Israel Matzav

There is no joy in Jerusalem, Mighty Ehud has struck out

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak went to bat today trying to urge the 'Palestinian Authority' to punish the two murderers who walked into their 'police station' over the weekend. Unfortunately, Barak struck out swinging. This is all Barak had left to say:

"If the Palestinian Authority opens a revolving door for them, [Israel] will know how to get them," Barak said.

If that sounds vaguely familiar, it should. When Barak was Prime Minister in the fall of 2000, he let terror attack after terror attack pass either without a response or by bombing empty buildings telling us that "we will know how to respond." Except for one brief shining moment when Barak made Bethlehem terrorist Hussein Abayat the first victim of a 'targeted assassination,' he never did figure out when and how to respond. He was thrown out of office in February 2001.

What should Barak have done? He should have given the 'Palestinian Authority' seventy-two hours to turn the murderers over - or the IDF comes in to get them. The manner in which Abu Mazen and his 'people' have protected these murderers ought to give pause to anyone (Condi?) still foolish enough to believe that 'peace' is possible with these lying savages:

Meanwhile, the radio station reported, PA Information Minister Riad Malki denied the Shin Bet's (Israel Security Service) claim that two of the attackers were members of the PA, and one of them was a member of the official PA security forces.

In an interview on Voice of Palestine radio, Malki also denied that the incident was a terror attack, claiming it was "simply" the result of the men attempting to take the soldiers' weapons away from them. Israel was lying about the incident and looking for excuses to evade its road map obligations, Malki said.

Earlier, sources in the PA told the NRG website that the Palestinians did not intend to hand the men over to Israel. The two would stand trial and serve out their sentences in Palestinian hands, the sources said.

...

Security officials have said that the attack was premeditated and that the terrorists' goal had been to kill the hikers and steal their weapons. The officials said that declarations in the media by Palestinian officials that the incident was of a criminal nature and that Amihai and Rubin had been trying to sell their weapons were in direct contradiction to the findings at the scene, as well as to the confessions of the terrorists themselves.

The declarations, they said, were likely an attempt by the PA to skirt responsibility for the incident, particularly because the terrorists were Fatah operatives and members of the PA security forces.

DEBKA has more details about how the 'Palestinian Authority' attempted to avoid responsibility for this terror attack. You won't find what they report anywhere in the mainstream media here, but I will go out on a limb and say that I find DEBKA's claims to be completely credible in this instance (Hat Tip: Holger Awakens):

The PA and its heads, Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad secretly protected the two killers from Israeli capture to the point of putting out a false tale that the three Israelis had rendezvoused with the Palestinians for an illegal drug deal and fallen out.

The PA then asked the family of the dead Palestinian gunman, Bassal Natshe to ask Hamas in the Gaza Strip to take responsibility for the attack in order to get Abbas’ Fatah and PA off the hook. Hamas’ ally Jihad Islami consented and issued a statement.

Saturday, Fayyad paid a visit to Israeli president Shimon Peres. Pretending innocence, he promised that the Palestinian Authority would catch the killers and in future combat terror.

Only after the Shin Bet discovered the terrorists’ whereabouts and confronted the PA, did Palestinian officials admit that the two men they were harboring had plotted the attack and even posted a lookout to track their victims.

And Israel's response to the PA's complicity in yet another terror attack? You probably guessed it already....

Despite the recent developments, negotiations with the PA would not be stopped, a senior official said.

Of course they won't be stopped. We can't let Olmert go to jail now, can we?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:35 AM