PALESTINIANS CHOSE TERROR

Manny Benhamou COM ’04

I would like to congratulate Farid Hussaini for addressing the terrible fate of the Palestinian refugees, used as political pawns and left unsupported by their Arab “brothers.” However, I have trouble rationalizing how “Palestinians are on the right side of the Middle East conflict,” as Farid wrote yesterday (Dec. 2), without focusing on the decisions they’ve made or the path they have pursued.

We can all agree Palestinians are victims. But is this the trump card to every argument? Does this vindicate teaching a generation of children that murdering Jews is not only acceptable, but respectable and commendable? Should we applaud a movement that holds death to a higher esteem than life?

Innocent Israelis, women and children, are butchered daily as they go about their affairs in public venues, such as pizza parlors, shopping malls, university cafeterias, and playgrounds. Jews are not only targeted in Israel, but have this week been killed at a hotel in Mombassa, Kenya, and fired upon in a passenger airliner leaving the city (miraculously it missed)… and for what? Has anything positive been accomplished? Are the Palestinians any better off after two years of suicide bombing? Or are they pursuing catastrophic leadership on an ineffectual warpath to hell?

The answers lie in the choices.

In 1947 the Arabs turned down their own Palestinian state opting instead for war, to attempt to “drive the Jews into the sea.”

From 1948 through 1967, when Jordan and Egypt occupied the West Bank and Gaza strip, no attempts were made to create a Palestinian government in lands now regarded as Palestinian.

Yasser Arafat’s terrorist organization, the P.L.O., was formed in 1964, when Arabs controlled the West Bank.

The Arab states refused to negotiate a peace deal with Israel after the Arab-initiated Six Day War of 1967, choosing instead to rearm and wage another war against the Jews in 1973 on the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur.

In August 2000, Yasser Arafat walked out of negotiations for peace at Camp David, opting instead for the terrorism and violence of the past two years.

Since September 2000, the killings of Jews have been glorified throughout the entire Arab world as “acts of martyrdom,” and have been causes for celebration. Imagine you live in Manhattan and everyone in the surrounding boroughs wants you dead. All things considered, I think the Israelis have put forth their part. What have the Palestinians put forth?

The Palestinians had a choice. They chose terror.