Israel 1, Bad Guys 0

huge victory.
guess I was
Why empower your enemy in the
wrong.
middle
of a war?
Last May,
The
Hamas
charter, written in
Hamas "spir-
1987,
said,
"Israel
will exist and will
itual leader" Sheik
continue
to
exist
until
Islam will
Ahmed Yassin
obliterate
it,
just
as
it
obliterated
issued a fatwa
others before it."
:r . against America.
Leaving the Gaza Strip in the
He warned of
hands
of leaders who want to
HARRY
violence against
destroy
you won't work.
KIRS BAUM Americans every-
Israel
will face a spike in terrorist
Columnist
where, including
attempts,
and condemnation will
our shores.
rain
down
from all points of the
I wrote a column
United
Nations.
that a tank shell was waiting to land
Down the road, this might cost
in his lap if Hamas took his fatwa to
Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
action.
his
government,
but the fact remains
But it didn't take action against
—
there's
one
less
bad guy to worry
the United States, and it wasn't a
tank shell.
It only took
being in the right
place at the right
time for the sheik,
one of the
founders of
Hamas, to say his
final morning
prayer on
Monday.
A missile shot
from an Israeli
helicopter turned
him into a blood-
stain.
After a failed
assassination
attempt in
Sheik Ahmed Yassin's funeral procession.
September 2003,
Israel — fighting its
about.
continual war on .terrorism — made
Palestinian Authority leader Yasser
sure the bomb was big enough this
Arafat,
who was a Yassin rival, called
time.
for
three
days of mourning.
This is the Israeli way. You don't
Palestinian
Prime Minister Ahmed
just send an unarmed, unmanned
Qurei
called
Yassin
a great leader,
Air Force Predator Aerial Vehicle to
among
other
things.
photograph your nemesis walking
"Yassin is known for his modera-
around an Afghan compound sur-
tion
and he was controlling Hamas,"
rounded by bodyguards as the
said
Qurei, according to a New York
United States did with Osama bin
story. "Therefore, this is a
Times
Laden in 2000.
dangerous,
cowardly act.
When you're dealing with the
David
Roet,
deputy consul general
Palestinian version of bin Laden,
of
Israel
in
Chicago,
said the num-
you don't consider criminal prosecu-
ber
of
Israeli
dead
that
has been
tion and you don't send anything
directly
linked
to
Yassin
is almost
into the air unless it has some stop-
400,
the
proportional
equivalent
of
ping power.
20,000
American
citizens.
Israel decided to clean things up
He calls the term "moderate" an
before leaving the Gaza Strip; some-
oxymoron.
thing they didn't do when they left
I'd call it something else, but this
southern Lebanon four years ago —
is
a family newspaper. El
a move the Arab street took as a

I

in The Jewish News
Rea
the first Friday of every m onth.

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