A pro-Palestinian protester, with a fake explosives belt, demonstrating near London's Trafalgar Square. (Photo: Fernando Cavalcanti)
Posted on 05/20/2002 9:58:17 AM PDT by Cinnamon Girl
A pro-Palestinian protester, with a fake explosives belt, demonstrating near London's Trafalgar Square. (Photo: Fernando Cavalcanti)
LONDON - British Jews recently began an organized effort to prepare for a possible outbreak of suicide terrorism, but those involved decided to keep the effort under wraps to avoid causing panic.
On Wednesday Jewish activists and rabbis will meet with the Israeli group Zaka - the Haredi Rescue and Recovery voluntary organization - to discuss Jewish law procedures for evacuating the bodies of terrorist victims. Zaka is preparing a seminar to train volunteers to evacuate and identify victims of terror attacks, based on experience and lessons learned in Israel.
The course begins in June and dozens of volunteers have indicated an interest in registering for it. Experience accumulated in Britain during incidents such as the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 disaster at Lockerbie will be reviewed.
But the Jewish community is not alone in believing it is just a matter of time until a mass suicide attack reaches Britain. British security sources say Scotland Yard and intelligence experts are worried that the suicide terrorist phenomenon could soon arrive in Britain, and local security forces lack the know-how or means to counter such a threat.
This assessment was reinforced several months ago when a senior delegation from Scotland Yard visited Sri Lanka and Israel to study how both countries deal with suicide attacks. The British visitors got an unequivocal message - suicide bombings will increase in the coming years, and not just by radical Islamic groups, but by militant secular organizations seeking to spread terrorism.
Israeli security officials briefed Barbara Wilding, who led the Scotland Yard delegation, on how the suicide tactic has gradually spread in the Middle East. A source knowledgeable about British security forces told Ha'aretz: "The use of suicide bombers has become a ritual that crosses borders and organizations, and is regarded as an efficient response to the intelligence, military, and technological superiority of the security services in the West. In the Middle East, we've seen how the use of this weapon has been developed and improved by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then copied by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, and lately moved over to secular organizations like Fatah or the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Now these organizations recruit men and women alike for these operations."
According to this source "suicide attacks are regarded today in Britain and among other security services in Europe as a general threat, because the concept of martyrdom could also take hold among extreme Christian right-wing organizations, and there are already some signs of this in the United States. The concern is that Europe might be the next target for these types of attack."
Scotland Yard has formed a special committee led by Wilding, the head of security at Scotland Yard, to handle the threat of suicide terrorism. Relying on lessons drawn from the experiences of security services in Israel, the U.S. and Asia, this team is devising preventive procedures.
The Sunday Times reported last week that the task force is studying how to deploy snipers against suicide bombers and has asked the Home Office to design robots like those used in Israel to detect and disarm explosives. But some security experts are saying these efforts are "too little, too late."
Pro-Palestinian activists have received logistic and financial support from left-wing organizations, as well as encouragement from some Labor Party MPs, including George Galloway, who is married to a Palestinian, and Jeremy Corbyn. At a discussion at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies on May 2, Galloway was reported as saying: "The suicide bombers are freedom fighters, not terrorists. I salute all of the fighters and all of the martyrs of Palestine ... Children throwing stones and becoming suicide bombers are heroes ... we must support the PLO and assist them in wiping out the Zionist entity."
Galloway's alleged comments apparently contravene British laws against incitement and promotion of terrorist attacks. Ha'aretz contacted Galloway for a reaction, but he was unavailable by press time.
As reported in Sunday's Ha'aretz, a week ago 20 pro-Palestinian leftists tried to storm the Israeli embassy in London. Embassy guards, reinforced by British police, repulsed these protesters. News of the attack was suppressed from the media for a week - again to avoid alarming Britain's Jewish community.
It's all a matter of degree and limitations. My hyperbolic statement was certainly skewed to the worst case scenario. I hope we never get there. But I fear we may be closer to this vision than many believe possible.
This is one reason why I am "well prepared".
Were it not for America and its taxpayer dollars, would there even BE a secular country called Israel at this moment. Think about that.
Quite so. Furthermore, unless I'm much mistaken, suicide is anathema to the vast majority of Christians.
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