Palestinian statehood: A reward for terror

Two weeks ago, Muslim terrorists fired two shoulder-launched Strella missiles at an Israeli civilian aircraft as it took off from an airport in Kenya, in an attempt to murder its 260 passengers.

If a Palestinian state is created, its western border will be just a few miles from Ben-Gurion Airport, and terrorists carrying shoulder-launched missiles will be able to aim at every plane taking off from or landing there. Despite such grave dangers, US President George Bush, who has said there must be an end to terrorist states, is now laying the groundwork for the creation of what will be a terrorist state.

The Middle East "Road Map" that the Bush administration is promoting proposes to create a "provisional" Palestinian state next year. This plan sends a wrong and dangerous message to the terrorists who are murdering innocent Israelis in buses and cafes. It tells them that their massacres will reap political dividends - that the more Jews they kill, the more fully the United States will seek to meet their demands.

Can the administration really believe that giving the Palestinians a sovereign state will create a civilized democracy? Sovereignty does not necessarily put an end to terrorism. In fact, it only strengthens the existing pro-terrorist culture. Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria are sovereign states; yet sovereignty has not transformed them into civilized democracies. A recent poll commissioned by the Zionist Organization of America and carried out by the Hanoch Smith Institute found 68% of Israeli Jews believe that "regardless of the size or strength of a Palestinian state, if one is established it will constitute a threat to the State of Israel." Only 9% believe that creating a Palestinian state would reduce the Arab states' threat.

LET'S LOOK at the Palestinian record. During the past 25 months, they have carried out thousands of terrorist attacks against Israelis, murdering nearly 700 and maiming many more. Most of the attacks - including many of the recent suicide bombings - have been executed by forces under Yasser Arafat's control: Fatah, Force 17, and the Palestinian Authority's own police and security officers.

Israel has revealed numerous documents proving that the PA orders and pays for the murder of Jews.

Furthermore, the PA has not disarmed or outlawed terrorist groups. It has not seized their tens of thousands of illegal weapons or shut their bomb factories; nor has it honored any of Israel's 45 requests for the extradition of terrorists. It has not closed the terrorists' training camps. It has rewarded terrorists with jobs in the PA police force. In short, the PA has actively collaborated with and sheltered the terrorists. It has also created an entire culture of anti-Jewish hatred in its official media, schools, summer camps, sermons by PA-appointed clergy, and speeches by PA representatives.

A Palestinian state would be a mini-Iraq, sharing a long border with Israel, flanking the areas that contain 70% of Israel's population, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa - plenty of tempting targets. The attackers could then slip back into "Palestine," where they would find refuge behind the protective border of a sovereign state.

A Palestinian state would have its own airports and seaports, and share borders with Egypt and Jordan, making it relatively easy to import heavy weapons. The PA already has the nucleus of an army; statehood would give it the freedom to establish a full-fledged military force.

The same kind of Iranian "volunteers" who have been sent to aid the Hizbullah in southern Lebanon would no doubt be dispatched to "Palestine."

A Palestinian state would virtually force Israel back to the pre-1967 borders, stripping it of the protective Judea-Samaria mountain ranges and leaving it just nine miles wide at its mid-section.

US Lieutenant-General Thomas Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War, said this would leave Israel indefensible: "I look out from those heights and look onto the West Bank and say to myself, 'If I'm the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, I cannot defend this land without that terrain.'"

Advocates of Palestinian statehood claim such a state would be demilitarized. But there is no way to ensure that it would be. The Versailles agreement after World War I required Germany to be demilitarized, yet Germany built the most powerful army in Europe.

A Palestinian state would also endanger Jewish religious rights. The PA has already destroyed one key Jewish religious site, the Tomb of Joseph, turning it into a mosque and barring Jews from the area. PA officials have called for banning Jewish prayer from Jerusalem's Western Wall and Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, and PA police officers regularly carry out shooting attacks on Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem.

A Palestinian state would also endanger Israel's water sources, a significant portion of which originates in Judea and Samaria. If the PA had sovereignty, it could shut off the flow of that water. There would also be the danger of Palestinian Arab terrorists sabotaging the Israeli water supply.

The last thing the world needs now is yet another totalitarian, anti-American terrorist state. Yet that is exactly what a Palestinian state would be, to judge by the behavior of the PA during the eight years since it was created. The PA is a brutal Muslim dictatorship which tortures dissidents, silences newspapers that deviate from Arafat's line, and persecutes Christians. The official PA media actively incite hatred against America, and the PA maintains warm relations with the most anti-American regimes in the world, including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Libya, North Korea, and Cuba.

The only way to advance the chance for peace is, first, by defeating the terrorist regime. The training camps must be shut down; the weapons must be seized; the terrorists must be apprehended and brought to trial; and the PA-controlled areas must be completely demilitarized. These actions must be followed by a lengthy period in which the PA's culture of hatred is stamped out, comparable to the de-Nazification process that the Allies imposed on Germany after World War II and the de-Saddamization plan that has been proposed for Iraq after Saddam Hussein's regime is ousted.

The only long-term hope for Middle East peace lies in permanently weaning the Palestinians off their diet of hatred.

