Each day we read and hear about new atrocities carried out by Arab terrorists and we find that our reactions have become numbed. Our own Israeli government is so filled with a spirit of self-delusion that we wonder why every leader who reaches the Prime Minister’s chair suddenly develops an unshakable faith in Arab promises.

What would happen, I wonder, if Southern white supremacists would blow up a busload of black children and adults? The government would go bananas to apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators. They would not negotiate a “Black free” zone and offer the white supremacists time to regroup and rearm and live quietly in their own enclaves. Above all, the Southern blacks would not agree to a policy of appeasement and concessions. Yet, President Bush and world politicians demand that Israel negotiate and leave the poor “freedom fighters” alone. Isn’t American policy a two-faced policy to demand that Israel negotiate with and grant concessions to those who deliberately murder Jewish children?

It is also strange that the normally super-critical news media allows the Arabs to turn fiction into truth and to blame the victims for their own murders. Isn’t it strange that the normally aggressive news media calls “murder” killing? They write, “Twenty three killed by suicide bomber” instead of “Twenty three murdered by a terrorist murderer!” They make it sound so parve.

Everyone is affected and everyone is hurting, but Arik Sharon, in his old age, turns a deaf ear and a blind eye to what is happening and he continues to offer concessions and to capitulate to American pressure. I recently attended a Bris in an ultra-religious community in Jerusalem. The Chareidi rabbis are very careful not to deviate from the accepted text, and I was very surprised when the Mohel expanded the traditional blessing for a quick healing of the newly circumcised child by adding a phrase asking Hashem to also heal the recently wounded victims of Arab terrorism.

I wonder what our government expects to happen and what exactly is the plan. Do Sharon or Peres actually believe that Abu Mazen will actively prevent Arab terror? Does anyone really believe that the Arabs will be satisfied with the small subsection of the entire Palestine that Israel is offering to give them? Will they be happy with any partial division? Do our leaders really believe that the Arabs will stop trying to wipe out every trace of history that shows that Jews ever lived in Israel, as they are doing on the Temple Mount?

Does anyone actually believe that the Arabs want to co-exist with Jews in a Jewish state? Has any Arab stood up and said, “Let’s share our homeland with the Jews”? Does any Israeli really believe that the world will think any better of us if we make “painful” concessions and if we continue to quietly bury those murdered by Arab terrorists and not react with the full power of our armed forces? Are our leaders really so religious that they have implicit faith that their prayers for “reasonable” Arab leaders to arise from among the terrorist murderers will be
answered?

It is that time of year when all of us should examine our motivations and plans. It is time that
Jewish and Israeli leaders begin to seriously examine their dreams and motivations. It is time for American and world leaders to be honest with themselves. It is time to stop the murders of innocent Jews. It is time to realize that the fiction that “there is no military solution” is a ridiculous fiction. It is time to realize that no matter what we Jews do, the world will criticize us, so let’s do what needs to be done to make terrorism against Jews too costly for the Arabs.

Comments may be sent to: dov@gilor.com

Those of you who have been following my columns will recall that, time and again, I have pointed out that one can always find a correlation between the parsha and events that unfold before our very eyes. And this past week, Abu Mazen’s visit to the White House was no exception. Parshas Ma’asei reminds us that the land of Israel is our Goral - our G-d given destiny (Bamidbar 33:54, 34:13). The land was not simply acquired on the battlefield, but was given to us by the Almighty G-d Himself as an eternal inheritance. So President Bush may push his Road Map, the European Union may spout its anti-Semitic venom, Abu Mazen may make his belligerent demands, and Sharon may cave in, but Eretz Yisrael will forever remain ours – for in the end, it is G-d’s “Road Map” that will triumph, and this quartet-sponsored road map will go by the way of all previous “peace plans”. The only painful question is how much Jewish blood will have to be spilled in the process.

There is something odious about the Road Map – it is rotten from its source. Stop and consider for a moment – who are its authors’ Russia, who throughout Israel’s existence has supplied Israel’s enemies with the most lethal weapons? Russia, who has a long history of pogroms and persecution of Jews? The UN, which from its very inception has shown its bias against Israel and sought every opportunity to condemn her? The UN, which to this very moment in time denies Israel the right to a seat on the Security Council - a privilege granted to all other nations? The members of the European Union whose virulent anti-Semitism made the Holocaust possible? It is unconscionable that Israel, a sovereign, independent state, should be pressured to accept policies affecting her very survival from these nations.

