Ali Abuminah of the Arab American Action Network, in a New York Times column entitled “Sharon’s War Cannot Be Won, (12/5)” wonders why he is so often asked by the media for a reaction when a suicide bomber attacks Israel but not when five Palestinian schoolboys are “killed by a bomb” planted by Israel. He wants to know why “Israeli and pro-Israeli spokesmen” are not asked by the media to “condemn the violence that’s committed in their name.”Abuminah has a long record of implying that the Jews control the media and slant coverage in favor of Israel. Rather than crudely stating this, he darkly employs conspiratorial tones by cloaking such sentiments in the type of high-sounding sophistries that are meant to appeal to the leftist intellectuals he caters to in his columns and radio interviews. His innuendoes, ironically, appear on the editorial pages of the New York Times, the most influential newspaper in the world. The implied double standard regarding the media coverage of violence in the conflict calls out for an answer.
The answer to this loaded question is a no-brainer. No one needs to ask how “Israeli and pro-Israeli spokesmen” feel about the killing of the five Palestinian schoolboys in question because everyone knows that are horrified and remorseful over such accidents. Unlike the murder campaigns against Israeli boys and girls at a Tel Aviv discothèque, or the murders of the Holocaust survivors on a bus in Haifa, or the murders of kindergarteners in Maalot, Israel doesn’t target innocent men, women or children for murder.
Israel is trying to stop criminals who are conspiring, aiding, abetting, or have already carried out murder sprees against its own citizens. Abuminah refers to these terrorists as “leaders” whom Israel, he claims, is executing “extra judicially.” I’m not sure which judiciary he’s referring to but the actions conducted by terrorists, crossing into Israel from a Palestinian Authority that considers itself to be a sovereign State, is an act of war by any standard of international law and custom.
The terrorist actions against Israel are analogous to those of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The UN, NATO, and the world community condemned the Sept. 11 attacks and recognized the legitimacy of the US retaliation against an Afghanistan government that harbors the terrorists. The Palestinian Authority must also be held accountable for harboring and unleashing terror against the innocent citizens of its neighbor.
Abunimah speaks of Israeli “occupation” yet the terrorists are operating from territory “occupied” not by Israel, but by Arafat’s Palestinian Authority. Since 1990, Israel has worked for the development of a peaceful and prosperous Palestinian State on the West Bank and Gaza. Investments were flowing and remarkable progress was being made until Hamas, Jihad, Tanzim, and others launched their jihad of mass murder. These groups consider Israel to be “occupying” Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa.
Abuminah trots out atrocity propaganda as he refers to suffocating sieges, punishments, blockades, shelling, and torture by Israel. Israel is defending the lives and property of its citizens against an enemy that seeks to destroy its sovereignty and murder it’s citizens. The Palestinian Authority could have chosen the path of peace but instead chose to grant safe harbor to those who view a Jihad against Israel as a sacred duty. Like the World Trade Center bombers, the terrorists harbored by the Palestinian Authority seek to subdue Israel, which they view as part of the “Dar es Harb” or the “World of War.” To the Muslim extremist, this is any part of the world that refuses to submit to Islam.
Abuminah ends his column with a chilling threat when he states that “The only surprise will come if dozens more innocent people are not killed in the coming weeks.” Given the record, and the stated intentions of the terrorists operating from the Palestinian Authority base, there is no doubt which “innocent people” are to be targeted for murder. Since the Palestinian Authority refuses to establish law and order in it’s territory, the bare minimum required of any sovereign state, Israel has a moral and practical responsibility to bring the terrorists to justice and destroy their network by use of any means at its disposal.