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Equivalancies

© lawhawk

The Middle East continues to be wracked by violence and Israel has stepped up its attacks on Hamas and Palestinian Authority individuals it deems to be terrorists to prevent further bloodshed. Many in the international community decry the violence and the levels to which the Israelis are going to strike at the terrorist leaders who have taught, planned, and arranged terrorist bombings and attacks in Israel and the territories.

Those same individuals, countries and groups in the international community have lacked their voices at the violence that the Palestinian Authority and Chairman Arafat have spawned by their actions (or inactions). Amnesty International, a major human rights organization strongly condemned the Israeli military's use of preemptive strikes against terrorist leaders because it amounts to extra judicial punishment and an extreme use of force.

Try telling that to the civilian victims of those condemned by the terrorists. Israel continues to do what other countries take for granted. In the past 24 hours, Russian commandos siezed control of a bus that had been hijacked by Chechen sympathizers and killed one of the hijackers. Noone is claiming that the Russians did anything wrong in their use of force to prevent further bloodshed. The individuals on board that bus are, I'm sure, very pleased that the Russian commandos did what they did.

What the Russian government did was refuse to give in to the terrorist demands of a group that threatens the core of Russian control over a region that has seen turmoil since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Israel has done the same thing by striking at the very leaders who plan terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. These individuals have held the Israeli public hostage - and the nation of Israel is the bus. The terrorist threat is that anyone, anywhere in Israel is a potential target of Hamas or Islamic Jihad terrorists and that noone is safe. The Israeli military is acting as though it was the Russian commandos taking out the Chechen hijacker - preventing further bloodshed, knowing that things could be much worse.

When a country loses its ability to defend itself against all enemies, both foreign and domestic, it ceases to be a country. Instead, it becomes hostage to the terrorists and those that take human lives for granted.

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