What would European governments do if a known group decided to kill its citizens by placing bombs in the streets, sending suicide, or homicide bombers, as I prefer to call them, into their midst or by trying to shoot down their civilian passenger planes?
Would they give in to their attackers? demands, or sit down with them to discuss compromise over lunch? Surely not. They would want to seek out and capture the perpetrators wherever they can be found, to prevent further attacks. Their citizens would expect to be defended.
We have already seen what the US government did after the World Trade Centre disaster, and following the atrocity in Moscow, President Putin declared war on terror, pledging to hunt its ideological instigators and financial backers ?wherever they may be located?. There is a widely held expectation in intelligence circles that this year the Russians will strike at suspected terrorist strongholds in their region. It is remarkable that the ?collateral damage? at the Moscow theatre, the tragic death of 115 innocents during the operation to capture or kill the Chechen terrorists, was accepted as inevitable. Yet, any death of civilians during Israeli operations to root out terrorists who are hiding in, or firing from, densely populated centres is invariably condemned.
Why is Israel always told to cool it, go slow, pull back, negotiate, etc. when she is constantly the target of terrorist attacks? Why is it okay for one country to defend itself, but not for another? Could it be that double standards are employed? I believe so - and one of the reasons is oil.
It is ironic that the European Union, the professed upholders of democracy and freedom, allow the existence of the only democratic country in the Middle East to be threatened by rogue regimes that openly harbour and succour terrorists. The EU is unwilling to refer to the Palestinian aggressors and their supporters as terrorists, perhaps concerned that their supply of Middle East oil may be jeopardised.
Integrity, honesty and right are sacrificed, when self interest becomes the only measure by which the situation is judged. It is said that politics is the second oldest profession. After observing the EU, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that it bears a very close resemblance to the oldest.
Every European and influential leader must be made aware that the continued funding of the Palestinian Authority by the EU is a contribution to terrorism and to the bank accounts of Yasser Arafat, who, according to Forbes magazine, has already salted away more than 300 million dollars of non-entrepreneurial earnings in secret Swiss accounts. Every victim of terrorism in Israel is the result of such funding. They must also be reminded that Israel neither started her several wars, nor the two Intafadas. More than two years ago, she has even made the painful decision to prevent Jews from praying on the mount where their holy Temple stood, so as not to provoke Muslim worshippers on their way to the mosques.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is not centred on the establishment of a Palestinian State, which was offered by Britain when she relinquished the Mandate in 1948, but rejected by the Arab leadership, and which was again on the table under Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1999/2000. So, that is not the root of the problem. Democratic Israel is considered by its neighbours as an alien body in the midst of their autocratic states and they will try to do everything in their power to destroy her.
Unfortunately, the Palestinian people have for 55 years been kept impoverished in refugee camps by their Arab ?benefactors?, being used as pawns in the Middle East power game and as an excuse for the terrorist campaign against Israel.
The Israeli government has the legal and moral duty to protect and defend its citizens, just like any other governments would in such circumstances. It must therefore act in the most effective way to achieve this.
But this ?holy war? is not only directed against Israel; it also affects the rest of the world, which must not be fooled into believing that terrorism, from which ever part of the globe it emanates, will cease with a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, or even the total elimination of Israel, and that the raison d?etre for terrorism would then vanish. The plight of the Palestinians is only the cause celebre, propagated to enrol and ensnare the peaceful Muslim masses into a far more sinister scheme.
Terrorism, as we have lately experienced it, is the manifestation of an ideological war against Western civilisation and its democratic method of governing, by a hierarchy of unscrupulous Muslim clerics backed by oil money, intending to regress to feudalism akin to the Middle Ages and to ruthlessly subjugate and suppress the people by Shariah law. It is therefore not a matter of localised action, but has become a threat to all the peace-loving nations of the world. They now need to set aside their political differences, which pale into insignificance compared with the consequences of failing to act quickly and as one, and to make a concerted effort to root out the cancer that is invading our planet.
--------------------------------------------------------
Walter Bingham is a writer, broadcaster and member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists in the United Kingdom.