Terrorists, whether led by bin Laden or Arafat, should be fought and defeated, not appeased with offers of statehood. Sending a message that terrorism pays is the worst possible move at a time when terrorists are threatening America, Israel, and the entire free world.

The Palestinians have a homeland; it's called "Jordan." Let the immigrants who settled in the West Bank and Gaza emigrate to Jordan, or let them return to their other roots: Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, or other Arab nation. 100 years ago "Palestine" was the back side of the desert in the Ottoman Empire. No one had an interest in the land, and it was largely empty. Only after the Zionist immigration into the land, and after the Jewish settlers made the land produce, and after Israel created a growing and relatively affluent society, did Arabs show any real interest in the area. For the most part, the "Palestinians" are invaders. Let them go home.

I have no illusions about the motives of the Palestinians, but being a "state" carries with it certain risks and obligations. Once Palestine is a state, Israel can declear war on it. That has a legal sttatus that even the U.N. can't trump.

Both Israel and Palestine are barbaric.

This is probably the reason for all the bloodshed. No one knows anymore where the blames lies. Israelis bulldoze homes...Palestinians send suicide bombers...Israelis fire on innocent civilians....Palestinians return the fire. Until there is a Palestinian state the violence will continue and both sides are to blame.Israel got her statehood with continuing huge support from America. The Palestinians deserve their right to autonomy, too.

I can't presume to take sides in this conflict based on media accounts. They editorialize beyond the facts to further their own agendas.

One thing that has stood out to me from the beginning, however, is the unmistakeable fact that the only party acting with restraint is Israel.

If Israel's goal was genocide on the Palestinians, they have the power to carry it out. Recently, in their incursions into Jenin and Gaza, they used ground troops and went door to door in a surgical attempt to get the terrorists while minimizing loss of innocent life. The Israelis put their own people at risk in an operation where they could have chosen to use helicopter gunships or F-16s.

Meanwhile the PA has made it clear that they have resorted to using human weapons against civilian targets because they can't match Israel's military prowess. They are "throwing everything [they] can" at their enemies to accomplish their goals. No one doubts that they would use better weapons, given the opportunity.

Israel has the power to expand its borders and hasn't done so except in self-defense.

The PA has stated time and again that their goal is not the establishment of a Palestinian state in coexistance with Israel but the destruction of Israel and death of its Jewish population.

To call both sides barbaric in this war is to ignore the hard facts. If the tables were turned and the PA had the overwhelming force the Israelis wield, Israel would already be a distant memory.

Israel hasn't created the Palestinian plight. These people have been displaced from their Arab neighbors. They sought to take the land of Israel and found themselves on "occupied" territory. Their leaders take the funds contributed by the world for the betterment of the Palestinian people and buy weapons, spread hatred, train terrorists and amass personal wealth.

Lastly, Arabs make up a sizeable population in Israel and even participate in governmental affairs. Those who abide by the laws aren't oppressed, they thrive. Can the same be said for any Jew in any Arab country?

Putting aside the biased reporting of the press and reviewing the hard facts makes this anything but an even conflict between equally barbaric people.

You have bought into the lie that the Palestinians spread (and agreed to by EU, US and others.) Palestine was created by the British in 1921 (as was the rest of the Middle Eastern countries.) They coined the phrase "Palestine" from the Latin word Palestina. This was a region east of Nablus, but it was a region, not a sovereign nation. Many people assumed that the name Palestine refered to Philistia-it did not. Gaza is the land of the Philistines. Jews have occupied Israel continuously for 3000 years. Having spent a lot of time in Israel, it is apparent that the whole situation is a title problem. The Arabs believe that they are entitled to the land because they are the descendants of Ishmael, the first born slave son of Abraham. The Jews believe they are the rightful heirs because they descended from Issac--Abraham gave the land of Israel to the Jews and he gave the rest of the Middle East to the descendents of Ishmael and Esau (Saudi Arabia.) Therefore, neither side can compromise. There will never be a two state solution that will last. Ultimately, the Palestinians will kill or expel all of the Jews, or the Jews will deport all Palestinians to Jordan (where they already make up 70% of the population.

Well, this is obviously true. Israel would not exist except for the fact that Jews immigrated to the area and created a nation. But, again, the fact is that 100 years ago, when the Zionist movement began to bear fruit in what is now Israel, the area that is now Israel was largely empty. It was still under Ottoman rule, but it was vacant land, mainly, other than cities such as Jerusalem (which had a population that was relatively small). There have always been Arabs in the area, but not many. And there have always been Jews there too, of course. But the biggest whiners for their "Palestinian homeland" are recent immigrants to the area themselves.

Note this comment posted on another FR thread today -- it highlights my point: "Almost a decade and a half after the first public endorsement of the Palestinian Charter, on March 31, 1977, Muhsin made the following declaration in an interview with the Dutch daily Trouw: 'There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity, because it is in the interest of the Arabs to encourage a separate Palestinian identity. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.'"

That is absolutely false. The Palestinians were not there first and they have NO legitimate claim to that land at all. You have bought in to a lie. The Israelis have merely defended themselves and if as you say "they have to settle it sometime" then let the Israeli military fight all the Palestinians who want to fight with the winner taking it all. I think we all know who would win that one. The Palestinians only continue to exist because they are protected by the world community; including America ironically.

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