HOW CAN YOU BE FOR PEACE BUT NOT PURSUE PEACE?  ASK NETANYAHU
Charley Reese of the Sentinel Staff (Orlando Sentinel, 7/14/96)

   What's wrong with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
demand that the Palestinian National Authority prevent terrorism
before the peace process can continue?

   Well, let's ask ourselves some questions.  Has Israel, at any
time during its modern history, been able to stop terrorism? No.
Has the United States with all its massive resources been able
to stop terrorism?  No.  Has Germany, France, or Great Britain?
No.

   Why then should the Palestinian National Authority, pathetically
short of resources, practically broke, be able to do what Israel,
the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany cannot do?

   It can't, of course.  The Palestine Liberation Organization
has given up the terrorism, denounced terrorism and tried to
prevent dissidents or others from commiting acts of terrorism.
That's all it can do.

   For Netanyahu to hold the PLO and the PNA to a standard that
not even Israel and the United States can meet is insincere.  It
is just a ploy, a sophistry, so that he can pretend to be for
peace while not actually pursuing peace.  He is just setting up
the PNA to fail so that he can say he has an excuse not to make
peace.

   What Americans ought to be ashamed of is how eagerly American
politicians and the press are embracing this obvious ploy.  They
are doing so because it gives them an excuse to do what they
want to do anyway, which is kiss the foot of the Israeli lobby.
Justice and a future for a poor Palestinian kid in Gaza don't
stand much of a chance when Americans have to choose between
him and their own cowardice and venality.

   Many moderate Palestinians suspect that right-wing Israelis
in the security services conveniently turned their heads so
that terrorists could set off the bombs on the buses before 
the Israeli election.  Having no means of conducting an
investigation of Israelis, they can't prove it, but apply the
old Roman standard:  Who benefited from the terrorist bombs
that were set off in territory under Israeli control?

   Only Netanyahu and his right-wing allies.  The Palestinians
and Shimon Peres and his allies, who were pursuing peace, lost.
The last thing in the world Yasser Arafat wanted before the
Israeli election was an act of terror that would discredit
him and Peres and help Netanyahu.

   Don't be so naive this late in the 20th century to think
that people won't sacrifice innocent lives for the sake of
political objectives.  It has happened distressingly often
in this, the bloodiest and most evil century in the history
of man.  No other century can come close to ours in blood-
shed, cruelty, cynicism and deception.

   What Americans ought to be concerned about is why their
own government so slavishly serves the interests of a little
foreign country 7,000 miles away.

   Politicians who cry for the need to balance the budget
continue to vote for foreign aid.  American presidents,
who say the United Nations is so important that your sons
and daughters must die to enforce its resolutions, routine-
ly tell the United Nations, "Hands off Israel."  There are,
in case you didn't know it, existing U. N. Security Council
resolutions declaring Israel's annexation of Jerusalem
null and void, ordering it to return the Golan Heights, to
get out of Lebanon, etc.  Why don't we enforce these?

   The next time some politicians tell you that your son
or daughter must risk his or her life in the service of
the United Nations, ask them why they have such a double
standard.  Ask them why it is wrong for Iraq to seize
territory by conquest but OK for Israel.  Ask them why
they have never given the survivors of the USS Liberty,
attacked by Israeli planes and torpedo boats, a congress-
ional hearing they have pleaded for for 29 years.  Ask
them to explain why Israeli intelligence agents blew up
the U. S. Information Agency library in Cairo.  I hope
that Americans will one day elect people who will repre-
sent America's interest for a change.

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[Mr. Reese's email address:OSOreese@aol.com]
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