************
Spend Passover with Arutz Sheva at a resort in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Kfar Pines (near Hadera). Click here for info.
Would they give in to their attackers? demands, or sit down with them to discuss compromise over lunch? Surely not. They would want to seek out and capture the perpetrators wherever they can be found, to prevent further attacks. Their citizens would expect to be defended.
We have already seen what the US government did after the World Trade Centre disaster, and following the atrocity in Moscow, President Putin declared war on terror, pledging to hunt its ideological instigators and financial backers ?wherever they may be located?. There is a widely held expectation in intelligence circles that this year the Russians will strike at suspected terrorist strongholds in their region. It is remarkable that the ?collateral damage? at the Moscow theatre, the tragic death of 115 innocents during the operation to capture or kill the Chechen terrorists, was accepted as inevitable. Yet, any death of civilians during Israeli operations to root out terrorists who are hiding in, or firing from, densely populated centres is invariably condemned.
Why is Israel always told to cool it, go slow, pull back, negotiate, etc. when she is constantly the target of terrorist attacks? Why is it okay for one country to defend itself, but not for another? Could it be that double standards are employed? I believe so - and one of the reasons is oil.
It is ironic that the European Union, the professed upholders of democracy and freedom, allow the existence of the only democratic country in the Middle East to be threatened by rogue regimes that openly harbour and succour terrorists. The EU is unwilling to refer to the Palestinian aggressors and their supporters as terrorists, perhaps concerned that their supply of Middle East oil may be jeopardised.
Integrity, honesty and right are sacrificed, when self interest becomes the only measure by which the situation is judged. It is said that politics is the second oldest profession. After observing the EU, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that it bears a very close resemblance to the oldest.
Every European and influential leader must be made aware that the continued funding of the Palestinian Authority by the EU is a contribution to terrorism and to the bank accounts of Yasser Arafat, who, according to Forbes magazine, has already salted away more than 300 million dollars of non-entrepreneurial earnings in secret Swiss accounts. Every victim of terrorism in Israel is the result of such funding. They must also be reminded that Israel neither started her several wars, nor the two Intafadas. More than two years ago, she has even made the painful decision to prevent Jews from praying on the mount where their holy Temple stood, so as not to provoke Muslim worshippers on their way to the mosques.
The Arab-Israeli conflict is not centred on the establishment of a Palestinian State, which was offered by Britain when she relinquished the Mandate in 1948, but rejected by the Arab leadership, and which was again on the table under Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1999/2000. So, that is not the root of the problem. Democratic Israel is considered by its neighbours as an alien body in the midst of their autocratic states and they will try to do everything in their power to destroy her.
Unfortunately, the Palestinian people have for 55 years been kept impoverished in refugee camps by their Arab ?benefactors?, being used as pawns in the Middle East power game and as an excuse for the terrorist campaign against Israel.
The Israeli government has the legal and moral duty to protect and defend its citizens, just like any other governments would in such circumstances. It must therefore act in the most effective way to achieve this.
But this ?holy war? is not only directed against Israel; it also affects the rest of the world, which must not be fooled into believing that terrorism, from which ever part of the globe it emanates, will cease with a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, or even the total elimination of Israel, and that the raison d?etre for terrorism would then vanish. The plight of the Palestinians is only the cause celebre, propagated to enrol and ensnare the peaceful Muslim masses into a far more sinister scheme.
Terrorism, as we have lately experienced it, is the manifestation of an ideological war against Western civilisation and its democratic method of governing, by a hierarchy of unscrupulous Muslim clerics backed by oil money, intending to regress to feudalism akin to the Middle Ages and to ruthlessly subjugate and suppress the people by Shariah law. It is therefore not a matter of localised action, but has become a threat to all the peace-loving nations of the world. They now need to set aside their political differences, which pale into insignificance compared with the consequences of failing to act quickly and as one, and to make a concerted effort to root out the cancer that is invading our planet.
--------------------------------------------------------
Walter Bingham is a writer, broadcaster and member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists in the United Kingdom.
************
Spend Passover with Arutz Sheva at a resort in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Kfar Pines (near Hadera). Click here for info.