Palestinians are lying
to the world
Matthew E. Caster
At the risk of sounding repetitive, it's
time to once again discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But before I do that, I must clarify something:
I'm not biased ... just well-educated. I get my information from as many
sources as
possible, with the hope that a number
of sources will validate the information. The data below has been confirmed
by MSNBC, CNN,
ABC News, BBC News and Fox News.
If confirmation of the facts from the five
largest independent broadcast journalism outlets in the world isn't good
enough, I encourage
you to write Al-Jazeera and encourage
them to offer a Web site in English.
The latest round of violence began in July
2000 when the Palestinian Authority, led by Yasser Arafat, walked away
from a promising
meeting at Camp David which would have
given the Palestinians control over the Gaza Strip and 95 percent of the
West Bank,
including a capital in East Jerusalem,
in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel. A virtually identical
deal was approved last
week at the annual meeting of the Arab
League in Lebanon.
Since the violence started, countless world
leaders, including President Bush, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Jordan's
King Abdullah
and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
have implored Arafat to condemn terrorism and to try to round up suspected
militants to
secure peace.
Arafat has condemned terrorism ... but
only in English, which is spoken by less than 20 percent of Palestinians
in the region. His
comments in Arabic often sound similar
to the comments he made upon hearing that a teenage girl had blown herself
up on a
crowded Israeli street corner, killing
several Israelis: "I only hope I am martyred in such a way."
Arafat has supplied Islamic militants who
support the Palestinian cause, including a recent shipment of several million
dollars'
worth of weapons from Iran, which, thankfully,
the Israelis intercepted.
During the course of six days, Palestinian
militants conducted six suicide bombings, killing more than 30 Israeli
civilians. At least
two of the bombings were conducted by
members of the Al-Asqa Martyrs Brigade, which is a subsidiary of Arafat's
Fatah Party.
Despite saying they only want a little
land for themselves and a capital in Jerusalem in exchange for peace with
Israel, Palestinians
seek to destroy the Jewish state by murdering
Israeli civilians with an insidious terrorist assault.
Israel's former prime minister Ehud Barak
offered Palestine everything it wanted, and it walked away, hoping that
terror would obtain
more land and drive Israel out of the
Holy Land forever.
A nation's effort to defend its civilians
from surprise attack is not terrorism or aggression. It's a rational response
to an external
threat.
My thoughts on the subject would be different
if Israelis were strapping bombs to themselves and walking into crowded
mosques to
blow themselves up, but I guess the pro-Israeli
press isn't running those stories.
