So now its bulldozers. The evil imagination knows no bounds. The weapons of choice of Arab terrorists are unlimited: guns to shoot, machetes to behead, airplanes to crash, hands to smother, bodies to explode, and now, bulldozers to smash cars, buses and, of course, people. More potent than the imagination and the tools of evil, however, is the power of denial. And no more potent example is the elevation of saluters of evil into partners for peace.
Observe: To Samir Kuntar, the outstanding commander, who always set his eyes on Palestine; to Samir Kuntar, who was liberated from one geographical region, and went to another geographical region, to Palestine . . . To Samir Kuntar, who always united the PLO factions in the prisons, and to whom people listened more than to the Palestinians themselves . . . I say to him: Congratulations to you, and congratulations to Palestine for your [release], Samir. We pledge to continue calling you son of Palestine, rather than son of Lebanon.
To whom might this quote be attributed? To the head of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden? No.
To the head of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal? No.
To the head of Hezbollah? Hassan Nasrallah? No.
To the head of enemy forces in Iraq? No.
To the head of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon or a host of other states with whom Israel has no diplomatic relations? No.
Rather, this quote is attributed to Najat Abu Bakr, an official in the Palestinian Authority, whose head, Mahmoud Abbas, is considered Israels partner for peace.
Lest one say that poor Abbas must preside over an unruly, fractious collection of ideologues, not all of whom share his peaceful convictions, no less than the US State Department found it necessary this week to condemn reports that Abbas himself saluted Samir Kuntar upon his release as part of the recent prisoner exchange between Hezbollah and Israel.
We are aware of the reports that PA President Abbas congratulated Kuntar and his family, a State Dept. statement said Monday, July 21. The US condemns the abhorrent crimes of Samir Kuntar, including the murder of an Israeli policeman as well as the killing of Danny Haran and his 4-year-old daughter in a raid on April 22, 1979, in Nahariya, Israel.
We may safely presume that the State Department would not have condemned a Palestinian leader whom the US considers an ally if the reports were unfounded.
It is, however, not enough to condemn the crimes and the criminals. It is imperative to open ones eyes wide not to delude oneself into thinking that Palestinian double talk yesterday talking peace, today praising Kuntar can lead to productive negotiations and an ultimate peace.
Peace, peace, but there is no peace is, indeed, disheartening. One resists with all ones might coming to the realization that, as Rabbi Jack Riemer has put it, Until a new generation arises in the Arab world, a generation less genocidal and less fanatic and less hateful, there can be no negotiations, no legitimacy, and no tolerance for a society whose central principle is the murder of the Jews.
There was a time, continues Rabbi Riemer, it seems so long ago right now, when I and many, if not most Israelis, would have questioned this thesis.
We hoped sometimes against the facts that if we only gave up enough land, if we only took back enough refugees, if we only acknowledged their claims and compromised with them, peace with the Arabs was possible. Now after the withdrawal from Gaza and its disastrous results; now after the withdrawal from Lebanon and its horrible results; now after the rise of Hamas in the South and Hezbollah in the North, most Israelis have come to reluctantly accept the truth . . . that peace is not possible in the foreseeable future, if ever, and that the Arabs want us dead.
Paranoid? Reactionary? Reflexive? Despairing? Unthinking? Not when the unarmed Jewish citizens of the only Jewish state in the world are not only bombed with explosives and shot with bullets but bulldozed to death. To dig so deep into the imagination so as to wrest from an absence of weapons a most creative new weapon a bulldozer, with which to kill men, women and babies indiscriminately and intentionally lets just say, at some point one has to acknowledge: Barbarians not partners for peace are at the gate.
