HonestReporting extends its condolences to the people of Israel during these trying times.
In the meantime, President Bush said he will deliver his speech recommending a provisional or interim state of Palestine “at the appropriate time.”
When is that?
The Chicago Sun-Times offered an answer in a June 19 editorial, “In the Interim, Let Israel Defend Itself”: “It’s important at this juncture for America to show solidarity with the Israelis living every minute of their lives on the front lines of the war on terror. That means this is not the time to establish a Palestinian state, provisional or otherwise.”
The Sun-Times editorial continues with some probing questions about the provisional state: “What happens if terrorists continue to operate out of it? (And who doubts that they will?) Having committed itself to this inchoate nation, would the United States have to assume a role in policing it against terror?”
Columnist Charles Krauthammer asks equally probing questions: “What does this provisional state say to the Palestinians? You can reject the state you were offered two years ago, start a war, murder daily and then be re-offered a state — this time without even having to be asked to make peace…. If two years of blood-letting gives the Palestinians an interim state — without even a simple cease-fire, let alone a real peace — what possible disincentive do they have to continue the violence?”
The New York Times’ columnist, William Safire, also queried, “Why, then, offer Arafat’s autocracy this pre-emptive prize? State Department Arabists claim it would show ‘movement’ away from solid Bush support for Israel and… offer a ‘political horizon’ to Palestinians. But some of us see recognition of an unreformed P.L.O. as offering a taste of triumph to jihadists from Netanya to New York.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/17/opinion/17SAFI.html
Read these three penetrating articles and use their cogent, hard-hitting arguments in composing letters to your local newspapers and media outlets.
===== ASHRAWI’S ANIMALS ======
TV stations around the world broadcast this week a video of Naima al-Obeid and her son Mahmoud. A proud mother embraces her son and sends him proudly on his way… to kill Jews. “God willing you will succeed,” she says. “May every bullet hit its target, and may God give you martyrdom. This is the best day of my life.” See BBC’s story at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_2050000/2050414.stm
News agencies have also published pictures of proud Palestinian mothers giving their toddlers guns or dressing them as suicide bombers.
We are also reminded of the self-righteous, sanctimonious pronouncements of Palestinian spokeswoman, Hanan Ashrawi, at the beginning of the Palestinian war against Israel. When asked about the Palestinian Authority dispatching teenagers to battle with Israeli soldiers, and in some cases to their deaths, she angrily turned on her interviewer:
“They’re telling us we are — we have no feelings for our children? We’re not human beings? We’re not parents? We’re not mothers or fathers? This is just incredible. I sometimes I say I don’t want to sink to the level of responding, or proving I’m human. I mean, even animals have feelings for their children.” (“60 Minutes,” October 24, 2000)
Every television or print outlet that invites or cites Ashrawi should be reminded of her smug hypocrisy.
