First came Foreign Minister Shimon Peres's lone defense of Terje Roed-Larsen, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process who last week insinuated that Israel committed war crimes in the UN-managed Jenin refugee camp. He stated, among other things, that "Israel has lost all moral ground in this conflict."

Then came the Makor Rishon newspaper's revelation that, in 1999, the Shimon Peres Center for Peace gave Larsen and his wife, Norwegian Ambassador Mona Juul, an unprecedented cash payment of $100,000.

Larsen sits on the board of governors of the Peres Center. Then, too, the Norwegian government is one of the chief contributors to the multimillion dollar enterprise.

Peres strenuously denied charges whispered by high-ranking members of his own Labor Party, and made public by investigative journalist Yoav Yitzhak on Channel 1 on Tuesday, that the payment to Larsen and Juul was a kickback for their intervention on his behalf with the Nobel Committee in 1994. In this, he must be given the benefit of the doubt.

But it strains the imagination that the fact that Larsen sits on his center's board of governors and his wife represents one of the center's main donors had no impact whatsoever in Peres's unabashed defense of Larsen after he libeled Israel in front of the international community, and did so hours before the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a fact-finding mission about the battle in Jenin.

Just hours after the cabinet meeting at which Attorney-General Elyakim Rubinstein said Larsen's mendacious remarks were cause for declaring him persona non grata, Peres released a statement rejecting the "horrible calls to declare Larsen persona non grata."

"A procedure like this," he added, "would do injustice to a man who has made a special contribution toward peace in our region for years."

Looking over the Peres Center's Web site, one is hard-pressed to understand what the center, whose 1998 budget was almost NIS 30 million, actually does. Its project descriptions, which mainly describe actions the center "promotes" or intends to carry out, have not been updated since the Oslo process disintegrated at Camp David and the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel began.

According to an independent audit conducted for the registrar of non-profit organizations by accountant Boaz Gazit in March 2001, the center's largest outlay is salaries, of which the directors receive a disproportionately large share.

The auditor's report pointed out that in 1997, the center's 35 employees received a total of NIS 2,312,688 in salary payments and that five of the employees received 78 percent of the total amount. In 1998, the center expanded its workforce to 63 and paid close to NIS 5 million in salaries, of which the top eight salaries constituted 54 percent of the total.

In addition to payment of employees, the Peres Center apparently also knows how to throw a good party. A three-day meeting of its full board of governors in 1999 cost NIS 2,328,990. Outlays included footing the bill for the travel and lodging expenses of all board members.

One of the members of the board is Andrei Azulay, president of the Marc Rich Foundation in Israel. The auditor's reports states that "one of the most prominent contributors to the center since its inception is Marc Rich." According to press reports at the time, Andrei Azulay was the main lobbying force for then US president Bill Clinton's 11th-hour pardon of Rich, a fugitive from justice. Peres was one of many Israeli personalities who sent letters to Clinton beseeching him to pardon Rich in the closing months of his presidency.

One cannot help but notice the strong stench of influence-peddling that rises from Peres's defense of both Larsen and Rich, given their intimate connections with his center. But these examples are not isolated. According to the Peres Center's Web site, among the many projects it promotes, one that actually received funding ($63 million) was the "Peace Technology Fund."

The fund's aim, according to the site, is "making equity investments in Palestinian companies and joint ventures." The two Palestinian companies that were invested in by the fund, are "Paltel - the Palestinian telephone operating company - and the Palestinian Mortgage Housing Corporation."

Both of these concerns are infected root and branch by Palestinian Authority corruption.

Muhammad Rashid, Arafat's economic adviser, is vice president and one of the principle stockholders in Paltel.

In an investigative report from December 1998, The Financial Times reported that Rashid and Paltel were deeply involved in stealing the $160 million Gaza Employees Pension Fund, which was transferred to the PA by Israel in 1994 and emptied of its funds by Rashid between early 1996 and late 1997. Freih Abu Medein, the PA's justice minister told the paper at the time the money had been invested in telecommunications projects.

The Palestinian Mortgage Housing Corporation was involved in scandal in 1998, when the EU discovered that $20 million it had donated for the construction of low-cost housing in Gaza had been used instead to build luxury apartments for wealthy supporters of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.

So not only does the Peres Center reward its managers and European friends, it also serves to legitimate PA corruption committed by Arafat's men, who steal money from their own impoverished people. But this should come as no surprise.

