High Priestess Of The Palestinian State

If the State Department has a religion, it’s Palestinian statehood. On its altar, diplomats are eager to sacrifice the security of America’s only reliable Middle East ally and, ultimately, our own security as well.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has become the high priestess of this cult – muttering mystic incantations about Palestinian suffering under the brutal Israeli occupation and how a Palestinian state would be the crowning achievement of American foreign policy, much the way the Munich pact was the Olympic gold of British diplomacy.

Her recent address to the American Palestine Task Force was modestly described by the Zionist Organization of America as the “most pro-Palestinian Arab, anti-Israel speech in memory by a major U.S. administration official.”

In her remarks, Rice confessed, “I believe that there could be no greater legacy for America than to help bring into being a Palestinian state for a people who” suffer the “daily humiliation.” of living under the so-called Israeli occupation.

This is the way our secretary of state chooses to characterize the nation that has been our steadfast friend for 60 years (brutal occupying power), to demonstrate her devotion for a people who celebrated the slaughter of 3,000 Americans on 9/11 by dancing in the streets of Ramallah.

As a student of history, Rice observed, I know that “there are so many things that once seemed impossible that, after they happened, simply seemed inevitable.” She wasn’t talking about the improbable rise of Nazism in Germany, which would be an apt comparison here.

Scholar that she is, Rice had another political movement in mind, “By all rights, America, the United States of America (in case her audience thought she was referring to another America), should never have come into being,” the lady declared.

To compare Washington, Adams and Jefferson to Arafat, Abbas and the mad bombers of Hamas is kinky, to say the least. Our Founding Fathers were men of learning, achievement and discernment, not a gang of Allah-intoxicated savages. They demonstrated their courage by pledging their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, not by turning mothers and children into smoldering lumps of mangled flesh.

“The Palestinian people deserve a better life, a life that is rooted in liberty, democracy, uncompromised by violence and terrorism,” Rice inanely proclaimed.

What the French are to cuisine and collaboration, the Palestinians are to violence and terrorism.

In January of this year, the Palestinians gave Hamas control of their legislature. It’s not that the rival gang (Fatah) isn’t also a terrorist entity. It’s just that Hamas is more bloodthirsty and fanatical – good things in the eyes of the worthy Palestinian people. Gary Bauer summarized the election’s outcome with the observation, “Faced with a choice, the Palestinian voters picked the most ardent and committed Jew-haters and America-haters.”

In recent opinion polls, 61 percent of Palestinians supported suicide bombings and terrorism, 56 percent favored rocket attacks on civilian targets, 75 percent endorsed the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers (which sparked a mini-war on Israel’s northern border in July and August), and 97 percent were pro-Hezbollah.

Palestinian tastes run to Protocols-of-Elders-of-Zion-type anti-Semitism, “honor killing” of women suspected of adultery, the brutal murder of Israeli civilians, and the sectarian-cleansing of Nazareth and Bethlehem, once overwhelmingly Christian cities.

In the aftermath of Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at a Bavarian university, which included a quote by a 14th century Byzantine emperor, the state-run television station of the Palestinian Authority described the pontiff as “arrogant,” “stupid,” and “criminal.” The pope will be judged by Allah on the day “when eyes stare in terror,” the jihad network predicted.

Hey, the Palestinians need a symbol for their state, right – like Uncle Sam for the U.S. or John Bull for the Brits? How about the mother of a suicide bomber decked out in fashionable black robes describing her pride and pleasure that her martyr son did Allah’s will by detonating himself along with as many innocents as possible?

Rice could look far and wide and not find worse candidates for creating a nation where democracy, tolerance, and pluralism will reign than the Palestinians.

But Condi is more than a ditzy cheerleader for Palestinian nationalism. She’s also a facilitator par excellence. A year ago, Ms. Rice brokered the deal to hand Gaza over to the terrorists, which entailed 7,500 Jews being driven from their homes.

It wasn’t long before the Minutemen of the Middle East were expressing their gratitude for this by rocket attacks on Israel’s southern settlements (45 in September alone).

Rice pressured Israel into turning over checkpoints on the Gaza/Sinai border to a joint force of Palestinians and Egyptians. Since then, Palestinian terrorists (excuse the redundancy) have smuggled 15 tons of explosives over the border, as well as quantities of rifles, ammunition, rockets and other weapons and munitions. Condi must be very popular with Israelis just a rocket’s shot from Gaza.

Now she wants the U.S. to fund an expansion of Abbas’s Presidential Guard from 2,500 to 6,000 troops. She also wants Israel to approve the transfer of additional weapons to the ironically misnamed Palestinian security forces. Toys for Terrorists?

If Condoleezza Rice has a favorite Palestinian, it’s Mahmoud Abbas, president of the “Palestinian Authority.”

In the fantasy realm Rice has constructed, Abbas is the moderate working feverishly for democracy and human rights in Jihadistan, as well as for an enduring peace with Israel. Good Abbas and his noble Fatah party are contrasted with the terrorist black hats of Hamas.

