As with any terrorist attack, the aftermath of Monday’s Tel Aviv bombing is fraught with heart-rending stories of personal tragedy.

The most tear-jerking of the lot involves a father, Philip Balhasan, who was visiting Tel Aviv with his two youngest children after promising to take them to the city to buy some CDs and computer games as a treat for Passover.

As soon as the “Palestinian” killer detonated himself, sending a piece of shrapnel into Balhasan’s heart, the loving father embraced his children tightly, told them to call their mother, and collapsed. A short time later he was dead.

Now, the Palestinian Arabs and their apologists the world over will attempt to draw moral equivalency with, say, the unintentional killing last week of a nine-year-old Arab girl during an Israeli strike on known terrorists in the Gaza Strip - an event certainly no less tragic for that girl’s family.

The difference of course lies in the fact Israel was targeting terrorists, most of them armed at the time, who were cynically using civilians such as that little girl as cover - a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

Monday’s “Palestinian” bomber, on the other hand, intentionally targeted civilians, including children, out on the town en masse during the Passover holiday.

Imagine if Israel really did carry out acts equivalent in their moral repugnancy to those perpetrated by the “Palestinians.”

Imagine if an Israeli, willing to give his own life for the sake of slaughtering as many “Palestinians” as possible, and enjoying the consent of his government, walked in to a crowded Ramallah eatery one Ramadan evening and mowed down scores of Muslim patrons.

Can anyone imagine the enormity of the international outcry?

Again, the “Palestinians” and their apologists will point to Baruch Goldstein and Eden Natan Zada as evidence that such attacks are carried out by Jews against Arabs.

But Goldstein’s Hebron massacre and Zada’s Shfaram bus attack were isolated events, whereas the “Palestinians” have mass murdered Jewish civilians almost more times than can be counted. Nor did either Goldstein or Zada enjoy the support of their government or countrymen, but were rather treated posthumously as criminals and traitors.

There simply is no moral equivalency between the combatants in this conflict, or between the two peoples and their governments. For the world to continue treating Israel and its Arab foes on equal moral footing is only perpetuating the bloodshed.

It is no secret the “enlightened” nations of Western Europe are being rapidly overrun by Islam.

Mohammed’s hordes have been trying to conquer the continent militarily since shortly after the religion’s inception and subjugation of the Middle East and Northern Africa. Now they are succeeding demographically by exploiting the loose immigration laws of liberal Europe.

So worrying has this phenomenon become that the US is actually starting to recognize Western Europe as a new front in its global war on Islamic terror.

Said Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Daniel Fried during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing last week:

“While Islamist extremism is a global phenomenon, we find the nature of the problem in Western Europe to be distinct - both in its character and its potential to threaten the United States.”

It is unlikely this wake up call will resonate with most Europeans before it is too late.

But for those who believe in and track the fulfillment of biblical prophecy, that will come as little surprise.

PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas is incensed over an Israeli missile strike on an empty building in his presidential compound in Gaza.

To hear him speak, Israel simply launched the attack for fun, because it just loves to see the “Palestinians” squirm.

“The continuous random bombarding in Gaza is not justified. It wants nothing but to disrupt the daily life of the Palestinian people.”

So why did Israel launch the strike?

Well, Israel would argue that all those Kassam and Katyusha rockets being fired from Gaza on a daily basis at Israeli civilians in the Negev are the reason.

To turn Abbas’ accusation on its head - it seems the “Palestinians” want nothing but to disrupt the daily life of all Israelis within their reach.

And the fact Abbas and his regime are doing absolutely nothing to prevent such attacks make them fully complicit.

So, far from a “random bombardment” meant to “disrupt the daily life” of Gaza’s residents, a little cause and effect analysis shows that Tuesday’s air strike was a determined action meant to send a message to Abbas over his ongoing failure to act in accordance with signed agreements.

Can someone please convince the Bush Administration that these truths also hold true in Israel:

In Iraq and around the world, we will never peacefully dissuade those dedicated to violence against us. They must be captured or killed.

Nor are the actual terrorist murderers the only problem:

sympathetic local populations…sustain the insurgency with cash, weapons, and intelligence.

And, in the case of the Palestinian Arabs’ overwhelming elecion of Hamas, with international legitimacy.

The article also provides logic that perfectly explains how and why Hamas managed to score its electoral coup:

Hamas is an “enemy who thrives by delivering empowerment and vengeance to [a population] drowning in poverty, social humiliation, and political marginalization. These masses in return sustain the enemy — passively with cover and actively with fighters.

Where I disagree with the authors is in their view that overwhelming firepower is not part of the answer, but rather greater involvement of local law inforcement.

If the Israeli-Arab conflict has taught anything, it is that in the Muslim world the perception of strength carries much weight.

When the enemy is perceived as strong, the terrorists are deterred. When the enemy is perceived as weak due to its failure to respond strongly to the terrorists’ threat, those terrorists are better able to convince local populations of their own strength, and so gain greater support.

The authors get back on track with their assessment of the need for a re-education of the local population.

The overall strategy, however, should be closer to that implemented again Japan in World War II - a strategy that worked perhaps better than any expected.

The Japanese were a people unquestionably dedicated to war on behalf of their deified emperor. It was overwhelming American firepower that convinced them of their own weakness and the need to lay down their arms, leading to the ability to carry out a true re-education of the general population.

Israel’s approach should be no different - the outright defeat of its enemies, followed by a concerted Israeli-controlled campaign to win the hearts and minds of the local Arabs through education.

This, of course, is unlikely to happen in the current liberal atmosphere of appeasement.

Fortunately, all hope is not lost. One day the overwhelming firepower of the Messiah will defeat Israel’s enemies, and a divine program of re-education will transform not only the Arabs’ hearts and minds, but their very souls.