Dr. Irving Moskowitz
A fascinating aspect of the recent controversy over Hillary Clinton and PLO statehood has been generally overlooked. It's worth scrutinizing, for it reveals a great deal about the future of relations between Arabs and Jews.
The conference at which Hillary Clinton spoke was sponsored by an organization called "Seeds for Peace," one of the many Arab-Jewish "peace" groups that sprung up after Oslo, like mushrooms after a heavy rainfall. In this case, poison mushrooms.
The premise behind such groups is that the
Arab-Israeli conflict is not so much a nationalistic or
religious struggle, but more of a "misunderstanding." Each
side supposedly only knows the other through
stereotypes and media accounts, but when they meet and get to
know each other, barriers get broken down and peace
becomes possible--peace between individuals, and peace
between nations. That's the theory. The reality is completely
different. The Arab-Jewish conflict did not arise because
of a "misunderstanding," but because Arabs and
Jews understood each other all too well: the Arabs
understood that the early Zionist pioneers would never give
up their goal of establishing a Jewish State, and the
Zionists for the most part understood that the Arabs
would never give up their goal of obliterating the possibility of
a Jewish State.
Thanks to "Seeds for Peace," that Arab dream of obliterating Israel has moved a step closer. Just before the Arab and Israeli teenagers at the "Seeds" conference heard Mrs. Clinton, they were embroiled in a dispute over the fact that the Palestinian Arab teens were given t-shirts that said "PNA," for "Palestinian National Authority," while the Jewish teens were given shirts that said "Israel." The Arabs covered the letters "PNA" with tape and wrote "Palestine" on the tape. When the Israeli teens objected, the "Seeds for Peace" organizers came up with a compromise: all the youngsters covered the names of their countries. Israel was thus symbolically obliterated in order to appease the militant Palestinian Arab teenagers.
And if "Seeds for Peace" has its way, an entire generation of young Israelis will be raised to believe that, in the end, Israel itself must be sacrificed in order to appease the Arabs.
Americans For a Safe Israel
1623 Third Ave. (at 92nd St.) - Suite 205
New York, NY 10128
Outpost - 12 - June 1998