Monday, June 20, 2005

Jihad Humor

The pure spiritual Jihad that I learnt about in Islam 207 at University appears special and holy. But the Jihad I've come to know since 2000 lacks much honor.
I've never found this Jihad very amusing. Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad seems to find the whole thing a bit of a game. Take their statement this morning: "We are still committed to the calm". That might be an acceptable position had they not carried out a drive-by shooting today that killed a 35-year old driver and wounded the 15-year old passenger.

Chutzpah! If you murder people (and attempt suicide bombings) as Islamic Jihad continue to do, you are not committed to anything except murder (let alone a calm, whatever that is!) As I always explain to my students - it does not matter whether you are left or right, religious or less so, the fact is that people who live in the West Bank Jewish communities do not deserve to be slain. You might disagree with settlers and settlements but this does not excuse Palestinian terror.

Only a couple of days after Rice was pleased to announce agreement between Israel and the PA on the destruction of the Israeli houses in Gaza, this attack and the one which killed an IDF soldier on Sunday paint a sorry picture of the time to come.

And our politicians know it, and there is an ever stronger call for Abbas to commit to dismantling these terrorist groups. The groups are growing in confidence, in means and in chutzpah. They might be chutzpadik now - that's the best it's going to get unless the PA fulfill their obligations under the Road Map and Israel ensures that it does not run away from Gaza like it did from Lebanon.

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