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May 31, 2002/Sivan 20 5762, Vol. 54, No. 37
Bush meant what Netanyahu said
DWIGHT OWEN SCHWEITZER
The Jewish Star Times
When former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed the executive committee of the Likud party to openly reject the idea of creating a Palestinian State last week, all he was doing was declaring in clear terms what President Bush had already declared in more oblique ones.
Several weeks ago President Bush called for an open, democratic, peaceful, economically viable, pluralistic society in the Palestinian state he would support creating, one that had "transparency." If he had said "when elephants fly, " perhaps the vast majority of listeners who might have missed the nuance would have more easily understood his message. I think it is reasonable to assume that Netanyahu was doing more than just political maneuvering for the upcoming elections in November. I think he was sending a message to the president that he heard and understood.
An analysis of the implications of statehood in the present climate make it abundantly clear that at best we would be creating another Iraq in the center of a tinderbox that would make the Balkans seem like the Garden of Eden by comparison. As we well know, states have certain prerogatives, none of which bode well when thought of in the hands of the present Palestinian leadership for those who hold any hope of increasing stability in the region. This gets worse in light of the recently announced refusal to hold scheduled elections for the Palestinian Authority on the pretext that they cannot be held while Israel continues its incursion into the West Bank.
I noted in the news recently a rather interesting fact, not widely reported, that Palestinian parents were sending their children to psychologists to keep them from being recruited as suicide bombers. To me, it indicated that the support for terror and its minions was by no means universal within the Palestinian ranks.
What was also not well reported was the relatively paltry turnout to welcome Arafat upon his "release" from Ramallah, not to mention the fact that he didn't go to the Jenin camp, a place where one might expect that he would be welcomed. I think it is reasonable to assume from even this paltry evidence that the present leadership is losing its grip on an increasingly impoverished Palestinian citizenry.
By now, the offer made by the Barak Government at Camp David is widely known within the West Bank and Gaza. While it might be less than most Palestinians had been told was the goal, the hungrier one gets, the better half a loaf looks - especially if it doesn't look like the bakery is going to reopen anytime soon. All that this indicates is that the Palestinian cause is farther from any realistic hope of fruition today than at any time since the present reign of terror began. The question yet to be answered is whether that vista holds more allure in the hearts and minds of a Palestinian population, manipulated, impoverished and oppressed, than the "need" to hear the Mediterranean Sea lapping at your western borders.
Contact the writer at DSchweitzer@herald.com.
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