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With allies like these...Rendezvous With Destiny
In light of such education, it should not be shocking that during last month's U.S.-Iraq showdown, Palestinian students marched through West Bank, burning Israeli flags and chanting "beloved Saddam, destroy Tel Aviv" and "powerful Saddam, strike with chemical weapons." According to the Palestinians' own polls, 77 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza support Saddam attacking Israel with missiles if America attacks Iraq. Events such as these make it clear that Arafat is acting in direct contradiction to his Sept. 9, 1993 promise to remove from the Covenant of the Palestine Liberation Organization the articles denying Israel's right to exist. In the Oslo Accords and in a number of later agreements, the Palestinian Authority agreed to take all measures necessary to prevent violence--or the incitement of violence--against Israel. Shows such as The Children's Club show how empty these promises were. More shocking, however, than the Palestinians' blatant disregard for the Oslo Accords, is the most recent U.S. response. Rather than condemn Palestinians for such obvious violations, Secretary of State Madeline Albright is busy rebuking Israel. Apparently she is upset because Benjamin Netanyahu will not cooperate with her attempts to undermine Israel's security. Her spokesman, Jaime Rubin, made the Secretary's disgust clear last Monday after Israel rejected an American plan to increase Palestinian control of the West Bank. The Netanyahu government insists that before it will transfer any more land, the Palestinians must fulfill the promises they made at Oslo to end their war of hatred and terror against Israel. This is hardly a noxious goal. However, to Albright and President Bill Clinton, LAW '73, it prevents what they want most. Albright craves headlines announcing that she has broken the stalemate in the Middle East. Clinton, so concerned with his legacy, wants to be known as the President who brought lasting peace to the Middle East. As a result, the administration is now openly pursuing policies that undermine Israel's security. When Israel claims that Arafat's behavior makes it unwise to give back more land, the Administration responds not with understanding, but with outrage. Not since the Suez Crisis of 1956 has a U.S. administration been in such open, public conflict with Israel. Last September, Albright condemned Israel for continuing the construction of 300 homes to accomodate population growth in a part of Jerusalem where many Jews already lived. Israel's action was perfectly legal under the Oslo Accords, yet Albright denounced the construction, calling for an end to "unilateral actions" by Israel. During the same period, unilateral actions by the Palestinians included killing dozens of Israeli civilians in a series of suicide bombings and murdering Arabs who sold land to Jews.. Shortly after Netanyahu's 1996 election, Clinton, safe in his well fortified bunker on Pennsylvania Avenue, exhorted the Israeli government to take "risks for peace." How easy it is for the leader of a nation surrounded by Canada, Mexico, and two oceans to make such a request of a nation that, in its 50 year history, has not known one second of true peace. The Netanyahu government has the right and responsibility to keep following the original guidelines that it set out as necessary for Israel's safety: the Golan Heights, out of which Israeli civilians were repeatedly shelled by Syrian tanks in 1973, should not be returned to the aggressor; Jerusalem should forever remain Israel's undivided capital; there should be no Palestinian state or other foreign sovereignty west of the Jordan River; and Israel has the right to act against terrorism everywhere. It has been 50 years since Israel became the first real democracy in the Middle East. The world still awaits the first Arab democracy in the history of Arab civilization. While we are waiting, Clinton, Albright, and the rest of the world would do well to remember Golda Meir's admonition: Jews are used to collective eulogies, but Israel will not die so that the world will speak well of it.
Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
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"When I wander into the entrance of Jerusalem, I
will turn into a suicide-warrior in battledress! In battledress!" These were the words of a seven-year-old Palestinian girl, broadcast on The Children's Club, a television show appearing on the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, a channel under the direct control of Yassir Arafat.
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