Blue Crab Boulevard

Looks like it.

All groups in Gaza, including Hamas, would now accept a cease-fire deal with Israel which would include releasing Gilad Shalit, according to the Palestinian Agriculture Minister, who also heads the coordinating committee of Palestinian organizations there.

Ibrahim Al-Naja said the factions were ready to stop the Qassam rocket fire if Israel's ceased all military moves against the Palestinian factions in Gaza. They are also ready to release Shalit in exchange for guaranteeing the future release of Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas leaders did not confirm this report on Monday, but if it is true, then this is the first time that Hamas has indicated its acceptance of the Egyptian proposal to solve the crisis.

Egypt's proposal did not include an Israeli commitment to the immediate release of Palestinian prisoners, only guarantees for their future release.

Al-Naja said the Palestinian faction's conditions were that the cease-fire would be mutual and Israel would stop all its actions against the Palestinians.

He also said Israel must provide clear guarantees to free veteran prisoners, minors and female prisoners incarcerated in Israel.

Simply put, if the Palestinians stop attacking, Israel has no need to target the terrorists. Eventual release of prisoners can mean when they die of old age the bodies will be sent back. This could very well mean the Palestinian terrorists have folded. If this is true, Israel just won a major victory.

Years ago, I had a mathematics professor who was a truly great teacher He made math interesting. I think that almost everyone who came out of his classes went on to complete their course work. He just had a way of getting the subject across. I saw fellow veterans from his courses on campus for years, still working on finishing their degrees. He was an adjunct professor, who actually had a real-world full time job and taught only because he loved teaching. (He sure didn't do it for the money - he told me what the job paid once - it was pathetic).

One class he wrote the words: "Jeet? Nodju?" on the board in the front of the class. Then he asked if anyone knew what they meant. Guesses ranged from some obscure math formula to completely clueless shoulder shrugs. He hinted that he had overheard the words in the student union. Still nobody could decipher them.

He then told us that he'd been sitting in the student union when he overheard the words, spoken by two people in conversation. He was mystified, too. The words made no apparent sense. Then the first speaker said, "Ok, let's go to the cafeteria". All became clear. He'd heard verbal shorthand and had not been able to understand it out of context. (He used that example to teach a shorthand concept used in math - damned if I can recall which one though). But the point, that you had to have context to understand some things was vital.

Ah, but Eugene Robinson from the Washington Post knows exactly what everyone thinks, believes and understands from a few overheard words from the President. And he showers his contempt down on the President because he is so clear about what he understands:

Just my luck. I go away on vacation and it happens to be the week when George W. Bush's strategic view of the current world situation is revealed: Russia big. China big, too. World leaders boring. Lady world leaders need neck rub. Terrorism bad. Elections good (when the right people get elected). Israel good. Time to go home yet?

I felt better when I thought the Decider didn't have a worldview, just a set of instincts about freedom and democracy. But even if you set aside the president's embarrassing open-mike performance at the Group of Eight summit, which is hard to do, events of the past week show that this administration actually thinks it knows what it's doing. Bush and his folks haven't just blundered around and created this dangerous mess, they've done it on purpose. And they intend to make it worse.

That is the way Robinson sets the opinion up. If anything that is the high point of his regard for Bush, America and Israel.

Bush's endorsement of the violence that Israel is inflicting on Lebanon — a sustained bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of civilians and can only be seen as collective punishment — is truly astonishing. Of course Israel has the right to defend itself against Hezbollah's rocket attacks. But how can this utterly disproportionate, seemingly indiscriminate carnage be anything but counterproductive?

Destroying the Beirut airport, blasting communications towers into oblivion and cleansing southern Lebanon of its civilian population are not measures the world will see as an attack on Hezbollah terrorists. The Israeli campaign is so intense and widespread that it is creating more terrorists than it kills. Proportionate military action might have enhanced Israel's security, but video footage of grandmothers weeping amid the rubble of their homes and bloodied children lying in hospital beds won't make Israel more secure. Hezbollah's stature in the Arab world is growing, and its patrons in Damascus and Tehran must be smugly satisfied.

