Ultimatum

Emanuel A. Winston, a Middle East analyst & commentator
March 3, 2001

The new Bush Jr. Administration, with the State Department breathing its usual anti-Israel sentiment, has issued a quiet ultimatum to the Prime Minister Elect Ariel Sharon. The gist of the threat is that Israel must get the 'Intifada' (Arafat's War of Attrition) under control in the next few weeks, or else!

Whoa! This from a U.S. government who has not been able to enforce sanctions against Iraq who, in the last 8 years has allowed Saddam Hussein to re-construct his capacity to build catastrophic weapons of mass destruction. Do Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice and the State Department think they have solved the Iraq problem by having 29 planes make bombing runs on Saddam's command and control centers?

Since 1947 Israel has been facing unremitting attacks from the Arab nations who aid and abet Yasser Arafat to keep the pot boiling. Israel's military was, indeed, capable of quelling the Palestinians' war. This was stopped by the so-called 'Peace Camp' directed by Barak and Peres in full coordination with Clinton and the European nations. Would Israel dare to defend herself as any of the Western nations would have in the face of their threats of retaliation? Not likely.

Now, the U.S., who has not been able to contain Iraq, Iraq, Syria or Arafat's PA (Palestinian Authority) from war preparations and actions, issues a quiet threat to Israel to solve her Palestinian problem in a few weeks.

How arrogant! How absurd! How stupid!

Even now the Bush Administration has demanded that Israel release tax dollars collected on imports and salaries of Palestinians to the PA. Their complaint is that Arafat's lieutenants will not be paid their salaries. Shucks! It is really a shame that Arafat's regime of crooks and his 50,000-60,000 man Para-Military Force (plus 9 or more Secret Services) will collapse unless it receives money to keep it running. Why should Cheney and Powell issue these blatant demands/threats to Israel? Sure, Arik Sharon - now anchored down with the radically Dovish Shimon Peres and his Left Liberal Labor Party holding 8-9 Cabinet positions, including the Defense Ministry - can launch a clean out attack against Arafat's war formulators. Will Bush then stand up tot he flood of anti-Israel votes in the United Nations which are sure to follow? Will Bush intervene when France, Russia and China threaten Israel? I have little doubt that Israel has received the usual back-door assurances from Bush, Cheney and Powell. I also have little doubt that, when the fat's in the fire, somehow those undocumented assurances will evaporate, accompanied by a flood of denials by a State Department long versed in betraying America's allies - especially Israel.

President Bush, there is no time for solving the Palestinians' aggression, backed by Syria, Iraq and Iran. Creating false lines of start-stop in which all lines are drawn in the sand, is merely a formula for guaranteed failure. The simple fact is that Israel wants an elusive peace and the Arabs, including especially Arafat and his wide world of terrorists, are dedicated to denying Israel that peace. The levers of peace are not in the hands of Israel, even if the most dedicated Jewish pacifists offer the most extraordinary offers of appeasement.

For the Arabs - particularly the radical Islamic Fundamentalists, the only solution is the elimination of the Jewish State of Israel. For career Arabists in the U.S. State Department linked to oil interests and tied to Arab nations, they share the same convictions. This was decided long ago when they fought so hard to deny Israel nationhood IN 1947-8. Having failed that, and having defied the conventional wisdom that she would succumb to wave after wave of assaults by 7 well-armed Arab armies, Israel's enemies went underground. They began to work with the Arab nations to arm them in a way that would insure their victory after six successive wars. Concurrently, they worked hard to undercut Israel, while simultaneously trumpeting the lie that they would keep Israel strong by advancing her cutting edge technology. The only problem is that they sell the same so-called cutting edge technology and, sometimes beyond, to the Arab nations.

Threatening Israel with a time-line to solve the problem of hostile Muslims is illogical, unfair and wrong-headed. The U.S. is presently flooded with hostile Muslim terror cells and organizations who are deadly threats to American cities and citizens. U.S. Intelligence (both the CIA and the FBI) are aware of their capability but, they have not given themselves a time-line to close down these criminal operations. American Muslims would begin to scream unfair - racists. That mantra would be picked up the Left Liberals. Those demonstrations would continue until one of our American cities was unfashionably hit by a chemical or biological 'accident'.

Suddenly, the Peace bleaters would drop into silence and slink away, claiming that it was not their fault.

Israel has been faced with the maudlin bleating of the Peace Now crowd who, even now, cannot give up their Utopian dreams of the lambs lying down with the lions. That they are responsible for the lambs who have already been fed to the lions, does not seem to bother them. They were called "Sacrifices for Peace" - but, it is forbidden for Jews to sacrifice humans. I wonder how the Peace Now-niks would feel if they were put into a corral and fed to the lions as a steady diet part of their diet.

The Arabs, to include Palestinians, Syrians, Iranians have taught their children that it is their obligation and destiny to hate and kill Jews. Israel will be forced to deal with this time bomb for the next hundred years.

Israel may just have to hunker down, awaiting the enlightenment of a primitive people who are driven by misinterpreted Koranic injunctions to kill everyone who does not accept their way. Saddam of Iraq is not an anomaly but, simply another dictator out of the same mold that produced Hafez al-Assad of Syria, the Ayatollah of Iran, Osama Bin Laden and especially Yassir Arafat. The only difference between them is how clever they are in suppressing their people and how they use Israel as their reason (excuse) to build massive armies and buy or build tons of weapons of mass destruction.

Assume, however that (G-d forbid) Israel is destroyed. Would the Arab nations throttle back their hatred of the Great Satan: America? Not likely. In fact, they would be euphoric in their glory of burning and bombing. They are sure they could take down America.

The Prime Minister Elect Arik Sharon is so consumed with creating a unity government that he has overlooked the possibility of destroying what he claims he wishes to build, namely a Jewish State that will survive. He has stated that Oslo is now null and void. But, this is followed with his statement that he accepts the United Nations 242 which, in effect, voids his denial of Oslo and reinstates it simply with different language. Is this because Sharon simply does not understand or has he accepted Shimon Peres' demands that the "Peace Process" (now supposedly a non-word) will go on?

Are the fingerprints of the U.S. State Department through Martin Indyk all over this subterfuge? Did the Israeli people kick out the Left by a 25% majority and its failed peace process only to have it sneakily allowed in through the back door? The next days, weeks, months will tell the Israeli people if they have been tricked. If so, then it's on to new elections.

Source: GAMLA

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