Editorial: Turning a blind eye to terrorism

Friday, March 26, 2004 | 4:35 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

March 27 - 28, 2004

Last week the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel's killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the terrorist group Hamas. U.S. officials opposed the resolution because it didn't acknowledge Hamas' increasingly violent attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombings that Yassin had sanctioned. In the past 3 1/2 years, 474 people in Israel have been killed by suicide bombings, most of them carried out by Hamas. It is particularly troubling that European nations didn't vote against the one-sided resolution, especially after the March 11 train bombings by terrorists that killed nearly 190 people in Madrid.

Yassin, in a 1998 interview with The Washington Post, tried to justify suicide bombings -- Islam, after all, forbids suicide -- by claiming that they actually aren't suicide bombings. "We are protecting ourselves," Yassin claimed. "From the first drop of blood (the bomber) spills on the ground, he goes to Paradise. The Jewish victims immediately go to Hell." Diplomatic niceties shouldn't be allowed to paper over the fact that Yassin was a monster and that Israel's decision to kill him was justified.

It's hard to imagine Palestinian terrorist groups sliding even further, but they recently have increased the use of children as suicide bombers. Last week Israeli soldiers were able to prevent an attack by a 16-year-old boy who had an 18-pound bomb strapped to his chest. This is the world that Israelis live in, and rather than taking a pot shot at Israel, European and Mideast nations should start condemning terrorist attacks and take whatever diplomatic steps they can to put pressure on these groups to stop the suicide bombings. That would be productive -- and civilized.