What those captured Palestinian weapons mean

It’s one of the most disturbing photos from Israel that I’ve seen in years.

I’m referring to this week’s image of the hundreds of Palestinian terrorist weapons captured in Israeli raids. It was enough to send shivers down one’s spine. And it revealed more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than all the panel discussions, research papers, and expert analyses with which we are always being bombarded.

Friends of Israel often complain about what they say is the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s inadequate effort to make Israel’s case to the international community. And those complaints are not entirely without merit. But somebody in the foreign ministry’s hasbara division deserves credit for coming up with a simple, yet incredibly effective way of demonstrating what Israel is up against: show their weapons.

Telling the world that hundreds of terrorists have been arrested, or thousands of weapons captured is mind-numbing. They’re just numbers. The public yawns and turns the page. But recall what the Israelis did after capturing in Jan. 2002 the Karine A, the Palestinian ship seized by Israeli commandos. They didn’t just issue a press release about the 50 tons of arms, or the 700,000 rounds of ammunition on board. They actually spread the weapons out, on the ground, for the photographers and television cameras. And they reached as far as the eye — and the lens — could see.

The images of the Karine A weapons were what exposed and destroyed the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. All his years of pretending to be moderate and peace-seeking went up in smoke. The whole world could see, and never forget, the unbelievable arsenal he was trying to smuggle into Palestinian Authority-controlled territory.

In terms of what it revealed about Palestinian intentions, that photo from 2002 was worth a thousand words. And so is this week’s photo.

Israeli security forces captured no less than seven separate Palestinian terrorist weapons storehouses. And then they spread the weapons out so photographers could actually see them.

Rifles. Pistols. Bullets. Knives. Handcuffs.

To shoot Jews. To stab Jews. To handcuff hostages.