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understand that Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheba are "settlements." If Israel relinquishes the right to live anywhere on sovereign territory, no city or town anywhere in the state is safe. Ariel, Efrat, Gush Etzion, and Hebron are as legitimate as Herzliya.
Last, it is absolutely infuriating that democratic Israel should be asked to trade its security and rights in exchange for the "recognition of its right to exist." The right of Israel to exist is inalienable and not subject to recognition by thugs and despots and terrorists. Israel's spokesmen should point this out forcefully.
The real question is whether a mass murderer such as Arafat has the right to exist in a civilized world.
Annan's outburst against Israel is shameful even by the low standards of the United Nations. While he referred to the suicide bombings against Israel as "morally repugnant" his ire was focused on Israel's counter-measures, which have been constrained and proper by any Western standards of self defense. Annan is more bothered by "settlements" than by youths who strap grenades into the belts of their jackets and blow up cafes, bus stops, offices, shops and malls, scattering victims into an inferno of blood and fire.
We await Annan's response to what was in effect the Saudi murder of fourteen of their own schoolgirls. The New York Times has reported that in Saudi Arabia these schoolgirls perished in a burning building from which they were not allowed to escape. Their crime? Some were not wearing the head gear proscribed by strict Islamic law. We can be confident that this brutal violation of human rights will not exercise the UN's Secretary General.
On a recent Saturday night, Geraldo Rivera conducted a series of interviews with Arabs and Israelis. His program included a home video of an Arab mother sending her son off to become a suicide bomber. The mother says she hopes all her sons will be suicide bombers. Geraldo seemed non-plussed by the video, shaking his head quizzically.
He subsequently interviewed a Mr. Roth, whose teenage daughter Malka was killed in the blast at Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem. Geraldo asked Mr. Roth if he had no sense of pain for the Palestinian Arabs. Geraldo announced that although he is a Zionist, he feels the unbearable pain of the Arabs. To his credit, Mr. Roth quoted Golda Meir, who said that peace could only come when Arab mothers loved their children more than they hated the Jews. Geraldo lavished almost as much praise on the late Golda Meir as he did on his Arab guests, but he still didn't get it.
The mothers who send their children off to become living weapons of mass destruction have no equivalent anywhere in the world, including Geraldo's world. And, since Geraldo is such a fan of Golda's he might hearken to another of her quotes. When told that Israel's security was guaranteed by the United States, she said, "By the time you get here, we won't be here."
Ruth King is a member of the executive committee of Americans For a Safe Israel.
Americans For a Safe Israel
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Outpost - 12 - April 2002