This was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as recently as October 4, 2001: "I turn to the Western democracies, first and foremost the leader of the free world, the United States. Do not repeat the dreadful mistake of 1938, when the enlightened democracies of Europe decided to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for the sake of a temporary, convenient solution. Don't try to appease the Arabs at our expense. We will not accept this. Israel will not be Czechoslovakia. Israel will fight terror. There's no difference between 'good terror,' and 'bad terror,' just as there is no difference between 'good murder,' and 'bad murder.'"
Sharon has gone steadily downhill since. First, under pressure from the U.S., he actually apologized for saying these words, which were wholly justified and needed to be said. Then despite the above promise, he rams through the cabinet a proposal to release hundreds of terrorists (a guarantee for future Israeli deaths) for the bones of three Israelis and a reported drug dealer. And with Arafat in firm open command of the government and all the security forces, Sharon goes back into negotiations and says this is a government with which Israel can do "business."
If only Israel were more like Czechoslovakia, which evicted two million Germans after World War II. What's more, decades later, Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Havel, pressed to apologize, rightly refused to do so, saying what had been done was just and proper.
While "visions" of a future liberal democratic Iraq fill the airwaves, on the ground, largely unreported, the portents are disquieting. On November 2, the London Daily Telegraph interviewed members of one of the last Christian families in Ramadi, 100 miles west of Baghdad. "We are terrified," says one. Formerly home to thousands of Christians, Ramadi has only ten families left. Said another: "The fundamentalists have put pressure on us as never before. Within 10 years there will be no Chsitians in this area. We will be finished." There are an estimated 700,000 Chaldean Christians and more than a million Assyrian Christians in Iraq. The Telegraph reports that Ashlimon Wardouini, the Chaldean Bishop of Baghdad warned the Vatican that Iraqi Christians face a grave future.
The U.S. offered a reward of up to $5 million for anyone providing information about the terror attack on an American convoy in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority's response? It is "outraged." Lawyer (and Outpost contributor) Roger Gerber sums up the PA's approach nicely. "First, it expresses outrage at the 'insulting' action of the U.S. offering a reward for the capture of murderers of three Americans in Gaza on U.S. government business. Second, it claims the PA is investigating the matter despite the fact that the FBI has publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of cooperation by the PA and despite the usual revolving door process of detaining and then releasing the usual suspects. Third, despite the initial claim by a terrorist group that they perpetrated the murder, the PA claims that Israel was behind it. The PA has previously claimed almost every murder of Israelis, including the murder of Israel Government Minister Rehavam Ze'evi, was the work of Israel. And the press, particularly in Europe, continues to report the claims with a straight face."
There is at least one country currently boasting a head of state as delusional as Shimon Peres: Zimbabwe, headed by Robert Mugabe. As writer Cathy Buckle reports from Zimbabwe, this is a country where fuel is in such short supply you cannot get an ambulance or hearse unless you provide the gas. There are no public telephone boxes any more because none of the country's coins has enough value to make a phone call. The only medicine at government clinics is Paracetemeol, used to treat everything. Money is issued with an expiration date. And with all this mayhem, Mugabe announces all schools will have computers, and one million houses will shortly be built (in fact cement is only available on the black market and only a multi-millionaire can build anything). Meanwhile, his Minister of Information lashes out at England, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, accusing them of stealing Zimbabwe's foreign and local currency and trying to "unseat" the government. The difference is that in Zimbabwe, the public knows the government spouts nonsense. In Israel, a significant segment of the population still believes that peace lies around the corner if Israel were only to make sufficient concessions.
Outpost - 2 - December 2003