 |
Stan Goodenough is an experienced journalist who has written about politics in South Africa and the Middle East for such organizations as The Daily Dispatch of East London, South Africa, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Post, and the Virtual HolyLand website. He has been a South African gentile resident in Israel for 12 years. Stan is editor of and .
|
|
|
|
By Stan Goodenough
August 21, 2003
Courtesy of Jerusalem Newswire.
The moment the bomb went off in Jerusalem Tuesday evening, the Israeli government should have ordered its tank commanders in Ramallah to flatten PLO Chief Yasser Arafat's compound, with him inside.
That's my strong feeling this morning, as I think about all those who are now twisting in pain on their hospital beds, and as I imagine the many loved ones of the 20 who were killed tormented with the ravaging ache of having to say their last goodbyes.
It does not take a justice of the peace or an attorney at law to know what Arafat's fate should be.
Arafat, more than any other, is responsible for Tuesday night's carnage in Jerusalem. And Bus #2 was only the latest in a very, very long line of murderous atrocities carried out against Jews and other innocent people at his behest.
The Bible tells the people of Israel that he who takes another man's life should forfeit his own.
Arafat has taken many hundreds of lives. He should be put up against a wall and shot.
Other people, I would argue, should lose their jobs.
Let's go over the connected events of the last three days.
On Sunday, it was reported that PLO leader Yasser Arafat had given the terrorist organizations operating in his Palestinian Authority the green light to resume attacks against Israeli Jews.
These reports were based on information communicated to the Israeli Cabinet during its weekly meeting that morning by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz.
Mofaz was followed by IDF Intelligence chief Aaron Farkhash, who told the assembled ministers that Arafat-appointee Mahmoud Abbas and his security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, were doing nothing to honor their commitment to combat Palestinian terrorism.
Other intelligence services had been warning for days that another outbreak of terror was imminent.
And yet, inexplicably, ignoring these very grave warnings, the same Minister Mofaz received Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's blessing to proceed that very day with negotiations that would lead to the handing of security responsibility for two of four Arab-populated cities in Samaria and the Jordan Valley to Arafat, Abbas and Dahlan's PA.
After two days of meetings, the Defense Minister announced that the two cities would be handed over by this week's end. And what Mofaz had failed to do, as it soon became manifestly clear, was to fulfill his role and defend his people.
That same evening, shortly after dark, a bearded, overweight Muslim dressed as an ultra-orthodox Jew mingled easily with other black-garbed Israelis and climbed aboard a packed public bus making its way back from the Western Wall.
Everyone on the bus was returning home from evening prayers.
The Arab was determined to send them to the grave. He'd been given his green light. And that's what he did.
Raed Abdel-Hamed Mesk, a 29-year-old Imam from a Hebron mosque, a man respected as a leader and a teacher in his community, looked around at the mothers with toddlers and infants and little children he was about to murder and mutilate. Then with praises to Allah on his lips, he set off his bomb.
Arafat got his martyr and his victims. Sharon and Mofaz may repeat until they are blue in the face that the PLO chief is irrelevant; as he has again made it painfully clear, he is very relevant indeed.
Still, despite the fact Israel's government knew he had sent out the signal to resume attacks, and despite its knowledge of the total refusal of Abbas and Dahlan to dismantle and disarm the terrorists, Israel is not going after Arafat.
At the time of writing Israel's response has been to "freeze" the handover of the cities and to "suspend" the talks. A "low key military response" is reportedly on the way.
These are paltry responses, and all the more so given the savage brutality of the bus attack.. Recent history assures us are they are imminently reversible and that they will be reversed as soon as the shock waves of the Tuesday bombing subside.
Arafat spokesman Nabil Sha'ath, prepared the path he knows Israel will follow when he spelled out his hopes this morning: "I really hope Israel will not shoot themselves in the foot by letting this [bus bombing] break off negotiations."
In the foot? By not responding with a message that says, "We are at war with a merciless foe and we will conduct ourselves accordingly," Israel is shooting herself in the head, and in the heart.
It's called suicide.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
