Yasser Arafat, master terrorist, killer of more Jews than any other person alive today, arrived in Israel to speak to throngs of hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza City. He promised the crowds, in the charismatic speech for which he is now famous, that "we are going from here to the al-Ibrahimi mosque (in Hebron), going to Nablus and Jenin and Tulkarem and Kalkilya and Beit Sahour and Beit Jala and Ramallah and then shortly after to Jerusalem to pray there. ... Here I say to the Israeli people that as we respect their sacred sites in Holy Jerusalem, they also have to recognize our holy Christian and Islamic sites. ... I say to the Israeli people ... the peace of the brave needs more bravery from everyone so that we can protect it and peace continues."
In response to this blarney, Shimon Peres responded "I wish them success. I think their success will be our peace."
So Shimon Peres, whose job (if not his morality) necessitates that he have Israel's interests at heart, wishes the Palestinian Arabs luck in their campaign to overrun and destroy Israel. His ministering to the wishes of his enemies gives new meaning to the title "Foreign Minister".
Palestinian soldiers have already desecrated the Yeshiva and synagogue in Jericho, which, according to the agreement that had been signed barely a week before, was to remain open for Jewish worship and study. This is the way in which the PLO respects Jewish holy sites. Yet they ask that Jews respect their holy sites in much the same way.
What is wrong here? Has Israel not allowed Palestinians to worship freely in their mosques five times daily? Has Israel not provided a government-owned construction firm to renovate the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem? Has Israel not outlawed Jewish presence on the Haram esh-Sharif to allow for peaceful Moslem prayer there? Yet the PLO has desecrated a yeshiva and a synagogue wantonly and then claimed that Israel does not respect Moslem holy places.
At the same time as Arafat was making fools of the Israeli regime in his speech reports were surfacing of yet another terrorist murder of a Jew in Israel. This time, the attacker was a known "collaborator" with Israeli authorities, who was trying to prove his loyalty to the PLO out of fear that neighbourhood gangs would kill him instead. This was the sixtieth victim of the Intifadah since the Oslo Accord was announced on August 31, 1993. Following that, there was another terrorist stabbing attack on an Israeli who was fixing his neighbour's car in a Jerusalem suburb. Luckily, he survived.
This is not peace. Over 2600 Israelis have been injured since September by Palestinian terrorists. Sixty have been killed.
This is not brave. Palestinian terrorism is not a brave act, it is cowardly. PLO excuses for terrorism are not brave. They are dismal acts of submission by a man who has craved power all his life and who no longer has the support of his own people. Let us not forget that the clauses of the PLO charter that call for the destruction of Israel and the invalidity of Zionism have not been rescinded. This was a condition of the Oslo and Cairo agreements. The lack of action on this issue speaks volumes to the ineffectiveness of Arafat's leadership. His own PLO executive defeated the Oslo agreement in the ratification vote, by a vote of 5-3 with 3 abstentions.
Lastly, we have Peres, dutifully playing the part of submissive pet. "Their success will be our peace."
In the event that, G-d forbid, the PLO does succeed in their aims, Israel's peace will be the peace of the grave. July 1, will never again be a happy day for me under those circumstances.
Copyright 1994. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
