March 22, 2002

"Negotiate from Strength - Surrender Is Weakness"

Has Arafat won? Many believe he outsmarted Sharon and has won the war. The Israeli Prime Minister has withdrawn his demand for seven days of quiet, a period of confidence-building, as a prerequisite to negotiations. Vice-President Cheney, met with Arab leaders to garner support for a war against Saddam, but radically altered his agenda and focused exclusively on the Israel-Arab conflict. The Security Council voted for the establishment of a Palestinian state, a resolution initiated and engineered by the United States, and the unofficial Saudi offering of Arab recognition of Israel if it returns to pre-1967 borders has gained momentum. Seemingly, Sharon is losing every position he fought for. Must it be this way?

Rather than acting from positions of strength, Israel now demonstrates vulnerability and weakness. Israelis and Jews everywhere are demoralized, inundated with endless suicide bombings and terror. Neither restraint nor strength have stopped Arafat's murderous schemes, and the amoral Palestinian dictator now holds the bargaining chips in his bloody hands. The left maintains that Israel should negotiate now because it is strong.

However, for sixteen out of the seventeen months of the intifada, we demonstrated weakness by failing to strike back hard. Yes, Israel did retaliate but to little avail; it bombed empty police stations and chased terrorists. During this last month, Israel finally entered the so-called "refugee camps" and surrounded and seized Arab cities but began to withdraw when President Bush called these just responses to the Arab war of terror "not helpful," a blunder of enormous magnitude. America is at war in Afghanistan, in the Phillippines, Somalia and even Columbia. These wars are against terror. Does Israel not have the same right in its war against terror? Israel's future depends on not being  intimidated. Today, the Arabswant the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem; tomorrow, Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Galillee, the Negev and the rest of Jerusalem. Israel must take a stand immediately. Pitter-pattering hasn't worked, and submission to world opinion and the wishes of the American political establishment is counter-productive. The issue does not depend on our ability to crush the enemy. Israel has the strength to do so, but it must first overcome the false euphoria that has crippled its morale since the signing of the Oslo accords.

Israel is capable of doing many things now without putting the IDF in harm's way. As an example, most electricity in Gaza is provided by Israel. 

Cut it off. Sharon could then tell the Arab population, "You chose the darkness of terror; therefore, live in darkness." He should tell the rest of the world, "Our people suffered the genocidal murder of six million during the holocaust, ignored by humankind. Jews responded, ‘Never Again.' We are sick and tired of your criticism and indifference to our right of defense against terror. Our war with Arafat is the very same as the war against bin Laden."

Israel's morale has suffered multiple beatings from the left. The emergence of Oslo brought a radical revision of the Jewish State's history. The left debunked Ben-Gurion and all its other heroes. Zionism, the state's ideological foundation, was criminalized. Both the holocaust and Zionism were confined to single pages in school texts. Torah was obscured, and two thousand years of Jewish history became relics relegated to antiquities in a museum. Arabs were depicted as victims, and many of the young men called upon to defend Israel's borders are the products of Shulamit Aloni and Yossi Sarids' corruption of school curricula.

Peace Now, a political movement, beguiled Jews and others into believing that peace is attainable as quickly as Jews want it. Land for peace became the quick fix to end generational Arab hostility towards the Jewish people. Those who love Israel and hope for eventual peace must recognize that the Left speaks truthfully when it hypocritically argues, "negotiate from strength." Strong nations do not surrender. Faith in G-d and the Torah, which deeded this land to our people, are the essential moral fibers we must turn to in this critical hour. We overcame fierce hostility and Arab aggression in the Warsof 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982. We will again overcome the hate and terror of this new war. The old Zionist fire needs re-ignition. Jews and people of goodwill everywhere must join in a chorus of solidarity. Our voices can be powerful and uplifting. Israelis need the support of Jews everywhere to raise their hopes for victory once again and to achieve permanent peace after terror is crushed and its perpetrators removed.

Shabbat Shalom