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'Mr. Arafat, Renounce This Map'

(Washington, D.C.): In 1987, a President of the United States confronted a great evil and found a simple, yet powerful, way to call symbolically for its undoing. Ronald Reagan -- over the adamant and determined objections of his experts in the State Department -- used the backdrop of Cold War Berlin's barricaded Brandenburg Gate to call on the then-leader of the Soviet Union to put an end to the "Evil Empire." As he put it on that occasion, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." The rest, as they say, is history.

Precondition to Peace

Today, President Bush has an opportunity to sound a similar clarion call as he confronts an evil to which he is no less passionately opposed than was Mr. Reagan to Communist totalitarianism: the determination of many in the Arab world to pursue the complete destruction of the State of Israel.

Over the next few days, Mr. Bush may order his Vice President, Dick Cheney, to return to the Middle East, in the hope of giving a fresh impetus to efforts to achieve a genuine peace between the Jewish State and her foes. If so, it will be on the basis of evidence not discernable at this writing indicating that Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasser Arafat has, at last, taken steps to exercise control over terrorists operating from areas for which he is responsible. And it will be with an eye toward the Arab League summit scheduled to convene in Beirut on Wednesday and Thursday, where participants are expected to discuss a "vision of peace" being touted by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah.

The Saudi "plan" reportedly would offer Israel full normalization of relations with the Arabs if the Jewish State will relinquish all the territory on the West Bank and Gaza Strip seized in the course of its defensive operations in the 1967 Six-Day War. Arafat has signaled his support for this formulation, as have a number of other Arab leaders. Today's State Department experts think a majority of the Arab League states might endorse this initiative, creating a new basis for a permanent, regional settlement of this long-festering conflict. Some even hope that, in this fashion, the League may become, if not actually favorably disposed towards, than less stridently opposed to America's #1 Mideast priority: toppling Saddam Hussein.

Reality Check

Unfortunately, there is reason to believe that the Arabs are no more serious about making a genuine peace with Israel at this juncture than they have been in the past. To the contrary, many in the Arab world and among the Palestinians in particular clearly believe that the time is ripe to "liberate" not only the disputed territories captured by the Israelis in 1967, but all of the land "occupied" by the Jews -- including all pre-1967 Israel. They sense that, as in Lebanon, their violence is paying off, driving the Jewish "crusaders" off disputed land and driving a wedge between Israel and her most important ally, the United States.

This was the goal of Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization when it was established in 1964 -- that is, before Israel had "occupied" any territory on the West Bank or Gaza. And so it remains today. However, in the wake of the Arab armies' 1973 defeat the last time they tried to destroy Israel, the PLO decided that the ultimate objective would have to be achieved in stages. This approach was formally adopted in 1974 and became known as the "Plan of Phases": In the first phase, Israel would be compelled to relinquish territory that could be used subsequently to drive the Jews into the sea.

The unwavering commitment to this goal has long been reflected in a map of "Palestine" widely used by the Palestinians and other Arabs. In it, Palestine consists of not only all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but all of pre-1967 Israel, as well. Accordingly, there is no Israel at all on the maps used in Arafat's offices, on the uniforms of his para-military "police" or on the website of the Palestinian National Authority and its agencies.

Source: Palestinian National Authority

Most insidious, perhaps, is this map's repeated appearance in the textbooks with which the next generation of Palestinian schoolchildren are taught to think about their birthright -- and shaped in their expectations about a future homeland.

A half-hearted effort has lately been made to claim this map as a depiction of an historical nation known as Palestine. This is a fabrication. In his recently re-issued and authoritative work, Islam in History, Dr. Bernard Lewis -- one of the most eminent scholars of Mideast history -- makes clear that there has never been a Palestine with the boundaries shown on Arafat's map.

The Bottom Line

Under these circumstances, Israel is fully within its rights to resist appeals to surrender land its enemies have used in the past to try to destroy the Jewish State. Indeed, it would be the height of folly and possibly state-icidal to do otherwise. Neither Israelis nor Americans whose national interest is served by having a strong, secure and self-reliant democratic ally in the Middle East can responsibly ignore this reality.

