The Covenant has never been amended, nor has a meeting been called even to discuss the issue among Palestinian leaders. Yet, Israel has continued to act as if the Covenant had already been amended. Israeli authorities have left the Gaza Strip and the Jericho region, and have begun discussing "early empowerment" of the PLO in other areas of Judea and Samaria. In actuality, this means that Israel is willing to allow PLO control over all or most of the reast of Judea and Samaria, even before the agreed-upon two year interim period is over.
On August 10, the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot ran a story which was totally ignored by the media outside of Israel. It seems that on the previous day, Farouk Kaddoumi, considered the foreign minister of the future Palestinian state, made a speech in which he asserted that peace would not come to the Middle East until Israel was totally destroyed and the Jews removed from Israeli territory.
What is perhaps most interesting about this speech is not its content, for that is nothing new, but rather its timing. The speech was made the day before Yitzchak Rabin was supposed to meet with his dear and cherished friend, Yasser Arafat, to discuss "early empowerment". Rabin, no doubt, approached the meeting with the idea that Arafat was truly a changed man and that he no longer desired to destroy Israel.
Kaddoumi's speech was meant as a wakeup call. The PLO's intentions have not changed as a result of Oslo. The destruction of Israel is still the ultimate aim of the PLO. Only now, Israel is giving the PLO the tools with which to carry out this cherished aim. Now, Israel is giving the PLO the land, the "police" army, the weapons, and the money, with which the destruction of the rest of the country can be carried out. And it doesn't stop at Gaza and Jericho. Rabin and Arafat are now discussing allowing the PLO to assume early control over other areas of Israel.
In response to Kaddoumi's speech, Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres commented that the speech represented just how important continued efforts at peace are. In all the years that Shimon Peres has been involved in Israeli politics, I have never heard such twisted logic come out of his mouth. If Peres had made the same speech, calling for the destruction of say, Syria, the entire world would interpret it as tantamount to a declaration of war. Yet, when a Palestinian leader makes such a speech, Peres claims that it illustrates the importance of peace efforts.
Kaddoumi's speech was not one in which problems between Israel and the PLO were exposed or suggested. It was a speech which called for the total annihilation of a state, and of a nation. If Hitler were alive today he would be proud. Yet, Peres chooses to gloss it over and push forward in efforts to appease the anti-semitic Kaddoumi. Never before has a declaration of war been interpreted as an invitation to peace negotiations. Never before has any Israeli leader proven to be so utterly stupid in his estimation of the situation.
As if Kaddoumi's initial speech were not clear enough, and to Peres it obviously was not, he made a second speech, echoing the first, on August 12 -- three days later. This time, the speech was aired on a public radio broadcast in Algeria, and picked up by foreign bews services. This time, Peres did not react at all. This time, the speech was accompanied by punctuation: the terrorist murder of yet another Israeli -- number sixty six since the Oslo accord was announced -- and the injury of ten other Israelis including three police officers.
Yitzchak Rabin and Shimon Peres have consistently shown that they do not care much for Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism. They have consistently shown that they are willing, if not anxious, to give the PLO territory from which to create another Palestinian-Arab state, and from which to launch a full-scale war aimed at the total destruction of Israel. They have consistently shown that Yasser Arafat, the master terrorist, is more a valuable friend to them than their own Jewish citizens are.
Copyright 1994. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
