Fighting the Next World War, Today

From Ynet news.com, a couple of stories that indicate just what we are up against. As if any of the regular readers need reminding. Go ahead and email this link to the mailing list, and let's see if we can't change some minds.

First, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy gives an interview where he sounds an awful lot like President Bush, and many US lawmakers (at least when they were for the war, before they were against it):Former head of Israel's intelligence service tells Portuguese newspaper it would take at least 25 years before battle against fundamentalist terrorism is won; says nuclear strike by Muslim terrorists 'very likely'

'The world does not understand. A person walks through the streets of Tel Aviv, Barcelona or Buenos Aires and doesn’t get the sense that there is a war going on,’ said Halevy who headed Mossad between 1998 and 2003.



‘During World War I and II the entire world felt there was a war. Today no one is conscious of it. From time to time there is a terrorist attack in Madrid, London and New York and then everything stays the same.’



Violence by Islamic militants has already disrupted international travel and trade just as in the previous two world conflicts, he said.

Secondly, the Muslim Terrorists show us once again what they mean by 'truce' and 'negotiations': Palestinian factions agree to tense truce, with Egyptian mediation; nonethless, Palestinians keep dying in Gaza, at least 10 Hamas members kidnapped in Nablus

A 19 year old Palestinian was killed during exchanges of fire between Hamas and Fatah near Khan Younis. A few hours earlier, Sunday afternoon, a member of a Hamas-led police force was shot dead, despite a theoretical mediated a few hours earlier by an Egyptian security delegation between various Palestinian groups. Kidnappings by both sides continued in the West Bank.



Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for the Hamas force, blamed members of Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades for the shooting, which took place shortly after a top intelligence official loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was abducted.

[...]

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas called on Palestinians to stop the internal fighting. At the opening of a Palestinian government meeting, he said: "I have asked again and again and again. Stop this war. Stop the violence, preserve national unity."


Haniyeh also appealed to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to order the Palestinians security forces to remove gunmen from the streets and get rid of the barricades currently dotting Gaza roads.

Sure, give these folks a state. They just need more understanding and we need to get to the root causes of the violence. Like US Imperialism? Or maybe Western parochialism? Or maybe the root cause is just something simple, like good old vengeance:

the Hamas gunmen had been firing into the air and proclaiming revenge on those involved in the Friday kidnapping of nine members of Hamas security forces.

Check it out.