The Palestinian Distraction

BY JAMES TARANTO
Monday, March 18, 2002 10:41 a.m.

The Palestinian Distraction
Vice President Dick Cheney has just completed a tour of the Arab world, where he tried to drum up support for U.S. action to topple Saddam Hussein. He didn't have much success, as the Associated Press reports:

In one Arab nation after another, Cheney has found leaders primarily focused on resolving the corrosive Israeli-Palestinian crisis, no matter how much he tries to change the subject to a tougher stand on Baghdad.

Every Middle Eastern country he has visited so far has rejected proposals to confront Iraq militarily--Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Oman, and now the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Whence these Arab dictators' sudden interest in "resolving" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they've been happy to have unresolved for decades? In Friday's New York Times (link requires registration), Fawaz Gerges of Sarah Lawrence College offered this explanation:

The actual conflict between Israel and Palestine may or may not be at a turning point. But the ability of Arab states to deal domestically with the intensification of that conflict may indeed be at such a point. Arab League members are now speaking very seriously of normalizing relations with Israel. For the first time in this hundred-year struggle between Arabs and the Jewish state, a consensus exists in the Arab world regarding peace with Israel, based not on the previous land-for-peace formula but on full normalization of cultural, economic and political relations between the protagonists.

Today the Arab establishment, even former hard-liners like Syria and Libya, accepts a settlement that recognizes the existence of Israel and its integration into the regional landscape. The Saudi Arabian peace initiative, anchored within this new vision, has been embraced by pivotal Arab states, including Syria.

Gerges strains credulity when he asks us to believe that dictators of such ultrarepressive states as Saudi Arabia and Syria have suddenly developed a solicitude for public opinion. He shatters it when he claims that this solicitude leads them to seek peace. To whatever extent "public opinion" actually exists in these countries, it militates for war, not peace, with Israel. The Associated Press reports that in Jordan--one of only two Arab countries that have made peace with Israel--demonstrators over the weekend carried signs reading "Saddam, please strike Tel Aviv!" and "Bin Laden, you are dear to us, bomb Tel Aviv!"

Gerges takes such a blinkered view because he totally ignores the most important change affecting the region: America's new resolve, since Sept. 11, to combat terrorism. There's good reason to think it's the Arabs, not Cheney, who are changing the subject. After all, even Gerges acknowledges that "time and again, Palestine has been used and abused by Arab rulers and their opponents as a political tool to garner public support." So instead of taking at face value the Arabs' professions of tender concern for the Palestinians, why not take them at their word when they say they don't want America to topple Saddam Hussein?

When dealing with dictators, it's safe to assume that their overriding priority is to preserve their own power. Today, thanks to American deterrence and restrictions on Baghdad's military movements, Saddam poses no immediate threat to his Arab neighbors. If he were to invade Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, there is no doubt that America would come to the rescue again--and this time it would go all the way to Baghdad. Saddam knows this as well as anyone.

On the other hand, the thought of an American-backed government in Baghdad must terrify the region's tyrants. "Syria considers that the mere acceptance of the possibility of changing the regime of Saddam Hussein by force will set a bad precedent and make it possible to bring down other regimes in the region by force under any pretext," China Daily quotes Imad Shueibi, a political analyst and professor at Damascus University, as saying.

And think of what a new regime in Baghdad would mean to Saudi Arabia. If Iraq were democratic, the despotic and corrupt Saudi regime would look by comparison even worse than it does now. A pro-American Iraq, democratic or not, would dramatically increase U.S. power in the region, devaluing the currency of two-faced Saudi "friendship." Even more ominous, the Bush administration has made clear its determination to carry the war on terror to any country that supports it. At some point that will mean going to the source--the financier of fanaticism, the homeland of Osama bin Laden and 15 of the Sept. 11 hijackers, the world's leading exporter of Islamic fundamentalism.

For months the question has been whether Saudi Arabia would permit America to use its bases there to topple the terror-supporting regime in Baghdad. A year from now the question may be whether America will choose to use its bases in Iraq to topple the terror-supporting regime in Riyadh. No wonder Crown Prince Abdullah would rather talk about the Palestinians.

New Frontiers in Appeasement
Neville Chamberlain had nothing on Britain's Home Secretary David Blunkett. London's Sunday Telegraph reports that a "senior minister" says "Mr Blunkett was concerned that an attack on Iraq would spark riots in the Middle East that could spread to Britain. Mr Blunkett reportedly told colleagues: 'We cannot separate Iraq from the Middle East or we will have major disturbances both internationally and in Britain.' "

The Telegraph adds that "Ahtsham Ali, a member of the Home Office community cohesion review team, said: 'Muslim youths were angry and frustrated at the action in Afghanistan; that frustration may lead to further incidents if there is action in Iraq.' "

Fortunately, Tony Blair seems sensible enough not to allow unruly adolescents to dictate his foreign policy.

