Carter: Hamas is willing to accept Israel as its neighbor (12:16 ET - April 21, 2008):

Former President Carter said Monday that Hamas — the Islamic militant group that has called for the destruction of Israel — is prepared to accept the right of the Jewish state to "live as a neighbor next door in peace."

Meanwhile: Hamas leader says militant group won't recognize Israel (12:00 ET - April 21, 2008):

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal says his militant Islamic group will not recognize Israel. But Mashaal says Hamas will accept a Palestinian state on Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Not sure what Carter is reading, but it sure isn't the Associated Press.

People like to blame Israel for all of this. I hear people characterize Israel's actions against Hamas to be terrorism. But consider this AP article from this morning, Hamas says it's willing to accept Gaza Strip cease-fire:

Hamas has softened its position and is willing to accept a cease-fire in just the Gaza Strip, dropping a demand that the truce immediately include the West Bank, the group's senior representatives said Tuesday.

The move marked a significant concession by Hamas as Egyptian mediators try to halt fighting between Palestinian militants and the Israeli army in Gaza. For weeks, Hamas insisted on a mutual cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip....

Israel regularly carries out airstrikes and military incursions against Palestinian rocket squads in Hamas-controlled Gaza, a strip of land bordering southern Israel. While Israel is conducting peace talks with the rival Palestinian government in the West Bank, the Israeli army continues to carry out arrest raids in that territory as well...

Israel has repeatedly said it isn't negotiating with Hamas, a group that has carried out numerous suicide bombings and remains committed to Israel's destruction. A government spokesman said Tuesday that Israel would keep up its military pressure on Hamas as long as the group threatens Israeli civilians.

"Israeli defense measures are necessary because of the ongoing terrorism launched by Hamas-controlled elements in Gaza. If there were no terror activities there would be no need for Israel's military activity," spokesman David Baker said...

Hamas has softened its position and is willing to accept a cease-fire in just the Gaza Strip, dropping a demand that the truce immediately include the West Bank, the group's senior representatives said Tuesday.

The move marked a significant concession by Hamas as Egyptian mediators try to halt fighting between Palestinian militants and the Israeli army in Gaza. For weeks, Hamas insisted on a mutual cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip...

Mashaal said Hamas would accept a peace deal with Israel, provided it is approved in a referendum of all Palestinians, and also offered a 10-year truce if Israel withdraws from the West Bank and Jerusalem. He offered no recognition of Israel and turned down a request from Carter for a halt to rocket fire.

Amos Gilad, a senior Israel Defense Ministry official involved in the negotiations with Egypt, said Tuesday that Mashaal had offered nothing of significance and that his comments were meant only to give Hamas time to rearm.

There's a lot to that article that is very telling -- I tried to get the main points quoted. But notice several things.

First, that Hamas has no intention to recognize Israel. Perhaps Carter has had some positive influence on their shift this week to offer a cease-fire, but for Carter to go around and mischaracterize this in the press is counterproductive, at best. At worst, the statement is designed to make Carter look good, and to make Israel look bad when this deal falls apart. Which it will (see points #3 and #4). It seems that most of the leaders Carter tries to influence only abuse the opportunity and seek their own tactical advantage.

Second, the most important thing to determine here is this - who is the aggressor? Hamas squads fire rockets indiscriminately into Israel (just as Hezbollah did). Israel fights back, targeting the rocket squads. The easiest way to determine the aggressor is to figure out what would happen if one side stops fighting. If Israel stops fighting, they would be destroyed (pretty easy to determine since this is Hamas' stated goal). If Hamas stops fighting, Israel has stated that their military actions would cease.

Third, the Palestinians are still playing by the same playbook that Arafat played by. That is, to attack until Israel bumps up the pressure, then cry foul, negotiate a cease-fire, get the borders open again, and resupply for the next round. And remember, Carter was in the middle of all of the deals with Arafat as well. This is a classic example of how diplomacy can easily fail, especially when the aggressors are very motivated, and very patient. Ten years to re-arm isn't a bad deal for Hamas at all.

Fourth, the offer includes a demand that Israel simply won't accept - complete control of Jerusalem. I believe this is intentional - Hamas can say "we offered peace but Israel rejected it!" It's a political move that ensures that Israel will reject the offer and look like the bad guy. These guys are more ruthless than you might think. And they use the meeting with Carter (and Carter's press statements) to further push Israel's reputation in the mud. All while Hamas is the true aggressor.

Finally, many liberals will complain about the U.S. support of Israel and how this encourages their "terrorism." I think the opposite is true - that one of the few restraints on Israel is the support of the U.S. Without our support, I believe that Israel would take a much harder line against the Palestinians and these terrorist groups, and other mideast nations in general. If you're being told daily by foreign governments, and the terrorist groups they support, that you're going to be wiped off the map, your response is not going to be measured. Support from the U.S. means that they know that they have an ally if anything really bad were to happen, so they can take a more measured response to the "smaller" terrorism issues that they face daily. And they know that if they just wiped the Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza (which I'm pretty sure many Israelis would love to do) they'd lose U.S. support in a heartbeat. So in the interest of peace, we should be thankful that the U.S. has supported Israel.

