by Emanuel A. Winston, a Middle East analyst & commentator
January 26, 1998
If the PA (Palestinian Authority), the nascent "New State of Palestine" and all those radical Arabs of the umbrella group called Fatah cancel or revise their deadly Covenant: Will it make any difference? Emphatically Not!
The Covenant of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was first enacted in 1964. The Covenant is merely the paperwork of consensual hatred which pervaded the Arab world well before the re-birth of the State of Israel in 1948. One can trace that hatred back through the Hebron and Jerusalem Massacres of 1929. Before that Islam had proclaimed that both Jews and Christians were Dhimmis (lower people than Muslims). Perhaps you will recall Hitler's similar effort to denigrate the Jew by calling them "untermenchen". Both used the technique of casting their chosen enemies as worthy of being murdered without compunction or conscience. Always there were some kind of documents justifying murder of Jews on a grand scale.
The Arabs have proven time and again that written agreements are merely temporary tools for use against the non-Muslim (as well as each other). Koranic Law states that any stratagem, any lie may be used for the advancement of Islam. In a way, the example of the way Islam works with respect to Koranic Law is encapsulated in this killing document, the PLO's Covenant. The Palestinian Covenant, approved by several hundred Arab terrorist leaders, merely codified what they intended for the Jewish people, namely their annihilation. It is a window through which the non-Muslim West can see the lie within the promise - within the half-truths.
Do Arabs lie? You bet and all the time. It's a tactic of their ongoing war against the West. Arafat tells Clinton the Covenant has been cancelled, but it hasn't. Dennis Ross tells the Jews that the Covenant has been cancelled, but he knows it hasn't. So, our friends also lie.
Suppose, for the purposes of advancing the day of national suicide of the Jewish people, the Palestinian Council votes in public to rescind the clauses calling for Israel's destruction. What exactly would happen in practical terms? That's right. Nothing. Their votes would have no authority over any terrorist faction or Arab state bent on Israel's destruction.
America and the UN would knowingly cheer its fake demise and insist Israel enter the lion's cave. Does anyone really believe that terrorist Arabs sit down and review the Covenant just before they launch an attack? We Americans believe in codified law and generally follow our laws, expecting radical nations to follow our righteous example. The Covenant was suddenly thrust forward as a document of negotiable value. However, American and Israeli Intelligence authorities have ample videotaped evidence showing that its authors would operate the same with or without its existence.
So, if the paper called "The Covenant" is declared null and void, ipso facto will terrorism cease? No. Taught hatred against Jews has lived and will continue among the Arab population for centuries, as it has on other issues. For example: Will Iran ever forget or forgive the loss of hundreds of thousands of its young people in the 12 year war by Iraq's Saddam Hussein? The teaching of stone-throwing, hurling gasoline bombs is not so easily erased from the mind in the collective memory of young, hot-blooded, unemployed Arab boys or men (or women). This is even more true when a man like Arafat breaks every single agreement in the Oslo and Hebron Accords with the benign silence of the American President. US and world acceptance of terror against Jews was not lost on Arafat or Saddam Hussein or Assad of Syria..
Once taught and practiced, hatred passes on through the generations. As Jews we are familiar with other religions that taught anti-Semitism and, even when our enemies' leaders issued a later dictum absolving the Jews for all that they were accused of, nevertheless the taught hatred continued. Look at the example of the United Nations. They condemn Israel at every turn but cannot bring themselves to condemn Muslim atrocities destroying the native Christians in the African nations or the slavery still endemic in the Arab nations, and much more. Indeed, Hate is endemic and may never be untaught, especially when it's driven by hysteria of radical religion run amok demanding obedience.
This idea being offered the Jewish people is that, once Arafat modifies the Covenant, then all Jews can feel safe. Terrorism will cease but, for this gesture, Israel must give up significant defensive portions of her already minuscule land to Arafat. But, does the Covenant matter anyway? Apparently not. Arafat and an American President signed the Oslo accords (also a Covenant) and in the following four years almost 300 Israelis were murdered and 1000 wounded, many maimed for life. Every line in the Oslo and Hebron Accords was broken by Arafat's PLO now called PA (Palestinian Authority).
After the Israelis withdrew from their second holiest city, Hebron, the PA broke the agreement and flooded Hebron with four times the authorized number of PA "Police", many convicted terrorists. They carry illegal heavy automatic weapons including smuggled in surface to air missiles, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, Katyusha rockets, mines and bombs - none of which are permitted by Oslo/Hebron. Clinton, with the American imprimatur and guarantees on the document, refused to recognize any abrogation and proceed to lay blame on the victim - Israel.
