Abbas, Hamas and Israeli Intel

A Hamas plot to assassinate Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has been thwarted after he was tipped off by Israeli intelligence.

Read it again.

Read the whole article.

Let it sink in...

Try to keep the names and alliances straight in your mind and figure out why Israel would do such a thing.

Now go back to the time just after the Gaza election that put Hamas in charge as a party, but left Abbas the head of state. Recall how quickly the press jumped in to savage Jimmy Carter? But remember also that it was just that man himself who saw hope in the midst of an otherwise crazy state of affairs?

Nah. Nobody remembers. Nor cares. But I'm gonna repeat what I said at that time.

I would guess that the average American could not distinguish between Abbas and Hamas.

Nothing I say here will have any meaningful impact on the tidal wave of criticism that engulfs the man. But for sheer courage and sincerity I give him very high marks. At that fragile moment when Hamas pulled off the electoral shock of the decade, while everyone else was trying to catch their breath, Carter was in the midst of the event speaking out, giving it his best shot trying to make the best of a situation that caught the rest of the world by surprise.

And here we are two or three months later trying to figure out how to run our own intelligence (I still think there must be a better word...), whipping up a war with Iran halfway around the world, while Israel tosses a safety net in the direction of an official arch-enemy in sling-shot range, that has vowed to destroy them as a country and a people.

Madness.
Sheer madness.