Lynching in the Name of Human Rights
So what was behind last week's Palestinian lynchings of "collaborators"? According to the Associated Press, Yasser Arafat was trying to make human-rights groups happy:

A little over a year ago, Arafat's government cracked down on collaborators, executing two of them by firing squad and sentencing at least seven others to death. But the executions drew an outcry from human rights groups and foreign governments, and none has been carried out since.

"The Palestinian Authority has many considerations in dealing with this, the human rights issue, and because of this they've stopped carrying out verdicts, especially when it's the death penalty," said Abu Mujahid [of Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades]. "But we have only one issue--our security. So we say, 'If there's someone who's collaborating, bring him to us, and we will do the job.' "

Ha'aretz, meanwhile, reports that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade "took responsibility" for an attack on Kfar Saba, Israel, that killed an 18-year-old schoolgirl, Noa Orbach, yesterday. And the New York Times (link requires registration) reports from Ramallah: "Palestinians say that Yasir Arafat, their leader, has issued no order in recent days to stop the terror attacks and probably could not enforce one in any case."

Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

Crazy Like a Fox

"Here's a crazy thought: . . . Why not just turn the Palestinian terrorists over to the U.S.? America has shown at Guantanamo Bay that it's quite capable of looking after the safety of prisoners."--Best of the Web Today, Feb. 12, 2002

"Diplomatic sources told Time that [U.S. envoy Anthony] Zinni is proposing to put CIA monitors in Palestinian Authority jails and offices on a full-time basis."--Time, March 17, 2002

The Best Little Whorehouse in Palestine
David Gelernter, himself a casualty of terrorism (maimed by the Unabomber in 1993), in The Weekly Standard on Palestinian barbarism:

We now learn that suicide bombers are told to expect a heaven full of comely virgins as their next assignment. To the suicide-murderers, those waiting virgins are real as dirt. The killers call themselves "martyrs," but in their own minds they are the next thing to sex criminals. "Pardon me, sir or madam, do you know why I plan to murder your child? Because the authorities are offering me great sex--and, after all, I don't get many opportunities."

People who think this way are shielded from view, up to a point, by their own sheer evil. They are painful to contemplate. We instinctively look away, as we do whenever we are confronted with monstrous deformity. Nothing is harder or more frightening to look at than a fellow human who is bent out of shape. And moral deformity is the most frightening kind by far. How can Muslims of good faith allow such people to call themselves Muslim? But they do allow it. What does that mean? And is it possible that we have located here, in this inspiring vision of heaven as a whorehouse, the most loathsome idea in the history of human thought? This is the civilization that condemns "licentious" America?

A Religion of Peace
Two Americans were among five people killed in a grenade attack yesterday on a Protestant church in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Boston Globe describes the scene:

One or two assailants stormed the church as 60 people listened to a sermon, police said, and then threw as many as six grenades into the congregation. The explosions turned the sanctuary into a scene of carnage, with streaks of flesh and blood splattered on the walls, floor, and even the ceiling 60 feet above.

The murdered Americans: Barbara Green and her daughter Kristen Wormsley, a senior at the American School in Islamabad. Green worked and her husband, Milton Green, works at the U.S. Embassy. The BBC has a collection of dramatic, though not graphic, photos.

Follow the Money
"Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network has stepped up its financial activity markedly in recent weeks, suggesting some leaders are reasserting control and may be seeking to finance more attacks against American interests," the Associated Press reports. "Much of the activity is centered in northwestern Pakistan--near the Afghan border--although some money and communications are going elsewhere, one official said."

'Absolute Success'
Gen. Tommy Franks says Operation Anaconda, now winding up in eastern Afghanistan, was "an unqualified and absolute success," the Associated Press reports. Some pro-American Afghan fighters, however, dispute the characterization. "Americans don't listen to anyone," says Abdul Wali Zardran. "They do what they want. Most people escaped. You can't call that a success."

The Washington Times' Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough quote a U.S. military officer who participated in the Battle of Gardez, in a report to colleagues:

"It appears that the al-Qaeda pride just can't abide our guys on their turf, so we make effective 'bait,' pulling the bad guys out of their holes.

"However, because they are not so smart, they try to attack uphill to the ground we own, and between direct and indirect [mortars and close air support] fires we absolutely chew them up. In a one-on-one fight our soldiers are better trained and equipped and work together well--which gives us the advantage now that we control the high ground. Couple that with all the technological advantages we bring to the battlefield and it is not a fair fight, which is just the way we like it.

