[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 40 (Tuesday, April 8, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E582]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     ``LAND FOR A LIAR'S PROMISES''

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                        HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 8, 1997

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that Israel's Prime 
Minister Netanyahu highlighted during his visit to Washington this week 
focused on the lopsided and inaccurate reporting about Israel's role in 
the Middle East peace process. At two events I attended where the Prime 
Minister spoke, he made forceful and convincing arguments that it is 
Israel which is in compliance with its commitments. However, most of 
the media have fallen prey to the international propaganda espoused by 
PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and others which blames Israel for every 
problem that is encountered along the negotiating path, he concluded.
  Thankfully, though, there are some individuals, like columnist George 
Will, whose ability to cut through the obfuscation remains intact. His 
recent article, which appeared in numerous newspapers around the 
country, sheds light on the true reality of the current situation. 
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, I wish to share the text of this piece with 
my colleagues, many of whom have reiterated their concerns to me about 
Yasser Arafat's true intentions.

               [From the Washington Post, Mar. 27, 1997]

                       Land for a Liar's Promises

                          (By George F. Will)

       Israel's critics, who are legion and live in safe 
     neighborhoods, says Israel is being provocative. Actually, 
     Israel's being is provocative.
       On one day, Palestinian violence is said to have been 
     provoked by the opening of a tunnel. One another day, the 
     provocation is said to be the beginning of construction of 
     apartments. But the real reasons for the violence are: 
     Violence has always been part of the warp and woof of Yasser 
     Arafat's politics (remember, he once wore a pistol to the 
     U.N. podium), and there is no penalty for it. Indeed, in the 
     eyes of the ``international community,'' Palestinian violence 
     is self-legitimating: It is proof of Israeli provocation.
       No Israeli government could allow Arafat to veto the 
     construction of apartments on unoccupied land in East 
     Jerusalem owned by the Israeli state. To allow that would be 
     to make a de facto territorial concession, conceding that 
     Jerusalem is redivided, with Arafat sovereign in part of it.
       Arafat released terrorists. Israeli intelligence says that 
     he authorized attacks and that the head of Palestinian 
     Preventative Security organized the Hebron riots. Last 
     Friday, at a rally of 10,000 in Nablus, a speaker announced 
     the ``good news'' of the terrorist's suicide attack in Tel 
     Aviv, and the crowd cried, ``God is great.'' An Arafat aide 
     said, ``The terror of bulldozers led to the terror of 
     explosives.'' What kind of peace can be made with people who 
     talk like that?
       Arafat's recurring resort to violence refutes the premise 
     of the Oslo accords, which was that land was being traded for 
     peace. Something tangible--territory--has indeed been traded 
     for something intangible--promises, a liar's promises. 
     Everything about Arafat's repertoire--the violence, the 
     rhetoric to Arabic-speaking audiences about ``combat'' and 
     ``jihad'' and capturing all of Jerusalem, the refusal to 
     fulfill the obligation to remove from the Palestine Charter 
     references to the illegitimacy and destruction of Israel--is 
     consistent with the strategy adopted in 1974. That is the 
     ``phased'' strategy of founding a Palestinian state from 
     which will be launched the final attack on a diminished 
     Israel.
       American diplomats who soothingly refer to Arafat as 
     Israel's ``partner in the peace process'' visit Arafat's 
     Ramallah office with its wall map of Palestine with Israel's 
     borders erased. Such maps are frequent ornaments of political 
     and cultural programming on Palestinian Authority television. 
     Such maps are used in Palestinian commercial advertising and 
     as jewelry. On the main Bethehem-Hebron road stands a 
     monument to the Palestinian ``martyrs of the Intifada'' in 
     the shape of a map of Palestine, including all the land of 
     Israel. The diplomats probably wonder about the ``real'' 
     meaning of such maps, just as diplomats wondered what Nazis 
     ``really'' meant when they spoke of the ``destruction'' of 
     European Jewry.
       Israel lives in a bad neighborhood. One reason it is bad is 
     that the Palestine people have had a long run of execrable 
     leaders: leaders who supported Hitler in World War II, the 
     Soviet Union during the Cold War and Saddam Hussein in the 
     Gulf War. Perhaps things will get better. Perhaps when a 
     full-fledged Palestinian state exists on the West Bank, that 
     22nd Arab state will be the first Arab democracy. But would 
     those who are asking Israel to bet its life on that be 
     willing to bet theirs?
       Former prime minister Shimon Peres, when asked if Israel 
     could safety consent to be again, as before 1967, 10 miles 
     wide at the waist, blandly said that Israel would still be, 
     in effect, 40 miles deep strategically because ``all the land 
     we give back must be demilitarized.'' But although this 
     Palestinian state does not yet fully exist, it already is 
     militarized with at least 30,000 well-armed soldier-
     policemen. Will the fully emerged state accept restrictions 
     on its sovereignty that no other nation accepts?
       And who would enforce such restrictions? The 
     ``international community'' that dithered during genocide in 
     Bosnia and is inexhaustibly ``understanding'' about 
     Palestinian violence? Should Israel rely on a U.S. 
     commitment? As Golda Meir said to President Nixon when he 
     suggested something similar, ``By the time you get here, we 
     won't be here.''
       It is said that people hope vaguely but dread precisely. 
     Modern history has provided Israelis a dread that is the 
     premise of their statecraft: No calamity is impossible. So 
     while the ``international community'' will continue to 
     criticize Israel for the provocations inherent in its 
     existence, Israel's riposte will be Golda Meir's words: Jews 
     are used to collective eulogies, but Israel will not die so 
     that the world will speak well of it.

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