Former Shin Bet officer Yossi Ginossar, Rashid's partner in his various business dealings and behind-the-scenes go-between with Arafat for Labor prime ministers, also sits on the board of directors of the Peres Center.

Ginossar is himself so intimately involved in the business end of the PA that when Ehud Barak brought him in as a pinch hitter at the Camp David summit, press reports at the time described the participants joking that they didn't know whether he was there to represent Israel or Arafat.

The single largest contributor to Arafat's PA since its inception is the EU. Still today, as the evidence has become overwhelming that the PA is a terrorist entity from head to toe, the EU insists on continuing its financial support. Just last month the EU announced it was donating another 340 million euros to the PA. This week, the Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee, the body responsible for coordinating aid to the PA is meeting in Oslo to put together a new financing package.

The EU also is a major financial backer of Yossi Beilin's Economic Cooperation Foundation. In addition, it funds organizations like Rabbis for Human Rights, which recently participated in organizing delegations of foreign activists who were brought here to stand in front of IDF tanks and attempt to force their way through IDF roadblocks.

Aside from the realpolitik justification for such meddling in Israel's internal politics - that such organizations, through their work provide a source of influence and a launching pad for increased EU power in the Levant - the revelation that the Peres Center paid Larsen and Juul $100,000 provides a fiduciary interest as well.

Simply put, keeping Oslo alive is good business.

The victims of all of this inbreeding are, of course, the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. On the Israeli side, having Shimon Peres wearing the twin hats of life force behind the Peres Center enterprise and foreign minister represents an inherent conflict of interest with potentially serious repercussions for the conduct of foreign policy.

On the Palestinian side, the continuation of Arafat's mafia-style reign suffocates any prospect for economic growth and development and, of course, destroys any possibility of political settlement.
 

A few months ago, a senior governmental source said to me, "If you want to understand why Israel isn't fighting Arafat, follow the money." Well here you have it.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post

On Remembrance Day, members of the reserve infantry company that lost 13 men last Tuesday were given a day's furlough from combat to visit the families of their fallen comrades.

Outside the home of their dead company commander, Maj. Oded Golomb, they spoke to reporters of their friends' heroism. Capt. Ya'acov Azulay, for instance, died after running into battle to save the soldiers who were struck down in the initial ambush. Azulay, a policeman in civilian life, was wearing his blue bullet-proof vest from his day job on top of his olive drab uniform.

"At first we couldn't figure out who the guy with the blue vest was. But he yelled out he was going to save them. Then 15 minutes later, we saw the blue vest again, as his body was evacuated on a stretcher," one of his comrades said."It's really amazing," said another. "All of us are just regular people in civilian life, family men who work for a living, but the heroism we saw there was just incredible, unthinking, running in under constant heavy fire to save our wounded. It was unbelievable."

Where does this reserve of resilience and strength come from? Israel is after all, fighting for its life in a war against terrorism that the world is hell bent against allowing us to wage, let alone win. The answer, is that Israelis today know the truth about ourselves and that truth, quite simply, is that Israel is a great nation.

A poll conducted by Market Watch for the Independence Day Ma'ariv provides a stunning picture of Israeli society in the midst of war. While 469 Israelis have been murdered and more than 3,000 wounded over the past 18 months, 73 percent of Israelis are hopeful about the future of the country. Even as 61% of Israelis fear for the existence of the state, 83% of Israelis prefer life here to life in any other country.

We see this patriotism in our army, where manpower officers are reporting a 130% mobilization rate of reservists - 100% of the reservists called up for service reported for duty along with thousands of volunteers.

And it is not simply a matter of duty; it's a matter of decency. The reservists, who risk their lives to protect Palestinian civilians from the terrorists who exploit them as human shields, also treat them with humility.

In Tulkarm, a group of reservists that needed to break down the wall of a Palestinian home took up a collection among themselves when they finished fighting - NIS 1,500 in total - and gave it to the family to pay for the damage.

In Bethlehem, another group of reservists gave a Palestinian family NIS 2,000 they raised among themselves after seizing three rooms in their home for 48 hours. Reservists who seized homes in Bethlehem and Ramallah insisted on mopping the floors before departing. Hundreds of reservists have added candy to their regular gear. They hand out the chocolate bars to Palestinian children to try to ease their anxiety.

When last week a priest at the Church of the Nativity, held hostage by terrorists, emerged from the church to speak on his captors' behalf to the IDF troops, he was greeted by a soldier who dug into his pockets and pulled out an apple and a bottle of mineral water which he offered to the beleaguered clergyman.

