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Arafat used to be considered a terrorist on the scale of Bin
Laden fifteen years ago. Remember it was this month 15 yrs ago the Achille
Laurel was hijacked and the elderly man in the wheel-chair thrown overboard, all
traced to Arafat. In a few years will we we treating Bin Laden as some
sort of revered elder statesman the way this former terrorist is now
treated? Why was Arafat never brought to justice for any of his terrorist
activities? How can be pursue bin Laden as a criminal and yet Arafat is
now a statesman. I only mention this because so many are too young to
remember when his name was on the lips of the newscasters nightly as the most
evil of humans possible and the innocent blood he had shed the stuff of frequent
media coverage. Politics change and evil becomes good and good becomes
evil. I was very young but will always remember the screams of the Isaeli
athletes being tortured and finally killed, mercifully. The definition of
words also changes with the times and what was once reprehensible behavior
becomes perfectly acceptable. So I suppose when the world said "Never
again" it really meant "Never again unless something important like oil comes
into play."
Amelia
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 3:11 PM
Subject: [CTRL] Israel vs. Palestine Go Israel!
Hal Lindsey
� 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
The
considerable outrage being expressed by the uninformed on the daily talk shows
is getting plenty of attention. Everyone, it seems, feels that the Palestinians
are the injured party in the current explosion of violence.
For those
blinded by the current wave of misplaced political correctness, it would be hard
to imagine a scenario in which Palestinians might seek protection in an Israeli
police station and be turned over to a waiting Jewish mob to be brutally beaten
to death. Yet, in the Ramallah situation, two Israelis did exactly that -- they
sought protection and refuge from the Palestinian police. Instead of protection,
the police looked the other way as the mob seized the two Israeli reservists,
stabbed them repeatedly and threw at least one of the soldiers out a second
floor window into the arms of the waiting mob.
The scenes were horrific,
yet in some people's minds, justified, since the plight of the Palestinians is
"hopeless" -- victims of Israeli oppression -- economically, politically and
socially. What nobody seems to understand is that the Palestinian people have
their own government to blame.
Yasser Arafat and his cronies live in fine
villas, drive expensive German automobiles, wear Armani suits to the various
summit meetings, and wax eloquently about the plight of their oppressed
constituency at Israeli hands. It is quite a contrast to the image projected by
the Israeli negotiating teams who arrive in four-door Chevys wearing suits with
shiny elbows and fraying shirt collars. And none of the Israeli leaders live in
Mediterranean villas. Who's the oppressor here?
Two days after the murder
of the two Israeli soldiers at the hands of a blood-crazed mob, Palestinian
state TV broadcast the comments of a Muslim cleric. The cleric exhorted his
flock to "kill the Jews and to kill the Americans, wherever they may be found."
This is the true nature of the Israeli peace partnership as envisioned by Yasser
Arafat. Again, the question: who is the oppressor, here?
Palestinians who
hold Israeli citizenship do not share the hopeless condition of their brothers
living under the tender mercies of the Arafat government. Indeed, life for an
Israeli Arab is so much better than for their Palestinian counterparts that a
majority of Arabs in a recent poll indicated that, given the choice
between
living under an Arab administration or under Israeli rule, they would
prefer the Israeli brand of "oppression."
The Arab position appears to be
that it's all Israel's fault because they are using bullets to respond to rocks.
But nobody, not even the most articulate apologists for the Arab side, has any
reasonable alternative to suggest. Should the Israelis throw rocks back? Or
maybe they should just go home? Yasser Arafat, at the summit on Monday, insisted
the Israelis withdraw first, and then the violence would stop. Who in their
right mind is going to believe that, given the number of broken promises charged
to his account in just the last three weeks?
Any argument that advances
the case that the Israelis are to blame for the violence in the Middle East
ignores the salient truth that it is the Palestinians who are behind the unrest
-- not the Israelis. If the Palestinians stopped throwing rocks, the IDF would
go home. Simple. The PA claims it has legitimate reasons for the violence. Fine.
Then why deny that they are the authors of the violence in the first place? Ehud
Barak offered a settlement more generous than anybody ever expected. He offered
them all that they demanded, including the division of Jerusalem. His offer was
so generous that, had it been accepted, it is unlikely Barak could have survived
politically anyway. But still it was rejected out of hand. Yasser Arafat is a
man who can't take yes for an answer.
Anybody with one eye and half a
brain can see that the moment the rocks stop flying, so will the bullets. Yet,
in order to accept the "oppressor" argument, one must pretend that the violence
just "happened" and that it is Israel who is keeping it alive by shooting the
rioting Palestinians. Just what do you think would happen if the Palestinians
stopped rioting? Does anybody seriously believe that the Israelis would just
keep shooting them without provocation? The media would have you believe that
the Israelis are in control of the violence and that they should stop. How does
one quell a riot by ignoring it? And how does one not quell a riot?
The
situation remains in the hands of the only one who could have ended the violence
-- Yasser Arafat. Sadly, his desperate, last-ditch effort to create an image of
himself and his government as victims of an oppressive Israeli government ended
as quickly as the lives of those unfortunate Israeli soldiers. He's created a
bloodlust among his people that even he can no longer control. In 1993, Yitzhak
Rabin was reluctant to shake Arafat's bloodstained hand, but did so out of love
for Israel and a desire for peace. It will be hard to find an Israeli leader --
even Ehud Barak, who will make that same mistake again.
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