Daily Alert Archives

No Turning Back

(Jerusalem Post) Editorial - The terrorist organizations had no reason to heed Abbas's toothless calls and every reason to continue their attacks. If Abbas is indeed trying to make peace with Israel, why should they help him? At the same time, if Abbas is unwilling to take it upon himself to curb Palestinian terrorism, who will? For now, the only credible answer is the IDF. As for the notion that IDF retaliation only prompts further Palestinian terrorist attacks, we can only point to the dozens of attacks that occurred in the absence of Israeli "provocation," stretching back to the bus bombings of the 1990s. That there are still people who believe that every Palestinian atrocity must have been provoked by some prior Israeli misdeed amazes us. We are similarly amazed by the notion that the Sharon government should have abstained from retaliation. Exactly how many victims, we would like to know, must a terror attack claim in order to justify Israeli retaliation? The task now is not to cower from Hamas's threat of retaliation, as if retaliation is what these people do. The task is to strike at Rantisi and his cohorts again, truly to drive the organization underground, and to create the conditions in which Abbas, if he is sincere, can assume the responsibilities he made his own at Aqaba.
2003-06-13 00:00:00
Full Article