1. Ok so let us sit back, take a deep breath, and summarize the situation.

   We are now eight years into the Oslo process, and have had eight years of unilateral concessions and goodwill gestures from Israel, down to and including unilateral ceasefires. Israel has withdrawn from almost all the populated areas in the West Bank and Gaza and the Palestinians have lived for years under PLO rule. Israel has agreed to ALL of the publicly-expressed demands of the Arab world, including creating a PLO state, withdrawing to the Green Line, accepting some form of the "right of return" of Palestinian "refugees", paying tribute to the Palestinians, and giving up all of East Jerusalem, including the Old City and the Western Wall. Israel has based its defense policy for 8 years on niceness, unilateral disarmament, and on the Christian doctrine of turning the other cheek.

   In exchange for all this, there has not been a single day without Palestinian violence since Rabin shook Arafat’s paw at the White House.

   The latest accomplishment is that the entire world is assaulting Sharon’s demand that before implementing new appeasements and concessions (the Mitchell Commission capitulations), there must be seven days of absence of PLO violence, although Sharon might consider two days enough. The entire world is telling Israel this week that this is a totally unrealistic expectation and completely unfeasible, this after eight years of concessions and eight years of a "peace process". Colin Powell says it will never happen and so Israel should abandon its demands for a week of quiet. The US Eurotrash labels the demand "stupid". The Israeli Left, led by the Hebrew Palestinian newspaper Haaretz, agrees.

   So after eight years of niceness and unilateral concessions, a week without PLO atrocities is a totally unrealistic expectation. But at the same time of course a little more niceness and a few more concessions will ensure that at long last Israel will live at peace and in security for ever.

2. Meanwhile, one of the more interesting developments is the debate in the press over a comment a few days back by Haaretz pink flamingo columnist Yoel Marcus, believe it or not one of the LEAST extreme of the Type II leftists at Haaretz.

   Marcus wrote a few days back that "No one foresaw or could have foreseen that those weapons we gave the PLO would be used against us by the PLO, together with terror and mortars."

   Now I am reminded of the comment by a campus lefty in the US after Reagan was elected, when he wrote that Reagan could not POSSIBLY have won the election, because after all no one HE knew had voted for Reagan.

   So no one could have foreseen, huh? Never mind that Jerusalem in the early 90s was full of posters screaming "Do NOT Give them Rifles", put up by anti-Oslo groups, while the Labor Party McCarthyists demanded that those putting up the posters be jailed for "incitement". My own first anti-Oslo article appeared in Midstream just six weeks after the pawshake at the White House and predicted in unambiguous terms BOTH that the PLO would continue terror and that Israel would be shelled from the "Palestinian zones" created by Oslo. Even the leftist-controlled Israeli press had plenty of articles predicting exactly what has transpired. There were many other commentators who called things exactly right, such as Dan Pipes, Charles Krauthammer, Jeff Jacoby, and so on. I humbly include myself among these.

   Of course, what Marcus REALLY means is that he and his leftist friends never ran across anyone warning of what would come because he and his leftist friends only read one another and speak to one another. My Iraqi-born mother-in-law called the shots with 100% accuracy, while the Haaretz flamingoes got things wrong with a score of 0%. Moreover, Haaretz CONTINUES to get things wrong ALL the time, insisting that a few more concessions will turn the PLO into a permanent force for tranquility and Quakerism.

   In his Maariv weekend column, Meir Uziel explains: When Marcus says that no person predicted what would result from Oslo, he means that no Leftist did so. You see, for people like Marcus, "person" and "Leftist" are synonyms, so if you are not a leftist, you are not a person.

3. www.frontpagemag.com has an especially good issue today (Monday). See the pieces on Middle East Studies and on Edward bin Said. http://www.frontpagemag.com/horowitzsnotepad/2001/hn11-19-01.htm

   The Lethal, er I mean, the Moronic Weapon Part XII: http://www.zwire.com/site/Danny_Glover.html

Steven Plaut

Copyright © 2001 by Steven Plaut.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission