What followed was perhaps the best remembered operation in Israeli history. Under orders from then-prime minister Golda Meir, the Mossad was tasked with hunting down not only the released Munich terrorists but all those involved in planning the massacre. The mission, dubbed “Wrath of God,” was designed to instill fear in every terrorist’s heart. In the words of Defense Minister Ehud Barak as quoted in Gordon Thomas’s Gideon Spies, “The intention was to strike terror, to break the will of those who remained alive until there were none of them left.”
Over the period of two years, Mossad carried out a series of brilliantly planned, clinically executed assassinations. The first terrorist was shot eleven times in Rome, one bullet for each Israeli he helped murder. Another died when he answered a call in Paris; the bomb in the phone blew off his head. The next to die was expertly pushed under a London bus at rush hour.
Hours before they died, each man’s family would receive flowers and a condolence card bearing the same words “A reminder we do not forget or forgive.”
It is easy to sit in the United States or in peaceful Germany and complain about what Israel should and shouldn’t do. The facts of the matter lie in the porous borders that Israel truly faces. There is no fence between East and West Jerusalem, and there shouldn’t be one. Yet, the Arabs stream from one side to the other with little impunity. This cross action has the effect of increasing the odds of terrorism.
Look at the US Southern border. Even with a fence, there were millions of Mexicans streaming across the border. Who knows just how many of these millions of illegals really had Moslem terrorists among the ranks? A future potential problem may exist in the USA, without the average citizen even taken notice.
What solution does the USA have? Bomb Mexico? Send in the US Army much like General Pershing did when he chased Pancho Villa all over Northern Mexico? Likewise, what options does Israel possess?
We would all like to see an end to Moslem terrorism, both in the USA and Israel, but short of killing 100 Million People, how will it become possible? Killing Abbas only means that another Abbas. only means another Abbas will take his place. There are solutions to the Palestinian Problem and they are as follows:
1. Starve the living day lights out of the inhabitants of Gaza.
2. No trucks or supplies in or out of Gaza. If the UN objects, or anyone else, tell them to stuff it.
3. Annex the entire area called Judea and Samaria (The West Bank)
4. Place all of the people as non citizens of Israel. They have basic rights, just not voting rights.
5. Hebrew is the official language, and Jewish customs and traditions are taught.
6. The Israeli Flag is the official flag of Greater Israel. The term Palestine, Palestinian Flag, Palestinian customs are all abolished.
7. If the current Arabs living now in Greater Israel refuse to swear allegiance to the Israeli Government in Jerusalem, then give them exit visas to whatever country will admit them.
If Israel wants true Peace in Our Times, then it must separate entirely from its Arab population.
This counterterror unit, or a more clandestine replacement, should be ongoing. Especially, those involved in the financing and arming of jew killers should be regularly targeted. Messages should be sent on a daily basis.
@ Arnold Harris:
While Islam is holding them hostage, as well as others such as the Muslims of India, whose ancestors were coerced into becoming Muslim, this may not happen. Many of them were Jews who, like the the Muslims of India, were forced to convert. They should return to Judaism. The Muslims of India should return to Hinduism. Overall, those peoples whose ancestors were raped, pillaged, enslaved, etc. should start to consider repaying their ancestors’ sacrifice. They should move back to the respective religions of their ancestors.
@ James B – Canada:
Take a look at this in Gates of Vienna, and tell me if, like myself, you believe that this is an excellent opportunity for Wrath of God II.
The problem is world oPinion sees Israel through jimmy carter glasses.Each terrorist outrage is seen as justified by the rest of the world.Should Israel dare to defend itself , she will be condemned by virtually the entire un , with the US abstaining. An attack on Iran should begin with Israel’s subs launching. Missiles at Iran’s missile bases’ the launching missiles at their air decencies.The air force should neutralize he zbillah by wiping out
the Shiite areas of lebanon,since they have put their missiles among the civilians.
I
@ keelie:
No, I cannot imagine the Israeli govt even planning any type of revenge.
