Of course the terrorism of the Palestinians is no different from that of the Stern Gang, of the foundes of Likkud, etc. and since that terrorism should have been condemned, and was, I don't see why one should hesitate to make clear we are apalled at suicide bombers who target civilians.
However I'd also make it clear, as I have many times, that Israelis air strikes are terrorist by nature, they are not precise, they are often collective punishment - an odious tactic - and should be as sharply condemned as any other form of terrorism. (And what is one to say of the recent Israeli attack on a Palestinian police outpost in which, without any provocation, they shot and killed four Palestinian police?).
The real problem here is with Carrol, who too easily exempts the Palestinians from effective organization, an effective center. The PLO isn't behind these terror bombings - or I greatly doubt it - but the PLO itself isn't very much in charge of things. It is not the Israelis who have made it impossible for the Palestinians to organize a "center" (though certainly they have tried), but the tendency of the Palestinians to substitute rhetoric for organization and, in the present case, suicide bombings for more effective actions.
That the suicide bombings are NOT a result of PLO decisions seems clear to me - they are undermining the PLO, they are aimed against the peace process, they are welcome by precisely those within Israel who, jointly with the extremists in the Palestinian community, want the peace process to fail - though with two quite different goals in mind.
Alas, if the peace process fails, the settlers will not win, nor will the Palestinians. The suicide bombings are not an effective part of a political process but an evasion of it.
David McReynolds
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