The European Union has long urged the Palestinians to halt
terrorist suicide attacks within the Green Line and they are
deeply involved in recent meetings between the Fatah and the
Hamas in Cairo to arrive at some agreement to this effect.
The European Union, pointedly, does not say anything about
attacks on Jews in the West Bank and Gaza, implying that it
is prepared for those to continue. What the Europeans who
advocate this approach ignore, or choose to ignore -- or
perhaps there is some even more sinister motive -- is that
suicide attacks by Palestinians even on the West Bank are not
only fatal to the attackers, but are also really suicidal for
Palestinian society as a whole.
Palestinian society is destroying itself. Children are
brought up to aspire to being a shaheed, martyring
themselves in the act of murdering as many Jews as possible.
The best and the brightest of the Palestinian youths are
taught to murder and commit suicide. When this is a policy
applied to an entire community, it will obviously and
inevitably drive it to self-destruction.
The "senior Hamas activists" are getting younger and younger,
as the older ones are eliminated -- whether by Israel's
efforts at self-defense or their own fulfillment of their
life's aim of murder and suicide. Their lives before their
own deaths are full of the deaths of others -- including
fellow Palestinians.
Iyad Sawalha, 28, went down fighting last week in Jenin after
Israeli forces spent three intense days looking mainly for
him. As the senior commander of Islamic Jihad in the Jenin
area, Israel said that he was responsible for at least 31
recent Israeli deaths in addition to hundreds of wounded,
including the recent attack on a bus at Karkur.
Jerusalem Post reporter Khaled Abu Toameh said that he
knew Sawalha since he was a teenager, and he was steeped in
violence from then. His first murder was of a mukhtar
in a nearby village who was suspected of cooperating with
Israel. "I [killed him] with my own hands," Sawalha told Abu
Toameh with a smile. "He was about 70 years old and it wasn't
a problem to kill him."
The IDF arrested Sawalha in 1991 and he was jailed for his
part in killing four Palestinians. After his release in 1999,
he told the reporter that he had decided to go to work and
lead "a normal life." However, "he was unable to resist the
temptation when the second intifadah erupted, and within a
short time he was again in the business, this time with
Islamic Jihad."
Palestinian textbooks hold up a life like this as a model for
children. The image of Sawalha is probably already sold on
keychains and posters. His parents and other relatives have
probably told the media how proud they are of his
activities.
Woe is to a society that aspires to death and suicide.
If the European Union really liked the Palestinians and had
their real interests at heart, it would say to them: Give up
your preoccupation with death. You cannot build a future for
yourself if all you want is the death of others and your own
death.
As the Torah says: Choose life!
