But you do it so well. :)
…the woman who killed 19 people on the weekend certainly wasn’t spirited away to Syria for a suicide-bomber-training weekend.
Do you mean to suggest that organized terror groups are neither organized nor groups, but actually an unaffiliated movement of solo acts who supply themselves with explosives?
PIJ has claimed responsibility for the Haifa explosion. PIJ is a tightly organized group which supplies explosives (and training) to willing suicide bombers, who are themselves “handled” by operational planners on the ground in the occupied territories.
No suicide bombers are trained…
This statement is laughable. Suicide bombers are not only trained, they are actively recruited, indoctrinated, equipped, and handled from induction to execution by operational planners.
Also, it’s a great way to make sure that the Iranians plow ahead full steam on their nuclear weapons program.
Hilariously, we return to the argument that an aggressive enemy’s intent to nuclearize itself demands that we back off and leave that aggressor alone to nuclearize itself.
I eagerly await Brett Todd’s post in the aftermath of an Osirak-style Israeli strike against Iran’s budding nuclear capability: “This will only force Saudi Arabia to develop nuclear weapons!”
For starters, how the hell can you think that I suggested terror groups aren’t organized when I say that the most recent female suicide bomber “wasn’t spirited away tp Syria for a suicide-bomber-training weekend”? I was clearly talking about this Syrian camp, which you’ve got to know. So I can only assume you’re trolling for a reply here. Well, you’ve got one. Enjoy!
Show me one piece of evidence that Palestinian suicide bombers are trained outside of the territories. Show me one piece of evidence that the leadership is trained outside of the territories. Everything that I have ever read clearly shows that Palestinian terror groups are self-sufficient, aside from getting some raw materials from places like the Sinai. Have you not been paying attention to the Israeli attacks? Every one of these strikes in Gaza and the West Bank has been launched either at a leader’s car or house, or a so-called weapons factory. Yet now suddenly the Palestinians need bases in Syria?
And as for the latest suicide bombing, get real. This woman was just finishing up her studies for the bar and had worked very hard over the last few years. According to the BBC, she only got radical and seriously religious after her brother and another close relation were killed by the IDF a few months back. All you need to do to become a suicide bomber in the territories is contact the right people, come off stable enough to bluff your way into a restaurant or public gathering place, and have a willingness to die and take innocents with you.
I mean, sheesh, the very reason that suicide bombing is such a problem is because it requires damn near nothing in training and equipment. You think if the Palestinians were running a Suicide School for Girls anywhere in the Middle East, that was supplying a pipeline of bombers into Israel, the Israelis wouldn’t have taken it out a long time ago? You can’t tell me that Sharon wouldn’t have ordered a strike into another country a long time ago, if he’d discovered evidence of some training camp. All this “We’ve held off long enough” stuff is ridiculous. Israel’s been on the offensive for three years now (and boy, has that tactic ever been a roaring success!).
Oh, and there’s no way that Israel would attack Iran. That would bring about a response of some kind, as Iran isn’t nearly as toothless as Syria. There’s no guarantee that Israel would be able to completely take out the Iranian program, either, which is apparently quite far along. At the very least, Israel wouldn’t be able to get all of the radioactive materials, making it possible that Iran would try and get a dirty bomb or three into Tel Aviv. And, of course, Iran’s connections with Pakistan and North Korea have to be considered. A lot of this technology is undoubtedly imported, so if you blow up one nuke facility, there’s no reason the Iranians wouldn’t be able to build another with freshly purchased materials.
And, Dan, your last point is truly nutso. You’re actually saying that Israel going on the offensive won’t prompt its neighbors to develop a nuclear deterrent? All this “We’ll defend ourselves wherever we want” rhetoric will do is encourage the entire region to go nuclear, to ensure that Israel can’t just send in the F-16s at will. I’m sure there are elements in Pakistan who are fervently working to make sure that the entire Islamic world is given nuclear technology.
