THE FRONT LINES in the war against terror are no longer in the mountains of Afghanistan, but rather in the streets of Israel. Since America was attacked in September, both friends and adversaries of Israel have attempted to deny the link between America's war on terror and the dispute in the Middle East. After all, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were more focused on removing American influence from the Islamic world than promoting the Palestinian cause. But increasingly, there appears to be a real nexus--call it an axis--between al Qaeda and its sister terrorist networks, the key Israel-hating and terrorist-sponsoring regimes of the Middle East, and Arafat's Palestinian Authority and its instruments. The assault on Israeli civilians is now the cutting edge of the axis of evil.
Thus, the New York Times recently cited American and Israeli officials' fears of an alliance linking Iran, Arafat, and al Qaeda: "Israeli officials say they are alarmed by Mr. Arafat's alliance with Iran because they say it gives the Palestinians a powerful and well-armed patron in the increasingly violent conflict with Israel. American officials echoed that concern and said they were also worried by intelligence reports that say Tehran is harboring al Qaeda members, including one leader who recently tried to mount an attack against Israel from his sanctuary in Iran."
Of course, we should not be surprised by the alliance of the anti-Israel Islamists. Early on, bin Laden signaled that his enemies were the "Crusaders and the Jews." The captured arms shipment of the Karine A confirmed the link between the Palestinian Authority and Iran. Yet the Bush administration has resisted calling attention to this Middle East anti-Israel terror axis, fearing to alienate the so-called moderate Arabs. To assuage Muslim opinion, the president even endorsed a Palestinian state. Hamas and Hezbollah were not initially placed on the list of terrorist organizations for financial crackdowns, and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades were only recently named. Other Arafat-controlled organizations are still in the clear.
The expressions of joy in the "Palestinian street" over the attacks on New York and the Pentagon were an early signal that the Palestinians were likely to aid bin Laden's terrorist war. If the foreign policy sophisticates in Washington did not understand the link between the Palestinian cause and al Qaeda, the Arab masses were not confused.
More important, the Palestinian organizations, including Arafat's own groups, escalated their campaign of blood and terror against Israeli civilians. While the Bush administration has displayed moral clarity in the U.S. war against the Taliban, the American response to the Israeli defense has often tended in the direction of flaccid moral equivalence decrying the "cycle of violence." Absent in the American response to Palestinian terror has been the determined resolve that the United States has shown in Afghanistan. While America hurled missiles against the Taliban, the Bush administration urged Israelis to enter the peace process with their own terrorists.
And while American and, to a lesser extent, Western public opinion remains outraged about the September 11 atrocities, the world is increasingly jaded and inured to the carnage in Israel. One frequently hears commentators lament the violence on "both sides," as if there were no moral distinction between targeting civilians and inadvertently killing innocents while pursuing terrorists.
Slowly but surely, a central objective of bin Laden and al Qaeda is being achieved. While we are scoring victories in the Afghan theater, we are losing on the Middle Eastern front in the war against terror. Terror has achieved its aim--its placement on the same moral plane as the civilized response to terror. The West has agreed to negotiate with terror. America has embraced a so-called Saudi peace plan that would result in a truncated, indefensible Israel. In return, have the Saudis condemned Palestinian terror? Have they stopped inciting terror through their media, to say nothing of their massive funding of extremist organizations throughout the Islamic world?
