WorldNetDaily, OR
Aug 6 2004
It’s foreign policy, stupid!
Soon the American people will determine who will be their next
president based upon one central issue: foreign policy. Why is this
the Holy Grail of understanding? Because our domestic policies, as a
result of 9-11, are being held hostage by our foreign policies!
John Kerry and George Bush need to talk about the real reason America
was attacked. It was not because of our cultural heritage or our
democratic way of life. Europe was a much easier target, and has
plenty of both, but was not in the crosshairs.
The final report of the 9-11 commission was an eye opener. It stated
that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the man who conceived and directed the
9-11 terrorist attacks, was motivated by his strong opposition to
America’s support for Israel. Mohammed conceived the initial outline
of the attack six years before its execution and brought the plan to
al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, because he knew he did not have the
resources to carry it out on his own.
There was only one sheriff in town setting down foreign policy during
those six years. Precisely what was Bill Clinton’s policy on terrorism?
It was appeasement. Instead of fighting terrorism, he chose to feed
it. Like Neville Chamberlain, Clinton believed that, in doing so, the
terrorists would leave America alone.
A prime example of this deluded strategy was his attitude toward
Yasser Arafat. One of Clinton’s greatest hopes was to go down in
history as the man who finally resolved the Arab-Israeli conflict. In
order to do that, Arafat had to be transformed from a murderer into a
diplomat – from the arch terrorist who invented airplane hijacking
and who was behind the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich
Olympics in 1972, among countless other atrocities. As part of the
president’s effort to do so, Arafat became the most welcomed foreign
leader at the White House during the Clinton years.
Clinton’s Middle East initiative involved an extraordinarily
far-reaching offer that would give Arafat almost everything he said
he wanted: 98 percent of the territory of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza
Strip, all of east Jerusalem except for the Jewish and Armenian
quarters of the Old City, Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple
Mount (conceding only the right of Jews to pray there), and a
compensation fund of $30 billion.
Arafat instead turned down this offer of a peaceful settlement and
chose to declare a terrorist war, one that has resulted in the deaths
of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians over the past four years
and has made the Middle East even more unsafe than before. But is
America a safer place as a result of this strategy? Could America be
safer as a result of making such promises to the Arafats of the
world?
Still in the aftermath of 9-11, we seem to be on a fast track back to
Clinton’s worldview of moral relativism. Will terrorists now be
divided into good ones and bad ones based upon their declared
intentions? Will there be an amnesty policy that allows bad ones to
denounce terrorism – whether they mean it or not – as Arafat did in
his famous “I denounce terrorism” speech to the U.N. General Assembly
in 1988?
Nine years ago, the U.S. Congress voted in favor of moving the
American Embassy to Jerusalem. Why has the Jerusalem Embassy Act of
1995 been held up every six months by a presidential “national
security” waiver? Is it because we actually believe that recognizing
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital will somehow threaten our national
security? In light of 9-11, that makes about as much sense as giving
bin Laden family members frequent-flyer miles when they flew home on
chartered planes a few days after 9-11.
When a former U.S. attorney general and Democratic presidential
candidate was murdered in 1968, no one asked whether it could have
been over foreign policy. In fact, Robert Kennedy was the first
American politician murdered by a Middle Eastern terrorist, Sirhan
Sirhan. He was murdered on June 5, the same day he won the California
primary. It was also the first anniversary of the outbreak of the Six
Day War.
Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli chief of general staff during that war and
a future ambassador to America and prime minister, had been invited
to join Kennedy for a photo op to commemorate the outcome of the war.
He clearly recognized the connection between the two events, as he
wrote in his memoirs: “The American people was so dazed by what it
perceived as the senseless act of a madman, it could not begin to
fathom its political significance.”
Rabin’s words could indeed describe America’s present-day lingering
confusion over 9-11. For what was the political significance of
Robert Kennedy’s tragic assassination? According to a report by a
special counsel to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office,
Sirhan shot Kennedy because of his support for Israel, and had
planned the murder for months.
As Sirhan stated in an outburst at his trial: “I killed Robert
Kennedy, willfully, premeditatedly, and with 20 years of malice
aforethought.” (Twenty years referred to Israel’s declaration of
statehood in 1948. Kennedy, fresh out of Harvard in 1948, was a
reporter for the Boston Globe and, in fact, was in Israel when
statehood was declared.)
America must not allow itself to be held hostage any longer by
bigot-infested, oil-rich Arab regimes that consider Jews “pigs and
monkeys,” Christians “infidels,” and America “the great Satan.” The
war on terrorism cannot be won without a war on bigotry. Let’s hope
someone in the crowd can get the attention of the candidates with a
timely reminder that “It’s about our foreign policy, stupid.”
Ariel Sharon once said, “The Arab world may have the oil, but we have
the matches.” With Iran’s nuclear program on a fast track, those
matches are getting uncomfortably close to the oil.
Michael D. Evans is the author of “Beyond Iraq: The Next Move,” an
Amazon No. 2 and a New York Times best-seller, and founder of
America’s largest Christian coalition praying for the peace of
Jerusalem, Jerusalem Prayer Team.org. His latest book, “The American
Prophecies,” is slated to be released by Time Warner this month.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress