Segacs's World I Know

I was pretty upset at the recent news of talks between Hamas and Fatah, that were reported in the international media in such a way that made it seem as though Fatah wanted suicide bombings stopped.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the militant (read: terrorist) wing of Fatah, is strongly in favour of suicide bombings, but only within what they refer to as the “occupied territories”. Hamas sees all of Israel as fair game, and doesn’t draw territorial distinctions.

Well, neither do I. Since when is it okay to kill innocent people in some zip codes and not others?

Lynn at In Context phrases it better than I ever could:

There’s this thing, this distinction, going around about terrorist attacks that happen “in Israel” versus attacks that happen “in the territories.” Or between attacks on “civilians” versus attacks on soldiers or “settlers.”

It seems that if you live in Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights or the Gaza Strip, you’re fair game anywhere, according to this philosophy. And if you happen to be in any of those places at any given time, regardless of where you live, you’re also fair game. It’s this philosophy that led some to suggest that the attack on Kibbutz Metzer last week was somehow more repulsive than a similar attack would have been in, say, Kiryat Arba.

There are no “good terrroists” and “bad terrorists”. There are only bad terrorists.

Related posts:

1. Negotiating with terrorists
2. A subtle but important shift
3. Hamas: Arafat not trying to stop terror
4. 63% of Palestinians support suicide bombings
5. Abbas offers to share power