States has asked Israel to investigate the incident in which an American woman lost an eye after Israeli forces shot her with a tear gas canister during a pro-Palestinian protest in Jerusalem, a U.S. embassy spokesman said Monday.

JERUSALEM — Israel's navy killed four Palestinian militants in diver suits off the coast of Gaza early Monday in the first violence at sea since a deadly raid against an international flotilla last week killed nine pro-Palestinian activists and set off an international storm of criticism against Israel.

The Israeli Navy fired on Palestinian divers off Gaza before dawn on Monday, and Palestinian medics said they later retrieved four bodies.

JERUSALEM — Israeli forces seized a Gaza-bound aid vessel swiftly and without meeting resistance on Saturday, preventing it from breaking a naval blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory days after a similar effort turned bloody.

The mainstream media, led by the intrepid White House press corps, closely followed by the inside-the-Beltway punditocracy, has declared what must happen for the oil to stop flowing into the Gulf of Mexico: President Obama needs to get angry at the oil.
I wish I were kidding, but sadly, I am not. This is the number one topic fluttering around the field of so-called conventional wisdom these days: Obama's not mad enough.

A reporter and producer for the Arabic news organization Al Jazeera who was on board the Gaza-bound aid flotilla during Monday's deadly raid gave a firsthand account of the grisly scene aboard the ship to the network Thursday.

In the aftermath of Israel's violent seizure of the Free Gaza flotilla early this week, it's important to emphasize that leading elements of the international community set the circumstances which resulted in this massacre. Monday's raid -- like the 2008-9 military assault on Gaza ("Operation Cast Lead"), and like the further atrocities that almost certainly lie ahead -- are the predictable outcome of established international policy towards the Gaza Strip.