What do the terrorists want?

America is disturbed. Whether for, or against, the war in Iraq, people are disturbed. The pictures are disturbing; this just isn’t the American way, George Bush tells the world. The weapons of mass destruction weren’t found in Iraq, so what was the war about, critics of his administration ask. It is all part of “war on terror.”

What was the beginning of all this? 9-11? No, there really isn’t an obvious connection to Saddam Hussein there. How about the first Gulf War in 1991? It probably isn’t it either, but I’m going to start there.

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait about week after my family arrived in Israel in 1990. Would there be a war? Would it involve Israel? Well, we couldn’t see how, because what does Israel have to do with Kuwait? Yet somehow, in keeping with other ridiculous rhetoric from the world, this, too, was linked to Israel and the Palestinian question. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in order to free Palestine!? Afterwards, Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait. Notice EXPELLED, without a whimper of protest from the world!?

Israel was told to stay out of this war in order to hold the coalition together. And the question begs, no, screams to be answered: WHAT did they do for you, America? Syria and Egypt refused to fight their “brothers”. Saudi Arabia was content to let US troops fight for them. And Israeli pilots sat on their hands in planes, waiting for an order that never came, because Bush had told Shamir to stay out.

In the meantime, Israelis, including my family, sat in sealed rooms, hearing missiles to overhead at least once a week. We never knew what those missiles might be carrying. Was Saddam Hussein going to fulfill his threat to burn the whole of Israel? Was there sarin gas in the payload, like he had quite happily used on his own people? At the end of the Gulf War, we wondered why the US had not destroyed all the missile launchers. And later, there was a ship from North Korea headed for Syria with Scud C missiles that the US Navy radar LOST!??

After that was over, Mr. George Bush, Sr. pressured Israel to go to the “peace” conference in Madrid, at which the Arabs were quite obviously the favored parties. Even though the beginning agreement was that there would only be negotiations with the Palestinians actually living in the area, in conjunction with Jordan, eventually the PLO was able to muscle their way in. And, contrary to their public stance, the Bush administration DID interfere in the next elections to insure that the Likud Shamir government was out and a more “reasonable” (pliable) Labor government was in. This was the beginning of the slide down the slippery slope.

The PLO was declared “the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” Any objections in Israel were considered seditious, and in fact, you may not be aware that as soon as the Labor government was in control, the first thing they did was change the LAW OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL forbidding any meeting with the PLO. Well, they had to, because many of these illustrious officials had broken this very law themselves. Chaim Weizman, who became president of the country, had met with the PLO many times, in knowing violation of this law.

By 1994 the Palestinian police had been welcomed into the territories as conquering heroes. The first order of police business was to drag “collaborators” out of their houses and shoot them in the street. Again, not a peep of protest from the world! Israel sat a bit shocked. Well, my friends, if you don’t protect your informants, don’t expect to GET much needed information to protect your country. International journalists got pictures of this, as well as, of the open slaughter in the street of Arabs accused of selling land to Jews. Remember, the requirement to be a Palestinian policemen, sort of like initiation into a gang, was a violent past. So this was an organization of thugs, and everyone knew it. Car thefts rose; there was now a haven for murderers to run to; and there were stories of people were having to pay protection money to PA policemen. One notorious terrorist after another made his “heroic” entrance -- completely immune from prosecution! People relived nightmare after nightmare, such as the Munich Olympics massacre and the Klinghoffer killing. But hey, how can you say anything about them when the MOST notorious one is their president -- the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Yasser Arafat?!

In their “exile” the new arrivals had learned more expert methods of killing. The bus bombings began and escalated. And why?-- when the PLO were getting the control they professed they wanted. And why?-- when this was said to just be a trial period, did the “peace” process continue throughout the bloodshed? Instead, with every horrible bombing, the new song was: “They’re trying to kill the peace. We won’t let them.” So they would give MORE. This Israeli “song” was in agreement with the policy of the American negotiators, US foreign policy. The terror continued year after year; I can’t even describe how tiring that kind of pressure is on a whole people. After each bloody incident, the US and Europe would play their broken record: “Restraint, restraint!”

September 11 was not the first attempt on the World Trade Center by Muslim terrorists. Remember the bomb in the parking garage? It turned out that the Egyptian, who shot Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York, was also involved with this particular group. He was convicted of illegal possession of a firearm, after shooting and killing Rabbi Kahane and then shooting and wounding a postal worker. In his apartment were papers, in Arabic, that the FBI had overlooked at the time. Later, after the bombing in the WTC garage, his connection in the plan -- from prison (!) -- came to light. The point here is that there have been years of plans to strike at the US.