To be sure, there is also the U.S., the fourth member of the quartet. Yes, the United States has traditionally been a friend of Israel, but politics make strange bedfellows, and it is obvious that our President is trying to curry favor with the Arabs who feel violated by the Iraqi war. Furthermore, he has to pay his dues to Tony Blair, who made support for the Road Map one of the conditions for British participation in the invasion of Iraq. Based on these facts alone, the Road Map should be rejected out of hand by Israel. Prime Minister Sharon should remind President Bush (whose belief in the Bible is no secret), that even the best of plans, when they emanate from a malevolent source, are unacceptable. Such was the case with Laban. G-d warned him: “Stay away, do not speak with Jacob good or bad” (Genesis 31:24). The teaching is clear – if a plan comes from an evil source, then even when it appears to be good, it is bad. Hence the saying of our sages, “Not your sting nor your honey.”

But all this does not absolve us from remaining alert and assuming our responsibilities as Jews. Since our Israeli government leaders lack faith, vision and Torah, it is we who must storm the heavens with our prayers and teshuva, and it is we who must cry out in protest at the blatant injustice and hypocrisy of which the United States and the nations of the world are guilty.

Consider the hypocrisy of the President of the United States in sending troops to combat terrorism in remote parts of the globe, but when Israel attempts to defend herself from the cold-blooded murderers who are within her borders, who have launched over 18,000 attacks against her since the year 2,000, the White House clamps down and expects her to turn the other cheek. Consider the hypocrisy of our American Administration which has adamantly refused to release the prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, while at the same time demanding that Israel release terrorists who have cold-bloodedly murdered Israeli men, women and children. Are they to once again flood the streets of Israel, free to maim and kill? Does Washington really believe that these programmed-to-kill terrorists have become boy scouts during their incarceration?

Consider America’s INS policy which heavily screens new arrivals to insure that no one of questionable background be admitted, and consider the hypocrisy which demands that Israel allow terrorists to roam freely in her midst and refrain from even erecting a protective fence.

But what is most outrageous are not the demands and the hypocritical policies of the non-Jewish world (after all, there is nothing new about that), but that which emanates from Israel itself. One cannot help but wonder what there is in the psyches of Israeli government leaders that compels them to compromise the security of the land as soon as they take office. It was one thing when it was Peres or Barak who betrayed us, but Arik Sharon - the Lion himself? Who would ever have believed that he would cave in and refer to Yehuda and Shomron as “occupied land?”

Tom DeLay, the Republican House Majority Leader, expressed it best when he said, “You could have knocked me over when I heard Sharon declare that the time had come to divide the land of Israel with the Palestinians.”

Tom DeLay’s words bring to mind King Solomon’s parable of the two mothers who each claimed to be the parent of the same infant. Solomon applied a simple test to determine the truth. The woman who refused to allow the child to be cut in two was the real mother.

We can all echo Tom DeLay’s shock, How can Sharon allow Eretz Yisrael to be cut…to be divided?

It defies the imagination that we, who are a wise nation, should fall into the same folly time and again. Was it only yesterday that, through Israel’s influence, Washington rolled out the welcome mat for Arafat, the terrorist murderer? It was the Rabin-Peres government that enabled him to exchange his terrorist garb for that of a head of state. It was that same government that supplied him with weapons for his so-called police force - weapons that were quickly turned against us. Was it only yesterday that Arafat and Rabin embraced, sharing the Nobel Peace Prize? How long did that peace initiative last? Where did it lead us? How can we be so foolish as to once again fall into the same trap and open the door for Abu Mazen by endorsing a sovereign state for terrorists in our midst.

Has anyone stopped to consider who this Abu Mazen is? Does anyone care to remember that he was Arafat’s right hand man? That he financed many terrorist operations, including the Munich Massacre? This same Abu Mazen has been quoted as saying that the Holy Temple and the Holocaust are myths. And just recently, he proclaimed that he has no plans to disarm Hamas or Islamic Jihad, for if the cease-fire is working, he asked, “Why should I fight my brothers?”