While having such men forming the backbone of the IDF is a source of pride, it becomes a wellspring of strength and endurance when placed in the context of the forces arrayed against us today. Perhaps again, the contrast was most starkly described by the same company of reservists that lost 13 men in 25 minutes of fighting in Jenin last week. One of the men described his shell shock, "We went to the kibbutz for our commander's funeral late that evening, and I remember standing outside a house on the kibbutz and feeling frightened a sniper would start shooting at us from the window. We were just a half an hour from Jenin, and yet it is a completely different world. There, we were fired at from every window from every house. Here, a window is a window."

As Foreign Minister Shimon Peres described the scene in the Jenin refugee camp, "There wasn't a house that wasn't booby-trapped, and there was no way to neutralize the danger without demolishing the structures. We also encountered booby-trapped men, Palestinians who raised their hands to surrender while wearing explosive vests, in an attempt to detonate themselves among our soldiers."

The international community has pilloried us with accusations of a "massacre" in Jenin and charged us with human rights abuses for destroying houses. Division commander Brig.-Gen. Eyal Shlein angrily denied those allegations earlier this week, pointing out the difference between the IDF and the Palestinian terrorists. "There was no massacre whatsoever. If we wanted to commit a massacre, we could have taken over the camp in one day. The IDF did not use artillery or aircraft."As for the house demolitions, Shlein was emphatic. "A balanced person does not booby-trap his house with the intent to return to it."

In a swipe at the Palestinian propaganda machine and the international press corps that parrots its claims without comment, Shlein said, "We intend to demolish the booby-trapped buildings, because after we get everyone out, they will accuse us of leaving booby-trapped houses."

The saying goes, "A man is known by the company he keeps," and the same is no less true of nations. Israelis today scan the international community and note the difference between our supporters and our adversaries. On the adversaries side, we have European and Arab governments who brazenly threaten us with sanctions and war. We have Kofi Annan and the UN that threaten us with international troops who will come in to stop "Israeli aggression" against innocent Palestinians; and we have urban terrorists in European cities who attack Jews, destroy Jewish property, and call for our collective destruction.

On the friends side, we have the American people and Diaspora Jewry. Israelis note that while Secretary of State Powell may have been taken in by the EU, the UN, and the Saudis - the same forces doing everything in their power to scuttle the US war on terrorism - the American people are far from fooled.

We saw with gratitude and appreciation that at the mass rally in support of Israel in Washington on Monday, members of Congress from both parties, leading Christians, and African Americans stood shoulder-to-shoulder with American Jews in declaring their support of Israel and in explaining to Powell and his associates that there is no difference between Yasser Arafat and Osama bin Laden.

We saw that under a week after the call was put out for the rally, over 100,000 Jews, from all over the US descended on Washington, where they stood for hours in the blistering sun to show their commitment to Israel.

We saw last week that a third of France's brave and anxious Jewish community, which has suffered from an average of a dozen daily attacks since Easter and more than 400 attacks in the last year, rallied virtually alone in the streets of Paris in support of Israel.

The architects of the Oslo process promised us we were standing at the precipice of a new world order. But the terrorism and anti-Semitism, and the blind hatred that fertilizes them both, have proven the old order is still the order of the day. Although most of us would have been happier if the utopia Oslo promised had materialized, there is comfort and relief in knowing the truth.

The utopians, who promised us everlasting peace and universal brotherhood in exchange for signing our land away to a terrorist, told us it was by appeasing our enemies that Israel would fulfill its mission as "a light to the nations." Today, as we return to the old world order, where we are hated because our enemies like to hate us, the internal strength denied us in a decade of self-abnegation has returned.

We look at ourselves in the mirror, and we like what we see. We look at our friends, and we respect them for who they are. We look at our enemies and understand their hatred for what it is - an expression of their moral failure.

Today, we understand that being a light to the nations means setting an example of loyalty to our traditions of valor and simple human decency, with the hope that others will follow, and not attempting to appease murderers and begging for acceptance.

Given this state of affairs, it is not surprising that 83% of Israelis wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

In his address to the Knesset earlier this week, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon laid the groundwork for a possible indictment of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat for war crimes. Let's review the evidence to help US Secretary of State Colin Powell prepare for his meeting with Arafat tomorrow.

