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THE HERALD-SUN - MELBOURNE - 18 March 2002
The Extremists' War
By: Andrew Bolt
With Israelis and Palestinians killing each other almost daily, it has become
difficult to separate the good guys from the evil ones
WHEN suicide bombers blow up buildings in New York, we in the West have little
trouble figuring who the baddies are. Hell, no. We rush to help blast the crap
out of al-Qaeda and the Afghan tyrants who sheltered
them.
And if some civilians get in the way, despite our best efforts, that's sad.
For them. After all, we know that the greatest harm is done not when you
fight terrorists, but when you let them win.
But what if the terrorists kill Jews, instead?
What if a suicide bomber walks up to a crowd of mostly women and children in
Jerusalem, as one did three Saturdays ago, and blows nine people to bits?
What if another enters a Jerusalem restaurant, as occurred the next Saturday,
and -- boom -- massacres 11 diners all in their 20s?
What if such terrorists kill commuters in Jewish buses, Jews eating in a pizza
shop, Jews out shopping, Jewish babies in the arms of their mothers -- anyone,
as long as they're Jews -- and do it week after week?
Ah, well, that's difficult. Then we have Phillip Adams on the ABC last week
discussing with one of his pet Israel-bashers what the Jews did to deserve this
mass murder.
THEN we have the Australian National University's Professor Amin Saikal talk of
``the imbalance . . between Israel as a powerful and determined occupying power
and the Palestinians as a largely
defenceless and occupied people''. Yes, those rich Jewish oppressors,
splattered over the walls of some shop.
And those poor, defenceless Palestinians, so brutalised by their Israeli
neighbour that they have no choice but to find some Jewish family eating lunch
and kill them all.
It is such an easy way to seem even-handed, isn't it, to look at any fight and
say: There's fault on both sides. As bad as each other. And, indeed, there
are faults on both sides.
The Israelis were wrong to build settlements in territories they seized for
security reasons while winning their wars for existence. Some of their
retaliatory raids after terrorist attacks have accidentally or even
recklessly killed too many innocent Palestinians.
Far more should have been done to build economic links with the Palestinians,
not least by letting their farmers get easy access to Israeli markets.
BUT faults on both sides do not mean both are as bad as each other. A man who
hits too wildly in self-defence is not as bad as one who shoots your wife's head
off to make a point.
Israeli soldiers shooting terrorists -- and, yes, civilians in crossfire -- are
not to be likened to men sent with a wink from Palestinian authorities to blow
up teenagers dancing at a disco.
And to help see the difference, compare what both sides in this war want.
What is Israel fighting for? For the right to live. That's why almost every
peace initiative has come from the Israelis or their friends.
That's why the previous Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, offered to give 97
per cent of all occupied territories -- plus land to make up the difference --
back to the Palestinians, and let them share Jerusalem,
too, if only they'd make peace.
Yasser Arafat, the terrorist who now heads the Palestinian Authority, refused.
So what does his side want? Well, they say they want at least this and the
return to Israel of up to five million ``refugees'' and their
descendants -- mostly of the generation that left in 1948 to get out of the road
while the armies of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq tried to blast the
new Jewish state off the map.
That's five million hostile Palestinians ``returned'' half a century later to
Israel, a land of just 4.9 million Jews and 1.2 million Arabs. This would
mean the destruction at last of the Jewish state that Arab armies
failed four times to achieve. And it is this destruction of Israel and its Jews
that seems to be the real aim of many Palestinian leaders.
See for yourself the Palestinian crowds celebrating after Jews were blown up in
a Jerusalem restaurant.
Hear the Arafat-controlled TV station broadcast sermons from the mosques of
Gaza, ordering: ``Wherever you are, kill those Jews and the Americans who are
like them.''
Hear the Arafat-appointed Mufti of Palestine praying: ``Oh, Allah, destroy
America as it is controlled by Zionist Jews.''
See Hamas, the popular Islamic fascist movement, train tiny children to shoot
guns, and declare in its covenant that the Koran orders Muslims to kill Jews,
who must be driven from ``every inch of Palestine''.
Read the constitution of Fatah, the party led by Arafat himself, demanding the
``complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic,
political and cultural existence'' by ``armed public
revolution''.
Watch Arafat foment hatred of the Jews by spreading poisonous lies, like the one
he told on TV in January about Israelis who ``murder our kids and use their
organs as spare parts''.
Read the Palestinian Centre for Public Opinion poll of 1571 Palestinians last
month that shows 64.3 per cent support suicide attacks on Israelis.
Note that even a prominent Palestinian ``moderate'', Arafat's then Minister for
Jerusalem, Faisal al-Husseini, said the real aim of peace talks was to
create a ``Palestine from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea'' -- in
other words, to replace Israel.
And remember, too, the four wars Israel has had to fight with its Arab
neighbours just to survive. More war may still be necessary, given how
many Arab and Muslim leaders reject the very existence of this country of Jews.
LAST year, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, Iran's former president and still powerful,
heralded the day when "one atom bomb is dropped on Israel'' and "the
Jews living in Israel will have to wander once again''.
Yes, Israel has done wrong. But in the end it is fighting much the same war that
we've only just been plunged into -- a war of civilisation against barbarity, of
democracy against fascism, of reason and peace against terror and genocide.
And ask yourself: How can it give in to men who think nothing of killing Jewish
children, and ever feel safe?
Does this mean I have no sympathy for Palestinians? Not at all. I fear for them
even more. Having to fight men who happily blow up women and babies is awful
enough. Being led by such animals must be murder.
bolta@heraldsun.com.au