Brett,
I’ve read in a number of places that Palestinian terror groups started adopting Hizbollah tactics, showing some level of contact between the two. It’s also not a secret that Syria has used Hizbollah as its proxy in a war against Israel, and sponsors Palestinian terror groups as well. Israel hasn’t launched attacks against Syria for all sorts of reasons, but not being sure that there were training camps in Syria has never been one of them.
Also, you’re forgetting that not every attack on Israelis is a suicide bombing–there are attacks on settlements, on military targets, and so on, that do take a fair amount of planning. If all it took was a person deciding to strap on some bombs and walk into a restaurant, why would the Palestinian groups need any organization at all? Leave aside Hamas, which does lots of stuff, like hospitals and schools, why should PFLP or IJ exist?
Gav
I’m not forgetting those things, Gav, but nearly every one of those non-suicide attacks is obviously an off-the-cuff sort of thing where a couple of guys grab their AKs and try to find holes in the security perimeters. You see the odd calculated ambush of Israeli troops, which obviously required some coordination. Though most of the attacks you cite are like mass murders, where somebody just gets into a settlement and shoots until he gets gunned down. I hardly think the the Palestinians need a lot of outside organization and support to coordinate attacks like this, or to train the people who carry them out. I mean, what usually happens? Some nut breaks into a settlement, kills a mother and child, and gets gunned down. What sort of training do you need to do that? Conversely, if these lunatics were being given military training in, say, Syrian bases, you’d think that their attacks would inflict more casualties, and that they’d get away at least part of the time.
But please note that I’m not saying these groups aren’t well organized in the territories, and that some training doesn’t go on there. I just think that the level of organization there pales in comparison to groups operating under the al Qaeda umbrella, as those organizations seem to regularly pull off some pretty horrific, massive strikes, like the JI one that killed the 200 Aussies last year, and the more recent assault on the Western worker compound in Saudi Arabia. Palestinian action in the territories and in Israel, as awful as they are, are a completely different animal from those well-planned and coordinated quasi-military attacks.
BTW, I’m not surprised that Hezbollah is in contact with the other groups, though I haven’t read anything about direct assistance in the territories. Where did you see this? If this is stepping up, then it explains the Syrian strike. Well, at least somewhat – the main supporter of Hezbollah is Iran, and Israel doesn’t want to go there, unless the situation gets a lot worse.
It’s hard to know, I guess. I’ve been out to a couple of settlements for one reason and another, and I really think it’s not that easy to just break into most of them. But YMMV.
I mean, what usually happens? Some nut breaks into a settlement, kills a mother and child, and gets gunned down. What sort of training do you need to do that? Conversely, if these lunatics were being given military training in, say, Syrian bases, you’d think that their attacks would inflict more casualties, and that they’d get away at least part of the time.
The guys doing the breaking-in (just like the suicide bombers) probably get just about no training–they’re cannon fodder. It’s the guys who make the explosives, who figure out the routes to take and the targets who (presumably) get the training. One guy like Yihye Ayash was probably responsible for more deaths than any single suicide bomber.
But please note that I’m not saying these groups aren’t well organized in the territories, and that some training doesn’t go on there. I just think that the level of organization there pales in comparison to groups operating under the al Qaeda umbrella, as those organizations seem to regularly pull off some pretty horrific, massive strikes, like the JI one that killed the 200 Aussies last year, and the more recent assault on the Western worker compound in Saudi Arabia. Palestinian action in the territories and in Israel, as awful as they are, are a completely different animal from those well-planned and coordinated quasi-military attacks.
I sort of agree, but I’m not sure if we can isolate the cause down to a lack of organization. Israel is probably harder to hit with an organized attack than some other countries–there’s a greater chance of one part of the attack getting caught. (Even so, there was one (can’t remember the date, sorry) where they tried to blow up an oil truck, which would’ve killed > 200 people; the attackers screwed up at the last minute, so it didn’t detonate, but they weren’t actually caught)
BTW, I’m not surprised that Hezbollah is in contact with the other groups, though I haven’t read anything about direct assistance in the territories. Where did you see this? If this is stepping up, then it explains the Syrian strike. Well, at least somewhat – the main supporter of Hezbollah is Iran, and Israel doesn’t want to go there, unless the situation gets a lot worse.
