Home      |      Weblog      |      Articles      |      Satire      |      Links      |      About      |      Contact


Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Child murderer scheduled for release in hostage exchange vows to continue terrorist attacks

Child murderer scheduled for release in hostage exchange vows to continue terrorist attacks

June 1, 2008

Release Of Child Murderer Samir Kuntar By Israelis Would Be An Insane Appeasement

June 1, 2008 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - If reports in the Israeli press are accurate the Israeli government might be on the verge of releasing Samir Kuntar in exchange for military hostages or their remains, taken in the last round of the Lebanese conflict.

"According to the reported proposal that Ofer Dekel, the official charged by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with the issue of kidnapped soldiers, presented to German mediator Gerhard Konrad, Israel will be willing to release Samir Kuntar, four Hizbullah fighters captured during the Second Lebanon War and the bodies of 10 Hizbullah gunmen in exchange for Goldwasser and Regev. Kuntar has been in prison since 1979, when he led a terrorist attack in Nahariya that resulted in the deaths of policeman Eliyahu Shahar, and Danny Haran and his two young daughters." [source, Jerusalem Post, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1212041438313&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull]

The operative phrase from the JPost's article is, "…the deaths of policeman Eliyahu Shahar, and Danny Haran and his two young daughters," and as seems to be the custom even in liberal Jewish newspapers, the text has been sanitized and made devoid of meaning.

Eliyahu and his two daughters were indeed killed by Kuntar; allow us to place the events into context, as we wrote in 2006 [see, http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=rabinowitz72006.htm]

Nasrallah's prominent mentioning of Samir Kuntar as one of the prisoners which Hezbollah hopes to receive in trade for the Israeli hostages provides an opportunity to examine both the reason for his present confinement as well as the nature of Hezbollah's terror war against Israeli civilians.

The following in the words of Smadar Haran, the wife and mother of Kuntar's victims:

"Abu Abbas, the former head of a Palestinian terrorist group who was captured in Iraq on April 15, is infamous for masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. But there are probably few who remember why Abbas' terrorists held the ship and its 400-plus passengers hostage for two days. It was to gain the release of a Lebanese terrorist named Samir Kuntar, who is locked up in an Israeli prison for life. Kuntar's name is all but unknown to the world. But I know it well. Because almost a quarter of a century ago, Kuntar murdered my family.

It was a murder of unimaginable cruelty, crueler even than the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, the American tourist who was shot on the Achille Lauro and dumped overboard in his wheelchair. Kuntar's mission against my family, which never made world headlines, was also masterminded by Abu Abbas. And my wish now is that this terrorist leader should be prosecuted in the United States, so that the world may know of all his terrorist acts, not the least of which is what he did to my family on April 22, 1979.

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat. They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her..."

As a special report by Palestinian Media Watch makes clear, Kuntar if released has already vowed to continue the Islamic jihad against defenseless Israeli civilians, bragging about it to Hezbollah's lead terror leader Hassan Nasrallah.

"My dear and honored commander and leader, The Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, Peace be unto you and our Shahids, and may Allah's mercy and blessing be upon you. Peace be unto the men in the convoys of the righteous.

Peace be unto he who has [given and has] not taken anything other than the Shahadah (Martyrdom), the highest rank of honor before Allah.

Peace be unto the distinguished, glamorous convoys [of Shahids] who travel toward eternity, toward the men of glory, dignity and pride, toward those who have marked our path for hundreds of years.

Peace be unto the last to leave, the Hajj and leader, Imad Mughniyeh.

Peace be unto him, as he passes the message on to those who await his arrival, as he brings them stories of the glory and victories, news of steadfastness and loyalty of the men of the fulfilled promise [a reference to the operation in which the two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped which was called the 'Fulfilling the Promise',] news of "those who still wait [for Shahadah]; but they have never changed (their determination for Shahada)." [Quote from Quran, Sura 33:23.]

Peace be unto him, as he announces to the most honored among the Believers [previous Shahids] that the waiting convoys have chosen [they await the Shahadah] to draw their swords, and their swords are calling out: "We are far from degradation" [a Nasrallah's phrase].

May peace be unto you, Hajj Imad. My oath and pledge is that my place will be at the battlefront, which is soaked in the sweat of your giving, and the blood of the most beloved among men [Shahids], and that I shall continue down the path, until complete victory.

I give to you, Sir Abu Hadi [name for Hassan Nasrallah] and to all the Jihad Figthers, my congratulations and [my] renewed loyalty."[source, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, February 19, 2008, as translated by Palestinian Media Watch]

The release of child murderer Samir Kuntar under any conditions by the Israeli government would be such a monstrous act as to defy description. Not only would it result in Kuntar escaping justice, but it would immediately place him back in the terror business, searching for other little Einat Shahars to sadistically murder.

Moreover it would define the Israeli government as an assembly of cowardly, frightened lambs whose appeasement and capitulation would only help pave the way to the slaughterhouse which the Islamic jihad has prepared, and from which no amount of kicking and braying can prevent. http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=kuntar6.1.08%2Ehtm

Printer-friendly version   Email this item to a friend