From Richard Baehr

1. Michael Totten believes Syria's Assad is suckering Barack Obama. I don't think this is too hard to do. When your world view is naive enough to believe that all the bad guys can be turned around by getting them to talk to us one on one or at a big super duper Muslim summit, you need a reality check. The world's thugs are not singing to the Obama chorus of "yes, we can!", except to the extent it means taking advantage of the United States in such an administration
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/totten/2392


2. Rick Richman lays out what happened in Sderot Saturday night. Stonings are occurring regularly now, directed at Jewish motorists in the Galilee and the West Bank. This sounds like an intifada to me. Thousands of Hamas fighters are now in Sinai ready to cross the porous Israeli Sinai border to strike at Israel (more suicide bombing attacks are coming, like the one in Dimona). Other Hamas terrorists crossed into Egypt, picked up new weapons, and then came back to Gaza. None of this is good.
http://jpundit.typepad.com/jci/2008/02/saturday-in-sde.html
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125196#replies


3. A Palestinian and Natan Sharansky agree that Abu Mazen is a false hope.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120269089266857707.html


4. Yoram Ettinger argues there are fewer Palestinians than the media, Palestinian advocates and some Israeli leftists believe. Maybe a million fewer. If he is right, the demographic argument for withdrawing from the West Bank gets a lot weaker.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/125201#replies