\"If 5,500 people had not been horribly murdered in America on September 11, would Tony Blair have invited Yasser Arafat to Downing Street? Why, in the midst of a war against terrorism, does the Prime Minister embrace the man who, more than any other, invented international terrorism? September 11 ought to have strengthened Israel\'s relationship with the West. Israel\'s enemies are our enemies. In such a common predicament, to demonstrate solidarity with Israel ought to have been an elementary duty. Instead, our governments have so far done the opposite. America and Britain have talked up the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The purpose of the \'peace process\' is no longer to make peace, but to satisfy one party to the conflict...\"
- To Court Arafat is to Succour [Help] the Enemy of Our Ally Israel, by Daniel Johnson, the London Telegraph, Oct. 16, 2001
\"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has famously labeled Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat as \"our bin Laden.\" Actually, this is an exaggeration. Arafat is our Taliban. Though Arafat and the Taliban are obviously not cut from the same Muslim fundamentalist cloth, their relationship to terrorism is similar. The United States and Britain decided to start bombing the Taliban regime, because it was difficult for them to tell who controlled whom: Bin Laden or the Taliban...
\"Arafat\'s relationship with Hamas and Islamic Jihad may be more complicated, but in the end no less intimate than that between the Taliban and bin Laden. Over the past year, Arafat and his supposed radical opponents engaged a tandem strategy of terror. Arafat\'s forces, such as Fatah-Tanzim and Force 17, would gun down Israelis on the roads in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, and controlled the manufacture and distribution of mortars that were fired on Israeli communities. Arafat\'s \"opposition\" would focus on suicide bombing in Israel proper. When Arafat decided it was in his interest to call a cease-fire, he would convince his \"opposition\" that suicide attacks were not in the Palestinian interest... In this respect, Arafat is worse than the Taliban: he does not just harbor and cooperate with terrorists - the organizations he leads engage in terrorism themselves.
\"...British Prime Minister Tony Blair should know that the war against terrorism cannot be fought by continuing to allow the terrorist to play divide and conquer. Both Britain and the United States have been drifting toward a distinction between two types of terror: \"global\" terror directed at the West in general and \"local\" terror geared toward achieving more limited local aims. A take-no-prisoners war is being fought against the former, but the world\'s most prominent symbol of the latter - Yasser Arafat - is welcomed into 10 Downing Street...
\"...In this respect, Sharon\'s retracted Czechoslovakia analogy was right on target. Appeasement is the attempt to address \"little\" grievances in the hope that the big grievance will go away. Appeasement has a bad name not just because it is wrong, but because it is not prudent - it does not work.
\"...Any attempt to ingratiate the Arab world at the expense of Israel\'s security will reward terrorism on a global scale, leading to more terrorism against Israel, Arab regimes, and the United States. The war on terrorism will not withstand the bombing of one Taliban and the coddling of another.\"
- Arafat is our Taliban, Jerusalem Post editorial, Oct. 16, 2001
- To Court Arafat is to Succour [Help] the Enemy of Our Ally Israel, by Daniel Johnson, the London Telegraph, Oct. 16, 2001
\"Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has famously labeled Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat as \"our bin Laden.\" Actually, this is an exaggeration. Arafat is our Taliban. Though Arafat and the Taliban are obviously not cut from the same Muslim fundamentalist cloth, their relationship to terrorism is similar. The United States and Britain decided to start bombing the Taliban regime, because it was difficult for them to tell who controlled whom: Bin Laden or the Taliban...
\"Arafat\'s relationship with Hamas and Islamic Jihad may be more complicated, but in the end no less intimate than that between the Taliban and bin Laden. Over the past year, Arafat and his supposed radical opponents engaged a tandem strategy of terror. Arafat\'s forces, such as Fatah-Tanzim and Force 17, would gun down Israelis on the roads in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, and controlled the manufacture and distribution of mortars that were fired on Israeli communities. Arafat\'s \"opposition\" would focus on suicide bombing in Israel proper. When Arafat decided it was in his interest to call a cease-fire, he would convince his \"opposition\" that suicide attacks were not in the Palestinian interest... In this respect, Arafat is worse than the Taliban: he does not just harbor and cooperate with terrorists - the organizations he leads engage in terrorism themselves.
\"...British Prime Minister Tony Blair should know that the war against terrorism cannot be fought by continuing to allow the terrorist to play divide and conquer. Both Britain and the United States have been drifting toward a distinction between two types of terror: \"global\" terror directed at the West in general and \"local\" terror geared toward achieving more limited local aims. A take-no-prisoners war is being fought against the former, but the world\'s most prominent symbol of the latter - Yasser Arafat - is welcomed into 10 Downing Street...
\"...In this respect, Sharon\'s retracted Czechoslovakia analogy was right on target. Appeasement is the attempt to address \"little\" grievances in the hope that the big grievance will go away. Appeasement has a bad name not just because it is wrong, but because it is not prudent - it does not work.
\"...Any attempt to ingratiate the Arab world at the expense of Israel\'s security will reward terrorism on a global scale, leading to more terrorism against Israel, Arab regimes, and the United States. The war on terrorism will not withstand the bombing of one Taliban and the coddling of another.\"
- Arafat is our Taliban, Jerusalem Post editorial, Oct. 16, 2001