For the past month, the media and Arabist functionaries at organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations and the Jewish Peace Lobby, have shouted about Saudi security guarantees, over the din of the "Palestinians'" bombs. Let's look at the "Palestinians'" efforts at making peace.
In the 1993 Oslo accords, Yasser Arafat agreed to renounce violence, to limit his police force to 20,000, and not to raise an army. Instead, he built up a semi-official army (aka "security forces") of 50,000 armed -- many heavily armed -- men. Plus, his Fatah organization has over 10,000 armed storm troopers in its Tanzim militia and Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade. (And that's not even counting his allies in Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad.) Arafat planned, and has for 18 months led, a guerilla war against the Jews of Israel. Arafat claims that he has nothing to do with the terror attacks which now number several per day. If he were telling the truth, he would be declaring himself irrelevant. You do not negotiate a peace treaty with someone who is not in a position to guarantee peace. Besides, Ehud Barak offered Arafat the moon in the 2000 peace talks; Arafat's response was a guerilla war.
Arafat has also denied that it was he who in January had purchased the 50 tons of rockets, mortars and anti-tank missiles that Fatah member and Palestinian Authority official Omar Akawi had picked up from Iran, sought to smuggle into Israel, and that the Israelis confiscated off the ship, the Karine A. Karine A skipper Omar Akawi said that he was working for Arafat; Arafat has denied that Akawi was working for him. Has Yasser Arafat ever lied to us before?
In recent weeks, the "Palestinian" war effort has been dominated by the Tanzim militia and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, both of which belong to Arafat's Fatah organization. It's Arafat's war; it always was.
On the Charlie Rose Show three weeks ago, former Sen. George Mitchell argued that attempting to have a cessation of violence, does not mean that all violence in fact ends. While paying lip-service to Israeli concerns, Mitchell observed that, "given that some groups have taken things into their own hands, and the revenge factor," it would be unrealistic to expect a total cessation of violence. I suppose Mitchell was responding to Hezbollah's rejection of the Saudi non-plan, just before Mitchell's appearance on the show. Thus, the Jews of Israel would be giving land and power to the "Palestinians," and getting nothing in return. Ultimately, George Mitchell is also demanding suicide of Israel's Jews, albeit in a nice way.
But then, Mitchell, who still fears for the "peace process," believes that giving billions in aid to a new Palestine would result in happy Palestinians being too busy working to fight. News flash, Senator: We've already given billions to the "Palestinians." What Arafat & Co. don't send to their Swiss bank accounts, they spend on machine guns, rockets, mortars and anti-tank missiles.
Memo to Sen. Mitchell: It's NOT the economy, stupid!
Many Western journalists have suggested that we need to develop more "moderate" Palestinian peace partners who can succeed Arafat, and negotiate a true peace with them. Such observers are building castles in the air. The "Palestinian" Arabs do not want peace; they want a steady diet of carnage. These people train their four-year-old sons, using assault rifles, to kill Jews, and teach them to die as suicide bombers. Compared to "Palestinian" parents, parents in Nazi Germany were permissive, touchy-feely types.
Arafat's popularity sagged for a time, because the violence ebbed. Now, with "Palestinian" violence exploding, so too is Arafat's popularity.
It is not only socialist/Arabist journalists who idealize the "Palestinians." Even the usually tough-minded William Safire dreams that if only we could get better Palestinian leaders, everything could be made right: "Under realistic leadership, Palestine will become a contiguous state unburdened by military expenses and its people the pride of the Arab world. The timing depends not on American brokerage, but on when Palestinians defeat their enemies within."
Safire's character reference notwithstanding, the "Palestinians" would assassinate any leader they suspected of reasonable, "realistic" tendencies.
Meanwhile, the Syrians are demanding the return of the strategically essential Golan Heights, without so much as the rhetorical fig leaf of "normalization." And the Saudis have accommodated them: They have re-written their offer, removing the one word, "normalization," that gave their demand for unconditional, Jewish surrender, a patina of reason in the eyes of the Western Ultra-Gullibles and Arabists.
Much of the world is tired of these Jews. Israel's critics at home and abroad say of Sharon, "He has no plan for peace!" On the March 14 edition of the Lehrer Report, Lee Cullum of the Dallas Morning News insisted, "Sharon has never had peace talks in mind." Cullum called for "a regime change ... down the road," but meant not Arafat's criminal/ terror organization, but Israel! I suppose she was thinking wistfully of how Bill Clinton essentially removed Bibi Netanyahu from office.
Of course, Sharon cannot make peace, because the Arabs will not have it. PLO leaders even brag, that they will wear down the Jews. I wish the Lee Cullums of the world were right, but unfortunately, Sharon DOES have eventual peace talks in mind.
