Author: Steven Plaut
Publication: FrontPageMagazine.com
Date: June 12, 2003
The terrorists have struck against
Israel once again. Yesterday witnessed yet another suicide bombing, this
one on an Israeli bus in Jerusalem, killing at least 16 people and wounding
dozens more.
As Yoggi Berra would say, it is
deja vu all over again.
Once again, a 'ceasefire' is being
proposed in which Arabs can go on killing Jews while the whole world demands
that the Jews refrain from shooting back to kill their murderers.
Where have we heard this formula
before? And exactly how many murders of Israeli children should be considered
tolerable and 'within reason'?
'Tolerable levels of carnage' have
been the basis of every Israeli 'ceasefire agreement' with the Arabs over
the past decade. The Oslo Accords with the PLO were clearly based on controlled
carnage. The PLO went through some rhetorical hoops and issued some duplicitous
'denunciations' of terror, but soon enough it and its Islamist affiliates
returned to their routine of murder and bombing.
All the deals worked out by Israel
with the Hizbollah and Lebanon were similar. Before Ehud Barak's 2000 capitulation
in Lebanon, when Israel agreed to a unilateral withdrawal in exchange for
diddly squat, a similar 'tolerable level of carnage' agreement was in place
there with the Hizbollah. Hizbollah could murder a few Israeli soldiers
each week, but as long as they only rarely fired shells into civilian towns
in northern Israel, Israel agreed to take no meaningful action against
Hizbollah, its bases and its Syrian (let alone Iranian) puppet masters.
Ever since Ehud Barak's parody of
Dunkirk, the same rules have applied in Lebanon. Hizbollah has murdered
Israeli civilians along the border since the Israeli total withdrawal from
southern Lebanon. It has kidnapped several Israeli soldiers as well as
one civilian, and it fires anti-aircraft shells into Israel almost every
day. These shells have injured and killed. But under 'tolerable levels
of carnage' deals, Israel does nothing in response.
It is not exactly a serendipitous
revelation that as part of the ballyhooed 'Road Map,' yet another Oslo
deal is being struck now - under the extortionate pressure on Israel being
applied by the United States â?" and once again it is to be a 'tolerable
level of carnage' arrangement. How do we know? Because the Ariel Sharon's
Chief of Staff of the Prime Minister's Office, attorney Dov Weisglass,
confirmed so recently in an interview with the IMRA news service. His exact
words were, "All we are asking the PA (Palestinian Authority) to do is
to reduce terrorism to a tolerable level." He did not spell out how many
murders of Jewish children he would regard as tolerable.
I doubt that anyone seriously thought
the U.S. was going to condition its diktats to Israel regarding the Road
Map on the Palestinians actually foregoing the pleasure of murdering Jews.
It was pretty obvious from the start that the White House and the State
Department would settle for some duplicitous statement from Arafat or from
his new figleaf - the 'Prime Minister' Abu Mazen - expressing vague "regret"
for homocide bombings. The U.S. would ask for private PLO assurances that
they really are doing their utmost to track down the terrorists. The Hamas
leaders like the one Israel tried to assassinate this week (and angered
President Bush in the process) are the same Hamas and Jihad leaders Arafat
himself was supposed to whack under the Oslo Accords. The PLO can never
seem to find Hamas and Jihad terror leaders, unlike the CNN and BBC camera
crews. After a few weeks of this charade, the U.S. will announce that the
PLO has done everything it reasonably can be expected to do.
The PLO is already insisting that
it can not take more effective action against the terrorists (most of whom
these days are from the PLO factions under Arafat's and Abu Mazen's direct
command and control), because its security apparatus has been crippled
by Israeli reprisal actions. Even after Abu Mazen 'took over,' not a day
has gone by without new Palestinian atrocities, most carried out by Arafat's
own tightly controlled militias. The White House will eventually agree
with the PLO's posturing and insist that now it is Israel's turn to demonstrate
its good will by agreeing to new concessions to the PLO, new appeasements
and 'goodwill gestures.' In particular, it will demand that Israel once
again abide by a unilateral ceasefire in which 'tolerable levels of carnage'
are observed. Hence, the Jewish state of Israel will be the only country
on earth whose anti-terrorist defense policy is to be governed by the principles
of pure Christianity, turning of the other cheek at every offense.
The Road Map is based on demands
that Israel voluntarily insert its neck into a noose for the sake of peace,
while the Arabs solemnly promise never to pull on the rope. The U.S. will
guarantee that the Arabs will not pull that rope, unless of course the
State Department again loses the document with the guarantee, like it did
in 1967. You may recall that after the U.S. guaranteed for Israel in 1957
that the Straits of Tiran would remain open if Israel withdrew from Sinai
at that time. The Straits were closed by Egypt to Israeli shipping in 1967
in an act of war. The State Department did not take military action on
Israel's behalf.
In 1957 Israel sacrificed strategic
assets, land, lives, and treasure in order to deliver a goodwill gesture
to the Arabs, in exchange for U.S. guarantees. Those guarantees proved
worthless. And similar guarantees to check Arabs terrorism after the implementation
of the 'Road Map' may, too, prove worthless, as the terrorists unleash
a new war of annihilation against Israel.
