Charles Krauthammer, writing for JewishWorldReview.com, tells us of the recent events over in the Holy Land. Krauthammer writes: "While no one was looking, something historic happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost."
For Israel, the victory is bitter. The past four years of terrorism have killed almost 1,000 Israelis and maimed thousands of others. But Israel has won strategically. The intent of the intifada was to demoralize Israel, destroy its economy, bring it to its knees, and thus force it to withdraw and surrender to Palestinian demands, just as Israel withdrew in defeat from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
That did not happen. Israel's economy was certainly wounded, but it is growing again. Tourism had dwindled to almost nothing at the height of the intifada, but tourists are returning. And the Israelis were never demoralized. They kept living their lives, the young people in particular returning to cafes and discos and buses just hours after a horrific bombing. Israelis turned out to be a lot tougher and braver than the Palestinians had imagined.
The end of the intifada does not mean the end of terrorism. There was terrorism before the intifada and there will be terrorism to come. What has happened, however, is an end to systematic, regular, debilitating, unstoppable terror — terror as a reliable weapon. At the height of the intifada, there were nine suicide attacks in Israel killing 85 Israelis in just one month (March 2002). In the past three months there have been none.
Overall violence has been reduced by 70% since pursuing their, much maligned, targeted assasinations of terrorist leaders. It is clear that the Israelis are determined to protect their citizens from a self declared enemy and world opinion isnt going to stop them. How are they able to do this? By an incredible focus on intelligence and having determined who their enemy is.
We would do good follow Sharon's lead, to publicly name our enemy(ies) and then focusing our Intel upon those groups.