"I think the wall is a problem. And I discussed this with Ariel Sharon. It is very difficult to develop confidence between the Palestinians and Israel with a wall snaking through the West Bank. And I will continue to discuss this issue very clearly with the Prime Minister." (US President George W. Bush - July 25, 2003)
If one of the killers presently sheltering in Yasser Arafat?s Mukata compound had had his way, two Arab women primed as human bombs would have been heading for Tel Aviv or Netanya discotheques this coming weekend to again sow carnage, horror and death among Israeli Jews. Thank God, Israel?s highly efficient - and sorely overworked - Internal Security Services, (the Shin Bet), was able to foil the plot, so all Israel learned Monday morning.
This particular double homicide bombing, planned by members of Arafat?s Fatah, was not the only attack thwarted over the past five or so weeks. Notwithstanding the ?cease-fire? agreed to by the Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Palestinian efforts to mass murder Jews continue unabated.
Bitter irony here: While the misnamed cease-fire - it is in fact an agreement between various Palestinian terror groups to help facilitate the overall Palestinian agenda for Israel?s destruction - is on the Palestinian side towards Israel, the agreement itself is authorized by Arafat, the very man sheltering the mastermind behind this determined attempt to bring the ?truce? to an end. In all probability, actually, given the political realities on the ground in the PA, the mastermind is the terror chief, Arafat himself.
In any case, if the last ten years have taught Israel anything, it is that as long as Palestinian Arabs live in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and as long as Israel remains an independent Jewish state, efforts will be made to send bombs by foot, by donkey, by car, by any means possible, to maim and murder Jews wherever they may be found.
Well do the Arabs adhere to Islam?s exhortation that they kill Jews ?behind every rock and tree.?
There are 1.5 million Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria. Known by the opponents of Israel?s historical rights as the ?West Bank,? (another misnomer - that was a title affixed by the occupying Jordanian forces between 1949 and 1967), this 5,879 sq. km. piece of land would form the bulk of the planned State of Palestine, if the world has its way.
Thankfully it won?t.
Most of the Arabs in this area live in the towns of Jenin, Tulkarm, Kalkilya, Shechem (Nablus), Ramallah, Jericho, Bethlehem and Hebron. And out of these rabidly anti-Jewish pits have slithered the majority of the terrorists - including more than 300 homicide bombers - responsible for killing 1,079 Israelis and maiming thousands more in the past ten years. From negotiations, to confidence building measures including the release of hundreds of terrorist prisoners, to special undercover operations, to the temporary re-occupation of PA-controlled land, to the isolation of Arafat to carefully planned assassinations, Israel has tried everything possible to stem the attacks, only to be further assailed at every turn for either not giving enough or for the use of ?excessive force.?
Despite signing numerous agreements obligating itself to close down the terror groups, the internationally supported Palestinian leadership refuses, point blank, to do so.
So, left with no choice if it wants to stop the butchering of its people, Israel chooses to do something different, and something no other nation would even contemplate. It decides to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, in the middle of a debilitating recession, to build an ugly great wall and fence system, seven meters high, around Jewish communities and between Israel and these snake pits, with the sole intention of denying the terrorists free access to their victims.
But, predictably, Israel is enduring condemnation again.
For weeks preceding PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas? first visit to the White House last Friday, the Palestinians clamored about what they cleverly labeled ?Israel?s Berlin Wall?, hysterically accusing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of putting them in ghettoes and erecting the wall on ?their? side of the 1967 Green Line.
Actually, it?s the Israelis who are between the wall and the sea, not the Arabs.
But, masters at creating ?fact? out of fiction and ?reality? out of myth, Arafat?s Arabs roped in the world press and, hey presto, swung US President George W. Bush firmly in line with their cause. Now Bush doesn?t like the wall. Secure in his great borders from sea to shining sea, he seems to have forgotten just how minuscule the Israel he once scooted over in an IAF helicopter really is, and just how tremendously the Jewish homeland is outnumbered by the Arabs all around - all the Arabs on the other side of the wall.
As much as pro-Palestine folk might wish that it did, this wall was never intended to demarcate the borders of a new Palestinian state. Its purpose is simply and singly to keep the murderers out. Ignoring this, the message being repeatedly sent to Israel is that its people are expendable, that it is Israel who must take ?risks for peace,? and that Israelis must be prepared to die for peace.
Somehow, no Gentile leaders, not even Bible-believing, conservative Christian leaders, have ever thought of asking the Arab side to take the risks and pay the price.
It?s always the Jews. I don?t really have to wonder why?
