THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 28, 1995 TAG: 9501270028
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
Good fences make good neighbors - in poet Robert Frost's world maybe, but not in the Middle East. There, they are just another excuse for terrorism - and another reason for continuing thousands of years of conflict.
Yet so strong has been Israelis' reaction to the suicide bombing last week for which Islamic Jihad claims responsibility - the sixth terrorist attack on Israelis in 16 months - that the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin will study a fence as a security measure to separate Israelis and Palestinians.
It's a poor idea. Walling Palestinians out will also wall out laborers Israeli businesses need and, more important, those Israelis who have settled in the West Bank and Gaza. The settlers are not meek, not toward Palestinians who hate their being there and not toward their own Israeli government, which straddles that troublesome geopolitical fence marking where Israel begins and ends.
Mr. Rabin knows that now as ever, expanded Jewish settlement in the territories gives Palestinian extremists their tool for recruiting terrorists. Settlement also gives Palestinian negotiators of peace the difficult task of demonstrating that negotiation will produce for Palestinians the land, autonomy and prosperity that terrorism cannot.
Settlement complicates relations as well with the United States. Two years ago Mr. Rabin promised Washington to curb further settlement in the territories in exchange for $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees. The subject of Israeli settlements and the barriers they pose to Israeli-Palestinian peace is one the Clinton administration should get back to.
But the subject on the front burner is the terrorism that kills Israelis, and peace. President Clinton was right to order measures to reduce the flow of funds from this country to 12 foreign organizations and 18 individuals suspected of terrorism.
Most of those groups are Arab extremists; two groups are Jewish extremist organizations. U.S. banks are to freeze their accounts in this country. U.S. authorities will try to prevent their access to donations to charities abroad. U.S. groups that raise charitable contributions here to meet Palestinians' legitimate needs in the territories aren't affected.
Identifying and stopping financial support for terrorism isn't easy. But the question is not why the United States will now try harder. The question is why it didn't try before. by CNB