                      A Voice from Hebron
                              by 
                       Gary M. Cooperberg
                                
                  . . . And the Peace goes On
                         July 10, 1998

     Every morning, before dawn, I still drive down to pray at the Cave of Machpela from my
home in Kiryat Arba.  Never have I had any problems on this short drive.  In the days before we
made peace with Arafat, there were other roads upon which we could go to Machpela as well. 
But now those roads are deemed  too dangerous.

     Last Wednesday night a Jewish passenger car was driving on this same road, from
Machpela to Kiryat Arba and was fired upon.  It may well be that the weapon used to try and
murder Jewish civilians was one given to the PLO by our own government!  It was nothing less
than a miracle that neither of the two people in the car was injured, let alone murdered.  

     While last week much fuss was made about Jewish vandalism in Hebron, this act of
ambush and attempted murder hardly was noticed by the press.  Once again, Jews are fired upon
with murderous intent, and, since no one was hurt, another act of terror is ignored and the peace
goes on.
     
     Our brilliant Prime Minister really thought that he could take a suicidal blunder, called
Oslo, and reshape it into a tool for peace.  Today he is beginning to see that his concept of
"reciprocity" might sound nice, but cannot realistically be implemented.  It is strange to hear, on
the one hand, that the PLO is smuggling in illegal weapons from Egypt and Jordan, and has
already amassed huge stockpiles of these weapons.  Yet, on the other hand, not only does Israel
fail to confiscate the illegal weapons from the PLO, but feels the need to honor a prior
commitment to give them yet more weapons!

     Last night, on Israeli television, chief architect of the Oslo disaster, former PM Shimon
Peres, was given an "interview" during which he had free reign to vent his displeasure with the
current Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.  Clearly Peres has not forgiven Netanyahu for
defeating him in the election.  While it may be legitimate for political rivals to express differences
of opinion, the expressions of Shimon Peres on Israel television were nothing less than
treasonous.

     Peres, as a former Prime Minister, still has an obligation to concern himself with the well
being of the Jewish State.  Instead he used his stature, not only to demean the current Prime
Minister, but to actually sabotage the current peace negotiations in favor of the PLO!   Peres
declared that all of Netanyahu's demands are unreasonable.  There is no need to demand that the
PLO covenant be revised, in that Arafat assured him that he now approves of our right to exist. 
There is no need to demand that Arab murderers be extradited to Israel for two reasons: First it is
acceptable for the PLO to punish the murderers; and secondly, should we demand the extradition
of Arab murderers, then the PLO would have the right to extradite Jewish murderers.  And, as for
weapons, it is well known that weapons don't kill. . . people kill.  Thus if we make peace it won't
make any difference how many weapons the PLO has.

     Were Peres merely an insignificant babbling idiot, perhaps these remarks would be
laughable.  But, as former Prime Minister of Israel, they are taken quite seriously by the American
government which now feels quite justified in backing up Shimon's brilliant remarks.  Thus we
have heard that Albright is already telling our prime minister that he should drop his demands and
just go ahead and abandon more Jewish land to the PLO. . . for nothing.

     While Peres is off in his dream world, declaring a peace which has no relevance to reality,
our enemies are laughing at us.   Netanyahu, who really expected to redeem Oslo by making a bad
deal better, finds himself stuck in the mud.  He has effectively alienated himself from nearly
everyone and redeemed nothing.  A true leader knows that he cannot please everyone.  He was
not elected to please everyone.  He was elected to make difficult decisions which might not please
everyone.   A true leader sticks with his decisions for the good of the nation and is not afraid
where it may lead him personally.  

     When you have a Weitzman who demands that we surrender to Arafat, and then you have
a Peres who demands that we surrender to Arafat, and even a defense minister who acts as the
terrorist spokesman for Arafat, then, a real Jewish leader would stand up and shout, "NO".  Not
only should we stop our surrender to Arafat, it is high time that we act upon his blatant violations
of signed agreements and unilaterally throw him and his PLO out of our country for good.  That is
the only way for a self respecting country to act.

     All of those things which we are afraid will happen should we dare stand up for our
principles, such as alienating our new peace partners; risking a terrible war; endangering our
friendly relationship with the United States; angering the leaders of the European nations; are
already happening, and will continue unless we back down to every suicidal demand made of us,
in which case we would only be destroying ourselves.   The only rational stance to take is one of
Jewish pride.  While our enemies may hate us all the more for standing up to them.  They will also
respect us all the more for the same reason.  

     The issue is not one of changing the hate covenant of the PLO.  Even if they do change it
on paper the hate remains in their hearts.  What all of our leaders fail to understand is that you
cannot negotiate with terrorists.  Either you destroy them, or they will destroy you.  There is no
other choice.  It is merely a matter of time until even the most self effacing leftist realizes this fact. 
The problem is that the longer it takes for us to see this reality, the more we weaken ourselves
and strengthen our enemies.  And the more the peace goes on the more devastating the coming
war will be.