As for the cease-fire? That’s another joke. Haven’t we yet learned that the Arabs are always willing to accept a cease-fire when it is to their advantage to do so? They make no bones about their agenda which is “salami tactics” - call for a cease-fire, collect some slices of land, and when you’ve extracted all you can, attack again and keep up the pattern until the entire salami becomes yours.

Even as I write these lines, Israel intelligence reports that Hamas is taking good advantage of the three-month cease-fire. Israeli patrols have come to a halt, so it’s a perfect time to produce rockets by the hundreds.

What then is the solution? What should Israel and Sharon do?

The answer is simple – and precisely because it is so simple, it continues to elude us. It is written in the Book of Psalms: “If only My people would heed Me, if Israel would walk in My ways, in an instant, I would subdue their foes and against their tormentors turn My hand”
(Psalm 81).

That could be our “Road Map,” if only we had faith and feared G-d as much as we fear man.

On its front page Sunday, The New York Times carried a box headlined, “Some Expect Hamas To Resume Talking,” with the following text:

The Palestinian Authority said it believed that negotiations on a cease-fire could resume shortly with the militant Islamic group Hamas, even though Hamas declared it was breaking off the talks and would continue to make Israel a target.

The Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, [Mazen] is required to rein in militants as part of the new Middle East peace plan, and at a summit meeting on Wednesday in Jordan, he called for an end to the armed uprising.

The reader is then directed to page 8 for the full article.

On page 8, an article begins with a repetition of the above two paragraphs and goes on to quote Hamas leader Abdul Aziz Rantissi as saying, “We reject any meeting with Abu Mazen,” until he retracts what he said at Aqaba.

Nabil Amr, the Palestinian information minister is then quoted: “Having Hamas in the dialogue is a vital issue that we cannot ignore, and we hope that our brothers in Hamas will change their mind.” [Our italics.]

Palestinian minister of culture, Abu Amr is quoted: “We hope in the coming days to resume the talks.” [Our italics.]

And that’s it. So when The Times trumpeted the expectation of Hamas going back to the negotiating table, it was relying on statements expressing “hope” that they would do so.

The next day, in another article on the weekend attack on an Israeli army post at Erez, beginning on the front page, The Times carried an analysis of how Abu Mazen is facing all sorts of problems on the Palestinian street over what he supposedly promised at Aqaba and
why he faces great difficulties in meeting his commitments. There is similar, but far less extensive treatment of the internal opposition Prime Minister Sharon is facing as well over his Aqaba statements.

Significantly, however, the article simply reports, without relating to difficulties for Israel’s carrying out its commitment to ease restrictions on Palestinian workers, that “the three attackers apparently concealed themselves among the 6,800 Palestinians who crossed over this morning to work in Israel.”

As we noted elsewhere on this page, Abu Mazen’s credibility is in free fall and he has friends trying to hold back the dawn of recognition that nothing has really changed in the Palestinian firmament.

With the Jayson Blair scandal occupying center stage for weeks and the resignations of two top honchos at the New York Times over Blair’s admitted manufacturing of the news and plagiarism, one would have thought that the journalistic world would stay away from anything that would remind readers of the affair. As it turns out, however, The Times has nothing on a leading Israeli daily, Haaretz and its columnist, the notoriously leftist Akiva Eldar.

Here is part of what Eldar had to say about the Aqaba meeting of President Bush, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Prime Minister Abu Mazen:

According to one of the participants in the three-way meeting of the delegations, a lot can be learned about the swinging of the pendulum from the Israeli side to the Palestinian side.

According to the source, Dahlan gave an excellent 5-minute synopsis of the [security] situation, and concluded by saying to Bush:”There are some things we can do and some things we cannot. We will do our best. But we will need help.”

Mofaz burst in at the end of Dahlan’s presentation and said: “Well, they won’t be getting any help from us; they have their own security service.”

You could see that Bush was irritated, says the participant, and he turned on Mofaz angrily: “Their own security service? But you have destroyed their security service.”

Mofaz shook his head and said: “I do not think that we could help them, Mr. President,” – to which Bush said: “Oh, but I think you can. And I think that you will.”

Eldar then writes that Abu Mazen gave a presentation on the suffering of the Palestinians, claiming that additional funding would be necessary and reports:

Sharon then interrupted and said: “The insertion of new funding must be dependent on your good behavior.”

