Friends of Israel

By Dafna Yee

If one is serious about fighting terror, the first things to do are to stop pretending that some terrorists are your friends, and to stop believing that any terrorist can be negotiated with. The hard truth is that if you consider yourself to be pro-'Palestinian', then you are by definition, anti-Israeli. Any political decision which doesn't take that fundamental fact into consideration will inevitably be used against Israel.

One of the most dangerous outcomes of the Arab propaganda campaign, is that it has convinced well-meaning people around the world (including some Israeli and American Jews) that being pro-'Palestinian' means that you are for a peaceful solution that will give a people called "Palestinians" (who are not really culturally or historically separate from any other Arab group) their own country called 'Palestine' next to Israel, where they can live in peace. This entire belief is a deliberately conceived lie that, from its inception in 1964, was always intended to be used to destroy Israel. Ignoring the abundance of contrary evidence, President George W. Bush and the entire US State Department remain some of the most powerful adherents to that false belief. Bush still speaks of 'occupied Palestinian land' and 'illegal Israeli settlements' from which he is determined to create the country of 'Palestine'. But he is not alone. Former president Jimmy Carter is still continuing the campaign he started while in office to legitimize Arafat and the PLO while calling himself a 'peacemaker'. Unfortunately, the number of people who have been deceived by Arab propaganda is enormous.

Not all, nor even most, Arabs in the world are terrorists or even supporters of terrorists. But, if you identify yourself as a 'Palestinian', then you have declared your loyalty to an intrinsically terrorist organization whose sole purpose is the eradication of Israel and the slaughter of all Israelis. You cannot be a 'moderate' in pursuing that goal, unless by moderate you mean that you only approve of the use of terror against Israelis under certain circumstances. Such a 'moderate' is not someone who can be trusted to negotiate your country's security with and certainly can't be trusted to actually fight against terrorists whose only crime in their eyes is that they misused a legitimate method against an enemy. Yet people still expect the Palestinian Authority to take care of the problem of terrorists as part of the 'peace process', which completely ignores the fact the PA consists of terrorists and finances much of the terrorism in Israel!

By its very nature, any pro-'Palestinian' rhetoric IS anti-Israeli. There is no Palestine - that territory ceased to exist even as a separate entity (it was never an independent nation) in 1948 when Israel began as a sovereign state. Use of the words 'Palestine' and 'Palestinian', especially in a political context, promote Arab and other anti-Israeli propaganda (whether that's the intent of people who use them so freely, or not). Those words are part of a deliberate lexicon that was created as a means to 'wipe out' the State of Israel! First figuratively -- by avoiding the name 'Israel' and refusing to give it recognition, and second literally -- by its promotion by people who are openly trying to bring about Israel's destruction and dissolution in order to replace Israel with 'Palestine'.

For some reason which I still can't fathom, some people automatically assume that any solution that is 'pro-Israeli' (in other words, puts the rights of Israeli citizens to safety and security as a major component) is automatically one that is NOT 'just and reasonable' to the Arab population! This must be a sign of blind acceptance of Arab propaganda and baseless rhetoric because the facts of the matter are that the Arab population has always had just and fair rights in Israel, far more so than they receive in any Arab country. There has been no corroborating evidence for any Israeli 'atrocities'; they only exist in Arab lies and rhetoric along with 'eyewitness reports'. Actually, all the verifiable evidence shows that Israelis have, indeed, shown remarkable restraint in the face of enormous provocation (too much so, in my personal opinion).

I don't deny that the Arab population living under the Palestinian Authority is suffering hardships (though many people in the world are in far worse straits -- including the vast majority of Arabs living in Arab countries -- and nobody is bothering about them) but most of that is through their own making because they have followed terrorist leaders who don't give a damn for their welfare. However, why do all these pro-'Palestinians' make no mention of the suffering that the Israelis are going through? Israelis have to live with not only the fear of continued terrorist attacks (as in America) but the reality of them, on a daily basis. There is scarcely an Israeli Jew today who has not lost a family member, friend, and/or neighbor due to rampant 'Palestinian' atrocities. (What else would you call indiscriminate mass murders committed by human bombs deliberately aimed at the civilian population?) Where is the compassion for them -- the more than 1000 men, women, and children who were killed and the over 10,000 who were wounded in the past two years alone for no reason except that they were Jews and living in Israel?

Too many people, and governments, believe that they can remain neutral and be friends with all people even when these people are sworn enemies to each other. The only possible outcome of acting on this belief is that both sides will believe that the so-called neutral person has betrayed them. Even worse, that person probably has, because he will constantly have to try to prove his loyalty to everyone and it is inevitable that if he does something for one side, he is automatically acting against the other. That is why any promises that Bush gives Israel that are dependent on his promises to Israel's enemies cannot be fulfilled even if Bush was sincere when he made them.

To learn for myself just how anti-Israel the pro-'Palestinians' are, I examined over 300 websites put up by groups, organizations and individuals who claimed that all they wanted was 'peace', 'justice', 'human rights', etc., for the 'Palestinians'. With only FOUR exceptions, every one of the sites which claimed to be promoting those ideals on behalf of the 'Palestinians' was flagrantly anti-Israel! The list, which is still increasing, is available for anyone to examine for themselves. Click here for the current list.

An interesting fact that I found is the more the site proclaimed its desire for 'peace for Palestinians', the more that site openly spewed anti-Israel hate propaganda. In fact, many sites that just claimed to be antiwar, and not necessarily pro-'Palestinian', were actually covering up the same anti-Israel hate rhetoric. (Some of the antiwar sites didn't publish anti-Israel propaganda directly; instead they linked to some of the worst anti-Israel sites.)

Too often, being anti-Israel is directly connected with anti-Semitism. When Israeli Jews are killed and wounded by Arab terrorists because they are Jews and in the 'Palestinian cause'; that is anti-Semitism. It is not a coincidence that the rise of blatant anti-Semitism in Europe, Canada, and yes, America, in the past few years mirrors the anti-Israel feeling has been growing in these countries. The same is true in reverse -- 'Palestinian' terrorists have increased their operations in direct proportion to their propaganda success in demonizing Israel in the eyes of the world and the willingness of the world to 'negotiate' with them. (You also might remember that the worst Arab riots in British-administered Palestine took place from 1936-1939, at the very time when Hitler and Nazism were gaining ground in Germany.)

People who adopt the 'Palestinian cause', no matter how misguided or well-meaning, are actually working to bring about Israel's destruction. More importantly, pretending that good intentions and 'not meaning any harm' will change the outcome of their support for the 'Palestinians', is just sharing in the propaganda campaign as well as abandoning Israel's to the 'Palestinians' -- the very people who have sworn to destroy Israel at any cost.

We cannot count on a person or government to be our friend if he also considers our enemy his friend. This is definitely a time when all friends of Israel have to make the tough choice that they are either with Israel or against her; there is no middle ground possible, especially in the Middle East. So, all you pro-'Palestinians' out there, please reconsider what you are doing. Whether you intend to or not, if you support the 'Palestinian cause', YOU SUPPORT TERRORISTS.