The "experts" were wrong.

Love of the Land..
02 April '12..






Ten years ago, 01 April 2002, one more day, in a week, that was to be seared into our consciousness, as James Bennet of the New York Times wrote about the day:

The Matza restaurant was one of those rare places in Israel where Jews felt they could find refuge in the company of Arabs.

But it turned out, none of them were safe. Although the restaurant's proprietors and many of its staff members are Arabs, a suicide bomber from the Islamic group Hamas walked through the door today and detonated his charge in the middle of the room, blasting screws and other shrapnel into people eating a late lunch.

He killed himself and 14 others, blowing the roof off the restaurant and spraying blood against the chrome table legs and glass out into the parking lot.

Witnesses described a wreckage of burning bodies and jumbled furniture, in which one woman bent over a wounded son, beside the bodies of her husband and another child. The dead included Israeli Arabs, the police said, but the authorities were still trying to identify some of the remains tonight.

And yet more ...

Two hours later, another suicide bomber struck, this time in a station for paramedics in the settlement of Efrat, south of Bethlehem. The bomber killed himself and wounded at least four medics, one of them seriously. It was not immediately clear how he got into the settlement.

It was the fifth such attack in five days, as Israel conducts a new assault on the West Bank. It is calling the mission Protective Wall (Two hours later, another suicide bomber struck, this time in a station for paramedics in the settlement of Efrat, south of Bethlehem. The bomber killed himself and wounded at least four medics, one of them seriously. It was not immediately clear how he got into the settlement.

Nahum Barnea, the respected columnist for the newspaper Yediot Ahronot, wrote today that Palestinian terrorism was becoming ''a popular sport, the grand aspiration of thousands of young Palestinian girls and boys.

''You can kill, deport and deter professionals,'' he added. ''There is no military way to fight suicide bombers.'' (emphasis added)

In a post today from Elder of Ziyon entitled "Hamas celebrates anniversary of Haifa restaurant bombing", he comments:

Interestingly, this happened right at the beginning of Israel's Operation Defensive Shield that was meant to stop such attacks. The New York Times quoted Israeli "experts" as to how it is impossible to stop suicide bombings ...

We know now that Israel did stop the suicide bombings, with a combination of offensive thrusts into terrorist enclaves, a huge push to improve intelligence, and the building of the security fence.

The "experts" were wrong, which is a good thing to keep in mind when you read analyses today about how other things are supposedly impossible as well.

Elder, excellent point! 100%

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