(Continued from p.2)
courted the votes of Nazi sympathizers and his party is scarcely the most welcome addition to the European scene. But on what possible grounds can Israel take up the issue when its Prime Minister is licking the feet of far, far worse leaders in the Middle East? (Haider after all is no Holocaust denier, proclaims that he is friendly to Israel and includes Jews as representatives in his party.)The Middle East Media and Research Institute, which monitors the Arab press, reports ever-increasing anti-Semitic ranting and Holocaust denial in the press of Israel's new "peace partner" Syria. For example, a February 2 article in Al-Thawra by Fayez Al-Sayegh, a member of the Syrian negotiating team at Sheperdstown and Director-General of the Syrian News Agency, stated: "Israel...was established on Arab land following the banishment of its original inhaitants, their expulsion, and their murder in a series of horrible massacres...What is the Holocaust in comparison with these massacres?" The article goes on to refer to "the problematic historical nature of the Holocaust, whose terrorizing spectacles and the stories about its magnitude have been denied by writers and historians, including Israelis."
And then there is the article published in Al-Usbu Al-Adabi on February 5 by Dr. Ali Aqleh Ursan, the Chairman of the Arab Writers Association in Syria: "The covetous, racist and hated Jew Shylock, who cut the flesh from Antonio's chest with the knife of hatred, invades you with his money, his modern airplanes, his missiles, and his nuclear bombs. You must face a hard question: 'Do you, Christians and Muslims, wish to live, survive and fulfill your convictions...? Or are you Abraham's bleating lambs on the threshold of the Jewish altar, who are led to be sent to the Hereafter?"
The anti-Semitic vituperation goes on and on, and not just in Syria (which continues to harbor noted Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner) but in the PLO press, in Egypt -- among all Israel's "peace partners."
Given that Israel fawns over her neighbors as they vilify her, she has no call to complain about Haider.
Albright spokesperson Jamie Rubin has warned Israel against attacking Lebanese infrastructure installations in retaliation for Hizbollah attacks on Israeli soldiers. Said Rubin: "We do not believe that Israeli attacks against civilian infrastructure and populated areas will solve the problem. Such actions only add to the suffering of the people of Lebanon." Did we hear correctly? This from Madam Albright, architect of our Kosovo policy, who had no hesitation about massive U.S. bombing of Yugoslavia, killing civilians, depriving the entire country of electricity, destroying bridges, energy sources, water purification plants, factories, even hospitals (the latter by "mistake" of course). In Yugoslavia the bombing was bitterly described as sending the country back into the dark ages. And we did this to a people who had harmed us in no way.
For shame.
At this writing the "peace process" in Northern Ireland has foundered on the issue of compliance. Under the "peace" agreement the IRA was supposed to turn in its arms. It refused to do so. Sound familiar? The PLO was supposed to possess a limited number of arms and turn in the rest. It refused to do so. The PLO was supposed to turn over murderers of Jews to Israel. It refused to do so.
That's where the stories part company. The Unionists in northern Ireland said "No compliance, no peace proces," and the British, however reluctantly, have been forced to back them. The Israelis said no compliance, forget about it, what does it matter anyway, and the U.S. has been only too happy to forget about Arab compliance.
End result? Israel's peace process has turned into a death-of-the-state process, and is in an advanced stage.
Very late (too late?) Israeli "Center Party" politician (formerly Likud Party Justice Minister) Dan Meridor, who currently serves as Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman, has come to the conclusion that Oslo was a mistake. His complaint focuses on this same issue of compliance. In an interview published in the Feb. 18 issue of the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, Meridor says of Oslo: "It was bad. A norm was set by which the Palestinians do not fulfill agreements, and we shrug our shoulders...Further concessions by Israel will merely increase Arafat's appetite."
In fact, of course, the Israelis were fools to have imagined for a moment that Arafat had any intention of making peace with the state he has consistently vowed to destroy. More Israelis are awakening to the stupidity of what was done, but few indeed seem prepared to call an end to the charade. As Arie Stav notes in this issue, dashing Arab expectations, raised skyhigh by Israel's own folly, will have a high price.
Outpost - 10 - February 2000