Judging from the way he’s dug himself in, Dick Durbin, the Number Two Democrat in the US Senate, genuinely believes Gitmo is analogous to Belsen, the gulags and the killing fields. But he crossed a line, from anti-Bush to anti-American, and most Americans have no interest in following him down that path. You can’t claim (as Democrats do, incessantly) to “support our troops” and then dump them in the same category as the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge. In the hermetically sealed echo chamber between the Dem leadership, the mainstream US media, Hollywood, Ivy League “intellectuals” and European sophisticates, the gulag cracks are utterly unexceptional. But, for a political party that keeps losing elections because it has less and less appeal outside a few coastal enclaves, Durbin’s remarks are devastating. The Democrats flopped in 2002 and 2004 because they were seen as incoherent on national security issues. Explicitly branding themselves as the “terrorists’ rights” party is unlikely to improve their chances for 2006.

Mark Steyn Courtesy of Little Green Footballs

"I keep hearing people saying "X is not the authentic face of the left." Yet I don't hear them repudiate all of the X's out there. I don't hear them stand up and announce that X is wrong. I don't hear them explaining how they're going to take the Democrat Party back from the X's. And I DO hear them defending or excusing all of the X behavior.

"If the left/Democrats mean what they say, they have it in their power to stop the decay of the Democrat power. Stand up, speak out, and take the Party back from all the X's. If they do that, they might win back folks like me. I only reluctantly started calling myself a Republican in the 2004 election, and only then because I didn't see any Democrats standing up against terror and the divisive folks who abet terror."

InstaPundit-Reader Comment (Martin Shoemaker) January 28, 2005

[W]ith the Kerry defeat we should lay to rest the Left’s latest revisionism that was much in vogue during the last few months in the mainstream media — promulgated by journalists and pundits in places like Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and the Atlantic. We were lectured ad nauseam that the terrorists did not — as did extremists of all ages such as the Nazis, Japanese, and Soviet totalitarians — hate us for our allegiance to consensual government, modernism, and the freedom of the individual, but rather had understandable grievances because of our support for Israel, the war in Iraq, or the presence of oil companies in the Middle East. That canard too was rejected by the voters.

Victor Davis Hanson, November 5, 2004

Cape Cod Times endorses George Bush for President:

"For [Sen. John] McCain and for millions of other Americans, the global war against terrorism is the defining issue of this election.

"In this context, we believe President George W. Bush will best lead a bolder, more proactive, more focused struggle against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and rogue governments and groups that shelter, finance or otherwise support terrorists.

"In contrast, Sen. John Kerry has said any attack against America will be met with ”a swift response,“ but that pre-emptive strikes must meet ”a global test.“

"In other words, Kerry would play defense, much like previous administrations did after the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, the USS Cole, and U.S. embassies abroad.

"We can no longer live in a pre-Sept. 11 world. We must remain on the offensive. 'The United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past,' President Bush said. 'We cannot let our enemies strike first.'"

Martin Peretz: Like Carter and Clinton, he's a Democrat who offers Israel nothing but muddled ideas: "[A]lthough there are many reasons one might want to vote for John F. Kerry, remembering Jerusalem — remembering to stand up for the state of Israel — is not among them. "

Caroline Glick: "One thing though, is clear enough. In the unrelenting emphasis Kerry places on a certain brand of "multilateralism," he is providing undue, unreasonable and unacceptable legitimacy to a country that does not wish Israel well. Kerry can choose to be a friend of France, or he can choose to be a friend of Israel. But this is one area where he can't have it both ways."

Ed Lasky, "The American Thinker:" Why American Jews must vote for Bush

Richard Baehr, "The American Thinker:" American Demography and Support for Israel

Cathy Seipp: "[I]t’s an article of faith among those who dread the president’s reelection that the Christian Right in George W. Bush’s America is at least as dangerous as international Islamic radicals. Never mind that the latter are rather more prone to violence than the former. What’s really frightening, the conventional wisdom goes, is the crudely intolerant agenda of Christian fundamentalists."  Christopher Hitchens: George Bush may subjectively be a Christian, but he—and the U.S. armed forces—have objectively done more for secularism than the whole of the American agnostic community combined and doubled.

Jews back Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry over President Bush by nearly a 3-to-1 margin. [See also "Jews and Ostriches" By Jackie Mason & Raoul Felder.]

Despite that overwhelming support and despite occasional reassuring remarks from Senator Kerry some of Israel's supporters -- in addition to finding themselves in agreement with the sentiment expressed in the above Cape Cod Times editorial -- fear that as President he would force Israel into concessions that would be paid for in higher counts of dead and wounded Israelis.

One of Senator Kerry's most important campaign themes is to reinvigorate alliances with Europe (i.e., France, Germany?) and international institutions (i.e., the U.N.).  From the earliest part of his career, Senator Kerry has expressed this conviction.  In an interview with The Harvard Crimson on Feb. 13, 1970 as an obscure underdog in the Democratic Congressional primary Senator Kerry said: "I'm an internationalist,  I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations."

But, France and Germany are not likely to suddenly become reasonable partners and have certainly made it  clear that they will Not send troops to Iraq, whomever is elected President. Period.  And, the real-life workings of the U.N. via (1) its part -- along with Security Council members France, Russia and China -- in the corruption of the Iraqi oil-for-food program  -- manipulated by Saddam Hussein while preserving the capability to rapidly reconstitute WMD's, even as the sanction regime was disintegrating and (2) the events surrounding the International Court of Justice's ruling on Israel's security fence are but two sobering case studies to consider. But, in any case, his commitment to internationalism seems a deep-rooted one and must be taken seriously.

(Courtesy Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoons)

See Anne Bayefsky: Meet the Graders: The world of John Kerry’s global test

See Belmont Club: The Missing Men Attended the Global Test

So, what will dominate? (1) his bedrock belief in the importance of international diplomacy or (2) statements of his like "I will never pressure Israel to make concessions that will compromise its security," which can mean one thing to one person and something else to another.

President Bush, bowing to international pressure -- disregarding all that has transpired -- disappoints by undermining Israel, scolding it at the U.N. to "impose a settlement freeze, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people, and avoid any actions that prejudice final negotiations."  And that was preceded by other disappointments.

Would Senator Kerry -- facing the same diplomatic forces, but much more committed to reaching an accommodation with Europe and international institutions  -- be more or less likely than President Bush to defer to the pressure to perpetuate the false moral equivalence that is used to beat down the Jewish state?  And, as William Safire succinctly notes: "No Kerry heat on Israel, no grand new global alliance."

Some are similarly concerned about a President Kerry's impact on U.S. security.  While the domestic impact of a Kerry presidency is outside the scope of To Protect Our Heritage PAC, which focuses on the Israel-U.S. alliance, no doubt, these issues overlap.  The Democratic Party line seems pretty clear that the Iraq war is something apart from the War on Terror --  a counterproductive distraction, actually leading to the creation of new terrorists.  But does this add up? Have cause and effect been flipped? The slaughter of children in Belsan, Russia  is the latest atrocity in a globe-spanning web of radical Islamist terrorism.  Is President Bush creating terrorists there too?  Isn't the "Bush Lied" rant more than a little disingenuous?

Getting a clear bead on where Senator Kerry stands on important issues like these is tough. [Edwards too.] Beyond his commitment to internationalism what Plan  lies beyond diplomacy to deal with the serious threat?  As Daniel Pipes points out, the enemy's ultimate goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Qur'an.  This aspiration is so remote and far-fetched to many non-Muslims, it elicits more guffaws than apprehension. Of course, that used to be the same reaction in Europe . . . "

Focusing on Israel, Senator Kerry has taken quite different positions (just over the course of the campaign) on various significant matters pertaining to that nation's security.  And it's easier to imagine  that Israel will indeed be sacrificed to the overarching, consistent internationalism policy theme when it appears that his positions on Israel are not very firm in any case.

