By Zachary S. Bennett
In Hakam Al-Samarrai’s article, “U.S. foreign policy
unfairly holds Iraq, Israel to different standards, policies”
(Viewpoint, April 15) he has outdone himself in perpetuating the
publication of poor analogies. Israel is nothing like Iraq. To
mention these two countries in the same breath is blasphemy.
Israel is a democracy ““ and the only one in the entire
Middle East. Therefore, any action it takes for its self-defense
and preservation is justified as an act taken on behalf of a voting
populace. In Israel, politicians are held to strict accountability.
An action taken by the government that is against the will of the
people is rewarded with the sometimes immediate change in
government. Is this the political process that exists in Iraq?
Saddam Hussein’s power was founded on despotism, not
democracy, and when he acts he does so out of self-interest, not
for the greater good of his people. Al-Samarrai might not have
realized that a massacre of sorts took place in northern Iraq when
Hussein murdered thousands of his own people, the Kurds. His
decision, not the decision of the populace as a whole, was what
brought Iraq to attack its neighbor Kuwait. Had the United States
and its allies not intervened, does Al-Samarrai think Hussein, who
encountered little resistance, would have stopped there? It is a
widely held notion that he would have continued into Saudi Arabia,
a country which produces two-thirds of the oil we use in the United
States. By Al-Samarrai’s logic, Israel would continue its
current military campaign into Jordan, Syria and Lebanon with the
intent of land acquisition or economic rewards. But this is highly
unlikely.
The reaction to one sovereign nation, Iraq, attacking and
holding hostage another sovereign nation, Kuwait, is an obvious
infraction of international law. Therefore, it was completely
justified for the United States and the international community to
fight back. Because Hussein’s government is in control of
much of Iraq’s infrastructure,the trade embargoes that have
severely hurt none other than Hussein himself are more than
justified. The money never got to the people before the trade
embargoes, and now there is less money available for Hussein to
support his weapons of mass destruction program. However, even with
the trade embargoes, Hussein finds enough money to support
Palestinian suicide bombers; that is $25,000 per family that could
have been spent feeding some of his own people.
Kuwait is not the West Bank. How can the two be equated? The
West Bank was an unintended acquisition gained only through a
defensive military campaign and is currently not a sovereign nation
as Kuwait is and was. Israeli control began in 1967 when every
neighboring Arab nation sought the complete destruction of the very
existence of Israel. Israel has held this land ever since.
To quote an article I recently read in the Wall Street Journal,
“occupation and partition are the bastard children of
war.” In essence, when you attack a country and lose, there
are repercussions. Just ask Russia, which still occupies parts of
the old Japanese homeland, or the British, who still won’t
give up Gibraltar to the Spanish. But despite the innate right of
Israel to hold, control, and do whatever it wants to with its
acquired territory, Israel has made attempts to give it back. In
1993 with the Oslo Accords, Israel began the gradual process of
allowing Palestinian self-rule over 90 percent of the territories.
I don’t think Iraq had any plans to give Kuwait back its
sovereignty had it not been for U.S. military intervention.
Instead of having the Palestinians ““ and more specifically
the Palestine Liberation Organization under Arafat ““
concentrate on building needed economic and political
infrastructure, Arafat has shown the world that racist rhetoric and
the continued crusade to destroy Israel is what the PLO stands for.
And so, when it pays for and organizes young “martyrs”
to strap bombs to themselves and kill as many Jews as possible, two
things become evident. First, the Palestinian cause is not about
self-determination, since it was granted that, but rather the
destruction of its Jewish democratic neighbor. Second, Israel has
every right to go back into these territories for as long as it
deems necessary to severely cripple the hotbed of terrorism that
has existed there with the encouragement, rather than the
condemnation of, the Palestinian authorities.
Where exactly are the similarities between the current events in
Israel and Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait? Please refresh my
memory for I do not seem to recall Kuwaiti nationalists blowing up
innocent men, women and children in cafes, theaters and buses in
Baghdad.
When Israel began its re-entry and short-term reoccupation of
the West Bank, it was following the words of President Bush and the
actions of the United States. Israel is fighting terrorism just as
the United States is fighting terrorism in Afghanistan. The only
difference is the manner in which the operations are conducted.
Instead of carpet-bombing and destroying entire villages and towns,
Israel is conducting the much more difficult and less destructive
house-to-house searches. Israel should thus receive credit for not
embarking on a more destructive course.
Al-Samarrai neglected to mention in his article that France is
one example of a foreign nation so blinded by anti-Semitism that it
refuses to acknowledge the right of a nation to self-defense,
especially if that country is Israel. The article carefully
tip-toes around the fact that France has strong ties to Lebanon and
Northern Africa as well as a horrendous history of anti-Semitism
within its own borders. It was reported by the French Interior
Ministry that there were 380 anti-Jewish attacks reported this
month alone. France’s opinion of Israel is thus really not
all that credible.
The correct analogy to use as the basis for an article is the
connection between America’s war on terrorism and
Israel’s fight for survival. Does one really think that
Israel wants to be back in the West Bank? Does one think it is in
Israel’s interest to finance such expensive operations and
commit thousands of Israelis to perilous missions? Wouldn’t
Israel be better off if the responsibility of stopping terrorism
was taken seriously by the Palestinian Authority?
The obvious answers to these questions, as well as the other
things Al-Samarrai chose to ignore in writing his article,
illustrate that his analogy is completely without merit.