Absurd Atrocity By YvonneRidley
Date: 2006-07-26

On October 12 1984 there was a direct attack on the British Government at the Conservative party conference in the seaside resort of Brighton.

A 100 pound bomb maimed and killed as it tore apart the Brighton Grand Hotel where members of Margaret Thatcher's government were staying.

The Iron Lady herself narrowly escaped injury but five were murdered in the blast caused by the Provisional Irish Republican Army's chief explosives officer Patrick Magee.

Magee was found guilty of five counts of murder and received eight life sentences with a recommendation he serve a minimum of 35 years.

So by my reckoning he would not be a free man until he is 70 - but thanks to the April 1998 Good Friday Agreement he was released along with scores of other convicted IRA terrorists.

When Patrick Magee walked free he publicly declared: "I stand by what I did".
I remember the moment very well because my late father called him 'a murdering Catholic bas***d' while I remarked that one man's freedom fighter was another man's terrorist. I'm not sure my father ever forgave me for what he saw as the defense of the indefensable.

Magee's actions and his reaction on being released certainly polarised people regardless of their faiths, culture or beliefs.

But even a bleeding heart liberal like myself would find it very hard to stomach if Magee and his supporters rolled up at the Brighton hotel 60 years on to hold a two-day party to celebrate.

Or do you think the peace-loving islanders of Bali would enjoy a good knees up to commemorate the bombings which devastated their tourist trade and took hundreds of innocent, mainly Australian, lives on October 12 2002?

Yep, exactly the same calendar date but 18 years apart.

Now I really want you to let your imaginations go wild ... try and picture Usama bin Ladin and fellow Mujahideen gathering at the site of the Twin Towers on 9/11 2061 to erect a commemorative plaque marking America's biggest ever (so far) terrorist strike.

Sick and twisted? Yes, I can see the headlines in the New York Times now, but that is exactly what a bunch of terrorist has-beens did a few days ago.

And furthermore, as they returned to the scene of the crime many of them proudly declared they would do it all over again, showing not one ounce of guilt or regret for the blood of innocents on their hands.

Right-wingers including Binyamin Netanyahu, the former Israeli Prime Minister met up with a few of his terrorist pals to commemorate the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in which 92 people died.

How on earth the Zionists and their supporters are going to justify this one is beyond me but their naked hypocracy has been ripped wide open leaving them exposed, unrepentant and undeniably repugnant.

As Israel set about dispossessing nearly one million Lebanese people of their homes, killing hundreds including scores of children over the last two weeks, the Zionist State kept citing terrorists in Hizb'Allah as the reason for the totally disproportionate aggression.

Every other word being uttered from defenders of Israel is 'terrorists' or 'terrorism'.
Hmm, interesting ... I didn't realise there were terrorists in the UN yet their office was shelled killing four workers on July 24.

Unbelievably, just a few days earlier, as the bloodshed in Lebanon continued a group of right-wing Israelis celebrated a specific act of terrorism which they unleashed 60 years ago.

The act of terrorism was, like the IRA's Brighton Bombing, against British rule.
The geriatric gang even erected a plaque outside the restored building before launching their two-day junket.

It was all too much for British Ambassador in Tel Aviv and the Consul-General in Jerusalem John Jenkins who both expressed their disgust in a letter to the authorities stating: "We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated."

They, not unreasonably, demanded the removal of the blue plaque that paid tribute to the Irgun, the Jewish terror cell headed by Menachem Begin, the future Prime Minister. Irgun carried out the attack on July 22, 1946.

The plaque presents as fact Irgun’s claim that people died because the British ignored warning calls. "For reasons known only to the British, the hotel was not evacuated," it states.

Typical isn't it? As I've said in previous columns, the Israelis could start a fight in an empty room and still blame everyone else for the fall out. There were no warning calls made in the cowardly attack, and even if Irgun members showed an uncharacteristic ounce of mercy and made a single warning call, it would not absolve them from slaughtering the innocents.

For ten days, the British Engineering Corps cleared the wreckage, and on July 31 it was officially announced that 91 people had been killed in the explosion: 28 Britons, 41 Arabs, 17 Jews and 5 others. The controversy over the plaque and the two-day celebration of the bombing, sponsored by Irgun veterans and the right-wing Menachem Begin Heritage Center, goes to the heart of the debate over the use of political violence in the Middle East.

A po-faced Netanyahu argued in a speech celebrating the attack that Irgun was governed by morals, unlike fighters from groups such as Hamas. What is it with these deluded folk? Do they get a frontal lobotomy at the same time they are circumcised?

I nearly choked as he maintained a straight face, and said in all seriousness: "It’s very important to make the distinction between terror groups and freedom fighters, and between terror action and legitimate military action. Imagine that Hamas or Hizb'Allah would call the military headquarters in Tel Aviv and say, ‘We have placed a bomb and we are asking you to evacuate the area’."

Oh, terribly sorry Mr Netanyahu, but what about those 18 civilians in southern Lebanon who were burnt alive when missiles from an Israeli helicopter gunship slammed into their fleeing convoy ... they had fled from their homes in south Lebanon, before you even thought about making a courtesy call.

And I suppose the seven civilians killed in other raids against bridges and gas stations in eastern and southern Lebanon, have only themselves to blame.
An unrepentant Israeli spy, Sarah Agassi, 80, remembers how she danced tangos and waltzes, sipped whisky and wine while casing out the King David hotel.
Sixty years ago, her brother and his fellow accomplices posed as local Arabs delivering milk in seven churns, each containing 50kg of explosives.

Sitting in the five-star splendour of the hotel, the grand old dame of terror expressed no regret. "We fought for our independence. We thought it was the right way ... If I had to fight for Israel, I swear even now I would do anything."

Yes Sarah, I've heard those sentiments expressed many times before ... from the lips of every Palestinian your vile state has brutalised, tortured and disposessed.
Remember the Palestinians, Sarah? The people whose land you stole?

You are not, and never will be a freedom fighter. You have no dignity nor respect Sarah, and despite your Octogenarian status you deserve neither. You are simply a sad, old, deluded Irgun terrorist who thought nothing about killing your own.

By the way, just because someone reaches a ripe old age, does not entitle them to automatic respect. Sarah was obviously a nasty little piece of work as a young Zionist spy, and I don't imagine she has improved with age. Perhaps she and her veteran colleagues would be better served recalling the poignant words of French philosopher Voltaire, who once said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

Sarah's dreams of a Zionist state was indeed an absurd mistake, created in 1917 in 26 words by Lord Balfour, the then British Foreign Minister who thought up the idea of establishing a Jewish homeland.

The Zionists immediately seized upon his statement, which they interpreted to mean support for a Jewish state. At the time of Balfour’s declaration, Jews comprised less than 10% of the population and owned 2.5% of the land of Palestine.

The creation of the Zionist project was an absurdity and what has followed since its inception is atrocity after atrocity ... it has been responsible for decades of death, warfare and terrorism.

Israel is probably now the most loathed state in the world today as it fights Hizb'Allah in the north and Hamas in the south ... trying to claw back land which it has already given away. Now just how absurd is that?

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