December 2006: The State Department has declassified a document that finally admits Yasser Arafat personally ordered the killings of Cleo Noel, the American ambassador to the Sudan, his deputy George Moore, and Belgian diplomat Guy Eid during a 1973 terrorist takeover of the Saudi Arabian embassy in Khartoum.

Rabbis Yosef Gerlitzky, Yaakov Yosef, and David M. Drukman:  "[That] disease of the human race, that Amalekite, and that Hitler of our generation, none other than Yassir Arafat, may his name and memory be erased – his carcass is about to be thrown into a grave; and we will fulfill 'at the death of the wicked, there is joyful song.'"

Arafat Died an Uncontrite Terrorist - Alan Dershowitz,  Forward
Arafat changed the nature of terrorism forever, by killing on a wholesale rather than a retail scale, by internationalizing it, and by employing it as a tactic to gain recognition for a cause. He proved to the world that terrorism can be made to work. By showing a willingness to kill so many innocent people, he managed to persuade naive world leaders that, exitus acta probat, his cause must be compelling and just. The message that so many leaders sent to other would-be terrorists with religious or political ambitions was that important people will deal with you, recognize you, even praise you while you are still engaging in terrorism.
If the Palestinians become the only disenfranchised people to achieve statehood because they used terrorism, while other equally deserving groups are ignored because they eschew terrorism, then Arafat's way will become the way of the future.

Camera: Key Events in Yasir Arafat's Terrorist Career

Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations: Yasser Arafat: A Career of Terror

Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Arafat's Legacy: 1,032 Victims of Palestinian Violence and Terrorism since September 2000

Honest Reporting: Yassir Arafat, 1929-2004

Former CIA Director Blames Arafat for Being "Barrier to Peace" - Hilary Leila Krieger
Former CIA Director George Tenet places most of the blame for the breakdown of the security plan bearing his name and other efforts to stop the violence after the outbreak of the second intifada on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in his new book, At the Center of the Storm, published Monday. "Almost always, that last impenetrable barrier to peace had the same name: Arafat," he writes. "Arafat always wanted one more thing, and one more thing was never enough because what he really wanted was for the peace process to be ever-active and eternally unresolved," according to Tenet.
    He says that the White House was right not to push for greater diplomacy with the Palestinians once Bush entered office, as it was apparent little could be done with Arafat in power. "He got what he could from us [through the Oslo process], and from that point on gave little back," Tenet says. "Therefore - and it was a view I supported - there would be no more letting him in the front door." (Jerusalem Post)

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, May 3, 2007]

The need for Jews to "understand" suicide bombers

Eytan Kobre, http://www.jewishworldreview.com, July 2, 2002 / 22 Tamuz, 5762

In the May issue of the opinion journal Sh'ma, prominent constitutional attorney Nathan Lewin dropped a rhetorical bombshell, proposing that Israel consider executing immediate family members of suicide bombers as a deterrent to that deadly and seemingly unstoppable phenomenon. Not surprisingly, Lewin's piece set off a firestorm of controversy. Among Lewin's harsher critics were Reform movement president Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who characterized the former's proposal as "utterly reprehensible and totally contradictory to the most fundamental principles of the Jewish religious tradition," and the Brandeis University theologian Arthur Green, who, in a companion piece in Sh'ma alongside Lewin's, wrote of his first impulse to tear his garments at Lewin's "desecration of G-d's name."

Whether Nat Lewin's views on the moral limits of deterrence are within the realm of reasoned opinion is certainly worth pondering. It is also worthwhile, however, for the broader Jewish public to hear what Professor Green has to say in the balance of his essay and to apply the same close scrutiny to his words as well.

After an opening swipe at Lewin, Professor Green's piece goes on to decry Israel's abandonment of its proud tradition of "purity of arms" and the possibility of Israel's becoming a "barbaric Middle Eastern superstate." His own answer to suicide bombings? Those attacks will stop only once Israel addresses their "root cause . . . the degradation and humiliation of the Palestinian people," which, after all, treasures a "very respect-based culture."

