Thursday, March 28, 2002

SOLDIERS AND CITIZENS: Jim Henley makes the point I haven't seen made in a lot of places:

While following links from the Layne piece on Iraqi support for suicide bombers, I read about two distinctly different suicide bombers. Here is one:

At about 11.30pm they walked into Jerusalem's crowded Ben Yehuda pedestrian shopping mall and, in the midst of the bright lights and chatting teenagers, pulled the detonators. Nails and shrapnel, mixed in with the explosives, mutilated anyone within 20 feet of these two exploding human bombs. Eleven Israelis were killed and 37 injured. There was little of the bombers left to pick up.

And here is another:

In June this year, Ismail Masawabi, 23, drove a car packed with explosives into a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and waited for a passing Israeli patrol. When they were within range, he flicked a switch on the dashboard and blew them and himself up. He killed three soldiers.

The first is a terrorist, and contemptible. The second, a guerilla, and not. One reason it's easy to dislike the Palestinians is that few of them seem to see the difference. That can be said of some American pundits.

No comments: