Urged on first by Arafat and now by Abbas lieutenants and P.A.- appointed clergy in the mosques, these terrorists believe fully that by dying in the religiously-mandated act of blowing up Jews, they will buy themselves free from the penalty of their own personal deaths. As for their fiery self-immolation, it is assuredly a small matter, really only a momentary inconvenience on the Islamic “martyr’s” glorious journey to union with Allah. Identifying the PLO as “a father, a brother, a relative, a friend,” the Hamas Charter instructs:
We know the Palestinian problem is a religious one, to be dealt with on this premise….”I swear by that who holds in his hands the Soul of Muhammad! I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill.” For other terrorists, suicide is usually something “crazy” rather than a proper tactic to be used for revolutionary confrontation. For the Palestinians, however, suicide in the act of murdering Jews represents the very highest form of political engagement, a correctly Islamic method warranting very high praise. How different, just for historical example, was the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru, a Latin American terrorist group that took 74 hostages at the Japanese embassy in Lima, Peru on December 17, 1996?
After the MRTA kidnappers’ initial demands were rejected by the government, the terrorists threatened to blow up the entire embassy as an act of suicidal desperation. Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori’s response was to say simply: “There cannot be peace talks or agreements while terror is being used as the principal argument.” Again, the terrorists threatened: “If the government doesn’t cede, we will die with all the hostages.”
Five months later, on April 22, 1997, the hostages were rescued – with not a single hostage harmed. Unlike Palestinian terror groups, who seek to inflict gratuitous harm on noncombatants – often by filling bombs with nails, screws and razor blades dipped in rat poison – the more typical MRTA had rejected suicide terrorism.
…Continued Next Week
