                      A Voice from Hebron
                     by Gary M. Cooperberg
                                
                      War Now or War Later?
                       September 3, 1996
                                
     There are times when I am reading a newspaper, listening to the news on the radio, or
watching it on television when I just have to stop and wonder whether or not my senses are deceiving
me.  Are the things that I am reading, hearing and actually seeing really happening?  
     People and periodicals, which, by some strange happenstance of inertia, are still referred to
as "right wing", concern themselves with such important matters as, "Is Arafat living up to his signed
agreements?"
     Was it really so long ago that everyone in the world, not to mention in Israel, knew what
Arafat is?  What specter of black magic has descended upon us to blind us to truth?  Our so called
leaders tell us that they want "peace".  They have decided to sit with the devil and agreed to
compromise on our eternal inheritance in the futile hope that such self-denigration will lead us to a
blissful state of peace and that all of our enemies will come to love us.  Fire will sooner make peace
with water, before any Arab nation will accept the legitimacy of an Israel of any dimension in the
Middle East.  Don't tell me that Egypt and Jordan have already done so.  They have not.  They have
simply learned, the hard way, that Israel can more easily be defeated by feigning peace with her than
by openly attacking her.  And they are right.  For the open lie spoken by the most despicable villain
of our generation, Yaser Arafat, murderer of Jewish women and children, the Jewish State has already
cut off her own limbs!  "Tell us what you want for peace and we will give it to you."  If we would
but listen carefully we would hear the reply.  "All we want is everything you have."  
     We Jews are great business men.  We know that the first offer made is just the beginning of
a bargain.  Surely the price will come down after negotiations.  We cannot believe that our wonderful
Arab "peace" partners really mean what they say.  So we begin bargaining with them.  Gaza and
Jericho.  That is not enough?   How about Bethlehem and Ramallah?   Not enough?  Okay we will
throw in Shechem and part of Hebron as well.  
     What happened to the great business men?   We have already given away some of our very
best merchandize and are no closer to peace than we were before.  On the contrary.  Now we have
our very worst enemy planted firmly upon Jewish soil and armed to the teeth.  Our bargaining
position is weaker than ever and we have precious little left to bargain over.  We protest against the
idea of compromising on Jerusalem, even as Arafat insists that all he wants is East Jerusalem.  
     Binyamin Netanyahu ran against Shimon Peres with the complaint that he was holding hands
with Arafat.  Today all of the local Israeli media are expecting an imminent meeting between our new
right wing prime minister and the terrorist hoodlum.  He has no choice.  He must honor our
commitments.  We must continue to pursue peace.
     All we are pursuing is our own tail.  We are getting no place and merely prolonging our own
agony.  We have set the stage, not for peace, but for an all out war the likes of which this country has
never dreamed of in its worst nightmare.  The only thing preventing our enemies from attacking us
in the past was our position of strength.  We have embarked upon a path which sees us deliberately
weakening ourselves.  All we are doing is whetting the appetites of the wolves who seek to devour
us.  Of course the Arabs have learned to talk of peace.  By so doing the Jewish State is willingly
placing itself in the self-destruct mode.  It is not peace that our enemies seek.  They cannot even make
peace among themselves.  Where did we ever get the idea that they will be willing to make peace with
their worst enemy? 
     If we would but open our eyes and accept the reality of Jewish return and resurrection of our
ancient homeland as fulfillment of Divine prophesy, we would never dare to attempt to undo the
miracles.  We would never consider abandoning one grain of sand on the Gaza beach to any foreign
entity, even a noble and genuine peace-loving one, because we have no right to abandon it.  It is the
eternal inheritance of the Jewish People as promised by G-d to our Father, Abraham.
     Had our founding fathers taken this position, and made it clear to our neighbors that they are
welcome to live here peacefully as resident aliens, with no hope of participating in Jewish sovereignty,
we would never have had the kind of problem we face today.  We even could have lived together with
Arabs who chose to accept our conditions.  Today, given the idiotic policies espoused by our various
governments, cynically offering equality to Israeli Arabs (sic), and culminating with our elevation of
Arafat as president of "palestine", there is no hope of ever living together peacefully with Arabs.
     Today we have gone beyond the point of no return.  We have abandoned Jewish land to the
PLO.  We have permitted them to fly their flag over Jewish soil.  We have set the stage which gives
us only two choices: to surrender Israel to the PLO or to remove our Arab enemies from Jewish soil. 
The only question remaining is how long it will take our leaders to discover this fact.  The longer it
takes, the more bloody and devastating will be the war.  Why isn't anyone screaming out the truth. 
Can't we see that the emperor is truly naked?