1. Ok so let us see if we have this straight. President Bush wants to destroy Islamist terrorism and so has decided that the most effective way for doing so is to suck up to Islamist terrorists. He has suddenly “kashered” (made kosher) Syria and Iran. The Hizbollah, Hamas, PLO and Jihad are suddenly off the list of world terrorist organizations. Indeed, it seems that other than bin Laden himself, the only group Bush still regards as terrorists are the Kahanists of Kach and the JDL.

   Bush then decides to reward Islamist terrorism by declaring in the middle of his efforts to attack the Taliban that yes of course the US has “ALWAYS” favored creation of a Palestinian state. Of course in fairness, we cannot expect George W. to be more Zionist that Ariel Sharon, and Sheriff Sharon ALSO came out last week in favor of a Palestinian state, lest someone mistakenly think there are differences of substance between Sharon and Shimon Peres.

   Next, this week Bush and his people announce that in any future “peace accord” between Israel and the Islamist fascists, er – I mean the Palestinians, the PLO will have control over “the Holy Sites”. He did not spell out which Holy Sites he had in mind, but it is pretty obvious that he did NOT mean merely the Al-Aqsa mosque and Temple Mount. It is not conceivable that Bush means anything less than what Ehud Barak offered the PLO already, meaning all of East Jerusalem and the Old City, even the Western Wall. And all the Churches in the Old City.

   Now, need we really point out here that these Holy Sites are not exactly George W.’s to hand out? He certainly does not speak for Jews and Moslems, and indeed has no credentials to speak for Christians either. I can just imagine the outrage of the Texas Baptists and Evangelists and Hispanic Catholics there when they learn that George W. wants to hand all of the Churches in the Holyt Land to the man with the pubic hair on his face.

   And how did Ariel Sharon, the new champion of Oslo, react? Did he decide to show Bush that nothing’s doing? By sending the tanks in once and for all to annihilate the Palestinian Authority and take Palestinian statehood off the table forever?

   Of course not. Sheriff Sharon did nothing, just as he is doing nothing besides offering to negotiate after each atrocity du jour by the PLO. What should he have done? Well, in my humble opinion, the same day that Bush offered to give the Western Wall and other Holy Sites to the PLO, Ariel Sharon SHOULD have offered to give George W. Bush’s two daughters in holy wedlock to Osama bin Laden. I imean, that at least would learn them not to DRINK!!

   Sharon missed his chance-of-a-lifetime to put the Middle East in order the evening of theattacks on the US, by re-occupying and denazifying the West Bank and Gaza. His last remaining chance will come the day the US attacks on Afghanistan begin. Of course, the Bushies will order Sharon to sit in the corner, but they will be busy with theirs and in any case will not be able to argue credibly against Sharon doing to Arafat what they will do to the Taliban. Does Sharon have the testosterone to do so? To save Israel from Oslo suicide and destruction? To take advantage of the opportunity the US actions will proffer? Pass him the knitting needles please.

   Meanwhile the Dunkirk of Ehud Barak continues to show how successful Oslo is. After capitulating to the Hizbollah and Syria and withdrawing from Lebanon, with Barak assuring the world that now that the Hizbollah has no grievances only peace and tranquility will prevail, the Hizbollah once again shelled northern Israel yesterday, and renewed its oath to intervene militarily on behalf of the Palestinains. And no, Sharon did not take advantage of the world’s jihad against bin Laden to construct some new parking lots in the Hizbollah villages of Lebanon.

2. Haaretz has a new cause. It seems that Arab students at Israeli universities, better known as the Taliban, are having problems renting apartments in Tel Aviv. Yes, of course they also sometimes live in dorms, indeed in numbers greater than their proportion among the student bodies. But what with the Arab students generally supporting bin Laden, Saddam, and the suicide bombers of the Dolphinarium, openly parading about campus with PLO flags and T-shirts of Nasser and of Che, some insensitive and racist Jews in Tel Aviv are reluctant to rent rooms and apartments to these fine scholars. Haaretz is very unhappy. Seems that yet another new entitlement for Israeli Arabs has been discovered.

3. Syrian-occupied Lebanon announced with great fanfare that it would be joining the battle against terrorism, except that – following the US lead – the Hizbollah will not be regarded by them as terrorists, in spite of yesterday’s shelling. Which means that they TOO plan to crusade against KACH.

4. Barely back from his hajj to meet with Arafat, the offices of Arab fascist Knesset Member Taleb a-Sanaa were yesterday torched by unknown delinquents. A-Sanaa was very nonplussed, screaming that this proves how racist and undemocratic is Israel, unlike his role model – Saddam’s Iraq. A-Sanaa has frequently been in the news cheering on and approving of violent attacks by Arabs on Jews.

5. The American Saddam Campus Left is up and running, supporting the bin Laden terrorists and insisting that no solution to terrorism other than destroying Israel is acceptable. It is as anti-American as the Israeli Left is anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist. For updates on the campus left in the US and other matters of interest, suggest you tune in daily to www.frontpagemag.com.