Sharon read from two documents confiscated from Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah during IDF operations. The first document, dated January 7, 2002, is a request from Raed Karmi, then head of Fatah-Tanzim in the Tulkarm area, addressed to his chief, Marwan Barghouti, asking for financial assistance for 12 Fatah terrorists serving under his command. Barghouti forwarded the letter to Arafat, with a note, "I request of you to order the allocation of $1,000 for each of the fighter brethren."

At the bottom of the document is a handwritten note signed by Arafat, "Please allocate $350 to each."

The second document, dated September 19, 2001, is a letter to Arafat from senior Fatah leader in the West Bank Hussein al-Sheikh requesting Karmi, Ziad Muhammad Daas, and Amar Qadan receive payments of $2,500 apiece.

Daas is the commander of the Fatah-Tanzim cell which carried out the massacre at Nina Kardashov's bat mitzva party in Hadera this past January, and Amar Qadan is a senior terrorist operative from Force 17 in Ramallah.

At the bottom of the document is a note in Arafat's handwriting over his signature to "Treasury/Ramallah" with the instruction to "allocate $600 to each of them."

A third document confiscated by the IDF, which Sharon refrained from mentioning, is an undated status report regarding Fatah terrorist cells in Tulkarm, and it is nothing less than devastating to anyone wishing to claim the Palestinian Authority is anything other than a terrorist organization.

The document is addressed to Tawfik Tirawi, commander of the General Intelligence Service in the northern West Bank, and written by Hamdi al-Darduch, its Tulkarm district commander.

Praising Ziad Daas and his men, Darduch writes, "This squad has carried out high quality, successful attacks. Their latest operation was the coordination and planning of the operation in Hadera. [That is, the murder of six Israelis at the bat mitzva party.] This squad is the most disciplined, and its men... are very close to us and are continuously coordinated and in contact with us."

At the outset of the document, Darduch explained that three of the M-16 rifles possessed by Fatah-Tanzim gunmen in his district were financed by Tanzim "as well as through donations and financial assistance from the Honorable President [Arafat]." Toward the end of his report, Darduch, bemoans the rivalries among the various terrorist cells and between them and the General Intelligence Directorate, complaining that all the infighting is taking place "at the time when we've finally reached the understanding that Fatah gunmen constitute, first and foremost, a support and auxiliary force for the PA and its security apparatuses."

Darduch, however, takes heart in the fact that "among the Fatah gunmen are brothers who are prominent in their activities, steadfast in their loyalty to the Fatah and in their understanding of the political situation and what is demanded at every one of the political stages." Their activities, he says, are funded by the Tanzim Secretariat in Tulkarm as well as by the "emergency budget" which, the IDF explains, is "apparently the funds transferred by the PA leadership through the 'Emergency Committee' chaired by Hakam Balawi."

In his recommendations to his commander, Darduch writes, "We have to get rid of a number of parasites who have penetrated the ranks of the gunmen but have not shot one bullet at the Israelis."

These three documents constitute direct and indirect evidence of Arafat's command and control over Palestinian terrorism. His signed notes unequivocally implicate him as the direct commander of major terrorist operatives who have planned and coordinated attacks against scores of Israelis. He decides who will get paid and how much.

Darduch's report proves there is no difference between the PA and terrorist cells. Arafat finances weapons procurement down to the individual rifle, and his security apparatuses fund, coordinate, participate in, and oversee the activities of the terrorist cells.

Apologists for Arafat would argue that since the sums he allocated to the various terrorist leaders in the seized documents are small, it cannot possibly follow that he is in charge of them. However, a more likely explanation is that Arafat holds absolute control over everything that happens in the PA, down to the last rifle and penny.

This latter explanation was reached in another context by the US Council on Foreign Relations in June 1999. At that time, the council published a report on the state of the PA, commissioned by the EU. In its report, authored by Henry Siegman and Terje Larsen (two well-known advocates of Yasser Arafat), the Council found Arafat concentrates decision-making authority in his own hands to the point where "he personally approves all senior officials' vacations and per diem expenses."

Against this backdrop, Arafat's contention to US President George W. Bush, which was wistfully echoed for a time by the US State Department and the EU, that he did not know about the $500,000 spent on the purchase of the Karine A weapons ship - or the $10 million paid to Iran for its cargo of missiles, missile launchers, C4 explosive, mines, mortars, hand grenades, machine guns, and ammunition - becomes patently ridiculous. The contention that Arafat does not control the terrorists is also rendered unsupportable.

