Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty July 29, 2014 Can We Reach the Point of 'No More Hamas'? The number one export of the Gaza Strip is textiles. Number two is rockets. Number three is headaches. They have a particularly enthusiastic immigration policy, consisting of kidnappings. The whole region's full of other people digging for archeological relics, antiquities, minerals and oil . . . and somehow Hamas digs massive tunnels just so they can kidnap people. Everybody else on the Mediterranean makes a killing on tourism; the Palestinians and their allies kill tourists. The Palestinians have Bethlehem -- the birthplace of Christ! One of the biggest potential tourism attractions in the history of the world! -- and beachfront property, and yet somehow they continue to have a struggling economy. Maybe if their children's programming featured less encouragement of mass murder and more basic economics and entrepreneurship, things would be different. 
Killer bees. We're used to these brief, intermittent rocket-firing spats between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel crosses over into Lebanon in 1978 to hunt the PLO, Israel moves out later that same year; they annex the Golan Heights in 1981; they move back into Lebanon in 1982, withdraws in 1986. They move into Hebron, they withdraw from Hebron. They withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah kidnaps two soldiers in 2006, and a second war against Hezbollah begins and ends a few weeks later. 
What if this one doesn't end after a few weeks? What if this one goes on longer, until there's effectively no more Hamas? At least there would be some sense of resolution to this mess, wouldn't it? It sounds like Israel wants to attempt something like that: Israel slammed Gaza with a barrage of airstrikes overnight in what was the heaviest bombardment in the three-week conflict. At least 60 died in the strikes in Gaza overnight. Symbols of Hamas control came under fire, including TV headquarters, government offices and the home of a top leader. Israel said it targeted more than 70 sites and hit 10 "terror operatives." The Gaza Strip's only power plant was struck by a tank shell, hitting a fuel tank and causing the plant to shut down, the head of the power station told ABC News. Fire burned following the attack, with heavy smoke rising over Gaza City. Engineer Fatahi Khalil, from the electricity company, confirmed to ABC News that it will take a year to fix the power plant. The damage will be assessed at a later time, he said. The pounding came hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned in a televised speech of a "prolonged" campaign in Gaza. John Podhoretz scoffs at the emerging "Israel is really losing the conflict" narrative: How is Israel losing? Oh, it seems Israel is getting bad press. What else is new? What else is new about any of it? Is Israel isolated in Europe? That isolation has been deepening for a decade. Has Barack Obama turned unfriendly? Well, his unfriendliness is far from new, as this piece of mine from July 2009 would suggest. Has the incursion led to an increase in overt anti-Semitism? Well, if so, any effort to excuse away such monstrousness by citing this war is nothing less than an act of blaming-the-victim. If Israel were to restrain itself from countering a mortal threat because it feared the promulgation of documents like this, it would be betraying its own reason for existence: a homeland for the Jewish people that needed and needs to exist precisely because of sentiments that help create documents like these -- sentiments that are then turned into action, and into Kristallnacht, and into gas chambers. See, anti-Israel folks? When you guys sound like a broken record, and can barely mumble some pro forma denunciations of Hamas, all of the pro-Israel folks tune you out. Most of us like Israel, for a whole host of reasons: the democracy, the religious pluralism, the freedom of expression, the nation's seemingly endless stockpiles of attractive women carrying automatic weapons, Wonder Woman. But even if we didn't like Israel, for the average American, there's nothing admirable about the other side. What, did Yassir Arafat stir warm feelings of admiration? Hamas? Hezbollah? Iran? Syria? Sure, not every Palestinian danced in the street on 9/11. But some did. Enough did to earn the enmity of millions of Americans.
