Abba Eban, once Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations — he with such an extraordinary voice that if you heard it only once, you would remember it for eternity — summed up the Palestinians better than anyone before or since. He said of them, “The Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” And Abba Eban was so right.
The Palestinians who supported Arafat and Fatah probably now look back at the proposal made by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak to Yasir Arafat at Camp David during the Clinton administration in July 2002 (which was viewed by most Israelis and their supporters elsewhere in the world as far too generous) as one that should have been accepted and which, in all probability, will never be offered again, and shouldn’t.
Arafat’s reason for rejecting it was that the Israeli offer required the Palestinian Authority to accept a provision that ended any expectation or right of Palestinians to return to any part of Israel from which they had fled in 1948. He said at the time that if he had agreed to the provision, he would have been assassinated. He was probably right to fear that fate. Now after his death near a year and a half ago, in a free election held in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas has defeated Fatah, Arafat’s supporters, by an approaching two to one margin. Since the Intifada began in 2000, Hamas has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israelis at the hands of suicide bombers. Hamas is committed to the goal of one Palestinian state “from the river [Jordan] to the sea [Mediterranean]” and seeks to eliminate the Jewish state of Israel.
The leader of Hamas, Mahmoud Zahar, who will and should be the target of execution by the Israeli Defense Forces since Hamas has declared war on Israel and, as reported in The Times, said after the election “[Hamas would not] submit to pressure to recognize Israel because the occupation is illegitimate and we will not abandon our rights” nor would it disarm, but instead work to create a unified Palestinian army under its direction…Zahar defended attacks on Israeli civilians.
The charter of Hamas says of historic Palestine “no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it.” That charter calls for “rais[ing] the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.” The Times’ analysis reports “[The charter] calls for the elimination of Israel and Jews from Islamic holy land and portrays the Jews as evil…It describes the struggle against the Jews as a religious obligation for every Muslim.”
What are the options for the Israelis? One would be to join with those who say that Hamas doesn’t really mean it. Their rhetoric will pass with time and the obligation to govern. That’s what many Jews and Christians in Germany and elsewhere said of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. In those days, while trying to accommodate Hitler, apologists cited the Versailles treaty and its onerous provisions for reparations as excuses for the electoral success of Hitler who came to power lawfully in a democratic election. Now the apologists cite the corruption of Fatah as an excuse for Hamas’ win in a democratic election.
I say that is ridiculous. Many Palestinians, like Iranians led by current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Islamic fanatics, support the statement of Osama bin Laden’s second in command, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who said of Jews, Christians, Hindus and others, “I vow by the One who raised the seven layers to Heaven (i.e. Allah) and who has beheaded tyrants that the leader of America has been thoroughly humiliated. Our heroes have defended this place. They have entered legend. Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute.”
Israel and the rest of the world should take these fanatics at their word, just as Mein Kampf foretold Hitler’s plan for Europe, the Jews and the world. The Islamic fanatics whose views are often described as fascist — and there are hundreds of millions of them — have launched a war of civilizations: Islam against the West. This war will continue for a long time to come. Israel and the U.S. are, I believe, in the minds of those fanatics, the nations they see as standing in their way to victory.
The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, principal leader in Iraq, reports The Times in its news analysis of January 30th, “At a conference in October titled, ‘The World Without Zionism’. . . effectively called for wiping not just Israel off the map, but America too. ‘Many have tried to disperse disappointment in this struggle between the Islamic world and the infidels,’ he said. ‘They say it is not possible to have a world without the United States and Zionism. But you know that this is a possible goal and slogan.’”
The Times reported on the same day that in Baghdad, “Bombs exploded Sunday outside four Christian churches and the office of the Vatican envoy, killing 3 people and wounding at least 15, in a rare and seemingly coordinated set of attacks on Iraq’s dwindling Christian community.” The fanatics see most of the nations in Europe and elsewhere ultimately buckling and pleading for peace at any price. Europe will soon be tested when it is asked to continue to give the Hamas Palestinian regime millions of dollars in subsidies, most of which will be used to pay the salaries of those supporting or individually intending to commit terrorist attacks against Israel now, and later throughout in the world. Will they pay that tribute? I believe they will
The alternate option is for Israel not to negotiate with the Palestinians unless and until those Palestinians in Gaza, where they have self rule, form a new government that arrests terrorists, disarms the population and proves that it has accepted the two-state solution. Its good faith must be evidenced not simply by words and by eliminating murderous covenants from their charter. It must be established by actions, and the passage of time proving the bona fides of those actions and words.
On the first occasion of an attack on Israel by Hamas, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has promised a response of great magnitude. In my judgment, that is exactly what is required. If Europe had reacted that way when Hitler marched into the Rhineland in 1936, he would never have marched into Poland in 1939 and begun World War II with its monstrous casualties (deaths) of an estimated more than 60 million people throughout the world. The Hamas victory has brought us a moment of truth. The question is, will there be appeasement and a return to the era of Neville Chamberlain, or will the nations of the world stand up to the Islamic terrorists and defeat them, as Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt did the Nazis and Japanese.
Edward I. Koch, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, is a partner in the law firm of Bryan Cave.
