Israelis have been under daily, murderous attack – by suicide bombers and gunmen, from one end of the country to the other – for more than 18 months, at a cost of more than 400 lives.  (Given Israel’s small population, this is equivalent to the murder of 20,000 Americans.)  Yasir Arafat, whose Palestinian Authority (PA) governs some 98 percent of Palestinians, has repeatedly pledged to staunch this campaign of anti-Israel terror – but has failed to fulfill these commitments.  Israel is taking necessary self-defensive steps to protect its citizens.

In violation of his commitments to Israel as well as to the U.S., sponsor of Israel-Palestinian peace talks, Arafat has not only failed to act against anti-Israel terror – he has contributed to it.  The PA has released known terror-plotters from jail (including recent suicide bombers); refused to arrest known terrorists; given sanction to the terrorist activities of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups, including the Tanzim and its Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade whose members are paid by Arafat’s Fatah movement; used official media to incite violence against Israelis and celebrate the murderous acts of suicidal “martyrs” – indeed, elevated such barbaric “martyrdom” as a civic ideal, doling out rewards (with Iraqi cash) to killers’ families; made as many as 10 separate promises to impose a cease-fire but carried out none; and amassed weapons of a type and quantity to enable terrorism and war against Israel.  (In January, the Karine A, a ship carrying 50 tons of rockets, long-range mortars, high explosives and other war materiel, bound for the PA from Iran, was seized by Israeli commandos.)

The suicide bombings and shootings that mark the Palestinian war against Israel represent one front in a larger terrorist war, waged principally by Islamist extremists from North Africa to Central and Southeast Asia, against Western values and institutions, the United States, the State of Israel, Christians, Jews and moderate Muslims.  Israel and America are allies in the global war against terrorism, each resolved to give no quarter to terrorists and the governments that sponsor, sanction and tolerate them.

Successive Israeli governments have extended a hand in peace, proposing land-for-peace-and-security compromises and offering negotiations on every major issue in dispute with the Palestinians.  The Israeli public consistently has supported a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, knowing painful compromises would be required.  As recently as July 2000 and January 2001, Israel embraced far-reaching proposals advanced by the U.S. that would have created a Palestinian state on the bulk of West Bank land and in Gaza, and taken other steps to assure the rights and security of both peoples.  Yasir Arafat spurned these offers.  As President Clinton has said, Arafat failed to rise to the challenge of peacemaking, dooming the negotiations to failure.  Rather than remain engaged in a process requiring mutual compromise but providing, for the first time in history, Palestinian self-determination, Arafat resorted to violence, apparently hoping world opinion would inhibit Israeli self-defense.

The Palestinian Authority has obligated itself to arrest and prosecute terrorists – and not only has it failed to do so, but it has released known terrorists it had in custody.  The Palestinian Authority has pledged security cooperation with Israel to halt terrorism, and has repeatedly failed to fulfill this basic commitment.  (In late March, PA police refused to stop bombers identified to them by Israeli authorities; the terrorists drove to Jerusalem and, confronted by Israeli security officials in front of the country’s largest shopping mall, blew themselves up.)  The Palestinian Authority has obligated itself to end the incitement of anti-Israel violence that has long been a fixture of its official news media and its school curriculum – and it has failed to do so, sustaining a culture of hate.  This continuing lack of a credible peace partner, while deadly terrorism persists unchecked, creates a grave security dilemma for Israel.  Unable to rely on even minimal action by the Palestinian Authority to disarm and otherwise contain several thousand known anti-Israel terrorists, Israel has no choice but to act in its own self-defense.

Repeated Palestinian references to Israeli “occupation of Palestinian lands” obscure basic facts:  From the 1948 Arab war against nascent Israel until 1967, when Israel beat back the encircling Arab armies, the West Bank was controlled by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip by Egypt; there has never in history been a Palestinian state, and there has never been a border between Israel and so-called Palestinian lands, only an armistice line.Israel is committed to the creation of a Palestinian state (a step no Arab state has taken) – but a two-state solution can only be achieved through negotiations between the two parties.  

President Bush has made clear from the first days of his administration that America will continue its central role in the search for Arab-Israeli peace – but that in order for Washington to facilitate Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, both parties must be committed to an end to violence, to security cooperation, to the restoration of trust, and to the resolution of conflict through negotiations.  The Palestinians have failed to meet the first, essential test: calling a halt to anti-Israel violence, and taking consistent, decisive steps to rein in terror.  While Israel has unilaterally imposed cease-fires in anticipation of promised, reciprocal Palestinian moves, and while Israel has fulfilled requests made on each of U.S. peace envoy Anthony Zinni’s three missions to the region, the Palestinian Authority has yet to put in place a cease-fire and has balked at General Zinni’s suggestions that it confiscate illegal arms.

Threats to stability and U.S. national interests – including the security of Israel, the region’s lone democracy – abound in the Middle East: Iraqi and Iranian efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction; Syrian manipulation of Hizbollah terrorists, with Iranian support, to aggravate Lebanese-Israeli tensions; regressive social and political forces evident in growing Islamist influences, preaching contempt for the West, and the promotion and toleration of virulent anti-Semitism, expressed in schools, mosques and the mass media, byproducts of – and diversions from – corruption, dictatorship and economic stagnation.  Arab states bear a weighty responsibility to address these regional problems; instead, as in the late-March summit in Beirut, they have preferred to engage in empty anti-Israel polemics.

The International Committee of the Red Cross on March 27 condemned Palestinian use of an ambulance to transport a suicide-bomber’s explosives; the UN Security Council has condemned terrorism; many countries have expressed revulsion at anti-Israel attacks.  But other than from the U.S., international statements – in world capitals and in the UN Security Council, General Assembly and Human Rights Commission – have often failed to recognize the profound threats Israel faces, Israel’s longstanding desire to reach a peaceful settlement with its neighbors, the utter failure of the Palestinian Authority to fulfill its commitments to act against terror, and Israel’s fundamental right to defend its citizens.