Terrorism: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proved that brevity is the soul not only of wit, but of wisdom. As others ponder why Brussels happened, he explains: "Terrorists have no resolvable grievances."
Speaking via satellite to AIPAC's annual conference in Washington last week, Bibi Netanyahu used the Brussels bloodbath, which Islamic State has taken responsibility for, to explain succinctly why there is no appeasing this barbaric new enemy.
The Israeli leader identified "the chain of attacks from Paris to San Bernardino to Istanbul to the Ivory Coast and now to Brussels, and the daily attacks in Israel" as "one continuous assault on all of us." And he reminded Americans that, "in all these cases, the terrorists have no resolvable grievances."
Those five words, "terrorists have no resolvable grievances," should be the equivalent of "in hoc signo vinces" for the global war on terror. Those were the Latin words Constantine saw in a vision, accompanying a cross of light -- "In this sign you will conquer."
It simplified everything. Similarly, Netanyahu's words should focus free people in the long war against purveyors of terrorism in the years ahead, by remembering that there is no way to buy off those who send suicide bombers into crowded transportation hubs, sports arenas, shopping centers and major workplaces like the Twin Towers.
"It’s not as if we could offer them Brussels, or Istanbul, or California, or even the West Bank," Netanyahu pointed out. "That won’t satisfy their grievances. Because what they seek is our utter destruction and their total domination. Their basic demand is that we should simply disappear."
The only way terrorism can be beaten is by beating it. And as the prime minister noted, that means "with political unity and with moral clarity."
President Obama's repeated assurance that ISIS is "not an existential threat to us," last week pairing it during his Latin American trip with the crack that "I've got a lot of things on my plate," telegraphs not moral clarity but politically expedient complacency, as he plans the exhibits in his presidential library.
Obama ought to be reminded that when it comes to the lives of the four or more Americans missing in Brussels, ISIS may very well have been an existential threat.
Netanyahu's words, meanwhile, should be carved in stone for the ages and spur total commitment to the destruction of today's terrorists -- everywhere and ASAP.