Let us put aside the fact that, a few short weeks ago in Jenin, Israel knowingly sacrificed --- not for the first time --- over a score of young husbands, fathers and sons for a level of "purity of arms" unequalled by any military force in the world.  [PAC Comment: Jenin The Massacre That Wasn't.]  We might even pass in astonished silence over the breathtaking moral implications of Dr. Green's identification of the "root cause" of Palestinian terror, as if there exists an analog in recorded modern history to a nation systematically teaching its young to blow themselves up in crowds of young mothers with baby carriages, and all because of frustration at, in Green's words, "endless checkpoint delays, bulldozing of homes, uprooting of trees [and] disrespecting of elders . . . ."

What is not merely astounding about Green's view, but truly dangerous, however, is its self-delusion about a half-century's worth of Mideast facts, and the unsurpassed paternalism inherent therein. Without question, if Sh'ma were read in faraway Gaza, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi would surely enjoy a deep belly laugh upon learning that the reason he sends teenagers to rip the heads off Passover Seder participants is not to achieve the eradication of the "Zionist entity," and the "descendants of pigs and monkeys" that populate it, from sacred Muslim land, but, rather, in Green's words, to end the "constant humiliations." One can almost visualize Sheikh Ahmed Yassin shaking his evil head in disbelief at the Jew in Waltham who just doesn't "get it."

It is tempting to write off Professor Green's musings as the idiosyncratic view of a long-time left-leaning Jewish figure. Yet precisely the same sort of tortured exercises in moral equivalence are now heard with increasing frequency not only on college campuses and in intellectual salons, but in the rabbinical seminaries that will be fielding the next crop of American Jewry's moral leadership.

Thus, we have the newly-formed Rabbinical Students for a Just Peace reacting with "particular horror" to Israel's Operation Protective Wall. A featured essay in Hebrew Union College's publication The Chronicle finds a rabbi-to-be observing that while it is "nearly impossible to imagine what Israeli families who lost a son or daughter in the army or in a terrorist attack feel. Equally difficult is putting oneself in the shoes of young Palestinian men and women prevented from making a decent living . . . because of border closings, and constantly encountering suspicious looks . . . ."

Equally difficult? Apparently, the pernicious moral calculus equating Palestinian murder of civilians with deaths resulting from Israeli retaliation for those murders is now passe. It has been trumped by a new and improved moral equivalence that sees no difference between those wanton Palestinian murders and . . . "endless checkpoint delays," "uprooting of trees" and "suspicious looks."

Perhaps when Rabbi Yoffie next chooses to speak out about things that are "totally contradictory to the most fundamental principles of the Jewish religious tradition," he might consider whether the views of some of his movement's future leaders are any less beyond the pale.

JWR contributor Eytan Kobre is a Manhattan-based lawyer.

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Arafat the monster
Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, November 12, 2004

   Yasser Arafat died at the age of 75, lying in bed and surrounded by familiar faces. He left this world peacefully, unlike the thousands of victims he sent to early graves.
  
   In a better world, the PLO chief would have met his end on a gallows, hanged for mass murder much as the Nazi chiefs were hanged at Nuremberg. In a better world, the French president would not have paid a visit to the bedside of such a monster. In a better world, well-wishers would not be flocking to the hospital grounds to create a makeshift shrine of flowers, candles, and admiring messages. In a better world, George Bush would not have said, on hearing the first reports that Arafat had died, "God bless his soul."
  
   God bless his soul? What a grotesque thing to say! Bless the soul of the man who brought modern terrorism to the world? Who sent his agents to slaughter athletes at the Olympics, blow airliners out of the sky, bomb schools and pizzerias, machine-gun passengers in airline terminals? Who lied, cheated, and stole without compunction? Who inculcated the vilest culture of Jew-hatred since the Third Reich? Human beings might stoop to bless a creature so evil -- as indeed Arafat was blessed, with money, deference, even a Nobel Prize -- but God, I am quite sure, will damn him for eternity.
  
   Arafat always inspired flights of nonsense from Western journalists, and his last two weeks were no exception.
  
   Arafat's "undisputed courage as a guerrilla leader," Derek Brown wrote in The Guardian, was exceeded only "by his extraordinary courage" as a peace negotiator. But it is an odd kind of courage that expresses itself in shooting unarmed victims and exhorting other people to become suicide bombers -- or in signing peace accords and then flagrantly violating their terms.
  
   Another commentator, columnist Gwynne Dyer, asked, "So what did Arafat do right?" The answer: He drew worldwide attention to the Palestinian cause, "for the most part by successful acts of terror." In other words, butchering innocent human beings was "right" since it served an ulterior political motive. No doubt that thought brings daily comfort to all those who were forced to bury a child, parent, or spouse because of Arafat's "successful" terrorism.
  
