The Lethal Last Stand of the Jihad
In the waning days of the Second World War, when the Nazi armies were being vanquished on multiple fronts and the Allied Armies were closing in on Germany, Hitler ordered that his unguided and guided missiles, the V-1s and V-2s, unleash untold destruction on the war-weary civilians of the British isles. The V-1s were silent and difficult to locate on the radars of the day; the technology did not exist to track, let alone intercept, the V-2s—an early model of today’s long-range guided ballistic missile. The missiles were launched against London, and later Antwerp and Liege. Without warning, and with no air raid sirens, death came crashing down on unsuspecting civilians. The V-1s and V-2s killed close to 20,000 people.
There was no reason for Hitler to unleash his ballistic arsenals against men, women, and children, of course. The war was already lost. The only objective of the warheads was to inflict death, pain, and destruction: terror for terror’s sake.
The same, of course, is true, for Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and all the other Palestinian terrorist factions. They have lost their holy war against Israel but, in a suicidal death wish, are determined to inflict as much death, pain, and suffering to provoke a larger conflict that will be catastrophic for their people.
Over the last 72 hours, Palestinian terrorists have launched hundreds of rockets and missiles against the cities of southern and central Israel. Air raid sirens have been sounded in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Over a million Israeli men, women, and children spent the nights inside bomb shelters as the missiles landed in their homes. Iron Dome, the marvel of modern technology that can destroy small rockets in the sky, proved their worth, downing dozens of Hamas missiles. But Hamas amassed a sizeable arsenal of missiles, some long-range, that were smuggled into the Strip or built with Gulf money meant to aid the civilians of Gaza, but diverted for war; Tehran, and the Revolutionary Guards Corps, have also seen to it that the terror arsenal is up-to-date and ready for launch. Two Israelis have been killed in this most recent eruption of the Palestinian terror missile war. Many more have been wounded. Homes and businesses have been destroyed.
The Israel Air Force responded. IAF air strikes hit missile launchers and armories where warheads were stored. The sorties were pinpoint and selective—Israel, unlike the Palestinians, does not kill indiscriminately. One of the IAF’s targets was Samih al-Mamluk, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s rocket unit commander; other terror chieftains were targeted and killed in the same operation.
The Palestinians hope that the missile fire and the murders of Israeli civilians will drag Israel into a quagmire—a bloody conflict that will erase the promise of the new Middle East that became a hopeful reality following last year’s Abraham Accords. But once again Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are wrong. Israel will never surrender to terror. On the contrary, it will vanquish it as it has always done so that the citizens of Israel—Jews, Muslims, and Christians, can live in peace.
