This week\’s surge of Mideast violence and hints of a new level of sophistication by Palestinian terrorists have once again forced Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to reconsider his government\’s strategy in what looks more and more like a war of attrition.
Last Sunday, Friedman\’s op-ed column in The New York Times recounted a conversation he had with Saudi Arabia\’s crown prince, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud.
"They are like mice," said Yeheskel Abu-Zwilli, a 74-year-old Iraqi-born Israeli, surveying the wreckage of the photography shop he has run in Jerusalem\’s Jaffa Street for 45 years. "Wherever there\’s a hole, they sneak in."
Because Palestinian violence has been so devastating, Israel\’s retaliatory actions seem to be justified. Whether they are effective or not is almost secondary to the need to respond.
Writing about the breakdown of the Oslo process in the October issue of Commentary, Norman Podhoretz was able to quote liberally from Egyptian and Palestinian newspapers.
A line of \”Anti-Terrorist Trading Cards\” came on the market last month. While suspected terrorists make up the lion\’s share of the cards, the series also features U.S. leaders, U.S. weapons, forms of biological warfare and heroes and symbols such as rescue workers, the White House and the Statue of Liberty.
The U.S. State Department will now include American victims of Palestinian terror on its Rewards for Justice Program, which offers \”substantial monetary rewards\”for information leading to the arrest or conviction of people responsible for acts of terrorism.
Here\’s my suggestion for a new definition for aliyah — anytime a Jew takes it upon him or herself to travel to Israel, for a week, a month, a year or a lifetime, it should be considered the fulfillment of a mitzvah, an obligation to God and to the Jewish People.
While the world is not yet writing off Arafat, Israelis on all points of the political spectrum seem to feel it is both legitimate and practical to debate the prospect of Arafat\’s possible — and perhaps imminent — removal from power.
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