   Some journalists couldn't wait for Arafat's actual death to begin weeping for him. Take the BBC's Barbara Plett, who burst into tears on the day he was airlifted out of the West Bank. "When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound," Plett reported from Ramallah, "I started to cry." Normal people don't weep for brutal murderers, but Plett made it clear that her empathy for Arafat -- whom she praised as "a symbol of Palestinian unity, steadfastness, and resistance" -- was heartfelt:
  
   "I remember well when the Israelis re-conquered the West Bank more than two years ago," she said, "how they drove their tanks and bulldozers into Mr. Arafat's headquarters, trapping him in a few rooms, and throwing a military curtain around Ramallah.  I remember how Palestinians admired his refusal to flee under fire. They told me: 'Our leader is sharing our pain, we are all under the same siege.' And so was I." Such is the state of journalism at the BBC, whose reporters do not seem to have any trouble reporting, dry-eyed, on the pain of Arafat's victims. (That is, when they mention them -- which Plett's teary bon voyage to Arafat did not.)
  
   And what about those victims? Why were they scarcely remembered in the drawn-out Arafat deathwatch?
  
   How is it possible to reflect on Arafat's most enduring legacy -- the rise of modern terrorism -- without recalling the legions of men, women, and children whose lives he and his followers destroyed? If Osama bin Laden were on his deathbed, would we neglect to mention all those he murdered on 9/11?
  
   It would take an encyclopedia to catalog all of the evil Arafat committed. But that is no excuse for not trying to recall at least some of it.
  
   Perhaps his signal contribution to the practice of political terror was the introduction of warfare against children. On one black date in May 1974, three PLO terrorists slipped from Lebanon into the northern Israeli town of Ma'alot. They murdered two parents and their child at home, then seized a local school, taking more than 100 boys and girls hostage and threatening to kill them unless a number of imprisoned terrorists were released. When Israeli troops attempted a rescue, the terrorists exploded hand grenades and opened fire on the students. By the time the horror ended, 25 people were dead; 21 of them were children.
  
   Thirty years later, no one speaks of Ma'alot anymore. The dead children have been forgotten. Everyone knows Arafat's name, but who ever recalls the names of his victims?
  
   So let us recall them: Ilana Turgeman. Rachel Aputa. Yocheved Mazoz. Sarah Ben-Shim'on. Yona Sabag. Yafa Cohen. Shoshana Cohen. Michal Sitrok. Malka Amrosy. Aviva Saada. Yocheved Diyi. Yaakov Levi. Yaakov Kabla. Rina Cohen. Ilana Ne'eman. Sarah Madar. Tamar Dahan. Sarah Soper. Lili Morad. David Madar. Yehudit Madar. The 21 dead children of Ma'alot -- 21 of the thousands of innocents who died at Arafat's command.   

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Melanie Phillips: The reaction of the free world to Arafat's death, along with the opprobrium heaped daily upon his victims in Israel, illustrates the decadence that now rewards evil and punishes those whom it terrorizes. It is a horrifying indication of a world that has simply lost its fundamental understanding of right and wrong. All who value life, liberty and justice should take careful note and shudder at this moral -- and mortal -- sickness. This is the way a civilization dies

Enough

Editorial, Jerusalem Post, Sep. 10, 2003

The world will not help us; we must help ourselves. We must kill as many of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders as possible, as quickly possible, while minimizing collateral damage, but not letting that damage stop us. And we must kill Yasser Arafat ["elected" President of PA] because the world leaves us no alternative. [PAC Comment: Alas, the problem extends considerably beyond this terror leadership.  The problem is not just Arafat or Abu Mazen or Abu Whoever, it is the existence of the Palestinian Authority itself, which is little more than a hothouse for terror, corruption and bloodshed.]

No one seriously argues with the fact that Arafat was preventing Mahmoud Abbas, the prime minister he appointed, from combating terrorism, to the extent that was willing to do so. Almost no one seriously disputes that Abbas on whom Israel, the US, and Europe had placed all their bets failed primarily because Arafat retained control of much of the security apparatus, and that Arafat wanted him to fail.

