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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Oct. 9, 2003 / 13 Tishrei, 5764

Cowardice costs

By David Warren


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Israel's weekend attack on the Islamic Jihad camp near Damascus was an act of cowardice, properly considered. The target was legitimate enough, and the best proof of this was the immediate Syrian effort to seal it from journalistic inspection; together with Hizbollah reprisals along the Lebanon frontier. Had the target been the mere hiking trails Syrian propaganda described — and which liberal media immediately swallowed whole — it would not have had the kind of fencing and gates around it that at least one enterprising journalist observed. Moreover, the Syrian authorities would have led a media parade through the bombsite.

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The regime of Bashir Assad in Syria knows what I know about the Western media: you don't have to show them a thing, for they'll quote you uncritically. The only credential you need is animosity towards the U.S. and Israel. Whereas they will not even condescend to read David Kay's remarkably damning and elaborately proven report on Saddam Hussein's illegal weapons programs — fully vindicating the Bush and Blair positions that led them into Iraq. Once again I must say — without qualification — that our mainstream media are, despite their protestations of innocence and "objectivity", objectively working for the enemy.

And having their effect, as Israel's action showed. Prime Minister Sharon chose the Syrian target as an alternative to acting against Yasser Arafat — either by exiling him, or, as was originally proposed, by killing him. Under domestic political pressure, Mr. Sharon was choosing the lesser way to make the point that "Israel will not stand for this anymore" — in response to an horrific suicide bombing in Haifa. He was boxed in, by media-led world opinion. He goes on to hunt Islamic Jihad agents in Jenin and Nablus who, the Israelis sincerely believe, themselves ultimately report back to Arafat' s surrounded compound in Ramallah.

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In making his lesser point, Mr. Sharon was providing an ineffective deterrent. He knows Arafat is informed, before the fact, of all organized terror strikes against Israel, and his intelligence services believe, on evidence repeatedly shown to the U.S., that Arafat personally orders most of them. The Haifa bombing was done through Islamic Jihad, instead of through a Fatah branch, or Hamas, to make the greatest possible distance from Arafat's chain of command. For Islamic Jihad has become so closely affiliated with the Iranian- and Syrian-sponsored Hizbollah, as to be practically their "diplomatic representative" within the Israel/Palestine theatre.

Mr. Sharon had implied that the earlier Israeli cabinet authorization to remove Arafat would be acted upon after the next major bombing. He was thus hoping to hold Arafat hostage against new terror incidents. But the tactic risked backfire if there were a major incident, and Arafat remained untouched.

Now this has happened. In effect, Arafat has been able to show his people and the Arab world generally that he can continue the bombings with impunity — that the Israelis will always look elsewhere to settle scores, not having the courage to go for him directly. He has thus, once again, successfully raised the stakes — so that his authority continues to be restored over West Bank and Gaza, and his prestige throughout the region.

Instead, Israel has been compelled, against its immediate interests, to open a second front of contention. Mr. Sharon has triggered border incidents along Israel's northern frontier, and mutual mobilization of Syrian and Israeli armies. He may think there is an advantage to Israel in re-opening the Syrian can of worms which, previously, Israeli governments had gone to lengths to close. Instead he has created a distraction that Arafat can better exploit than can he.

Arafat was even able to use the incident as cover for the emergency swearing-in of his new cabinet under Ahmed Qureia, boldly moving before disputes were settled with his new interior and health ministers about the scope of their authority.

World opinion has Israel boxed in, yet paradoxically, as the temperature rises, world opinion will have less and less influence over Israel's defense. The proverb, "As well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb," begins to apply here — for it is not as if Israel ever gets praise for its restraint, or any other privilege it could risk losing. The only foreign power that retains real power over the decisions made by Israeli politicians is the United States, because it is in a position to cut substantial military and civil aid. But Egypt gets the same aid, and if Egypt's Hosni Mubarak can't be punished for providing the Syrian regime with its Arab League cover, Ariel Sharon can't be punished for taking potshots at known terrorists.

The cowardly course invariably leads to the bigger catastrophe. If the Israelis shot Arafat, there would be days, even weeks of Arab rage, and international condemnations. But this would most likely be followed by — nothing, except the implosion of the Palestinian Authority, and thus the removal of the political cover it offers to Palestinian terrorists. Whereas, hitting a site in Syrian territory brings, on balance, less rage; and more chance of hostilities across international borders that could spread rapidly through the region.

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JWR contributor David Warren is a Columnist for the Ottawa Citizen. Comment by clicking here.

© 2003, David Warren