ISRAEL TRUTH TIMES

A blog dedicated to investigating events as they occur in Judea and Samaria, in Israel and in the world, and as they relate to global powers and/or to the Israeli government, public figures, etc. It is dedicated to uncovering the truth behind the headlines; and in so doing, it strives to do its part in saving Judea and Samaria, and by extension, Israel and the Jewish People, from utter destruction at the hands of its many external and internal enemies.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Fwd: SLAUGHTER AND JUBILATION

Jack sent this:

Fortunately, someone understands. Unfortunately, it is not the Israeli government.
 

 
 

SLAUGHTER AND JUBILATION

By Jeff Jacoby

The Boston Globe

 

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

 

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/03/12/slaughter_jubilation_and_the_peace_process/

 

 

     The slaughter of eight young yeshiva students and the wounding of nine others by an Arab terrorist in Jerusalem last week was a cold-blooded act of evil. It is difficult to make sense of the depraved fanaticism of someone like Ala Abu Dhaim, who calmly entered the school's busy library, took three guns from a box, and sprayed the room with hundreds of bullets, emptying clip after clip until finally being shot dead by an off-duty military officer and a part-time student who heard the gunfire and came running.

 

Victims of the yeshiva massacre:

Top row: Avraham David Moses, 16; Ro'i Roth, 18; Neria Cohen, 15; Yonatan Eldar, 16.

Bottom  row: Yochai Lifshitz, 18; Segev Peniel Avihail, 15; Yehonadav Hirschfeld, 19; Doron Meherete, 26.

 

 

     Even more perverse and revolting that Abu Dhaim's massacre, howevere, was the behavior that followed it.

 

     In Gaza, the news that unarmed Jewish students, most of them kids, had been gunned down while at study set off paroxysms of joy. Thousands of jubilant Palestinians whooped it up in Gaza's streets, firing guns in the air to celebrate and distributing candy to passersby. Many residents went to mosques to offer prayers of thanksgiving before joining the festivities. Television cameras recorded the revelry; you can see it for yourself on YouTube.

 

     Hamas, the terror organization that controls Gaza, issued a statement applauding the bloodshed. "We bless the [Jerusalem] operation," it said. "It will not be the last."

 

     Hamas is monstrous, but give it this much: It makes no secret of its bloodlust. The same cannot always be said of Fatah, the other main faction in the Palestinian Authority. Fatah is headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, whose polished spokesman, Saeb Erekat, was quick to assure journalists -- in English, for Western consumption -- that Abbas condemned the killings and "reiterated his condemnation of all attacks that target civilians, whether they are Palestinians or Israelis."

 

     Yet just a few days before the yeshiva massacre, Abbas had told the Jordanian daily Al-Dustur -- in Arabic, for Arab consumption -- that he is against terrorist attacks only for tactical reasons "at this time" and that "in the future, things may change." He boasted of his long involvement with PLO violence -- "I had the honor of firing the first shot in 1965" -- and claimed with pride that Fatah "taught resistance to everyone, including Hezbollah, who trained in our military camps."

 

     Abbas's supposed condemnation notwithstanding, the Palestinian Authority's official daily newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, hailed the killer on its front page, prominently displaying his picture and identifying him as a "shahid" -- a term of approval and reverence denoting an Islamic martyr. And the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a violent Fatah subsidiary identified by the US government as a terrorist organization, praised the slaughter as a "heroic operation."

 

     Meanwhile, the family of Abu Dhaim erected a mourning tent near their East Jerusalem home, where, amid banners of Hamas and Hezbollah, visitors came to honor the dead terrorist. Incredibly, the Israeli government made no effort to prevent this public display of respect for a mass-murderer; it  insisted only that the Hamas and Hezbollah flags be taken down.

 

 

Mourning tent for Ala Abu Dhaim (Photo: AP)

     By contrast, when Abu Dhaim's relatives in Jordan put up a similar tent to receive well-wishers, Jordanian officials ordered them to dismantle it immediately. The terrorist's uncle was indignant. "We were hoping that people would come to congratulate us on the martyrdom of my nephew," he said. "This is a heroic operation that must be celebrated by everyone." It is a mark of how feckless the Israeli leadership has become that the Arab government of Jordan shows more common sense than the Jewish state in reacting to those who would lionize the killer of Jewish kids.

 

     And that is indicative of the most perverse behavior of all: the refusal of Israel to face the fact that it is in a war for survival -- a war that it will win only by fighting and defeating its enemy, not by clinging blindly to a phony "peace process" that has brought it nothing but terror, tears, and a mounting toll of death.

 

     Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's reaction to last week's massacre of the innocents was to announce that he would "not give up on making a tremendous effort to take another significant, important, and dramatic step that might bring us to an opportunity for real reconciliation."

 

     The Israeli Foreign Ministry spouted the same drivel: "These terrorists are trying to destroy the chances of peace," its spokesman said, "but we certainly will continue the peace talks." The White House chimed in too: "The most important thing is that the peace process continue and that the parties are committed to it."

 

     Wrong. The most important thing is to recognize that there is a war against Israel by enemies profoundly committed to its elimination -- enemies who regard negotiations, concessions, and all the trappings of the "peace process" as evidence that the Jews are in retreat, and that hitting them even harder will bring victory even closer. That is why there was such jubilation in Gaza. And why last week's atrocity in Jerusalem was only the latest such horror -- not the last.

 

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)






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