Truce again: Suicide bombing in Eilat

29.01. 2007
http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000335.html
Original content copyright by the author
Zionism & Israel Center http://zionism-israel.com

We have had another lesson in Palestinian Arabic. Once again we have
been taught the meaning of Hudna (truce).

The murder of three Israelis in Eilat by a Palestinian suicide bomber
will cause hardly a stir in world capitals. The UN Human Rights
Council will not condemn anyone for it, except possibly Israel, nor
will angry and righteous young ladies write about "genocide" plans and
ethnic cleansing programs of the Palestinian reactionary imperialist
warmongers in American journals and online media such as Counterpunch.
No former U.S. Presidents will write books entitled "Palestine: Peace
not Apartheid" condemning the evil, land greedy and violent benighted
fanatics who perpetrated this act.

The deed was nonetheless committed by the Islamic Jihad, a reactionary
organization, acting on behalf of their reactionary imperialist
paymasters the Tehran, in order to foment war. The deed was committed
during the "truce" between the Palestinians and Israel, and applauded
by the reactionary Hamas movement, which is in charge of Palestinian
affairs:

Fawzi Barhoum called the attack a "natural response" to Israeli
military policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as its
ongoing boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian government. "So long as
there is occupation, resistance is legitimate," he said.

Of course, if you press him, Mr. Barhoum would tell you that Eilat,
like Tel Aviv and Haifa, is part of "occupied Palestine" in his view.
The fact that the Palestinians undertook to honor a truce, a "Hudna,"
means nothing to him. Tomorrow he, or similar apologists, will be
asking for more Hudna. Barhoum did not even try to resort to the
facile and obvious defense, that the act was committed by a rival
organization. We will be told that if Israel will only withdraw to the
1967 borders, there will be a Hudna. A Hudna just like this one. For
no sooner will Israel withdraw, then the bombs will start exploding,
and the spokesman will again be explaining, "So long as there is
occupation, resistance is legitimate." As this year is the fortieth
anniversary of the Six Day War, it is well to remember that in the
first months of 1967 there were over 120 terror incidents. Israel did
not occupy a single millimeter of Gaza or the West Bank. Israel does
not occupy any of the Gaza Strip now either. Indeed the Islamic Jihad
were more frank than their Hamas counterparts. They announced
that the murder:

"underscores the Palestinian resistance's intention to pursue Jihad
(holy war) until all
Palestinian lands are liberated."

Jihad, one is told, is an inner spiritual struggle, but that is
apparently not the sort of Jihad
that these progressive luminaries of the Islamic Jihad have in mind.

When they are done "liberating" Palestine, what then? Will the terror
groups who now rule
Palestinian society go on to create a model society there, like the
one they are creating in Gaza, where rival gangs shoot at each other
and little children, and people go hungry while aid funds are used to
purchase more weapons?

When you think about Mr. Carter's book, about the mythical "Israel
Lobby" that stifles criticism of Israel, about the "genocide"
supposedly being perpetrated by Israel, about the "Hudna" offered by
the Palestinians, remember today. Remember this bombing.

Sometimes a single act, a single fact, can shine the correct light on
what seemed to be a complex moral dilemma, and make it simple and
crystal clear. Does it take the light of an exploding suicide bomber
to show us the simple truth?

Ami Isseroff