"The enemy is motivated, but not well trained. Once we either blow up their first string mortars or force them to displace from known positions, they have become ineffective because they do not have the training/equipment to use their mortars accurately from an unknown spot, where they have not registered their fires. Anytime they try to do this from a new spot we are on them [mortars leave a big thermal signature] and they are toast.

"Anyway, as I am sure you do not, don't listen to the doomsayers in the press. It seems they would like nothing better than for us to suffer a resounding defeat, but it just ain't gonna happen. Our guys are good and have more guts."

Terrorist Conference Call
"Key Al Qaeda officials, possibly including Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 to Osama bin Laden, were present in the fortified Shah-i-Kot caves of this region just before the recent US attacks," the Christian Science Monitor reports, based on interviews with local villagers who say al Qaeda recruited them to build new cave hideouts:

The men also say that they overheard a live address--via satellite phone--to all the Al Qaeda troops by a man they referred to as "al Qaed," or the leader. The workers believe it was bin Laden, but cannot be sure. The phone connection was cut off. Afterward, the fighters seemed buoyed by the pep talk, which would have been given three weeks to one month ago.

"When we were there, they were joking with us, saying: 'We will strike the Pentagon from these mountains,' " says Ahmad Wazir, an unemployed father in grime-blasted clothes. He followed that with: "I don't even know what the Pentagon is, if it is a tree, or a village, or a leader."

Does Al-Liby Have an Alibi?
Anas Al-Liby, one of America's 22 most wanted terrorists, has been captured in Sudan, Reuters reports. Al-Liby is wanted in connection with the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people. "Sudan is on a U.S. government list of state sponsors of 'terrorism,' " says Reuters, which is on our list of alleged providers of "news."

Second Thoughts
USA Today reports that "American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh became disillusioned with his radical Islamic comrades after learning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington but could not leave his unit 'for fear of death,' his lawyers say in court papers filed Friday."

Great defense, isn't it? After committing the crime, the Marin mujahid's lawyers are saying, he had second thoughts--and somehow that exonerates him? In any case, the defense contradicts what Lindh himself told Newsweek way back on Dec. 1:

When asked if he supported the September 11 attacks, he hesitated. "That requires a pretty long and complicated explanation. I haven't eaten for two or three days, and my mind is not really in shape to give you a coherent answer." When pressed, he said, "Yes, I supported it."

So his "disillusionment" apparently took place long after Sept. 11, probably after he was safely in American custody.

Saudi Chutzpah Watch
In Saudi Arabia's Arab News, Amir Taheri compares Israel unfavorably with India:

India is a secular republic in which anyone with any religion has a share in government and can reach the highest echelons of the state. India has already had two Muslim presidents while many Muslims have served in Cabinet positions. Israel, however, is a Jewish state in which non-Jews, even those that become citizens of the state, do not enjoy equal status. By assuming an exclusive Jewish persona, Israel cannot but encourage others to also emphasize their religious identity.

Actually, Israel's Knesset (parliament) has Arab Muslim members. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, doesn't allow Jews to live in the country or any non-Mulsim to worship on its soil.

What a Martyr
Lt. Brenda Berkman is a member of the New York City Fire Department. She was not among the 343 firemen who died on Sept. 11, but she wants the world to know she's a victim anyway. "What was most hurtful," she tells the Associated Press, "was to be so invisible at the funerals and memorial services. The officials giving the eulogies would talk about 'firemen,' the 'brothers,' the 'men.' After 20 years, it was tough to take."

The FDNY is more than 99.75% male, and 100% of the 343 firemen who died were male. AP informs us that Berkman "had to sue her way into the fire department." Maybe she should bring a right-to-die suit.

Air Canada's Fatwa
Air Canada refuses to allow author Salman Rushdie--target of a 1989 Iranian fatwa sentencing him to death on its flights because "security measures necessary to protect him from assassins would cause unacceptable inconvenience to passengers," the Canadian Press reports. Why would anyone want to fly on an airline that admits its security measures are inadequate to keep assassins off its planes?

Stupidity Watch
Isn't mass murder hilarious? We didn't think so either, but the editors of London's left-wing Observer find it a regular laff riot. Here are some highlights of a satirical chronology titled "Six Months That Changed a Year":

[Sept.] 30th: Twelve days [sic] after the collapse of the World Trade Centre, amazed rescue workers uncover an entire office floor that is still doing business. Despite falling 890 feet and being buried under 12,000 tons of rubble, all workers at Leeman Sachs Trading Inc are unharmed. They have remained at their desks since the bank's Tokyo HQ saw television pictures of the burning towers, called them up and ordered them to keep working. 'We were still sitting at our desks when we landed in the rubble,' said one dealer. 'I actually completed three transactions on the way down.' In fact trading at the buried floor has been so good since 11 September, the bank may sue the New York Fire Dept for digging them out. . . .

