A day late and a few bombs short

The Globe and Mail is finally carrying an article on the failed Palestinian Medical Centre suicide bomber. Yesterday, the only story carried in the dead tree version were two pictures taken from the video stills of Wafa Ibrahim al-Biss attempting to denote her bombs at an Israeli checkpoint.

The G&M in its article has failed to acknowledge that Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade is the militant wing of Fatah – the political party of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and then offered up the justification that the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade planned the suicide mission in a medical centre as an attempt to derail the talks held yesterday between Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas on the upcoming Israeli disengagement from Gaza. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the Globe and Mail should know better by now.

Palestinian consent or assistance is not a requirement for the Israeli’s to disengage from Gaza. Furthermore, the Israeli’s are under no current Road Map obligations until the Palestinian Authority dismantles the terrorist infrastructure it has allowed to exist and flourish in the Territories since Oslo. Palestinian co-operation would be nice but so would be winning the lottery and neither is necessarily relevant to the Israeli disengagement in Gaza.

Furthermore, since the alleged Abbas “period of calm” that Abbas has negotiated with the various and sundry terrorist groups including those under his direct control (Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade) it has yet to produce even one single week period where all terror attacks have ceased against Israelis. From the rocket barrages on Israeli homes, sniper attacks on the highways, stabbings or stonings in the streets; the attacks have thundered on ceaselessly. There may have been only one successful suicide bombing in the alleged “period of calm” but that speaks to the overall competence of the IDF and the Shin Bet services rather than any gentleman’s agreement among terrorists.

There was just one purpose, one justification for the planned suicide bomb attack on an Israeli medical centre filled with doctors, nurses, the ill and their families in Israel, and it has nothing to do with occupation or land. The Nazi’s called it Judenrein but I know it as genocide. But maybe the problem for a liberal newspaper is that it is difficult to remain a sympathic supporter of a political party that can claim genocide as a political mandate and still hope to perceived as a credible source for information, news and analysis. Let’s face it, it’s a no brainer to use that old standby excuse that failed suicide bombings are attempts to sabotage negotiations rather than admit you have been backing the wrong horse for the wrongs races all along.

Here’s a question that begs asking and analysis - why after the capture and interrogation of Wafa Ibrahim al-Biss has the IDF chosen to target exclusively Islamic Jihad and not include Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade members as well? Recruiting among those who hold Israeli humanitarian visas to enter Israel in order to target Israeli medical centers for bombing should be deemed special enough for the additional scrutiny by the IDF.