One of the reasons that our nation thrives economically and remains resilient is our willingness to discard outdated policies and theories. After years of appeasement and "detente," President Reagan confronted the "evil empire" and brought about the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. Scientific and medical institutions routinely discard entrenched theories, technologies and treatments after new research either disproves them or offers more efficient and updated modalities. Even in academia where even sillier notions usually replace existing inanities, there is movement for change in regard to bilingual education, "Ebonics" and quotas -- policies that have been detrimental to education.
Today the threat of massive terrorism within our borders creates new domestic and international imperatives. Fortunately, our legislators show flexibility and determination to confront the challenge. However, when it comes to the Israel-Arab conflict, the State Department seems incapable of altering its entrenched policy of pursuing a Palestinian Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza as a "solution" to the Arab-Israel conflict.
In fact, it is a policy that never made sense. Israel has fully met its obligation to UN resolution 242 by surrendering the Sinai which comprised 92% of lands captured in 1967. That's more than enough and more than the formulators of the resolution envisaged.
No sane analyst can believe in the viability of an Arab state between the 1967 borders and the Jordan River. No student of the history of the area can ignore that Jordan, which represents 80% of historical Palestine, is populated primarily by Palestinian Arabs. How long would it be before a so-called Palestinian Arab state would aim to topple the Hashemite kingdom across the Jordan River in an effort to unify Palestine? The PLO is virtually certain to become the PUO -- the Palestine Unification Organization dedicated to eliminating both Israel and Jordan. And it will be aided, funded and supported by other Muslim states in their ongoing effort to deflect attention from their own abusive dictatorships.
Who can expect that a democracy will emerge in a small territory overrun by competing terrorists with a blood lust against Israel? What a utopian notion to expect a "transparent' government with a "constitution!" Cuba has a constitution, as did the Soviet Union. There is no Thomas Jefferson in the schoolrooms or the nurseries or in utero in the "West Bank." Just listen to the Arab "street."
There is not a single Arab state that is a democracy and respects fundamental civil rights. Lebanon, which once approximated such a state (under predominantly Christian rule), has become a Syrian satrapy. There is no free press for Arabs anywhere in the Middle East except for Jerusalem, where, under Israeli sovereignty, even seditious propaganda is published in Al Quds, the local Arab paper. There is no freedom of assembly or freedom to dissent. It is chimerical to suppose that anything but limited autonomy with maximum rights to self-expression and local governance is possible in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
It is clearly time to change gears in our policy formulations. We don't press for statehood for the Basques or the Corsicans or the Kurds. The French, so self-righteous in support of statehood for the Palestinian Arabs, permit Corsica only the most limited autonomy. The Spaniards, so outspoken against Israeli sovereignty over the Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, will not even discuss Basque independence. Why is only Israel pressed to consider policies that are suicidal?
It is time for Israel's friends and supporters to press for Arab concessions. Time to rethink entrenched slogans about obstacles to peace. Time to recognize that it is the "refugee camps" which are anomalies in the face of the millions of refugees who have been uprooted and resettled during the past fifty years. They are obstacles to any reconciliation while the residents are kept in squalor and irredentism, and violent dreams are nurtured by the United Nations, Arab theocracies and morally decrepit anti-Semitic European nations.
It is time to set aside fruitless quests for treaties and concessions and "peace" agreements. Without benefit of a treaty Jordan and Israel enjoyed de-facto peace from 1967 until the disastrous Oslo process. Every single treaty ever signed by Arab nations has been violated and abrogated by violence. Egypt and Syria were once the United Arab Republic until their respective dictators violated their agreements, and called one another "dwarfs." Egypt and Libya signed a treaty which was promptly buried. Iran and Iraq signed a treaty in 1976, which Iraq flouted by attacking Iran in 1979. Almost every paragraph of the highly touted Camp David agreements have been violated by Egypt, which has consistently supported violence against Israel in its government controlled press. The only real deterrent to an Egyptian onslaught against Israel is the Jewish nation's superior military strength. What ground is there for assuming that any treaty with a Jewish State would have any shelf life among Arab nations?
It is time to discard impractical and dangerous policies that ignore Israel's legitimate, historic and religious rights. It is time to formulate new policies for coexistence among Arabs and Jews.
Another Arab state? Just say no. Absolutely no.
Ruth King is a member of the Executive Committee of Americans For a Safe Israel.
Outpost - 10 - June 2002