Of course, Mr. Robinson gives the terrorists who hold human shields in front of themselves a free pass. Not one, nary a single mention of Hezbollah's using human shields. Which even the UN is admitting is happening. Nope - all Bush's fault in Robinson's view. Doesn't even matter that the communication towers in question belonged to a self-declared organization with the agenda of destroying Israel.

But this administration doesn't want to be an honest broker in the Middle East. Bush and Rice have staked their Middle East policy on a single incontrovertible idea — that terrorism is bad — and it has led them to the mistaken notion that Israel can achieve long-term security by creating a kind of scorched-earth buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

Ah, the last bastion of the left. The "Honest Broker" meme. Which has worked so stunningly well in all the past years. The US has "honestly brokered" ceasefire after ceasefire after ceasefire. And the terrorists have broken every, single one. Good plan, Robinson. Let's do it again.

Robinson is wrong. In the most epic sense of the word. And his parting words are important:

The next time you hear someone praise the simplicity of George W. Bush's worldview, keep in mind that what you don't know can indeed hurt you.

Because Robinson doesn't know anything at all, apparently.

Jeet? Nodju? Jerk.

Bill Clinton, the Democrat's heavy artillery, went to Connecticut tonight to campaign for Joe Lieberman.  To a packed audience, Clinton enthusiastically endorsed Lieberman and damned with faint praise his challenger, Ned Lamont.

WATERBURY, Conn. - Bill Clinton, campaigning to save an old friend from defeat, appealed to Connecticut Democrats Monday to put aside their opposition to the war in Iraq and send embattled Sen. Joseph Lieberman on his way to a new term in office.

Democrats "don't agree on everything. We don't agree on Iraq," Clinton said, calling the conflict the "pink elephant in the living room."

But "the real issue is, whether you were for it or against it, what are we going to do now. And let me tell you something, no Democrat is responsible for the mistakes that have been made since the fall of Saddam Hussein that have brought us to this point."

In a 20-minute speech to a capacity crowd in an ornate theater, Clinton went easy on Ned Lamont, whose challenge gained traction when he accused Lieberman of being too close to Bush on the war and other issues.

"He seems like a perfectly nice man. He's got every right to run and he's waged a vigorous campaign," the former president said.

By contrast, he lavished praise on Lieberman, a third-term lawmaker whose once formidable lead in the polls has vanished.

Clinton said Lieberman has long been a loyal Democratic vote on issues as diverse as organized labor and the environment.

Clinton was greeted with cheers louder than Lieberman received from the audience, and the words "Four More Years" were clearly audible in the crowd.

Lieberman wasn't nearly as deferential to Lamont as Clinton was. "My opponent is peddling what I would call a big lie, and that is I'm not a real Democrat," he said.

And he proudly recalled that Clinton first volunteered to help him in 1970, when he was running for the state legislature in his first campaign.

"I'm in a big fight here," he said more than once during the day, and the polls, the recent addition of campaign staff and the decision to seek help from Clinton were all evidence of that.

The former president wasn't the only nationally known Democrat campaigning for Lieberman as the lawmaker sought to rebuild support among Democrats who long supported him.

Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, an ardent critic of the war, praised Lieberman for his stand on other issues. "If you want to meet a leader on the environment, a leader on all the difficult choice issues, you got one here," she said at a campaign stop at a candy store.

I read some of the blog entries for ardent supporters of Lamont on Boxer's appearance in which they crowed about how they had scored major points against Lieberman and Boxer. They did not to the average voter. They looked and/or sounded fanatical, driven and crude ("I almost shit my pants" is how one video ended.) In one way, it would be amusing to watch the Democrats try to deal with a netroots victory in Connecticut. But it truly would be damaging to the country to have only one viable party. Reasonable struggle between the two parties leads both parties to better efforts I think. Having a fringe element in control would not be a good thing at all. Chasing hawkish Democrats out of the party would be an unmitigated disaster for the Democrats. I don't know if they could recover from it.

