DESERVING
from page 21
ucator
20-60'
OFF
Sale ends Wednesday
Ask for Kari Kovack
or Michelle Ben-Ezra
BRING YOUR
CUSTOM DESIGNS TO LIFE
,X•
We Specialize in all
custom doors:
•Wood •Fiberglass
• Steel •Interior
248-737-3700
33084 Northwestern Hwy.
between 14 Mile & Orchard Lake Road
(between. Home Appliance & In Style Furniture)
00*
24 month Lease $ 2 mr Oa
per month
$2,979 due at inception includes $275 refundable security deposit
plus applicable tax,
VOLVO
for life
DWYER
SONS
VOLVO
AND
On Maple Rd., West of Haggerty
7/16
2004
22
Volvosales@dwyerandsons.corn
www. dwyerandsons. corn
tional discourse: They have been accord
ed an internationally recognized right to
commit terrorism.
On the other hand, the court has
handed the Israelis a distinction that is
nothing new to the Jewish people: the
right to die.
Ignoring the fact that it was
Palestinian terror that built the Israeli .
fence, the court, acting at the suggestion
of the U.N. General Assembly, has
issued a ruling that historians will view
as yet another indicator of how Jew-
hatred was back in style little more than
a half century after the Holocaust.
While Israel's right of self-defense was
acknowledged, the international court
effectively denied Israel the ability to
carry out such a defense while also refus-
ing to place the building of the fence in
the context of terrorism. But, of course,
the intent of this travesty — as with
much of the propaganda offensive car-
ried out by the Palestinians and their fel-
low travelers in the last four years — is
not to knock down the fence. Their goal
is much broader: the delegitimization of
Israel and Zionism itself.
After a decade of failed peace talks
and terror, the overwhelming majority
of Israelis have had enough. To protect
themselves against a Palestinian terror
war, they are building a fence whose
purpose seems as much to separate the
two populations as it is to prevent ter-
rorism.
The international court says the fence
should run strictly along the 1949
armistice lines that served as Israel's bor-
der until 1967. But the problem with
that argument is that it prejudges the
disposition of the territories — to which
Israel has as good a legal claim as the
Palestinians, a right acknowledged by . .
the statements by both President Bush
and Democratic presidential candidate
John Kerry that Israel has the right to
retain portions of the territories — and
would effectively make sitting ducks all
of the nearly 400,000 Jews who live in
Judea and Samaria, as well as in parts of
Jerusalem occupied by Jordan from
1949 to 1967. That's exactly what
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his
troops want.
Those who say that the path of the
fence is being dictated by Israel's "expan-
sionist" agenda, instead of security con-
cerns, have it backward. As a number of
Israeli sources have told me over the past
couple of years, had security and securi-
ty alone been the only criteria for its
route, it would have been built far deep-
er into the West Bank, with many more
Palestinians ending up on the Israeli side
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor
of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
OPEN
SATURDAYS
"24 month closed-end lease. 20 cents per mile over 20,000 miles. New 2004 S40 2.41 with climate
package, automatic transmission. M.S.R.P. 525,750 based on Ford X-plan pricing. Offer ends 8-31-04.
8Jin70
so as to enable its route to make more
strategic sense. Instead, even in the fence
route criticized by some Israelis is taking
in too much land, its boundary is set to
minimize the effect on Palestinians and
run as close as possible to the areas
where the targets of Arab terrorism actu-
ally live.
Some Israelis wonder how much help
the fence will be in the Jerusalem areas
where growing Palestinian villages abut
both sides of the barrier. But there's no
question statistics show that completed
portions of the fence elsewhere have
drastically reduced the number of Arab
attacks.
As for the question of the inconven-
ience and hardship the wall has created
for the Palestinians, the answer is sim-
ple: Had they not launched a war in
September 2000, instead of accepting
Israel's offer of peace, no fence would
exist.
And even then, Israel's own Supreme
Court has shown itself willing, as it did
two weeks ago, to force the army to
reroute the barrier to accommodate
Palestinian petitioners.
Not Rooted In Reason
Viewed near or far, the fence is ugly, but
how can a reasonable person argue with
Israel's right to build it? Opposition to it
is rooted not in a quest for peace, but in
a desire for Israel's eradication.
The question isn't whether Israelis will
quiver in the face of new international
calumny or even further efforts by
Arafat's forces to kill Jews, such as last
weekend's bombing in Tel Aviv. They
won't. Its people have coped with the
trauma of terror, and have, for the most
part, not allowed the Palestinians to dis-
rupt their lives. The streets in Tel Aviv
and Jerusalem remain full; so are some
of the restaurants and hotels, as long-
absent tourists have started to return this
summer as the intifada has fizzled out in
yet another defeat for the Palestinians.
But the real question in the aftermath
of the latest outrages from the United
Nations and its kangaroo court is for us
in the United States. Ironically, some in
this country are now urging a greater
reliance on the United Nations and the
European Union, in spite of the fact
that these institutions are closely identi-
fied with the delegitimization of Israel
that the court ruling represents. The
decision on the fence ought to remind
us of the dangers of being pulled along
with what passes for international opin-
ion.
When global bodies enshrine Jew-
hatred in law, as this court has done,
decent persons everywhere should
tremble. LJ
.