http://orlandosentinel.com/automagic/columnists/2000-10-19/OPEDreese19101900.html
Who really is being besieged?
Charley Reese, Commentary
Published in The Orlando Sentinel on October 19, 2000
Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's secretary of state, has made many absurd
statements in her time, but she certainly topped herself recently when she
said Israel was "besieged" by Palestinians.
Clinton's so-called agreement will fall apart. Both Yasser Arafat and the
peace process have been discredited. The Israelis have doubled the number of
Jewish settlers in 10 years, cut back water quotas for Palestinians and
prevented development in most areas.
Israel is militarily the most powerful state in the Middle East. It is
loaded to the gills with advanced weaponry. It has everything from missiles,
atomic bombs and advanced fighters to helicopter gunships, tanks and armored
personnel carriers.
And Albright says Palestinian boys, dressed in shirts and trousers and
tossing stones, are besieging Israel. Who's getting killed? Who's getting
sent to the hospital with serious wounds? Whose homes are being destroyed?
Who is being placed under 24-hour curfews?
The answer to all those questions: Palestinians. Only a handful of Jews have
died.
American politicians would serve America better if they simply would be
honest. All they have to do is say, "Look, there are few Arab votes in my
elections, so, for my own selfish reasons, I support Israel right or wrong."
That's a lot better than blaming the victims and making the United States
look absurd and hypocritical in the eyes of the world. People all around the
world know the score in American politics, but it enrages them when American
politicians try to cover up their vote-selling by blaming innocent people.
Those Palestinians are being killed in Palestinian towns not in Tel Aviv or
Haifa. The Israeli Arabs who have been killed, likewise, were killed in
their own neighborhoods. And most of the Palestinians killed have been
killed by sharpshooters, according to Israeli reports in Israeli newspapers.
By definition, sharpshooters don't shoot in self-defense. Their job is to
execute people. No civilized country in the world uses snipers to put down
demonstrations or even riots.
Unfortunately for America, Arab satellite television has been beaming the
truth about the situation on an around-the-clock basis, and the people in
the Arab world know who is being killed and who is being besieged. They also
know that America is acting strictly in Israel's interests. They know that
although Clinton is "working the phones" to free four Israeli soldiers
captured by Hezbollah, he never has made one call to free the dozens of
Lebanese kidnapped and held hostage by the Israelis. What's the difference?
Domestic politics.
The brutal treatment of Palestinians has had an unprecedented effect in the
Arab world. A half-million people went to the streets in Morocco, a long way
from the conflict and a country generally considered pro-Israel and
pro-Western. Egyptian and Saudi officials have warned Israel that if it
attacks Syria, they will stand with Syria.
There is a tip point in all human affairs, and it appears that it has been
reached in the Middle East. The peace process is dead. Palestinians now know
that, after seven years, it will result only in an Israeli version of
apartheid. Arafat's toss of the dice has come up with snake eyes.
The tragedy for Americans is that we never can provide the leadership the
world needs by playing the hypocrite, condoning injustice and blaming the
victims.
The blind devotion to Israel, even when Israel is wrong, is going to cost
Americans -- and more than the 17 young lives already lost in Yemen. No
axiom is truer than, "The friend of my enemy is my enemy."
