How Can You be for Peace But Not Pursue Peace?
Ask Netanyahu
By Charley Reese of the Sentinel Staff (Orlando Sentinel,
7/14/1996)
What's wrong with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand that the
Palestinian National Authority prevent terrorism before the peace process can continue?
Well, let's ask ourselves some questions. Has Israel, at any time during its modern
history, been able to stop terrorism? No. Has the United States with all its massive
resources been able to stop terrorism? No. Has Germany, France, or Great Britain? No.
Why then should the Palestinian National Authority, pathetically short of resources,
practically broke, be able to do what Israel, the United States, Great Britain, France and
Germany cannot do?
It can't, of course. The Palestine Liberation Organization has given up the terrorism,
denounced terrorism and tried to prevent dissidents or others from commiting acts of
terrorism. That's all it can do.
For Netanyahu to hold the PLO and the PNA to a standard that not even Israel and the
United States can meet is insincere. It is just a ploy, a sophistry, so that he can
pretend to be for peace while not actually pursuing peace. He is just setting up the PNA
to fail so that he can say he has an excuse not to make peace.
What Americans ought to be ashamed of is how eagerly American politicians and the press
are embracing this obvious ploy. They are doing so because it gives them an excuse to do
what they want to do anyway, which is kiss the foot of the Israeli lobby. Justice and a
future for a poor Palestinian kid in Gaza don't stand much of a chance when Americans have
to choose between him and their own cowardice and venality.
Many moderate Palestinians suspect that right-wing Israelis in the security services
conveniently turned their heads so that terrorists could set off the bombs on the buses
before the Israeli election. Having no means of conducting an investigation of Israelis,
they can't prove it, but apply the old Roman standard: Who benefited from the terrorist
bombs that were set off in territory under Israeli control?
Only Netanyahu and his right-wing allies. The Palestinians and Shimon Peres and his
allies, who were pursuing peace, lost. The last thing in the world Yasser Arafat wanted
before the Israeli election was an act of terror that would discredit him and Peres and
help Netanyahu.
Don't be so naive this late in the 20th century to think that people won't sacrifice
innocent lives for the sake of political objectives. It has happened distressingly often
in this, the bloodiest and most evil century in the history of man. No other century can
come close to ours in blood- shed, cruelty, cynicism and deception.
What Americans ought to be concerned about is why their own government so slavishly
serves the interests of a little foreign country 7,000 miles away.
Politicians who cry for the need to balance the budget continue to vote for foreign
aid. American presidents, who say the United Nations is so important that your sons and
daughters must die to enforce its resolutions, routine- ly tell the United Nations,
"Hands off Israel." There are, in case you didn't know it, existing U. N.
Security Council resolutions declaring Israel's annexation of Jerusalem null and void,
ordering it to return the Golan Heights, to get out of Lebanon, etc. Why don't we enforce
these?
The next time some politicians tell you that your son or daughter must risk his or her
life in the service of the United Nations, ask them why they have such a double standard.
Ask them why it is wrong for Iraq to seize territory by conquest but OK for Israel. Ask
them why they have never given the survivors of the USS Liberty, attacked by Israeli
planes and torpedo boats, a congress- ional hearing they have pleaded for for 29 years.
Ask them to explain why Israeli intelligence agents blew up the U. S. Information Agency
library in Cairo. I hope that Americans will one day elect people who will repre- sent
America's interest for a change.
Source:
http://www.halcyon.com/jim/ussliberty/reese.txt
