....." "Israel has responded to what is now a three-year war of sustained terror with incredible restraint. If these kinds of attacks were being launched against the United States we'd have had the B-52s out. We wouldn't be building security fences," he said.".....
We Would Have Bombed the PA Long Ago, US Congressman Says
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
February 23, 2004
cnsnews.com\ForeignBureaus\archive\200402\FOR20040223c.html
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - The U.S. would never put up with the kind of terror attacks being launched against Israel and would have bombed the Palestinians a long time ago, a visiting U.S. congressman said here.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) spoke after visiting the site of Sunday's suicide bus bombing on a busy Jerusalem street. The attack killed eight people and injured more than 50.
Nadler was among a group of more than 100 American Jewish leaders meeting with Israel's Army Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon in Jerusalem as part of an annual conference here. The number 14 bus was blown up about 100 meters from their hotel.
Nadler said Israel is right to build a security barrier, and he blamed Palestinian suffering as a result of the fence construction on the Palestinian Authority itself.
"You have to blame the Palestinian Authority for these things because they're really directing terrorist attacks, which they won't admit, but they are. They're thumbing their nose at the United States, at Israel, at the world, at The Hague," Nadler said.
Nadler said that the Palestinians are trying to take advantage of world hypocrisy to continue carrying out terror attacks, while at the same time accusing Israel of building a defensive fence.
"Israel has responded to what is now a three-year war of sustained terror with incredible restraint. If these kinds of attacks were being launched against the United States we'd have had the B-52s out. We wouldn't be building security fences," he said.
Palestinians charge that Israel's fence is a brazen grab of land they hope to incorporate into a future state. Many Palestinians have been cut off from their lands, schools, businesses and medical facilities by the fence and are forced to pass through Israeli-managed gates for services.
Nadler said any inconvenience to the Palestinians was, frankly, "too bad."
He likened the pressure on Israel to that put on the Czechs prior to World War II, when they were blamed for "endangering the peace of Europe by having the nerve to oppose the peaceful ambitions of Heir [Adolph] Hitler."
Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chair of the American-Jewish group (Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations), called Monday's scheduled hearing in The Hague on Monday an "obscenity."
"This is an obscenity that they are putting Israel on trial for doing what it's required to do, which is defend its citizens -- and what more proof could there be than this," Hoenlein said of the terror attack.
He added, "We all could be the victims, and that everybody has to be part of the war on terrorism. You can't think that anybody is exempt from it."
Hoenlein said that the leaders would return to the U.S. and speak about what they saw here.
"We have to mobilize the world public opinion to put an end to it, that there must be a dismantling of the infrastructure of terror and nothing less, and there cannot be pressure on Israel and there cannot be demands on Israel until that takes place," he said.
Israel sent a written brief to The Hague several weeks ago arguing that the court does not have the jurisdiction to rule in the case because it is political in nature. The U.S., the European Union, and other countries did the same. Israel chose not to send a delegation to present its case orally before the court.
The Palestinians and a number of Arab states will present oral arguments before the court beginning on Monday.
Across from the ICJ, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups will attempt to win the public relations battle regarding the barrier.
Palestinians reportedly will build a replica of concrete sections of the wall, then destroy it symbolically.
Although there is no official Israeli delegation, a group of Israeli families of terror victims are in The Hague; and the ZAKA, the rescue and recovery organization, sent the remains of a demolished bus to make its point. The number 19 bus was destroyed in a suicide attack in Jerusalem on January 29, killing 11 people.
Over the weekend, The Hague's Mayor Wim Deetman called pro-Israel demonstrations "provocative" because they displayed the names and pictures of 927 Israelis, all killed in Palestinian terror attacks over the past 41 months. A local court rejected his petition to stop the display. |
