November 20, 2006: The two principal Palestinian parties are still unable to form a new government. Hamas, whose goal of destroying Israel has shut down the flow of over $100 million a month in foreign hand-outs, believes that increased suffering by Palestinians will eventually force the Western nations to resume aid. After all, Palestinians are the official victims in all of this, and cannot possibly be wrong. Besides, many Hamas officials see it as hypocritical that the West ignores the fact that most Palestinian media has, for over a decade, called for the destruction of Israel. Only Palestinian announcements in languages other than Arabic have played down the "destruction of Israel" message. Meanwhile, Hamas continues to smuggle more weapons across the border from Egypt, including 122mm and 107mm rockets, which are to be used for a major attack on Israel. Israelis are agreed that the decision to leave Gaza last year, and let the Palestinians rule it themselves, was a mistake. But there is no unanimity on how to deal with the problem. Re-occupying Gaza would cause more Israeli casualties, and bad publicity. Not going back in, leaves the Palestinian terrorists with more freedom of action. It's a no-win situation, powered by the fact that, since the establishment of Israel 60 years ago, the Arab world has largely supported the idea that Israel must be destroyed..

November 19, 2006: Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad said it would stop firing rockets at Israel, if Israel stopped attacks on terrorist leaders. These attacks have gown in number and accuracy, taking advantage of the fact that many Palestinians are still willing to work with Israeli intelligence, and provide information on who the terrorist leaders are, and where they hang out. Many of these Palestinian informants are doing it for the money. Most of the billion dollars or so a year of foreign aid is still halted, because Hamas continues to insist that it will run the Palestinian territories as an organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Nearly all the foreign aid comes from Western nations, which cannot, because of UN rules and anti-terrorist agreements, openly support Hamas and its declared goals. Only about a quarter of the lost foreign aid has been replaced by Islamic nations, and the cash must be smuggled in. The Egyptian border guards will sometimes slow down the movement of this cash, but they will not stop it. However, the missing income has increased poverty in the Palestinian territories, and the Israelis pay for information. Hamas, and other terrorist organizations, have been unsuccessful in their attempts to shut down the informant networks, and many innocent Palestinians have died simply because they were falsely accused of being informants. Actually, the Israelis gain a lot of information on terrorists via electronic intelligence work and UAVs that are constantly in the air over Palestinian neighborhoods. To the Israelis, inducing paranoia among the Palestinians is seen as a successful weapon. And the Israelis are not going to stop their daily bomb and missile attacks on terrorist leaders. This has kept helped keep the terrorists out of Israel for the last two years, something no one thought was possible three years ago.

November 18, 2006: Hamas has been making more effective use of human shields. Groups of women are now organized to move between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen who are trying to get away, or shoot at the Israelis without taking return fire. Israel is planning to use some new non-lethal weapons against the women shields. Palestinians have already learned to accept, without too much complaint, living next to terrorist leaders, despite the risk of their neighbors home getting blown up by an Israeli bomb. Hamas is pushing the idea that everyone can get involved in the fight by openly serving as a human shield. Many Palestinians are not too enthusiastic, but Hamas is good at mobilizing public opinion. Moreover, the Israelis have been increasingly warning Palestinians when the home of a terrorist is to be hit with a missile. This is done to reduce casualties, but now the Palestinians are responding to these warnings by surrounding the house with more civilians. Thus the Israelis will go back to the old policy of hitting the homes, and any civilians in or near them. The Palestinians will use this as more evidence of Israeli barbarism.

November 17, 2006: An Israeli woman was killed by a Palestinian rocket fired from Gaza into southern Israel. This is considered a victory by Palestinians, and generally dismissed by Europeans. After all, it was the first Israeli killed by Palestinian rockets this year. Palestinians have been gaining more support in Europe, where anti-Semitic and anti-Israel feelings continue to grow. Palestinians capitalize on this by tweaking their propaganda to emphasize their victimhood, and portraying Palestinian terrorism as a legitimate response to Israeli aggression. This is an impressive move, because for the last sixty years, it's been Arab aggression against Israel that has driven the conflict. But, to the delight of Palestinians, Europe has been sliding back into its traditional anti-Semitic ways, and that turns Palestinian terrorists into victims.