We're tired of the phony Palestinan rheotric of "occupation" and "desperation."

The biggest humiliation, as always, remains the hypocrisy of the PA and its upporters, who incote their youth to martyrdom and Jihad, and claim they have "no choice." Palestinans relentlessly horrify us with their unending barrage of blown up Israeli civilians in piizza shops, in discos, in malls, in busses and now in the paradigm of tolerance and humanity---Hebrew University, with over 1000 Arab students (compare this to the virulent hate and apartheid against Jews and other non-Muslims in most of the 57 Islamic countries and particularly in the Mosques of the West Bank & Gaza)

While Palestinians attempt to gain sympathy with their "first hand" accounts of Israeli actions (the biggest lie being the "massacre in Jenin" recently unmasked by the UN), the International Community increasingly is seeing through the Propoganda.

The saddest part are the innocent Israeli children butchered by Palestinian terror and the innocent Palestinian children, malnourished with food, but fed a steady diet of hate and vicous anti-Semitism. Using children as pawns to achieve the destruction of Israel is perhaps the biggest "humiliation" in the prevelant Palestinian culture of shame and martyrdom. (Palestinans have created a vast terror of network and bomb factories under "occupation" , but somehow find it impossible to create a movement of for non-violent-peace---always blaming Israel on Arab terror which existed before any occupation in pre-1967 Israel.)

For the sake of ALL the children in the region, we pray for the Palestinans to reject the way of death and hate and to embrace life and love.

GLOBAL PEACE INITIATIVE

Palestinians Whoop It Up
You can't spell "fundamentalism" without "fun," and Palestinian supporters of Hamas have certainly been enjoying themselves of late. Yesterday morning an Arab blew up a bomb in northern Israel, killing nine. "About 4,000 people celebrated the bus bombing in Gaza City on Sunday night, passing out sweets and praying," the Jerusalem Post reports. Pictures of the partying Palestinians are here, here and here. News of the Palestinians' glee over the murder of Jews apparently isn't fit to print; New York Times publishes one of these pictures, but the caption reads: "Palestinian supporters of Hamas chant slogans against Israel during a rally in the Gaza Strip."

The bus bombing was the deadliest of several attacks on a day of terror. In Jerusalem, an Arab terrorist opened fire on a phone-company truck, murdering two--a security guard and an Israeli Arab sitting in a coffee shop, who was killed in the crossfire between the terrorist and police. The terrorist died too. Israeli soldiers also killed a Palestinian who swam ashore near two Jewish towns in the Gaza strip carrying a Kalashnikov and eight grenades. Three other attacks left 11 Israelis wounded.

And this evening, Ha'aretz reports, an Israeli Arab security guard was seriously injured when the hitchhiker he had picked up turned out to be a suicide bomber--and not a very competent one. "The device apparently exploded prematurely," Ha'aretz reports. "Police . . . described the explosion as a 'work accident.' " The bomber, of course, was killed. Arutz Sheva, however, reports that the car was stolen and the terrorist "was planning to disguise himself as a security guard to perpetrate a terror attack."

In response to yesterday's attacks, President Bush said, "There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process that we have started." It seems rather silly to talk about a "peace process" when Arabs are dancing in the street to celebrate these murderous attacks. But Bush went on to say: "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers." Assuming that "all nations" include Israel, one can only agree wholeheartedly.

Slow Learners
That Israelis and Palestinians are caught in a "cycle of violence" is an insidious clichי, implying as it does a moral equivalence between Israeli acts against terror and Palestinian acts of terror. We suppose it's a good sign that some of the cyclists are on the defensive, denying that this is what they believe. Here's an example, from today's column by the Washington Post's William Raspberry:

The July 31 Hebrew University violence was itself apparent retaliation for an Israeli air raid nine days earlier on Gaza City that killed 15 Palestinians, including the targeted leader of the militant Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and at least eight children younger than 11.

The point is neither to establish innocence nor to prove moral equivalence. The point is that peace, security and morality do not lie at the end of this cycle of violence.

Raspberry echoes a New York Times editorial yesterday:

The point here is not that the deaths of innocents caused by Israel's attack and Hamas's blatant act of terror are morally equivalent. The point is that they are both terribly wrong.

To assert that Israel's accidental killing of civilians and Hamas's deliberate killing of civilians are "both terribly wrong," of course, is precisely to adopt a stance of moral equivalence. But at least Raspberry and the Times are coming around to the realization that moral equivalence is an untenable position, unlike U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who, Reuters reports, "told Israelis and Palestinians on Sunday to stop the cycle of attacks and retaliation, saying this only fed 'anger and hatred of the other.' "

Our Friends the Saudis
Even Hamas has said it regrets the murder of five Americans at Hebrew University last week, but the Arab News has managed to find someone--apparently an American--to argue that they had it coming. One "Dr. E.A. Richards" writes from Washington:

As to the 5 American students that died, why weren't they studying in the United States, at Yale, or Vassar, instead of being in a foreign country in which a genocidal war against Palestine was going on? If those students were, like many other such "American" students that go to work, study, live, or join the Israeli army, then they must have known they would be in jeopardy.