UPDATE: Jim at Gateway Pundit saw the same nastiness.

Ralph Bennett, writing in TCS Daily wonders if maybe, just maybe, people will get it this time. The terrorists like Hezbollah hide behind women and children. They welcome the death of these innocents. It is all just information war for them. A way to play on the groupthink of the Western media. Propaganda writ large with the active assistance of the Western media. The willing assistance, in fact.

Maybe, as this terrible business in Lebanon unfolds, we'll finally get it:

Guerrillas like to hide behind civilians.

Muslim guerrillas take it a step further: "Civilians" are a weapon to them — as much a part of the fight as the AK-47 or RPG they carry.

Those who have visited any Hezbollah installation in Lebanon over the years always remark on the fact that there are families, women and children, in and around the place. "Secret" bases are usually hidden in plain site. Houses or apartment buildings become weapons storage or even operations centers.  An innocent shed or garage may contain a Toyota or a missile launcher.

Seldom, if ever, has a guerrilla movement been able to so openly and exquisitely weave itself into the fabric of a society as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon.

If the civilians in and around what are in effect operational bases happen to be of Hezbollah's own brand of Islam they automatically become a part of the "sacrificial," suicidal equation. Often without choice or foreknowledge, they die an "honorable" death in the battle against infidels or apostates.

If the civilians happen to be of some other persuasion, Islamic or otherwise, their deaths are not even worth a shrug. However, these mangled bodies and wailing women with arms outstretched do provide an immense propaganda payoff, especially in the Western "crusader" media — which still places a quaint value on human life.

They simply do not care. And the Western left will not hold them to the same standards as they insist Western troops must follow. War crimes committed by the terrorists are given a free pass while Israelis and Americans are held to extreme interpretations of the Geneva Conventions. Western human rights groups can be counted on to denounce the West while staying silent about the heinous crimes of the terrorists.

But when even the UN has to admit that Hezbollah is hiding among civilians and causing their deaths, maybe this time at least some people will see.

Maybe.

Never - not ever - would I have believed this coming from a UN official:

But a day after criticizing Israel for "disproportionate" strikes against civilians, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland accused Hezbollah of "cowardly blending" among Lebanese civilians.

"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending … among women and children," Egeland said. "I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."

This is enormous news - the UN finally admitting that Hezbollah itself is causing the bulk of the civilian casualties.

Hat Tip to Crosspatch from the comment section. (Same story on Yahoo News).

UPDATE: Ha'aretz report. Egeland is now in Israel trying to negotiate safe passage corridors for humanitarian aid.

Asks David Adesnik at OxBlog.

More than any other blogger I know, Kevin explores numerous issues precisely because they are complex. So it doesn't sound very plausbile for him to say that this issue is just too complex. At least Kevin does admit in his post that his arguments on this subject amount to "feeble excuses".

Speaking more broadly, I think Kevin is really missing the point if he believes that excessive complexity is what's holding back other liberal bloggers. After all, there is no issue more complicated or more written-about than Iraq.

Clearly, something else besides complexity is preventing liberal bloggers from writing about Israel. I would suggest that there is a part of the online left which is so viciously anti-Israel that moderates have been intimidated into silence. Let's hope that this kind of viciousness never migrates off line, where it might threaten bipartisan support for Israel.

Which is, I suspect, exactly what the DLC is terrified of. Because the left has an enormous anti-Israeli component within it. If that element becomes ascendant, the Democrats will fade into an unelectable minority party. The viciousness of the anti-war, anti-Western and anti-israel elements is also something the DLC fears. The "moore" it is exposed to public view, the harder is it for the Democrats to pretend it's not there. The more closely the Dems are associated to such venom, the harder it will be for them to win elections. If they lose the Jewish vote, they are in deep, deep trouble.

Do read all of Adesnik's post, including the comments if you get a chance. There's some good stuff in there.

A Canadian man claims one of his mares gave birth to an odd colt. He believes the mare mated with a moose. The colt has longer than normal legs and a head very like a moose. Experts will conduct genetic tests but are very skeptical of the claim.