6. From Wall Street Journal:

   October 4, 2001
   editors@interactive.wsj.com

   What’s Wrong With A Palestinian State
   By Bret Stephens, an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.

   On Dec. 9, 1969, Secretary of State William P. Rogers gave a speech at the Galaxy Conference on Higher Education in Washington, D.C., in which he laid out his views on the Arab-Israeli conflict. "A durable peace," the secretary said, "must meet the legitimate concerns of both sides. . . . To call for Israeli withdrawal as envisaged in the U.N. Resolution without achieving an agreement on peace would be partisan towards the Arabs. To call on the Arabs to accept peace without Israeli withdrawal would be partisan towards Israel. Therefore, our policy is to encourage the Arabs to accept a permanent peace based on a binding agreement and to urge the Israelis to withdraw from occupied territory when their territorial integrity is assured."

   Thus was born what instantly became known as the Rogers Plan. The plan itself, which also offered vague formulas on the status of Jerusalem and the future of Palestinian refugees, proved as ineffectual as its author. Yet it furnished a blueprint for U.S. Near East policy that successive administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have followed ever since: a posture of even-handedness between Arabs and Israelis, adamant rejection of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the view that "land-for-peace" is the only vehicle for a comprehensive resolution of the conflict.

   One might think that 30-plus years worth of failed peace initiatives -- including the 1982 Reagan Plan, the 1993 Oslo Accords, last year’s Camp David summit and the subsequent Mitchell Plan -- would be enough to persuade someone in the higher reaches of the State Department that there was something amiss with this paradigm. But as Henry Kissinger once observed, "When enough bureaucratic prestige has been invested in a policy it is easier to see it fail than to abandon it."

   So it hardly comes as a surprise that the Bush administration, after initially vowing not to micromanage Mideast policy the way President Clinton did, appears to have reversed course. According to a report in the New York Times, prior to the Sept. 11 attacks the Bush team was plotting an intensive diplomatic initiative to revive final-status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. And going one better than the Clintonites, the administration was also prepared formally to back the creation of a Palestinian state. On Tuesday, President Bush confirmed those reports when he declared, "The idea of a Palestinian state has always been a part of a vision, so long as the right of Israel to exist is respected."

   On one level, such a commitment is groundbreaking. According to the Times, it would represent "the first time a Republican administration has backed a Palestinian state." In fact, it would be the first time any administration has done so. But on a deeper level, it is only the natural culmination of the Rogers Plan and its various successors, particularly the Oslo Accords. In this, it portends not just failure, but disaster.

   The problem here has nothing to do with the moral right of the Palestinians to a state. Not even Ariel Sharon disputes that Palestinians are entitled to live under a government of their own choosing, where they can enjoy political freedom, personal security, and civil and property rights, provided they respect the rights of their Israeli neighbors to the same. Nor is the problem connected with the drawing of boundaries: Most Israelis would happily return to the pre-1967 borders if they could feel reasonably certain that doing so would bring an immediate and lasting cessation to terror attacks.

   The problem, rather, has to do with the nature of a prospective Palestinian state, and the signal that American recognition of such a state sends to the Arab world at large. As anyone who has actually spent time in Palestinian areas knows, a Palestinian state would almost certainly be politically dictatorial and ideologically radical. This was true before the outbreak last year of the Al-Aqsa intifada; since then, the radicalization of the Palestinian population has only increased, with polls showing 75% popular support for suicide bombings. This is a state that cannot be trusted to govern itself democratically, much less respect the security of its neighbors -- not just of Israel, it should be said, but of Jordan as well. Worse yet is what such recognition would do to America’s efforts to build a lasting anti-terror coalition in the Middle East. The Bush administration may now be gambling on the idea that recognizing "Palestine" would gain the U.S. some sympathy in places like Egypt without actually committing it to a follow through. But this merely purchases time. The Arab world would quickly become even more aggrieved with the U.S. if, after declaring itself for Palestinian statehood, it failed to live up to its commitments, however symbolic.

   Meanwhile, Israel would come under ever greater pressure to make compromises -- "for peace," of course. But if last year’s Camp David summit held one lesson, it’s that the most Israel can concede is less than the minimum the Palestinian Authority can accept. It’s hard to conceive of any negotiating formula that the Bush administration can offer that would bridge this gap, short of putting a figurative gun to Mr. Arafat’s head. This too may be in the president’s plans. But by contemplating the recognition of a Palestinian state, Mr. Bush is doing the opposite, rewarding the terror tactics Palestinians have employed over the last year. This, of course, is an invitation to further terror.

   In his speech to the Galaxy Club, Secretary Rogers failed to appreciate that Arab hostility toward Israel was not born in the 1967 war (even if Western hostility was), meaning that it would not cease with the return to the pre-’67 borders, much less the creation of a Palestinian state. He also made the mistake of attempting to remain neutral between totalitarian regimes and a democratic one, which history shows does nothing to appease the former while undermining the latter. Now the Bush administration seems set on doing the same thing.

