Peace Without Truth

South African Premier F.W. de Klerk has won the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. The catch is that he is no winner. His partner is none other than Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader. What strange bedfellows they make.

Imagine, the Nobel Peace Prize going to people who still accuse each other of the most heinous crimes. Mandela angrily stated this month that Mr. de Klerk has the blood of children on his hands. Not to be outdone, de Klerk said that Nelson Mandela is conducting militant anti-apartheid camps for young teens to become guerrilla fighters. Selecting such people for the Nobel Peace Prize is nothing short of insanity. 

On observing the way Israel and the PLO are acting it may be that Prime Minister Rabin and Yasser Arafat are more deserving of the Nobel Peace prize. What they are doing in the name of peace is truly insane.

At the Declaration of the Principles signed on the lawn of the White House Prime Minister Rabin and the head of the PLO agreed on making peace. Our President, Mr. Clinton, was there making sure that the two former enemies shook hands as a sign of peace. By early next year the PLO movement, which still has a charter to kill and destroy Israel, will be granted a new statehood with a capital city, Jericho. They will be expected to take care of all the Arab problems, from the Gaza strip to the city of Jerusalem.

Someone ought to tell Mr. Arafat and Prime Minister Rabin that they are being set up to fail.  Let me explain. 

Yassir Arafat is being accused of stealing over 500 million dollars from his own PLO people. He cannot give an accounting of the three billion dollars he had a year ago. Now he is becoming the new Arab spokesman for Arab peace with the Jews. Can you think of anything more absurd? It's like asking the Colombian kingpin drug lord, chief of the drug cartel, (now a fugitive) Mr. Escobar, to be the head of the International Drug Prevention Team. How can Arafat speak for the Palestinian people?

Originally Rabin stated he would shake hands with Arafat as soon as he would rewrite the PLO Charter, eliminate the clause to destroy Israel, and stop the Arab embargo. The United States has agreed that these requests are not only reasonable but are prerequisites for an agreement. The Arab boycott office has a blacklist of 96 countries. In the USA 12000 firms were asked by the Arab boycott not to deal with the Jewish state. The cost of such a boycott has kept Israeli exports down 10 percent of what they should be exporting. This translates to close to one billion dollars in lost business a year. With limited seaports or airports open to the Jewish state they cannot have  economic growth. The Arab embargo is as strong as ever. Yet, the peace talks continue. Israel has promised to donate 75 million dollars to help the PLO with their plans of self rule. Percentage-wise that is the largest amount pledged by any country. Why should Israel do such a thing? Even as they meet there is no understanding of where Jericho begins or ends. According to Rabin, Jericho is just a bit over 25 sq. kilometers. However, the Palestinians believe it to encompass over 300 kilometers! The PLO claim that there will be a return of 800,00  refugees while Israel says that they only will grant a return of 300,000. There are more and more differences cropping up every single day. There still isn't a formal and basic understanding of who will control the water rights!

Imagine  PLO guerrilla fighters who languished in Israeli prisons for years will be given machine guns and allowed to join a 12,000 man army to govern Gaza and Jericho. Do you think for a moment that this makes any sense? Would you arm your enemy on a promise that they will behave?  Why is Rabin forfeiting the West Bank's safety by allowing Israel to be vulnerable to all kinds of attacks and havoc? The settlers in the West Bank are not agreeing with his plans. He is bringing the State to a civil war.

There are leaders in Israel who say they have nothing to lose.  After all, if the PLO makes trouble, they will take back the areas.  How naive and downright dangerous that is. Does anybody believe that you can give autonomy to people such as the PLO and then take it back?

None of the superpowers will allow that to happen. Just as Israel is a state recognized by the United Nations, so too will the PLO state be recognized. Just as Israel is determined to remain a powerful and safe country, so will the PLO. 

Currently Egypt is linking all the terror in their country with factions within the PLO movement. During the past few weeks hundreds to thousands of Islamic fundamentalists and PLO have been arrested and subjected to torture and execution.

In Israel itself there are over 11,000 PLO found in jail for crimes from mayhem to cold blooded murder. In the USA we are still recovering from the twin tower blast that was conducted by Arab militants, somehow connected to the PLO.

A major difference between the Arab countries and Israel is that Israel is a democracy and the only true friend America has. It has proven itself to the U.S.A. for the past 45 years. At the same time the PLO sided with Iraq during the latest major conflict and is still supporting terrorists in Egypt and other countries friendly to the U.S.A.

True, the United States believes in giving peace a chance but, at the same time, we should not fool Israel into thinking that we will be able to help them. When and if there is a problem between the PLO, its leadership and Israel, America will be powerless.

For example, we can't help a small and starving country like Somalia or Haiti. How in the world will we be able to help an educated country with a democracy immersed in bloodshed and veterans of five main wars? American sympathy is not enough. The Bosnians have the sympathy of the whole world and yet the fighting continues.

To think that the world will not blame Israel if the PLO moderate leadership fights between themselves is foolhardy. Anyone with more than a short memory can remember what happened in Lebanon. The Israeli army pulled out from Beirut and the Christian Lebanese army came in and slaughtered a few hundred PLO families and fighters in their refugee camps at Sabra and Shatilla. Who got blamed? Israel! As soon as the U.S.A. sent in the marines they, too, became the victims (This month  marks the 10th anniversary of the fatal attack on the US marine base in Lebanon). 

I have heard cries for peace before and I know that we ought to be very prudent. In pre-war World War Two it was the Western leader Chamberlain who said that by trading land for peace there would be no war. "I believe it is peace in our time," Chamberlain said. How wrong  he was! Hitler said after receiving the Sudeten mountains from Czechoslovakia, "I could not be satisfied with the Sudeten territory" and then continued in over-running and capturing Czechoslovakia. So, too, are the plans of the PLO.  Today it will be Jericho and tomorrow Jerusalem.

So now we have peace without plans, brains nor truth.         

How can the world perceive peace talks as honest when Israel is forced to abandon the 125,000 Jewish settlers on the West Bank, give 75 million dollars to build Arab cities, and give arms to their former prisoners, enemies of the state?

With the murder of Assad Saftawi - the third moderate Palestinian slain in the last month, Gaza PLO official Zakariya al-Agha, predicted civil war.  Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is now saying, "We are really worried." The feuding within Arafat's Fatah organization shows that there is no true leadership. To whom is Israel relinquishing her money, security and land?

I remember a scene from a movie where the leaders of opposing factions shake hands and then conduct a duel.  Maybe that's what's happening here.

There are so many loose ends that the leaders of both sides will soon be forced to accuse each other of the most awful things. And guess what, that may make them eligible for the Noble Peace Prize.