A rchive Date
[ 11-10-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Israel ]
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[Israel browbeaten by UN
By PAUL JACKSON - Calgary Sun
October 11, 2000
Let's put this into perspective.
During Jean Chretien's stumbles in the Middle East, he suggested PLO terrorist leader Yasser Arafat should make a unilateral declaration of an independent Palestinian state within Israel.
He didn't even consult the Israeli people themselves on this appalling idea, in much the same way as the democracies didn't consult the Czechoslovakian people when it was decided to hand over a chunk of that country to satisfy Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's appetite.
Some people back in Canada pointed out the inconsistency of the prime minister talking about a unilateral declaration of independence for the Palestinians while his own Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Stephane Dion was trying to prevent Premier Lucien Bouchard and his separatists from doing the same in Canada.
Then, when Arafat's mobs decided to bring turmoil and bloodshed to Israel just as its people were preparing for Yom Kippur - the holiest day in the Jewish calendar - the UN passes a resolution condemning Israel for alleged excessive use of force, but says nothing about Palestinian instigators. Israel is obviously not allowed to defend itself against mob rule.
What does Chretien's government do with this hypocritical resolution - sponsored by no less than the radical Islamic state of Malaysia - basically a dictatorship?
Why, we throw our lot in with the likes of the PLO, Hezbollah, Hamas and all the other thugs who have threatened to destroy Israel.
We do not side with the only democratic state in the Middle East, where men and women are guaranteed every basic freedom, we side with the Arab dictatorships, in which people have no rights whatsoever.
Have we gone bananas? Have we no shame or conscience? Have we decided to toss Israel aside simply to satisfy the gluttonous sheiks of the Arab oil world. It certainly appears that way.
The UN resolution - one of many the so-called world body has passed against Israel - has so inspired Arafat's devotees that today the country is an armed camp preparing to defend itself on two fronts: From the PLO 'fifth columnists' within its borders, and from the Arab world around it.
It simply doesn't make sense, does it?
Canadian Alliance Leader Stockwell Day has shown his own moral fibre by standing by Israel at this frightening time and condemning Chretien's government for supporting the UN resolution.
Day wonders why the resolution condemns violence against the Palestinians, but makes no mention of violence against Israelis? We should all wonder that.
Day also wonders why the resolution refers to Israel as an "occupying power," when it is a legitimate state, created, coincidentally, by a UN resolution in 1947.
Alberta MP Monte Solberg, the Alliance's foreign affairs critic, looks further into this quagmire.
Solberg points out that, insidiously, the resolution refers to a holy site in Jerusalem only by its Muslim name of Al-Haram Al-Sharif, but not by its Jewish name of Temple Mount. That was a reference to the walk by Israeli politician Ariel Sharon's now controversial visit to Temple Mount, perhaps the holiest Jewish religious site in the world, which Arafat's gangs used as an excuse for the explosive situation.
Well, we all know why the UN resolution browbeat Israel and tried to suggest the Jewish people have no right to be in their own country. It is part of the decades-long campaign by the Muslim world to take Israel either by storm or stealth.
Jean Chretien, to his detriment, is prepared to let that happen. Stockwell Day, to his credit, isn't.
Jackson, associate editor of the Sun, can be reached at paul.jackson@cal.sunpub.com.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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