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Time To Put Up Or Shut Up
By Gerald A. Honigman
Hamas should be allowed to run in the upcoming Palestinian Arab elections.
True, Hamas rejects Israel's very right to exist--no matter what its size--so this goes against even what the phony Oslo peace process calls for.
And while Hamas' own patron saint, Sheikh Izzedin al-Qassam (for whom the brigade which blows up buses and restaurants is named for, along with the rockets aimed at Jews as well), was a native of Latakia, Syria along with scores of thousands of other allegedly "native Palestinians" (along with most others who flocked into the Mandate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from other "Arab" lands according to the Records of the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commissions and other solid documentation), Hamas rejects the rights of Jews to any part of the Dar ul-Islam. Keep in mind that half of Israel's Jews were refugees from so-called "Arab" and/or Muslim lands.
Nevertheless, as long as Israel follows through with what needs to be done, Hamas' candidates should be on the slate.
What sense is there to keep playing the same old game?
The Arafatians now in power have made clear over and over that they differ with Hamas only in tactics.
As I've often stated before, blown buses bring bad press. The end goal--Israel's destruction--is the same for both, as a quick view of the Palestinian Authority's own statements, websites, textbooks, media, maps, and such illustrates. Abbas' own military folks have repeatedly stated that Israel will be the sole target of their arms. Recall that Condi was in Israel not long ago demanding that the Jews themselves supply the PA with those arms.
Poll after poll taken among Palestinian Arabs show that even if Israel returned to its 1949 nine-mile wide, armistice line-imposed, rump state status, most Arabs would still support terrorism and reject its right to exist.
So folks...there's no nice way of putting this. Israel faces deadly, rejectionist enemies and must deal forcefully with this unfortunate reality sooner rather than later.
Give it credit...Unlike the let's-destroy-Israel-but-by-other-more-acceptable-means Arafatians, at least Hamas is up front and honest on these issues. So there's no doubt as to how Hamas must be handled. No Israeli concessions short of national suicide will suffice for it.
And that's why Hamas needs to be a choice for Arab voters the next time around.
The Arab Street needs to make a collective decision--so Hamas itself cannot alone be blamed--for the policies that will then be carried out in its name.
If Hamas wins, the Arab voters will have told the entire world that they reject the alleged "two-state" solution that others--including the American State Department and such--falsely claim that they accept. The reality, of course, is that even the alleged PA "moderates," such as Abbas and Qurei, openly reject the right of a Jewish Israel to exist, speak only in terms of a hudna (ceasefire--not permanent peace), and have called all such dealings with the Jews merely a Trojan Horse designed to bring about the Arabs' ultimate goal. And for this the Jews are expected to give away the store.
When the predictable next atrocity against Jewish innocents is then carried out (notice how Kofi Anan & Co. cry out profusely about innocent Arabs killed at a wedding in Jordan but typically make excuses when Jews are the targets, killed at Passover Seders, weddings, and the like), terror will have a democratically-decided address.
Nations have gone to war for far less than seeing their own people repeatedly butchered.
So, Israel must make very clear--and not just by blowing hot air--that it will consider any terror subsequent to the Palestinian elections an act of war.
After the elections, if the new Arab government shows--unlike the current one, which still allows terror to continue--that it is truly willing to fight the sources of terror and enemies of permanent peaceful coexistence with a Jewish State (again, no hudna manure...please), then Israel should allow for a grace period and offer assistance.
If, however, as will most likely be the case, the new, democratically-elected government opts to just play more good cop/bad cop games with Israel, the Jews need to finally wise up and do what must be done:
Unleash pure hell on the murderers of Jewish innocents.
Israel must first issue an ultimatum to the new Arab government.
When that ultimatum is predictably next ignored, it must declare war, fight to win, and tell the hypocrites in the United Nations and elsewhere to ask themselves what they would be doing if they were in Israel's shoes.
And the Arabs will have brought this all upon themselves by democratically electing a government which openly calls for the destruction of both Jews as a nation and as a people.
One more time...
What other nation would have put up with this reality as long as Israel already has?
President Bush has repeatedly stated that those who support terror will be treated as the terrorists themselves. America has followed through with this wise policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Collateral damage in super power America's own wars has been far more than that caused by tiny Israel's struggle to survive.
America needs to remember this when Israel follows through with what it too must do.
And if America does this, the hell with what the rest of the world thinks.
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