Soccer Dad

Self imposed?

The NYT reports:

Israel appeared to face a heightened threat from Palestinian suicide bombings on Tuesday after the military wing of Hamas officially claimed responsibility for a lethal blast the day before at a shopping center in the southern town of Dimona.

The claim by the Qassam Brigades wing of Hamas, the militant Islamic group, signaled a possible end to its self-imposed moratorium on such attacks that had lasted more than three years.

"Self imposed moratorium?" Really? In response to a specious BBC report on the Dimona attack that called terror attacks "rare," Judeopundit pointed out that terror attacks have been attempted quite frequently over the past few years.

No mention, of course, of thwarted attacks. According to Jewish Virtual Library 187 suicide attacks were thwarted in 2006. This story from 10/7/07 mentions 7 suicide bombings thwarted in "the last month and a half."

Suicide terror attacks haven't been rare. Fortunately successful suicide terror attacks have been rare due to Israeli preventive measures. The Wall Street Journal opined this week, in the Israeli Lesson

Instead, the difference has come because of Israel's increasingly successful antiterrorist efforts. Key to that success has been the construction of its ostensibly "illegal" security fence, its equally "illegal" targeted assassinations of key terrorist leaders, its "disproportional" attacks on terrorist enclaves in Jenin and elsewhere, and other actions that saved innocent lives but which much of the international community deplored.

One of the most common arguments against Israel's actions is that it would feed a "cycle of violence." It's fair to say that what happened is closer to the opposite. As Israel put pressure on terrorist leaders, they were forced to spend their time running for their lives rather than planning the next attack.

Why does the term "self imposed moratorium" bother me? Because we're dealing with a terrorist group. Even if the Qasam brigades really had a ceasefire and observed it: other terror groups have been attempting attacks with the forbearance of the Hamas and Fatah governments and Hamas has done nothing to stop the hail of Qassams regularly fired at Sderot and other localities within Israel. Praising a branch of Hamas, which may or may not have stopped a specific attack is awfully faint praise when every other branch of Hamas (even the so called "political" branch) is involved in some way in terror against Israel. So why bother?

I would argue that Isabel Kershner is trying to minimize the likelihood that the breach in the Egypt-Gaza border has given Hamas more opportunities to launch attacks against Israel. (Indeed, this is cited as an "Israeli concern.")

Kershner does point out the possibility that more than one team of terrorists was sent to Israel and that only one team, so far, has been successful.

Like much the rest of the MSM, the Times leaves the victims anonymous today.

terrorism, hamas, israel.