Accord between Israel, PLO will live in infamy
President Roosevelt declared Dec. 7, 1941, the day the Japanese
attacked Pearl Harbor, "A date that will live in infamy." So, too, did
the Western Regional Board of Americans for a Safe Israel react in shock
and dismay at Israel's signing a "peace agreement" that offers no peace,
but, instead, contains the seeds of Israel's destruction. Speaking on
behalf of AFSI, Rabbi Julian White declared that Israel's Rabin
government, seduced by a "peace at any price" process, had finally
submitted to U.N. and United States pressure after 45 years of war - a
war of attrition waged by 21 Arab dictatorships.
As Bassam Abu Sharif, political adviser to Arafat, stressed, "This is
not a peace treaty with Israel. This is the first step in the transfer
of authority to Palestinian self-government." Arafat himself says, "The
Palestinian flag will soon fly over Jerusalem." Faisal Husseini, chief
of the Palestinian delegation, added, "This is another step toward a
Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem." Why not take these
leaders at their word?
Ironically, the Saudis and the Kuwaitis have sworn off all relations
with the Palestinians, calling them untrustworthy. Weren't the
Palestinians and the Palestinian State of Jordan the only ones to
actively support Saddam Hussein during the Gulf war? Why then does
Israel place faith in them? From the time when the Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem cast the Arab's lot with Hitler to more recent times when
Palestinian Arabs danced on their rooftops cheering Saddam's scuds as
they descended on Israel, anti-Jewish hostility and terror by the
Palestinians has been an Israeli fact of life. How can Israel depend on
a treaty with Arafat's Fatah faction of the PLO, ignoring the others in
the Palestine National Council, who, even today, are sounding their
strident rejectionist cries, demonstrating renewed acts of violence and
murdering more Israelis? And what should be said of the equally deadly
Hamas, outside the PLO camp? This is the hard reality of the
"Gaza-Jericho First" treaty, ceremoniously signed on Sept. 13. We share
Israel's desire for peace, but should the Rabin government play Russian
roulette with Israel's survival at stake? Does it make sense to follow
Neville Chamberlain's historical "peace in our time" appeasement mirage?
At risk is the survival of the only democratic state in the Middle East
- a tiny Jewish state born out of the ashes of Holocaust.