To show how ludicrous the Ultra-Gullibles/Arabists' presentation of reality is, consider the March 18 New York Times story by Serge Schemann. The title alone, "Hopes Rise for a Mideast Truce, Despite Attacks," is priceless. Schemann reports that "a survey conducted by An Najah university in Nablus found that 87 percent of Palestinians surveyed were in favor of continuing terror attacks, 87.5 percent were in favor of 'liberating all of Palestine' and 64.5 percent opposed General Zinni's mission."
In the phrase, "Liberating all of Palestine," "Palestine" is a euphemism for Israel, and "liberating" means killing all of the Jews.
On the March 17 edition of Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume noted of the cease-fire hopes, "We've seen that movie before; we know how it turns out." Hume observed that Israel "needs to change the facts on the ground."
At first, I thought that with the intensified retaliations Ariel Sharon initiated on March 6, he might have made the phony talk of peace plans moot.
That night, CBS' Dan Rather claimed that Sharon had "declared war" on the "Palestinians." (The AP's Barry Schweid made the same claim; in fact, Sharon had NOT declared war.) CBS reporter David Hawkins paraphrased Sharon as saying, that, "Only after the Palestinians have been 'creamed,' will there be any peace negotiations." Hawkins quoted Palestinians as saying that "Nothing will stop the Intifada," and interviewed a PLO-sympathizing Israeli "military strategist," who attacked Sharon as "arrogant," and who insisted that Israel could not win against a "people opposing occupation."
Similarly, Secretary of State Colin Powell laced into Sharon, "If you declare war against the Palestinians and think you can solve the problem by seeing how many Palestinians can be killed — I don't know if that leads you anywhere." Powell also voiced concern about the "Palestinians'" problems getting to their jobs, adding that, "everybody is a second-class citizen where you cannot go out for an evening walk" because of fear of attack, according to Associated Press reporter Barry Schweid.
That's not a typo; the Secretary of State is worried about the "Palestinians'" vulnerability to attack. Powell added, “If you declare war on the Palestinians and think you can solve the problem by seeing how many Palestinians can be killed, I don´t know that leads us anywhere.”
Colin Powell sounds more like a social worker than a career soldier. In 1991, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he wasn't concerned about Iraqis' problems getting to their jobs, much less about where killing Iraqis would "lead us." He said, simply, "You cut them off, and you kill them!" Now, Powell apparently thinks you can be a "little bit pregnant," and that the "Palestinians" can wage war against Israel, while leading otherwise normal lives, and that the Israelis have no right to prosecute the war that is being waged against them.
If Powell's criticisms of the Israelis truly represent the Bush Administration, the President will be calling all American troops home from Afghanistan, freeing all the Guantanamo Bay detainees, and issuing a heartfelt apology to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, any moment now.
We must keep in mind, that Colin Powell works at the pleasure of the President. Either the Secretary of State was expressing George Bush's wishes, Bush and Powell are performing a good cop/bad cop routine, or there is a schism in the Administration on Israel policy. In any event, in response to pressure from our Arab "friends" (read: Hosni Mubarak), Bush has Gen. Anthony Zinni busy with yet another hopeless peace mission.
Ariel Sharon responded to Colin Powell's criticisms, according to the Times' Serge Schemann, that "Israel is only fighting back against the terrorist organization in the context of its right to self-defense. The one who initiated this war has the power to stop it, but he continues to prefer the war of terrorism." Schemann's report quoted only Israeli leaders and journalists critical of Sharon.
Many observers, left and right, and in Israel, the U.S., and Britain, think the President is only playing for time, to pacify the Arabs, until which time he will make a move to invade Iraq, and remove Saddam Hussein from power. Gavin Brown, of keepaheadnews.com, cites the London tabloid, The Mirror's, March 11 "headline, 'An American Warwolf in London,' alongside a photograph of Dick Cheney sporting fangs and yellow eyes. The paper leaves the reader in no doubt as to its views, reporting: 'Warmongering US Vice-President Dick Cheney was last night luring Tony Blair into invading Iraq.'"
Even if there is an Iraq Plan, that would only postpone the Arabs' demands for unconditional capitulation from the Jews of Israel.
The only possible upside of such a plan for the Israelis, is if the Arab world is distracted by an American attack on Iraq, giving Sharon a window of opportunity for his one civilized option: Rounding up all of the "Palestinians" and expelling them from Israel. The uncivilized alternative, is to kill all the "Palestinians," or eventually be killed by them. Unfortunately, I do not see Sharon moving in either direction, and the clock is ticking on his government.
You do not let your enemies win with terrorism and propaganda, what they lost on the battlefield. Let us recall commonsensical words on this issue: "In the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely ten miles wide at its narrowest point. The bulk of Israel's population lived within artillery range of hostile Arab armies." The speaker added, "I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again." That was on September 1, 1982. The speaker, addressing America, was President Ronald Reagan.