Evidence that it is, in fact, quite reasonable to worry is given by Mideast analyst Augustus Richard Norton, an advisor to the Kerry campaign: 

“'Kerry is much more likely to change the process of consultation, much more likely to listen instead of acting thoughtlessly, much more likely to try and cooperate fully with international groupings, such as the EU and the UN.'”

"He said a Kerry administration would probably regard the unofficial Geneva Accord drawn up last year by former Israeli and Palestinian government officials and peace negotiators as a 'template' for resuming the Mideast peace process."

Courtesy: Little Green Footballs

ISRAEL SNUB'S FALLOUT

DEBORAH ORIN, NY Post, July 31, 2004

Democrat John Kerry never once mentioned Israel in his big speech and overall America's closest Mideast ally rated scarcely a word at the Democratic convention, sparking concern among some pro-Israel advocates.

"I'm disappointed. It would have been very helpful if he did [mention Israel]," said Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Queens), who feels the omission could cost Kerry support, especially among Orthodox Jews.

Another pro-Israel delegate wondered aloud if the omission was "a Michigan play" — with Kerry eager to court the sizable Arab-American population in a state that's now a dead heat.

Running mate John Edwards gave a five-word mention to "a safe and secure Israel," and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) gave a pro-Israel speech nowhere near prime time.

Former Mayor Ed Koch, a Democrat backing President Bush, said Kerry's omission of Israel is "surprising" and "disturbing" and could be a warning that Kerry feels he has to cater to supporters who aren't pro-Israel. (More Koch.)

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KERRY'S JEWISH PROBLEM. Hebrew Lessons
Lawrence F. Kaplan, The New Republic, Issue date: 05.10.04

Last December, even as John Kerry was beginning his remarkable ascent in the Democratic primaries, his standing with America's mainstream Jewish organizations sank to an all-time low. The nadir came in a December 3 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, where Kerry recommended dispatching Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter [Carter's Favorite Film: Fahrenheit 9/11], or former Secretary of State James Baker to Israel as special envoys--a tone-deaf proposal, given Carter's and Baker's reputations as vituperative critics of Israel. "I don't know whether to laugh or to cry," Anti-Defamation League (ADL) National Director Abe Foxman complained. "Two are biased on the side of the Arabs--Carter and Baker--and Clinton tried and failed, so why would we use him again?" 

Kerry's troubles with the pro-Israel community began in 2002, when he assailed Ariel Sharon for his approach to the peace process. Before long, Kerry was assailing the Bush team, too--for having failed to act as an "honest broker" and for having "restrained the State Department" from intervening in the Israeli-Palestinian maelstrom, especially when the "Arab leaders, I think, are prepared to move." In June 2002, Kerry even proposed inserting American troops into the mix, an idea Israel has long rejected, and, last year, he condemned Israel's security fence as "another barrier to peace," adding that he witnessed how "Palestinian women, traveling on foot, were forced to stand in long lines at checkpoints with their children tugging at their sleeves and their arms loaded with groceries." 

After floating his Carter-Baker proposal in December, Kerry only made matters worse by professing astonishment "that we are not picking up somewhere near where we left off at Taba"--the problem with this formulation being that the January 2001 attempt by the Clinton administration and Ehud Barak's government to resuscitate the peace process at Taba was, far from a starting point, Israel's last-ditch effort to placate Yasir Arafat; and it culminated in a torrent of violence. Nonetheless, in January, Kerry offered kind words for the even more controversial Geneva Accord--a "virtual" peace agreement bankrolled by the European Union and drawn up by Yossi Beilin, a former member of the far-left Meretz Party--whose proposals even Barak denounced as "rewarding terror." 

For many leaders of pro-Israel organizations, Kerry's pledge to "treat the United Nations as a full partner" simply added to the discomfort--given that institution's decades-long record of singling out the Jewish state for opprobrium. "It's patently obvious that international institutions have a real animus toward Israel," says David Twersky of the American Jewish Congress, "and, if a president wants to be enmeshed by the U.N., it will of course be injurious to Israel." In a similar vein, Kerry's vow that, "as president, I will engage Iran" hardly sits well with those who view the Islamic republic as the greatest threat to the Jewish state. "Christ, even [Representative] Jerry Nadler has been telling [the Kerry team] to take a hard line toward Iran," says the leader of a major American Jewish organization.  [PAC Comment: Iran accepts Kerry's proposal to supply it with nuclear fuel for power reactors if Tehran agrees to give up its own fuel-making capability.]

The anxiety stirred by Kerry's remarks is of more than mere anthropological interest. "Bush's strong position on Israel and the war on terror," says Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, "have established different parameters for the [U.S.] election debate than we've ever seen before." A recent poll by the American Jewish Committee found that, while Bush garnered only 19 percent of the Jewish vote in 2000, today he would draw 31 percent. That may not seem like much of a difference, but, when combined with the fact that Jews turn out to vote at a rate of 80 percent; the sizable Jewish populations in battleground states, such as Pennsylvania, Florida, and Ohio; and the campaign donations at stake, the difference could matter enormously. For those who view Israel as a decisive issue, it already does.   

That Kerry should find himself defending his Israel bona fides counts as one of the stranger twists in this election year. After all, Kerry's Senate voting record on Israel qualifies, according to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as "near perfect." Jay Footlik, a senior Middle East adviser on the Kerry campaign, says, "He's no recent arrival to the pro-Israel community and has been at the forefront of the political fight for Israel's security during nineteen years in the Senate." Opposition researchers can comb his record for hours, but, on issues ranging from foreign aid for Israel to his opposition to the sale of military equipment to Saudi Arabia during the 1980s, Kerry's legislative history betrays not the slightest hint of hostility toward Israel or its policies. 

So why has Kerry strayed from his own script during his presidential run? Despite his record--which, excellent though it may be, hardly distinguishes him from his fellow senators in the northeast corridor--he rarely, if ever, took the lead on Israel-related issues in the Senate, and, even according to his supporters, remains something of a novice on the subject. "Kerry is not one of the handful of those in the Senate who follows Israel issues minutely," says Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council. 

Filling the void during the early days of his campaign were advisers who share a very particular view of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Among these was Alan Solomont, who, as well as being a longtime Kerry confidante and top fund-raiser, serves as a member of the executive committee of the left-leaning Israel Policy Forum (IPF) and is an outspoken Geneva proponent with close ties to Beilin. Another voice dispensing wisdom to Kerry on Israel has been Clinton national security adviser Sandy Berger, an animating force behind the failed negotiations at Camp David and Taba, who insists that Geneva dispelled the "myth" that "there is no constituency among Palestinians for a peace settlement that recognizes Israel's right to exist." And, though a Kerry adviser denies that Beilin himself has been in touch with the Kerry team, reached by telephone in Israel, the Geneva architect says he discussed Middle East policy with Kerry prior to the campaign, adding, "Yes, I am in contact with Kerry's camp--I have met with and I speak with Alan Solomont and Sandy Berger."  

 Facing criticism that Kerry was taking his cues on Israel from the left--criticism relayed mostly in phone calls to Kerry and his national security adviser, Rand Beers--the campaign began to reverse course early this year. On February 28, the Kerry team arranged for the candidate to sit down with Jewish leaders in New York. From left to right, the entire spectrum of U.S. Jewish opinion showed up--Solomont, ADL National Director Foxman, IPF's Judith Stern Peck, American Jewish Congress President Jack Rosen, the Conference's Hoenlein and Jim Tisch, Betty Ehrenberg of the Orthodox Union, and dozens of others. With one exception, the meeting went well. Kerry defended Israel's security fence. He insisted that Israel could not move forward until it had a partner on the other side of the table. He assured that, his avowed fealty to multilateralism notwithstanding, he would continue U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte's policy of vetoing anti-Israel resolutions in the Security Council. And he added former Clinton envoy Dennis Ross to his list of potential envoys. "There wasn't a person who sat and listened to him and left the room without realizing that there has been no presidential candidate who's so prepared [on Israel-related issues]," says Solomont.  

