Blood-luster Slaughters the Innocent in Tel Aviv

(courtesy of AP)

The enemy doesn't sleep. He sends his agents forth without a respite. Refusing to accept the vanity of his efforts, he gratuitously distributes the shattered manifestation of his very nothingness: death.

He can't see the truth. The Holy One of God has broken his ultimate weapon of mass destruction. His agents can flood the streets with the blood of innocents. They've managed only to thrown the righteous through the doorway to face their Creator.

His current nihilists have perpetrated another of their absurd crimes, nonetheless.

Yahoo! News has the story:

A Palestinian suicide bomber struck a packed fast-food restaurant during Passover on Monday, killing nine other people and wounding dozens in the deadliest attack in more than a year.

In a sharp departure from the previous Palestinian government's condemnations of bombings, the Hamas-led administration said the attack resulted from
Israel's "brutal aggression." The bloodshed and the hard-line stance could set the stage for harsh Israeli reprisals and endanger Palestinian efforts to secure desperately needed international aid.

Israel said it held Hamas responsible for the attack — even though another group claimed responsibility — and Israel's security chiefs were meeting later Monday to discuss what action to take. Security officials said a ground operation in Gaza was not being considered.

The attack occurred just two hours before Israel's newly elected parliament was sworn into office, and Prime Minister-designate Ehud Olmert said Israel would react to the bombing with appropriate means.

The White House condemned the attack and warned of grave consequences for the new Palestinian government.

"It is a despicable act of terror for which there is no excuse or justification," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "Defense or sponsorship of terrorist acts by officials of the Palestinian Cabinet will have the gravest effects on relations between the
Palestinian Authority and all states seeking peace in the Middle East."

The
European Union, which has cut off aid to the Hamas-led government, also denounced the bombing and called for restraint by both sides.

Islamic Jihad, which has close ties to Israel's arch enemy,
Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack, the first in Israel since the Hamas Cabinet took office 2 1/2 weeks ago.

The blast came amid a sharp increase in fighting between Israel and the Palestinians across the Gaza border. Militants have fired barrages of homemade rockets at Israel, and Israel has responded with artillery fire. A 17-year-old Palestinian in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya was killed Monday in the shelling, Palestinian officials said.

The suicide bombing took place about 1:40 p.m. when the bomber, carrying a bag stuffed with 10 pounds of explosives, approached "The Mayor's Falafel" restaurant in a busy neighborhood near Tel Aviv's central bus station. The restaurant, which had been the target of a bombing in January, was packed with Israelis on vacation during the weeklong Passover holiday.

The clear-eyed understand. They will not suffer the insidious, Wormtonguesque apologies that fall from the warped tongues of the enemy's press corps. They will not accept any legitimacy of murder, no matter in whose name such crime is committed. They refuse to understand any measure of desperation or "oppression" that can in any way justify the deliberate shedding of innocent blood. They call what was done at The Mayor's Falafel exactly what it was: a heinous and blood-thirsty murder.

There may be calls of equivocation from the usual Reasonable circles. The cameramen and photographers of the MSM will certainly capture the hordes of future Palestinian mourners when the next funerals take place. The EU already calls for "restraint from both sides." Those unable or unwilling to see the agency of nothing at work will find some reason to account for it. Some of them will warp the idea of justice in order to somehow clothe this despicable Agent of the Enemy in it. Hamas' statement justifying this evil act will elicit a choir of crickets from the usual, Reasonable chattering classes. Somehow, the fault will lay with the government of the victims' nation.

Perhaps they'd like to explain, then, why the murderer chose Passover as the time to commit his crime. Perhaps they'd care to comment on Palestinian terrorists' ongoing acts of religious totalitarianism. Perhaps they'd account for the deliberate butchering of the innocent on the most sacred religious commemoration in Judiaism. Perhaps they can discuss the intended irony of these butchers exterminating the innocent during a feast that commemorates God protection of the innocent.

I await their answer with baited breath. Fortunately, I choose to continue taking breaths until they do so.

What they miss, as do the agents of evil for whom they apologize, is the utter vanity of these terrorists' acts. Yes, these agents can murder. Yes, they can terrorize. Yes, they can shatter lives, destroy property and undermine the confidence of society. But they can't claim victory.

When they murder the innocent, they betray their own cowardice. They reveal their own impotence. They make real the utter inanity of their master, who is nothing. God has already claimed the victory that the enemy would pretend to call his own. God has already crushed death through the blood of his innocent Son, spilled on the cross for all. God has already carved the corpse of death into the gateway of new life through the Ressurection of Christ. The agents of nothing can snuff out the physical lives of their victims. They can do nothing to stop their victims from receiving Eternal life.

They can only pretend to grasp at power merely by taking lives as though they were God.

But God has not abandoned his chosen people. He has not broken the Abrahamic covenant he made with Israel. And while people of good will can certainly challenge the policies of the secular state of Israel, no one can claim the right to murder innocent Israelis--Jewish or otherwise. God will bring justice to his people, and he will make right what others have made wrong.

For he has won the victory. He will manifest his triumph, and the Enemy will collapse before his Vanguard.

Let us join our hearts with the victims' families, who now mourn for those they've lost. Let us raise our prayers for them and their departed loved ones. May God's mercy and consolation swiftly come upon them and their own. May he wipe every tear of grief and despair away. May their loved ones rejoice in his presence.

May his mercy triumph over the wreckless hatred of his enemy's unwitting agents. May they repent of their evil and turn to him, that they not throw their lives--and souls--away in vain.

And may the Lord, who in his mercy passed over the houses of his people, Israel, bring strength and justice to his people once more, that they pass over the evil they currently confront.