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 vent
One: In the dead of night, black helicopters drop naval commandos
into the ocean 500 miles from home. They board and capture their
target, a ship laden with deadly weapons destined for the Palestinian
Authority, so quickly that they actually handcuff most of their
opposition to their beds while they sleep. No one knows what flag
the ship was sailing under, but by the time it steamed into the
Israeli port of Eilat, it was sailing under the Magen David.
Event Two:
An armed terrorist arrives at a banquet hall, where a party for
a twelve-year-old girl is taking place. He is armed and packed with
explosives. He nonchalantly enters the dance area and begins to
empty his weapons at her friends and family.
These recent
and interconnected events present the world with two ugly facts.
First, Arafat and the Palestinians have only one goal, and that
is the continuation of terror against Israel, and ultimately its
destruction. Second, Iran is expanding, not contracting, its support
of global terrorism in the face of the administration's war against
terror.
The 50-ton
cache of Palestinian weapons included Katyusha rockets (the type
Hezbollah uses to attack northern Israeli cities), anti-aircraft
missiles, mines, C-4 explosives (used for suicide bombings), and
sniper and assault rifles, among other weapons of terror. Of course,
all of these various arms are illegal under the now virtually worthless
Oslo accords. In his usual fashion, Arafat has been pushing publicly
for a cease-fire and then using the respite to acquire more weapons
for a new terror offensive that this time will reach deeper into
Israel, with deadlier results. This tactic is borne out by the latest
Palestinian attack on the banquet hall. Arafat, apparently not satisfied
with using his proxy, Hamas, to kill Israelis, had his own Fatah
organization send the terrorist to kill at the party. One must understand
that agreements made with the Palestinians are worthless and that
the world is making a grave mistake in attempting to force Israel
into signing a peace agreement with an entity that has no intention
of making peace. After Israel offered the Palestinians 98% of the
West Bank, 100% of the Gaza Strip, over 50% of Jerusalem and territory
inside of Israel proper, the Palestinians responded with a year
and a half of terror. What exactly does the world community want
Israel to do?
The ship, called
the Karine A, is a freighter owned by the Palestinian Authority
and was under the command of an officer of the Palestinian Naval
Police. The saga began when the PA's main weapons buyer, Adel Moghrabi,
and several other senior PA figures began to cultivate relationships
with Iranians, through Hezbollah, in order to acquire large amounts
of weapons from them. The Palestinian Authority spent nearly $15
million in order to acquire these weapons, while their people live
in abject poverty. The plight of the Palestinians was actually engineered
by Arafat, who can simultaneously augment his weapons arsenal while
ensuring an endless supply of willing, poor, and uneducated suicide
bombers. Despite direct evidence of Arafat's personal corruption
(his personal wealth is valued in the billions) and his displacement
of funds from civil infrastructure to terrorist infrastructure,
Europeans continue to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into
the corrupt and deadly regime. They either ignore or are unmoved
by daily evidence that Arafat is the prime mover in the terrorist
offensive. Europe's support makes them accomplices to the terror.
Ever since
Israel pulled out of Lebanon last year, Hezbollah has been touting
it as the first Israeli military defeat in its history. The Palestinians
have taken note of this and are attempting to emulate their tactics
by procuring much of the same type of weaponry that Hezbollah used
in their military and terror campaign against Israel and her northern
cities. They have also cultivated a relationship with Hezbollah's
main benefactor, Iran. The presence of a Hezbollah agent on the
ship, as well as their new dealings with the Iranians, are very
worrisome developments indeed. In the past, the Iranian regime has
merely paid lip service to the Palestinian cause; these new developments
are a major shift in policy for Iran. We do well to remember that
Iran is still the single largest destabilizer in the region and
daily increases its lead. The Palestinians showed at Camp David
that they had no interest in peace with Israel; the banquet-hall
attack and the Karine A simply provide further evidence for this
conclusion. While Arafat continues to talk of peace in English and
jihad in Arabic, he and the Palestinians seem to understand only
one language: force.
The war against
terrorism has been defined as targeting organizations with global
reach. The PA's brazen attempt to smuggle weapons is a clear indication
that Hezbollah and the Palestinian terrorist organizations are attempting
to cooperate in creating a terrorist super-organization. Meanwhile,
their dual patrons, Iran and Syria, continue to finance and facilitate
their terror campaigns. The U.S. State Department has mirrored the
European response to incidents such as the Karine A by attempting
to ignore the reality and continue their blind pursuit of Middle
East peace at a time when we are farther from peace than ever. What
all of these countries need to realize is that they are dealing
with a monster that is growing in size and sophistication on a daily
basis. The triumvirate of terror — the Palestinians, Hezbollah,
and Iran — feel that there are no real consequences to their
terrorist actions despite the administration's war efforts. Hopefully,
the next phase of the war against terror will disabuse them of that
notion.
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