Posted on 06/28/2002 10:10:08 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
I had a nightmare.
I dreamed President Bush gave a speech and called for new leadership of al-Qaida.
He told the terrorists all they had to do to placate the United States was pick a new leader – anyone other than Osama bin Laden. All would be forgiven if the organization just cleaned up its act and found some new faces to represent it.
Thank goodness, I woke up.
But, sadly, the nightmare continues for Israel and the international war on terrorism Bush himself proclaimed. Because this is precisely what Bush has done with another group of terrorist murderers in the Middle East. He has told the Palestinian Authority all it needs to do to get support from the U.S. for statehood is to replace Yasser Arafat as leader.
Like it or not, there is no moral distinction between bin Laden and Arafat. Arafat's career in terrorism is longer – some 40 years longer. He has no redeeming characteristics – none. He has killed Jewish men, women and children. He has killed Christian men, women and children. He has killed Muslim men, women and children. And he has killed Americans – about 100 including U.S. diplomats, wheelchair-bound men and helpless and innocent women and children.
Bin Laden's career in terrorism is shorter and perhaps more dramatic. But he learned most of what he knows from Arafat, the modern-day inventor of Arab terrorism.
So, why does Bush make a moral distinction between them? Why does he make a moral distinction between the two organizations founded by these terrorists? And why does he do this even as the terrorism campaign by Arafat is at full tilt?
It's unthinkable. It's unconscionable. It's cowardly. It's unbelievably bad policy. It's rewarding terror – something the U.S. has always claimed it would never do.
Why does President Bush believe the Arab-Israeli conflict has anything to do with a Palestinian state or real estate?
In 1948, when Israel was created, the Arabs turned down the idea of an Arab Palestinian state – something that has never existed in human history. For the next 20 years, there was no talk by the Arabs about a Palestinian state. Only when Israel captured Arab lands from Egypt and Jordan in 1967, did the demands for a Palestinian state begin. Suddenly, a group of Arabs discovered a new national identity.
Nonsense. There will be no placating Arafat or other successor terrorist leaders with land. The only land that will appease them is the entire land mass of Israel.
That land mass, by the way, is about the size of the state of New Jersey. I want you to imagine that 49 of the United States are at war with New Jersey. Their demand? New Jersey has too much land. The state needs to divide it up and create a new state.
Would anyone take such a demand seriously?
New Jersey is too big in comparison with the rest of the United States? That's what we are asked to believe by the Arabs. The Arabs control land some 100 times bigger than Israel. They have 22 states of their own – all varying degrees of dictatorships. Only Israel in the region is a free country. But, the Arabs say, it's too big. The Arabs, with land totaling 100 times the size of Israel, need more land for Arabs.
It's ridiculous. Yet President Bush buys it.
What President Bush needs to realize is he is getting bum advice from Secretary of State Colin Powell and the entire State Department. America's one reliable and meaningful ally in the global war against Islamism is Israel. It's a front-line state. It maintains a powerful military force and awesome intelligence capabilities. It's time to stop backing our friends into a corner.
Arafat goes to the same terrorist conventions as bin Laden. His allies are the same – Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad. These are the groups Arafat asked to be part of his new cabinet when the Palestinian state is created. Nothing will change if and when Arafat goes unless the United States takes a zero-tolerance policy on terrorism.
That's what President Bush promised after Sept. 11 – and that's the promise to which the American people should hold him.
We wouldn't negotiate with al-Qaida if it dumped bin Laden. We wouldn't let al-Qaida off the hook. And we sure wouldn't give al-Qaida a state. We must not ask our allies to do something we ourselves would never do.
Simply untrue. He told them they need leaders "untainted by terrorism", which excludes all ot the current PA, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, etc.
Please let's not go around yapping about how there is no Palestine and has never been one. It's irrelevant. These people say there is a Palestine, and that they're living there. The only way to disabuse them of the thought would be to move them someplace else. That will not happen. So by default, yes, there is a Palestine.
And if Palestine exists, then the next problem is to ensure it's not going to start a war. This may not be possible, but it's incumbent upon civilized people to try to make it happen. Which is what Bush is doing.
Farah's the one who's got to face reality on this issue.
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