Reading the Writing on The Wall

I have a childhood memory of my grandmother in her small Brooklyn apartment crying while holding a faded picture of her huge, beautiful, Hungarian-Jewish family, who, with the exception of one other sibling, perished in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. One of my aunts, who had the sensitivity of a sledge hammer, yelled at her, “Oh momma, stop it. It was their own fault…they should have read the writing on the wall.”

My seven year old psyche recoiled at the coarseness of those words.  Yet, this had an indelible effect on me. I realized at a very tender age that the enemies of our people mean business and that we have a responsibility to take what they say at face value.

That is why I have often been shocked by the ability of many policy makers and pundits on both sides of the Atlantic to overlook, rationalize, minimize and spin the clear words of those who speak and write about their plan to destroy the people of Israel.

An extraordinary example of this bright flashing red light is today’s perfectly clear statement made by none other than Nabal Shaath, the Palestinian Authority’s Head of Foreign Relations. His chilling words were broadcast during an interview on Lebanese ABN television and aired on July 11, 2011. They were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, (MEMRI) and posted Monday, July 25th for everyone to read.

I plead with you, if you read any one thing this summer, please read Nabal Shaath’s speech pasted below in its entirety. It speaks for itself.

Here is what Nabal Shaath said in his own words. I am putting his last statement first, because it is the most important one to read:

[The new French UN peace initiative has] reshaped the issue of the “Jewish state” into a formula that is also unacceptable to us – two states for two peoples. They can describe Israel itself as a state for two peoples, but we will be a state for one people. The story of “two states for two peoples” means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this – not as part of the French initiative and not as part of the American initiative. We will not sacrifice the 1.5 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who live within the 1948 borders, and we will never agree to a clause preventing the Palestinian refugees from returning to their country. We will not accept this, whether the initiative is French, American, or Czechoslovakian.

The recognition of a [Palestinian] state is basically a bilateral action, which receives the blessing of the UN. This act, however, will make many things possible in the future. Eventually, we will be able to sign bilateral agreements with states and this will enable us to exert pressure on Israel. At the end of the day, we want to exert pressure on Israel in order to force it to recognize us and to leave our country. This is our long-term goal.

In my view, it will be difficult for a Black president facing a white majority to exercise his right of veto [at the UN over Palestinian statehood] in order to defend his political platform on health, security, economy, and so on. President Obama will not make his presence felt in the coming 14 months.

Even though it is embroiled in domestic politics, the U.S. does not want to reach the point where it does not play the main role in the Middle East. But in practical terms, the U.S. does not play a role anymore in the Middle East, although it does not want to acknowledge or accept this.

What was the role of the U.S. in the “Arab Spring?” In the three weeks of the Egyptian [revolution], Obama changed his position six times. He is constantly reacting to events rather than generating them. What role does the U.S. play in Lebanon and Syria? What the role does the U.S. play in Iran? Do you even read about Iran in the newspapers? Nobody talks about Iran. They want to get out of Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama’s problem is that he is being criticized by the Republicans for leaving so fast. With regard to Libya, he is trying not to get involved, but he is being criticized even for sending drones. The U.S. has no real presence.

That last statement clearly indicates that, to the Palestinians, the United States under President Obama has become a laughing stock, an irrelevancy, in the Arab world.  And as proof, Shaath highlights the fact that Iran, the most dangerous, maniacal brutal–not to mention genocidal– dictatorship in the region is being ignored by both the Obama administration and the American public. So much for our president’s “leadership from behind.”

Any person with integrity and intellectual honesty, reading this public pronouncement of Nabal Shaath, knows that it will be suicidal for Israel to give away critical land — the very land that provides the state with the strategic depth necessary to protect its people from the clearly articulated goal of elimination sought by Nebal Shaath and the Palestine Authority.  Protecting its people is clearly the most critical responsibility of any government — and the government of Israel is no exception.

Let it not be said in the next generation — that today’s generation refused to “wake up and read the writing on the wall.”