08/05/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10048

TERRORISTS ATTACK ISRAELI SCHOOL

On July 31^st, a terrorist bomb killed at least seven people, including at least five Americans, and wounded more than eighty in a crowded cafeteria at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. In less than two years, about three-hundred fifty Israeli and American civilians have been killed in Israel in terrorist attacks, many of them by Hamas.

President George W. Bush condemned the attack. "There are clearly killers," he said, "who hate the thought of peace, and, therefore, are willing to take their hatred to all kinds of places, including a university. And [the United States] condemns that kind of killing, and we send our deepest sympathy to the students and their families."

President Bush said he also wants "to make it clear to the killers that it won’t stop [the U.S.] from rallying the world to fight their kind of terror; nor will they stop us from having a vision of peace."

As Mr. Bush has pointed out previously, "Hamas is an extremist group that calls for the total destruction of Israel. It is one of the deadliest terrorist organizations in the world today."

In June, Hamas claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a crowded bus in Jerusalem that killed nineteen people and wounded more than fifty. In March, a Hamas attack in Netanya killed twenty-nine men, women, and children as they were gathering to observe the Passover holiday. Earlier Hamas attacks include one in June 2001 that killed twenty-two young Israelis at a Tel Aviv disco.

Hamas has been deliberately attacking Israeli civilians for about fifteen years. Its goal is to establish an extremist state in place of Israel. Hamas receives funding from Palestinian expatriates, the government of Iran, and individuals in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. It has conducted fundraising in Europe and the United States. In response, the U.S. has frozen the assets of bogus charities that raise money for Hamas.

The U.S. looks forward to working with all responsible parties in the Middle East in the fight against terrorism. As President Bush said, they must "use all their power to stop organizations such as Hamas from taking innocent life. And at the same time. . .we must continue to work to put the institutions in place necessary for the evolution of a [Palestinian] state which can live at peace with Israel."