Dave said...
I've yet to see any evidence more compelling than "it sounds like it ought to be true" to support the assertion that Hussein/the B'athist were funding Palestinian suicide bombers. I'm not saying it's not true, but without something resembling independent verification, it really has the whiff of Pentagon exaggeration engineered to bluff up international support for its military escapades. If you know of any decent reporting on the subject, point it out and I'll take a look.

There was plenty of reporting about SH providing housing to families of suicide bombers in Israel etc. You must be thinking about the "less" believable claims regarding links with al-queda, which the Pentagon backed away from to some extent anyway. Now, to answer Dr.Clams claims at the same time - Its again patently obvious that any Islamic terrorist outfit worth their salt has been infiltrating Iraq over the last month to have a spectacular display in the lead up to the election. Every new democracy has to have a bit of fireworks, eg. East Timor, Afghanistan. That left the PLO in an enviable position of claiming that they had "convinced" their local outfits to secure a temporary calm which won them quite a few minor concessions (possibly undeservedly). These concessions will be used (by the terrorist outfits) over about a year of pretending to involve themselves in the peace process to research a variety of new "weak points" in Israel's "new" security infrastructure, set up a few dozen suicide wannabe's with their systems in place, then wait patiently for the slightest provocation to resume a "re-escalated" war sequence. Of course if the terrorists lose more of their training infrastructure (presumably headquartered in Syria presently), it may be a little less spectacular than at the peak of the suicide attacks last time. I have said before that sealing off "borders" to workers was a blunder, also delaying talks because of terrorist strikes is also a blunder. However, the assassination attempts seem to have had some success in deterral of the ones making decisions regarding attacks. Also, removal of some of the more rediculous Israeli settlement enclaves may be helpful. My suggestion is that there would be less evil to endure in the long run if they handled terrorism more closely to the way Australia did in regards to Bali etc. when the criminals are outside their borders, and more like Tim Mcveigh if it happens within the border. If the criminals can't be touched because they're outside the border, slowly build cases against them in readiness for them to make a mistake and can be convicted in the future (there's an example for that too - the Lybian agents re Lockerbie). Most importantly, never assume temporary peace is "winning". Temporary peace without any official status or deal is "Re-grouping". Surely Israeli voters would have learnt that by now.