Destroy A Terrorist State Here Create One There

ToogoodReports ^ | March 17, 2002 | Lowell Phillips

[Starmaker]

A brief glance through my recent works would hardly leave one wondering about my position on the War on Terrorism. Unlike many in the press and on the left side of the congressional aisle, I have minced few words about the atrocities of September 11th or about what course of action that tragic day demands. While some would seek to weaken our resolve in destroying our enemies, I´ve been steadfast in my support of the war effort and the determined leadership of George W. Bush.

As other Americans, I have oftentimes been consumed with anger and a desire for vengeance. But while I believe there are moments when vengeance is justified, it should never go so far as to blind us to basic moral truths. And more than anything else, a sense of moral certainty should guide us as we pursue the likes of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Indeed, it is this principled clarity that has helped President Bush rally the American people into "a new kind of war". This is also why the administration´s mounting condemnation of Israel is so disturbing. As the Bush White House increasingly equates the actions of Israel in fighting terrorism to those of a fanaticized Palestinian populous, that moral leadership becomes less legitimate.

From the moment that Bush and Co. liberated US foreign policy from the shockingly inept hands of the Clinton administration, the calls have sounded demanding that they follow the same policies that created the current version of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. More than any single person, Bill Clinton was responsible for sanitizing the image of Yasser Arafat. In his unabashed quest for Nobel glory, Clinton helped to solidify the installation of an alien, terrorist regime into the disputed territories.

The exploitation of a weary Israeli populous facilitated the delivery of these areas into the hands of the Egyptian-born Arafat. The Palestinian dictator´s fuzzy cult of personality notwithstanding, the only change in his behavior since the 1993 Oslo accords has been the adoption of suicide tactics as his preferred method of murder. The numbers clearly illustrate this. In the eight years that have passed since Oslo, 4-times as many Israeli citizens have died in terrorist attacks as in the eight years prior.

Being seemingly a man of rigid moral standards, Bush has resisted demands by relativists to engage in a dialog with the PLO chairman. As any sane person should, he has avoided the embrace of the lifelong terrorist for fear of being stained by the blood dripping from his fingers. With the exception of certain career State Department officials and the characteristically tepid Colin Powell, the rest of his administration has followed suit. And while it wasn´t exactly a challenge to make the case in support of the only democracy in the region, the defense of Israel after Sept. 11th was made easier and even more imperative.

As horrific as the events of 9-11 were, we have largely viewed them from a distance. We have experienced the mayhem through films of airliners smashing into buildings, through recorded messages of American citizens in the final moments of their lives, and by heart-wrenching accounts from loved ones left behind. The Israelis, by contrast, are victimized on a daily basis, "up-close and personal". The constant mortar barrages, shootings and suicide bombings have spared no corner of the tiny county. And the death toll per capita has been many times that of America´s terrorist body-count.

As if the blatant hypocrisy of their leadership talking peace in English and war in Arabic weren´t enough, the celebrations by Palestinians upon news of the attacks on the US should have put any lingering doubts about their sympathies to rest. For some of us, Arafat´s rejection of near-suicidal Israeli concessions in the summer of 2000 was more than sufficient. But it was the interception of a ship captained by a 25-year veteran of Yasser Arafat´s Fatah movement, and loaded with 50 tons of Iranian weapon´s, which appeared to spell the end of Mr. Arafat´s reign.

After the discovery of this arms shipment, even full-time Arafat apologists found it difficult to deny his guilt. It was roundly acknowledged that an operation of such scope was impossible without his approval. This view was mirrored within the Bush White House. In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "it's hard to believe that he wasn't involved". The weapons alone spoke volumes, but the fact that the Palestinian Authority was allied with a member of Pres. Bush´s "axis of evil" should have demonstrated the folly of attempting to deal with that regime.

A few short weeks later, however, the seaborne wish list for terrorists has been nearly forgotten. The United States soon expressed interest in a hollow peace proposal from the Saudis that is nothing more than another land-for-peace offer of the kind that has put Israel´s head in a noose. This from a country whose radicalize culture produced Osama bin Laden and the bulk of the 9-11 hijackers. In the time since the initial offer of "full diplomatic relations" with the Jewish state, the plan has been casually amended to include only "full peace". The former wording would imply that Israel has the right to exist, and the Arab world just won´t have that.

As ever, the official anti-Semitic rhetoric within Saudi Arabia hasn´t changed. In a March 10th article for the government newspaper Al-Riyadh, Dr. Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma wrote extensively on alleged Jewish vampirism:

"For this holiday, the Jewish people must obtain human blood so that their clerics can prepare the holiday pastries…the victim must be a mature adolescent who is, of course, a non-Jew… the blood of Christian and Muslim children under the age of 10 must be used"

The willingness of the Bush administration to countenance an offer from a government that promotes such views is stunning.

Members of this White House have gone further and equated the defensive moves of the Israelis to those of terrorists. Recent days have seen the dispatch, yet again, of U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni who, after his last failed mission, referred to Arafat as "an unreformed liar". Zinni also compared the Palestinian security service to the Mafia, whose members brag about the number of people they´ve killed.

In an even more puzzling development, the U.S. has not only supported but sponsored a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state. What has the Arafat government done to merit such a shift in their favor? If anything they have become even more transparent about their desire to kill as many Jewish civilians as possible, in any way possible. Chairman Arafat has called for "Holy Jihad", for "martyrdom", and for a million suicide bombers in Jerusalem.

Allied terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizballah have complied enthusiastically. In a vile twist to the already revolting tradition of terrorists filming themselves before their suicide missions, Hamas member Mohammed Farhat was joined by his mother. In a chilling display of the terror threat that Israel faces, and the radical culture that Arafat has nurtured, the woman said she would gladly sacrifice "100 sons" to destroy Israel. Farhat then made his mother proud by dispensing 6 grenades and emptying nine clips from his M16 before being shot dead. His March 7th attack on the Atzmona high school killed five students and wounded nearly 25 others.

Openly now, Yasser Arafat´s lieutenants have flaunted their involvement in attacks that have resulted in obscene Israeli bloodshed. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a part of the Fatah organization, has inflicted a staggering toll and has claimed credit for attacks on restaurants, synagogues and a child´s birthday party.

Insuring that Israel´s responses are as bloody as possible, terrorist groups use their own people as "human shields". Such organizations plan and launch attacks from within densely populated areas. Refugee camps, in particular, have become ideal bases for their operations. They provide not only virtual anonymity, but also many civilian corpses to parade publicly to an eager western media.

Some reject this claim as preposterous. But how difficult would this be for a culture that teaches the virtues of martyrdom to grade school children.

Even as the Bush administration leads the US in an effort to destroy the ideological allies of Hamas and Hizballah, they increasingly demand the capitulation of Israel. They are now in support of an initiative that would create concrete borders and official recognition for a government just as brutal as the Taliban, and a culture even more accommodating to terrorists. Once done, there will be no reason for the new nation of Arafat to conceal weapons transactions. And there will be little to prevent them from importing artillery, armor, and perhaps worse. Would they not be within their rights as a sovereign nation?

I´m not blind to the motives of the Bush White House. The need for support from Middle Eastern nations in the impending offensive against Iraq is playing a prominent role in their recent anti-Israeli diplomacy. But to what end?

After liberating the Afghani people from totalitarian bondage, we are leading the Palestinians deeper into it. What must be asked is whether our short-term strategic convenience is worth imperiling a fellow democracy, and worth creating another petty terrorist state?

To comment on this article or express your opinion directly to the author, you are invited to e-mail Lowell at lfpphillips@yahoo.com .