John Ward Anderson's analysis of the ramifications of the latest terror attack attack ('Bombing puts Palestinian PM's vow in doubt' 1/5/03) in Tel Aviv is reasonable.
We now know that the attack was a joint Hamas/Fatah operation. Fatah is headed by Yasser Arafat and the new 'moderate' Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, is on its executive. Seems that Mr Abbas taking a leaf out of the Arafatian approach to terrorism.
However, Mr Anderson tacks on to the article a statement that 'Israel launched two strikes ... that killed four people', seemingly implying that the terror attack was in response to Israeli aggression. Since terror attacks take weeks to plan, that assumption is hardly credible.
Furthermore, a perusal of the Israeli media - notoriously pro-Palestinian - shows that the four people included two armed Arabs attempting to infiltrate an Israeli town and two senior terrorists who departed this world in firefights with Israeli troops. So who is the aggressor? Maybe if PM Abbas were to unliterally disarm all Palestinians then we could take him seriously as some who truly seeks peace.
At the moment, he is little more than a mini-Yasser.
