[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 26 (Thursday, March 10, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

 Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, the recent massacre of Moslems 
praying in a mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron was a despicable 
act. I condemn it in the strongest terms, and I am dismayed that there 
are people in the world who have condoned this heinous crime.
  I take the floor today to note the prompt and decisive actions taken 
by the Government of Israel to heal the wounds caused by the Hebron 
massacre. Prime Minister Rabin visited Hebron to express his sorrow. He 
denounced the butchery, calling it a ``shame on Zionism and an 
embarrassment to Judaism.'' He established a commission to investigate 
the killings. He released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. He imposed 
a new restrictions on Israeli settlers.
  These gestures of goodwill are the acts of a statesman, and 
demonstrate clearly that Prime Minister Rabin is committed to keeping 
the peace process on track. Thus far, Prime Minister Rabin's efforts 
have received only lukewarm response from the Palestinian Liberation 
Organization. Seizing the political moment, the PLO leadership seeks 
greater concessions from Israel.
  It is not my purpose in speaking today to discuss the terms of the 
Middle East peace process. That is the business of those who live in 
the region.
  But I believe that Israel's actions should not go unnoticed. Israel--
both the government and her people--has taken steps to express its 
collective contrition for the crime committed by one deranged Israeli.
  Mr. President, on March 1, a column in the New York Times by A.M. 
Rosenthal addressed itself to this subject. I agree with the sentiments 
expressed by Mr. Rosenthal, and I commend it to my colleagues.
  The article follows:

                [From the New York Times, Mar. 1, 1994]

                          The Worth of Isreal

                          (By A.M. Rosenthal)

       For all Israelis but a handful the massacre of the Muslims 
     at prayer was one of the saddest days in the country's 
     history.
       That fact does nothing to assuage grief or diminish the 
     crime. Still, it does tell a great deal about the gap between 
     Arab and Israeli societies--and the importance of not 
     allowing shock or sorrow to overwhelm the awareness of the 
     difference.
       As long as the difference goes unmentioned, as long as the 
     world's politicians, clergymen, intellectuals and journalists 
     act as if it does not exist, they diminish the chances of 
     peace, or even easement between Arab and Jew in the Mideast.
       Baruch Goldstein committed a monstrous act of terrorism 
     that cannot be softened by talk of his rage or sense of 
     injustice. But collectively and individually, Israelis 
     denounced the crime; some even saw it as a time for national 
     contrition.
       After the massacre, the President of Israel went to Hebron 
     to bow his head. He said nothing worse had happened in the 
     history of Zionism. In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Yitzhak 
     Rabin set up a top-level investigation, ordered settlers 
     deemed dangerous to be detained, disarmed or arrested. 
     Benjamin Netanyahu, the opposition Likud leader, said the 
     crime was a ``despicable abomination.'' In New York, Jews 
     prayed for the Muslim dead in a Christian church.
       And now, it is healthy and wise to ask some questions. When 
     22 Jews in an Istanbul synagogue were murdered at prayer, did 
     Yasir Arafat visit Israeli offices to express sorrow? When 
     Pan Am 103 was bombed out of the sky, did Arab states 
     immediately begin an investigation? When Israeli athletes 
     were murdered in Munich or Israeli cities hit with Iraqi 
     missiles, was weeping heard in Arab streets--or rejoicing?
       Another difference: The mosque murderer was not ordered 
     into action by state-sponsored terrorist squads like those 
     that have moved out from Syria, Iran and Lebanon to kill 
     Israelis, dissident Palestinians and Westerners decade after 
     decade--and do to this day. No services of regret. What Arab 
     president bows his head?
       If we let these things go unsaid, we become parties to the 
     offense of moral equivalence, the curse of Western society. 
     In the days of the Communist empire, it was committed by the 
     left and the stupid. Essentially they said that people were 
     suffering under capitalism as well as Communism, so there was 
     no great moral judgment to make between the two.
       For a half-century, moral equivalence has been shield and 
     weapon for those who oppose the existence of Israel or find a 
     particular Israeli Government not to their liking. An act of 
     repression or violence in Israel's democratic society becomes 
     worse than the built-in repression and murder that are the 
     very basis of Arab states at war with Israel.
       In the time of Soviet power, moral equivalence was the 
     cover-up for a leaning toward left-wing totalitarianism. 
     About Israel, since independence moral equivalence often 
     masks a taste for third-world totalitarianism.
       Israel's Labor Government does not talk much about moral 
     equivalence. Why bother when there's nobody to negotiate with 
     but despotic states and movements?
       Silence does not change reality. It is the nature and 
     history of Israel's neighbors that make so many Israelis fear 
     an independent Palestine. They see it as one more repressive 
     hate-filled state on their borders, sworn to eat deeper into 
     Israel.
       The freely elected Israeli Government has already made 
     fundamental concessions that could lead to Palestinian 
     independence in a few years: recognition of the P.L.O., a 
     Palestinian legislature and policy-army, steps toward giving 
     up most of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and a new 
     untested military survival strategy based on that territorial 
     loss.
       How many Israeli settlers would remain on the West Bank to 
     put their safety in the hands of Palestinian police? 
     Patience, Mr. Arafat: Judea and Samaria can yet be Jew-free.
       After the massacre the Arabs ask for more concessions as 
     the price of negotiation. For the West or Russia to back the 
     demands would be cynicism and cowardice.
       But for Israel to agree would be an even greater error. 
     Israel would then become party to a judgment of moral 
     equivalence that would deny the worth of Israel as a 
     democratic nation, set alone among the dictatorships in the 
     Middle East.

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