Israel suffers while Palestinians reject peace

On Sept. 9, I drank an ice coffee and sat with friends for
several hours at Café Hillel in Jerusalem. Twenty-four hours
later, I heard the café being blown to shreds by a Palestinian
suicide bomber.

The night of the bombing I had eaten dinner a few restaurants
down the street from the café. The next day, as I walked past
what was left of it, I saw blood-spattered walls for the first time
in my life. How lucky I was to have “only” been half a
block down. A couple hundred feet closer and a few hours earlier,
and I could have been one of those seven innocent people brutally
murdered ““ or possibly among the dozens more maimed. As if
this incident wasn’t enough, I was also about 100 feet away
from a stabbing terror attack in a Jerusalem suburb. Many people
were a lot closer to death than I. If only my story were
unique.

Imagine not knowing if the Big Blue Bus you’re riding to
Westwood will blow up. Imagine having to check out every pregnant
woman and 15-year-old boy entering the Coffee Bean because they
might have explosives packed with nails, bolts and rat poison
strapped to their chest. Imagine constantly looking over your
shoulder at Maloney’s on a packed Saturday night because a
suicide bomber blew himself up at Madison’s the week before,
killing three of your friends.

Welcome to Israel.

Since the beginning of the Oslo Accords process 10 years ago,
Israel has been subject to a targeted campaign of brutality and
terror aimed at destroying the Jewish state. Almost 900 Israelis
have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the past three
years alone. Since September 2000, there have been just under
19,000 terror attacks perpetrated against Israel, according to the
Israel Defense Force. If this isn’t a war, I don’t know
what is.

So here’s the $64,000 question: Why are the Palestinians
waging this campaign of terror against Israel? Some people maintain
that if Israel were to stop settlements (which take up 1.36 percent
of the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem and roads, according
to Peace Now), or simply grant the Palestinians a state,
Palestinian violence would cease. Such logic, however, is perverse,
historically ignorant and politically naïve.

First, it suggests a sickening moral equivalence between
settlements and murdering innocent men, women and children.
Negotiations, of which settlement evacuation may well be part of
the final agreement, simply cannot take place while babies are
being blown up. To suggest so is to encourage terrorism by granting
it legitimacy, thus making it a viable means of gaining political
concessions ““ ensuring the inevitability of continued death
and destruction.

Second, can any reasonable person expect Israel to negotiate
with the Palestinian Authority while they are simultaneously
funding terrorism? If you don’t think the PA funds terrorism,
don’t believe me ““ believe the documents recovered
during operation Defensive Shield with Arafat’s own
signature, allocating money to Fatah/Tanzim, Force-17, and Al Aqsa
““ people used to blow up cafés like the ones I sat in
this summer.

Third, a Palestinian state was offered by former Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in 2000 and during the subsequent
Taba negotiations. The Palestinians could have gotten 97 percent of
the West Bank (contiguous, according to the chief U.S. negotiator
present, Dennis Ross), 100 percent of Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem
as their capital. According to Alan Dershowitz in an MSNBC article,
even Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia described Arafat’s
rejection of the Camp David negotiations as “a crime against
the Palestinians ““ in fact, against the entire
region.”

Unfortunately, however, not much has changed since Palestinians
were offered a state in 1937 by the Peel Partition plan and in 1947
by the United Nations. Again in 2000, Palestinian leaders chose war
over accepting a Jewish state. Moreover, violence against Israel
unequivocally preceded Israeli settlements or any presence in the
territories whatsoever. From 1951-1955 alone, over 900 Israelis
were killed in cross-border “fedayeen” attacks,
according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The vicious
wars of 1948 and 1967 dramatically underscore Palestinian
irredentism and readiness to take up arms.

Despite the fact that more Israelis were killed in the first
three years of the so-called Oslo peace process than in the
previous decade, Israel continued to relinquish territory and
control to the PA. Indeed, since the implementation of the Oslo II
interim agreement of September 1995, 98 percent of the Palestinian
population has come under Palestinian jurisdiction ““ ending
any myth of so-called “occupation.” But did Palestinian
terror stop? No. Rather, Israelis continued to be slaughtered en
masse, forcing Israel to increase its military presence in the
disputed territories.

Make no mistake about it ““ this war of terror, imposed
upon Israel, is about one thing ““ an attempt to destroy the
Jewish state. Arafat said as recently as 1980 that peace for
Palestine means the destruction of Israel. His recent funding of
terror and rejection of a Palestinian state in 2000 demonstrates
that his goals are still the same.

All decent and peace-loving people worldwide must
unconditionally and unequivocally condemn the inexcusable targeting
of civilians. Dare I point out that Jews, even as their women and
children were being slaughtered and made into soap during
Hitler’s genocidal Holocaust, never took to blowing up German
kindergardens? Indeed, no cause can ever justify taking a
15-year-old, indoctrinating him with hate, strapping explosives to
his chest, and sending him into a disco to blow himself up, trying
to kill as many people as possible.

So next time you’re at a party, dancing and having fun
with friends, look around and imagine you’re in

Israel. “¦Boom.

Keyes is a second-year undeclared student. This summer he
assisted former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dore
Gold, and was published by his Jerusalem-based think-tank. His
cartoon “Imagine That” was published in the Daily
Bruin.