Those students were in Israeli [sic] because their allegiance was to Israel, rather than to the United States, and this allegiance had consequences that should have been foreseen by them or their parents.

The paper also picks up an open letter to the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh originally published in the Arabic-language paper Al-Watan. Author Ali Al-Mousa complains about the tightening of U.S. visa restrictions for Saudi nationals. "Mr. Ambassador, over the past decades more than ten million Saudis have visited your country and around a million studied at your colleges, to give a very conservative estimate," Mousa writes. "All of them, according to your testimony, have been good ambassadors for their country, religion and nation."

Does that include the 15 Saudis who were among the Sept. 11 hijackers?

The Massacre That Wasn't--XIX
"The Big Lie technique has its limits," we wrote in Thursday's item on the U.N. report debunking claims of an Israeli massacre at Jenin. Maybe we were too optimistic. Refusing to admit they were wrong, those who assailed Israel for the massacre that wasn't are now piling on the U.N. A Human Rights Watch press release calls the U.N. report "seriously flawed," a claim London's far-left Independent picks up. "Israel Is Still Wanted for Questioning," proclaims the Guardian, another leftist Brit rag. The Arab New! s opts for Clintonian evasion: "The dictionary gives no specific number of dead that is required to constitute a massacre."

The Jerusalem Post reports that "the UN General Assembly plans to hold an emergency session on the plight of the Palestinians . . . and consider a draft resolution that condemns Israeli actions in Jenin." If the General Assembly ends up endorsing the phony massacre claim, it will go down in history alongside the Indiana House of Representatives. As Snopes.com notes, in 1897 that august body "unanimously passed a measure redefining the area of a circle and the value of pi." That bill--the text is here--died in the Senate.

You Don't Say--I
"Saddam Likely to Fall in Attack"--headline, Associated Press dispatch, Aug. 3

Saddam and His Pals
You'd think he'd have learned from his father's mistakes, but the Jerusalem Post reports Jordan's King Abdullah is cozying up to Saddam Hussein. "Senior political sources" in London tell the Jerusalem Post "that Abdullah has been passing sensitive American intelligence material to Saddam and that he has received substantial 'gifts' from Baghdad."

Meanwhile in Germany, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, facing a tough battle for re-election on Sept. 22, is trying to rally the pro-Saddam vote. "Mr Schrצder told a party rally he would not support American 'adventures' in Iraq nor provide a single euro to fund them," London's Daily Telegraph reports. This, however, could be good news: If Schroeder loses to center-right candidate Edmund Stoiber, whom the Telegraph describes as "cautiously supportive of US policy over Iraq"--it could be taken as a mandate for toppling Saddam. Most polls put Stoiber ahead of Schroeder by some six percentage points.

Here's yet another reason to oust the Iraqi dictator: The Times of London reports that Saddam "is suspected of planning to arm a Palestinian terrorist group with biological weapons to attack either American or Israeli targets."

Trouble in Paradise
"The threat of war in Iraq has widened the gap between conservatives and reformers in Iran," Britain's Sunday Observer reports. The point of disagreement: "Hardliners say British and US planes should be shot down by Iran if they attack Iraq." The "reformers" don't think that's such a good idea.

Meanwhile, London's Times reports that Saddam "was said to have dispatched his younger son and heir- apparent, Qusay, to seek the return of Iraqi aircraft that were sent to Iran for safekeeping during the 1991 Gulf War." Qusay also reportedly "asked to buy weapons, including long-range Shahab-3 missiles," according to reports on "reformist Iranian websites." The Iranians turned thumbs down, but they are eager to avoid a U.S. attack on Saddam. "If aggression against one country becomes a habit, no government or country will be spared," the Times quotes "president" Mohammed Khatami as saying. One can only hope he's right.

Surprisingly Sensible
Here's a sensible observation from a surprising source:

If there is one specific cause of the Arab world's calamities and backwardness, it is not colonialism (which packed up decades ago), nor Israel (which continues to be a pain in our side), but the abolition of the concepts of liberty and the rule of law--law which clearly defines the relationship between rulers and ruled, in line with our values as a society. This has made the Arab state incapable of developing or meeting the needs of its citizens. And it has totally marginalized and disempowered the people.

The author is Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi, deputy editor in chief of the Arab News. Just one question: Why did this article appear in the Lebanon Daily Star and not Khashoggi's own paper?

Say What?
"6 Die at Pakistan Christian School"--headline, Associated Press, Aug. 5. An epidemic of old age? Well, no. "Masked gunmen firing Kalashnikov rifles stormed the campus of a Christian school in this mountain resort Monday, killing at least six people and wounding two others before escaping," the AP reports.

Giving In to the EU