Consequently, if President Bush wishes to play a constructive role at this difficult moment in the Mideast, he must insist that Israel's adversaries stop paying lip-service in English to their desire for peace while cultivating the intolerance and destructive propensities that endanger our ally and preclude it from safely considering further territorial or other concessions. A good place to start would be by issuing a call much as Ronald Reagan did a generation ago: "Mr. Arafat: Renounce this map" -- and ensure that neither the Palestinian Authority nor its friends any longer use such representations to describe an end-game for the so-called "peace process" with which Israel literally cannot live.

^*See the Center for Security Policy's Security Forum entitled: What is Wrong with Arafat's Picture? (No. 02-F 14, 07 March 2002).

Well, with the help of the 100 corrupt and cowardly cullions, clinton
walked. The senators' justification for their acquittal votes requires
the suspension of rational thought (and, in the curious case of Arlen
Specter, national jurisdiction).

--Musings: Senatorial Courtesy Perverted, Mia T

THE OTHER NIXON

by Mia T

Hypocrisy abounds in this Age of clinton, a Postmodern Oz rife with constitutional deconstruction and semantic subversion, a virtual surreality polymarked by presidential alleles peccantly misplaced or, in the case of Jefferson, posthumously misappropriated.

Shameless pharisees in stark relief crowd the Capitol frieze:

Baucus, Biden, Bingaman, Breaux, Bryan, Byrd, Cohen, Conrad, Daschle, Dodd, Gore, Graham, Harkin, Hollings, Inouye, Kennedy, Kerrey, Kerry, Kohl, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Mikulski, Moynihan, Reid, Robb, Rockefeller, Sarbanes, Schumer.

These are the 28 sitting Democratic senators, the current Vice President and Secretary of Defense -- clinton defenders all -- who, in 1989, voted to oust U.S. District Judge Walter Nixon for making "false or misleading statements to a grand jury."

In 1989 each and every one of these men insisted that perjury was an impeachable offense.
(What a difference a decade and a decadent Democrat make.)

Senator Herb Kohl (November 7, 1989):
"But Judge Nixon took an oath to tell the truth and the whole truth. As a grand jury witness, it was not for him to decide what would be material. That was for the grand jury to decide. Of all people, Federal Judge Walter Nixon certainly knew this.

"So I am going to vote 'guilty' on articles one and two. Judge Nixon lied to the grand jury. He misled the grand jury. These acts are indisputably criminal and warrant impeachment."

Senator Tom Daschle (November 3, 1989):
"This morning we impeached a judge from Mississippi for failing to tell the truth. Those decisions are always very difficult and certainly, in this case, it came after a great deal of concern and thoughtful analysis of the facts."

Congressman Charles Schumer (May 10, 1989):
"Perjury, of course, is a very difficult, difficult thing to decide; but as we looked and examined all of the records and in fact found many things that were not in the record it became very clear to us that this impeachment was meritorious."

Senator Carl Levin (November 3, 1989):
"The record amply supports the finding in the criminal trial that Judge Nixon's statements to the grand jury were false and misleading and constituted perjury. Those are the statements cited in articles I and II, and it is on those articles that I vote to convict Judge Nixon and remove him from office."

* * * * *

"The hypocrite's crime is that he bears false witness against himself," observed the philosopher Hannah Arendt. "What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core."

If hypocrisy is the vice of vices, then perjury is the crime of crimes, for
perjury provides the necessary cover for all other crimes.

David Lowenthal, professor emeritus of political science at Boston College makes the novel and compelling argument that perjury is "bribery consummate, using false words instead of money or other things of value to pervert the course of justice" and, thus, perjury is a constitutionally enumerated high crime.

The Democrats' defense of clinton's perjury -- and their own hypocrisy -- is
three-pronged.

ONE:

clinton's perjuries were "just about sex" and therefore "do not rise to the level of an impeachable offense."

