Jewish Ozzies' Inter.Net
The electronic voice of the Australian Jewish Community

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