War and Peace?

October 3, 1999

I guess I just don't understand.

Maybe there is someone out there who can explain this to me.

On Thursday, March 11, 1999, the U.S. Senate approved a resolution warning Yasser Arafat against declaring a Palestinian state.

Number one: What business is it of the U.S. Government, to decide whether or not a group of people, thousands of whom languish in squalid refugee camps, should declare themselves a free and independent entity, complete with a national home?

Number two: Does the U.S. Government truly wish for peace to come to this unstable area, or does it wish to perpetuate Israel’s seemingly voracious appetite for causing strife? For the road to peace in this region surely involves a Palestinian state, which would allow the Palestinians to have a chance to negotiate their own fair and lasting peace accords with surrounding nations, as well as establishing interdependent economic cooperations resulting in greater prosperity for the whole region. Also, it would allow the refugees to return home, relieving such nations as Jordan and Lebanon of the burden these people place on their already fragile infrastructures.

Number three: Why does the United States, the greatest superpower in the world, keep allowing a tiny nation like Israel to keep jerking it around like a trained monkey? I certainly hope it is not due to the special interests of any particular religious or cultural groups within the U.S. population, because that would be undemocratic, to say the least. It is certainly all right to lobby for one’s special needs, but it is not all right to allow any groups to establish national policy to the point that world peace is threatened and innocent inhabitants of other nations find their right to a national identity jeopardized.

Number four: Seldom have I ever heard such unabashed and raw hypocrisy as is evidenced by the U.S. pledging $3.2 billion in subsidized arms sales to Egypt, on some bogus notion that this promotes peace in the region? Oh, yeah. Deny the rights of one group of Middle Eastern peoples to their own cultural identity, to their freedom and autonomy, in a homeland where they can achieve the same independence that the rest of us so take for granted. Then arm another group of Middle Eastern peoples to the teeth, with F-16 fighters (24), a Patriot Missile battery, and 200 new heavy tanks. This is certainly my idea of a peace-promoting course of action. And, even when announcing this stupid course of events, Defense Secretary William Cohen still feels the need to get Prime Minister Netanyahu’s approval. Why?

"My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war." Psalms 120: 6,7.