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Equal Pressures
I
f they were honest, the Arab and Muslim
states that are clamoring for the United States
to make Israel stop its reprisals to Palestinian
violence would be working equally hard to
pressure the Palestinians to stop the terror that
draws the Israeli response.
That they are not is evidence that they can hardly
be reliable partners in President George W. Bush's
coalition against terror.
Some background may be helpful.
First, America was not attacked on Sept. 11
because of its past support for Israel in the long-run-
ning struggle with the Palestinians. America was
attacked because it stands for a personal freedom
that one extreme branch of Islamic belief finds an
intolerable challenge.
Second, America is right to try to assure
Arab states and Muslim leaders that its
attack on Osama bin Laden and the
Taliban, the illegal government of Afghanistan that
shelters him, is not a wider assault on Islam. Inviting
Arab and Muslim leadership to participate in a war
on terrorism gives them an opportunity to behave
honorably.
And third, the Bush administration has taken no
official steps that indicate it is prepared to bribe
those governments by sacrificing Israel's long-range
security interests. The remarks last week by Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon raising the specter of
Munich-like appeasement by the U.S. were under-
standable, but extreme — as he later acknowledged.
All that said, however, America must not ask Israel
— until Sept. 11 the most visible current victim of a
vicious, unrelenting terrorism — to bear an inordi-
nate burden in the fight against this scourge. And
whatever alliances it strikes with Israel's Middle
Eastern enemies, the United States must require
iron-clad guarantees that the resources it shares, be
they in arms, intelligence or money, will never be
used against the Jewish state.
Obviously, a reduction in the Palestinian-Israeli
violence would ease America's task of dealing with
the Arab and Muslim states. But
America must remain clear that the pri-
mary responsibility for achieving that
reduction lies with Palestinian Authority
leader Yasser Arafat and the leaders of
the terrorist organizations, including
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.
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Cease-Less" Fire
The Israeli army says Palestinians carried
out more than 100 gun, grenade and
mortar attacks in the 10 days after Arafat
and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said
they agreed on a cease-fire.
Last week provided a good
sample of what that cease-fire
means to the terrorists. On
Monday, they set off a car
bomb in Jerusalem. On Tuesday, they
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shot and wounded a couple in their car
on a Jerusalem road and shot at Jews
praying at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in
Hebron, wounding two. On Wednesday,
they murdered a young couple in Elei
Sinai. On Thursday, a lone gunman pos-
ing as a soldier shot three Israelis to
death at a bus station in Afula before he
was killed. On Friday, terrorists shot to
death a 45-year-old father of six as he
drove near Tulkarm.
Also on Friday, the PLO leadership,
Fatah's central council and the
Palestinian Authority ordered militants from all fac-
tions to stop all attacks and threatened to arrest those
who did not obey. That didn't impress a Palestinian
suicide bomber who blew himself up near the
entrance to Kibbutz Shluhot in the Beit She'an
Valley, killing a kibbutz member and, incidentally,
putting himself out of the reach of any possible pun-
ishment by Arafat.
In floating a trial balloon last week about President
Bush's potential support for a Palestinian state, the
EDIT ORIAL
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State Department signaled a willingness to ratchet up
the pressure on Israel to stop responding to these
incidents. But now the administration should make
it clear to the Arab and Muslim leaders that such
pressure comes with a price: The leaders must pub-
licly pressure the terrorist organizations to stop the
attacks and pressure Arafat to arrest the perpetrators.
Until they do so, neither Israel nor America
should consider them sincerely interested in peace,
either in the Mideast or in the rest of the world. ❑
Appeasement Won't Stop Terrorism
I t did not take long.
The dust of the tragedy had bare-
ly settled in New York, Washington
and Pennsylvania; the funerals are
not yet all complete; the "cause" of the
unfathomable terrorism is clear to the
world: It's Israel.
If the U.S. were not a supporter of Israel
— the only democracy in the Middle
East, the world might remember —
Osama bin Laden and his followers would
not have struck.
Thus goes the refrain in many quarters
of the world, and the Bush administration
seems to be accepting it.
BERL
FAL BAU M
Community
Views
The administration has shown sympathy
in recent weeks — past Sept. 11 -- of sup-
porting the creation of a Palestinian state,
ignoring the timing of this policy shift and
its implications and, once again, is asking
Israel to subdue responses to the slaughter
in its streets.
The double standard of asking Israel for
forbearance while the U.S. prepares to
strike hard at terrorists and countries that
harbor terrorists does not seem to faze any-
one.
Nor does the issue of appeasement
implied in the administration's change in
U.S. policy. Appeasement does not work
— never has — and the world does not seem to
have learned from history.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made
a fatal mistake of trying to appease German
Chancellor Adolf Hitler only to drag the world into
war. There are other examples. And while it may
have been politically incorrect and inappropriate as
well as ill-timed, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
was right when he cautioned that Israel is not
Czechoslovakia.
Nor does the world seem concerned about justify-
ing terrorism by finding a "cause" such as Israel. No
cause justifies the killing of the innocent with such
APPEASEMENT on page 40
10/12
2001
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