While the Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians” volunteer to fight alongside their Iraqi kinsmen, President George Bush repeatedly proclaims his commitment to a Palestinian state.
Apparently, it matters not to Mr. Bush that these “Palestinians” are killing American soldiers. More important than the lives of these Americans, or so it seems, is Mr. Bush’s commitment to a Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, the feckless government of Ehud Olmert says nothing and does nothing while the PLO-Palestinian Authority sends Fatah terrorists to Iraq to kill Americans. This spineless government, which includes mental pygmies such as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, refrains from exposing the absurdity of a Palestinian state when Palestinians not only cheered Saddam Hussein but also urged him to bomb Tel Aviv!
This inane Government persists in negotiating with the Palestinians as if these Arabs were reconstructed democrats. Notice how Mr. Olmert, like the “in-over-her-head” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has sanitized Fatah terrorist leader Mahmoud Abbas as a “moderate.” What makes this Holocaust denier a “moderate” is that he would kill only Jews living beyond the “Green lines?” How comforting to all but the 250,000 Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria!
Of course, with the war going on in Iraq, Mr. Olmert does not want to cause any waves by pointing to the absurdity of Mr. Bush calling for a Palestinian state while Palestinians terrorists are killing Americans. But is it not more than absurd for this “tired-of-being-courageous” prime minister to negotiate with America’s declared enemies?
Alas! Is it not ironic that the United States, having disregarded Palestinian terrorism which slaughtered more than 1,500 Jews in Israel, reports that more than 3,000 Americans have been killed by Arab terrorists in Iraq? What shall we say of the Bush administration that warned Syria not to send volunteers to help the Iraqi insurgents, but has not issued a similar warning to the Palestinian Authority?
Perhaps President Bush does not want to lend credence to the preposterous idea that the United States went to war against Iraq for the sake of Israel. But surely Israel’s prime minister could safely denounce the Palestinian Arabs for fighting alongside America’s enemies. If Mr. Olmert did so, surely it would further solidify American support for Israel on the one hand, while turning more Americans against the Palestinians and a Palestinian state on the other.
Even if it were not politically discreet for Olmert to denounce Palestinians for fighting against American soldiers, could he not prompt his cabinet ministers such as Shimon Peres and Avigdor Lieberman to utter such denunciation?
Socrates, one of the wisest of men, held that courage is a precondition of wisdom. Courage is what is most lacking in the Government of Israel.