Not long after leaving the room, however, the sentiment, at least among some of the attendees, began to shift. It did so because one of the first things Kerry did at the meeting was to blame his aides for the mention of Carter and Baker as possible envoys in his December speech--a claim that several participants double-checked as soon as they walked out the door. The names, Kerry said, had been inserted by mistake, and he had even asked that they be removed. The problem is, in the speech itself, Kerry said, "There are a number of uniquely qualified Americans among whom I would consider appointing, including President Carter. ... And, I might add, I have had conversations with both President Clinton and President Carter about their willingness to do this." Kerry spokesperson Stephanie Cutter even confirmed to The Boston Globe in December that he had spoken with Carter. Today, the campaign offers this explanation: The candidate eventually did speak with Carter--but only after noticing that a draft of his speech said that he spoke with Carter. 

For the Kerry team, though, the New York meeting marked a turning point. A few weeks later, it scheduled a second one, this time with Beers and former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. Participants claim that Beers, a career civil servant and terrorism expert who resigned from the Bush National Security Council, mostly sat and listened, and, when he did comment, seemed poorly versed in the details of issues like the nexus between U.S. unilateralism and Israeli security. Holbrooke, by contrast, dazzled his audience with a catalogue of facts and hard-line pledges. 

Kerry's rhetoric has also undergone a profound revision--it now sounds a lot more like Holbrooke's. Gone are references to Taba and Carter. Gone too, in fact, is any trace of the Kerry of earlier this year. Hence, whereas in October, he criticized the fence as "a barrier to peace," today he insists that the "fence only exists in response to the wave of terror attacks against Israel." In his "Meet the Press" appearance last week, the candidate seemed prepared to climb into a tank with Sharon, echoing, among other things, Bush's insistence that Israel has a right to maintain some territory it captured in 1967. 

Kerry has also broadened the range of voices whispering in his ear to include those of former Clinton administration officials, such as Ross--a chastened "peace processor" whose technocratic approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although it hardly resembles Bush's, differs significantly from that of peace activists in the Beilin orbit. Then, there is Martin Indyk, a not-so-chastened peace processor who, lately, has been peddling a U.S.-led "trusteeship" in the West Bank and Gaza [PAC Comment: and return of the Golan Heights to Syria]. More hawkish voices belong to Holbrooke and Footlik, a former campaign aide to Senator Joe Lieberman, who, according to Democratic strategist Kenneth Baer, "coordinates the message now." Still, Footlik's job amounts to exactly that--devising messages, not policies. Those messages, which fudge most distinctions between Bush and Kerry--"We'll have the same Israel policy as Bush, only we won't bash gays and carry guns," is how one strategist summarizes them--were the subject of an April 3 meeting at Kerry's Boston townhouse, attended by Ross, Indyk, Footlik, Berger, and a handful of other advisers. According to one participant at the meeting, Kerry made it clear that his own inclinations at least put him to the right of Berger. 

They do not, however, put him to the right of the Bush team, which happens to be where the present Israeli government resides. And, for many American Jewish leaders, it has become an article of faith that, as the Conference's Tisch told an Israeli audience on a recent visit to Jerusalem, "with respect to Israel, Bush has been one of the best presidents we have ever had." In Bush, they see conviction; in Kerry, they see an absence of conviction. To be sure, Kerry seems unlikely to flip-flop again during the campaign. The more intriguing question concerns what sort of approach a candidate who, in Israel's case, genuinely has straddled the fence would enshrine in official policy. The answer may lie with the last person who whispers in his ear.  

Lawrence F. Kaplan is a senior editor at TNR.

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Kerry the Clueless: Like Carter and Clinton, he's a Democrat who offers Israel nothing but muddled ideas

Martin Peretz, Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2004

Like many American Jews, I was brought up to believe that if I pulled the Republican lever on the election machine my right hand would wither and, as the Psalmist says, my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth.

According to the Bible, of course, these are the feared consequences of forgetting Jerusalem. Now although there are many reasons one might want to vote for John F. Kerry, remembering Jerusalem — remembering to stand up for the state of Israel — is not among them.

It is true that Kerry's campaign pronouncements have been unexceptionable from the pro-Zionist point of view. Yes, he flip-flopped on the miles of trenches and fences Israel is building to defend itself from the plague of terrorism, first attacking the structure as "another barrier to peace," then accepting it as "a legitimate act of self-defense."

He has also floundered concerning what can be expected of Yasser Arafat. Just as Arafat was launching the second intifada in 2000, Kerry asserted optimistically that we must "look to Chairman Arafat to exert much greater leadership." Three days later, he portentously declared the obvious on CBS' "Face the Nation," calling the Israel-Palestinian conflict "an extraordinarily complicated, incredibly deep-rooted problem." What made this problem so extraordinary and incredible? "Arafat has forces around him, underneath him, close by him that don't want peace, that are working against what he is doing," Kerry said by way of exoneration. (And, to sustain the moral equivalence of the parties in his head, he added, "The same is true of Prime Minister [Ehud] Barak" — which was nonsense, as there wasn't a single such person in Barak's circle.)

By now, to be sure, Kerry thinks that Arafat's "support" for terrorism has already rendered him unfit as a partner for peace. And his votes in the Senate (like all but a handful of senators) have been routinely friendly to Israel.

So why am I still exercised about John Kerry?

It's the ramifications of his foreign policy in general, especially his fixation on the United Nations as the arbiter of international legitimacy, proctor of that "global test."

Save for the U.S. veto in the Security Council, Israel loses every struggle at the U.N. against lopsided majorities. In the General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission, Muslim states trade their votes to protect aggressors and tyrannies from censure in exchange for libels against the Jewish state. The body's bloated and dishonest bureaucracies are no better, as evidenced most recently by the head of the U.N. Palestine refugee organization, who defended having Hamas militants on his staff.

I've searched to find one time when Kerry — even candidate Kerry — criticized a U.N. action or statement against Israel. I've come up empty. Nor has he defended Israel against the European Union's continuous hectoring. Another thing that bothers me about Kerry is the deus ex machina he has up his sleeve: the appointment of a presidential envoy. It's hard to count how many special emissaries have been dispatched from Washington to the Middle East to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. What's easy to see is that none of them has gotten to "yes."

In recent years, both former CIA Director George Tenet and former Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, once the chief of the U.S. Central Command, have served in this meaningless position. And who would Kerry designate? He first suggested the sanctimonious Jimmy Carter and James Baker, Bush 41's secretary of state.

Then he found out — why he didn't know this is another matter — that both Carter and Baker are deeply distrusted by the Israelis, and by American Jews. There was no mystery as to why. Carter (well, how does one say this?) is not exactly a friend to the Jewish nation and, besides, his favorite politician in the Middle East was the mass murderer Hafez Assad, the late president of Syria. A huge beneficiary of Saudi business, Baker was adept at pooh-poohing concerns about Israeli security. So we are left with Kerry's other putative designee, Bill Clinton, whose national security staff was so mesmerized by the mirage of a quickie Israel-Palestinian peace at the end of his term that, according to the Sept. 11 commission report, it couldn't be bothered take out Osama bin Laden after the attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole. Clinton succeeded in squeezing Israel into the extravagant Camp David and Taba formulas but failed to get Arafat to go along. At least for Israel, these proposals are now toast.

For his part, Kerry grabs at any showy idea to demonstrate his sense of urgency. As a response to militant Islam and to encourage moderate Muslims, the presidential aspirant proposed that "the great religious figures of the planet" — he mentioned the pope, the archbishop of Canterbury and the Dalai Lama — hold a summit.

To do exactly … what?

"To begin to help the world to see the ways in which Islam is not, in fact, a threat," Kerry said, "and to isolate those who are, and to give people the strength to be able to come together in a global effort to take away their financing, their freedom to move, their sanctuary and so forth."

