The Palestinians and their worldwide friends -- especially
their friends -- try to paint Palestinian murder as a
political struggle motivated by higher motives. Yet if there
is anything that more than 3,000 years of moral thought must
have taught mankind, it is that truly high motives cannot
really drive such despicable activities.
In fact, the activities of the Palestinians from Yasser
Arafat on down resemble more the activities of common
criminals, driven by nothing more than a raw desire to impose
their will that is completely unrestrained by any respect for
rules or rights of others.
This resemblance has been strengthened by many reports from
the United States authorities who have found criminals in the
U.S. engaged in a broad array of illegal activities to raise
money for terror in the Middle East. U.S. agents recently
said they found several operations spread over many states
involving credit card thefts, illegal cigarette smuggling and
sales, charitable funds and cash smuggled in airline luggage
to enrich anti-American and anti-Israeli terror groups.
An elaborate ring was broken which had smuggled cigarettes
from no-tax states such as North Carolina north to high-tax
states such as New York. Many of those involved had roots in
the Middle East and some of the ill-gotten gains were traced
to terrorist groups.
Investigators also broke up an illegal drug operation in the
Midwest, run by men of Middle Eastern descent, which funneled
money to Middle East terrorist groups like Hizbullah.
U.S. officials said the ring's members, many indicted on drug
charges after their arrest in January, 2002, had smuggled
large quantities of the chemical pseudoephedrine from Canada
into the Midwest. Pseudoephedrine, which is used legally in
some popular cold and allergy medications, is an essential
ingredient used in making methamphetamine, a popular -- and
illegal -- drug. The ring was selling their pseudoephedrine
to Mexican-based drug operations in the Western United States
that produced methamphetamine.
Some of the proceeds were traced to accounts in the Middle
East that are connected to Hizbullah, officials of the drug
agency said. Officials named Lebanon and Yemen as two
countries where the money went. They said there was no
evidence that any of the money was connected to the Sept. 11
attacks.
Some idea of the scope of the operation can be had from the
reports that arrests were made in connection with this
criminal activity on a single day in Detroit, Cleveland,
Chicago, Phoenix and Las Vegas, and in Los Angeles,
Riverside, San Diego, Fresno and Carlsbad, California.
Altogether 136 people were charged and nearly 36 tons of
pseudoephedrine were seized, as well as 179 pounds of
methamphetamine, $4.5 million in cash and 160 cars used by
drug gangs. When they made the arrests the authorities had no
knowledge of the terror links. Those ties emerged only
later.
It is a worldwide attempt to make crime pay in money and
politics. It deserves the treatment that civilized societies
have devised for criminal activity: arrest, trial and
incarceration or execution. It must be stopped because the
criminal activities are constantly expanding and opening new
possibilities.
"The money mechanisms being used to aid terrorism are limited
only by your imagination," one American law enforcement
official said.
