|
|
|
Jewish World Review April 30, 2004 / 9 Iyar, 5764 The Real Mideast ‘Poison’
By
Charles Krauthammer
Ah, those people. Kofi Annan's personal representative in Iraq now singles out the policies of the world's one Jewish state — and only democratic state in the Middle East — as "the great poison in the region." The Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhuriya is less diplomatic, explaining in an article by its deputy editor that, "It is the Jews, with their hidden, filthy hands, who . . . are behind all troubles, disasters and catastrophes in the world," including, of course, the attacks of Sept. 11 and the Madrid bombings.
Moreover, and much overlooked, Israel will also evacuate four small West Bank settlements, which creates extensive Palestinian territorial contiguity throughout the northern half of the West Bank. The Arabs have variously denounced this as Israeli unilateralism, a departure from the "road map" and a ruse and a plot. The craven Europeans have duly followed suit. And when Tony Blair defied the mob by expressing support for the plan, he was rewarded with a letter from 52 Arabist ex-diplomats denouncing him. This Nuremberg atmosphere has reached the point where, if Israel were to announce today that it intends to live for at least another year, the U.N. Security Council would convene to discuss a resolution denouncing Israeli arrogance and unilateralism, and the United States would have to veto it. Only Britain would have the decency to abstain. It gets worse. The Bush administration has been attacked not just for supporting the Gaza plan but for bolstering Israel in this risky endeavor with two assurances: first, that the Palestinian refugees are to be repatriated not to Israel but to Palestine; and second, Israel should not be required to return to its 1967 borders. Enlightened editorial opinion has denounced this as Bush's upsetting 30 years of American diplomacy. Utter rubbish. Rejecting the so-called right of return is nothing more than opposing any final settlement that results in flooding Israel with hostile Palestinians and thus eradicating the only Jewish state on the planet. This is radical? This is something that Washington should refuse to say? What is new here? Four years ago, at Camp David, this was a central element of the Clinton plan. As was the notion of Israel's retaining a small percentage of West Bank land on which tens of thousands of Jews live. Moreover, the notion that Israel will not be forced to return to the 1967 armistice lines goes back 37 years — to 1967 itself. The Johnson administration was instrumental in making sure that the governing document for a Middle East settlement — Security Council Resolution 242 — called for Israeli withdrawal to "secure and recognized boundaries," not "previous boundaries." And it called for Israel to withdraw "from territories occupied" in the 1967 war — not "from the territories occupied," as had been demanded by the Arab states, and not from "all territories occupied" as had been demanded by the Soviet Union. Arthur Goldberg (U.S. ambassador to the United Nations), Lord Caradon (British ambassador to the U.N.) and Eugene Rostow (U.S. undersecretary of state) had negotiated this language with extreme care. They spent the subsequent decades explaining over and over again that the central U.N. resolution on the conflict did not require Israel to withdraw to the 1967 lines. Confronted with these facts, the critics say: Well, maybe this is right, but Bush should not have said this in the absence of negotiations. Good grief. This was offered to the Palestinians in negotiations — in July 2000 at Camp David — with even more generous Israeli concessions. Yasser Arafat said no and then launched a bloody terrorist war that has killed almost a thousand Jews and maimed thousands of others. The fact is that there are no negotiations because under the road map — adopted even by the United Nations — there can be no negotiations until the Palestinians end the terror and dismantle the terror apparatus. To argue that neither Israel nor the United States can act in the absence of negotiations is to give the Palestinians, by continuing the terror, a veto over any constructive actions by the United States or Israel — whether disengaging from Gaza, uprooting settlements or establishing conditions for a final peace settlement that would ensure the survival of a Jewish state. This is an argument of singular absurdity. And a prescription for perpetual violence and perpetual stalemate.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
© 2004, WPWG |
