When Terrorism Succeeds
By Cathryn Crawford (04/18/03)
Here in America, we are undeniably fearful of terrorist attacks. We are not in fact fearful for our democracy, we are not fearful that our country itself will be brought down by these acts of terror – we simply have pure physical and emotional fear that American citizens will be killed in further attacks.
We do not truly believe in our hearts that al-Qaeda will succeed in their quest to be rid of America itself and Western values in specific – what we really fear is the havoc they will wreak trying. In Israel, however, the situation is quite different. The Israelis live in constant fear of being killed, yes, but they also live in fear that their country, their very existence, will be crushed in the dust of the suicide bombers and the words of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The fear of terrorism and national annihilation in Israel and Palestine is encouraged by the success of Yassir Arafat’s PLO in the public relations department here in the West. Their posturing and portrayal of themselves as the injured party in this conflict is paying off, despite the fact that in reality, they engage in behavior that we despise so desperately. We are allowing them to hijack the peace in the Middle East – to hold it for ransom, against their demands for more and more land, less and less Israel.
When a member of the United States government, be they a congressman, the Secretary of State, or the president himself, speaks out concerning the “Palestinian problem”, they must weigh the consequences of their words more carefully then they currently are. By pushing Israel to concede again and again to the PLO in the name of peace, we are sending a message that will come back to haunt us in the future - we are telling them that terrorist tactics work. We are rewarding terrorism with concessions, with soft words and appeasing actions. By giving the terrorists the very thing that they are trying to achieve by blowing up the buses and cafes, we are declaring open season on Israel, and on ourselves. We are allowing them to pull the wool over our eyes. We are allowing the PLO to lead us blindly around by the nose.
We have allowed them, for so many years, to fool educated Americans into believing that Israel is to blame for the actions of the Palestinian radicals. We have taught the generations of Palestinians that are even now growing up in the refugee camps that violence works. We have taught them this by our actions, by forcing Israel to give up more land in return for peace, and as the violence continues, we here in the West are partly to blame for it.
When will we stop and look at what we are teaching the powers in the Middle East? It is not enough to bring down every dictator in power there now, if we allow such success by such a well-known and well-publicized group of terrorists. This is not just an issue of Israel’s national security – it is also a matter of our own. We cannot afford to be made fools of any longer. We are so dedicated to rooting out terrorism, they say; so, when we will do so in Palestine?
The PLO knows that it needs the minds of the people of the West to succeed in their stated effort to eliminate the Jewish homeland, and it is frightening to think that they are doing such a good job doing it by using the one thing that Americans hate and fear the most: terrorism.
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