On her Middle East trip earlier this month, Rice told reporters she had “great admiration” for the president of the Palestinians, and praised his “willingness” to restart negotiations with the Israelis (so gracious of him).

“You have the strong commitment of the United States to that cause and the personal commitment of me,” the secretary of state simpered.

Palestine’s George Washington was Arafat’s chief deputy for 40 years and helped him to found Fatah. Abbas was paymaster for the Munich Olympics assassins. His Ph.D. thesis on why the Holocaust never happened reads like David Duke’s memoirs.

Abbas’s party, Fatah, was the undisputed master of the Palestinian Authority until January, when it lost the aforementioned legislative elections to Hamas. (It still controls the presidency.) Fatah and Hamas are rival gangs – like the Capone mob and Bugs Moran’s boys – engaged in a turf war. One is more religious, the other more ideological. Otherwise, there’s no difference..

Both are anti-American. Both seek the destruction of Israel. Both are willing to wade through a river of blood to reach their goals. Both envision a Palestinian state which will resemble a hybrid of Syria and Iran – without the amenities.

There’s an assiduously cultivated myth that unlike Hamas, Abbas recognizes Israel. Abbas has made it quite clear that he recognizes his Israeli counterparts for purposes of negotiations (when he thinks he can get something) – not Israel’s legitimacy or claim to any territory.

The charter of Abbas’ party calls for the annihilation of Israel. Maps of the Palestinian Authority show Palestine from the Jordan to the sea. In a 2004 interview on Iranian television, then PA Foreign Minister Farouk Kaddoumi said Fatah’s embrace of a two-state solution was a feint. “At this stage, there will be two states. Many years from now, there will be one state.”

Abu Ahmed, a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades (Fatah’s terrorist auxiliary) is frank: “The base of our Fatah movement keeps dreaming of Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa and Aco. There has been no change in our position (vis a vis the Zionist entity). Abbas recognizes Israel because of the pressure that the Zionists and the Americans are exercising on him. We understand this is part of his obligations and political calculations.” It’s an act to get the dumb Americans to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the Palestinian Authority and pressure Jerusalem into giving in to his latest demand.

The Brigades are responsible for every suicide bombing inside Israel in the last two years. Rice’s State Department considers the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades a terrorist group. Members of the Brigades are members of Fatah. It was started by Arafat. When they overran Fatah headquarters in 2003, the Israelis discovered documentation that the party had recently transferred $50,000 to the Brigades. With the Brigades, Abbas can have it both ways – playing the sober, business-suited diplomat for the West, while acting as the terrorist chieftain for his own people.

Abbas has authorized the payment of annuities to the families of suicide bombers. Of both Hamas and the Brigades, Rice’s favorite Palestinian politician says, “Israel calls them terrorists, we call them strugglers.” Also, “Allah loves the martyr.” Suicide bombers should be recognized as “heroes fighting for freedom.” He’s also praised the Islamic lunatics of Hezbollah as a shining example of what he calls the “Arab resistance.”

A year ago, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began raving about wiping Israel off the face of the earth, Abbas’s party in Gaza distributed flyers proclaiming, “We affirm our support and backing for the positions of the Iranian president toward the Zionist state which, by God’s will, will cease to exist.”
By the will of Allah – and with the unwitting support of Condoleezza Rice.

In her speech to the American Palestinian Task Force, Rice described Palestinian statehood as the impossible dream that we must dare to dream nonetheless.

It’s more like the inevitable nightmare. Everyone wants it. Its boosters include Tony Blair, the European Union, the UN, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, the Saudis, the Arab League, the Conference of Islamic Organizations, al Qaeda, Iranian mullahs, Bashar Assad, etc., etc. At least half of Israel, including the Olmert government, is willing to go along with it.

The two-state solution is a one-state solution in disguise.

With a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will lose strategic depth. It will be 9 miles wide at its narrow waist. It will lose the high ground of Judea and Samaria. Most of its population and industry will be within mortar- and rocket- range. Instead of a 40-mile eastern border, its new border with the State of Palestine will be over 400 miles long.

For their future security, Israelis will have to trust in the good will of Mahmoud Abbas, the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Hamas and al-Qaeda (which is already operating in Gaza). Apologies to the M*A*S*H theme song, but this suicide will not be painless.

Who knows, perhaps Abbas and company will erect a statue of Secretary Rice (their Marquis de Lafayette) in the future Palestinian state – just after they demolish the Knesset and Western wall, turn Yad Vashem into a mosque and drive the Jews into the sea.

Frontpage

Kisses From Condi

Push to undermine AIPAC aids possible U.S. tilt toward Palestinians, not peace. Reports coming from Israeli military and intelligence sources lately all agree: Trouble is brewing in Gaza, where the Hamas-run government has presided over an unprecedented buildup of arms.

