How Many Times Can You Kill a Corpse?

The Bush administration threw down the gauntlet at Yasser Arafat's feet yesterday during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In fact, before the press conference even began, Arafat was already all over the airwaves, denouncing it to all who would listen.

Two weeks ago, Arafat began making overtures to Israel's deadliest enemies, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Both are sworn to the total destruction of the state of Israel, the confiscation of all Israeli land, the banishment of the Jews from Israel as completely as they now seek their banishment from the West Bank and Gaza, and Israel's replacement with an Arab state, ethnically cleansed of Jews.

Arafat offered both organizations a power-sharing plan in Gaza following an Israeli pullout. The first onramp to the Roadmap for peace was supposed to be a "cessation of all violence" by the Palestinians, followed by the dismantling and destruction of all Palestinian terrorist organizations. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are among the most prolific terrorist groups in the Middle East. In complete contradiction to these requirements, Arafat is now proposing a partnership with them.

A reality check is in order here before we go further. Arafat is also the head of the same Palestinian Authority that is allegedly engaged in peace negotiations with Israel.

That said, Arafat, the head of the proposed Hamas-Islamic Jihad Triumvirate, reacted to the press conference by threatening – now get this – "the complete end of the peace process." He really said that. Honest.

Arafat didn't say which "peace process" of which we are now at the "complete end." Is it the Oslo Agreement that ended with Arafat rejecting statehood in favor of intifada? Or the Roadmap to peace that remains folded on Arafat's dashboard while Israeli civilians die by the busload from terrorist attacks?

President Bush took note of what he called "new realities" on the ground that predicated the new U.S. position in what he called "one of the world's oldest conflicts," (although he didn't cite the one that has gone on for 4,000 years between the descendants of Abraham's two sons – Ishmael (Arabs) and Isaac (Israelites).

At long last, one of those new, unspoken realities is the tacit recognition that peace with Arafat's Palestinian Authority is impossible. And also that peace with the PA through any prime minister chosen by Arafat is equally impossible. Arafat's PA-Hamas-Islamic Jihad Triumvirate was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Another of those "realities on the ground" are the large Israeli settlements that exist just outside the Green Line in the West Bank. President Bush endorsed Sharon's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip. He also acknowledged that some major Israeli population centers on the edge of the West Bank now make it, "unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to pre-war borders."

In other words, Arafat had his chance for negotiated statehood, and that chance has been revoked. Asked outright if the new understanding recognized Israel's right to keep some settlements in the West Bank, Bush left that for some ambiguous, future "final negotiations."

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said in Ramallah as the press conference was going on that, "[Bush] is the first president who has legitimized the [Israeli] settlements in Palestinian territories." Qureia added: "We as Palestinians reject that. We cannot accept that. We reject it and we refuse it."

The Palestinian side has rejected and refused every peace overture extended them. They have broken every signed agreement, without exception, that has been signed between them and Israel since 1993.

Instead of making an effort at peace, Arafat spent most of the last decade spending the billions of dollars generously given him in aid to attack Israel. He spent no time or money setting up infrastructure for a Palestinian state. He built no economy and provided no jobs. The majority of Palestinians still depend upon work in Israel for survival.

So when Israel pulls out of Gaza, and walls out the Palestinian West Bank, Arafat and the Palestinians will have each other. There will be no hated Israelis to work for. They will only have each other.

Maybe then, the Palestinians will recognize that the architect of their misery is the old terrorist currently living in Ramallah.

You know, I've always wondered why the Palestinian's good buddies who appear so concerned about establishing a "Palestinian State", i.e., Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt. Rather they are convinced this terrorist nesting place should be gouged out of tiny Israel. But, common sense apparently has no place here.

These pro-terrorist arab countries need to pony up the money and land to resettle their pro-terrorist buddies, the palis, since many palis already live in these countries. These arab countries need to put up or shut up.

2 posted on 04/15/2004 10:44:44 AM PDT by lilylangtree (Veni, Vidi, Vici)

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