Bush was again visibly irritated: “You should release their money as soon as possible. This will help the situation.”

Sharon shook his head: “We have to deal with security first, and we will condition the release of their monies on this alone.”

Bush peered at Sharon: “But it is their money…”

Sharon said: “Nevertheless, Mr. President…” and Bush interrupted him: “It is their money, give it to them.”

After that meeting, Bush turned to National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and said, “We have a problem with Sharon I can see, but I like that young man [Dahlan] and I think their prime minister is incapable of lying. I hope they will be successful. We can work with them.”

At first glance, it would seem that Eldar could not have submitted his article with a straight face. Could he really expect that his fanciful tale, based upon an unnamed source and completely at odds with President Bush’s public persona, would be taken seriously? Was the
source – if there were one – someone with an agenda? Was it someone from the Palestinian side? How could people take such earth shaking revelations without attribution? On second thought, though, given the worldwide thirst for anything negative about Israel, Eldar’s fanciful
tale may yet get traction.

Why would Eldar compromise even the appearance of his journalistic integrity? Perhaps it has something to the freefall that Abu Mazen’s reputation is now in. Arafat is plainly in charge of the Palestinian Authority and Mazen has already backtracked on his crucial commitment to move against Hamas. He has also taken to claim that what he said at Aqaba – welcomed warmly by President Bush ? “was misunderstood.”

Eldar, the career lefty, seems bent on spreading the rumor that maybe Mazen and Dahlan are not such bad guys after all. And of course, no one could really verify his story, could they?

As the “road map” process inches forward, there are eerie reminders of the failures of the Oslo “peace process.” Indeed, the work product of the first meeting between Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon and PA Prime Minister Abu Mazen consisted of a lifting of the closure of Palestinian areas, IDF withdrawals from Palestinian cities, freeing of Palestinian detainees,
25,000 work permits for Palestinians, transfer of frozen Palestinian funds, and greater freedom of movement for Palestinian leaders. From the Palestinian side, all that was forthcoming was an observation from Abu Mazen that this was a propitious time for peace. So Israeli concessions in return for empty Palestinian words are once again the order of the day.

And there is more. Notwithstanding President Bush’s insistence on “regime change” in the PA as a condition for American support for a Palestinian state, it has been embarrassingly clear for weeks that Abu Mazen is in the thrall of Yasir Arafat. And Mazen’s first stop after getting those concessions from Mr. Sharon, was Yasir Arafat’s office.

In his June 24th speech last year President Bush said,

…[T]he United States will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state until its leaders
engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure.

Yet, it now appears that the road map will go forward with President Bush’s blessing if Mazen merely secures a “ceasefire” with Hamas and the other terrorist groups, leaving their weapons, infrastructure and capacity to vent their displeasure with what happens at the negotiating table intact.

Even before anyone sat down at a negotiating table, and before Palestinian guns fell silent and terror attempts ceased, Israel was called upon by the road map to abandon its anti-terrorist efforts. Israel had to commit to the uprooting of the “settlements” and the establishment of a viable Palestinian state. Yet, it is apparently okay with President Bush that Abu Mazen refuses to commit to accepting a “Jewish” state or to the abandonment of the so-called Palestinian right of return which would render the viability of such a state an impossibility.

Although most are trusting of Mr. Bush’s intentions, the President is inviting the Arab world and European powers into the Israel/Palestinian mix despite their collective, shameful anti-Israel history.

So, once again, as was the case throughout the Oslo years, the Palestinians have reason to believe that they can be secure in their recalcitrance and they will have their interlocutors.

We have seen this movie before, and the final scene has not been pleasant. George W. Bush is certainly no Bill Clinton. But we hope that the promise of the President’s firmness in Iraq and uncompromising vision of June 24th will not be squandered by even the best of intentions.

The brazenness of Abu Mazen is startling. He will not, he is widely reported to have said, do
anything to stop Hamas and the other terrorist groups unless Israel accepts the “road map” – with its requirement of an immediate cessation of Israeli anti-terror activity in the West Bank and Gaza - as is and begins to implement its provisions.