After more than a year of pinpricks by Gaza-based terrorists firing primitive Kassam rockets into southern Israel, Hamas may be ready for a new escalation of violence. Indeed, the talk of them trying to emulate Hezbollah's "victory" in Lebanon is rampant.

American and European sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, which have sought to isolate the Hamas government elected in January, have not prompted Palestinians to draw the correct conclusion from events. Driven by a political culture and an educational system that places the highest value on the eradication of Israel, the P.A., whether it is led by Hamas or the supposedly more moderate Fatah Party of President Mahmoud Abbas, appears incapable of making peace.

Under these circumstances, advocates in Israel of further territorial withdrawals are quiet. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, elected less than seven months ago on a platform whose chief plank was a pullout from much of the West Bank, is now silent on the issue. The proposal is, at least for the foreseeable future, as dead as a door nail.

END-AROUND LEFT FLANK

What then should Americans who care about Israel do? According to some on the political left, the answer is to push for pressure on the United States to to jump-start the non-existent chances for peace.

That's right, some of our leading lights think all we need to do is to go back to the old failed formula of support for Palestinian "moderates" and pressure on Israel to be more forthcoming.

Rather than focus on the obvious disinterest of the Palestinians in peace and the need to bolster Israel as it recovers from the recent Lebanon war, some of us have chosen a more accessible culprit than Hamas: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known as AIPAC.

They were at pains to avoid the charge of competing with the lobby, which represents an across-the-board alliance of Jewish groups dedicated to support of the U.S.-Israel alliance. But there was little question that an end-around the left flank of AIPAC was the purpose of reported meetings of financiers and activists.

Emboldened by the ability of an ad-hoc grouping of left-wing groups that challenged AIPAC during the congressional debate over sanctions on the Hamas-run P.A., the idea of forming a new group whose purpose would be to mobilize support for a more "activist" policy than that contemplated by AIPAC seems to be very much on the minds of some activists.

Raising alarms for some observers is that a principal funder of the proposed new group would be financier George Soros. The idea that the billionaire's first major gift to a Jewish group would be one aimed at undermining AIPAC seems to speak more of his previous support for far-left causes such as the MoveOn.org group than of a new commitment to the security of Israel.

AIPAC's success in cultivating the leadership of Congress in the last decade has also led to anger on the part of some liberals because that meant making nice with Republicans.

Yet the critique of AIPAC seems to center on the idea that it is "right-wing" because of its efforts to highlight Palestinian intransigence. That's a trifle ironic given AIPAC's history of supporting the policies of Israeli governments that veered left. Contrary to the gripes of some, the group was an enthusiastic backer of the Oslo fiasco, and was similarly supportive of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.

Opponents of the legislation penalizing the Palestinians for putting their government in the hands of terrorists mocked the bills supporters as trying to be more Zionist than the Israelis. But given the dormant nature of the Israeli left these days, the idea that AIPAC critics are more representative of Israeli positions than the supposedly out-of-touch "right" is a joke.

We could dismiss this latest maneuver as just meaningless Jewish politics were it not for an alarming development within the Bush administration that ought to be raising alarms among friends of Israel.

Following her recent failed mission to the region to bolster support for non-existent Palestinian moderates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice further confused the situation with an Oct. 11 speech in Washington to the American Task Force on Palestine, a pro-Arab group.

Though the theme of the presentation was supposedly to reinforce Palestinian moderates against Hamas, Rice failed to send a clear message that America would not tolerate further escalation of the conflict. Rice downplayed the threat from Hamas, and chose instead to pretend that this clear failure for the administration's democracy promotion project that their election victory represented was still a good idea.

A NEW WAY TO DEFINE 'SUPPORT'

Even worse, the secretary gave in to the impulse to rhetorical overkill, and wound up implicitly comparing the Palestinian nationalism to America's founding fathers and the U.S. civil rights movement. Reminders of the fate of other groups — such as the Kurds — who have been told to make do without an independent state rather than the American revolution would have been more useful.

When combined with further pledges of aid to a group that seems bent on renewed war, Rice's over-the-top talk could encourage the Palestinian leadership to think that Bush might be backing away from Israel. History shows that many a war has been launched by just such a diplomatic misjudgment.

When combined with other rumors floating around Washington about the supposed comeback of former Secretary of State James Baker (now part of a task force examining the Iraq war) to influence, the notion that this is the moment for Jewish supporters of Israel to be pushing the administration to ratchet up the pressure on Israel isn't just ill-timed, it's nuts.

Support for Israel does not require anyone to be unquestioning fans of AIPAC or unthinking cheerleaders for any Israeli government. But with Hamas spoiling for a fight to distract Palestinians from their misrule, U.S. calls to loosen up Israeli security measures at checkpoints or to release terror suspects would be a dangerous mistake.

What Palestinians need are not hugs and kisses from Condi Rice, but frank talk about what they stand to lose if they continue on their present path.

And just because some Americans are frustrated with the stalemate does not entitle us to encourage a push for concessions that can only lead to more bloodshed.

Jewish World Review
10.24.2006