This muddled foolishness reflects Kerry's sense of politics as desperate theater. Another simply showy idea he proposed (to Tim Russert on NBC's "Meet the Press") was to insert U.S. troops between Israel and the territories, as part "of some kind of very neutral international effort that began to allow Israel itself to disengage and withdraw."

Now, if anything would put U.S. soldiers in harm's way it is such a move, exposing our men and women to fiercely competing gangs of suicide bombers and other killers.

Kerry asserted on "Meet the Press" that it is "Israel's presence [in the territories that] puts Israel in difficult circumstances and obviously creates an enormous handle for Osama bin Laden for all the radicals and extremists to hang on to." But this stands history on its head. It is not the occupation that caused the conflict. It is the very existence of Israel — even within the unbearably narrow 1949 cease-fire lines.

To project his Middle East bona fides, Kerry has bashed President Bush dozens of times for supposedly showing no interest in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, for breaking a continuum going back at least 30 years.

"Some cliches," wrote the dovish Israeli journalist Aluf Benn in the even more dovish Israeli newspaper Haaretz, "become permanent features in public until someone takes the trouble to check out their validity."

Which is what Benn did. And what did he find? The Bush administration "has been far more involved than any previous administrations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has courageously presented the two sides with practical objectives and demands."

Kerry seems to have nostalgia for the peacemaking ways of Clinton. But what Clinton actually bequeathed to George W., says Benn, was "an Israeli-Palestinian war and a total collapse of the hopes that flourished in the 1990s…. The height of the peace process during the Clinton era, the Camp David summit in July 2000, was a classic example of inept diplomacy, an arrogant and rash move whose initiators failed to take into account the realpolitik, misunderstood Arafat and brought upon both Israelis and Palestinians the disaster of the intifada."

By contrast, Bush has committed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to a Palestinian state and to a withdrawal from some, though certainly not all, of the settlements. In return, the president has recognized that the most populous and strategically pivotal settlements would remain in Israeli hands and has also ruled out what would be suicide for Israel, the return of Palestinian refugees after 56 years. The Palestinians have not yet signed on to these particulars. But they are the future details of any peace.

Bush's empathy for the government in Israel is particularly remarkable, because empathy was altogether foreign to both Bush pere and his secretary of State. One can only imagine the horror of George H.W. and Baker (to whom the current president may actually owe his office) in seeing the inheritor become a true ally of Israel. Yet there it is. And with his understanding of — and sympathy for — the Israeli predicament, Bush has coaxed from Sharon an agreement to withdraw unilaterally from all the Gaza settlements and from four in the West Bank — something even left-wing governments, as Benn puts it, "were afraid to do."

Kerry, meanwhile, appears ready to formulaically follow the failed precepts of the past, complete with photo ops and multiple interlocutors. This is a road map to nowhere

QUESTIONS FOR JOHN KERRY. Us and Them
Martin Peretz, The New Republic,  11.08.04

There was more horrid news out of Iraq this month: evidence that some 300 women and children had each been shot in the head and buried in a mass grave. One hundred fifty-six men were buried nearby in the same killing field. Alas, there are 40 such mass graves that we know of. A team of archaeologists, anthropologists, and technicians has been assembled by the hard-pressed Army Corps of Engineers--which came to the country primarily to bring relief to living Iraqis--and is doing the intricate, grisly work of exhumation. The site in Hatra, north of Baghdad, as The Boston Globe reported, is the first to be "scientifically exhumed." And why not bring in other competent experts, who have worked in Bosnia, for example, to disinter others? "[B]ecause European forensic teams won't collect evidence that might be used to win death penalty convictions." How delicate! The last refuge of scoundrels is not patriotism. It is finicky liberal humanitarianism.

Let me immediately allay your suspicions. These trenches of innocent dead were not filled recently. It is true that killers still furtively murder in some places in Iraq. Ideological thugs also dragoon people out of their homes and behead them for video showings. But no one can organize a vast massacre and bulldoze the victims into a pit. Hatra and other sites of monstrous cruelty, resting places for the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Baath, are Saddam Hussein's macabre legacy. That legacy would remain a living one, continually swelling itself, had George W. Bush, a president whose electoral legitimacy I still doubt in late-night private moments, not launched a war against it.

How would John Kerry have dealt with Saddam? He has told us Saddam needed to be "confronted." But the word itself--which implies that the United States could have overthrown Saddam without using military force--tells us what we need to know. Had the United States and our allies not embarked on this war, the Iraqi mass murderer would still be in power. And, were international sanctions gone, as they soon would have been thanks to Russia and France, he would have been on his way back to having and deploying weapons of mass destruction. And the senator from Massachusetts would not have raised his voice.

Now, of course, the WMD rationale for war has dissolved like a mirage in the Mesopotamian desert. For Kerry and for Democrats, this has simply dissolved the case for the war. Finis. Which leaves us with the dilemma of how we deal with regimes that commit genocide. Saddam's genocides seem not to have provoked Kerry at all, nor, for that matter, did the genocide in Rwanda. (When U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright finally tried to focus the Clinton administration on the government-sponsored massacres there, Kerry was not exactly an ally.) It is true that, during the first presidential debate, Kerry limply suggested that perhaps, as a last resort, some American troops should be sent to Darfur, Sudan. But I haven't heard him mention it much since, which says something about his seriousness.

Kerry's main problem is that the United Nations, the designated proctor for his "global test," is an impediment to prompt and effective action against savage governments. The United Nations was set up largely to protect the territorial integrity of its member states. But, with a few exceptions, states no longer make war on their neighbors--they make war on segments of their own populations. (Of course, even in that rare case where one state did invade another, and the United Nations endorsed military action--Saddam's invasion of Kuwait--Kerry did not. In that vote, and in others, he carries on a tradition of Massachusetts isolationism. Democratic politicians in the Commonwealth did not want to send aid to Great Britain before World War II, and Joseph Kennedy, JFK's father and FDR's ambassador to the Court of Saint James, was a rank appeaser.)

The savagery of governments against their own people, usually against a defined ethnic or religious minority, has been a consistent feature of the postwar world. Not charged in its charter with dealing with such cases, the United Nations has simply looked the other way, or worse. In the 1960s, it sided with the Nigerian government against the Ibos of Biafra; with Kofi Annan in charge of the U.N. presence in Rwanda, genocide unfolded there; and, with Annan again in charge of the blue helmets in Yugoslavia, many massacres took place in Bosnia. Likewise, over decades, it did not see--because it did not want to see--what was going on in Iraq.

Darfur is a repeat in extremis of these other genocides. It is not the first genocide perpetrated by the government in Khartoum. For years, this fanatic Islamist regime, formerly allied with Al Qaeda (Osama bin Laden took refuge in Sudan before he went to Afghanistan), has waged a relentless war against its Christian and animist population. It was only after murdering a satisfying number of these infidels that it went after the country's black Muslims. At the United Nations, the Arab League and various coalitions of Muslim states have conspired to maintain the organization's eunuch character vis-à-vis Sudan--which, it should be noted, is a member of the Human Rights Commission. The cover for the U.N.'s indifference is the presence in Darfur, at the initiative of the secretariat, of 300 soldiers of the African Union (AU), led by Nigeria, a country itself prone to state-sponsored ethnic massacres. This AU gendarmerie is rescuing no one.

When I listen to John Kerry speak about the United Nations, I recall myself in a grade-school classroom in New York 55 years ago. At the front was hung a banner with a map of the Earth on a pale blue cloth--the organization's flag. The legend underneath reads, the world's last best hope. This would now be a macabre joke. The United Nations is bloated and corrupt, and its putrescence extends to the secretary-general's very family and his inner office. Were its headquarters located in Lagos or Beijing, it would disappear because no one would come.

