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November 26, 2002 This morning I saw a headline on cnn.com: Israel destroys suspect's home. The article describes how the Israeli Army destroyed the home of one Abu Huli, wanted in connection with several attacks on Israelis. That this event is newsworthy is not in doubt, but does it really belong at the top of CNN's world news? A similar article in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz describes the same event, but their emphasis is on the fact that the IDF were attacked while carrying out the operation and returned fire, killing one Arab and wounding several others. CNN's article may have been released prematurely; they do not report any deaths, though of course they did report the wounded. One wonders however whether the reporter sees more significance in the destruction of property than the underlying acts of Arab terrorism which caused this whole situation. Destroying someone's house, firing back at gunmen, and arresting men suspected of murder seems like relatively mild actions for a country under siege. There are those who believe the Israelis are being too mild. If Cubans were infiltrating the U.S. mainland and detonating bombs on buses and at supermarkets, killing dozens of innocent people in a month, it seems unlikely that an outraged citizenry would be satisfied with sending a few troops over there every couple of weeks and blowing up a house or two (while the locals took potshots at them). Although, it could be argued that the U.S. is doing precisely this in the no-fly zones of Iraq. America's waning support for Israel and its increasing impatience with Israel's Palestinian policies is significant in that it is hypocritical and self-defeating. By loudly criticizing the Israelis every time they retaliate against Palestinian violence, the U.S. risks destroying its credibility with its only true friend in the Middle East, and indeed one of its few true friends in the entire world. It's been a rough 10 years. The main achievement of the Clinton presidency's Middle East policy was to downgrade the Israelis from a staunch friend and ally to a troublemaking entity that is morally equivalent to the Arabs. It's easy for the casual and uninformed observer to criticize Israel. Didn't they occupy someone else's land, drive the indigenous people away, and practice brutal oppression of Arabs, as one would gather from the editorial pages of major newspapers such as the New York Times? Well, actually, no, they didn't do these things. Sure, a lot of their parents and grandparents fled there from elsewhere with the idea of starting a Jewish state, but a lot of Jews were already there. Most of the land was obtained legitimately; they purchased it. In the case of the Six Day War, they got tired of repeated Arab invasions from their very doorstep and took the land for a buffer zone. Should they give it back? Well, have the Arabs in the region recanted their desire to destroy Israel? Not last we heard. Egypt is bought off by a huge annual American aid package, the Jordanians and Syrians are simply afraid of Israel's military might, and Lebanon is an unholy mess with too many internal problems of its own. Off in the wings we have the Saudis, sending blood money to the families of Palestinian suicidal murderers, and the Iranians who have managed to destabilize Lebanon through a constant flow of money, arms, and manpower. Clinton was silent on these activities, and we don't hear too much out of GW Bush yet, though we hope he'll ignore the BS his advisors are giving him and stand up for what he believes in. Why don't the Arabs welcome the Jews to the ancient Jewish homeland? It would be of great benefit to the Arab world; the Jews in Israel have demonstrated a hardworking, industrious attitude and they have been an asset to the world in the arts, the sciences, commerce and industry. The Israelis could teach the Arabs to make a fruitful and prosperous land out of a desert without having to rely on the crutch of oil reserves, a lesson the Arabs will need to learn to achieve true prosperity and economic stability. Israel is such a tiny piece of land compared to most of the Arab states. The Jews are good stewards of holy sites; unlike the Moslems who were in charge of the Holy Land, they respect and preserve the temples and holy places belonging to all religions. |