The new prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, clearly will fare no better, since he, if anything, has been trying to garner more power for Arafat, not less.
Under these circumstances, the idea of exiling Arafat is gaining currency, but the standard objection is that he will be as much or more of a problem when free to travel the world than he is locked up in Ramallah.

If only three countries Britain, France, and Germany joined the US in a total boycott of Arafat this would not be the case. If these countries did not speak with Arafat, it would not matter much who did, and however much a local Palestinian leader would claim to consult with Arafat, his power would be gone.

But such a boycott will not happen. Only now, after more than 800 Israelis have died in three years of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks, has Europe finally decided that Hamas is a terrorist organization. How much longer will it take before it cuts off Arafat? Yet Israel cannot accept a situation in which Arafat blocks any Palestinian break with terrorism, whether from here or in exile. Therefore, we are at another point in our history at which the diplomatic risks of defending ourselves are exceeded by the risks of not doing so.

Such was the case in the Six Day War, when Israel was forced to launch a preemptive attack or accept destruction. And when Menachem Begin decided to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. And when Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield in Palestinian cities after the Passover Massacre of 2002.
In each case, Israel tried every fashion of restraint, every plea to the international community to take action that would avoid the need for "extreme" measures, all to no avail.
When the breaking point arrives, there is no point in taking half-measures. If we are going to be condemned in any case, we might as well do it right.

Arafat's death at Israel's hands would not radicalize Arab opposition to Israel; just the opposite. The current jihad against us is being fueled by the perception that Israel is blocked from taking decisive action to defend itself.

Arafat's survival and power are a test of the proposition that it is possible to pursue a cause through terror and not have that cause rejected by the international community. Killing Arafat, more than any other act, would demonstrate that the tool of terror is unacceptable, even against Israel, even in the name of a Palestinian state.
Arafat does not just stand for terror, he stands for the refusal to make peace with Israel under any circumstances and within any borders.

In this respect, there is no distinction, beyond the tactical, between him and Hamas. Europe's refusal to utterly reject him condemns Palestinians, no less than Israelis, to endless war and dooms the possibility of the two-state solution the world claims to seek.

While the prospect of a Palestinian power vacuum is feared by some, the worst of all worlds is what exists now: Terrorists attack Israel at will under the umbrella of legitimacy provided by Arafat. Hamas would not be able to fill a post-Arafat vacuum; on the contrary, Hamas would lose the cover it has today.

A word must be said here about the most common claim made by those who would not isolate Arafat, let alone kill him: that he is the elected leader of the Palestinian people. Even if Arafat was chosen in a truly free election (when does his term end?), which we would dispute, this does not close the question of his legitimacy.

Whom the Palestinians choose to lead them is none of our business, provided it is a free choice, and provided they do not opt for leaders who choose terror and aggression. So long as the Palestinians choose such a leadership, it should be held no more immune to counterattack by Israel than the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were by the United States.

We complain that a double standard is applied to us, and it is. But we cannot complain when we apply that double standard to ourselves. Arafat's survival, under our watchful eyes, is living testimony to our tolerance of that double standard. If we want another standard to be applied, we must begin by applying it ourselves.

[PAC Comment:  Could it be too late to just kill Arafat?]

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From Mideast Violence Threatens 'Quartet' Plan

STEVEN R. WEISMAN, New York Times, Sep 11, 2003

The Europeans also quietly criticize the Bush administration for allegedly not pushing Israel hard enough to make concessions to the Palestinians, which Mr. Bush and his aides have said repeatedly were necessary to shore up Mr. Abbas's standing.

Some American officials now acknowledge their disappointment that Israel did not do more along these lines in the last couple of months, but Israel rejects the idea that it had moved too slowly to shore up Mr. Abbas.

Israeli officials note that in recent months Israel had released more than 400 Palestinian prisoners, issued 18,000 extra work permits for Palestinians in Israel, released $450 million in frozen funds for the Palestinian Authority and suspended the targeted killings of Palestinian militants in Gaza, once Palestinian authorities took control of security there.

In addition, Israel redeployed forces, withdrew from Gaza and Bethlehem, opened a major road in Gaza, lifted three major road blocks in the West Bank, dismantled 12 unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank and held four meetings between Mr. Sharon and Mr. Abbas.

