HAMAS CELEBRATES UNITY GOVERNMENT, DIPLOMATIC THAW WITH BRAZEN TERRORISM

Hamas is determined to prove that there's nothing they can do to make the West give up on them. No act is too audacious, no terrorism too ill-conceived or ill-timed. Norway breaks the boycott and holds official talks with Hamas? The EU looks like it's not going to hold out much longer? Perfect time for a terrorist attack:

The armed wing of Hamas said it carried out its first attacks against Israel since a shaky November truce in the Gaza Strip, shooting a utility worker near the border on Monday and firing two mortar bombs at soldiers. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office denounced what it called a "terror" attack and said it showed the new Palestinian unity government, dominated by Hamas, was failing to meet Western demands to halt violence and recognise Israel. Palestinians hope the government that took office on Saturday between Hamas Islamists and President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction, will stop fighting between the groups and ease a crippling economic embargo that has increased poverty.

And now if Israel retaliates - if Israel has the audacity to, you know, respond to armed attacks by the sitting Palestinian government - then the entire world will scream hysterically about how Israel isn't giving the new unity government a chance to work. We'll see editorial after editorial bemoaning how Israel is "making Abbas's position impossible".

Disgusting. But you have to kind of grudgingly admire Hamas's position. Tbhey're not going to let the world quietly and dishonestly fund their genocidal activities. They're going to smear the world's anti-Semitism in its face, all while gleefully watching Western diplomats go into contritions to make excuses for them. And that's exactly what's going to happen.

Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric...