Reuters
A burnt bus is seen at Bulgaria's Burgas airport on Wednesday.
Terrorists who attack civilian targets are cowards at the best of times. But killers such as those who blew up a bus carrying Israeli youth in the Bulgarian resort city of Burgas on Wednesday fall into a special category. They posture as “resistance” fighters willing to risk their lives to confront Israel. Yet they are unwilling to confront Israel’s military. So instead, they attack Jews where they are most defenceless — in places such as Europe, South America and South Asia, where Israel cannot defend them.
Terrorist attacks on Jews outside of Israel have been going on for decades. In 1976, for instance, pro-Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Air France flight to Uganda, and released all but the Jewish and Israeli passengers (the only exception being the non-Jewish pilot). In a famous operation, Israeli commandos rescued 102 of the hostages. (All the hijackers and four hostages died – including one whom Ugandan soldiers barbarically killed at a nearby hospital a day after the operation was over.) Since then, terrorists targeting Jews generally have avoided any possibility of rescue by simply slaughtering their targets outright.
Some of these operations were small. For instance, on July 4, 2002 — just over a decade ago — a lone pro-Palestinian terrorist named Hesham Mohamed Hadayet opened fire at the El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles International Airport, killing ticket agent Victoria Hen and Yaakov Aminov, a 47-year-old father of five.
Other attacks have generated much higher death tolls. In 1994, terrorists widely believed to be connected with Iran and its Hezbollah proxies bombed the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building in Argentina, killing 85 people. That attack also took place on July 18, precisely 18 years before this week’s Bulgarian bombing — a fact that likely is no coincidence.
On Wednesday afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that “Iran is responsible for the terror attack in Bulgaria.” While there is no publicly available proof of that claim, Tehran obviously is the number-one suspect. It is the world’s number-one state sponsor of terrorism, and its ruthless leaders — already pariahs except among such nations as Venezuela and Syria — feel they have little to lose given the country’s crumbling economy, and the harsh sanctions regime already in place. The intentions of Iran’s self-destructive leaders are difficult to scrutinize — especially since evidence has been emerging of competing power centers within the government in recent years — but one goal of such attacks may be to goad Israel into a first strike that serves to further push world opinion against the Jewish state.
Assuming Israel does not overreact, the Bulgarian attack likely will have the opposite effect: Increasing support for Israel on a continent that more usually is sympathetic to the Palestinians. From the point of view of Europeans, it is one thing to kills Jews in the West Bank. It is quite another to do so in a EU nation.
What is a proper response to the Bulgarian terrorist attack? Obviously, Bulgarian and Israeli officials will do their best to find the masterminds behind it, and roll up their cells. But beyond that, on a more symbolic level, it would be fitting if the incident prompted International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge to reconsider a proposal to observe a minute of silence at the 2012 London Olympics for the 11 Israelis slain by terrorists at the 1972 games in Munich.
According to Alex Gilady, an Israeli International Olympics Committee member, International Olympics officials believe a minute’s silence “may harm the unity of the Olympics” and “could cause some countries to boycott the Games.” But frankly, the Olympics would probably be a better event if nations such as Iran stayed home — thereby allowing us to avoid disgusting spectacles, as observed in the past, in which their athletes refuse to compete against Israelis, lest they be polluted by a Jew’s touch.
In any event, the Bulgarian attack shows that a memorial for the Munich 11 would not be a backward-looking political gesture; rather, it would serve as recognition that the scourge of human hatred, violence and cowardice that we call terrorism is a global human problem — faced by all the nations of the Olympiad. Yes, it was Jews killed in Munich — in very much the same bloodthirsty fashion as those killed this week in Bulgaria. But tomorrow it could be Christians, or Hindus, or Muslims.
Surely, the protection of all human life is consistent with the Olympic spirit — even if it is alien to the anti-Israeli butchers who performed Wednesday’s despicable terrorist act.
National Post
By
Jonathan Kay is Managing Editor for Comment at the National Post, and a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @jonkay.
Terrorist attacks on Jews outside of Israel have been going on for decades. In 1976, for instance, pro-Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Air France flight to Uganda, and released all but the Jewish and Israeli passengers (the only exception being the non-Jewish pilot). In a famous operation, Israeli commandos rescued 102 of the hostages. (All the hijackers and four hostages died – including one whom Ugandan soldiers barbarically killed at a nearby hospital a day after the operation was over.) Since then, terrorists targeting Jews generally have avoided any possibility of rescue by simply slaughtering their targets outright.
Some of these operations were small. For instance, on July 4, 2002 — just over a decade ago — a lone pro-Palestinian terrorist named Hesham Mohamed Hadayet opened fire at the El Al ticket counter in Los Angeles International Airport, killing ticket agent Victoria Hen and Yaakov Aminov, a 47-year-old father of five.
Other attacks have generated much higher death tolls. In 1994, terrorists widely believed to be connected with Iran and its Hezbollah proxies bombed the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building in Argentina, killing 85 people. That attack also took place on July 18, precisely 18 years before this week’s Bulgarian bombing — a fact that likely is no coincidence.
On Wednesday afternoon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that “Iran is responsible for the terror attack in Bulgaria.” While there is no publicly available proof of that claim, Tehran obviously is the number-one suspect. It is the world’s number-one state sponsor of terrorism, and its ruthless leaders — already pariahs except among such nations as Venezuela and Syria — feel they have little to lose given the country’s crumbling economy, and the harsh sanctions regime already in place. The intentions of Iran’s self-destructive leaders are difficult to scrutinize — especially since evidence has been emerging of competing power centers within the government in recent years — but one goal of such attacks may be to goad Israel into a first strike that serves to further push world opinion against the Jewish state.
Assuming Israel does not overreact, the Bulgarian attack likely will have the opposite effect: Increasing support for Israel on a continent that more usually is sympathetic to the Palestinians. From the point of view of Europeans, it is one thing to kills Jews in the West Bank. It is quite another to do so in a EU nation.
What is a proper response to the Bulgarian terrorist attack? Obviously, Bulgarian and Israeli officials will do their best to find the masterminds behind it, and roll up their cells. But beyond that, on a more symbolic level, it would be fitting if the incident prompted International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge to reconsider a proposal to observe a minute of silence at the 2012 London Olympics for the 11 Israelis slain by terrorists at the 1972 games in Munich.
According to Alex Gilady, an Israeli International Olympics Committee member, International Olympics officials believe a minute’s silence “may harm the unity of the Olympics” and “could cause some countries to boycott the Games.” But frankly, the Olympics would probably be a better event if nations such as Iran stayed home — thereby allowing us to avoid disgusting spectacles, as observed in the past, in which their athletes refuse to compete against Israelis, lest they be polluted by a Jew’s touch.
In any event, the Bulgarian attack shows that a memorial for the Munich 11 would not be a backward-looking political gesture; rather, it would serve as recognition that the scourge of human hatred, violence and cowardice that we call terrorism is a global human problem — faced by all the nations of the Olympiad. Yes, it was Jews killed in Munich — in very much the same bloodthirsty fashion as those killed this week in Bulgaria. But tomorrow it could be Christians, or Hindus, or Muslims.
Surely, the protection of all human life is consistent with the Olympic spirit — even if it is alien to the anti-Israeli butchers who performed Wednesday’s despicable terrorist act.
National Post
By
Jonathan Kay is Managing Editor for Comment at the National Post, and a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @jonkay.
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