Simple Truths About Terrorists

Likely, President Bush will take some flak for suggesting that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is anything other than completely the fault of Israel. His detractors will defiantly say that it has been the Israelis response to suicide bombings that caused the road map to Middle East peace to stall.

Certainly there are elements within Israel that are suspicious of talking about a Palestinian state, or even considering continuing peace talks with opponents who, at will, break cease fires and have previously rejected offers of statehood. What has caused, continually, peace talks to fail has not been these elements, though. It's been the endless stream of Palestinians willing to kill themselves in vicious attacks on civilian targets in order to instill terror in their enemies.

Bush, rejecting any suggestion that his Middle East policy had fallen flat, again advocated creation of a Palestinian state that would live side-by-side in peace with Israel.

But he said, "In order to achieve a two-state solution, there needs to be a focused effort by all concerned parties to fight off terror.''

"There are terrorists in the Middle East willing to kill to make sure that a Palestinian state doesn't emerge,'' he said.

Any who doubt that there are terrorists in the Middle East who work against a peaceful resolution to these troubles might want to ask Anwar Sadat his opinion on the subject. I'm sure it would be quite illuminating. The group that assassinated Sadat in 1981, largely because of their opposition to his peace talks with Israel, was none other than Egyptian Islamic Jihad (not to be confused with Palestinian Islamic Jihad)--a group devoted to installing strict Muslim governments in Egypt. On the side, they resist US and Israeli interests in the Middle East.

Even considering that Palestinians have certain reasonable complaints, the use of terror and assassination to intentionally derail peace talks and any consideration of Arab nations in normalizing relations with Israel is contemptible.

A Canadian Jewish News report from May of this year speaks to the terrifying casualties inflicted by suicide bombers.

The suicide bombing [a Hamas attack in Tel Aviv in May], the 91st since the eruption of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000 and the first of its kind carried out by a foreigner, raised Israel's death toll to 737 civilians and soldiers. The Israeli raid into Gaza brought to 2,029 the number of Palestinians killed during this period.

If you're thinking that it seems a goal of the terrorists to elicit a violent response from the Israelis, you're right. The goal of terror is often to bring about a bloody response in hopes of creating more dissent and anger in civilian body. That isn't to say, though, that Israel could simply stay "above" the conflict or disarm it by ignoring the bombers.

That would only be an invitation to keep up the tactic.

The terrorists’ willingness to sacrifice themselves is frightening, but their willingness to sacrifice other Palestinians who are inevitably caught up in the violence is horrific. And to think that this sacrifice is made in the name of avoiding peace and avoiding a Palestinian homeland is the worst part. Hamas and Islamic Jihad may never accept the right of Israel to exist--and Israel cannot simply wish their opposition away.

The terror that Israeli citizens live with daily is something that we Americans can't truly understand. Not that we haven't suffered at the hands of terrorists--I will not forget the Cole or 9/11 or the embassy bombings--but that our experience is still not one of such a common occurrence as that of the citizen of Israel.

Read the Salon article about President Bush's statements.

Posted by zombyboy at October 28, 2003 07:09 PM | TrackBack