The bloody ending of last week's siege at school No. 1 in Beslan in Southern Russia has shocked the entire civilized world. The murderers were Chechens, along with Arabs believed to be allied with Al-Qaeda.
There was general agreement amongst political commentators: Islamic terrorists have set a new low by holding hostage and ultimately killing hundreds of children - boys and girls taken hostage when they arrived for the first day of the new school year. The ultimate cruelty: the Muslim terrorists denied the children so much as a sip of water over the three days they held them hostage, before their slaughter by rigged explosives and sniper fire.
The following is a quote from an article in the Wall Street Journal: "The depravity of this is hard to believe but believe it we must. For it is the new reality of the current age in which innocents are specifically targeted by Muslim terrorists in the name of some Islamic cause."
But was this indeed a "new" low for Islamic terrorism? Unfortunately not. Sadly, the Arab-Israeli conflict has for many years been treated as an utterly disconnected conflict by the world, and not part of the global Islamic Jihad (Holy War). People tend not to remember terror attacks against innocent civilians, especially when such terrorism takes place against Jewish victims. Some examples:
* On May 15, 1974, terrorists from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine broke into a high school in Ma'alot in northern Israel. 26 innocent people, including 21 schoolchildren, were murdered and a further 66 wounded. When the Muslim terrorists attacked the Israeli school in Ma'alot, they were not only equipped with Russian arms, but they had Soviet political support, as well.
* In December of 1968, even before the Ma'alot massacre, Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization machine-gunned an El Al aircraft at Athens airport.
* In February of 1969, Palestinian terrorists attacked an El Al 707 on the runway at Zurich airport.
* In September 1970, planes from TWA, Swiss Air and BOAC - plus more than 400 hostages - were hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and taken to Jordan (Black September).
* In 1972, the Israeli Olympic team was murdered by Arafat's terrorists.
* In 1988 Libyan agents planted a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight #103, which exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland, with the loss of 270 lives.
These are only some of the early examples of Muslim terrorism against Jews and others, even before the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. Since the naive (or worse) Oslo architects invited Arafat and his henchmen to come to Judea and Samaria as their peace partners, more than 1,400 people in Israel have been murdered by Islamic terrorists.
Jews have not been safe outside of Israel, either. For example, on July 18, 1994, a bomb exploded at the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding hundreds. This deadly anti-Semitic attack occurred ten years ago. There were strong indications that the terrorists were Muslim, supported and abetted by Syria and Iran.
On November 16, 2003, at least 20 people were killed and over 250 injured when car bombs shattered two Istanbul synagogues as worshippers celebrated the Sabbath in the mostly Muslim nation of Turkey. Turkish officials said they could not rule out a role by Osama Bin-Laden's Al-Qaeda, blamed for attacks on other Jewish targets around the world in the previous 18 months.
Where and when did all this Islamic terrorism start?
Yasser Arafat is often deservedly called the father of modern terrorism. He was the first to use terror against civilian aircraft. He was the first to equip suicide bombers with deadly explosive belts and to send them to blow themselves up in buses, cafes, wedding halls and hotels, wherever they could kill a maximum number of Jews. Israel has been the testing ground for the detailed planning of successful terrorist warfare. For this accomplishment, Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1994.
The world has become quite indifferent to the spilling of Jewish blood. Jewish blood has become cheap. In many quarters, Muslim terrorism against Jews was "understood" as having been undertaken by "desperate" Palestinians. What was unfortunately not realized is that once it becomes acceptable for the ends to justify the means, then what starts with the Jews will ultimately extend to other places and other people. President George W. Bush has apparently understood this. The political leaders of Russia, Spain, Germany and France, and many other nations, are slow learners. Hopefully, they are now beginning to understand it.
It is time that the so-called Free World faced up to the fact that Muslim terrorism knows no borders; that this terrorism will not be content with only Jewish blood.
The following words of Pastor Martin Niemoeller, one of the most respected Protestant leaders in Germany, who himself perished in Auschwitz, are inscribed above the entrance to Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak out for me.
May we all have a good year of health and happiness and may we be inscribed in the Book of Life. May G-d's promises for His Holy Land be fulfilled.