But European officials said that all these steps were grudgingly made, minimal and tardy, and that Israel never gave Mr. Abbas the maneuvering room he needed. Such criticism is almost certain to be discussed at the next quartet meeting, American and European officials agreed.

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Calling the enemy's bluff

Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post, September 12, 2003

Speaking hours before Hamas began its Tuesday murder spree, Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon said he ordered the air force to use insufficient force to carry out its mission of bombing the Hamas leadership during its meeting in Gaza on Saturday. Ya'alon explained that he had purposely caused the mission of decapitating the Hamas leadership to fail, because he wished to avoid killing "innocent civilians." Not surprisingly, the anemic strike did not deter Hamas. Ahmed Yassin immediately called for revenge. And so it was that the innocent civilians who were killed were not Palestinians who were acting as human shields for mass murderers. They were Jews waiting for buses and drinking coffee.

Apparently not learning the lesson, in its strike against Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar on Wednesday the IDF again employed insufficient force to destroy the target. The IDF announced that the mission had again been purposely handicapped in order to avert collateral damage. Picking up on the message of disorientation and weakness from the army, Zahar issued a vitriolic threat to begin bombing Israeli homes.

On Thursday we learned that both of Tuesday's human bombs had been held in administrative detention in Ketziot Military Prison until their release six months ago. Was this part of the confidence-building measures that Israel provided for the PA and the Bush administration to show that Israel wants peace?

Neither of these murderers had personally been involved in murders when they were released. Did anyone talk to these true believers while they were in custody? Did anyone follow them once they were released? Clearly the answer is no. And clearly, they were unimpressed by Israel's humanitarian gesture.

In his first public remarks after the Tzrifin and Jerusalem bombings, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his Indian hosts that Israel wants to make peace and is willing to make painful concessions for peace. What message did this statement send the Palestinians? Can Sharon honestly believe that it gave them pause as they danced and hooted in exultation for having sent Nava Applebaum's wedding guests to the cemetery to bury her and her father instead of to her wedding canopy to celebrate with them? What are we to make of the murderous responses to Israeli statements of goodwill? How are these responses to inform our future actions?

In remarks Wednesday ahead of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the terror regimes that the US has brought down in Afghanistan and Iraq were not moved by US deterrence. The Taliban, Rumsfeld said, allowed al-Qaida to use its territory as its base of operations for attacks on the US without a thought for its own survival.
Saddam Hussein ignored 17 UN Security Council resolutions assuming that the US would never lift a finger against him. Rumsfeld said that he could not give an explanation for why these regimes did not fear their eventual destruction.

On Monday, Brig.-Gen. Yossi Kupperwasser, the head of Military Intelligence's Research Division, provided the answer. Speaking at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center's conference, "Post Modern Terrorism Trends, Scenarios, and Future Threats," Kupperwasser said that terrorist regimes are the exact opposite of democracies. While democratic societies turn their efforts towards expanding freedom and economic prosperity in the interests of enabling "the pursuit of happiness," terrorist regimes "cultivate the pursuit of suffering." According to Kupperwasser, subjects in terrorist regimes like the Palestinian Authority must believe that the purpose of their lives is to die to destroy their enemy. In this environment, economic depression is acceptable. As he noted, "Hamas carries out attacks that are aimed at making the Palestinians poorer." Hence they have targeted the Erez Industrial Zone and the Karni cargo terminal in Gaza. The sole purpose these areas were created to serve is the provision of employment for Palestinians in Gaza. Every sacrifice in the advance of the destruction of the enemy is divinely dictated whether by Big Brother Arafat or by Allah himself.

On a positive note, Kupperwasser argued that the EU's decision over the weekend to classify Hamas's so-called political wing as a terrorist organization constitutes "a strategic victory" for Israel.

Yet, while the EU's belated decision is no doubt welcome, to call it a strategic victory is to overreach. It is nice that after three years of the unrelenting terrorist war on Israel, the EU was willing to pass a non-binding resolution of this sort against Hamas.

But in truth it is Israel, not the EU, that will be the source of a true strategic advance in this war. Such an advance that will pave the way for eventual victory will not be the result of simply killing Hamas leaders, although such killing is essential.

A true strategic advance in the war that will pave the way for Israel's eventual victory will come with strategic clarity. When the Israeli government acts on the knowledge that not only is there no distinction between the various wings of Hamas, but there is no distinction between the PA and its Fatah, Tanzim, and Aksa Brigades terror cells and when the government bases its actions on the fact that there is no distinction between the PA and Hamas, Israel will find itself on the road to true victory.

