Why does the U.S. government continue to promote the creation of an independent state of Palestine, which never has existed in the history of the world, is born of terrorist violence, and is pledged to the destruction of Israel? Even more interesting, why does the Israeli political and cultural elite support this movement?
I know this is not the first time I have raised these troubling questions. But they need to be asked again in light of the recent remarks on Lebanese television by Abbas Zaki, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to Lebanon.
This longtime veteran of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (a pioneer in terrorism along with his late comrade in arms Yasser Arafat) announced publicly - in Arabic, of course - what all Palestinian Authority leaders say when they let their hair down.
He showed once again the only difference between the Mahmoud Abbas-led Palestinian Authority - supported financially and militarily by Israeli and American taxpayers - and the Iranian-backed radical Islamists of Hamas in the Gaza Strip is one of tactics and strategy. Hamas makes no secret of its plans to destroy Israel and makes no pretense toward negotiated settlements of the conflict between Arabs and Israelis. The Palestinian Authority makes a pretense.
But that pretense often is shattered when you eavesdrop on Palestinian Authority leaders when they speak in Arabic to their own constituents. They always tell the same story: Their effort to negotiate over the creation of a Palestinian state is merely a tactical matter. In no way does it suggest they are "selling out" the PLO commitment to destroy Israel, kill all the Jews, and establish a larger Palestinian state encompassing all of the land of Israel.
"When the ideology of Israel collapses and we take at least Jerusalem, the Israeli ideology will collapse in its entirety, and we will begin to progress with our own ideology, Allah willing, and drive them out of all of Palestine," Zaki said, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
He reiterated, "The right of return (for millions of Arabs and their descendants who left Israel in 1948 and 1967) is guaranteed by our will, by our weapons and by our faith."
"The important thing is that in any operation, Israel will pay a price," Zaki said. "We don't want cases in which you don't kill even a chicken, but Israel kills 20 of you. I salute any operation that makes Israel pay a heavy price."
How many times must we hear words such as these, read them and watch them being uttered before we stop pretending there are peace- and freedom-loving leaders in the fantasy land of Palestine worth supporting?
There is no substantive difference between Abbas' PA, which the U.S. and Israel support as a "peace partner," and the fanatical killers in Hamas, who control the Gaza Strip. Perhaps the only real difference is the level of honesty with which they articulate their goals and strategy.
This charade with the PLO has been going on for 15 years. When are we going to learn? The PLO has not changed its stripes. Tragically, it never will. It still is committed to the destruction of Israel and the extermination of all Jews. Tragically, it always will be.
There is no qualitative or moral difference between the killers of the PA and the killers of Hamas, just as there is no qualitative or moral distinction between Hamas and al-Qaida.
The U.S. and Israel must learn now. They must cut off all financial and military aid to the cutthroats of the Palestinian Authority. They must stop negotiating with monsters who seek only the destruction of all Jews in the Middle East. They must stop pretending some terrorists are good guys. They must stop pretending the establishment of another Arab terror state is somehow going to serve the future security interests of the Jewish state.
