The world -- or at least the large part of it that hates Israel and wishes it would go away -- moves a step nearer that goal this week when the United Nations votes on whether to recognize a Palestinian state. The vote violates the Declaration of Principles signed by the PLO in 1993, which committed the terrorist group and precursor to the Palestinian Authority to direct negotiations with Israel over a future state. This violation is further evidence the Palestinian side cannot be trusted to live up to signed agreements and promises. Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick rightly calls the prospective UN vote "diplomatic aggression."
Israel -- like the Jewish people for centuries -- has become the fall guy for people who prefer their anti-Semitism cloaked in diplomatic niceties. The Palestinians could have peace any time they wish and probably a state, too, if they acknowledged Israel's right to exist and practiced verbal, religious and military disarmament. One has a right to question the veracity of a people who claim they want peace, while remaining active in ideological, theological and military warfare aimed at its publicly stated objective: the eradication of the Jewish state.
The United States has pledged to veto the Palestinian Authority's membership application if it comes before the U.N. Security Council, but the General Assembly is another matter. There only a majority vote would be needed to grant the Palestinian government permanent observer status. From that point forward it would be death by a thousand diplomatic cuts until Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad finally decides to fulfill his own prophecy and drop a nuclear bomb on Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Following that horror, European and American diplomats will wring their hands and say it would not have happened had Israel been more "flexible" and ceded additional territory.
Before Israel is allowed to disappear again (as Palestinian maps and school textbooks already depict) and the Jews who survive are sent into exile (who would take them?), it is worth noting a few of the numerous contributions Israel has made to the world, compared to what the Arab-Muslim-Palestinian culture has contributed.
This tiny land with less than 1/1,000th of the world's population, has produced innovative scientists that have contributed to cellphone, computer and medical technology, including the development of "a disposable colonoscopic camera that makes most of the discomfort surrounding colonoscopies obsolete," discovery of "the molecular trigger that causes psoriasis," as well as "the first large-scale solar power plant -- now working in California's Mojave Desert." Read about many more Israeli contributions to the world at http://www.israel21c.org/didyouknow/didyouknow.
These innovations, and many others, took place while Israel was engaged in wars, suffering terrorist attacks from enemies who seek its destruction and spending more per capita on its defense than any other country.
If Israel were to be made even more vulnerable and possibly eradicated by unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, the moral stain on the West would be a "mark of Cain" for generations to come. What other nation, what other people, would the so-called "civilized" world allow to be targeted for annihilation like Israel has been?
Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will come to the UN to deliver a speech on the same day Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to give his speech calling for the body to support Palestinian statehood. "The General Assembly is not a place where Israel usually receives a fair hearing," Netanyahu said last week, "but I still decided to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it."
The UN can't handle the truth and few member states will like hearing it. The blood of the Jewish people will be on their hands if they continue to empower individuals and nations whose goal is to create Holocaust II and a "Palestine" without Jews.
(Direct all MAIL for Cal Thomas to: Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, N.Y. 14207. Readers may also e-mail Cal Thomas at tmseditors@tribune.com.
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