[Nov.] 12th: New figures reveal that the number of people who perished in the attacks on 11 September may be as low as three. Counsellors are on standby to help New Yorkers deal with the trauma of being more upset than they needed to be. Pressure mounts on Mayor Giuliani--already criticised for his insistence that Ground Zero be kept shrouded in smoke--after the dust cleared briefly last week to reveal that the South Tower was still standing. Psychologists say original estimates of 6,000 were probably much larger due to 'all kinds of sh--'. . . .

[Dec.] 29th: Shock scientific survey proves that America really did have it coming. The results of a new study show that at the time of the 11 September attacks, America was unequivocally asking for it. American researchers at the highly respected Massachusetts Institute of Technology who collated the DNA profiles, conversational attitudes and facial disposition of more than 8,000 Americans are said to be 'devastated' by the results. Test supervisor Bill Porman said: 'I'm sorry to say but spend any time with these people and you start to think, sure, I'd do it, they're absolutely f---ing insufferable.' Security Chief John Ashcroft is said to be demanding that, from now on, objective scientific research be classified as an act of terrorism.

What can one say? This sort of thing used to get a rise out of us, but six months of Michael Moore, Ted Rall, et al., leave us numb. The Observer's effort doesn't even offend us. It's just pathetic.

The Muslim Exorcist
The case of Abu Kassim Jeilani keeps getting stranger. Jeilani, as we noted Thursday, was the ex-mental patient who was shot by Minneapolis cops as he walked down a city street carrying a machete and crowbar. "Mental-health professionals" say the police never should have been involved, and social workers or psychiatrists should have handled things. But Jeilani, a Somali immigrant, was also a Muslim, and now a local imam, Hassan Mohamud, says the matter should have been left to the clergy. Reports the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Mohamud was speaking at a nearby mosque when police shot Jeilani, who reportedly heard voices and suffered from psychosis. He received hospital treatment and medication as well as spiritual healing, which involved having the Quran, the Muslim holy book, recited over him. Many Muslims believe in jinn, invisible spiritual beings that can be forces of good or evil. Imams such as Mohamud believe that reading the Quran over a mentally ill person can help drive evil jinn away from that person.

"The mental health professionals and the police are not the only solution," Mohamud said. "The imams must be part of the solution. We could have saved his life, I'm sure."

The Clinton Legacy
USA Today reports on sexual confusion among middle-school students:

With the youngest teens, clear information is crucial, says Xenia Becher, a mental health educator at the Syracuse after-school program.

Recently, she says, she asked some 13- to 15-year-olds to define sex. "They had trouble coming up with an answer," she says. "Some said it had to be between a male and female and a penis and vagina had to be involved.

"So I asked, 'What about if two men were involved?' 'Well,' they said, 'I don't know what that is, but it's not sex.' "

He Said It

"The police started it. I'm not saying they weren't provoked, but it takes very little to provoke them."--Ruben Bayona, protester at the European Union summit in Barcelona, quoted by the BBC, March 15

Zero-Tolerance Watch
The brilliant educators who run Lewis Elementary School in Barstow, Calif., "have banned students from playing 'cops and robbers' on school grounds," the Contra Costa Times reports. "The temporary ban was set on the game, in which kids shape imaginary guns out of their fingers and pretend to be officers of the law and criminals, while school officials decide whether it is dangerous."

Jimmy Hoffa He Ain't
Here's the latest nominee for the Bottom News Story of 2002: "Former U.S. Interior Secretary and Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt was reported missing Friday when he failed to return from a hike in the Hell's Canyon Wilderness," the Arizona Republic reports. Babbitt's initial disappearance was no big deal, since he "is known to keep a brisker pace." But "when his friends returned to the cars and did no find him, they immediately called authorities."

Before anyone could even print up milk cartons with Babbitt's face and the caption "Have you seen me?" he "came strolling back to the car area, unharmed and unscathed." Total time missing? Forty minutes.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to C.E. Dobkin, Michael Segal, Damian Bennett, Yehuda Hilewitz, Shelley Taylor, Robert LeChevalier, Glen Smith, Raghu Desikan, Ned May, Janice Lyons, Aaron Gross, Michael Moynihan, Jose Guardia, Catherine Windels, Jim Bruni, Steven Johnson, Flavio Martinez, Daniel Weiner, Ron Ackert and Wayne Rutman. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal [at] wsj.com, and please include the URL.)




Today on OpinionJournal:

Review & Outlook: So Atta got his visa. That's no reason to keep Mexicans out (link requires registration).
Robert Bartley: Academics as well as accountants should be accountable.
Brendan Miniter: Soon America's enemies won't have to eat lead.


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