 By Michael Reagan June 06, 2003
"Israel must vanish, Muslims say" blared a headline in the June 3, edition of International Herald Tribune. And if my fears are justified, that's where the so-called "Road Map," to peace could lead us. What that road map ultimately does is weaken our only friend and real ally in the Middle East, and we have to understand that this friend is Israel. By putting together this road map and even talking about giving the Palestinians a state is telling the world that terrorism wins. The lesson this would teach is that if you terrorize long enough, hard enough and lie enough, then ultimately you'll get the big dog, the United States to give in and believe that if we give you your own state you'll be a peaceful country. Well that's not what history shows. In 1948 the Palestinians had what amounted to a Palestinian state. What happened? They went to war trying to destroy Israel. Most Palestinians live in Jordan, which is about 80 percent Palestinian. So they have a state, but they aren't welcome there. The fact is that the people President Bush wants to give a state are not peaceful people - they are terrorists. We may call them Palestinians, but we have to remember that they are Arabs, and the attitude of Arabs toward Israel and the United States is one of sheer hostility, as the Pew Research poll reported in the Herald Tribune story reveals. Reports the Tribune, "Animosity [to the U.S.] is so high that solid majorities in five populations surveyed expressed confidence in Osama bin Laden to 'do the right thing' in world affairs." Incredibly, bin Laden was one of the three "leaders" most trusted by the nine Muslim populations surveyed, outranking even UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan. Bin Laden's confidence rating was matched only by Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.  ©Mike Keefe, The Denver Post Distributed to subscribers for publication by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc. According to the poll, at exactly the time the Israeli government, under intense U.S. pressure, has accepted the right of Palestinians to statehood, most Muslim populations surveyed believe by wide margins that the needs of Palestinians cannot be met so long as the state of Israel exists. The poll, conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, questioned more than 15,000 people in May. Muslims in Indonesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey were included in the massive poll. As for the future of the U.S.-sponsored "road map" to peace, the poll showed Muslims convinced that "the rights and needs of the Palestinian people" Palestinian state or no Palestinian state, "cannot be taken care of as long as the state of Israel exists." In other words, giving the Palestinians their own state carved out of part of Israel not only fails to insure Israel's security, it poses a serious threat to the continued existence of our sole friend and ally in the Middle East. According to the poll, the conviction that no way can be found for Israel and the Palestinians to coexist is strongest in Morocco (90%), followed by Jordan (85 %), in the Palestinian Authority itself (80 %), Kuwait (72 %), Lebanon (65 %), Indonesia (58 %) and Pakistan (57 %). This is the reality of the situation, and the "road map" to peace flies in the face of it, accepting the naïve belief that satisfying Palestinian demands for a state of their own will somehow remove the ever present threat to the very existence of Israel. Keep in mind the fact revealed in the poll that fully 80 % of the population included in the Palestinian Authority the people who will be the citizens of the Palestinian state - want Israel to vanish. They insist that there can be no peace as long as the country that is ready to give them their own state continues to exist. The only two men who could have brought real peace were Itzhak Rabin and Anwar Sadat. They're gone, murdered because the terrorists do not want peace. Golda Mier put it this way:
"When the Palestinians start loving their children more
than they hate their enemies there will be peace." Not before
then. Mike's column is distributed to subscribers for publication by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc.
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