Trust me, Hamas, that's not a look that most Americans will feel warm and fuzzy about. Also note that the world is at outrage overload right now. Russia's buddies just shot an airliner out of the sky. Every Central American "Oliver Twist" just showed up on our doorsteps in the past few weeks. Those Nigerian schoolgirls are still missing. ISIS and their allies are clear-cutting Christians in the Middle East. The death of 1,000 Palestinians is awful . . . but right next door, in Syria, about 170,000 have been killed in the civil war there. In Iraq, ISIS is implementing mandatory genital mutilation for women. And we're supposed to get upset about Israel's tactics against Hamas being too harsh? Why does that seem to bother our secretary of state more than every other abominable crime going on in the world? And why is he so determined to implement a ceasefire when Israel might be on the verge of actually changing the dynamics on the ground by actually removing Hamas from the situation? David Ignatius: Secretary of State John Kerry has made a significant mistake in how he's pursuing a Gaza cease-fire -- and it's not surprising that he has upset both the Israelis and some moderate Palestinians. Kerry's error has been to put so much emphasis on achieving a quick halt to the bloodshed that he has solidified the role of Hamas, the intractable, unpopular Islamist group that leads Gaza, along with the two hard-line Islamist nations that are its key supporters, Qatar and Turkey. In the process, he has undercut not simply the Israelis but also the Egyptians and the Fatah movement that runs the Palestinian Authority, all of which want to see an end to Hamas rule in Gaza. The Senate Candidate Who Helped Finance Hamas's Friends We watch and wish we could do something to send a message to Hamas. I suppose we could settle for beating the Senate candidate who helped finance groups close to them. Let Eliana Johnson explain: Over on the homepage, I have a piece about what appears to be Michelle Nunn's campaign plan, which was posted online -- I assume unintentionally -- several months ago. The document assesses Nunn's vulnerabilities, among them grants that the Points of Light Foundation, for which she has served as CEO since 2007, has made to "terrorists." On Nunn's watch, the Points of Light Foundation has given a total of over $33,000 to Islamic Relief USA, a charity that says its goal is alleviating "hunger, illiteracy, and diseases worldwide." Islamic Relief USA is part of a network of charities that operates under the umbrella of Islamic Relief Worldwide: On its website, it says that it is a legally separate entity from its parent organization, but that they share a "vision, mission, and family identity." Their ties are closer than that, though: Ryan Mauro at the Clarion Project noted several months ago that Islamic Relief USA administers grants with Islamic Relief Worldwide. The organization's 2008 financial report says that "the majority" of Islamic Relief USA's charitable programs are "administered through approved and monitored grants with Islamic Relief Worldwide." Islamic Relief USA's 2009 financial report shows that it incurred over $20 million in grant expenses in collaboration with Islamic Relief Worldwide; in 2010 the number rose to nearly $22 million. What does that matter? Because Islamic Relief Worldwide has close ties to Hamas, which the U.S. and many other Western countries have designated as a terrorist organization. In June, Israel banned Islamic Relief Worldwide from operating in the country because, according to Israeli officials, it was funneling cash to Hamas. In 2006, they arrested Islamic Relief Worldwide's Gaza coordinator, Ayaz Ali. He'd been working to transfer funds and supplies to Hamas. Ali also admitted to cooperating with local Hamas operatives while working in Jordan. On his computer, Israeli officials found photographs of "swastikas superimposed on IDF symbols," and of Nazi officials, Osama bin Laden, and al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Next Shoe to Drop You notice how all summer long, the Obama administration has escaped one awful problem on the front page by replacing it with another awful problem on the front page? Maybe this will be the next one, pushing all the rest of the world's chaos to page A3: The Ebola virus, which has infected two U.S. humanitarian workers in Liberia, is only a short plane ride from any city on Earth. But federal health officials say it's not a big worry for most Americans.
But it's unlikely to come as far as the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
"Ebola poses little risk to the U.S. general population," Stephan Monroe of CDC's National Center for Emerging & Zoonotic Infectious Diseases told reporters in a conference call. It's because you have to be in direct contact with someone who is ill to become infected.
"Transmission is through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person," Monroe said. That includes vomit, blood or diarrhea. "Individuals who are not symptomatic are not contagious," he said. For a second opinion, examine this nightmarish scenario offered by Rick Wilson. ADDENDA: Thanks to the good folks who came to yesterday's event at the John Locke Foundation. When you're speaking in public, some days you're at the top of your game, some days it doesn't work out; yesterday everything just seemed to click. I had answers to the questions that were reasonably entertaining, if not informative. They put a portion of the remarks online, and you can see them here. It includes my assessment that libertarians are important to listen to, but you don't always want them to drive your car. "Speed limits are tools of oppression, man!"
"I notice you're not wearing the seat belt, either."
"Yeah, it's fascism, man!"
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