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seems like the deeper the U.S. gets in the war against Islamist
terrorism, the more energetically the Bush administration wants
to promote the idea that Palestinian terrorism should be rewarded
with "statehood." In the midst of the battle against the
Taliban, George W. Bush not only insists that he favors a "Palestinian
state," but asserts that the U.S. has always favored
such — which might come as a bit of a surprise to the likes
of Henry Kissinger and George Schultz. Tony Blair has hopped on
the bandwagon too, issuing similar statements from Downing Street.
We've been
hearing for so many years that the "Palestinians" and
their "plight" are at the heart of the Middle East conflict
— and that Palestinian statehood must be the nucleus of any
resolution — that many have lost their ability to examine these
apparent axioms. The simple fact is that the Middle East conflict
is not and never was about "Palestinian self-determination,"
but rather about Israeli self-determination; and a Palestinian state
would simply escalate the conflict, not end it. No, Palestinians
living under Israeli "occupation" are hardly "suffering"
— never mind that most Palestinians were long ago released
from such a "plight" and now enjoy the benign rule of
the PLO fascist kleptocracy. Indeed, the only Arabs in the Middle
East who are not mercilessly oppressed and tormented are
those living under Israeli rule. In other words, as with most of
the things "everyone knows" about the Middle East, it
just ain't so.
Of course,
there was a time when serious and intelligent people might have
believed these fictions with the best of intentions. After all,
even Israel's various governments of the Left were spouting such
truisms, and presumably no one would be more reluctant to compromise
Israeli security than Israeli's own government. But that was an
intifada or two ago.
Today I doubt
there are any serious people, in Israel or anywhere else, who believe
that a Palestinian state would serve any function other than to
pursue and escalate the Arab war of aggression against Israeli self-determination.
Well-meaning people may once have believed that a Palestinian state
was the key to regional stability, and that Arafat and the PLO would
use any such state to pursue economic and social well-being for
their people. It was presumed that the PLO would be too busy resolving
domestic problems to have any interest in irredentist armed conflict
with the rump Israel.
But by now,
it should be obvious to all that the only reason Arafat and his
gang ever had any interest in the West Bank and Gaza was
in order to use these areas as launch pads for the jihad against
Israel itself. Arafat is increasingly candid in saying so. Even
those remaining Israelis who favor dialogue and negotiations with
the PLO agree, by enormous majorities, that Arafat will never comply
with any agreement such talks might produce.
Arafat and
the PLO have responded to each and every goodwill gesture and concession
from Israel or the U.S. with escalated violence and atrocities.
When Ehud Barak offered them essentially the entire West Bank and
Gaza Strip, plus financial tribute, plus territory within pre-1967
Israel, plus an agreement to absorb 150,000 Palestinian "refugees"
within the rump Israel — Arafat responded with a year's worth
of intifada atrocities. Any future accord with any Palestinian state
that may emerge will simply serve as a green light for opening new
rounds of Palestinian terrorist aggression against Israel, designed
to draw into the battle those same "moderate" Arab states
currently going through the motions of supporting the U.S. assault
on the Taliban. You know, "moderates" — like Syria
and Egypt and Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
It should have
been obvious that all this was coming. Arafat insisted on wearing
military fatigues to all those "peace accord" signing
ceremonies, and Bill Clinton recently revealed that Arafat had even
demanded to carry a weapon in as well, to signal his real
intentions to his followers. From the start, Shimon Peres and his
Israeli Joan Baez clones decided to forego any "proving period,"
in which Arafat's intentions would be put to the test, and in which
PLO compliance with the accords would be first manifested before
moving anything along any further. Instead, Arafat and his goons
violated each and every punctuation mark in every accord, with the
Israeli Left insisting all along that accords were things that obligated
only Israel, and that there was no real reason to demand PLO compliance.
Led by Shimon Peres, the "peace camp" of Israeli Leftists
has insisted from the start that no violation of Oslo by the PLO,
and no atrocity by the Arafat's Tanzim, will go unrewarded with
new Israeli concessions. The U.S. State Department is not made up
of the sort of people to second-guess such Israeli self-abasement.
There are serious
doubts about whether there was ever a real strategic or moral
basis for proposing Palestinian "statehood"; the Palestinians
themselves never had any interest in such as long as the "Palestinian
zones" were merely being ruled by "alien" Arab regimes,
before 1967. There are already 22 Arab states on the planet, controlling
lands larger than America's lower 48. Yet the whole world suddenly
believes that if Israel is bludgeoned into turning over the entirety
of the "occupied territories" — whose area is smaller
than Queens — this will somehow get the Arabs to pursue peace
with Israel. Whatever dubious moral claims might once have been
raised to justify Palestinian statehood have long been erased, thanks
to decades of Palestinian atrocities — including eight years
of violence since the "peace process" began and, especially,
this past year's nonstop atrocities following the Barak offer. Meanwhile,
the claims that movement toward Palestinian statehood will dampen
violence and produce moderation have been buried beneath the polls
showing near-universal support for bin Laden and for atrocities
against Jews amongst Palestinians. This fanaticism only grows with
each new goodwill gesture from Israel.
The only reason
Palestinians now want a state is so that Israel will be reduced
to its 1949 borders, where its width would be about the same as
the length of the San Francisco Bay Bridge with its on-ramps, and
where a kids on bikes could slice the country in two in an hour.
Where Iraqi and Iranian (and Afghan?) "volunteers" would
be imported into the PLO state. Where Palestinians could shut down
Israeli air traffic from their positions a few kilometers away,
and cripple the country for the final showdown, with Syria and Egypt
perhaps joining the fray. Or where the PLO simply goes it alone,
with an ever-escalating campaign of atrocities until the Jews cry
uncle. In short, any Palestinian state is a sure-fire recipe for
violence, escalation and war. The only way the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict will ever be resolved is if Israel finds the courage to
reoccupy and denazify the Palestinian "autonomy zones"
— hopefully with U.S. endorsement and support. A good time
to begin doing so would have been the day the U.S. ground forces
landed in Afghanistan.
Despite the
cycle of endless violence, aggression, and terror it would mean,
Bush, Powell, and Blair have become suddenly fixated on this scenario
of a Palestinian "state." They think it is a way to get
the Arab regimes to play along in the war against bin Laden. They
should think again.
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