The moral of the story? Don't trust terrorists. Like snakes, they're patient and cunning. And it's hard to trust politicians (including ex-presidents) who go around trying to put a positive spin on them, too.

Labels: politics

Happy tax day, once again. And remember: with the FairTax, today could be just like any other spring day.

By the way, over at the FairTax site they have a little petition going on that they're sending to Congress today. Head on over to sign it if you're tired of the overly complicated way the federal government taxes you.

Now that's change I can believe in...

Labels: politics

I just think that this is too darn funny:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Not that it's surprising to hear a liberal presidential candidate talk this way, honestly. It's just funny because Obama is supposed to be this post-racial, post-partisan, savior-of-the-free-world messiah of a presidential candidate. And like how he stepped in it recently over Jeremiah Wright and proved that he's a liar just like all the other politicians out there (just not as good of one), now he shows that he's just as disdainful of the regular folks your run-of-the-mill liberal.

Surprise, surprise, Obama. Not everyone wants sex education for five-year-olds. "Post-racial" candidates shouldn't even use terms like "typical white person" and talk about how they are inherently racist for being concerned when passing someone on the street. Not everyone believes you when you say you've been going to a church for 20 years and had no idea that your pastor was so anti-American. And most of the country doesn't agree with you that support for gun rights or devotion to a religion are products of bitterness over economic conditions. (Both specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights, the last time I looked, so they must have been pretty bitter way back in 1791!)

For all the promise of the Obama campaign, it looks indeed to be all fluff. When you finally get past all the talk about coming together and believing in change, as I believe we are beginning to, what you really find is your run-of-the-mill liberal.

The only Democrat to be elected president in the last 30 years did so by pretending he was a conservative. I don't consider 2008 to be a sure-win for conservatives in any way, but one thing is for sure - liberals have a lot to learn.

Labels: politics

From Who's Right? by Neal Boortz:

Among the rights guaranteed (not “given” as Bill Clinton believes) to you in our Constitution are:

• Freedom of religion
• Freedom of speech
• The right to peaceably assemble.
• The right to petition the government
• The right to keep and bear arms
• The right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures
• Protection from double jeopardy
• Due process
• A speedy and public trial by jury
• The right to legal counsel when charged with a crime

With one exception, the right to representation in court and a trial by jury, these rights require nothing of any other citizen but that they recognize your rights and not interfere with them.

Your “right to health care” would require some other person to give up a portion of their life or their property to either treat you or to provide you with drugs or medical implements. The Constitution does not provide for another individual to be indentured to you in this manner.

Therefore, you have no “right” to health care.

Even in the case of representation in court, and a trial by jury, these rights only have to be provided by society if society charges you with a crime. Quite a different thing from indenturing other individuals to meet your basic, everyday needs.

Why has our society dwindled into such an entitlement mentality? Why is it the government's job to provide? And why do some Christians support the idea of the government using the police power of the state to do the job they're neglecting?

Labels: politics

Britt posted the other day about reading through the Bible. I've been thinking for awhile about reading through the entire Bible. I've attempted this in the past, always to get bogged down in some of the tougher Old Testament parts. I've read nearly all of the Bible at one time or another (taking Old Testament and New Testament classes in college certainly helped me complete that back then), but I haven't made it a part of my discipline to read through the entire thing regularly. Heck, I don't even read it regular enough as it is. So now I'm going to try to accomplish both.

One of the things that I've been encouraged with lately is to try to do it in a chronological order. This comes from discussions with people in our expanded house church community as well as comments Frank Viola has made in his books about it.

So I went looking on the web trying to find a simple downloadable PDF. At first I couldn't find any - everyone wants you to visit their site regularly to figure out what to read next. But what I really wanted was something I could print out all on one sheet.

At first I couldn't find anything, but I did find a place online that had everything listed out on one page. So I made my own PDF, which I'm now sharing with you:

ChronologicalReadingGuide.pdf

I make no claim on this, I didn't come up with the plan, I just formatted the Word file and saved it as a PDF. Print out page 1, turn the page over and reinsert it into your printer, then print out page 2. Now you have a nice one page chronological reading plan you can keep with your Bible.

For what it's worth, I'm not going to try to do this in a year, much less two or three times in a year. Maybe I'll get it done this year, maybe not. I'm encouraged by those who have those kinds of goals, but like many spiritual disciplines, it's best to start out simple and figure out what kind of pace you can manage. Especially with three small kids in the house.

Labels: church