When terrorists raided Israeli territory and kidnapped an Israeli Army soldier a few weeks ago, they had a ready explanation. They wanted a prisoner exchange with Israel. As usual in these attacks, the terrorists also could recite an elaborate provenance of Israeli provocation, sometimes tracing back years if not decades.
But the brazen kidnapping of Israeli soldiers–one by Palestinian terrorists a few weeks ago and two more on Wednesday, by Hezbollah terrorists from Lebanon–can’t be disguised as part of any historical pattern of attack and revenge. Israel withdrew from Gaza a year ago; the soldiers who were killed and the one kidnapped were on Israeli soil. Similarly, Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border to capture two more soldiers in an attack that opened a second front in a fast-spreading conflict.
The coordination of these attacks isn’t an accident. Hezbollah, in thrall to Iran, has reportedly helped finance and train Hamas terrorists. It’s likely that exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Damascus is the mastermind behind these coordinated attacks. Just after the first attack, one of his top aides telegraphed that intent: “I believe the resistance [fighters] should not be content with taking one Israeli soldier as prisoner,” the official told a reporter. “They should develop this kind of operation and seek to capture more soldiers, and perhaps officers, so that the occupation realizes that our prisoners will not die and rot in jail.”
Both Hamas and Hezbollah are demanding a prisoner release in exchange for the hostages. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is rightly refusing. Dealing with terrorist thugs only ensures more kidnappings.
All those who hoped that Hamas or Hezbollah would abandon terror when they gained political power must confront the fact that power has only emboldened their impulse to terrorism. This is terror as statecraft, terror by a ruling political party in one instance, and by a leading political party in the other.
Just a few days ago it was revealed that Lebanese authorities, working closely with the FBI, arrested a terrorist who confessed to planning a series of attacks on the New York commuter train tunnels. Lebanon’s role in that arrest was encouraging. If the Lebanese authorities are really serious about dismantling terror, however, they can’t ignore Hezbollah.
As Israeli defense minister Amir Pertz said after the first attack: “The masquerade ball is over. The suits and ties will not serve as cover to the involvement and support of kidnapping and terror.”
In an op-ed in the Washington Post recently, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas railed about being “besieged by our occupiers, who destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water plants, and who attack our very means of civil administration … . As I inspect the ruins of our infrastructure–the largess of donor nations and international efforts all turned to rubble once more by F-16s and American-made missiles–my thoughts again turn to the minds of Americans. What do they think of this?”
Here’s what we think, Mr. Prime Minister. Hamas had a chance to govern peacefully. It had a chance to build a state in Gaza, to stop terrorists from lobbing shells into Israel. It chose to cheer a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv and help kidnap a soldier for ransom. For Hamas and Hezbollah, the masquerade is over.