Why is this? A few weeks ago, Dr. Joel Fishman, a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, published a compelling essay about Israel's fundamental misstep in contending with the Palestinian war. Fishman explains through historical analysis that the PLO, like its partner Hamas, fights its war for the destruction of Israel not only by launching a military-terrorist campaign against the state, but also, and perhaps more importantly, by fighting a political war against the country.

The PLO adopted its dual strategy against Israel after consulting with North Vietnamese commanders in Hanoi in the late 1960s. There it was explained to Yasser Arafat and his aide Salah Khalaf that the way to fight and win an asymmetrical war against a democratic and militarily powerful enemy is by causing, through propaganda and other means of psychological warfare, the internal disintegration of the democratic enemy's will to fight. By cultivating constituencies within the enemy state as well as in the international community they would be able to render the democracy incapable of defending itself against aggression.

The terrorist component of the war is used to achieve the same goal of societal disintegration. In speaking of suicide operations, Kupperwasser noted that suicide attacks cause a psychological weakening of the enemy society. "Not only [do such attacks] force the enemy to pay a terrible economic and physical price, they tell him that if you believe so much in your cause that you are willing to die there must be something to what you are saying. The enemy is motivated to check the legitimacy of his position against you," Kupperwasser said.

Of course, to mobilize people to strap explosives belts to their body and blow themselves up in a cafe or on a bus, these mass murderers must themselves undergo indoctrination and terrorization. The PA's systematic killing of Palestinians it labels as collaborators with Israel provides a Soviet-style sense of justice in the PA ruled areas. [PAC comment: also see this for treatment of anyone who dares make a remark that offends Arafat.] These executions as well as the conduct of arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, torture, and land confiscation by PA forces have brought Palestinian society to a point of psychological weakness and disorientation.

The state terror coupled with mass indoctrination to suicide operations has distorted the Palestinian psyche to the point where, as Kupperwasser noted, "the terrorists are able to clone themselves." If the IDF arrests 250 terrorists in Judea and Samaria, because of the PA indoctrination and terror these men can be replaced immediately with other willing executioners.

And so we see that like the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Ba'athists in Iraq, the PA is a totalitarian entity through and through, little different from the Soviet Union.

In assessing how to win this war, Israel in fact should take a lesson from the man most responsible for destroying the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War president Ronald Reagan. This is so, because at its most basic level, in fighting the US, the Soviet Union mirrored the PLO's campaign against Israel. In both instances, the totalitarian entity believed that coexistence with its enemy was an ideological impossibility. At the end of the day, only one side would survive.

During the 1970s, the US tried through detente to peacefully coexist with the Soviet Union. The Soviets did not appreciate the US gestures but rather pocketed the concessions and invaded Afghanistan.

Recognizing the true nature of the USSR, Reagan came forward and adopted the Soviet view of the rivalry and set out to ensure that the US, not the USSR, would be the side left standing. During his presidency, Reagan consciously engaged the Soviets at every level. In championing human rights and labeling the Soviet Union "the evil empire," Reagan launched an ideological and political battle against the Kremlin. In fighting the Soviets in Nicaragua, Grenada, and Afghanistan, Reagan forced the Soviets onto the military defensive and emerged victorious. In launching Star Wars Reagan brought the technological advantages of a free society to bear against the intellectually barren Soviets. Within a decade, the most feared regime in the world was no more.

When Reagan launched his own "people's war" against the Soviet Union, he did so above the shrill criticism and hysterical protests of the mainstream US media, the Democratic party, and the governments of Western Europe. These opponents challenged him every step of the way. They portrayed him as a murderer, a criminal, a lunatic, and a simpleton. But he was right and the American people knew it.

While the Palestinians have the advantage of ideological uniformity and mass indoctrination, Israel has the power of freedom and democracy. We can learn from our mistakes and innovate. We can grow our economy, expand our markets, and combat our enemies on the fields of our choosing. If we have the courage of our convictions in our basic decency and morality, we can identify our enemy for who he really is and what he is trying to achieve. All it takes is will and fortitude and honesty. The Palestinians fight their people's war against the Israeli people. It is the Israeli people that, if just given the signal from our leadership, will win this war for our survival.

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