But, of course, the United Nations is located in New York City, where it is planning a multibillion-dollar physical rehabilitation and expansion. It instinctively grasps where its make-believe destiny lies. Yet, intrinsically and practically, it is following the path of the League of Nations. The League couldn't protect the rights of national minorities in the multiethnic states established at Versailles. And, in a sense, the U.N.'s culpability is even greater, since it often has a presence in the countries where the killings take place. As hundreds of thousands of noncombatants are slaughtered, the United Nations watches on the ground and dithers in New York while its diplomats dine out on their importance at the city's elegant salons and eateries.

Of course, there is one place where the United Nations does act reflexively and quickly: Israel. Hardly a week goes by that the secretary-general or one of his flunkies does not severely reproach Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's democratically elected government. You can pass a sweeping resolution condemning Israel anytime, anywhere at the United Nations (except in the Security Council, where the United States has a veto). Indeed, much of the U.N.'s public business concerns the supposed depredations of the Jewish state--given the numerical prowess of Arab and Muslim states in the organization and its agencies. But, listening to Kerry talk about the United Nations, you would not think its very routines are at all problematic. (And, since he has so much esteem for the United Nations and the "world community," who can be sure that Kerry would employ the "permanent member" veto power on Israel's behalf?)

The European Union also has great cachet with Kerry, and its mischievous views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are shared by Kerry advisers like Martin Indyk and Rand Beers. The European Union disapproves of Sharon's plan to vacate all of the Gaza settlements and four in northern Samaria, claiming this is a cover for Israel retaining the rest of the West Bank. As Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has made clear, the present Israeli government intends to withdraw tens of thousands of settlers from their homes. But it will not return to the precarious cease-fire lines of 1949. Yet, for France and Spain and, for that matter, Indyk, Israel's withdrawal must be complete--that is, to the old frontiers, as if these will suddenly bring it peace. These are not Bush's borders. And, since Kerry has not disavowed his advisers, it is more than reasonable to suspect that they are his.

Now, another Kerry eminence, Zbigniew Brzezinski, habitually cavalier about Israel's perils, has put out a hash of tattered ideas that include bringing European and Muslim troops to Iraq--and perhaps even persuading Iran to foreclose its nuclear option and ending U.S. isolation in the struggle against Islamist terrorism. All that, and just by leaving Israel in the lurch. Kerry's longtime foreign policy aide, Nancy Stetson, has been heard pooh-poohing his vague "only politics" assurances that he won't do something like that. In West Palm Beach, Florida, recently, and in other places throughout the campaign, Kerry has told crowds of Jews how he once sang "Am Yisrael Chai" ("the people Israel lives") across a chasm in the Negev desert. This schmaltz does not reassure me--and neither does Bill Clinton's Florida schmaltz.

John Kerry speaks, not unfairly, of George W. Bush's habits of denial. But Kerry himself is in denial. He is in denial about the United Nations. He is in denial about the Australian election that returned to office for an unprecedented fourth term its prime minister who has been, with his country, a pillar of the Iraq coalition. He is in denial about Japan, whose government, unlike Germany's and France's, does not carp at the United States. He is in denial about Afghanistan, where, for the first time in history, men and women, riding on donkeys and walking barefoot across great distances, have exercised the right to choose those who govern them. He is in denial about Iraq itself. The Jordanian daily Al Ra'i recently called Moqtada Al Sadr's apparent retreat from armed struggle "a farewell to arms" that is as politically significant as the establishment of the provisional authority. Has Kerry come close to recognizing this? Has he acknowledged that the Bush administration has negotiated with nato a plan to send, starting in November, up to 3,000 soldiers to train Iraqi troops? These soldiers will be under the command of General David Petraeus, who is mustering the military might and political will to retake much of the Sunni triangle. Many Iraqis now have second thoughts about opposing the coalition. Even the BBC has said as much. But Kerry hasn't.

The European elites are indifferent to--if not downright disdainful of--the American personnel who risk their lives, bravely and delicately, in places like Hatra, to return the bodies of Saddam's victims so they might be properly mourned and buried. These are the governments whose moral approval Kerry seems to believe America needs. Yes, we have made mistakes in Iraq. Yes, Americans were surprised when large numbers of Iraqis, who had just been freed from decades of ferocious Baathist rule, could not see their opportunity for real freedom and reverted instead to the barbarous habits so ingrained in Iraq's history. I, who am skeptical of those who see much kindness on the Arab political street, did not envision this relentless fealty to the indiscriminate pitilessness that now characterizes the Iraqi opposition. Bush didn't see it, and Kerry didn't either. But Bush is doing something about it. And the uncivilized behavior of some Iraqis is another good reason for us to stay in the country. Otherwise, the barbarians will have won the day, and the future.

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Kerry, Bush and Iraq
Editorial, Chicago Tribune,  September 9, 2004

With his denunciation this week of "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time," presidential contender John Kerry has confronted his fellow Americans with a bracing dilemma: whether to number his policy positions on Iraq like Super Bowls or nickname them alphabetically like hurricanes.

This being a free country, candidate Kerry can say whatever his new team of political strategists concocts as he attempts to become President Kerry. Public opinion polls have been trending against Kerry since the close of the Republican National Convention last week; his frustration is as understandable as it is evident.

But the strategists' calculus is risky. Kerry's harsh new criticism of the war effort presumes American voters haven't paid attention to all of his previous votes and statements on Iraq:

- October 2002: In contrast to his vote against the Persian Gulf war of 1991, Kerry votes in favor of the congressional resolution to authorize the use of military force in Iraq.

- May 2003: Asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos during a presidential candidates' debate in South Carolina whether the decision to invade Iraq was the right one, Kerry responds: "George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity. But I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him."

- September 2003: Asked on CBS' "Face the Nation" if he will vote against a proposed $87 billion package for military and reconstruction expenses in Iraq if he is unable to attach an amendment to offset some costs by raising taxes on wealthy Americans, Kerry answers: "I don't think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That's irresponsible."

- October 2003: Kerry votes against the $87 billion. It is this vote that prompts his subsequent explanation that, "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

- January 2004: Asked by MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews, "Are you one of the anti-war candidates?" Kerry responds: "I am. Yes. In the sense that I don't believe the president took us to war as he should have, yes. Absolutely. Do I think this president violated his promise to America? Yes, I do, Chris. Was there a way to hold Saddam Hussein accountable? You bet there was, and we should have done it right."

- August 2004: Kerry said that, had he known the U.S. wouldn't discover unconventional weapons in Iraq or prove a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, he still would have cast his Senate vote in 2002 to authorize the war.

- This week: Kerry describes the conflict in Iraq as "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." Speaking Wednesday in Cincinnati, he says the money used to fund the war--evidently including the $87 billion--could instead have been spent on domestic priorities.

With U.S. troops fighting battles even as their potential commander in chief dithers indecisively, Kerry is giving fecklessness a dicey reputation.

In a campaign this heated, President Bush no doubt will keep exploiting Kerry's inability to articulate a consistent theme on Iraq. Imagine, too, the inevitable confusion among U.S. allies around the globe: Under President Kerry, would America cut and run?

Not one sentient person on Earth can pose that question about Bush. Those who either agree or disagree with his policies know with absolute certainty that he won't turn away from the unfinished job in Iraq. That certitude is especially useful for Americans, who know exactly the constancy of purpose they'll be endorsing or rejecting when they vote for or against Bush on Nov. 2.

But if Kerry has been comically irresolute on Iraq, Bush needs to better explain to Americans and the world what must take place in Iraq in order for the U.S. to reduce its presence there.

Kerry's plan essentially is to involve more nations in stabilizing Iraq--although it's peculiar that he hasn't vocally urged foreign governments to do that now. Nor has he explained why world leaders gun-shy of Iraq will commit more resources at the behest of a Kerry administration.

