Posted on 07/18/2008 5:19:34 AM PDT by goldstategop
What can you say about a people who welcome a child murderer as a hero?
Most Americans are familiar with the brutal murder of wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer on the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985. Terrorists led by Abu Abbas (who was later given safe haven in Baghdad by Saddam Hussein) took the ship captive and threw Klinghoffer overboard. But few recall that the ship was seized to bargain for the release of, among others, Samir Kuntar from an Israeli prison.
Kuntar had taken part in an earlier terror attack. In 1979, as a 16-year-old, he and four others had traveled to northern Israel by boat from Lebanon and come ashore in the seaside town of Nahariya. At midnight, Smadar Haran recalled, they burst into her apartment building. Peering out to see what the noise was, Smadar, mother of two, slammed shut her apartment door when she saw the terrorists — but too late. Kuntar had glimpsed her. Her husband, Danny, helped Smadar and their younger daughter, two-year-old Yael, to squeeze into a crawl space above the bedroom.
Smadar wrote later, “I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades.” As police began to arrive, Kuntar and the others dragged Danny and four-year-old Einat down to the beach. With Einat watching, Kuntar shot Danny in the head and then threw his body into the surf. Kuntar then repeatedly smashed Einat’s head against a rock with his rifle butt, killing her, too. Yael did not survive the attack either. In an effort to keep the baby from crying and betraying their hiding place, Smadar had accidentally suffocated her.
This week, Kuntar, dressed in fatigues and sporting a Hitlerian mustache and haircut, walked down a red carpet arrayed for him in Beirut. The government closed all offices and declared a national day of celebration. Tens of thousands of Lebanese cheered, waved flags, threw confetti, and set off fireworks as Hezbollah staged a rally to celebrate their “victory” over Israel. Mahmoud Abbas, the “moderate” leader of the Palestinian Authority, sent “blessings to Samir Kuntar’s family.” PA spokesman Ahmad Abdul Rahman sent “warm blessings to Hezbollah . . . on the return of the heroes of freedom . . . headed by the great Samir Kuntar.”
The statement went on to laud the “heroic” actions of “martyr” Dalal Mughrabi, whose body was returned to Lebanon. She had participated in the worst terror attack ever against Israeli civilians, the hijacking of a tourist bus in which 37 people including 12 children were murdered. The Palestinian Authority spokesman took the opportunity to vow that the Fatah party “will continue to struggle in the way of the pure Martyrs, until the state is liberated and the Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital.” Kuntar, acknowledging the adulation of the crowd, took the microphone and declared, “I return from Palestine only to go back to Palestine.”
And what did Israel get in return? Two corpses. The bodies of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, the two reservists whose kidnapping in 2006 prompted the botched and inconclusive Israel/Hezbollah war. After this shameful and stupid trade of live terrorists for dead soldiers, Hezbollah has achieved its goal.
In 2006, Hezbollah had crossed the border and attacked two Israeli border patrol jeeps, killing three and wounding two. Two others, Regev and Goldwasser, also believed wounded in the attack, were kidnapped and taken into Lebanon on orders from Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah, who thought he could demand the release of all Lebanese terrorists in Israeli prisons in exchange for the two soldiers. (Hamas simultaneously kidnapped Gilad Shalit in the south.) Israel at first responded with a war. But while most of the civilized world rooted for the Israelis to destroy Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Israel flinched and conducted a feckless conflict. Thousands of Lebanese and Israeli civilians were hurt and displaced, but nothing was settled — until now. Now Hezbollah has achieved total victory.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I can say a lot worse about people who release him from prison.
Israel will regret this day for many years. Unbelievably bad deal for the Jews. Golda and Moshe where are you when you are needed?
Meanwhile the religon of peace celebrates.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
We never seem to learn the lesson of dealing with that small portion of the population that for whatever reason, genes or environment, are able to live among us.
Nevermind the moral state of Muslims. Worry about the moral state of Israelis who give the land away to them.
"I'm going to Valleyfair"!
(Different people, similar MO).
NO cheers, unfortunately.
It's not too late to do so. His photo is all over the news today. The Mossad knows his exact location.
Mr. Kuntar, answer your cell phone.
There is some indication Kuntar has been marked for death by Mosaad. Israel has no capital punishment, so hopefully he will be taking a dirt nap within a year.
i can only hope that before he was released, some drugs were put in his food, and while he was out, a gps bug was surgically implanted in him.......
This story makes me want to THROW UP. I have read it several times and always have that same reaction.
I am with Glenn Beck on this one. He suggested that the trade with the Israelis should be one for one. You give us one, we give you one. Oh, and by the way, BAM, here’s one...BAM...here’s two. You can take them back in the boxes your brought ours to us in.
The Israelis are going soft just as the US has over the last 6 decades. They probably got the idea from our judicial system where murderous Muslim terrorists are treated like naughty children under the unwarranted protection of the U.S Constitution.
When I was a kid during WWII Nazi spies and saboteurs who were landed here by submarine were quickly tried and then summarily executed, but today Islamic terrorists who have killed our troops in Afghanistan are treated better than some American traffic law breakers. I will never believe that the Constitution's authors intended for foreign enemies to be entitled to the same Constitutional protections that American citizens enjoy, but our namby-pamby federal judges give it to them anyway and now Israel is following our lead.
As recorded in the Old Testament, God ordered the ancient Jews to wipe out the pagan nations who invaded Israel to the last man. But now Israel and the entire western world coddles child murdering Islamic terrorists with luxuries and privileges that petty thieves in prisons of the Islamic world would give anything to enjoy. Today even our police advise us not to resist murderers and robbers with deadly force, but to give them what whatever they want in the vain hope that if we cooperate they won't kill us and rape our women and children. There is no hope for men or nations who are too cowardly and soft-headed to defend themselves against the ravening 2-legged wolves of the world who prey on the weak and stupid. God help us, because we don't have the backbone to help ourselves.
It’s too bad that the Israeli’s of today are not the fighters who revenged the massacre of the 1972 Munich Olympics. Or possibly that is what will finally happen. The Israeli’s need a new Mossad to go out an revenge kill all who have done wrong to their country no matter how long and where they may reside. If the Israeli’s had the ball$ of their forefathers and mothers, this should be the plan. Let’s see....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.