On September 11, 2001 Osama Ben-Ladin succeeded in exporting the jihad to the US. Bush declared a very strong response would be taken. It is difficult to respond to a terrorist group, since there is no country against whom to declare war. Yet something had to be done. Afghanistan was hosting Ben-Ladin, so they were the target in a simultaneaous campaign to liberate them from the Taliban. Then Bush remembered the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I have a question about this, because it was the same time that the US and UN were telling Pakistan and India to cool it. I was assured by everyone I talked to that, in such an environment, surely the US wouldn’t attack Iraq. But there were those weapons you know. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of Saddam Hussein and certainly not of weapons of mass destruction. What I’m exploring is the inconsistencies. Israel is routinely condemned for retaliatory actions to defend her people by (hopefully) punishing, and preventing more, terror.

Understand something… the same rejoicing that the world heard from Ben-Ladin’s cronies over the tragic deaths and destruction on 9-11 has been heard in Israel for years. A couple of reservists took a wrong turn into Ramallah. Their lynching was photographed by an Italian journalist. A mob of about three thousand Palestinians hooted their glee as a guy in the window of the police station held up his blood soaked hands for them all to see. That’s only ONE example of all too many. It floors me that anyone has to even say: “There’s something wrong with this!” Restraint?!

I have wondered at the parallels in the mission in Iraq with incidents in Israel.

A donkey cart blew up near some American troops; when an Israeli reporter told them that this is a common occurrence in Israel, their reaction was: “How can you live like this?”

Fallujah, with its house to house search and the enemy pinning the Americans down with gunfire and the condemnation of the world, reminded me so much of Jenin, where Israelis searched house to house for terrorists. Israeli troops had orders had to disturb anything in the houses—not even take a cup of coffee. Israel tries very hard to maintain humanity, even in the worst of situations. And it is far from easy. Yet Israel’s harshest critics on this score are not outside the country, but within. And now there is the exposure of abuse of prisoners, which is something America and the world have accused Israel of for years. I’m not going to tell you that Israel is innocent of this. And questions such as these arise:

And, if they use these questionable methods against Arabs, won’t they eventually, given the “right circumstances”, use them against Jews? During the Rabin-Peres Labor government years, the GSS (Government Secret Service) started using their questionable methods against Jews. More Jews sat in administrative detention without charges in those years than had since the British Mandate period.

The key word in “terrorism” is “TERROR”. It is meant to strike terror into your heart and disrupt your life so completely that the terrorist gets his way. What is it that they want? We asked that a lot in Israel. Arafat would refuse offers that seemed to be exactly what he had been demanding. But it isn’t what they say TO YOU -- it’s what they say behind your back to their own people. And when asked about the things they have said, their answer is that as a non-Muslim you have no right to comment on, or ask about, a speech made in Muslim terms. They claim you simply cannot understand, and that their intentions ARE honorable and beyond your reproach. References to Mohammed’s reneging on his peace deal are not so hard to understand. “Jihad,” from suicide bombers and drive-by shooters and hit-and-run drivers and rock-throwing youths and knifers and snipers and kidnappers, all declaring in their murderous ecstasy that Allah great, is not difficult to understand. Utter destruction is what the PLO has always stood for – don’t be deceived by their soft words meant for Western ears. They want the utter destruction of Israel. Arafat said as much in Johannesburg and Stockholm at the very beginning. (You can look it up and read the whole speech made in each place on the internet.)

Now the question is: What does Ben-Ladin and Al-Qaida want? What do the Muslim terrorists, in general, want from the US? Life in America has changed drastically since 9-11. How much more will it change? There are Israeli parallels that the US should not ignore. In Israel there are security guards that check every person entering restaurants, stores, banks, bus stations, schools -- every single public building. Every school outing has to have an armed guard. Armed soldiers patrol the streets, checking the ID of any suspicious character. Traffic is stopped and buildings cleared frequently in alerts over unidentified packages. Anywhere people gather, even simply standing on the street, is a potential target. It’s an all too real threat, based on all too many tragic incidents. This atmosphere has been so crippling that businesses have gone under, as tourism has steadily declined. Whole companies have left the country. And the unemployment rate is over 50%; half the country is out of work, and the other half is watching their backs. Read Arafat’s Stockholm speech; this is exactly what he promised was coming. Yet our leaders didn’t pay attention.