Posted on 04/30/2011 2:26:59 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
While no one was looking, something historic happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost.
For Israel, the victory is bitter. The past four years of terrorism have killed almost 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands of others. But Israel has won strategically. The intent of the intifada was to demoralize Israel, destroy its economy, bring it to its knees, and thus force it to withdraw and surrender to Palestinian demands, just as Israel withdrew in defeat from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
That did not happen. Israel's economy was certainly wounded, but it is growing again. Tourism had dwindled to almost nothing at the height of the intifada, but tourists are returning. And the Israelis were never demoralized. They kept living their lives, the young people in particular returning to cafes and discos and buses just hours after a horrific bombing. Israelis turned out to be a lot tougher and braver than the Palestinians had imagined.
The end of the intifada does not mean the end of terrorism. There was terrorism before the intifada and there will be terrorism to come. What has happened, however, is an end to systematic, regular, debilitating, unstoppable terror -- terror as a reliable weapon. At the height of the intifada, there were nine suicide attacks in Israel killing 85 Israelis in just one month (March 2002). In the past three months there have been none.
The overall level of violence has been reduced by more than 70 percent. How did Israel do it? By ignoring its critics and launching a two-pronged campaign of self-defense.
First, Israel targeted terrorist leaders -- attacks so hypocritically denounced by Westerners who, at the same time, cheer the hunt for, and demand the head of, Osama bin Laden.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I am quite surprised that lefty biased WP [where Arabs are “victims” by defualt] would have such a ‘good’ article about Israel.
And its relevance to 2011 would be...?
Posted now, original from 2004. thanks MinorityRepublican.
How can we win in Iraq and Afghanistan? Both wars aren't entirely over, as you may have noticed.....
Sounds like you believe Israel has won and it’s war over. Actually it’s not over till it’s over. This has at least a hundred more years to go. So the question is who does time favor?
Depends on what you believe in. Have you read the Revelation?
Iraq is now over, and is standing on its own feet, albeit some growing pains.
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