April 9,
2008: While the Palestinian terror campaign has been a failure, they continue
to score some successes with the media. Palestinians have convinced many UN
agencies to ignore terrorist efforts, and just concentrate on the collateral
damage to Palestinian civilians. Take, for example, terrorist efforts to get
suicide bombers, and other attackers, into Israel. This means getting on the roads
and past Israeli checkpoints. The terrorists have used ambulances many times in
the past, and these are thoroughly checked. The delays sometimes result in dead
patients. Palestinian partisans have gotten the UN to publicly condemn the
security checks, while ignoring the reasons for the security. A minor victory,
but a victory nonetheless. Otherwise, the eight year old Palestinian terror
campaign has killed mostly Palestinians (about 80 percent of the 6,400 dead so
far). Since "peace talks" resumed last November, some 370 have died. Despite
the ceasefire, Palestinian rockets sill get fired into Israel from Gaza.
Meanwhile,
there are arrests every week of terrorists who have gotten quite close to
carrying out an attack. These don't get much publicity. In part because there's
usually no violence involved (save for the occasional shoot out with terrorists willing to die rather than get
arrested), but mostly because failed terrorist attacks are so common, and not
considered news, especially outside Israel. But terrorism is big news within
Israel. While Fatah has toned down its anti-Israel (and pro-terrorism)
propaganda, Hamas has not. This gets little coverage outside Israel, but this
constant stream of propaganda, especially the stuff directed at children,
encourages violence, and support of the largely futile terrorism campaign
against Israel. The propaganda keeps the terrorist recruits coming, and they do
keep trying, and dying. Recently, a tunnel was discovered, from north Gaza,
towards the security fence keeping terrorists out of Israel. Stuff like this is
a constant threat. But outside of Israel, it's not news. Score one for the
Palestinian terrorists. But no good deed goes unpunished. Despite the support
Palestinian terrorists get from the UN, al Qaeda recently released a
condemnation of the UN, calling the organization an "enemy of Islam."
Israel is
in the midst of nationwide civil defense drills. The purpose of the exercises
is to determine which parts of the emergency services are not ready to deal
with wide scale rocket attacks (including the use of chemical or nuclear
weapons). Throughout the region, Arab media condemned these exercises as an act
of aggression.
The
decades of hateful propaganda have poisoned relations between Jewish and Arab
citizens of Israel. In a recent survey, it was discovered that 64 percent of
Jewish Israelis would not enter an Arab town or village in Israel. While 85
percent of Jewish Israelis, and 71 percent of Arab ones prefer living in
Israel, to living anywhere else, the growing number of Israeli Arabs getting
caught participating in terrorist operations, is poisoning relations between
the two communities.