It’s fairly old news–I remember reading about it fairly shortly after Israel withdrew from Lebanon. In & of itself, it doesn’t explain the attack into Syria at this particular time instead of some other time within the past year, though. Agreed on Iran.
Although it was always assumed in the Israeli papers that Hizbullah took their marching orders from Syria, not Iran, but I don’t know why people made that assumption, and I certainly have no idea of its truth, or if it’s always been a convenient fiction, sicne Israel’s certainly not ready to have a war with Iran.
Gav
“Everything that I have ever read clearly shows that Palestinian terror groups are self-sufficient, aside from getting some raw materials from places like the Sinai. Have you not been paying attention to the Israeli attacks?”
That doesn’t mean they arn’t getting trained outside of the territories. Israel may just not have thought it politically worth it to strike somewhere in another country. Thats a big escalation if they start to regularly strike in other countries like Syria and Jordan.
It does looks like Israel needs to get better intelligence since whiles it looks like the camp was run by militants its been abandoned for several years now.
Forget about what the camp was or used for, its likely it was long abandoned, and all sides were aware of this.
Its a message, pure and simple. The Israeli’s play the Arabs at their own game, and speak in a language they understand, its how they keep ahead.
The Russians realised this too, why they had no problem during the period when modern fundamentalist terrorism was born, when they first started taking western hostages they also took a couple of russians. The russian intelligence teams then kidnapped a terrorist leader and returned him in various parcels to the hostage takers, resulting in the release of the hostages. The Russians were then fairly problem free up until recent times and the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Besides, nothing Isreal has done in the last half century could begin to compare with Russia in Chechnya for the last decade alone. Not that that alone would stop them, of course…
The Russians are playing the same game in Chechnya now. It’s not working out nearly so well for them.
The Russians are playing the same game in Chechnya now. It’s not working out nearly so well for them.[/quote]
It’s not the same game at all. Now, if Israel razed Damascus to the ground, they would be approaching the same level. Until then, they are similar but VERY different in substance.
The Russian KGB-in-Lebanon stories of scaring terrorists only worked because the Russians were not primary targets there. The Israeli proxies in Lebanon did as much and worse, but that did not help them against a determined opposition. Russia in Chechnya is a case in point, the Russian military has been at it’s most brutal there but, lo and behold, terroizing terrorists into submission doesn’t work when the terrorists are after your hide.
Fear and brutality alone is not enough. LBJ showed that up quite nicely in the latter years of Vietnam.
Also, I do think the stakes were a little different for the “Israeli proxies” you cite…it is not like a very pleasant fate awaited them if they backed down. Mind you, not a rationalization, but it is different from a fundamentally optional war like Chechnya.
It’s not the same game at all. Now, if Israel razed Damascus to the ground, they would be approaching the same level. Until then, they are similar but VERY different in substance.[/quote]
Sorry, I meant that the Russians are trying the same hardball style of dealing with terrorists that they used in the eighties. I didn’t intend any comparison with Israel.
Then by all means continue. My apologies.
This problem will remain even when a two state solution is set up. I don’t think many Israeli-Arabs will migrate to the new Palestinian state (actually palestinians try to achieve Israeli citizenship by marriage), and eventually the Israeli-Arab population will exceed the Israeli-Jewish population, making the Jews a minority again, but this time in our own land.
It’s an inevitable consequence of premising the basis of your state around irrational criteria for merit/belonging (ie being Jewish). Mind you, I completely understand why Israel was set up, but as you note the long term prospects are always going to be dim.
It’s an inevitable consequence of premising the basis of your state around irrational criteria for merit/belonging (ie being Jewish). Mind you, I completely understand why Israel was set up, but as you note the long term prospects are always going to be dim.[/quote]
After the initial outrage, I am now feeling depressed.
Yes, but that assumes some sort of population transfer/buyout isn’t part of the final agreement. I think that it would be.