For the benefit of those who still don’t get Yasir Arafat’s hand-selected Palestinian prime minister’s point, we would refer them to the news reports of the homicide bombings of the past few days. How is this really any different from the old Oslo days of asking Israel to make concessions in order to empower Arafat to neutralize those nasty renegades bent on terror? It was always the fiction that the “other guys” were responsible and Arafat would surely smash them if only Israel made it possible for him to do so. Abu Mazen’s reliance on terror is no different: Israel is to be bludgeoned into agreeing to Palestinian demands.

Indeed, a sense of d?ja vu is inescapable: “Acts of terror … should not undermine efforts to
implement the road map,” European foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Sunday. “The
opportunity it brings should be seized in order to end the violence and put the Middle East peace process back on track.” That message still resonates from the old pre-Camp David days.

The ball is now in President Bush’s court. If he does not abandon this slavish obeisance to the
“road map” and revert to the vision he articulated in his speech of last June 24 – in which he spoke uncompromisingly of a new Palestinian leadership unconnected to terror and the prompt elimination of the terrorist infrastructure - then there really is no hope for peace.

The contrast between the road map and what the president called for on June 24 is striking. No one today seriously doubts that Arafat is still calling the shots. And, tragically, no one can deny the Palestinians? continuing reliance on terror and Abu Mazen’s embrace of it. Yet the Bush Administration’s touting (at least in public) of the “road map” signals that the president’s conditions have somehow been met.

The truth is, any sign of a weakening American resolve will only reenforce Palestinian delusions of bludgeoning Israel into submission. Sadly, we are perhaps where we are now in the Middle East because advocacy of the “road map” has fed that very fantasy.

Moreover, this is hardly happening in a vacuum. In addition to this ‘business as usual’ attitude toward Palestinian terror, the Administration seems to be uncertain about what to do with the mountain of evidence linking the Saudi royal family and the governments of Syria and Iran to the worldwide terror movement (including, of course, its Palestinian chapter).

Taken together with our “road map” fixation, the inescapable message to al Qaeda and its
affiliates is that maybe, despite what we’ve done in Afghanistan and Iraq, we don’t have the strength to live up to our convictions.

We were encouraged, however, by Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statement following the
weekend attacks in Israel: 

We call on the Palestinians to begin to take immediate and decisive action to eradicate the infrastructure of terrorism and violence that has wrought such tragic bloodshed for
both Palestinians and Israelis and has undermined Palestinian aspirations.

Perhaps Mr. Powell, who has been the most vocal champion of the “road map,” finally is seeing things as they are, not as he wishes them to be. And if that is the case, we can only hope that he was speaking for a united American government. If it is not, then we fear the lessons of 9/11 have been forgotten, and all of the efforts since then have been for naught.

Although we, along with most others, are following with great interest, the apparent running battle between Abu Mazen and Yasir Arafat over the make-up of the former’s list of ministers, we suggest some red lights of caution.

For one thing, it is not at all clear that all of the hullabaloo is not just some charade to burnish Mazen’s image as a freestanding, de facto successor to Arafat and thus satisfy President Bush’s insistence on regime change in the Palestinian Authority.

For another, and perhaps more important, whether the controversy is for real or is being feigned, its focus is extraordinarily significant. The public perception is that the issue of reining in terrorist groups is at the heart of the dispute. As is being widely reported, the main dispute is over the appointment of Mohamed Dahlan, a former security chief in Gaza. Mazen wants to give Dahlan a key security post, while Arafat wants to keep a confidant, Hani al-Hassan, in the job. The new security chief would have to supervise a crackdown on Palestinian militants and Hassan has done nothing during his tenure to inspire confidence in his ability or desire to confront Palestinian terror.

In any event, this focus of the controversy would strongly suggest that a successful Mazen would be prepared to seriously move against Palestinian terrorist groups.

But it must be kept clearly in mind that although Arafat can fire Mazen, Mazen does not need Arafat’s formal approval for his becoming prime minister or for his list in order to take office. It is the Palestinian parliament which must give those approvals. And that is the rub. Mazen may be jockeying with Arafat because he knows he cannot get majority support in the Palestinian parliament unless Arafat gives the signal. So it is reasonable to assume that Mazen is prepared to make some backroom concessions to Arafat to get this to happen. And it will be the same with any prime minister, should Mazen not make it.