cramer@sun.uucp (Sam Cramer) (01/26/86)
Dan Winkowski writes > The fact is, that THE PROBLEM, will remain until the nation of > Israel becomes mature enough to recognize that the Palestinian conflict > will not vanish of its own accord. It will take the cooperation > of Israel and her enemies... Unfortunately, Israel is unlikely to reach that > stage of maturity while it retains the mindset of a nation battling for > its life. Israel is plenty "mature" enough to recognize that the Palestinian conflict will not vanish of it's own accord. What do you think Camp David was all about? Or the current efforts to bring Hussein (over the objections of that noted peace lover, Yassir Arafat) into the peace process? The record shows that Israel has been the party mature enough to compromise. It has been the Arabs (with the exception of Egypt) who have been unwilling to compromise. Recall that the Jews accepted the 1947 UN partition while the Arabs rejected it. At the time Jamal Husseini, spokesman for the Palestine Arab Higher Committee told the UN on Nov. 24, 1947 "the partition line proposed shall be nothing but a line of fire and blood." On May 15, 1948, one day after Israeli independence was declared, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, stated: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the crusades." Immediately after the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel gained the West Bank, the Israeli policy of land for peace was communicated to Hussein. The answer came back in the form of the famous "three noes", issued by Arab leaders meeting in Khartoum: "Kings and presidents have agreed to unified efforts at international and diplomatic levels to eliminate the consequences of aggression and to ensure the withdrawl of the aggressor forces of Israel from Arab lands, but within the limits to which Arab states are committed: no peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel..." Sam Cramer sun!cramer