VILLAINS OR VICTIMS?

In every conflict there is a villain and there is a victim. Which one it is depends on whose ox is being gored. In the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, it is in the eye of the beholder. The Palestinians and their supporters clearly see Israel as the villain. The Israelis and their supporters clearly see Israel as the victim of Palestinian terrorism.

The current conflict has its roots in the establishment 60 years ago of the Jewish state. Although Jews lived in what used to be known as Palestine long before Muhammad was born and have continued to live there since his birth, they are seen as European interlopers in the Muslim world.

Do the Palestinians have some legitimate grievances against Israel. Yes they do. A lot of Israeli land once belonged to the Palestinians. But it was the Arabs' attempt to prevent the birth of the Jewish state and their subsequent wars to destroy it, that is as much, if not more, responsible for the loss of Palestinian lands.

Life for the Palestinians has also been made difficult by Israel's harsh military controls in the territories captured during the 1967 war. But those harsh measures were put in place only after the Palestinians repeatedly sent suicide bombers into Israel proper to blow up cafes, nightclubs, bus stops, busses and other civilian targets.

In the context of villains or victims, the Muslim world, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia have all consistently viewed Israel as the villain and the Palestinians as the victims in every dispute between the two peoples. Israel is damned if it responds to terrorism and damned if it does not.

Those who see Israel as the villain would be well advised to look at the character of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations protesting Israel's attacks on Gaza which were held in San Francisco. The protesters carried signs which contained the following slogans in Arabic:

"Itbach al Yahud" (slaughter the Jews), "Falastin balad'na w'al Yahud qalab'na" (Palestine is our land and the Jews are our dogs), "ba ruh, ba dam, nafdeek ya Falastin" (with our soul, with our blood, we will cleanse you oh Palestine), "al mawt al Yahud" (death to the Jews), "Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud, jaish-Muhammad saya'ud" (Khaybar Khaybar oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return).

[That last slogan refers to the battle of Khaybar where the prophet Muhammad opportunistically attacked and slaughtered the Jews who had been hospitable to another Arab tribe. The subsequent sacking of Khaybar by Muhammad's forces re-energized the brigands who had flocked to his cause, and persuaded several Bedouin tribes to join Muhammad's forces in hopes of fun and profit.]

The San Francisco protesters also carried signs containing the following slogan in English: "Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea" - which states in no uncertain terms the intent of the Palestinians to destroy the Jewish state. And how did they come up with that slogan? It originated with the late Faisal Husseini, until his death the head of Mahmoud Abbas' "moderate" Fatah faction, who in 2001 told Egypt's weekly Al-Arabi that, "Our final goal is to liberate all of historical Palestine FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA."

As it happened to be, the vast majority of the protesters in San Francisco were not even Palestinians. About 80 percent were demonstrators from the Bay Area's well-established left-wing. And not surprisingly, some of those protesters were politically correct Jews.

With all the hatred against the Jewish state, what is Israel to do? Israel must look out for its security and long-term survival, the international community be damned! As George Will and other conservative commentators have noted: Land for peace does not work in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel cannot afford to return to its pre-1967 borders. That would be committing national suicide. It must maintain those parts of the West Bank which contain the permanent Israeli settlements. It must enlarge its nine-mile wide neck to keep it from being cut in half in the event of another war. It must not cede East Jerusalem to the Palestinians because that part would be a dagger pointed at the heart of Israel. For its survival, Israel must continue to have access to the headwaters of the Jordan River. And in order to keep its enemies at bay, Israel must continue to develop and maintain its nuclear weapons deterrent.

Israel has had every right to retaliate with all its might against the daily Gazan rocket barrages launched against its southern communities. But what about the timing of its attack against Gaza? It has more to do with Israeli politics than anything else. Ehud "The Idiot" Olmert, the discredited outgoing prime-minister, is trying to restore his tarnished reputation. Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister, and Ehud Barak, the defense minister, are both candidates for prime-minister in the upcoming February elections.

Livni, the Kadima party candidate, and Barack, the Labor party candidate, are hoping the attacks against Gaza will strengthen their respective candidacies at the expense of Bibi Netanyahu, the Likud party candidate, who up to now has been heavily favored to win the election.

If, in order to survive, Israel is seen by the rest of the world as the villain, so be it. That should not deter the Jewish state from dictating the terms of any peace agreement. Those, like Olmert, Livni and Barack who see Mahmoud Abbas as a trustworthy "partner in peace," disregard the Palestinian president's oft-proclaimed vows to eliminate the Jewish state from the map of the world.

Abbas speaks with a forked tongue. When speaking in English to American and European audiences, Abbas says he wants two states, Palestine and Israel, existing peacefully side by side. But whenever he speaks in Arabic to the Palestinians and other Jew-hating Arabs, that is a far cry from what he says. Time after time Abbas has made it clear in Arabic that there can be only one state, and that state is Palestine.

Little known is the fact that Abbas literally earned a doctorate in Holocaust denial. His doctoral thesis became a book, "The Other Side: the Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism," in which he denounces "the Zionist fantasy, the fantastic lie that 6 million Jews were killed." With his "one state" proclamations in Arabic and his denial of the Holocaust, how can any Israelis in their right mind trust Abbas as a partner in peace?

Of the three candidates, Bibi Netanyahu is the only one who is resolute enough to withstand the pressure from the United Nations, the European Union and Russia for Israel to commit national suicide by giving the Palestinians "land for peace" - land that the Jewish state will need to defend itself in the event of another all out war. I hope the Isarelis will have the good sense to elect Bibi as their next prime minister.