“U.S. Should not Impede Israel’s Justifiable War”
We wracked our brains trying to find a succinct way to make the essential historical and public policy points. To explain why there is no moral equivalence between Israel and its enemies and why the United States should NOT consider itself a broker between parties with equal claim on our attention and our sympathy. After hours and hours, we found that the following excerpts from an editorial in the Mobile (AL) Register (3/30) did it better than we could have.
We wracked our brains trying to find a succinct way to make the essential historical and public policy points. To explain why there is no moral equivalence between Israel and its enemies and why the United States should NOT consider itself a broker between parties with equal claim on our attention and our sympathy. After hours and hours, we found that the following excerpts from an editorial in the Mobile (AL) Register (3/30) did it better than we could have.
“The United States should step aside and let Israel drive out of its territory, by force of arms, the entire Palestinian Authority. Moreover, the United States should make known that it might use its own arms to defend any sovereign state, including Israel, which is attacked by any other. The message to the Arab states should be clear: This isn’t their fight… the fate of the disputed territory of the West Bank and Gaza, all of which has belonged to Israel since Israel repelled Arab assaults in 1967 and 1973, is Israel’s alone to determine.
“Those areas never — repeat, never — have been a separate, sovereign Palestinian state. Continuing Arab terrorism from those lands has shown that there is no chance, in the reasonably foreseeable future, for such a state to exist without posing a mortal threat to Israel.
“In effect, that was the message from the terrorist organization Hamas, which quickly claimed ‘credit’ for the Passover massacre. Statements issued by Hamas made clear that its goal is to derail even the “peace” proposal endorsed by the Arab League’s summit meeting this week. If even an Arab-designed pseudo-peace is too lenient on Israel for Palestinian tastes, then no negotiated peace will work. If supporters of Hamas want war, therefore, then the Israelis ought to be allowed to give it to them.
“As in 1967 and 1973, the Israeli response should be swift and merciless. When it ends, not a smidgen of the Palestinian Authority ought to be left intact.
“It’s worth remembering that the Palestinian Authority was created out of thin air less than a decade ago. In effect, it was sheer magnanimity on Israel’s part to allow Yasser Arafat’s organization any autonomy at all on what remained Israeli territory — territory Israel took not through aggression, but in the course of self-defense.
“The creation of a Palestinian Authority was part of a grand new bargain: land for peace. But with each new grant of territory from Israel, the Palestinians have only fomented more violence.
“Just as the United States would never, could never, fail to respond to terrorist attacks against its own civilians, the Bush administration should not ask Israel to turn the other cheek when evil strikes.
“The facts are indisputable: Even as Yasser Arafat talks of peace, he builds an alliance with radical Iranians to smuggle a high tonnage of weapons for intended use against Israel. He and his Palestinian Authority are nothing more than bloodthirsty tyrants, and they deserve no mercy.
“With Israel’s assault Friday against Mr. Arafat’s compound, the Palestinian Authority may justly be facing its end. The United States should not raise a single peep in protest.”
Consider thanking them: PO Box 2488, Mobile, AL 36652 Tel: (251) 433-5020 Fax: (251) 434-8662.