Commentary by H.G. Listiak

Tuesday 4/20/2004

Welcome to My World, where I have some career advice for the young budding Islamic Fundamentalist terrorist who may want to side step suicide and get into upper management. Do not aspire to the upper echelon of Hamas. Not much future there. It won't be long before Hamas will be running out of leaders as the Israelis, who put their own safety ahead of world opinion, Saturday punched another one-way ticket to Allah, taking out their second Hamas leader in less than a month. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who took over when Israeli missiles blew Sheik Ahmed Yassin away, bought it in the same fashion. An Israeli Apache helicopter out of nowhere lit up Rantisi and a couple of bodyguards while they drove down a main street in Gaza City. Rantisi was one of the founders of Hamas and one of the more extreme voices in the very violent Islamic group. Hamas, as you know, is credited with pioneering the suicide bombings in Israel, with Rantisi responsible for the deaths of hundreds of noncombatant innocent Israeli men, women and children. He was a hardliner opposed to any talks between the Palestinians and Israelis, calling for their total anhilation. Speaking last month at a memorial for Yassin he said, "The Israelis will not know security. We will fight them until the liberation of Palestine, the whole of Palestine, meaning no more Israel or Israelis." A bad threat but made often, only the Israelis, who suffer terrorism on an almost daily basis, can not regard any threat as an idle threat. They have been at it a very long time. As Hamas terrorists hit the streets in protest shouting we will all be martyrs, the Israelis realize that martyrs are dead guys, and despite world opinion, they oblige them. They really have no choice. My only comment is, good shooting and good hunting gentlemen, as I see it ... I'm H.G. Listiak.