Posted on 04/09/2002 10:07:38 AM PDT by Clive
According to Jean Chretien, Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorism, save for employing any methods that might actually work.
Nor, apparently, can Israel employ the methods Canada endorsed when it sent our soldiers into Afghanistan to root out the terrorist infrastructure that aided and abetted Osama bin Laden in his Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S.
Tragically, hundreds if not thousands of innocent Afghani civilians have been killed in that U.S.-led (and Canadian-supported) effort, just as many innocent Palestinians are dying now as a result of Israel's efforts to root out terrorist infrastructure in its own backyard.
But under the Chretien doctrine, while rooting out terrorists in Afghanistan over an act that occurred thousands of miles away in the U.S. on Sept. 11 is justified, rooting out terrorism carried out in your own country that occurred just days before and was planned and financed next door, is not.
Chretien's bizarre logic aside (and heaven knows, he's not alone), the real issue is what will happen when Israel's military operations in the West Bank and Gaza end as they inevitably will now that Israel's main ally, the United States, is pressuring Israel to withdraw.
As columnist George Jonas has observed , the conventional wisdom of countries like Canada is that Israel must trade land for peace, while the reality is there has never been any reason to believe Israel will ever get peace for land.
We certainly know that in order to satisfy the terrorists, the only land Israel could possibly trade for peace would be Israel itself, something terrorist groups like Hamas make absolutely no bones about.
On the other hand, political leaders like Chretien constantly assure us there are moderate Arabs and Arab states prepared to negotiate a Palestinian state that would live peacefully beside Israel. Really? What proof does he have of this?
He certainly won't find any evidence for that view dating back to Israel's creation in 1947, when the UN General Assembly agreed to divide the region into an Arab state and a Jewish one while putting Jerusalem under international control, a proposal Jews accepted and Arabs rejected.
That launched the first of four wars - the initial one begun the day after Israel officially became a nation in 1948 - in which the combined Arab armies of the Mideast repeatedly tried and failed to drive Israel into the sea.
After the third war, in 1967, Israel offered to trade land it had won fending off Arab aggression (the inaccurately and pejoratively named "Occupied Territories") in exchange for peace. The response from the Arab world was the famous "three nos" - no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.
Two years ago, the Labour government of Ehud Barak (no Ariel Sharon, he) was ready to give the Palestinians 95% of the Occupied Territories, part of East Jerusalem and stable borders in exchange for peace, an unprecedented offer that was flatly rejected by Yasser Arafat.
Even a cursory review of recent Mideast history shows that each time there is serious talk of peace negotiations, Palestinian terrorism escalates, hardly surprising given that, as the terrorists make abundantly clear over and over again, they do not want peace with Israel. They want Israel.
Critics argue Israel has shown an unwillingness to pursue peace through the implementation of such polices as encouraging and financing Jewish settlement in the Territories.
In reality, the settlements represent a failed policy because they have become a huge financial and security burden to Israel while failing to deliver enhanced Israeli security.
But to argue they are an impediment to peace is just silly.
In reality, Israel did not have peace with the Arabs before there were any settlements in the Occupied Territories.
It did not have any peace with the Arabs before there were any Occupied Territories.
And Israel would not have had any Occupied Territories to begin with had not the surrounding Arab nations repeatedly tried to drive it into the sea, starting one day after it was born.
That, by the way, is why Israelis are skeptical about the latest offer from the Arab League to recognize Israel in exchange for the Territories, East Jerusalem and dealing with the issue of the Palestinian refugees to the Arab League's satisfaction.
Unlike Chretien, they know their history.
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