Edna Yaghi’s Column
Cal Thomas is supposedly one of the fastest rising “stars” of conservative commentary on politics, values and ethics in America according to Townhall.com Columnists. But if his way of handling the Palestinian conflict is an indication of how he thinks, he has no values and certainly no ethics and he has probably made his way up to the top by stepping over the dead bodies of his enemies.
It is not enough that Thomas completely ignores the plight of the Palestinian people. He calls Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and his “cohorts” terrorists and goes on to say in his article in the Jewish World Review, that the PA attempts to disguise terror with words of peace while inciting the Palestinian people to hatred and violence.
It seems that Thomas has a different concept of what terror really is. Apparently he has not had Israeli tanks positioned right in front of his home. He has not been shelled by air, land and sea. He has not been bombed by F-16 Israeli Jets made in America. He has not had his water supply cut off, his sewer is still working, and he is able to get all the food and medical care he needs. His children are free to go to school without fear of being shot dead by an Israeli sniper and he is not cut off from his fellow Americans by medieval trenches dug around his house. He is not under siege on his own land by an alien force and by intruders who just decided that what is his is theirs instead.
He makes the Palestinians look ungrateful for not accepting former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s generous offer that met 95% of Arafat’s demands when in essence, Barak failed to give the Palestinians control of less than 8% of their own land.
The only “violence” that Thomas talks about is Palestinian. The war that Sharon has been waging on the Palestinian people has no definition except one of restraint and patience for Palestinian intransigence according to Thomas.
Thomas has a solution to Palestinian freedom fighters who are struggling for their independence from the Jewish invaders who continue to confiscate Palestinian land, to pollute the environment and to uproot trees, destroy fertile land, and kill and maim Palestinian civilians. The solution of this ethical and moral American, who is a Zionist in disguise, is for Israel to declare war on the Palestinians. This war should be “relentless”. It is to be a war of attrition until “Arafat has had enough and takes concrete, irreversible steps to stop the violence.”
But the thought of Israel waging an all out war against unarmed Palestinian civilians is not enough for Thomas. He has a better idea. He claims that Israel cannot tolerate a “huge Arab population within its borders, so a political decision must be made.”
His solution is to either exterminate the Palestinians or expel them from Palestine completely. In this way, Israel would have security from the restless natives that simply refuse to lie down and let the Israelis kill them off without resistance.
As he continues to rant in his article, Thomas tries to make the Palestinian people look like they are a state, with borders of their own, that they have an army and weapons at their disposal. Not only this, he tries to give the impression that wherever they go, the Palestinians make trouble for their host countries. He fails to mention that it is the Palestinians who through their hard work and sweat built up every Arab country they entered and that they are the elite of the Arab nation. If it were not for the Palestinians, Jordan would still be a desert nomadic country almost devoid of life and any kind of stable existence. It was because of the influx of Palestinian refugees in 1948 and 1967 that Jordan became a county of bustling activity and it was through the Palestinian refugees that the government was able to steal the funds meant for the refugees and line their own pockets with billions of dollars.
Palestinians have helped build every country they entered. For more than 30 years, they supplied the teachers and professors and the elite professional work force to the Bedouin countries they went to. Had it not been for the discovery of oil, these Bedouins would still be impoverished, barefoot, and living in their primitive clay structures or tents. The Palestinians are a people of culture and intellect. They are an informed people who seek justice and freedom wherever they go. They make the best and most conscientious workers in their host countries.
When some Palestinians vocally supported Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, they did so because they were convinced that he was on their side. They did not betray the Kuwaitis. They did not betray the Saudis. But because Arafat sided with Saddam during the Gulf War, the Palestinians were punished by the Kuwaitis and Saudis regardless of their personal feelings about the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Many Palestinians were killed in Kuwait simply because they were Palestinian. Many more were tortured and imprisoned.
But because the Palestinians have suffered and been the victims of the persecution of various Arab regimes, this does not mean that they are collectively bad and should be collectively punished. Had the invading Jews not taken away their land and slaughtered them, they would not have become refugees in the first place. Of course, this is a fact that Thomas so conveniently ignores.
What Thomas should really question is why is it considered ethical if a Jew from Europe, Russia or America settles on Palestinian land and takes Palestinian rights away from the indigenous inhabitants? Why can a Jew from no matter where, have the right to live in Palestine while a Palestinian is evicted from his own land or killed because he is Palestinian? Why can’t Palestinians even buy back the land that the Israelis have stolen from them?
Why doesn’t Thomas ridicule Sharon’s hypocrisy when he pretends to be the victim of his own brutality and when he pretends to be a sincere partner for peace?
Why doesn’t Thomas search his own soul and demand that the Palestinians be given an autonomous state of their own and that the Israelis cease their brutal aggression against innocent children?
Since he is unable to see what is fair and right, since he preaches his own version of bigotry and hatred why not expel Thomas to an African country or simply exterminate him? After all, doesn’t he endorse terrorism in its greatest form which is war? What is good for the goose is definitely good for the gander and Thomas is nothing more than a gander who promotes his own coalition of terror.
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