There was general agreement amongst political commentators: Islamic terrorists have set a new low by holding hostage and ultimately killing hundreds of children - boys and girls taken hostage when they arrived for the first day of the new school year. The ultimate cruelty: the Muslim terrorists denied the children so much as a sip of water over the three days they held them hostage, before their slaughter by rigged explosives and sniper fire.
The following is a quote from an article in the Wall Street Journal: "The depravity of this is hard to believe but believe it we must. For it is the new reality of the current age in which innocents are specifically targeted by Muslim terrorists in the name of some Islamic cause."
But was this indeed a "new" low for Islamic terrorism? Unfortunately not. Sadly, the Arab-Israeli conflict has for many years been treated as an utterly disconnected conflict by the world, and not part of the global Islamic Jihad (Holy War). People tend not to remember terror attacks against innocent civilians, especially when such terrorism takes place against Jewish victims. Some examples:
* On May 15, 1974, terrorists from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine broke into a high school in Ma'alot in northern Israel. 26 innocent people, including 21 schoolchildren, were murdered and a further 66 wounded. When the Muslim terrorists attacked the Israeli school in Ma'alot, they were not only equipped with Russian arms, but they had Soviet political support, as well.
* In December of 1968, even before the Ma'alot massacre, Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization machine-gunned an El Al aircraft at Athens airport.
* In February of 1969, Palestinian terrorists attacked an El Al 707 on the runway at Zurich airport.
* In September 1970, planes from TWA, Swiss Air and BOAC - plus more than 400 hostages - were hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and taken to Jordan (Black September).
* In 1972, the Israeli Olympic team was murdered by Arafat's terrorists.
* In 1988 Libyan agents planted a bomb aboard Pan Am Flight #103, which exploded over Lockerbie in Scotland, with the loss of 270 lives.
These are only some of the early examples of Muslim terrorism against Jews and others, even before the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. Since the naive (or worse) Oslo architects invited Arafat and his henchmen to come to Judea and Samaria as their peace partners, more than 1,400 people in Israel have been murdered by Islamic terrorists.
Jews have not been safe outside of Israel, either. For example, on July 18, 1994, a bomb exploded at the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people and wounding hundreds. This deadly anti-Semitic attack occurred ten years ago. There were strong indications that the terrorists were Muslim, supported and abetted by Syria and Iran.
On November 16, 2003, at least 20 people were killed and over 250 injured when car bombs shattered two Istanbul synagogues as worshippers celebrated the Sabbath in the mostly Muslim nation of Turkey. Turkish officials said they could not rule out a role by Osama Bin-Laden's Al-Qaeda, blamed for attacks on other Jewish targets around the world in the previous 18 months.
Where and when did all this Islamic terrorism start?
Yasser Arafat is often deservedly called the father of modern terrorism. He was the first to use terror against civilian aircraft. He was the first to equip suicide bombers with deadly explosive belts and to send them to blow themselves up in buses, cafes, wedding halls and hotels, wherever they could kill a maximum number of Jews. Israel has been the testing ground for the detailed planning of successful terrorist warfare. For this accomplishment, Arafat was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1994.
The world has become quite indifferent to the spilling of Jewish blood. Jewish blood has become cheap. In many quarters, Muslim terrorism against Jews was "understood" as having been undertaken by "desperate" Palestinians. What was unfortunately not realized is that once it becomes acceptable for the ends to justify the means, then what starts with the Jews will ultimately extend to other places and other people. President George W. Bush has apparently understood this. The political leaders of Russia, Spain, Germany and France, and many other nations, are slow learners. Hopefully, they are now beginning to understand it.
It is time that the so-called Free World faced up to the fact that Muslim terrorism knows no borders; that this terrorism will not be content with only Jewish blood.
The following words of Pastor Martin Niemoeller, one of the most respected Protestant leaders in Germany, who himself perished in Auschwitz, are inscribed above the entrance to Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak out for me.
May we all have a good year of health and happiness and may we be inscribed in the Book of Life. May G-d's promises for His Holy Land be fulfilled.
