Whatever...

 

     Whether he dies or lives to once again attempt to orchestrate more barbarism against Jews may no longer be the point.

    

     Arafat's prolonged Halloween sojourn abroad has the potential--if ever so slight--to allow for a new beginning. Unfortunately, due to seeds continuously sowed by Arafat himself, especially since the days of the alleged Oslo "peace," the chances of reaping any good harvest from this development are not very good. But it's still worth a try.

 

     Watching the news reports on television, the religious leaders of Arafat's Palestinian Authority's Arabs were up to their same old Jew hating and baiting game, stirring up more blood lust among the masses...the very sort of thing that was supposed to end--but that actually increased--as Israel gave up hard tangibles on the ground to reach an accommodation with Arabs a la Oslo.

 

     How do you undo such deliberate indoctrination of venomous hatred? No amount of Israeli concessions and goodwill--short of national suicide--will suffice. Poll after poll taken amongst Arabs have proven this to be so. Children have been raised on this diet, and Arafat has called the Arab mother his best weapon.

 

     Regardless, here's what needs to be done now...

 

     Israel's leadership should hold a public press conference so that the whole world can hear loudly and clearly what it says to the Arabs at this potentially pregnant moment in history. A carefully chosen and articulate diplomat, a la the late Abba Eban, should be the messenger.

    

     To begin with, it should be stated that, as it has been prepared to do from the very beginning of the conflict, Israel remains ready for a fair and just solution with the Arabs. The latter have repeatedly been offered more than reasonable compromises (certainly far more than they have ever offered to any of their own national competitors) which they have turned down for no more or less reason than wanting to deprive Jews--or anyone else in "their" region--even a tiny sliver of the very rights so forcefully demanded for themselves.

 

     It should slowly and deliberately be reminded to all that while Israel understands the desire of Arabs to have a 22nd or 23rd state, Arabs must, in turn, also understand the need and the desire of millennially persecuted, demonized, and massacred Jews to end their perpetual victim status by the resurrection of their sole, tiny state. No matter how much Arabs try to portray themselves as being in a similar status, any reasonable, knowledgeable observer understands the truth here. While Arabs have also been victims, their victimization has largely been the result of their own actions and attitudes, most often at the hands of their own brethren.

 

     Israel must not shy away from confronting the Arabs on these and other issues head-on. While Arabs complain about imperialism, many peoples besides themselves also suffered because of this. Jews, indeed, became the oldest and most tragic surviving victims of imperialism after their revolts for freedom against a Roman Empire which was later supplanted by those of the Byzantines, Persians, Arabs, Crusaders, Turks, Brits, and others as well. Truth be told, for Arabs, imperialism is only a nasty word when others besides themselves indulge in it. Just ask Berbers, Kurds, black Africans, Jews, Copts, and others native to the region for insights into this subjugating and oppressive reality.

 

     Israel must state clearly that if Arabs are to have that additional state, that it will not arise at the expense of the security of the only one that the Jews possess. Those complaining about the emergence of a potential Arab "bantustan"--including the Foggy Folks--must absorb this point especially well.

 

     Arabs must again be reminded that they received even the bulk of "Palestine" itself right from the getgo when Transjordan--today's Jordan--was separated and made "off limits" to Jews by Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill from the original 1920 borders of the Mandate of Palestine in 1922. This is not simply "Zionist propaganda" as they like to tell the story. While Arabs may not be happy with the different geographical origins of the leadership over the land (i.e. the displaced Hashemites of Arabia), they must realize that Jews didn't have the luxury of complaining over the origins of their own leadership upon the creation of Israel. They didn't demand separate Jewish states for the Jews of Morocco, or of Russia, or Iraq, or a hundred other places (half of Israel's Jews fled "Arab"/Muslim lands). They--like thirty million stateless Kurds (who are still being ignored)--asked for just one small slice of the world in which to build a better tomorrow.

 

     Arabs, unfortunately, don't see things this way. They continue to believe that since they once conquered and forcibly Arabized much of the region, that they--and they alone--have any political rights in what they call purely Arab patrimony. Most Arabs were newcomers themselves into the land, as the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission and other documentation readily shows. Until they rid themselves of this oppressive mindset, the hope of any real peace will remain basically non-existent...with or without Arafat. And Israel, unfortunately, must have at its ready the very real threat of massive retaliation against those who continuously scheme for its destruction. Furthermore, it must not be afraid to use this, if and when necessary, despite what the world's hypocrites will demand. Israel loses the game if it plays by the rules that the Arabs and their duplicitous allies set for it. If America--which greatly dwarfs Israel in size and power--can have its own Powell and Bush Doctrines to deal with potential adversaries and security issues, then how can Israel's much more vulnerable predicament be ignored?

 

     Israel must state, once again, the obvious.

 

     No American arm twisting, international pressure, or the like to bring about forthcoming concessions will be necessary once Israel sees that it truly has a real partner for peace that understands what the true meaning of compromise is all about. And this compromise must have a territorial component so that the artificially-imposed armistice lines of 1949--which made a 9-mile wide Israel a constant temptation to those who would destroy it--are no longer an issue.

 

     Israel was never meant to be reborn as such a microscopic rump state.

 

     While it is true that this will mean that Arabs will get less of the disputed (not "occupied") territories that they demand, it is also true that those territories with age-old Jewish connections in Judea (Judean...Jew) and Samaria --renamed the "West Bank" as a result of British imperialism and Transjordan's illegal seizure of the non-apportioned areas of the Mandate during its invasion of reborn Israel in 1948--which Arabs demand become totally Judenrein (while one fifth of Israel proper remains Arab) must not become so. If numerous Arab settlers from Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere could be allowed to set up "settlements" in these territories over the past century (and most others just a little before), then an accommodation must also be made for Jews--who owned land and lived there as well clear up to their massacres by Arabs in the 1920s. While Israel doesn't expect to rule over millions of Arabs here, an adequate buffer zone, a la U.N. Resolution 242, must be created in these areas as well. Think about how other nations have dealt with those who have waged war against themselves and lost.

 

     Israel must talk candidly--yet hopefully and caringly--to its potential Arab partners and to all others who will be listening. It must make clear that, after the Oslo fiasco (virtually imposed upon it by its "friends"), it will never again yield anything of substance to an Arab state still dedicated to its destruction. But it must also reiterate (as it has done on many earlier occasions) that many wonderful things will become possible--sharing of precious resources, good, neighborly relations, and such--if and when Arabs understand that others, besides themselves, are also entitled to a share of justice in the region...even those whom the Arabs' have named "their own" kilab yahud...Jew dogs.

 

     During these uncertain Arafatian days, while Europe and others will demand that Israel be forthcoming in conciliatory moves, Mr. Bush must resist his own State Department which will almost certainly demand likewise.

 

     The ball is now in the Arabs' court...not the Jews. It is for the former to show that they can come up with a new leadership that can control, confront and destroy--if necessary--the deliberate disembowelers of Jewish babes and grandmas nurtured on decades of officially instigated Jew hatred. And they must take long overdue steps to put an end to such indoctrination so that a new dawn may yet arise for all the diverse peoples of the Middle East.