"We think that killing one Jew far from the field of battle is more effective than killing one hundred Jews on the field of battle, because it attracts more attention," George Habash once told Oriana Fallaci during an interview. More "effective"--the terminology repels--he declares? Certainly much easier for Arabs still reeling in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel's third victory over massive Arab armies since the Jewish state's  inception in 1948.

"Shattered by that war, as all Palestinian leaders were, Habash had formed his Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) three months afterward," Claire Sterling writes in her book The Terror Network, discussing the murderer who "exported terrorism from the Middle East to Europe for the first time."

"That first tentative foreign venture of Dr. Habash's proved momentous. The El Al plane he hijacked, whose thirty-two Jewish passengers were held hostage by the Algerian government for five weeks, attracted gratifying attention. During the next year or so, his PLFP hijacked thirteen other foreign planes, the last four all at once ... and blew up a Swissair liner in flight, killing forty-seven passengers and crew. From nowhere, the Palestinians shot to the center of the planetary stage."

And that was just the beginning, for both jihadist terrorism in the West and George Habash, as his obituaries, which usually include a sort of "greatest hits" of his terrorist credits, attest.

There is a sterile quality to these summations, particularly when they get around to informing a reader that Palestinian Authority Prez Mahmoud Abbas is  calling massacre-artist Habash a "historic leader" and  flying PA flags at half staff for three days in his honor. I'm sure George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice are touched.

Now, tell me again how many billions the US taxpayer is shelling out to keep those flags of terrorism flying? I can only hope the survivors of Habash's many victims aren't suffering too much today.