Posted on 04/10/2002 11:04:10 PM PDT by andrew
HANNITY: If we prayed more, would that help stop the violence in the Middle East? Our good friend Pat Robertson--he'll be here. He'll answer that question tonight.
Also, is Yale University rewarding students arrested for drug crimes? Now if you've ever paid a dime in tuition, well, you're not going to believe this story.
Plus, how many visas has the government granted to visitors from the Middle East since September? That answer is coming up.
But, first, earlier this week, a good old-fashioned war protest broke out on the campus of none other than University of California at Berkeley. Now you can't make this stuff up, folks.
Joining us now from the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Sarah Eltantawi. And former New York Republican Congressman John Leboutillier is with us.
All right. Sarah, thanks for being here. Let's see...
SARAH ELTANTAWI, MUSLIM PUBLIC AFFAIRS COUNCIL: Thank you.
HANNITY: One, two, three, four, no more aid for Israel's war.
What would you do if your country--you're not at war with anybody and, on a daily basis, you are hit with suicide bombs. What would you do if you were the leader, prime minister, or president of that country? What would you want to do?
ELTANTAWI: Well, if that country was occupying three-million people, humiliating them, setting up checkpoints, and making their life into a hell, I would pull out of the occupied territories as soon as possible. I would pursue a political solution to the problem, and I would give these people a reason to live...
HANNITY: So, Sarah, what you...
ELTANTAWI: ... and I would stop treating them like animals.
HANNITY: Well--so what you're--so you're saying--you're
justifying or rationalizing, saying that Israel causes the suicide bombs?
ELTANTAWI: I'm saying that Israel in its occupation, which is completely illegal, which has been illegal for 35 years, creates a situation of desperation in which people feel that they have no reason to live.
HANNITY: So--they have no reason to live, so Israel--so to answer the question, just to be specific, Israel's responsible that people strap themselves with bombs, and they go there, and they blow up innocent women, innocent children?
ELTANTAWI: Well, you know, what Israel is responsible for is the fact that they have killed about five times as many...
HANNITY: You're not answering my...
ELTANTAWI: ... innocent women and children.
HANNITY: That's a nice spin--answer. I want a direct answer to this question. Israel...
ELTANTAWI: No. Of course...
HANNITY: Is Israel responsible...
ELTANTAWI: Well, you know, I'll say it again.
HANNITY: ... when people strap themselves with bombs and blow up
children?
ELTANTAWI: I said it once, and I'll say it again, which is that suicide bombings are condemnable, we--there's no way to justify suicide bombings, and I believe that for--that if Israel cared about its security, if the Israeli government was really serious about creating peace for its own people, it would pull out...
HANNITY: It would do what you say.
ELTANTAWI: ... of the occupied territories now.
HANNITY: All right. Let me--let me go to...
ELTANTAWI: Well, I'm not the only one saying that.
HANNITY: Hang on.
ELTANTAWI: The U.N. is in my company.
HANNITY: One at a time.
Congressman Leboutillier, is that what I just heard, a
rationalization for terror?
JOHN LEBOUTILLIER, FORMER NEW YORK CONGRESSMAN: Well, you know, what we're hearing--and if you were Rip Van Winkle or if you were on Mars for the last 60 years and came back to earth now...
HANNITY: Is Colmes going to be there?
LEBOUTILLIER: Well, maybe not.
HANNITY: All right.
LEBOUTILLIER: You would think--you would think that the Nazis
have come back because the language of the Palestinian leadership and people like our guest tonight, who are so brainwashed by what their leaders tell them to do, that they really are advocating the eradication of every Jew. They believe this. They teach...
ELTANTAWI: Where did you get that?
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: Is this--that--this is the position? Hold on, Sarah. Is
this the position of the Palestinian Authority, to get rid of all the Jews?
LEBOUTILLIER: Absolutely. Oh, there's no question. The official position of the so-called government the Palestinian Authority is not only not to recognize the State of Israel, but to call for the right of return, which means the killing of every Israeli.
COLMES: Didn't Yasser Arafat sign the Oslo accords?
LEBOUTILLIER: Yeah, but he hasn't honored any of them.
COLMES: And has Sharon?
LEBOUTILLIER: Yes.
COLMES: No, he has not.
LEBOUTILLIER: Oh, yes, he has.
COLMES: No, he has not. Sharon has consistently been in favor of
continuing settlements and escalating and moving further into the West Bank in violation of the Oslo accords.
LEBOUTILLIER: That has nothing to do with killing innocent people on busses, cars, disco...
COLMES: Innocent people have been killed on both sides.
LEBOUTILLIER: No, I--you know, I'm amazed at you. You are sticking up for crypto-Nazis. COLMES: No, I am not. No, I am not.
LEBOUTILLIER: Yes, you are.
COLMES: No one supports-you keep misrepresenting...
LEBOUTILLIER: OK. Your book should be ``Alan Colmes''--my book
was ``Harvard Hates America.'' Your book should be ``Colmes Hates Israel.''
COLMES: That absolutely untrue. I love Israel. I want Israel to be safe. I want them to be protected. I want them to live in peace, but it's not going to as long as Sharon keeps doing what he's doing. Don't misrepresent my position. I resent that, John. I love Israel, and I want it to survive. It's not certain to survive the way things are going now.
