In late October I wrote: “Yasser Arafat is a terrorist hiding behind a diplomat’s veil.” Why he is viewed as a viable partner for peace in the Middle East is a mystery to anyone outside the diplomatic community, elitist Europe, collegiate pacifists and the “unbiased” media.
The map in his office states his view of Israel. On it are the modern Middle East borders with the word “Palestine” labeled over the geography that is Israel. To him, Israel doesn’t have a right to exist; even though his signature on the Oslo Accords (the same piece of paper that got him a Nobel Peace Prize) says it does.
Treaties are only as good as the people who agree to them. With the 1993 Oslo Accords, Arafat was supposed to reign in, arrest, and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure with the promise of an eventual Palestinian homeland.
What has happened instead is an organized effort by terrorists to destroy the Israeli state. Groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad have used gunmen, rockets and now suicide bombers to accomplish their goal of destroying Israel. The newest group is the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade – a wing of Arafat’s own Fatah movement.
Arafat has turned Palestinian prisons into revolving-door hotels. Terrorists who are supposed to serve multi-year sentences only serve months, weeks or days. They are then free to plan attacks at Tel Aviv cafes, Jerusalem discotheques and Passover Seders.
It’s understandable to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. They deserve a homeland to call their own to raise children, pursue social and economic dreams and do as they choose. It should be a land that they can live, work and communicate with their Jewish neighbors.
There was such a plan. It was called U.N. Resolution 181 where Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs would each have a nation. The map to the right details it best. Israel and the West agreed to it. The Arab nations rejected it. That was 1947. Within a year the fight for Israel’s survival began as its Arab neighbors attacked it.
The dance of terror and death continued in 1965 when Palestinians in Lebanon attempted to destroy a hydroelectric plant in northern Israel in an attempt start another war. This group of guerrillas was led by a 35- year-old engineer named Yasser Arafat.
Add six days in 1967 when once again, its Arab neighbors ganged up to destroy Israel. For their troubles, they lost the West Bank, the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip – territories won in war.
Egypt and Syria tried to waltz in on Yom Kippur of 1973. Eventually Israel agreed to give the Sinai back to Egypt in the 1978 Camp David Accords. In exchange for the land, Israel received “normal” relations while Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat received an assassin’s bullet. Islamic fundamentalists claimed responsibility.
But enough with the history lesson.
I often marvel at the simplistic view many apologists take on this now centuries-old conflict. They claim it to be an economic issue that the terror would stop if economic opportunities were available in the “occupied” territories. No doubt it would be easy to set up some sort of Mideast Marshall Plan, but economics isn’t the reason for the chaos.
What drives these monsters is an anti-Semitic hatred which rivals that of Nazi Germany; a fact backed by Mien Kempf being a bestseller in Palestinian territories. Teenage suicide bombers are the new Hitler youth, indoctrinated at a young age that the war will end when the Jews are dead and the western border of Palestine is the Mediterranean Sea.
So “land for peace” is a useless concept when the other side wants to see you dead, making Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Mideast peace mission futile. This also makes the only possible peace alternative the one no one wants to hear.
It is hard to believe that our so-called “moderate Arab allies” want stability in the region when Iran tried to give 53 tons of weaponry to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Syria gives rocket launchers to Hezbollah, and Iraq and Saudi Arabia give “martyr pay” to the families of suicide bombers. To them, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a needed distraction with two bonuses. It keeps the West occupied from discovering their human rights violations and it has the potential of getting the Jews out of “their city.”
We in the modern world need to wake up to what is really going on here. This brand of Islam is psychotic and deadly. Its goal is one of suppression and dominance. It doesn’t deserve respect or understanding. It needs to be stomped out like the murderous ideology it is. For if it is allowed to go unchecked in Israel, it is only a matter of time before suicide bombers hit Times Square or Chicago’s Miracle Mile. Will we just sit back then?