The Arabs want ALL of Israel to recover from the shame of having lost 6 wars to Jews. But, Jerusalem is their real goal. Because Jerusalem is the essence of holiness for the Jews, the Arabs plan it as their power base for 1000 years. Ripping up the Covenant paper will not change their goals. Arafat continually claims that he will fight until the last Palestinian boy or girl for "ALL of Israel as the new State of Palestine with Jerusalem as the capital of that state and ONLY that state."
Using the bargaining system of the bazaar, nothing gotten easily seems worth the price. So, how to make the cancellation of the Covenant a desperate struggle, so difficult that the buyer forgets all other things? What would the Think Tanks of the State Department and the wily Arabs, with Peres and Beilin's connivance, cook up for the gullible Jews? When the tension and struggle has reached a boil, the Israeli demand for canceling the Covenant will finally be met. World Jewry breathes a sigh of relief. The Leftist Jews in Israel and America will mount a "Peace Now" campaign preaching that peace had finally arrived. The Sting will have worked and the mark fleeced.
All Israel has to do to meet US and UN expectations is withdraw from the West Bank, pull her troops down from the Samarian Mountains and Judean Hills, give up her vital water aquifers - all for "reciprocity". All surrendered for the "theoretical" scraping of the sentiments on this infamous piece of paper. This is as smooth a sting as has ever been pulled off by the State Department conniving with the PLO.
Perhaps you will recall the 1973 Yom Kippur War and its aftermath. Gen. Arik Sharon surrounded the Egyptian Third Army and the War was over for them. In stepped America, with President Nixon calling for a release of that Army, allowing them to leave with their tanks and weapons. This was followed by an American-brokered deal allowing the Egyptian Third Army safe passage based on an agreement signed with Israel, America and Egypt. This agreement called for a demilitarized area in the Sinai. Within days the Egyptians broke the agreements and moved up SAMs, Surface to Air Missile batteries, doing what Arabs always do with paper agreements. Predictably, the Americans refused to speak on the subject when the Israelis asked them to persuade the Egyptians to keep the agreement co-sponsored by America and withdraw the missiles. When it came to an agreement on paper with the Jewish State - neither her friends nor her enemies kept their word.
This is the paradigm of agreements in the Mid East. Shimon Peres said that, of the 350 agreements between Arab countries themselves, every one was broken. Peres knew the Arabs would break any and all agreements, nevertheless, he stuck the Jewish nation with Oslo. Can Israel rely upon her friends who promise support but, in fact, have greater vested interests in the money and oil of the Arab nations?
We have observed various American Governments tinkering with the truth, citing national security. We learned of experiments on the general populace with radiation particles. We learned that our President and State Department knew of MIAs, Missing In Action American soldiers who were left alive as prisoners in Korea and Vietnam but denied by their President and State Department for reasons of Politics. Here we find the propaganda machine in high gear of obfuscation and denial. When caught in a lie, they call their silence "National Security" - which gave America Irangate, Iraqgate, all denied by American Presidents and their propagandists. Is this the Free Speech our Founding Fathers had in mind? Is this the example that Israel must accept when a corrupt Prescient invites a known war criminal into the White House?
We then had the Goebbels House of Horrors under Hitler wherein the Press and radio was co-opted to demonize the Jews. Here the media built on Goebbels' spin, using Church doctrine for their rationale for the conquered countries to gather up their Jews and ship them on German railroads to their deaths. The Wannsee Conference of high ranking Germans offered the model to latter-day Arabs to follow their murderous Covenant - only with a few Islamic embellishments. Haj Amin al Husseini, then Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (whom Arafat claims as uncle), asked Hitler to bring his killing machine to the Land of Israel to finish the Jews.
Cancellation of the Covenant is a psychological ploy to divert our attention away from the actually stated goals of eliminating the non-Muslim Jewish State. As Westerners we are consumed with the written word and scraps of paper that to Arabs are merely a temporary convenience. When it's no longer convenient, they just tear it up. We, on the other hand, think that once a piece of paper is signed, it is now mandated under law and is close to holy writ.
Do the dimwits among us really believe that Arafat, his replacement, Hamas, Iran, Iraq, Syria or Egypt give a damn if the Covenant exists or is declared null and void? It's far better to let them keep their Covenant in plain view rather than slip it underground on the pretense that its operational killing plans have disappeared. If the Covenant is cancelled, do you really believe that the Arab hatred will cease and terrorism will no longer be the Arabs' tool of choice? If you do, please buy a one way ticket to Chelm, the city of fools, because you surely cannot make it in the real world.
Beware the day the Covenant is actually, finally cancelled. The wishful thinkers amongst us, including the media, American government officials, the self-declared American Jewish leaders and elected Israeli leaders may think we've won and can make further "sacrifices for peace" like more land, more water, sharing Jerusalem. How quickly naive Jews, desperate for peace, would sell out their own future generations as they forget their bloody past for a scrap of paper.