Posted on 06/19/2002 9:43:14 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
WASHINGTON--Whenever a massacre occurs in Israel, Palestinian spokesmen rush out to say: ``Yes, this is terrible, but this is what happens when you have a people with no hope for an end to the occupation.'' Apologists in the West invariably echo this exculpation/explanation.
Of all the mendacity that pollutes Middle Eastern discourse, this one is the worst. It assumes that the listener is not only stupid but amnestic. Two years ago at the Camp David summit, in the presence of the president of the United States, the Palestinians were offered an end to the occupation--a total end, a final end--by the prime minister of Israel. They said no. They said no because in return, they were asked to make peace.
Remember? The mantra thrown at the Israelis for decades was ``land for peace.'' It turns out Arafat wanted the land, but at Camp David, as always, he refused to make peace. The reason innocents are dying every day is not because of the occupation, but because the Palestinians believe they can get (as Hezbollah got in Lebanon) land (BEG ITAL)without(END ITAL) peace.
And why should they not believe it? The State Department wants to give them exactly that. The way out of the Middle East morass, Colin Powell has urged the president, is to give the Palestinians a ``light at the end of the tunnel" by giving them their own ``interim" or ``provisional'' Palestinian state--even as the massacres continue, like the blowing to bits of 26 Jerusalemites in two consecutive suicide bombings this week. Continues.
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