A clarifying moment

The death of terror master George Habash is worthy of note. Habash was the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist/terrorist group devoted to the destruction of Israel. After its founding in 1969, it helped pioneer the use of airplane hijackings as an instrument of terrorist propaganda. The PFLP joined the PLO and became its second largest faction after Fatah.
Habash’s life and beliefs are difficult to sugarcoat in the usual style of the Western media. Even the BBC and AFP obituaries are somewhat less obfuscatory than might be expected. Arutz Sheva bluntly states:

His terror gang massacred dozens of Israeli adults, children and babies, assassinated Minister Ze’evi and plotted to kill Rabbi Ovadya Yosef.

Habash was an avid murderer who sought the destruction of Israel as long as his health permitted. The Los Angeles Times notes, for example:

In May 1972, the PFLP used Japanese Red Army guerrillas to conduct a machine-gun attack on the Tel Aviv airport’s terminal building, resulting in the deaths of 27 civilians. Two years later, PFLP operatives threw hand grenades into a Tel Aviv theater, killing three and injuring 54.
And in June 1976, Habash’s chief lieutenant, Wadia Haddad, directed the hijacking of a French A-300 Airbus to Entebbe, Uganda, with the aid of a transnational terrorist force. Four civilians were killed in a dramatic rescue operation undertaken by Israeli commandos, who killed all seven gunmen and about 30 Ugandan soldiers.

The Times obituary also notes Habash’s tactical disagreement with Arafat over the Oslo Accords:

[H]e rejected Arafat’s 1993 interim agreement with Israel that created an autonomous Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He refused to move there, claiming that Arafat was deluding Palestinians by making them think full independence was around the corner.
Palestinians, he said, must accept the idea that they might have to fight for the rest of their lives, to simply outlast the Israelis, so that their children might call Palestine home; and they must continuously remind the world that their demands are unchanged and unchangeable.

Habash spent a few years in Damascus working jointly with other terrorist soulmates including Hamas. Hamas paid tribute to Habash:

A senior Hamas official in Damascus, Mohammad Nazzal, called Habash’s death a “huge loss.”
“We had our ideological differences, but Dr. Habash shared Hamas’ opposition to the peace deals the PLO signed with the Jewish state as a sellout of Palestinian rights,” Nazzal said.

PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas has announced three days of mourning in honor of Habash’s death. All PLO flags will be flown at half mast and there will be an official “house of mourning” in Abbas’s Ramallah office. For those such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who hold out the PLO and its leaders as the harbingers of a hopeful future akin to the American civil rights movement, the unabashed tribute to this unapologetic mass murderer should provide a clarifying moment.
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