MONTREAL (AFP) - A rare mating of a wild moose and a mare likely resulted in the birth of a funny-looking colt with a big head and long legs, a rancher in French-speaking Quebec province said.

But veterinarians are conducting tests to confirm his claim.

Bambi, born 11 weeks ago in the Gaspe Peninsula after a mysterious conception, has the head of a moose atop a horse frame, Francois Larocque told AFP. "It's not an ordinary colt."

He told Le Soleil newspaper: "When the mare gave birth, my sisters said: 'It has a moose head.'"

Passers-by spotted more similarities to a moose in the foal: Bambi has elongated legs, likes to hang out in a nearby forest where moose typically venture, and sleeps lying down instead of upright like a horse, Larocque said.

A front-page headline in the newspaper La Presse quipped: "Is Bambi a hoose or a morse."

But Gilles Landry, a biologist with Quebec's parks and wildlife department, remains skeptical.

"I have serious doubts because there has never been a birth from a moose and a horse reported, even though some have mated," he said. "It's more likely that it's a deformed animal."

To tell you the truth, the picture in Le Soliel doesn't appear to show anything other than an ugly colt. (Article is in French.) Maybe from a different angle Bambi looks more moosey. Is that a word?

Well, if it's true, would it be a sign of the Apocalypse? Or just a chance to call out the only phrase possible in a situation like this: "Hi yo, Bullwinkle, away!"

Shrinkwrapped has an email that was sent from Israel by a friend of his oldest son. Life under the Hezbollah blitz is not at all pleasant.

Well folks I don't know what story the media is telling in America, but it is raining rockets here!!!  Followed by retaliatory Israeli Air force strikes that sounds similar to thunder except it lasts about 2 minutes.  I have been attempting to send an email for 2 days now; however I am continually interrupted by the Air Raid sirens followed by barrages of missiles/rockets. 

The fighting has been going on for about a week in the North now, and the attacks are getting longer and more frequent.  At least 3-5 times a day for the past few days we are startled to death by the air raid sirens warning us of an imminent attack.  Just to give you a hint of how loud the sirens are- if you put your ear next to a police siren, multiply that by a million.  From my Kibbutz we can hear the sirens going off in Haifa (9kms away).  From the second we here the siren, we have about 1 minute before the rocket hits and to get in the bunkers.  When you first get into a bunker a third of the people are in shock, a third are hysterical and another third are searching for a way to deal with it….

Go over and read the whole thing. It's worth the time.

Former President Bill Clinton will be appearing tonight to stump for Joe Lieberman. The Hartford Courant is reporting that Clinton is expected to call for party unity and calling on the faithful to focus on defeating Republicans rather than trying to oust a fellow Democrat.

On the Palace Theater stage in Waterbury, former President Clinton is expected today to urge Democrats to redirect their anger over the war in Iraq away from Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and toward Connecticut's three congressional Republicans.

Clinton previewed his message in a speech earlier this month: "If we allow our differences over what to do now in Iraq to divide us instead of focusing on replacing Republicans in Congress, that's the nuttiest strategy I ever heard in my life."

But Clinton's visit, while a timely boost to an incumbent suddenly struggling to stay even in a Democratic primary with an anti-war challenger, Ned Lamont, offers multiple story lines and imagery, not all of which will be flattering to Lieberman.

One of the scheduled speakers is Waterbury Mayor Michael Jarjura, re-elected as a write-in candidate last fall after losing a Democratic primary, a reminder that Lieberman is prepared to run as a petitioning candidate should he lose the Aug. 8 primary.

This is the Democratic party's biggest gun, it should be interesting to see what effect it has. One rumor I have heard is that there have been a fairly large number of Connecticut voters suddenly switching party affiliations (sorry, no citation, I can't remember where I saw that. It was more than one place, though). This could get interesting. Anyone who thinks the DLC wants Lamont to win is nuts. It's about the very last thing the centrists want to happen.