Eugene Narrett
The last weeks of 1998 saw Israel boxed in by a '90s kind of triangulation. From Gaza to Baghdad to Washington, the Clinton administration played a series of inter-related games repugnant to decent and thoughtful people. The maneuvers were linked by their deadliness, dishonesty, and by the fact that each kink in the chain set up Israel for more blame. The dirty dealing even had its own objective correlative, a terrorist attack near the town of Shavei Shomron whose symbolic aptness made it more than usually unmentionable for today's "Ministries of Truth." That crime will be noted in closing, but first let's talk about money and cynicism.
Last month's Outpost noted the international conference convened by President Clinton early in December to ladle several billion more dollars on Yasir Arafat. The tax dollars were duly pledged despite a November 30 British report that tens of millions of its aid to build low income housing in Gaza had turned into luxury condos and cars for Arafat's cronies. The money was "unaccounted for and unrecoverable." A declassified U.S. General Accounting Office from 1996 made the same points.
This did not deter President Clinton or Secretary of State Albright from fulsomely praising Arafat or the nobility of their own intentions. Support for the Arabs is "outcome based," facts do not impede it. Questioned about the British report, Albright claimed that America's monitoring of Palestinian finances is "completely transparent." Nobel Laureate Arafat ignored questions about the depth of his pockets, smiled like the Cheshire Cat, and pronounced himself "pleased by the reality of the conference." Speaking of surrealism, in order to give a "color of law" to the cash infusion he was about to squirt into Gaza, on December 9 Mr. Clinton waived Congress's sanctions against aiding the PLO, a terrorist organization. "I hereby determine and certify," wrote the President, "that it is important to the national security interests of the United States to waive the provisions of section 1003 of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987, Public Law 100-204, through May 24, 1999." For those without a calendar at hand, that gives the PA carte blanche until its intended declaration of statehood. Perhaps Mr. Clinton then will pay a state visit to Al Quds ("historically Arab East Jerusalem").
That line about "the national security interest of the United States" hung like a wreath of smog over the latest missile shower on Baghdad, a few hours before the House of Representatives began deliberating and voting on impeachment. The timing reinforced the fact that Mr. Clinton is utterly untrustworthy and willing to sacrifice his family, party, nation, and the world itself to secure his privileges and appetites. Worse, if possible, than the grossly cynical and selfish timing of the attack and its lame rationale (Saddam had been in gross non- compliance since August) was the fact that it increased danger for everyone concerned--Iraqis, the entire Middle East, Americans, and people on other continents. Every facet of the operation will tend to produce the opposite of its supposed goals. The pinprick missile strikes could not significantly impair, much less destroy, the dictator's ability to use non-conventional weapons. Since the State Department thwarted Major Scott Ritter and UNSCOM's inspections last summer, Hussein has had months to shift his material. The attack also allowed socialist thug Saddam again to pose as a hero of Islam. It inflamed Muslims on the eve of Ramadan, making it more likely that attacks on Americans would ensue and that they would be blamed on Israel, the supposed beneficiary of the show. To help ensure this purpose, Mr. Clinton assured Israel he would do his utmost to protect it from the wrath of the aroused madman.
The two useful steps Mr. Clinton could have taken were eschewed: eliminating the dictator himself and/or vigorously assisting the democratic Iraqi opposition as mandated by the Iraq Liberation Act signed into law last October.
It is important to focus attention on the President because too many friends of Israel have failed to realize that he and his backers are a large part of the problem in the Middle East. The gross insensitivity (in compassion's guise) for which he is notorious was amply displayed in Gaza and Israel when he compared Jewish children whose parents have been murdered by Arabs to the Arab children of those imprisoned for the crimes. "I could not tell whose father was dead and whose father was in prison, or what the stories of their
The terrorists can come home from jail. Those they murdered can never come home.
After Clinton flew home to face the music and play "leader" of the free world, Palestinians who a few days before had tumultuously cheered his tacit acknowledgment of statehood and his call that they "bypass the Israeli government," rioted in rage. From Gaza to Shechem, Arabs burned American flags and shouted,
(Continued on p.9)
January 1999 - 7 - Outpost