(Editor's note: Alan Keyes hosted "Making Sense" on MSNBC, a rare "talk show" that did just that. Unlike other talk show hosts, Keyes challenged Arab spokesmen when they lied, an experience so unusual and uncomfortable for them that Arabs organized a petition to the network to drop Keyes. MSNBC promptly dropped Keyes, ostensibly on the grounds of low ratings, yet Nielsen ratings placed Keyes higher than Ashleigh Banfield, whose program the network promotes. Another indication of network anti-Israel bias is that it has hired as a producer Jeff Cohen of FAIR, an outfit critical of the media for being insufficiently left-wing. A sample of FAIR on Middle East coverage: "The network news shows have characterized Israeli violence as 'retaliation' almost nine times more often than Palestinian violence." What follows is the text of a letter that Ambassador Keyes recently sent to a pro-Israel web site.)
I write to express my solidarity with the people of Israel in this difficult time, and to assure you of what I know you cannot doubt, that millions of Americans stand with Israel as well. We will remember the truth of Israel's honorable record, insist that others treat Israel in light of that truth, and not succumb to the cowardly passions of the moment.
When the European Union asserts moral authority to coerce Israel into a shameful surrender of its just claims, we will remember that many Europeans sat on their hands and did nothing while millions of Jews were slaughtered in the era that gave birth to the state of Israel.
When "the international community" asserts its moral authority to dictate Israel's security policy, we will remember what the "international community" did in 1967, when Arab forces were amassing to launch a death blow against Israel, when Egyptian President Nasser kicked out the U.N. troops from the Sinai, and the international community did precisely nothing.
We will remember how the "international community" sat and waited for those hundreds of thousands of Arab troops to deliver a death blow to Israel, and we will remember that such a blow wasn't thwarted by international outrage, but by the unanticipated brilliance of the Israeli military.
We will remember that Israel acquired the Sinai, West Bank and Gaza not in a war of conquest, but in a desperate and just defensive war for survival.
We will remind the "international community" that territory acquired in a defensive war of survival can, according to universal understanding, international law, and common sense, be retained until a negotiated peace is reached. And we will proclaim the truth that the Israeli people have again and again shown their willingness to put those territories on the table in the hope of achieving just such a negotiated settlement for just peace. Israel's friends in America will insist that the world acknowledge that the Israelis have shown that they will negotiate in good faith, and keep agreements reached in good faith. We will remember the historic Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978, which resulted in Israel's peaceful return of the Sinai to the Egyptians. An agreement made, an agreement kept.
We remember that with Egypt, with Jordan, even quietly with Syria, the Israelis have proved to be a people of their word, when faced with a negotiating partner willing to meet its solemn obligations.
And because we will remember all these things, we will continue to insist that American and international policy recognize the poisonous significance of the unbroken record of murderous deceit which is the history of the PLO, the Palestinian Authority, and Yasser Arafat. While the Israelis have made concession after concession, and followed through with real and dangerous steps, such as turning over to Yasser Arafat authority in the West Bank and Gaza, Arafat has consistently refused to honor those agreements, to make significant concessions, and to do the one needful thing -- to stop killing Israelis. We remember, and see to this day, what the "international community" of appeasement refuses to see -- that the Palestinian strategy remains the manipulation of all discussion through the intentional use of terrorist violence, with the ultimate goal of destroying a demoralized, intimidated and isolated Israel.
We will remember these things, and speak the truth about them, not only out of respect and solidarity with the decent and heroic people of Israel. We will do so as well because we know that peace for all people of the region cannot be built on a foundation of manipulation, deception, violence.
The first pre-requisite for peace, and for self-government, is the restraint of one's own passions and violence out of respect for justice and fairness. Israel's noble restraint is unique in the history of the world. Israel has continued, to this day, to impose on herself the rational restraints of justice and truth, under circumstances of danger and assault far exceeding those normally sufficient to entice a people to submit entirely to rage and retribution. It is difficult to find words to express the contemptibility of the moral lectures such a noble people routinely receives from the self-appointed guardians of moral smugness in Europe and elsewhere.
The people in the Middle East deserve a better fate than tragic self-immolation. They will attain such a better fate only when they understand that the plea of victimization -- even if true, which in this case it is not -- cannot excuse the surrender to evil in one's own soul. The friends of Israel serve the cause of the people of the entire region when we insist that the path to peace re-
[(Continued on p.7)]
Outpost - 6 - July-August 2002