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It was apparent this week that miraculous signs and wonders are still occurring all around the divinely chosen Children of Israel. As they commemorated their ancient ancestors desert dwellings in booths, the Israeli public was amazed to hear George Bush sternly rebuke the Palestinian Authority for its utter failure to even attempt to curb terrorist groups that have been slaughtering innocent men, women and children with evil abandon.
Of course, it took the appalling ambush of an American government convoy in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the senseless deaths of three American civilian security guards, to provoke the unprecedented presidential rebuke. Nevertheless, Israelis have grown accustomed to hearing US leaders condemn most Israeli attempts to halt terrorist atrocities. Such was the case after Israeli helicopter missiles were fired at a leading Hamas official last June. Before that, President Bush demanded that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon prematurely abandon his massive military response to the Passover massacre of 29 Jews, which followed other terrorist slaughters in March 2002. Therefore, his latest statement blew over Israel like a cool rush of fresh air, if not a miracle in the hot Mideast desert.
The second wonder was equally wonderful. Palestinian Authority security forces were actually able to locate and arrest a number of Arab terrorist suspects less than 24 hours after this weeks Gaza attack took place! For some reason, they are never able to do the same when the victims are Israeli Jews, including whole families eating lunch or riding a bus, or even when the dead are visiting Jewish American tourists or students. The PAs usual excuse for its lead-like inaction is that the terrorist attackers are already dead, as if suicide bombers act entirely on their own. But murder three Americans guarding a US government convoy, and the gloves suddenly come off. Signs and wonders indeed!
God bless George Bush for finally acknowledging, if indirectly, that Israel should have gotten rid of black-widow-maker Yasser Arafat way before now. Palestinian authorities should have acted long ago to fight terror in all its forms, he said after the terrible Gaza Strip ambush. In other words, Arafats PA is a direct contributor to the horrendous river of blood flowing all over Israel, whether or not the PLO chief has actually ordered and funded some of the attacks, as Israeli leaders maintain. If that is not good enough grounds for Sharon to propel Arafat onto his long overdue personal desert journey, then nothing is.
And yet, the President still pretends that most Palestinians are eager to make peace with Israel, despite substantial evidence to the contrary. It is merely the lack of an empowered Palestinian prime minister that is holding up the time when all swords are beaten into ploughshares, he said after denouncing the current PA leadership. He went on to insist that the failure to undertake these reforms and to dismantle the terrorist organizations constitutes the greatest obstacle to achieving the Palestinian peoples dream of statehood.
While opinion polls confirm that a majority of Palestinians do dream of the day when they will achieve statehood, the sad truth is that they mostly aspire to a country that replaces Israel on the regional map. While Arafat doesnt openly advocate this widely cherished goalat least not since signing the preliminary Oslo peace accord on the White House lawn in 1993his actions (and inactions) certainly do.
Speaking of Oslo, Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark reacted to the Gaza Strip ambush by bashing the Republican administration for supposedly doing too little too late to make peace between Arabs and Israelis. He proclaimed that he would appoint someone very high-level and then put him over there continuously to work the issue.
The truth is the worlds reigning superpower has already been there and done that. Has Clark never heard of Bill Clinton and the Oslo peace process? The former American leader spent more time on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than any other issue, with senior government officials virtually living over here for months on end. The ultimate result was the violent Al Aksa war of attrition.
There is already someone in place who is fully equipped to work the problem. His name is Ariel Sharon. If he would only be allowed by his closest international ally to unleash his substantial military might against Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the Lebanese Hizbullah militia, and, yes, even Yasser Arafat and terrorist enablers like neighboring Syria, the river of blood might actually be stemmed. This would allow peace talks with a serious Palestinian partner to finally get underway some ten years after Israel began wasting its time, and shedding its bloodunder Clintons constant proddingon the insincere PLO chairman.
For sure, such an Israeli operation would be extremely bloody and painful. But cancer cannot usually be removed any other way. If the American government and public have not come by now to understand that Islamic terrorism is a malignant tumor that will only grow if not properly dealt with, then the future of this region, and of the entire world, is even bleaker than it currently appears to be. | 