   The only way a workable peace treaty -- and a viable Palestinian state -- is ever going to emerge is if Israel and the U.S. confront Arab radicalism head on by showing that the West is not neutral between democracy and dictatorship, and that any resort to violence will be punished, not rewarded. If the president wants progress in the Mideast, he should return to his original script.

   ---

   October 4, 2001
   editors@interactive.wsj.com

   Clinton Didn’t Do Enough To Stop Terrorists
   By Rush Limbaugh, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host.

   Since the Sept. 11 massacre, there have been numerous press reports about Bill Clinton’s attendance at funerals, visits to the rescue site, and his other activities as a former president. What the media have largely overlooked is the extent to which Mr. Clinton can be held culpable for not doing enough when he was commander in chief to combat the terrorists who wound up attacking the World Trade Center and Pentagon. If we’re serious about avoiding past mistakes and improving national security, we can’t duck some serious questions about Mr. Clinton’s presidency.

   Osama bin Laden already had the blood of Americans on his hands before Sept. 11. He was reportedly behind the World Trade Center bombing that killed six; the killing of 19 soldiers at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia; the bombings of the embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed 226 people, including 12 Americans; and the attack on the USS Cole at Aden, killing 17 seamen.

   Mr. Clinton and his former national security adviser, Sandy Berger, said after Sept. 11 that they had come within an hour of killing bin Laden when they launched cruise missiles against his camps in 1998. (Mr. Clinton also ordered the destruction of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.) Many saw this attack as a diversion from domestic embarrassments, because it took place only three days after his grand jury testimony in the Paula Jones case. On Sept. 24, National Review Online published a report by Byron York that added considerable weight to this last charge.

   Mr. York spoke recently to retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, who had been U.S. commander in the region. Although he supported the cruise missile attack, the general revealed it was a "million-to-one-shot." "There was a possibility [bin Laden] could have been there . . . . My intelligence people did not put a lot of faith in that." His recollection is a far cry from the version of Messrs. Clinton and Berger. Which is accurate?

   On Sept. 13, the Associated Press disclosed that "In the waning days of the Clinton presidency, senior officials received specific intelligence about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and weighed a military plan to strike the suspected terrorist mastermind’s location. The administration opted against an attack." The possible attack was discussed at a meeting last December, which was prompted by "eyes-only intelligence" about bin Laden’s location. A military strike option was presented at the meeting. There was debate about whether the intelligence was reliable. In the end, the president decided against it.

   The day after AP’s story, Hillary Clinton gave a different explanation of events to CNN. She said that in the last days of her husband’s administration, he planned to kill bin Laden, but that his location couldn’t be pinpointed: "It was human assets, that is, people on the ground, who provided the information. My memory is that those assets proved unreliable and were not able to form the basis of the plan that we were considering launching."

   Exactly what "eyes-on intelligence" was provided to Mr. Clinton in December? And just how reliable did the information have to be to merit a military strike? When Mr. Clinton ordered an attack on bin Laden’s camps in August 1998, Gen. Zinni said that it was a "million-to-one shot."

   A partial answer can be found in a Sept. 27 report by Jane’s Intelligence Digest, whose sources "suggested that previous plans to capture or kill [bin Laden], which were supported by Moscow, had been shelved by the previous U.S. administration on the grounds that they might end in humiliating failure and loss of U.S. service personnel." As a Jane’s source put it: "Before the latest catastrophe there was a distinct lack of political will to resolve the bin Laden problem and this had a negative impact on wider intelligence operations."

   Jane’s claimed that the fundamental failure to deal with al Qaeda was due "to a political reluctance to take decisive action during the Clinton era, mainly because of a fear that it might derail the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This was "combined with a general complacency in Washington towards warnings that the U.S. itself (as opposed to U.S. facilities and personnel abroad) might be targeted."

   President Bush is now leading a world-wide war against terrorism, focused presently on bin Laden, al Qaeda, and their Taliban sponsors. It has been widely noted that the U.S. is handicapped in this war by a lack of good "humint" -- human intelligence -- about the terrorists. Here again the Clinton administration is culpable.

   In 1995 CIA Director John Deutsch imposed complex guidelines that made it more difficult to recruit informants who had committed human-rights violations. Therefore, while the Justice Department has been able to use former mobsters to get mobsters (e.g. Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, who killed 19, was the government’s key witness against John Gotti), the CIA has been discouraged from recruiting former terrorists to get terrorists. This has made infiltrating groups like al Qaeda virtually impossible.

   We have no choice but to address the policies and decisions, made at the very highest level of our government, which helped bring us to this point. To do otherwise is to be irresponsible and unprepared in the face of a ruthless enemy, whose objective is to kill many more Americans.

Copyright © 2001 by Steven Plaut.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission