The Farce of the Fence
By Jonathan Eric Lewis
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July 21, 2004
With Tuesday’s United Nations General Assembly vote that
condemnedIsrael for building an anti-terrorism fence to save innocent
lives, it is finallytime for a nationwide discussion in this country
as to whether the United States wants to continue to lend any
legitimacy to the United Nations. This is, after all, an organization
that has dictatorships like Cuba and Sudan on its Human Rights
Commission and that regularly singles out the world’sonly Jewish State
for condemnation, while turning a blind eye to the persecution to
minority groups throughout the Arab world such as the Iraq’s
indigenous Assyrian Christians or Algeria’s long suffering Kabyles.
This is an organization that wants the money of American taxpayers and
yet allows the most anti-American regimes in the world to define that
amorphous farce that has become `international law.’ At a time when
the Sudanese government is committing genocide against Black Africans,
when Kurds are denied their most basic rights in Syria; when Armenians
and Azerbaijans live in a situation that could easily once again erupt
into savage violence in which Armenian civilians are targeted for the
most horrific violence, and when the Palestinian Authority is in an
anarchic state, the community of nations chooses to spend an
inordinate amount of time condemning and vilifying the only democracy
in the Middle East, a country that many in the Arab-Islamic world
would like to see obliterated by Iranian nuclear weapons.
Although General Assembly rulings are not binding and are, in the
parlance of the United Nations, `expressions of sentiment,’ the
Palestinian Authority and its supporters will use this diplomatic
farce in order to incite violence against Israelis. As Gaza begins to
look less like Egypt and more like Somalia, one would think the
Palestinians would want to use their diplomatic influence in the
United Nations in order to provide safety and security for their own
people in the face of rising crime and gangster-land violence. One
would think that the Palestinian Authority might like to explain to
Francewhy several French aid workers were recently kidnapped in
territory in which their police forces are essentially terrorist
organizations. One would think the Palestinian Authority would
realize that its position at the United Nations is more intact than
its very legitimacy among many Palestinians and act accordingly.
Not surprisingly, however, the Palestinian Authority has used its
international voice to condemn Israel and to win a propaganda war.
Islamic extremists throughout the region will laugh at the precedent
set by both the International Court of Justice and the United Nations
General Assembly, for they know that someday they too will be able to
use the `rule of law’ to prevent democratic societies from defending
their own citizens against an enemy that hides among civilians and
intends to inflict massive casualties on innocent men, women, and
children. Islamists are not concerned about tomorrow, so much as
preparing the groundwork for a long-term jihad against the West.
Sadly, the United Nations has once again helped them in their task.
Let there be no mistake about it: in its fury to condemn Israel, the
United Nations has drastically weakened the struggle against global
terrorism. For instance, if Israel is not permitted to use non-lethal
force to protect its citizens from mass murder, why should any
European state be allowed to take similar drastic, but non-lethal
measures, if and when they are faced with a campaign of nihilistic
terrorism launched from their own territory against their own
citizens? And if the General Assembly is so devoted to Palestinian
self-determination, on what grounds can they deny it to the Abkhaz or
the Karabagh Armenians?
The fact that the Palestinian Authority chose to make a mockery of
international law in order to convince the world that Israel’s
self-defense against terrorism and the protection of its Christian,
Jewish, and Muslim citizensis worse than terrorism itself belies an
important fact, namely, that outsideof their rhetoric and propaganda
meant to defame (and eventually destroy) Israel, the Palestinian
leadership has no vision of what it wants. Think of it.
Outside of the sloganeering of `Free Palestine’ and `End the
Occupation,’ have you ever heard a Palestinian official discuss his or
her vision for a Palestinian state? We have heard pro-Palestinian
propagandists label the anti-terrorism fence an `apartheid wall,’ but
we have never heard what they would do if the fence were to be taken
down. Are we to believe that, if there weren’ t a fence, the
Palestinian leadership would use their diplomatic victory to encourage
international investment into the Palestinian territories so that they
could build world-class scientific institutions or centers of
interfaith discussion?
In light of the United Nations General Assembly ruling, it is time for
all Americans of goodwill to discuss whether they want their hard
earned tax dollars to be spent for an organization that allowed Saddam
Hussein to build elaborate palaces from money meant for the Iraqi
people; that refuses to condemn China for its illegal occupation of
Tibet; that turns a blind eye to the persecution of innocent
Christians in places like Egypt and Indonesia; andthat spends hours of
time and millions of dollars to defame Israel, a country that has long
been a vital ally and friend to the United States and a state which,
unlike Egypt or Saudi Arabia, does not promote hatred of America and
Americans in its media.
It is time for all Americans to decide whether they will put their
faith in an organization that condemns Israel for building a fence to
prevent terrorism, but one that has, throughout the past several
decades, turned ablind eye to regimes that have killed Middle Eastern
Christians with impunity. Without taking a position on the resolution
of the Arab-Israeli conflict, one that will almost certainly result in
the creation of an authoritarian Palestinian state in all of Gaza and
much of the West Bank, one has to seriously consider the moral
implications of United Nations resolution that calls upon Israelto
dismantle an anti-terrorist fence, but one which does not specifically
call upon the theocrats in Iran to stop building nuclear weapons which
they hope to one day use against Israel and, if they could reach it
with their ballistic missiles, the United States.
It is this mockery of international law and common decency that will
make it that much more difficult for the United States to protect its
own citizens from religious fanatics who have no agenda aside from
killing and destroying societies that respect freedom and pluralism.
It is a sad day indeed, for we all know that the liberal-leftist
elites that dominate our universities will laud this United Nations
ruling and condemn the United States for refusingto go along with the
show. Our enemies are once again laughing, for they know they have
scored a victory against law, justice, truth, and human decency.