Sort of like Menachem Begin, the Likudite PM of Israel, who won a Nobel Peace Prize after he served as the leader of Irgun, a Zionist terrorist organization responsible for bombing the Kind David Hotel on July 22, 1946, killing 91 people, most of them civilians (the attack was aimed at the British government of Palestine). During the 1948 war, Begin oversaw the massacre at Dayr Yasin (240 men, women, and children slaughtered). In 1948, several prominent American Jews, including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt, wrote an op-ed, published in the New York Times, condemning Begin. Characterizing Begin’s “Freedom Party” (or Herut, a Revisionist Zionist party that would later morph into Likud) as a “manifestation of fascism,” the op-ed writers considered it “imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin,” who would later become prime minister, snatch up Palestinian land, and carpet bomb Lebanon.

Menachem Begin killed far more people than Abu Samhadana, who rained Katyusha missiles on the Israelis, and yet Begin was awarded a peace prize, thus demonstrating the double standards (and racism) of the supporters of the ruling Likud government in Israel and the United States. History, of course, is written not only by the victors, but the occupiers as well, who more often than not commit far worse crimes than the occupied, who naturally resist occupation.

Prior to assassinating Samhadana, Israel announced he “was a legitimate target for its forces, because of his involvement in dozens of terror attacks against Israeli civilians,” attacks that pale in comparison to the state-sponsored terrorism unleashed by the Israeli government on the Palestinians, terrorism usually legitimized by the Israeli-friendly corporate media. Imagine the response if Hamas announced its intention to target Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres, Shaul Mofaz, and other Israeli politicians for assassination.

For Robert Rosenberg, writing for Ariga in Tel Aviv, it appears rather effortless to connect together the targeted assassination of Abu Samhadana and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (or the corpse we are told is al-Zarqawi, never mind that a 500lb bomb should have rendered al-Zarqawi to hamburger). “It was probably coincidence that Israel got Samhadana right after the Americans got Zarqawi. And both defense establishments know, of course, that hitting an enemy commander, no matter how brilliant an operations manager or inspirational and charismatic, does not put an immediate end to terrorist organizations,” especially when said terrorist organizations were created by Israel, the United States, and Britain (Samhadana’s PRC is closely aligned with Hamas, an organization nurtured by Israeli intelligence, a documented fact revealed by Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism research; note, the original UPI article, written by Richard Sale, on this was scrubbed from the internet).

It was no coincidence “that Israel got Samhadana right after the Americans got Zarqawi,” as Israel has often used such high profile news stories as cover. Moreover, Israel has linked its illegal and immoral war against the Palestinians to the Straussian neocon “long war” against terrorism, or rather its engineered war against Islam, invented in Israel. In addition, Mr. Rosenberg would have us believe “it was inconceivable five years ago that a Jordanian official would tell a press conference that Jordanian commandoes were involved in the successful spotting of Zarqawi, even though hue (sic) was originally a Jordanian. It may not be surprising that Israeli officers have been working hand in hand with U.S. armed forces strategists and tacticians, teaching methods of integrating ground and airborne forces for just the kind of split-minute decision making and execution that is required when intelligence is able to identify a top priority target and planes are in the air, ready to take action. But it is surprising that reports about such cooperation are no longer censored.”

How coincidental. As I speculated here yesterday, Jordanian intelligence is intimately involved with Pentagon black ops and it is likely the “commandos” supposedly “involved in the successful spotting of Zarqawi” were members of Jordan’s Dairat al-Mukhabarat and the patsy al-Zarqawi’s handlers. It was time for al-Zarqawi “to go,” as MK Ami Ayalon said about Abu Samhadana. Of course, there is no evidence Samhadana was connected to Shin Bet or Israeli intelligence, as there is no direct evidence the person called al-Zarqawi was connected to the Pentagon by way of Dairat al-Mukhabarat. However, we must ask, at the risk of redundancy, who benefits from killing Israeli settlers (certainly not the Palestinians) and loping off the heads of a Turkish truck driver and the suspicious American Nick Berg (Iraqis sure don’t benefit). Naturally, after Abu Samhadana was killed, “Hamas’ military wing said … it would no longer honor a [February 2005] truce,” according to the Associated Press, and thus the cycle of violence will continue, as it has more or less uninterrupted since Plan Dalet was launched in 1948, driving the Palestinians off the land (i.e., ethnically cleanse them) and killing them in numbers.