--------------------------------------------------------
Stan Goodenough is Editor of the Jerusalem Newswire, where this article first appeared.
If one of the killers presently sheltering in Yasser Arafat?s Mukata compound had had his way, two Arab women primed as human bombs would have been heading for Tel Aviv or Netanya discotheques this coming weekend to again sow carnage, horror and death among Israeli Jews. Thank God, Israel?s highly efficient - and sorely overworked - Internal Security Services, (the Shin Bet), was able to foil the plot, so all Israel learned Monday morning.
This particular double homicide bombing, planned by members of Arafat?s Fatah, was not the only attack thwarted over the past five or so weeks. Notwithstanding the ?cease-fire? agreed to by the Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Palestinian efforts to mass murder Jews continue unabated.
Bitter irony here: While the misnamed cease-fire - it is in fact an agreement between various Palestinian terror groups to help facilitate the overall Palestinian agenda for Israel?s destruction - is on the Palestinian side towards Israel, the agreement itself is authorized by Arafat, the very man sheltering the mastermind behind this determined attempt to bring the ?truce? to an end. In all probability, actually, given the political realities on the ground in the PA, the mastermind is the terror chief, Arafat himself.
In any case, if the last ten years have taught Israel anything, it is that as long as Palestinian Arabs live in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and as long as Israel remains an independent Jewish state, efforts will be made to send bombs by foot, by donkey, by car, by any means possible, to maim and murder Jews wherever they may be found.
Well do the Arabs adhere to Islam?s exhortation that they kill Jews ?behind every rock and tree.?
There are 1.5 million Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria. Known by the opponents of Israel?s historical rights as the ?West Bank,? (another misnomer - that was a title affixed by the occupying Jordanian forces between 1949 and 1967), this 5,879 sq. km. piece of land would form the bulk of the planned State of Palestine, if the world has its way.
Thankfully it won?t.
Most of the Arabs in this area live in the towns of Jenin, Tulkarm, Kalkilya, Shechem (Nablus), Ramallah, Jericho, Bethlehem and Hebron. And out of these rabidly anti-Jewish pits have slithered the majority of the terrorists - including more than 300 homicide bombers - responsible for killing 1,079 Israelis and maiming thousands more in the past ten years. From negotiations, to confidence building measures including the release of hundreds of terrorist prisoners, to special undercover operations, to the temporary re-occupation of PA-controlled land, to the isolation of Arafat to carefully planned assassinations, Israel has tried everything possible to stem the attacks, only to be further assailed at every turn for either not giving enough or for the use of ?excessive force.?
Despite signing numerous agreements obligating itself to close down the terror groups, the internationally supported Palestinian leadership refuses, point blank, to do so.
So, left with no choice if it wants to stop the butchering of its people, Israel chooses to do something different, and something no other nation would even contemplate. It decides to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, in the middle of a debilitating recession, to build an ugly great wall and fence system, seven meters high, around Jewish communities and between Israel and these snake pits, with the sole intention of denying the terrorists free access to their victims.
But, predictably, Israel is enduring condemnation again.
For weeks preceding PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas? first visit to the White House last Friday, the Palestinians clamored about what they cleverly labeled ?Israel?s Berlin Wall?, hysterically accusing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of putting them in ghettoes and erecting the wall on ?their? side of the 1967 Green Line.
Actually, it?s the Israelis who are between the wall and the sea, not the Arabs.
But, masters at creating ?fact? out of fiction and ?reality? out of myth, Arafat?s Arabs roped in the world press and, hey presto, swung US President George W. Bush firmly in line with their cause. Now Bush doesn?t like the wall. Secure in his great borders from sea to shining sea, he seems to have forgotten just how minuscule the Israel he once scooted over in an IAF helicopter really is, and just how tremendously the Jewish homeland is outnumbered by the Arabs all around - all the Arabs on the other side of the wall.
As much as pro-Palestine folk might wish that it did, this wall was never intended to demarcate the borders of a new Palestinian state. Its purpose is simply and singly to keep the murderers out. Ignoring this, the message being repeatedly sent to Israel is that its people are expendable, that it is Israel who must take ?risks for peace,? and that Israelis must be prepared to die for peace.
Somehow, no Gentile leaders, not even Bible-believing, conservative Christian leaders, have ever thought of asking the Arab side to take the risks and pay the price.
It?s always the Jews. I don?t really have to wonder why?
--------------------------------------------------------
Stan Goodenough is Editor of the Jerusalem Newswire, where this article first appeared.