LEBOUTILLIER: It will only survive by killing the people who are killing their citizens. By sitting here and tolerating this nonsense that's put out--you sit here, and you sort of halfheartedly condemn suicide bombings, but you don't really. You're not agonized over it at all.
COLMES: Sarah, no matter how many times we say it...
LEBOUTILLIER: You're justifying it.
COLMES: No matter how many times we say it, that we condemn
suicide bombing, they will not accept that we believe that. Do you want to respond?
ELTANTAWI: Well, I mean, again, I told you before that I condemn suicide bombings. At this point, I am also concerned about the 200 or so Palestinian civilians that were brutally murdered by Sharon's thug army.
COLMES: All right. But... ELTANTAWI: And if you aren't concerned about that because you value certain lives over certain other lives, I believe that that is your problem...
COLMES: And you know what?
ELTANTAWI: ... and I believe that that is not the position...
COLMES: Sarah...
ELTANTAWI: ... of Americans.
LEBOUTILLIER: Sarah, let me ask you this. Why don't--why don't
you who are sitting here in this wonderful country take what you see, democracy, freedom, freedom of speech--take it back over there and stick it down Yasser Arafat's throat and make the Palestinian people become a democratic republic like we are and like Israel is?
ELTANTAWI: You know, I find that so incredibly racist, number one. And let me tell you...
LEBOUTILLIER: Oh, being democratic is racist?
ELTANTAWI: ... there's this tactic--I'll tell you there's this tactic that these extremist pro-Israel apologists always use, which is instead of talking about the actual political situation on the ground, instead of talking about what's actually happening to the Palestinian people, we're going to make this into an Arab thing, we're going to make this into this horde of people who don't understand democracy and are barely developed and don't understand freedom. Why don't you talk about the true situation on the ground?
COLMES: John, you basically have said that people--Palestinians want terror? You basically have said...
LEBOUTILLIER: No, I said that Palestinians...
(CROSSTALK)
ELTANTAWI: ... not represent my point of view. Do not represent
what I said. What I said is that the Palestinians...
LEBOUTILLIER: We've heard enough of what you said. We've heard enough of it.
ELTANTAWI: ... like every other human being...
LEBOUTILLIER: I hear it all the time, and I still...
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Sarah, let's--let's go to John.
What do you want to say? LEBOUTILLIER: Well, there are so many things I'd like to say. I
really do think the State of Israel is the closest state in ideals to what this country is founded upon. There are no other democracies in the Middle East. Those governments are--look at Saudi Arabia, awash in cash.
ELTANTAWI: Again, here we are...
HANNITY: Sarah, let him finish.
LEBOUTILLIER: Why isn't Saudi Arabia, with their billions of dollars, coming in and helping the Palestinian people, using the money to finance businesses. They're letting them live in squaller.
ELTANTAWI: What is this about?
HANNITY: Sarah, please. One at a time. Where is this Palestinian
land? You know, who had Gaza? You know, what part of the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt--they had this land, and there hasn't been--look at the way former King Hussein treated Palestinians in the 1970s.
Now--but the issue I want to get here--we have a guest, Sarah, in Washington, D.C., tonight, and when I ask her about suicide bombers, she starts rattling off the political disagreements, and if we can--this, to me, is a rationalization for terror. You are rationalizing murder.
ELTANTAWI: Actually, you rationalize--no, you rationalize Israeli murder and Israeli terror every minute of the day.
HANNITY: No, I do not.
ELTANTAWI: Yes, you do.
HANNITY: Well, you said to our audience here tonight...
ELTANTAWI: You refuse to comment on Palestinian civilians being slaughtered by the Israeli army. All you want to do is talk about Israeli casualties.
HANNITY: Ma'am--Ma'am, let me...
ELTANTAWI: Unfortunately...
HANNITY: Ma'am--Ma'am, with all due respect--I have a very short time here--this whole conflict got started because day after day...
ELTANTAWI: Look...
HANNITY: : Let me finish, please.
ELTANTAWI: ... they need to end the occupation...
HANNITY: Because...
ELTANTAWI: ... of the Palestinian territories.
HANNITY: So what you're saying is either end the occupation, give us what we want politically...
ELTANTAWI: That's right.
HANNITY: ... or expect more little...
ELTANTAWI: No. Give the Palestinians...
HANNITY: ... children and women to be blown up?
ELTANTAWI: .. what they deserve as human beings.
HANNITY: That's what you want. That's what you just said.
ELTANTAWI: Human beings--this is what international law says. This is what the international community says.
HANNITY: Ma'am, nobody--no international law supports...
ELTANTAWI: This is basic morality and human behavior. Palestinians...
HANNITY: ... Palestinian bombers killing children.
ELTANTAWI: Palestinians deserve freedom. They deserve their own state, and they will not stop resisting until the...
HANNITY: And if they don't get...
ELTANTAWI: ... Israeli occupation...
HANNITY: If they don't get what they want politically, this continues.
(CROSSTALK)
ELTANTAWI: ... our United States interest to help the Palestinians.
HANNITY: We're out of time. Good to see you. Thank you, John. Appreciate it.
LEBOUTILLIER: Thanks.
HANNITY: And coming right up, is the Mideast violence reaching
biblical proportions? We will talk to the Reverend Pat Robertson.
And later, why are students who get busted for drugs getting more money than if they were clean and sober?
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