Since 2003, or perhaps earlier, I have seen Israel as a despondent beaten wife, waiting for her husband to arrive home for the daily beating. I remember well seen Sharon’s long face in shock and desperation after every suicide killing attack and I can hear a compilation of all the worthless speeches by Rabin, Olmert, Barak and Bibi. I can recall the tally after each attack and the daily dead and injured counts by the media during the Gaza and Lebanon disasters. Since Obama’s election, daily tally of dead and injured US troops in Iraq and Afghanland is verboten.
In several ways, Israel is a shameful embarrassment to the Jewish people. Israel appears weak at times as if it were run by the Canadian Jewish Congress or some other worthless liberal and corrupt organ.
According to Daniel Pipes, when Bibi Nothingyahoo was the PM in the 1990s, the IDF went on counterattack after 58 arab muslim attacks. So expect a few more missiles from Gaza before Israel responds with something decisive.
In 1976, the IDF rescuers flew to Entebbe over the Sinai. Today, will Israel will have to ask Morsi for permission to fly over the Sinai???
Not the govt Herzl wanted or is it?
The successors of Arafat and Abbas will be the separate Arab leaders of the municipalities of Jenin, Ramallah, Nablus, Jericho, Tulkarem, Kalkilya, Bethlehem and Hebron, plus the mukhtars of a number of Arab villages.
One day in the not too distant future, these communities will be surrounded by Shomron and Yehuda, which, along with the annexed part of Jerusalem and Golan, will have a strictly Jewish Israeli population of about 1.3 million in less than 15 years, and if present rates of expansion are maintained, will double again to more than 2.5 million a few years before the first centennial of the State of Israel. Those Arab municipal and village leaders will be negotiating with the appropriate regional councils of Shomron and Yehuda for local infrastructural services such as water supply, sewage treatment, road construction and maintenance, regional commuter transit, electric power, and perhaps even industrial and commercial development. Once the geographical blocks and populations are set in place, Intelligently applied urban and regional planning combined with administrative common sense can make a certain magic take place, as has been accomplished in so many other parts of the world.
Above all, for us, the Jewish nation, the younger ones among you will live to see the rise of a real Shchem, a real Aricho, a real Beit-Lechem, a real Hevron — which already is largely in place, a real Ir Ganim, and much else that largely was a Jewish dream for which fulfillment awaited the passage of almost 2000 years.
I truly am sorry I will not be alive to witness all this in time for the first centennial of the State of Israel. And life ought to culminate in seeing ones dreams fulfilled. Because nobody lives to 114 years of age. But I could clearly see the beginnings of all this back in 1973-1974, when I was at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Department Geography for studies leading to a master’s degree in city and regional planning. Driving east toward Jericho on the highway from Jerusalem, the construction markers were already in place then for what ultimately become cities and villages across the landscape of Shomron and Yehuda.
As for the Arabs in the cities and villages west of the Jordan River, life may or may not bring them democracy, which I think is not the best of all political systems for Arabs, Jews or anyone else, but I think that an overwhelming Jewish presence may give many of those Arabs the thought of freedom, liberty, self-responsibility and self-respect, of which they and their fore-fathers and fore-mothers were systematically deprived by their pervasive culture through the long centuries.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ the phoenix:
My thoughts exactly…
In fact Israel did just that when they launched the operation against the Munich murderers. And it was quite an effective statement to “the world”. Can you imagine the Israelis undertaking such an operation now, if a similar situation were to occur?
And furthermore, the FARSE of dealing and BEGGING this bastard Abbas to ‘come to the negotiating table’ yields the same visceral reaction of cringing in disbelief, as the accursed image of Rabin shaking arafat’s hand….
The list of those that should be shot in plain sight is long. To not go through it, is a callous calculated act of betrayal …
The first step to ‘recovery’ of the lost deterrence factor, is to declare in an unabashed factual way that Israel does not give a damn about world opinion.
I commented in yesterday’s thread that
There is something pathological about this insistence of a “surgical strike” when dealing with the enemy…
To go through so many hoops to try to gain SOME approval / understanding from a bunch of antisemites is both futile and ridiculous.
“respect” in diplomatic terms is akin to “fear”. It is most certainly not the false bravado speeches of bibi and barak that generate respect or invoke fear…