So, where’s the good news?

I was told today that there was good news and bad news coming out of the Middle East. The good news: that the Palestinians have agreed to a document that calls for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Sounds too good to be true, right? Right. Mentioned almost as an aside in the AP article comes this:

It also calls on militants to limit attacks to areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast War and calls on the parties to work toward forming a Palestinian unity government.

We’re expected to celebrate this?! The document accepts Israel’s right to exist, but only after Israel is pushed back to the pre-1967 Auschwitz borders. It wants a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian state, but only a Jewish state that is vulnerable to attack. And, it authorizes terrorism to achieve that goal.

Of course, what isn’t told in this article is that the Palestinians were offered exactly what they say they want (an independent state comprised of Gaza and nearly all of the West Bank with its capital in Jerusalem) at Bill Clinton’s Camp David summit. But the Palestinians rejected the offer and launched the second intifada. Now they say they will stop terrorist attacks as long as Israel withdraws to the pre-1967 borders. Yeah, right. A withdrawal back to those borders wasn’t enough for the Palestinians at Camp David. Why should we believe they would be satisfied with it now? Recent terrorist attacks inside those borders tell us they won’t be satisfied.

I’m not even sure the Palestinians know what they’re fighting for. It seems to me that they’re just looking for an excuse, any excuse, to kill Israelis.

The bad news: that Israel has launched a ground offensive into Gaza in an effort to free a kidnaped Israeli soldier. This is bad news, but it could have been avoided if the Palestinians simply stop the terrorist attacks. Violence has its consequences. You can’t send terrorists into Israel, kill and kidnap Israeli soldiers, and not expect some sort of retaliation. Israel has a right to defend its territory and its citizens.

One of the consequences for the Palestinian’s support for terrorists is the West’s refusal to send aid to the Palestinian Authority. The United States and other western nations have said they will not send aid to support the Hamas controlled government. When asked if the Palestinian’s offer to recognize Israel will result in a lifting of that boycott, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said,

Once again, we can all recite from memory now: recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce terror, and abide by all past agreements. Those are the preconditions.

The Palestinians have refused to renounce terror, so they will continue to suffer the consequences.

For the life of me I can’t see what’s so difficult about this. In my view, it’s simple: stop the terrorist attacks and you won’t have to worry about Israeli tanks rolling through your streets. For as long as you send terrorists to kill Israelis, the Israelis will send tanks to kill the terrorists. I can’t see why the Palestinians don’t understand this.

Sha-alu Shalom Yerushalayim
Psalm 122:6

–J.E. Heath
per-fidem.org

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