This argument is spurious. The courts make no distinction between perjuries. Perjury is perjury. Perjury attacks the very essence of democracy. Perjury is bribery consummate.

Moreover, (the clinton spinners notwithstanding), clinton's perjury was not "just about sex." clinton's perjury was about clinton denying a citizen justice by lying in a civil rights-sexual harassment case about his sexual history with subordinates.

TWO:

Presidents and judges are held to different standards under the Constitution.

Because the Constitution stipulates that federal judges, who are appointed for life, "shall hold their offices during good behavior,'' and because there is no similar language concerning the popularly elected, term-limited president, it must have been perfectly agreeable to the Framers, so the (implicit) argument goes, to have a perjurious, justice-obstructing reprobate as president.

clinton's defenders ignore Federalist No. 57, and Hillary Rodham's constitutional treatise on impeachable acts -- written in 1974 when she wanted to impeach a president; both mention "bad conduct" as grounds for impeachment.

"Impeachment," wrote Rodham, "did not have to be for criminal offenses -- but only for a 'course of conduct' that suggested an abuse of power or a disregard for the office of the President of the United States...A person's 'course of conduct' while not particularly criminal could be of such a nature that it destroys trust, discourages allegiance, and demands action by the Congress...The office of the President is such that it calls for a higher level of conduct than the average citizen in the United States."

Hamilton (or Madison) discussed the importance of wisdom and virtue in Federalist 57. "The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust."

(Contrast this with clinton, who recklessly, reflexively and feloniously subordinates the common good to his personal appetites.)

Because the Framers did not anticipate the demagogic efficiency of the electronic bully pulpit, they ruled out the possibility of an MTV mis-leader (and impeachment-thwarter!) like clinton. In Federalist No. 64, John Jay said: "There is reason to presume" the president would fall only to those "who have become the most distinguished by their abilities and virtue." He
imagined that the electorate would not "be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle."

(If the clinton debacle teaches us anything, it is this: If we are to retain our democracy in this age of the electronic demagogue, we must recalibrate the constitutional balance of power.)

THREE:

The president can be prosecuted for his alleged felonies after he leaves office.
(Nota bene ROBERT RAY.)

This clinton-created censure contrivance -- borne out of what I have come to call the "Lieberman Paradigm" (clinton is an unfit president; therefore clinton must remain president) -- is nothing less than a postmodern deconstruction in which the Oval Office would serve for two years as a holding cell for the perjurer-obstructor.

Such indecorous, dual-purpose architectonics not only threatens the delicate
constitutional framework -- it disturbs the cultural aesthetic. The senators must, therefore, roundly reject this elliptic scheme.
In this postmodern Age of clinton, we may, from time to time, selectively stomach corruption. But we must never abide ugliness. Never.

Thanks to TomGuy for the above.

Still wondering if the only way to honorably "solve" the Arab-Israeli conflict is to use "ethnic cleansing" (by which I mean the polite, but forceful relocation of all 3 million Palis outside of Eretz Yisrael -- which is not "genocide" which is how some on the Left use it).

I think this is justified, even required, by the almost 10 years of official "judeo-nazi" indoctrination by the PA of the Pali masses. The current wave of suicide bombers is unprecedented, and is the direct (and obviously planned) result of brainwashing that started with Pali children as young as 1st and 2nd grade. What unspeakable, vomitous horror.

And to the extent that this Pali policy was conducted, funded, supported, promoted, and otherwise enabled by their Arab bretheren (notably Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia) then it is concomittant upon these countries to pay for their sins by taking in the Palis.

Nothing less than the equivalent of an "Allied invasion of Nazi Germany" will suffice to rid the world of this monstrosity. Eject all Palis, round up their leaders (including "clerics" and "teachers"), put them on trial for Crimes against Humanity, and then hang them in public.

There is NO POSSIBILITY of a negotiated settlement within the lifetime of these people, not when the PA has been preparing its people, not for peace, but for visceral hate and unrelenting war.