BS: Fireworks over Hebron

Subject: BS: Fireworks over Hebron
From: GUEST,New York City
Date: 20 Aug 03 - 09:31 AM

JERUSALEM, Aug. 19 — A Palestinian suicide bomber killed at least 18 people, including children, when he detonated an explosive packed with ball bearings tonight aboard a city bus crowded with families, some of them returning from Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall.

A whole string of homocide/suicide bombings recently by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Arafat's own Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, would seem to indicate that these Palestinian terrorist organizations, including the one controlled by Arafat himself, are intent on destroying the roadmap to peace. These terrorists know that their actions will undoubtably provoke a response from Israel that will have dire consequences for many Palestinians.

In Gaza City, the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, told reporters, "I declare my strong condemnation of this horrible act that doesn't serve the interests of the Palestinian people." Mr. Abbas said he offered "my real sorrow" to the families of the victims.

Unfortunately, Mr. Abbas is unwilling to disarm the Palestinian terrorist organizations. By not disarming the terrorists, Mr. Abbas is creating a roadmap to irrelevancy for himself.
Fireworks burst over Hebron tonight as Palestinians there celebrated the bombing.

People that want peace do not celebrate terrorist bombings that kill innocent children.

These quotations are taken from a report in today's New York Times. You can read it at this link.

Subject: RE: BS: Fireworks over Hebron
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Aug 03 - 02:53 PM

If Israel, with all its resources, has been unable to disarm or destroy the terrorists in all these years, I'm puzzled to see how the greatly weakened Palestinian administration is supposed to wave a magic wand and sort things out just like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Fireworks over Hebron
From: GUEST,New York City
Date: 20 Aug 03 - 03:40 PM

As McGrath knows, it is not a matter of waving a magic wand. When the Israelis hit back at the Palestinian terrorists, as they have always done in the past, as they will continue to do now, and as the terrorists surely seem to want them to do, they do not and cannot remove the legitimation that the terrorists have with the Palestinian people.

Dismantling the Palestinian terrorist organizations, one of which is controlled directly by Palestinian president Arafat, has to come from the Palestinian authority if it is to be seen as legitimate by the Palestinian people. To date, the Palestinian authority has refused to take action against the terrorists. And that goes a long way to explaining why the Palestinians have yet to achieve their state.

As a student of history, McGrath will surely recall that one of the important ingredients in the achievement of Israel's statehood in 1947-48 was Ben Gurion's dismantling of the terrorist components (Stern Gang, Irgun, etc.) of the Jewish population

the main difference between the Israelis