Middle East
Standard Procedure

By Brian Knowles

The Arabs make high-sounding peace overtures that get Israel and the West excited.

Israel and the Arabs negotiate an accord that promises certain concessions from the Arabs in return for land given to them by Israel.

Israel gives them the land, but the Arabs fail to keep their part of the bargain.

The so-called "peace process" stalls.

Israel gets the blame for the stall.

The West pressures Israel to get on with the process.

Efforts to "jump start" the process occur, with the West meddling and agitating.

Nothing happens, and the Israeli leader is ousted with the next elections. His successor promises to do better.

Go back to square one and begin the whole process again.

The net result of all of this is that Israel ends up with less land, a weakened strategic position, and a lot of extra grief. The Arabs end up with exactly what they want.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak is just moving beyond the first step as I write this. The whole ridiculous charade will end up in the same place. The reasons are obvious.

To begin with, the Palestinians have no intention of complying with any of the demands of Israel period. They will go through the motions just to get the US off their backs, but their hearts are not in it. Their goals and objectives have not changed one iota from the time the Oslo Accords were signed to the present. They still intend to conquer Israel. First, they intend to get as much land and as many concessions as they can via the misnamed "peace process." Once they believe they can get no more through this bloodless approach, they will attack. Other Arab nations will back them up. Israel will once again find herself fighting for her very existence. Bank on it.

Yasser Arafat is anything but sincere about achieving a peaceful, settled, situation with Israel. He is a snake in the grass who will resort to any subterfuge to achieve his objectives. He has been establishing "islands" throughout Israel for many years. He is nibbling away at territory given in perpetuity by God to Israel. He will continue to do so as long as he can get away with it. Every time he takes a piece of Israel, Israel’s strategic position is weakened.

Those who conspire against God and his people, Israel, are described by King David in the second Psalm:

"Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with destruction.

"Their throat is an open grave; with their tongue they speak deceit" (Psalm 2:9).

Arafat and his cronies have in their hearts the destruction of Israel. The deceit of this treacherous terrorist is evidenced in the difference between his speeches for the benefit of the Western Media, and his speeches in Arabic to his own people. For the benefit of the gullible West, Yasser Arafat will speak "smooth things" and make peace noises. To his own people, Arafat will say things like, "I would like to bless you all on the feast of Id Al Fitr, and pray that next year we will celebrate in Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine."

Sahar Habash, a member of the Fatah Central Council (the Arm of the PLO founded by Arafat himself) said in the name of Arafat, "Palestine will not be liberated with agreements, but that the land demands blood…Every piece of land justifies a battle. The conflict with Israel will continue until the goal is reached" (January 24, 1999).

A month earlier, December 19, 1998, the official Palestinian Authority newspaper, Al Hayat Al-Jadeeda, published a communiqué entitled "Our Position." Here is an excerpt from it:

"This is Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea, from Rosh Hanikra to Rafah [in Gaza]. The gap between Palestinian expectations and the Israeli conspiracy will inevitably lead to a collision…It is impossible to struggle against the [Israeli] settlements, the confiscation of land and cold-blooded killings via negotiations. There is no alternative but a struggle that will smash the Israeli aggression and emphasize the readiness of our people to explode with force against any aggression…"

On August 4, 1999, Arafat angered Israelis with a statement made in Ramallah. There he said that the "Palestinian people" would "…continue with our struggle, our jihad [holy war]…and once again enter the city of Jerusalem as the Moslems did for the first time."

Consider a best case scenario: Even if the Palestinians kept all of their parts of the Oslo bargain, and even if they agreed to settle for the land they’ve already extracted, and recognized Israel’s right to exist, the rest of the Arab world would never comply. The hostility toward the idea of a Jewish state in the Middle East extends to the Moslem world in general. A peaceful Israel and Palestine existing side by side could never become a reality under these circumstances.

Tiny Israel cannot realistically take on the entire Moslem world, though it can probably handle its immediate neighbors. So long as Moslems exist, the existence of Israel as a nation will be in jeopardy. Yasser Arafat’s "peace" overtures with Israel are entirely bogus. He seeks only to strengthen his strategic position in relation to Israel prior to attacking. The United States, dependent upon Arab oil, is a massive pawn in Arab hands in constantly forcing Israel to the "peace" table.

The Islamic nations count on American pressure to force Israel to continually give up more land to the Palestinians. Said Hussein Sheik Al-Islam, the Iranian Ambassador to Damascus, "…Clinton will exercise pressure to reach a peace agreement." Of course the term "peace agreement" is a euphemism for "give up more land in return for nothing but increased Arab hostility."

On paper, Israel’s future looks bleak indeed. A wall of unremitting hostility and hatred surrounds this tiny nation. Apart from a compromised United States, Israel has no major friends in the world. She stands largely alone against a world of enemies. God seems to speak of this in Psalm 83:

"O, God, do not keep silent; be not quiet, O God, be not still. See how your enemies are astir, how your foes rear their heads. With cunning they conspire against your people; they plot against those you cherish. ‘Come,’ they say, ‘let us destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more." (Psalm 83:1-4).

There is an important thought embedded in these verses: To conspire against Israel is to conspire against the God of Israel! Israel’s enemies are God’s enemies. Who are these enemies?

"With one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against you – the tents of Edom and the Ismaelites [Arabs], of Moab and the Hagrites, Gebal, Ammon and Amalek, Philistia, with the people of Tyre, even Assyria [approximately 5 percent of the population of Iraq is Assyrian or Turkoman. Assyrian is one of the languages spoken in Iraq.] has joined them to lend strength to the descendants of Lot" (Psalm 83:5-8).

These are the nations, or peoples, that surround Israel on all sides. They are all Moslem nations. We can echo the prayer of Asaph, who wrote this Psalm:

"May they ever be ashamed and dismayed; my they perish in disgrace. Let them know that you, whose name is the Lord – that you alone are Most High over all the earth" (Psalm 83:17-18).

I believe the time is coming when God will once again assert himself on behalf of his people, Israel. He has seen his nation through all of its wars since the time of its reestablishment in 1948. Perhaps he will once again fight on behalf of Israel and answer Asaph’s prayer:

"Make them like tumbleweed, O my God, like chaff before the wind…cover their faces with shame so that men will seek your name, O Lord" (Psalm 83:13,16).