By Shoshana Bryen
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Where is the connection between the vicious murder of two parents and three of their five children in Itamar last weekend and the Peter King hearing?
Some time after 9-11, someone in America coined the term “Sudden Jihad Syndrome” to account for people – Muslims – who “went berserk” and killed Jews or other Americans without evidence of membership in a group organized for that purpose. One shot up the El Al counter at LAX; one killed a woman at the Jewish Federation Building in Seattle and injured others; one was a Bosnian who killed people in a shopping mall. There was an American convert to Islam who killed an Army recruiter. A Kosovo Albanian raised in Germany who killed two American soldiers on an airport bus. An American-born Palestinian psychiatrist in the U.S. Army, who killed 14 people at Ft. Hood. Somali refugees who went back, killed and died.
None were said to have shown symptoms of desiring the afterlife with 72 virgins. And since it was sudden-onset, who could have known who they would be? Law enforcement authorities couldn’t be blamed for not catching them before they struck. And since it was medical-of-a-sort, neither could members of their families or Muslim community leaders. How convenient. Everyone is a victim, not only the dead.
Sifting through the mix, however, it became clear there was nothing “sudden” about it. People were planning carefully and over time. Nidal Hassan was well known. Moreover, law enforcement got better at uncovering plots – the Ft. Dix plotters, the Lackawanna Six and others were stopped. OK, lose “Sudden Jihad Syndrome” and call them “Lone Wolves,” sick individuals who were still not connected, not literally connected, to anyone or anything that could be blamed.
Nice try, but no.
There is no unconnected terrorism. People who listen to and venerate jihadis, read jihadist material, travel to places where jihad is taught and learned may be influenced and radicalized by jihad. People who marinate in hatred and the belief that others deserve to die may be influenced by that and may be moved to make it happen. And since that is so, they can be understood, uncovered and stopped – but it requires awareness not only by law enforcement, but also by the communities in which those people live and work. Nidal Hassan had shown evidence of a strong interest in jihad and was corresponding with Anwar al-Awlaki. There isn’t always “blame” to assess, but there is responsibility. That was Mr. King’s point.
And sometimes there is blame – which was not Mr. King’s point, but it is ours.
To Itamar.
Palestinian Authority media vilifies Jews constantly and in terms that a Nazi would find familiar – yes, that’s a Nazi analogy. At best, the Palestinian Authority calls Jews interlopers – not only on the West Bank, but “occupied Haifa” and the “settlement of Tel Aviv.” The Palestinian Authority named a community center after Wafa Idriss, the first female suicide bomber, and multiple buildings after Dalal Megrahi of the Coastal Road Massacre. Hamas handed out sweets to children in Gaza in celebration of the murder of someone else’s children. Jewish children.
If those are the heroes and those are the lessons, who wouldn’t expect a Palestinian – not all Palestinians, but at least one Palestinian – to pass where a checkpoint used to be but isn’t now and slit the throats of the nearest available occupier, even if the nearest one was a baby? And when The Washington Post first reacts to the murder of five people in their beds with a brief paragraph in its “Digest” notes, and then with the headline, “Settlers killed in West Bank” who wouldn’t expect people – even Americans – to think of “settlers” as something other than Yoav (11), Elad (4) and Hadas (3 months), their father Udi, and their mother Ruth – who fought back and was stabbed to death trying to protect her children?
We would expect that. And so, we think, would Mr. King.
There is a line from Palestinian incitement to Anwar al Awlaki to Osama bin Laden to Internet jihadist chat rooms to radicals who bribe Somali boys to go back and wage war to Nidal Hassan to Arid Uka and back again. As we go to press, Abu Mazen has denounced the killers of the Fogel family, but he cannot be allowed to escape blame for the evil swamp over which he presides and from which the killer came.
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Israel intercepts an arms shipment
The Middle East is in political and military turmoil from Bahrain to Tunisia – some of which may one day benefit Israel, some of which will not. Hamas is firing again from the Gaza. The Palestinian Authority continues to spew Jew-hatred through its official organs and feign horror at the inevitable result. The UN is screening an anti-Israel movie (popcorn optional) for the General Assembly while Iran ascends to the UN Committee on the Status of Women and Western European countries on the Security Council throw Israel to the dogs assuming the United States will veto their folly. The United States does, because it declined to expend the necessary effort to gather the votes to defeat the resolution and couldn’t prevail upon Abu Mazen (who relies on the United States for money and military training for this Praetorian Guard) to withdraw it. Israel can’t even take the time to mourn its latest dead – three children and their parents gruesomely murdered in their own home on the Sabbath – because it might lose track of the two Iranian naval ships that passed through the Suez Canal under the eyes of the new Egyptian junta.
Remember those? Israel did. Israel had to.
American and Israeli intelligence assets kept the Iranian Alvand frigate and Kharg supply and replenishment ship in their sights after Egypt gave them a clean bill and permitted them to pass through the Canal. The ships went to Latakia, Syria where, apparently, they offloaded a shipment of weapons. The second ship, a German-owned-Liberian-flagged freighter named Victoria, stopped in Latakia to pick up the weapons and then went to the port in Mersin, Turkey, where it stayed for a few days for no apparent purpose (except to give people time to forget about the Iranian ships and focus their attention elsewhere?). Then the ship left Turkey and headed for Egypt, where the cargo could have gone to Gaza through the smuggling tunnels.
The Israel Navy tracked the ship, boarded it and had it dock in Israel. There was no resistance from the crew, who apparently were unaware of the cargo, as was the German owner of the ship. The Turkish government appears to have had nothing to do with anything. But someone did.
Early word is that the ship contained “tons” of weapons, possibly including Chinese C-802 anti-ship missiles – the ones Hezbollah used during the 2006 war to disable an Israeli ship and kill four Israeli sailors. Acquisition of the C-802 missile, according to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, “Would have impaired the Israel Navy’s freedom of operations in the Mediterranean Sea.” Given recent Israeli gas finds in the Mediterranean and the fact that most of Israel’s imports and exports are seaborne and that 80% of Israel’s population lives in the coastal plain, the ability to secure Israel’s “western border” is essential.
The Victoria joins the Karine A, the Santorini, the Francop, the Hansa India, the Monchegorsk and scores of smaller ships that Israel has intercepted with weapons intended for its enemies. This is in addition to Iranian military supplies to Hezbollah through Syria and Iran’s own ongoing efforts to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities.
The point has frequently been made that Israel has to win every war while its Arab (or Iranian) enemies only have to win one. It may have been true that the Mavi Marmara flotilla ship, sponsored by the terrorist-linked IHH didn’t have large weapons caches – it didn’t have any humanitarian aid either – but the Government of Israel can’t afford to miss even one.
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Bryen is senior director of security policy of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Her column is sponsored by Waxie Sanitary Supply in memory of Morris Wax, longtime JINSA supporter and national board member. She may be contacted at shoshana.bryen@sdjewishworld.com