Bush, too, needs to move beyond justifying the war effort and explain an equally determined strategy for ultimate disengagement. That strategy largely hinges on two developments:

- National elections will be a crucial milestone for a country fitfully emerging from decades of dictatorship and distrust. The greater the opportunity for Iraqis to invest in their political future, the sooner the U.S. can begin to think of disengagement. To that end, last Thursday's Tribune carried a remarkable headline, easily overlooked in coverage of the hostage crisis at a Russian school: "New Iraq parliament opens." The Los Angeles Times story reported that "[M]embers of the newly appointed [Iraqi] National Council said they were confident they could guide the country to democratic elections in January. They paid little mind to the mortar shells and rockets thudding nearby. .., `Today we witness a vital step on the way of the democratic process and of building up our new Iraq,' said Rowsch Shaways, vice president of the council, which plays a mostly advisory role to the government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi."

National Council. Prime minister. Elections in January. These phrases are touchstones on the U.S. path out of Iraq.

- Bush also needs to explain more forcefully that only a sophisticated Iraqi military can guarantee the internal security of the country. Until that military takes shape, nothing but the presence of U.S. troops can give democracy a chance to thrive.

So as the November presidential election approaches in the U.S., Bush needs to more actively discuss his strategy for Iraq. As for Kerry, he still needs to settle on a strategy.

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ALL OVER THE MAP ON IRAQ

ERIC FETTMANN, NY Post, August 11, 2004

JOHN Kerry finally defined his position on the war in Iraq — or his latest one, anyway.

It took a direct challenge from President Bush, who asked if Kerry would still have voted to authorize the use of force against Saddam Hussein if he knew that no weapons of mass destruction would be found. Kerry's reply: "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have."

Even at that, Kerry could be parsing words here: Stressing his support for "the authority" echoes his bizarre earlier distinction (which he made after Howard Dean's campaign started taking off) that he'd only voted to "threaten the use of force," not actually to use it.  

Still, Kerry's answer likely will raise some eyebrows among people who believed the Democratic nominee when he agreed that he was one of the "anti-war candidates" — someone who is "unhappy with this war [and] the way it's been fought," someone who charged that Bush "misled every one of us" with his "rush to war."

Of course, Kerry has been all over the political map when it comes to ousting Saddam. He certainly showed no hesitation when Bill Clinton was the president threatening to use force in Iraq. (Back then, Kerry even endorsed unilateral action against this "grave threat to the well-being of our nation.")

But his latest statement raises an important question: If ousting Saddam now was justified, even if we knew in advance that there were apparently no WMDs, why did Kerry so vehemently oppose moving against Saddam after he invaded Kuwait and was a much greater military threat?

Back in 1991, John Kerry was a leader of the movement to keep America from fighting in the Persian Gulf — at one point begging the first President Bush to send someone to Baghdad for a "face-to-face meeting" with the Iraqi despot.

And Kerry's rhetoric in throughout that debate was one long Vietnam flashback.

"In a country that still struggles with Agent Orange, outreach centers, post-traumatic stress disorder, homeless veterans — is this country ready for the next wave?" Kerry asked. " 'Mom, is that you?' Are we ready for the changes this war will bring — changes in sons and daughters who return from combat never the same, some not knowing their families and their families, not even recognizing them? Are we ready?"

Indeed, Kerry's Senate speeches sounded like the broken soundtrack from a Jane Fonda film. "I would like to share with my colleagues something that Dalton Trumbo wrote in a book called 'Johnny Got His Gun,' " Kerry said. "He wrote about a young soldier who went to war who ended up losing his arms, legs, sight, hearing, his smell, capacity to speak. After years of lying in a hospital, he finally figured out how to tap his head in Morse code — and finally somebody heard his message."

Kerry even held a congressional hearing at which an official of the left-wing Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War flatly predicted that U.S. military casualties in that first Gulf War would reach 45,000 — including 10,000 dead.

And the senator himself predicted that any U.S. invasion of Iraq would "lead to renewed terrorist attacks on America as a result of our having killed innumerable Arab civilians."

In other words, Kerry took it for granted that U.S. soldiers would behave like war criminals — just like they did in Vietnam, right? — and that the Arab world would make us pay for our barbarism.

Operation Desert Storm went ahead anyway, and none of Kerry's dire predictions came true.

At which point — with public opinion running heavily in favor of the war — Kerry started waving the flag, hailing Bush Sr.'s "moxie" in leading the war effort.

That flip-flop was hilariously brought out when one of Kerry's constituents accidentally was sent copies of two letters from the senator — one targeted at anti-war constituents and one at those who supported the war.

The first stressed Kerry's demand that "economic sanctions be given more time to work" and how he'd warned the Senate "that a decision to go to war was 'rolling the dice' with our future."

The second, dated just nine days later, emphasized how "I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established . . . in standing up this shocking aggression in the Persian Gulf."

John Kerry's back and forth and back again through two wars with Iraq is disturbing enough, suggesting a lack of genuine conviction and a disquieting tendency to keep one eye on the opinion polls.

But what's really troubling is the distinct impression that Kerry remains haunted by Vietnam syndrome — which leads one to wonder whether a President Kerry would be prepared, if necessary, to commit to using military force to defend this nation.

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Look who's endorsing Senator Kerry: the Arab world, Iran, former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad (remember him?), the newly elected Spanish Socialist PM, Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero (disappointing, guess who Spain's new FM is . . . ),  North Korea, Noam Chomsky, Arafat

Meanwhile, his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, supports the radical Left Tides Foundation and CAIR  [More]

Taba Mythchief - David Makovsky
(National Interest/Washington Institute for Near East Policy)

• If an American push should come to vigorously pursue the Arab-Israeli peace process after dealing with Iraq, it would be tragic were it plagued by a misleading mythology that Israelis and Palestinians were at the verge of peace in January 2001 as they met at Taba.

• According to this myth, both sides had essentially agreed on the critical and difficult issues of land, refugees, and the status of Jerusalem, and it was only Ariel Sharon's rise to power that prevented these discussions from coming to fruition - a myth that has wide currency in both the Arab world and in Europe.

• The diplomatic advisor to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdallah, Adel al-Jubeir, claims that at Taba "the Israelis and the Palestinians came very close to an agreement." Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says that the talks "could have led to a settlement, had an additional chance for a few more months been made available for negotiations."

• This is just not so. First of all, the Israeli delegation at Taba did not have the moral authority to negotiate two weeks before an election in which Prime Minister Ehud Barak was widely expected to lose in a landslide; and Israel's delegation was led by a government that had the support of only 42 of Israel's 120-member parliament. Even had a deal been reached, therefore, it is very unlikely that the Knesset would have ratified it.

• But no deal was ever in prospect. Palestinian negotiators made only conditional and tactical concessions at Taba, and even these were never agreed to by Arafat. While some key Palestinian negotiators wanted a deal, no evidence suggests that Arafat himself was willing to make any concessions of real significance.

• Even the diplomat who has put forth the rosiest assessment of the Taba negotiations - EU Middle East peace envoy Miguel Moratinos - wrote in a document summarizing those talks (Ha'aretz, February 14, 2001) that "serious gaps remain."

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, March 18, 2003]

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WHEN THE KILLERS COME FOR THE KIDS
RALPH PETERS, NY Post, September 4, 2004

THE mass murder of children revolts the human psyche. Herod sending his henchmen to massacre the infants of Bethlehem haunts the Gospels. Nothing in our time was crueler than what the Germans did to children during the Holocaust. Slaughtering the innocents violates a universal human taboo.

Or a nearly universal one. Those Muslims who preach Jihad against the West decided years ago that killing Jewish or Christian children is not only acceptable, but pleasing to their god when done by "martyrs."

It isn't politically correct to say this, of course. We're supposed to pretend that Islam is a "religion of peace." All right, then: It's time for Muslims to stand up for the once-noble, nearly lost traditions of their faith and condemn what Arab and Chechen terrorists and blasphemers did in the Russian town of Beslan.

