Every day the Islamic terror organization, Hamas, fires Kassam rockets into the northern Negev development town of Sderot.  Yesterday, two children, aged two and four were killed and tens of other civilians injured.  The IDF needs to enter the northern Gaza Strip to deny terror organizations the Kassam launch zones, knowing full well the Palestinian objective in such rocket attacks is to draw the IDF into Gaza, permanently. 

The Israeli government won’t admit to it outright, but smart money bets that the bomb that killed Hamas operations director Izzideen al-Sheik Khalil in his car in Damascus yesterday was Made in Israel, even if the label was absent.  Khalil, who was a mentor to Yihya (The Engineer) Ayash along with a host of other terrorist murderers, had moved to Damascus a few years ago, where he was one of the leaders of the Hamas “foreign department” along with Khaled Mash’al.  Khalil was behind the double bombing in Beersheba on August 31, in which 16 Israelis were killed, among other outrages.

The Fast of Atonement, Yom Kippur, begins at sunset on Friday.  It is a day of reflection, for considering the deeds of the past and looking forward to the events of the coming year.

One would expect Israeli PM Ariel Sharon to lead in organizing a national referendum over the Gaza Disengagement controversy.  According to a Teleseker poll taken on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, 58% of Israel's population favors the pullout while 29% is opposed, meaning two-thirds vs. one-third.  Gush Etzion's Shaul Goldstein, representing much of the Judea and Samaria (West Bank or "Yesha") settlement leadership concurs fully, despite his public role in opposing any withdrawal.  What appears to be a simple remedy is really quite complicated.

To call the tragic end of the Beslan school siege “botched” is to understate the case by several orders of magnitude.  Just about everything concerning the hostage crisis, from beginning to post-mortem, seems to have poorly handled.

The first step in solving any problem or defeating any challenger lies in defining the issue at hand.  The same exists for an adversary or an enemy bent on one's destruction.  Over the years The New York Times has distinguished itself as the world's greatest beacon of liberal light through its sanctification of "balance" in reporting, especially when it comes to blatant Islamic terror activities.  The Times, however, does not recognize terrorism for the horror it is.

Tuesday's double bus bombing in Beer Sheva was a catastrophe waiting to happen.  Sixteen Israelis died and over 100 were injured.  After five and a half months, Palestinian terrorists managed a major success, this time in Israel's Negev capitol.  The two homicide/suicide bombers were from Hebron.  All the ingredients for the disaster were present:  No security fence exists between the West Bank southern Hebron hills and the northern Negev, the IDF only rarely operates road blocks in the area and Hebron is not ringed by the army.  On the offensive level there were very few incursions into Hebron and the surrounding villages to capture terrorist organizers and apparently the terror cells in the area have not been infiltrated.