David Parsons, June 11, 2003

If Tuesday’s botched IAF missile strike against senior Hamas official Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi had occurred a year ago, the usual uproar would have been tempered by speculation that Washington gave Israel a "green light" to target another top Palestinian terror leader.

But US President George W. Bush made clear yesterday that the attempt on Rantissi’s life was both unexpected and unacceptable. He declared he was "deeply troubled" by the air strike and felt "regret [for] the loss of innocent life," a reference to Rantissi’s bodyguard and a female bystander.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer added that although Israel has a right to defend itself, "Israel has to act on that right in a manner that is consistent with larger objectives, and in this case the president views this as deeply troubling."

Undoubtedly, what disturbed Bush the most was the timing of the attack, which came just as his administration has been trying to resurrect the moribund peace process through the so-called "road map" to Palestinian statehood.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) hit on the same theme in his angry denunciation of the air strike yesterday, calling it a "terrorist act" that was a "terrible deterioration" of the fragile efforts to resume negotiations.

PA officials charged that the timing of the "targeted assassination" was a deliberate attempt to derail implementation of the road map and to undermine Abu Mazen’s credibility among the Palestinian public.

Indeed, the timing of the rocket attack was off, but only by a few tenths-of-a-second.

Like other known Palestinian terrorists over the past 32-plus months of armed intifada, Rantissi knew to be on the lookout for Israeli helicopters overhead and was able to leap from his vehicle and escape with only shrapnel wounds the instant before the first rocket arrived on target.

Rantissi is the hard-line spokesman of Hamas who has been holding court with a steady stream of journalists under the shade of a grape arbor outside his Gaza home every single day of this bloody intifada. In recent weeks, he and his Hamas colleagues have teased the world with rumors of an impending ceasefire, but in the behind-the-scenes debate he has fought to make sure it never materializes.

It also turns out that Rantissi has been helping to fill the void opened by Israel’s successful elimination of several top Hamas military commanders. These have left him as one of the key remaining links between the militant group’s inflexible leadership and donor sources abroad and its military wing in the territories, and he has been working to ensure that the terror operations continue apace.

Israel is even laying at Rantissi’s feet responsibility for bringing together Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade to carry out the joint ambush at the Erez crossing on Sunday in which four IDF soldiers were killed. The purpose of that combined attack was to demonstrate to Israel, the United States and primarily to Abu Mazen that the Palestinian "nationalist and Islamic forces" are united in their determination to bring the road map to a dead end. There is evidence he was helping plan further attacks towards that end as well.

Thus the international outrage at Israel for attempting to remove this menace is misplaced, and highly hypocritical. Otherwise, denying Israel the right to strike at Rantissi and his ilk – especially when the opportunity presents itself for a fleeting moment – renders them untouchable, a grant of immunity that will only fuel the spread of jihad terrorism.

In declaring war on global terror, the Bush administration lifted a ban on targeting foreign leaders for assassination that was imposed nearly two decades ago, soon after a Reagan-era botched air raid on Libyan strongman and terror-sponsor Muammar Qaddafi left members of his family dead.

Since then, American forces have taken direct aim at Osama bin Laden and other senior figures in his al-Qaida network, as well as Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The "hits" have employed surgical strikes with guided rockets, cruise missiles and even mammoth "bunker buster" bombs. They too have involved "collateral damage."

Yet at the same time, Washington has insisted that Israel refrain from such tactics against Palestinian terrorists, arguing that the conflict with the Palestinians is resolvable through negotiations, thus making it substantially different from America’s war against ruthless terrorists with whom there can be no compromise.

But it is just such faulty thinking about the Palestinian cause that gave rise to the proliferation of terrorism worldwide over recent decades, as the wide berth given to the PLO’s vast terror network encouraged other groups to adopt their deadly means. The immunity granted to Yasser Arafat and his gang that lingers even to this day, their perception that they could kill and maim on an international scale and still get away with it, contributed more than any other factor to the present-day epidemic of terrorism.

The world is desperate to find and eradicate the roots of global terror, yet it refuses to see that the untouchable PLO was its taproot.

And in a cruel twist for Israel, the foxes are now guarding the hen house, as the "reformed" PA under long-time PLO deputy Abu Mazen has been tasked by the road map with dismantling the current array of Palestinian terror militias.

Apparently, President Bush is still under the impression that Abu Mazen plans a crackdown on Hamas. Yesterday, he said, "I'm concerned that the attacks [on Rantissi] will make it more difficult for the Palestinian leadership to fight off terrorist attacks. I also don't believe the attacks helped Israeli security."

But Abu Mazen is already on record as saying he does not intend to take on Hamas by force and prefers to await their agreement to a voluntary ceasefire, while Hamas has registered its adamant rejection – in word and deed – of the requested truce.

So what exactly is Israel being asked to wait for – besides more agonizing funerals.

Let us hope and pray that wisdom prevails, lest this all be misinterpreted as a "green light for "terror.

David Parsons is the editor of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) News Service.