In the nearly two months since Mahmoud Abbas resigned as Palestinian Authority prime minister, the United States has stepped back from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the meantime, Israel has adopted a two-pronged policy, taking bold unilateral moves while encouraging Abbas\’ successor to form a government with which Israel can negotiate.
If the world needed yet another sign that the United States and Israel were engaged in the same struggle against international terrorism, it was given a cruel one Wednesday, Oct. 15, when Palestinian terrorists killed three American security agents and wounded a junior official from the U.S. Embassy in a roadside attack in Gaza.
Any doubts about the close link between the war on terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have gone the way of a U.S. jeep loaded with diplomats on a dusty Gaza highway.
Killing Hamas leaders wounds the terrorist group, Israeli and Palestinian officials agree.
Israel is skeptical about the Palestinian Authority\’s tentative measures against terrorism — and is following up by conducting anti-terror operations of its own.
Two steps forward, three steps back.\n\nThat is the definition of any Middle East peace process, and the most important question now is whether President Bush, who very publicly committed himself to a \”road map to peace\” last month, will tough it out.
Eric Rudolph was arrested Saturday in western North Carolina after a five-year search by investigators. In total, he is believed to be responsible for four bombings, in which two people were killed and 150 people injured.
\”We are deeply shocked, but we are not afraid,\” Serge Berdugo said. \”People here know it is a global fight against the terrorists, the same for Muslims as for Jews. There were no victims from our own community, but this has come like a bolt from the blue.\”
During three successive days last week (May 5-7), incendiary devices, described by some as Molotov cocktails, were hurled at the Baha\’i Faith Community Center, the Iranian Synagogue, Da\’at Torah Educational Center and Valley Beth Shalom, one of the leading Conservative congregations in Los Angeles.
On the face of it, the U.S. military victory in Iraq has significantly enhanced Israel\’s national security, removing a threat from weapons of mass destruction and opening new chances for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
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