Posted 6/23/2003 10:12:00 AM by Ocean Guy
The Arab Crutch

First printed in the WSJ, here without subscription requirements, Ruthe Wisse restates the obvious, but often overlooked essensce of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Unfortunately, the Arab war against Israel is no more a territorial conflict than was al Qaeda's strike against America, and it can no more be resolved by the "road map" than anti-Americanism could be appeased by ceding part of the U.S. to an Islamist enclave. From the moment in 1947 when Jewish leaders accepted and Arab rulers rejected the U.N. partition plan of Palestine, the Arab-Israeli conflict bore no further likeness to more conventional territorial struggles. Arab rulers defied the U.N. charter by denying the legitimacy of a member state. Arab countries refused to acknowledge the existence of a single Jewish land. Arab rulers did not object to Israel because it rendered the Palestinians homeless. Rather, they ensured that the Palestinians should remain homeless so that they could organize their politics around opposition to Israel...

...It goes without saying that President Bush must subordinate other considerations to America's security and interests. And Americans obviously would be better served if there were no conflict in the Middle East. Yet until Arab leaders give up the crutch of anti-Semitism they can make no real progress toward responsible self-government, and it is futile to pretend that obsession with Israel is compatible with Palestinian independence. Rantisi greeted the "road map" by organizing major attacks against Israel, which he calls "our land, not the land of the Jews." America can't hope to win its war against terror while ignoring some of its major perpetrators and propagandists.

A graphic of the "Israel is a thorn in Arabia's side viewpoint," Hat tip to lgf.