Terror’s advantage is the high multiplication factor it creates.
There was a story during the First Lebanon War about a battle between Israeli and Lebanese forces. The fighting went on for hours, and when it was over, the Israelis found that a single Lebanese youth had run to different positions and fired on them. The Israelis had assumed that they were facing a reasonably large force instead of one child running with his AK-47 here and there and pinning them down for an extended period of time.
One of the purposes of terror is to leverage a small number of terrorists into scaring the daylights out of thousands or even millions of people. Let’s look at Bondi Beach. On the assumption that a father and son from Pakistan fired several dozen rounds at people attending a Chanukah celebration, you have a classic terror situation. In the event itself, two people had over a thousand potential targets. Let’s ignore for the moment whether the shooters had help from others or instructions from Tehran or Damascus. These two guys shot nearly four dozen people, 15 of whom were killed. But let’s move past Bondi Beach. How many people who planned to attend Chabad public candlelightings, not only in Australia but throughout the world, have second thoughts? How many people will stay home or avoid large gatherings because of the actions of two Muslim terrorists? How many resources were thrown into protecting similar lightings in Europe and the U.S.? The point is that two people, in the space of 15 minutes, could change the behavior of thousands or tens of thousands of people throughout the globe. And that is the multiplicative effect of terror: one or a few attacks can completely change the way large populations behave.
There was a period during the second intifada when Israel decided to take out the Hamas leadership in Gaza. The biggest strike was against Sheikh Yassin, the head of the terror organization. Hamas swore revenge, which in hindsight never really materialized. But that did not mean that major Israeli cities became ghost towns. From my office, one could see much of downtown Jerusalem. In the weeks that followed the helicopter-based assassination, you would have been hard-pressed to find three people on the streets of the city. People were terrified of a possible bus bomb or shooting attack, and they either stayed home or found alternative ways to get to work. When I started going back to my office after the bombing in which my son and I were injured, my wife insisted that I take a cab. I begrudgingly agreed, as I figured that on my feet, I could be more nimble if danger appeared imminent. The cabs lasted three days. On the third day, we got stuck between two buses. So I reasoned that if a guy blew himself up at the back of the bus in front of us or in the front of the bus behind us, we were finished. And thus, it was back to a quick sprint to work and back.
From the window of our office, my partner watched a shootout on Jaffa Street. Many Jerusalem streets are still named for their final destinations: Jaffa, Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus. A terrorist dressed in an IDF uniform shot up shoppers. When I got to the edge of the window, he was exchanging fire with soldiers in a bulletproof jeep. Plainclothes detectives came from the other side and killed the terrorist, but not before he killed and wounded a number of citizens. One woman, also from Chicago, was left for dead. A paramedic with a special glove checked one last time for a pulse, and the glove detected a very weak beat. She was rushed to the hospital, where she lost a lung but was still alive. As she progressed, she was flown to the U.S. for additional treatment. She told me that an Arab doctor accompanied her the entire trip and worried that she had everything she needed. She said that she was torn by an internal conflict: an Arab tried to kill her, and an Arab did everything he could to keep her alive.
And this is ultimately the problem faced by the West. The father shooter in Sydney had been in the country since 1998. He was a member of a gun club for 10 years and thus legally owned the weapons used to kill Jews on the beach. I would imagine that most Muslims in the U.S. are law-abiding and have no interest in overthrowing the U.S. government and creating a new caliphate. But it does not matter. There are those deadset on violence and getting rid of Judaism and Christianity; some of them say as much. As the West has no ability to figure out who is radicalized or who—like the Afghan shooter in Washington—becomes radicalized in his new Western home, the only option is not to take in more Muslims and to eject anyone who is not a legal citizen. Those who cannot legally be ejected need to be monitored to make sure that they do not become the next shooter or bomber. If anyone has a better solution, please state the same in the comments. I don’t see how one can throw out a third-generation Muslim who legally lives in the U.S. Many Muslims have served in the armed forces, and one cannot say that all Muslims are evil. Still, there is a very strong movement in Islam that is directed to establishing, by any means available—violent or otherwise—Sharia law in every country in the world. Either join them, or you’re toast.
One of the heroes of the Australia attack was a Maronite Lebanese Christian. The Aussies took in lots of Lebanese during the civil war. They have since added more Muslims, even though in days of yore getting into Australia was very difficult. If the West does not get Muslim immigration under control, then it can expect that its countries will become like Lebanon. Lebanon was a gorgeous country, a beloved getaway for Europeans. The first picture I ever saw of Beirut showed a Pierre Cardin store. It was called the Switzerland of the Middle East. Then the balance between Christians and Muslims got out of whack, to be followed by 15 years of civil war. Gaad Sad relates that when he and his family left Lebanon for good, they lay flat on the van that took them to the airport as bullets from snipers whizzed by. If Christians in Europe and the U.S. do not hold the line on their countries and cultures, they can expect street shootouts like they had in Beirut. Sounds crazy? Well, we know that the Muslims in Sydney knew how to shoot. Either get the issue under control in your favor or let the problem grow until your control is challenged by the ballot box and the bullet box.
The attack on Bondi Beach was heinous but par for the course for Muslim terrorists in the West. The clueless prime minister, in his first go of it, did not mention Jews, Judaism, or Chanukah in his statement regarding the attack. He has since admitted that it was an antisemitic attack, and his big plans: further restrict weapons. Australia forcibly collected 650,000 guns a few years back, and even had to raise the health tax to do it. The bad guys always get guns. Remember that. All you do is prevent the good guys from winning. The police women present hid themselves, and the rest of the crowd was gunless. Woke kills, and unless the West realizes that Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood, and many immigrant Muslims want the end of Christian nations, then you had better get ready to dodge snipers in your former favorite cities.