If Muslim religious leaders around the world will not publicly condemn the taking of children as hostages and their subsequent slaughter — if those "men of faith" will not issue a condemnation without reservations or caveats — then no one need pretend any longer that all religions are equally sound and moral.

Islam has been a great and humane faith in the past. Now far too many of its adherents condone, actively or passively, the mass murder of school kids. Instead of condemnations of the Muslim "Jihadis" responsible for butchering more than 200 women and children in cold blood, we will hear spiteful counter-accusations about imaginary atrocities supposedly committed by Western militaries.

Well, the cold fact is that Western soldiers, whether Americans, Brits, Russians or Israelis, do not take hundreds of children hostage, then shoot them in cold blood while detonating bombs in their midst. The Muslim world can lie to itself, but we need lie no longer.

The tragedy in southern Russia occurred thousands of miles from the United States, but, in essence, that massacre happened next door. The parents, teachers and students kept for days without water or food in a sweltering school building before being butchered were our children, our sisters, our wives, our parents.

The mass hostage situation wasn't about Chechen rebels (and at least 10 Arabs) opposing the Russian government. It was a continuation of the universal struggle between good and evil. And there is no doubt which side is evil, scorned though the word may be by our own elite.

How can any human being with a shred of conscience dismiss what occurred in that school as anything less than evil?

The attack in Beslan wasn't about Russia's brutal incompetence in Chechnya — as counter-productive as Moscow's grim heavy-handedness may have been. It was about religious bigotry so profound that the believer can hold a gun to a child's head, pull the trigger and term the act "divine justice."

We will hear complaints that the Russian special forces should have waited — even after the terrorists began shooting children. Negotiations are the heroin of Westerners addicted to self-delusion. Who among us would have waited when he or she saw fleeing children cut down by automatic weapons? The urge to protect children is as primal as any impulse we ever feel.

Make no mistake: No blame attaches to the Russians for the massacre at that school. The guilt is entirely upon the Islamic extremists who have led the religion they claim to cherish into the realms of nightmare.

There will be repercussions. Having suffered the hijacking and destruction of two passenger jets, a deadly bombing at a Moscow subway station and a massacre in a primary school all in less than two weeks, the Kremlin will have learned to rue the day it imagined that there was anything to gain by opposing American efforts against terrorists, whether Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein.

As they inevitably do, the terrorists reminded the world of their heartless barbarism. Even if France manages to beg the release of its kidnapped journalists in Iraq, it has begun to sense its vulnerability. And all Europeans with a vestige of sense will recognize that the school seizure in Russia could easily repeat itself in Languedoc or Umbria, Bavaria or Kent.

An attack on children is an attack on all of humanity.

No matter what differences Western states discover to divide them, the terrorists will bring us together in the end. Their atrocities expose all wishful thinking for what it is.

A final thought: Did any of those protesters who came to Manhattan to denounce our liberation of 50 million Muslims stay an extra day to protest the massacre in Russia? Of course not.

The protesters no more care for dead Russian children than they care for dead Kurds or for the hundreds of thousands of Arabs that Saddam Hussein executed. Or for the ongoing Arab-Muslim slaughter of blacks in Sudan. Nothing's a crime to those protesters unless the deed was committed by America.

The butchery in Russia was a crime against humanity. In every respect. Was any war ever more necessary or just than the War on Terror?

And what will terror's apologists say when the killers come for their own children?

Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."

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The real 'root cause' of global terror

EVELYN GORDON, THE JERUSALEM POST, Sep. 13, 2004

Apologists for terrorism like to seek its "root causes." And they have a point: The terror now sweeping Russia and Iraq was not born in a vacuum. Where they err is in identifying these "root causes" as the military campaigns in Iraq and Chechnya, when thousands of similar campaigns have not sparked similar terrorist responses. If today's campaigns do, it is primarily because the world – and Russia and America above all – has taught the terrorists that murdering women and children is an effective way to advance political goals.

Most of the tactics now being used by Iraqis and Chechens were invented by the Palestinians. It was the PLO that invented airline terrorism, with a wave of hijackings in the 1970s; it was Hamas that turned suicide bombings into standard practice; even the grisly Chechen takeover of a school in Beslan this month aped the PLO's takeover of a school in Ma'alot in 1974. But such acts, far from discrediting either the perpetrators or their cause, turned Palestinian statehood into an international cause celebre.

When the PLO was founded in 1964 – with the goal, incidentally, of a Palestinian state instead of Israel, which did not yet have the territories – no one was talking about such a state. Even after Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt, nobody advocated a Palestinian state in those territories; the world expected Israel to keep part of this land (that is why, according to its drafters, UN Resolution 242 demands the return of "territories" rather than "the territories") and return the rest to Jordan and Egypt.

Forty years later, a Palestinian state in every inch of the West Bank and Gaza has become an international consensus. And this achievement was not in spite of Palestinian terror but because of it: Many peoples with equal or better claims to statehood, from Tibetans to Iraqi Kurds, have sought independence without resorting to terror; yet their aspirations at best elicit lip-service support from the world, and often outright opposition. The Palestinians' success lay in persuading the international community that peace depends on meeting their demands.

Not only did the world adopt the terrorists' cause, but it also adopted the terrorists themselves. The PLO has official observer status at the UN and diplomatic legations worldwide. And Hamas, which does not even pretend to aspire to peaceful coexistence with Israel, is banned by only a handful of states.

Russia's responsibility for the success of Palestinian terror is obvious: In its former incarnation as the Soviet Union, it was the terrorists' main sponsor and financier. It supplied money and arms to states such as Syria and Egypt in full knowledge that some would be given to the PLO. It also used its superpower status to push the Palestinians' demands in forums such as the UN, thereby granting them successes they could never have achieved on their own. Today, the material aid has halted, but the knee-jerk diplomatic backing continues.

America, in contrast, never openly abetted terror. Yet as the world's second – and today, only – superpower, it determined the success or failure of Palestinian terror in a way that far greater panderers, such as Europe, never could. And it chose to crown it with success.

In 1988, America formally recognized the PLO as "the official representative of the Palestinian people" and allowed it to open a diplomatic legation in Washington. True, the PLO said it would "renounce terror" – but it was headed by the same people responsible for the Ma'alot school massacre, the Munich Olympics massacre, numerous airplane and bus hijackings, and other atrocities. Nor had the Palestinians ever democratically chosen the PLO as their representative. It was Washington's choice to reward the perpetrators of 24 years of murder and mayhem with diplomatic recognition and backing for a state instead of declaring them beyond the pale.

Five years later, after the Oslo Accords created the Palestinian Authority – headed by that same PLO leadership – Palestinian terror against Israel reached new heights. Most, admittedly, was perpetrated by Hamas, but it was the PA that refused to arrest the perpetrators, crack down on their funding, or even stop lauding the suicide bombers as "martyrs." But the US, rather than withdrawing diplomatic recognition or halting funding, instead pressed Israel to offer further and faster concessions.

Nor did this policy cease even in 2000, when the Palestinians responded to Israel's offer of a state in more than 90% of the territories with a full-blown terrorist war. Bill Clinton rewarded the terror by pressuring Israel to raise its offer yet again (to 97%, including the Temple Mount). And his successor, George W. Bush, rewarded it further by making Palestinian statehood, for the first time, an explicit US foreign policy goal.

Even today, while the Bush administration boycotts Yasser Arafat, it holds talks with PA officials who answer directly to him. The PA and PLO still have diplomatic legations in Washington, even though a major terrorist group, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, is openly affiliated with Fatah, the ruling movement in both. And Washington continues to back the PA's territorial demands through the road map, while condemning Israeli efforts to fight terror in the PA's stead.

