“A million and a half people are living in Gaza, but only one of them is really in need of humanitarian aid. That is kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.”

- Defense Minister Ehud Barak to US secretary of defense, Robert Gates

Know thine enemy. Via FoxNews:

Nov. 4, 2009, marks the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, when militant Iranian students took 66 Americans hostage and began a 444-day standoff with the West. Fifty-two Americans were kept in captivity for nearly 15 months by forces loyal to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who established an Islamic theocracy in 1979, months before the storming of the embassy.

President Jimmy Carter ordered an ill-fated rescue attempt in April 1980 in which eight U.S. servicemen died in a mid-air collision between two aircraft flying over the Iranian desert on their way back from the aborted maneuver. The failure left a lasting mark on the Carter administration and helped sink his presidency.

Iran released the hostages on Jan. 20, 1981, 20 minutes after Ronald Reagan assumed office in Washington. The 52 embassy officials were flown from Iran to Algiers, then on to a U.S. airbase in Germany to recover. From there they flew to Newburgh, N.Y., and were bused to West Point, receiving a heroes’ welcome on U.S. soil.

On June 29, 2005, shortly after the depraved Jew-hater Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the Iranian presidential election, several major news outlets publicized allegations that he participated in the 1979–1981 Iran Hostage Crisis.

Some previous hostages have identified Ahmadinejad as the man in the military jacket on the hostage’s left side in the photo below. Several other sources, including Ahmadinejad, and other hostage takers have disputed these identifications.

After over three years in which IDF St.-Sgt. Gilad Shalit has been held in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip, Israel breathed a sigh of relief on Friday afternoon after video footage of the captive soldier was released to the media and aired on Israeli television channels.

When a culture cheers its Muslim murderers as heroes is about as detestable as a culture can get.  Via PMW:

Fatah leaders responded with loud applause when two terrorists who committed the worst terror attack in Israel’s history were referred to as heroic Martyrs by former PA Prime Minister Abu Alaa, at the opening ceremony of Fatah’s Sixth General Conference:

“We have in our midst the hero Khaled Abu-Usbah, hero of the operation [terror attack] led by the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi [loud applause from the audience]. We salute him and welcome him. And [we salute] the hero, the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal. [He shouts:] All the glory! All the glory! All the glory! All the sisters here are Dalal’s sisters.”  [PATV (Fatah), Aug. 4, 2009]

Click here to view the Fatah conference applauding the terrorists

Dalal Mughrabi and Khaled Abu-Usbah are seen as Palestinian heroes for having carried out the bus hijacking in 1978 in which 37 Israeli civilians, 12 of them children, were murdered.

Former Prime Minister Abu Alaa (Ahmad Qurei), who read the statement, is the current Chairman of Fatah Department for Recruitment and Organization.

Via YnetNews:

Four Palestinians from the Kalkilya area have been arrested for the murder of Dr. Daniel Yaakobi, 59, the Israel Security Agency announced Wednesday.

Yaakobi’s body was found burned in the trunk of a car near Kalkilya on July 27, 2006.

One of the suspects, Tayun Tayun, a Fatah operative, said Yaakobi had brought his car to his brother Ahmad’s garage. He said he attacked and beat him with a wrench and a stick until he died.

Sharon Tovi, Yaakobi’s son-in-law, noted that “Danny was a doctor who helped everyone, both Jewish and Arab neighbors.”

One recruiter was killed and another wounded when Muslim convert, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, of Memphis, TN, opened fire into the office.   Recruiting commander Lt. Col Thomas F. Artis says the victims had just completed basic training and were spending two weeks in Little Rock to recruit in their home area, showing the difference that less than two months of training made in their lives.

• “Mr. Muhammad stated that he was mad at the US Military”
• “Mr. Muhammad stated he fired several rounds at the soldiers with the intent to kill them” from arrest report released this morning
• “Mr. Muhammad further stated that he would have killed more soldiers if they had been on the parking lot.”
• Minutes after the shooting, Little Rock Police arrested Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe.  He faces a murder charge and 16 counts of terroristic acts.

Islamism is a cancer.  More here at Fox16.

h/t DailyAlert. Via Guardian:

Hamas has flatly rejected Israel’s demand that it free a captive soldier in return for lifting the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian movement called instead for international pressure on Israel to force the borders open. Mousa Abu Marzook, the deputy leader of Hamas, told the Guardian in Damascus Thursday that Corporal Gilad Shalit would only be released in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

The soldier is believed to be alive but his whereabouts are unknown and he has not been seen by the International Red Cross.

Via Compass Direct:

The murderous rioting sparked by Muslim attacks on Christians and their property on Nov. 28-29 left six pastors dead, at least 500 other people killed and 40 churches destroyed, according to church leaders.

More than 25,000 persons have been displaced in the two days of violence, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

What began as outrage over suspected vote fraud in local elections quickly hit the religious fault line that quakes from time to time in this city located between the Islamic north and Christian south, as angry Muslims took aim at Christian sites rather than at political targets. Police and troops reportedly killed about 400 rampaging Muslims in an effort to quell the unrest, and Islamists shot, slashed or stabbed to death most of more than 100 Christians.

h/t Daily Alert.  Via JPost:

To the families of those killed in the Mumbai terrorist attacks, make no mistake, this tragedy will affect you for the rest of your life.

People will ask you: Do you hate the killers? And when you answer no, they will think that something is wrong with you. But hate is not something you have the energy for; you are too sad to hate. Besides you are a person who loves. To turn to hate would make you like the killers.

Don’t let others tell you that your loved ones died for nothing. They died because they were innocent victims of radical Islamic hatred. They died because radical Islam is vicious and evil and worships destruction and stands against everything you hold dear.

It is paramount that you seek justice – but do not seek revenge. Revenge embitters you while justice elevates you. Justice is motivated by love; revenge is motivated by hatred. Revenge is the modus operandi of the terrorists, and their hatred for others will in the end be defeated.

Keep speaking about the evil that was perpetrated against your loved one. Don’t allow the media or others to call the murderers militants or freedom fighters. Insist that your loved one’s murder be remembered.

The writer’s 13-year-old son Koby was murdered by terrorists in 2001. She and her husband Seth created the Koby Mandell Foundation which offers healing programs for families struck by terror (kobymandell.org).

The Nanavati-Mehta judicial inquiry commission on the Godhra train carnage has based its conclusion of it being a “pre-planned conspiracy” on the recorded evidence of over 100 witnesses, who claimed to having heard a crowd of about a 1,000 Muslims shouting “set the train on fire and kill the Hindus.” The report said “instigating slogans” were also made through loudspeakers from a nearby mosque to attack the Hindus.

The evidence recorded by the commission also claimed that a mob of Muslims attacked the train and stoned the coaches so heavily that the passengers could not come out. This was to ensure maximum casualties when the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express was “set afire.”

The commission in its 168-page report said the “conspiracy” was hatched by some local Muslims at the Aman guest house in Godhra the previous night. The conspirators immediately made arrangements for collecting about 140 litres of petrol from a nearby pump on the night of February 26, 2002, and the next day when the train arrived in Godhra, Hasan Lala after forcibly opening the vestibule between coaches S-6 and S-7 entered S-6 and threw burning rags setting it on fire.

The report named Moulvi Umerji of the local mosque to be the “mastermind” of the conspiracy and said Rajak Kurkure, Salim Panwala, Saukatlal, Imran Sheri, Rafiq Batuk, Salim Jarda, Jabbir, and Siraj Lala were among those who participated in the conspiracy to “cause harm to the kar sevaks travelling in that coach.”