Israel Strikes Islamic Jihad Base

In retaliation for Islamic Jihad’s deadly suicide bombing attack in Haifa, Israeli jets bombed an Islamic Jihad training center near Damascus. Echoing President Bush’s words, a spokesman for Ariel Sharon said: “Any country who harbors terrorism, who trains, supports and encourages them, will be responsible to answer for their actions.”
Syria’s foreign minister said that “Syria would not respond militarily to the attack”–big surprise–“but that Syria would press the U.N. Security Council to convene and discuss the attack.” Those discussions will be productive, I’m sure.
Arafat apparently expected the Haifa bombing to result in an attack on him, as he summoned his most “elite” security troops to defend his Ramallah compound: “[W]hat Arafat gained in security he lost in dignity, some analysts noted. Sounding the false alarms of a call to his defense, and issuing a quick denunciation of the Haifa bombing, Arafat