Steven Plaut
When President Clinton was in Gaza, the PLO dragged out a group of children who cried to Madeleine Albright and to Clinton about how badly they missed their daddies. Clinton was so moved that he went on to compare the children of serial murderers to the children of their victims, and the Israeli Michael Lerner, Prof. Asa Kasher, the pop ethicist who believes that the highest form of morality is political correctness, agrees with Clinton (Ma'ariv, December 18) that the two groups are morally comparable, and Kasher does not understand what all the hullabaloo is about in response to Clinton's comparison.
Israel TV's Channel One did some atypical journalistic work. It found the little girl who sobbed to Albright and Clinton, interviewed her at length and then researched the story of her Abu-Murderer Daddy and his victims. Seems that Abu-Murderer was strolling the avenue one day in Tel Aviv and decided the weather was nice for knifing Jews, so he knifed two Jews in the back who were waiting for the light to change, ran down the street, and knifed an elderly professor, who died from the attack, and then tried to get into an apartment and kill some children, except they would not open the door. He then got caught. The elderly professor he murdered was professor of agriculture specializing in irrigation techniques and some of his students were Palestinians. The terrorist is quite proud of his deeds, as is his guttersnipe daughter, who says Daddy killed the professor 'cause he had been stealing water from "our river," I guess the Jordan.
This is the sort of creature Clinton thinks is morally comparable to the children of the victims.
It is true that when wars end, prisoners of war are released. It is false that the war by the Arabs against the Jews has ended, and it is false that the imprisoned Palestinian terrorists are prisoners of war. They did not battle soldiers but rather murdered civilians, and there is no reason to release them ever, and many reasons to execute them. If anything, they are similar to the SS troops operating concentration camps, not to Wehrmacht troops of the field.
Stseven Plaut teaches at the University of Haifa.
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in the truly existential problems facing the state and cannot be deflected by such meaningless trivialities. Let the beneath-your-attention PA do whatever it likes. Here are excerpts from an exchange between Aliza Goren, Ehud Barak's spokesperson and Aaron Lerner of IMRA (Independent Media Review and Analysis).IMRA: When Barak said last night that the "thousand Palestinian rifles" has no meaning, did he also mean the anti-tank missiles and other equipment which the Palestinians have?
Goren: He meant that with all this talk about the Palestinians the real danger is the Iranian danger.
IMRA: So from his standpoint there is no need to demand the anti-tank missiles from the Palestinians?
Goren: What you are to understand is that instead of dealing all the time with the rifles which the Palestinians may or may not have we should be considerably more concerned about the Iranian problem because this is the true danger facing the Middle East in general and Israel in particular.
IMRA: If Netanyahu says that there won't be a withdrawal until the Palestinians take care of the matter of their anti-tank weapons and other arms, does Barak mean to say that the withdrawal should take place regardless?
Goren: He did not relate to that. Where do you get this from?
IMRA: I heard him and several other Labor MKs saying "What do some rifles matter?"
Goren: I don't have the strength to explain to you. The problem of Iran supersedes the problems with the Palestinians.
While Barak waves away the PA's activities as too minor an irritant to warrant his interest, Arafat & Co. are openly preparing a new Intifada to be called the "Intifada of the Settlements" to follow what in Arafat's estimation was the highly successful "Intifada of the Prisoners." (After all, Israel has already promised to "reconsider" its policy of refusing to release these prisoners.) The plan is to organize mass demonstrations that will initiate clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers to protest (and prevent) building of bypass roads and more houses in existing settlements.
As reported by the Palestinian daily Al-Quds (December 22, 1998), this was the message from Arafat, fresh from his love-in with Clinton in Gaza. He sent his emissary, Azzam al-Ahmed, PA Minister of Public Works, to Baghdad with a letter to Saddam Hussein. According to al-Ahmed, Arafat's letter "stresses that the Palestinian people and its leadership stand by Iraq."
Outpost - 8 - January 1999