We are closer to genuine peace in the Middle East today than we have been at any time since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Peace is at hand chiefly because Israeli Defense Forces have "changed the facts on the ground."
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| | | Jack Kelly is national affairs writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com). | |
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Insurrections are fueled in part by "despair," as liberals claim. You've got to be pretty desperate to become a suicide bomber. But the high octane fuel for insurrection is not despair, but hope -- hope that violence will achieve the end sought.
The hope that has fueled the Al-Aqsa intifada was the hope that Israel had grown timid and soft, that the Israeli concessions of the recent past had been made not out of goodwill, but out of weakness and fear. Hope that one more push would push Israel into the sea.
Crushing that hope is a prerequisite for peace.
The IDF is off to a good start. Hundreds of terrorists, including senior leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Arafat's Fatah are in custody, or dead. Thousands of weapons have been captured or destroyed. Palestinians have had a vivid demonstration of Israeli might and Israeli resolve. And Palestinians have discovered that Arabs in other lands will provide them with moral support, but not much more.
"The Arab pressure cards have not been used so far," wailed Arafat aide Nabil Shaath to the BBC. "What are the Arabs waiting for? Are they waiting for us all to perish?"
The military reality in the Middle East is that Israel can beat the stuffing out of the Palestinians, and any combination of Arab states which may choose to move against her, which is why none will.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, which deprived radical Muslims of their superpower sponsor, the most important geopolitical change in the region has been the neutralization of Egypt and Jordan. Egypt is the largest Arab state.
The only Arabs who fought well during the 1967 war were in Jordan's Arab Legion, which was trained by the British. Now Egypt and Jordan are the only Arab countries which have signed peace treaties with Israel.
Because of the hateful things which appear in Egypt's government-controlled press, some conservatives want to eliminate the $2 billion the United States gives in aid to Egypt each year. But this is some of the best money America has ever spent. There is no way Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will jeopardize that subsidy to embark upon a conflict with Israel he knows he would lose.
So those who cheered the attack on the World Trade Center have to rely upon the pressure of public opinion to get the United States to prevent Israel from doing what is necessary for her defense.
ABC, NBC and CBS imply that the current troubles in Israel/Palestine stem from Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza since the 1967 war. Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather rarely see fit to mention that the 1967 war, and the 1956 and 1948 wars before it, happened because Arabs were unwilling to let Israelis live in peace.
If only Israel would retreat to the Green Line, the suicide bombings would stop, Peter, Tom and Dan imply. But people don't blow themselves up in order to move a boundary marker a few hundred yards. Arafat was offered a state which would comprise virtually the whole of the West Bank and Gaza, with a capital in East Jerusalem. His response was to start the intifada. Arafat doesn't want a Palestinian state next to Israel. He wants to destroy Israel.
Arafat isn't alone. A poll taken before the Israeli military incursion indicated half of Palestinians thought the intifada should continue even if Israel retreats behind the Green Line.
The good news in that poll is that half the Palestinians, however grudgingly, are willing to live in peace with Israel. That proportion could rise substantially if there were a change in Palestinian leadership, especially now that more believe than did before that the path of violence leads to a dead end.
But the media continue to portray Arafat as an indispensable "partner in peace" even though there is a mountain of evidence to prove he ordered most of the bombings.
Arafat is on his way out. Other Arab rulers -- against most of whom he has plotted at one time or other -- won't miss him. But on the evidence to date, I suspect Peter, Tom and Dan will be heartbroken.
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