The extermination of Israel is what Palestinian fanatics really want
newaus.com.au
by David Revelman
TNA News with Commentary
Weekend 20-21 October 2001
The greatest mistake of the twenty-first century may be
about to be made in its first year. In the 1930s many
politicians failed to understand the logic of appeasing
Hitler, leading to the greatest avoidable disaster of the
twentieth century. Only an exchange of nuclear
weapons might produce a worse result. This might be
where we are heading.
Tony Blair and George W. Bush seem prepared to
hand Yasser Arafat his Palestinian state as a tactic to
maintain the coalition against the al-Qa’eda terror
network.
Osama Bin Laden now falsely claims he did what he did
for the Palestinian cause. If Blair and Bush do this
foolish thing at this time, the Islamic world might take it
as a signal that Bin Laden has found the way to direct
the middle east settlement in a pro-Arab direction. The
message will be that it is the size of the bomb that gets
results. Killing a dozen Israeli schoolchildren or a
hundred airliner passengers is not enough. But take out
five thousand in New York City, and hey presto, Bush
and Blair agree to a Palestinian state.
Rewarding Bin Laden with such a victory will buy more
trouble than any coalition can put down. The logic will
be inescapable, bigger bombs win bigger prizes. Under
these new Blair/Bush rules a nuclear weapon delivered
onto Chicago or Los Angeles will produce a vastly
greater victory than collapsing the World Trade Center.
Don't think fanatics won't think like that.
Middle eastern and Islamic dictators may be
encouraged to think that the way out of their
self-induced poverty and political parlousness is to get
the bomb or other weapon of mass destruction, bigger
and better than Bin Laden's commercial aircraft.
Rewarding Bin Laden with a Palestinian state may
trigger an arms race among terrorists and their
supporting states. Bin Laden has raised the bar. If Bin
Laden is rewarded other terrorists will try to out do
him, that is for sure.
Fickle coalitions of shifty allies can never be more than
tactics, they are not strategies. The greatest mistake the
west can make is to show weakness. A campaign
against terror that is ruthless and forceful will provide
the US, the UK and the rest of the civilised world with
the protection that is needed. Kowtowing to yesterday's
terrorist, Yasser Arafat, and indirectly appeasing
today's terrorist Bin Laden, will only cause more
casualties in the west, possibly in the thousands or even
in the millions.
The mistake that appeasers continually make is to
project their own good intentions on to those who
would destroy them. To them conflict springs from
misunderstandings that can be resolved when the good
will and commonsense that exists on both sides is
allowed to prevail. But, like Hitler, Arab fanatics are
motivated by malice — there is no good will. And
that’s why there is no Palestinian state. If a
self-governing state is what they really want and nothing
more they could have had it. What they really want is
the extermination of Israel. |
