June 16, 2005, © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
President Bush has given away the Israeli store to Palestinian
Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. There's hardly anything else to say about
it.
By proclaiming that the new starting point for future negotiations
between Arabs and Israelis is the 1949 armistice line, Bush actually took
a more anti-Israeli position than most of the hostile, Jew-hating
Arab states have in recent years.
What is it about Abbas and the Palestinian Authority that Bush
finds so encouraging?
Quite simply, Abbas has not lived up to a single agreement he
has made with the Israelis:
* He has failed to arrest Palestinian
terrorists;
* He has refused to dismantle terrorist
cells or to seize weapons from those identified as having attacked
Israel;
* He has not only failed to stop incitement,
his new schoolbooks remove all Jewish and Israeli references except
those that demonize Jews;
Asked about his relationship with the terrorist group Hamas,
Abbas said: "Hamas is not a threat for us."
Hamas exists to destroy Israel. It does not believe in any
compromise. It has been declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. State
Department.
So, as my friend Hal Lindsey wryly observes, "Helping Hamas can
either get you 20 years in U.S. prison or an invitation to the White House.
Now do you understand why Abbas is not renouncing terrorism or
abiding by any of his earlier pledges? Why should he? Bush has confirmed
that terrorism works.
Bush has adopted the hard-line of the anti-Jewish radicals of
the left and the anti-Jewish zealots of Islam who maintain there
are some pieces of land on which Jews are just not welcome.
He has accepted the hate speech of the Arab extremists as a
legitimate bargaining position. The Arabs say Jews are not permitted
to live within the future of home of Palestine. It doesn't matter
whether they are peaceful civilians who mind their own business. It
doesn't matter how long they have lived there. It doesn't matter that they
did not replace any Arab population in the area.
None of that matters. All that matters is that they are Jewish
– and they have to go.
Not just from Gaza, apparently. But, according to Bush, they
need to go from Judea and Samaria, too – the entire West Bank. Oh,
and don't forget East Jerusalem. No Jews permitted there either –
because that part of the city needs to be returned to the Arabs in
accordance with the 1949 armistice line. The Temple Mount? No way.
It belongs to Muslims only, no Jews allowed. The Western Wall? It's
going back to the Arabs.
That's what Bush told the world last week and I'm still waiting
to hear some outrage about it.
There were many of us who doubted that former Secretary of State
Colin Powell really understood the Arab-Israeli conflict. There were
many of us who welcomed his retirement and his replacement, Condoleezza
Rice. I'm beginning to wonder if Powell may have been a voice of
reason within this administration, because there hasn't been any
since he left – at least not
with respect to the Middle East.
I keep hearing Rice's name mentioned as a possible presidential
candidate in 2008.
I've got news for you. Unless this administration changes its
disastrous course on the Middle East, Rice won't get elected dog
catcher in this country.
What are we fighting for in Iraq and Afghanistan? I thought it
was freedom. What are we fighting against? I thought it was Islamic terrorism.
So why are we undermining freedom and supporting Islamic terrorism
in our dealings with Israel and the Palestinian Arabs?
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and chief executive officer of
WND and a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. He writes
a nationally syndicated column weekly.