By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
October 23, 2000
The Jordan Times yesterday, reporting on the meeting in Cairo on Friday and Saturday, quoted Yasser Arafat as promising that "his people would keep struggling against Israel until victory."
"Our people of the holy intifada (uprising), whose waves have not and will not stop until we achieve victory ... have made a pledge to every Arab, Muslim and Christian in this world that they will continue their struggle with all legitimate means until we reach victory," Arafat told the Arab summit.
However, Arafat also said the Palestinians still wanted peace despite "mass killing and barbarian bombing" by Israel.
"I confirm that despite all wounds and disappointments created by the hard peace process ... our choice is that of a just, permanent and comprehensive peace," he declared.
All poor Arafat is asking the Israelis is to do is just for all five million of them to surrender and meet his "demands for a Palestinian state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital and for the return of millions of Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes during the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars."
Millions of Palestinian refugees? WHAT millions? There were refugees in both the 1948 and the 1967 Arab-Israeli wars of course. However, there weren't millions of Palestinians IN Israel at the time. As a matter of fact, the total number of Palestinian refugees from Israel in both wars were less than the total number of Serb refugees that have fled, or been killed, since NATO took over Kosovo last year. According to a 1968 in depth report by World Book Encylopedia, "120,000 refugees fled into Jordan" and many of those were allowed to return to the West bank, if they could prove their identity. The West Bank, which has become the site of a so-called Palestinian State, had been part of Jordan, before the Arab invasion of Israel in 1967. Many refugees remained in Jordan and eventually caused King Hussein so much trouble by killings, hi-jacking airplanes over Europe, and holding passengers hostage that by 1970 he ordered his army to subdue them.
And who was it that was the leader of those troublesome hi-jackers and vandals? None other than Yasser Arafat who was quoted in March of 1970 in the Washington Post: "The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromise."
Did he, as reported, eventually mellow out and become a peacemaker? In February 1980, he was quoted by El Mundo, of Caracas, Venezuela as describing his definition of "Peace:" "Peace for us means the destruction of Israel."
Then, in the first Clinton brokered peace agreement, on September 13, 1993, Arafat signed the First Oslo Peace accord at the White House. In return for the right to establish a Palestinian Interim Self-Governing Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the PLO pledged:
1. To recognize "the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security."
2. To renounce "the use of terrorism and other acts of violence."
3. To revoke all articles of the PLO Covenant which call for the destruction of Israel.
Two months later, in December 1993, he told the Voice of Palestine, in Algiers: "We still have before us the task of completing the comprehensive withdrawal from all the occupied territories, at the forefront of which is Holy Jerusalem, the capital city of our independent state."
There has NEVER been an international agreement which gave Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Before the 1967 war, the West Bank was part of Jordan. And there has NEVER been a time when Yasser Arafat actually adhered to a peace agreement in which he recognized "the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security" or that he stopped the "use of terrorism and other acts of violence" or that he changed his mind about the PLO Covenant which calls for "the destruction of Israel."
The Palestinian Ministry of Information website tells us as recently as Saturday, October 21:
"Arab Jerusalem is the yardstick that will measure the effectiveness of the outcome of this Arab summit. Arab Jerusalem is the heart of the problem upon which peace or war will be determined."It is utterly unacceptable any more to see the Arab heads of state as mere hopeless witnesses observing what is going on from what appears to them as a safe distance. It is time for the Arab heads of state to rise to the challenge and to tell Israel and the United States that enough is enough, and that they will not remain silent any longer. Any thing short of the establishment of the Palestinian State on the Palestinian land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war and Arab East Jerusalem as its capital will not suffice. The Arab heads of state should not fail this test."
As the Arab Summit came to a close, the world finds itself one step closer to all out war in the region. Some of the closing statements, as reported by the Jordan Times included Yasser Arafat's latest threat to the Jews:
"Our people of the holy intifada (uprising) ... have made a pledge to every Arab, Muslim and Christian in this world that they will continue their struggle with all legitimate means until we achieve victory,"
How did the Christians get into the middle of Arafat's determined pledge to put an end to Israel? To actually understand what is being said, it is important to realize that what the Arabs mean by "peace" and what most Westerners mean by "peace" is not at all the same thing. For example, Syrian President Bashar Assad told the summit:
"As we strive for peace, Israel is striving for war. We chose peace as a strategic option. For Israel it was a tactic."
What does THAT mean? Assad elaborated:
"I have not heard any Palestinian in the struggle calling for a halt to the bloodshed. If he didn't want to spill his blood, he would stay at home. This blood was not spilt for us to stop it flowing, but for Israel to pay a price."
Translated that appears to mean that the kinds of suicide terrorist attacks we experienced which killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole and which the Israelis have experienced for years is merely an example of the Arabs' strategic option for peace.
Assad ended with: "We are not calling for a declaration of war" against Israel and then he renewed Syria's commitment to a comprehensive "peace as a strategic option, although the Jewish state was working for war".
Using oil needed by the West was also brought up as a means of bringing America and other Western nations to heel. However, the major oil producing states of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia felt that was not "in the best interests" of the Arab people.
And what about that much reported "peace" agreement authored by Bill Clinton a couple of days ago? According to the Saudi representative, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, the whole thing is Bill Clinton's fault:
"The United States, sponsors of the peace process, assume particular responsibility in the collapse of the peace process ... The sponsor is supposed to hold to account those responsible for such a collapse," he added, referring to Israel."After the positive spirit and commitment of the Arab side to the peace process, we expected the Israeli side to be dissuaded from or at least reprimanded for its stubbornness and practices contrary to the principles laid out in the Madrid conference and in the agreements reached with the Palestinians."
That brings up, again, the question I had at the end of the last "peace" conference brokered by Bill Clinton, which was announced three weeks before the coming election. Just what WAS it that Clinton secretly promised the Arabs?
Perhaps the solution to all this would be to, first, pass out an English dictionary to everyone at the peace conference so they could agree on what the word "peace" means BEFORE they write up any more documents.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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