Iraqi and Chechen terrorists both have clear political aims: The Chechens want Russia out so they can establish an Islamic dictatorship in Chechnya; the Iraqis want America out so they can establish either a Ba'athist or Islamic (there are two competing groups) dictatorship in Iraq. And in an age of global communications, neither Iraqis nor Chechens can help noticing that each new round of Palestinian terror has led to greater international pressure on Israel to accede to Palestinian demands. The conclusion is obvious: To succeed, they should adopt Palestinian tactics.

Only by proving that terrorism does not pay can the US and Russia reverse this eminently logical conclusion. And they can do this only by finally penalizing Palestinian terror rather than rewarding it. Otherwise, expect to see ever more terrorism worldwide – because that has proven to be the winning tactic.

The writer is a veteran journalist and commentator.

The Seeds of Beslan Were Sown in Ma'alot, Israel

Ehud Olmert, Wall Street Journal, 15 Sep 04

We Israelis can so readily identify with the suffering of the Russian victims in Beslan. In 1974, I watched the terrorist assault on a school in Ma'alot as Palestinian gunmen, ironically from a PLO faction funded by the Russians, infiltrated a high school and took dozens of students hostage. Before the army could free the children, the terrorists managed to kill 26 of them. The world voiced only silence, and business went on as usual. Israelis were forced to learn that our tragedies were always going to be personal affairs, and that there would be no united international response to terror. The seeds of terror planted by the Palestinians in 1974 have come to fruition in a schoolhouse in Russia 30 years on, and should be seen as Yasser Arafat's legacy.

Countries that are determined to protect their citizens and safeguard their security now understand that they can no longer remain passive in the face of evil. Either democratic states will bury the terrorists and their patrons, or they will bury us. In Israel, we have learned that you can either fight the perpetrators in their cities and villages or you can turn your own streets and schools into a war zone.

[Courtesy -- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Daily Alert, September 15, 2004]

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No other word for it but slaughter
Mark Steyn, The Australian, 06sep04

PHOTOGRAPHED from above, the body bags look empty. They seem to lie flat on the ground, and it's only when you peer closer that you realise that that's because the bodies in them are too small to fill the length of the bags. They're children. Row upon row of dead children, more than a hundred of them, 150, more, many of them shot in the back as they tried to flee.

Flee from whom? Let's take three representative responses: "Guerillas", said The New York Times. "Chechen separatists", ventured the BBC, eventually settling for "hostage-takers". "Insurgents", said The Guardian's Isabel Hilton, hyper-rational to a fault: "Today's hostage-taking," she explained, "is more savage, born of the spread of asymmetrical warfare that pits small, weak and irregular forces against powerful military machines. No insurgent lives long if he fights such overwhelming force directly . . . If insurgent bullets cannot penetrate military armour, it makes little sense to shoot in that direction. Soft targets – the unprotected, the innocent, the uninvolved – become targets because they are available."

And then there was Adam Nicolson in London's Daily Telegraph, who filed one of those ornately anguished columns full of elevated, overwritten allusions – each child was "a Pieta, the archetype of pity. Each is a Cordelia carried on at the end of Act V" – and yet in a thousand words he's too busy honing his limpid imagery to confront the fact that this foul deed had perpetrators, never mind the identity of those perpetrators.

Sorry, it won't do. I remember a couple of days after September 11 writing in some column or other that weepy candlelight vigils were a cop-out: the issue wasn't whether you were sad about the dead people but whether you wanted to do something about it. Three years on, that's still the difference. We can all get upset about dead children, but unless you're giving honest thought to what was responsible for the slaughter your tasteful elegies are no use. Nor are the hyper-rationalist theories about "asymmetrical warfare".

For one thing, Hilton is wrong: insurgent bullets can "penetrate military armour". A rabble with a few AKs and a couple of RPGs have managed to pick off a thousand men from the world's most powerful military machine and prompt 75 per cent of Hilton's colleagues in the Western media to declare Iraq a quagmire.

When your asymmetrical warfare strategy depends on gunning down schoolchildren, you're getting way more asymmetrical than you need to be. The reality is that the IRA and ETA and the ANC and any number of secessionist and nationalist movements all the way back to the American revolutionaries could have seized schoolhouses and shot all the children.

But they didn't. Because, if they had, there would have been widespread revulsion within the perpetrators' own communities. To put it at its most tactful, that doesn't seem to be an issue here.

So the particular character of this "insurgency" does not derive from the requirements of "asymmetrical warfare" but from . . . well, let's see, what was the word missing from those three analyses of the Beslan massacre? Here's a clue: half the dead "Chechen separatists" were not Chechens at all, but Arabs. And yet, tastefully tiptoeing round the subject, The New York Times couldn't bring itself to use the words Muslim or Islamist, for fear presumably of offending multicultural sensibilities.

In the 1990s, while the world's leaders slept – or in Bill Clinton's case slept around – thousands of volunteers from across the globe passed through terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and were then dispatched to Indonesia, Kosovo, Sudan . . . and Chechnya. Wealthy Saudis – including members of the royal family – invested millions in setting up mosques and madrassas in what were traditionally spheres of a more accommodationist Islam, from the Balkans to South Asia, and successfully radicalised a generation of young Muslim men. It's the jihadist component – not the asymmetrical one, not the secessionist one – that accounts for the mound of undersized corpses, for the scale of the depravity.

If the Russian children are innocent, the Russian state is not. Its ham-fisted campaign in Chechnya is as brutal as it is ineffectual. The Muslims have a better case in Chechnya than they do in the West Bank, Kashmir or any of the other troublespots where the Islamic world rubs up against the infidels. But that said, as elsewhere, whatever the theoretical merits of the cause, it's been rotted from within by the Islamist psychosis.

I wonder if, as they killed those schoolchildren, they chanted "Allahu Akbar!" – as they did when they hacked the head of Nick Berg, and killed those 12 Nepalese workers, and blew up those Israeli diners in the Passover massacre.

The good news is that the carnage in Beslan was so shocking it prompted a brief appearance by that rare bird, the moderate Muslim. Abdulrahman al-Rashed, the general manager of al-Arabiya Television, wrote a column in Asharq al-Awsat headlined, "The Painful Truth: All The World's Terrorists Are Muslims!" "Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture," he wrote. This is true. But, as with Nicolson's prettified prose in London, the question remains: So what? What are you going to do about it? If you want your religion to be more than a diseased death cult, you're going to have to take a stand.

What happened in one Russian schoolhouse is an abomination that has to be defeated, not merely regretted. But the only guys with any kind of plan are the Bush administration. Last Thursday, the President committed himself yet again to wholesale reform of the Muslim world. This is a dysfunctional region that exports its toxins, to Beslan, Bali and beyond, and is wealthy enough to be able to continue doing so.

You can't turn Saudi Arabia and Yemen into New Hampshire or Sweden (according to taste), but if you could transform them into Singapore or Papua New Guinea or Belize or just about anything else you'd be making an immense improvement. It's a long shot, but, unlike Putin's plan to bomb them Islamists into submission or Chirac's reflexive inclination to buy them off, Bush is at least tackling the "root cause".

If you've got a better idea, let's hear it. Right now, his is the only plan on the table. The ideology and rationale that drove the child-killers in Beslan is the same as that motivating cells in Rome and Manchester and Seattle and Sydney. In this war, you can't hold the line against the next depravity.

Mark Steyn is a columnist for Britain's Telegraph Group and the Chicago Sun-Times

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Cult of Death

DAVID BROOKS, New York Times, 9/7/04

We've been forced to witness the massacre of innocents. In New York, Madrid, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Baghdad and Bali, we have seen thousands of people destroyed while going about the daily activities of life.

We've been forced to endure the massacre of children. Whether it's teenagers outside an Israeli disco or students in Beslan, Russia, we've seen kids singled out as special targets.

We should by now have become used to the death cult that is thriving at the fringes of the Muslim world. This is the cult of people who are proud to declare, "You love life, but we love death." This is the cult that sent waves of defenseless children to be mowed down on the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war, that trains kindergartners to become bombs, that fetishizes deat