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EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
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Anatomy Of A Conflict
I
listened intently as a Jew and an Arab — armed with
words, not guns — talked candidly about the Middle
East. I didn't come away from the radio show confident
of a quick end to Palestinian terror against Israel. But I
did find a vein rich with insight running through the give-
and-take.
The show highlighted the fundamental differences in how
Jews and Arabs view what fuels their centuries-old battle over
biblical land.
With keen interest, I tuned in on Aug. 26 to Luther Keith's
"Back To Back," which airs 4-6 p.m. Tuesdays on WQBH
1400-AM. Second-hour guests were Allan
Gale, associate director of the Jewish
Community Council of Metropolitan
Detroit, and Osama Siblani, publisher of the
Dearborn-based Arab American News. Keith
is a senior editor and columnist at the Detroit
News.
Siblani floated the idea that an Israeli pull-
back of troops from Palestinian-inhabited
ROBERT A. lands would bring an end to terrorism and
SKLAR
clear a key barrier to a two-state solution in
Editor
the war-torn region. Over the past 35
months, Palestinian terror has killed at least
851 Israelis and foreigners and maimed or wounded thou-
sands more.
Arab states have accepted Israel as a Jewish state and a part-
ner in the Middle East, Siblani said. But he offered no evi-
dence of that beyond the peace treaties Jordan and Egypt have
with Israel. He cited the 1993 Oslo accords, but I'd
brand them a failure in the wake of the Palestinians'
rejection of then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak's generous compromise for peace in 2000.
Palestinians just want an identity, said Siblani,
who grew up in Lebanon. "That's all that they are
asking for," he said. "They don't have a country
they call their own. The Israelis have come in, taken
their land, confiscated their property and kicked
them out. The struggle has been between an occu-
pier and an occupied people."
To illustrate the desire for Mideast peace, Gale
Gale
recounted how the U.S.-backed road map also was
drafted by entities never high on Israel's list of allies:
the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. Even
the Ariel Sharon-led Likud Party isn't opposed to a Palestinian
state under the right conditions, he said.
Continued violence against Israel is what's shredding the
peace process, Gale said.
"The issue for American Jews, and for our
brethren in Israel, is that violence leads to
nowhere," he said, and he's right.
"Just as the United States will not negotiate
with Al Qaida," he said, "I don't think we should
expect Israel to be negotiating with Hamas and
Islamic Jihad. The only way for that to happen is
if they change their stripes and become partners
for peace. Frankly, seeing their actions and their
words, I don't see that happening."
fence) between Israel and the West Bank, and by destroying
West Bank villages.
"We need to bring more people to the middle, to talk like
you and I and try to resolve this issue," Siblani, in the radio
station's Detroit studio, said to Gale, participating by phone.
Siblani's call for talk instead of murder is heartening to hear.
I hope it pulsates throughout the Palestinian world.
But I'm distressed that Siblani drew a parallel between
Palestinian suicide bombers — who, disguised as religious
Jews, blow to bits civilian men, women and children — and
Israeli defense forces, who bulldoze suspected terrorist haunts.
Uprooted villages is an unfortunate price of war.
Siblani is convinced the terror would stop if Israel withdrew
its troops and removed illegal settlements from the territories.
But I see that as only increasing Israel's risk. The road map
calls for both concessions when the threat of terror ends.
Siblani said lack of a homeland has driven Palestinians to
despair — notwithstanding that Jordan was envisioned by
virtue of the British Mandate of Palestine to be that place.
"They are angry because they have been occupied- for a long
time," Siblani said. "Some people were born and later died
under occupation; their kids are still under occupation. They
can't go to school. They cannot go to work. They don't have
good health care. And they don't have citizenship. They don't
have any place they can call home. And they are mad, and
they are taking it to the street and they are creating this vio-
lence."
Countered Gale: "Whether it's what you call the occupa-
tion, the history, the refugee issue, borders, prisoners, what
have you, Israel is ready diplomatically to peacefully
negotiate all of these issues to the satisfaction of
both parties. Certainly, there will be some compro-
mises and some of them may be painful for either
side. But the time for violence is over."
My take is that Israel has no choice but to keep
military pressure on the masterminds of terror. To
not do that is to invite Israel's destruction.
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Down The Road
Gale's prescription for peace requires Mahmoud
Abbas, the seemingly powerless Palestinian prime
minister, to become "a leader who leads his people
to a better life by ending violence, by uniting all his people
and by having a monopoly of power."
Siblani, who is also president of the Arab American Political
Action Committee, said hope lies in the U.S., as a neutral
broker, creating a climate for "negotiations that everybody will
benefit from."
Negotiations or not, Palestinian leaders must stop
the government indoctrination of kids as young as 6
to think great heavenly rewards await if they embark
on suicide attacks as shahids
for Allah — when
they're older.
From death games to death wishes, Palestinian
children are taught to attack Jews out of fear and
hate — and in pursuit of a Palestinian state that
absorbs Israel.
As Itamar Marcus, the-Jerusalem-based director of
.
Spreading The Blame
the Palestinian Media Watch, put it: "If just 1% of
Siblani
the children attempt to fulfill their duty and seek
Siblani said he did not condone the terror ema-
Shahada through suicide terrorism, the ramifications
nating from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but said
will be cataclysmic. The targets of the future Palestinian terror
these Palestinian groups shouldn't shoulder all the blame for
wave will be Israel, and in all likelihood, other western democ-
the Mideast conflict. The Sharon government, he said, also is
racies as well." El
undermining peace by building a "wall" (largely an electrified
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