ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997 TAG: 9701020006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: HOLIDAY
COLUMN: Cal Thomas
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
THERE ARE two ways to look at what has come to be known as the Arab-Israeli conflict.
One is that the reason for the conflict is Israel's presence in the region and that only Israel's nonpresence will ``restore'' stability. The corollary to this view is that while Israel has a right to exist in some shape or form yet to be determined (mostly by outsiders), it must give up ``occupied'' territory it holds. By relinquishing this land, Israel's adversaries will be appeased and no longer wish the Jewish people or their state harm.
The other way is that no matter what Israel does, its enemies will remain its enemies, and they will not be satisfied until the sovereign nation is dissolved and every Jew, living and dead, is driven from the land.
Comments recently by President Clinton protesting additional settlements on the West Bank and a letter signed by former secretaries of state James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger, Cyrus Vance and five other high-level officials (but not by Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and Alexander Haig) undercut Israel's negotiating position and encourage those who prefer terror to bargaining.
Even when buses are bombed and innocent civilians killed, Israel is blamed by most of the world and the press. Arab and Palestinian terror, while sometimes condemned in written statements, is always excused in the context of a people deprived of their ``legitimate rights.'' When stories in the Arab press incite terrorists to violence, they are ignored or explained away.
How seriously should one take the other side's negotiating position when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is compared to Hitler in the Arab press? In an Oct. 27 commentary in Al Akhbar, part of the Egyptian establishment press, Mustafa Amin said: ``He [Netanyahu] wants to threaten us with war, as though Hitler has been resurrected; this man must be eliminated, because he has only read the first pages of Hitler's history and not the last page ....''
This commentary appeared in the Egyptian opposition publication, Al-Wafd, by Mohammed Al-Haywan: ``It appears Israel is more low and barbaric than Hitler, and she carries out in practice all the things for which she blames Hitler. She has spread lies against Hitler, and foisted them on the world, and she continues to make demands to the world because of what Hitler did, or what she claims he did. This, while a large number of historians emphasize that all accusations attributed to Hitler were fabricated and he did not spill Jewish blood as the Jews assert.''
There are many more examples.
Under the terms of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian leadership is obligated to refrain from incitement to violence against Israel. In public statements and printed ones, various Palestinian officials have said things that no fair-minded person could interpret as anything but inciting. On Sept. 24, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat said of Palestinian security forces in Gaza, as quoted in the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv: ``They will fight for Allah, and they will kill and be killed, and this is a solemn oath .... Our blood is cheap compared with the cause which has brought us together and which at moments separated us, but shortly we will meet again in heaven .... Palestine is our land and Jerusalem is our capital.''
Are these pronouncements of serious negotiators who want to live in peace with the nation of Israel? Rather, they are the statements of people who will do anything to achieve their ultimate goal: the elimination of the Jewish state and the Jewish people from the land. President Clinton has been criticizing the wrong man and the former secretaries of state have been writing in support of the wrong side.
- Los Angeles Times Syndicate
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