To the documented proof of Arafat's direct command over the Fatah-Tanzim terrorist infrastructure must be added his collusion with Islamic Jihad and Hamas. At the outset of the Palestinian terrorist war, Arafat's underling Barghouti formed the "Unified Command of the Intifada," which coordinates attacks with Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The fact the PA itself is part and parcel of the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure was further brought home when the IDF discovered weapons-making workshops inside the Palestinian Security Service's compound in Yatta.

Arafat's operations are not limited to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but involve at least two members of President Bush's "axis of evil." Last week, the Sunday Telegraph reported that Western intelligence sources claim an Arafat aide met last month with Iraqi intelligence officials and provided them with a list of strategic targets inside Israel and Saudi Arabia. The sources also said Arafat's aide provided Iraqi intelligence with 37 forged passports.

On the subject of forgeries, in their raid of Arafat's headquarters, soldiers uncovered huge sums of counterfeit US dollars and shekels. Arafat is holed up in his compound with Fuad Shubaki, who financed the Karine A operation as he does all of the PA's weapons procurements. Shubaki and Fathi al-Razem, deputy commander of the Palestinian Naval Police, have been, according to American and Israeli intelligence officials, Arafat's point men in developing close ties with the Iranian regime since last May.

Perhaps Arafat gained counterfeiting expertise through his close connections with the Iranian government - which had produced such sophisticated forgeries of the dollar and shekel in the mid-1990s that both countries were forced to design and issue new bills.

Arafat, throughout his long career as a master terrorist, has cultivated "plausible deniability" into an art form. In the 1970s, attacks were carried out by PLO factions in their own name, (Black September, the PFLP, the DFLP, the PFLP Central Command, and so on). This state of affairs allowed Arafat to simultaneously command terrorist operations and feign innocence, touting himself as a "political leader" much as he does today.

The hard evidence of Arafat's direct command over all aspects of the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel provided by the documents seized by the IDF since the onset of Operation Defensive Shield, together with the indirect evidence provided by intelligence reports, his harboring of wanted terrorists in Ramallah (aside from Shubaki, Arafat is also hosting the murderers of tourism minister Rehavam Ze'evi), the presence of illicit weapons-making workshops in his command posts, and the fact that all Palestinian terrorists name him as their supreme commander, render his deniability implausible.

It could easily be argued the documentary evidence alone provides a more convincing case of Arafat's direct responsibility for terrorism than the US government has presented regarding Osama bin Laden's responsibility for the September 11 attacks. Israel has proven Arafat pays terrorists. The US has not shown direct proof bin Laden personally oversees payments to Al-Qaida terrorists.

In 1989, the Palestinian National Council, the PLO's legislative arm, purported to become a party to the Geneva Conventions. Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates, "Each high contracting party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged to have committed or to have ordered to be committed such grave breaches and shall bring such persons, regardless of their nationality before its own courts." Among the "grave breaches" listed is murder.

Secretary of State Powell has repeatedly and emphatically stated his position that Arafat is a legitimate leader and the road to peace goes through him. Given the evidence here presented, and additional findings that have been streaming in since interrogations of Palestinian prisoners began in earnest this week, perhaps the time has come for him to rethink this position.

During a telephone interview with Al-Jazeera television on Wednesday afternoon, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat rejected Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's offer of a “one-way ticket” out of the area by retorting, "Why? Is this my homeland or his?"

Arafat went on to explain "the Palestinian people has been rooted to this land since before the time of Abraham, the prophet," and to proclaim the way to victory is through continued suicide bombings by calling out "shahid, shahid, shahid!" before hanging up his cellphone – which the IDF has allowed him to recharge.

In these remarks, Nobel Laureate Arafat laid bare the twin causes of the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel. Simply put, the PA under Arafat denies Israel has any right to exist and is completely committed to using terrorism as its method for destroying it. For Arafat, this is not a question of how to divide up disputed territory between two nations with legitimate rights to it, but an "us against them" struggle in which only one side will emerge victorious.

For Israelis, although Arafat's remarks are unsettling, they are far from shocking. Israelis, who in the wake of three massacres in the space of a few days saw some 31,000 of their fathers, sons, and husbands called up in an emergency reserve mobilization, know who Arafat is and understand what this war is about and what must be done. As OC Air Force Maj.-Gen. Dan Halutz explained in an interview this week, "This war is one of our most important wars – certainly the second most important after the War of Independence," and "it must be decided – in a sharp and clear way, that will not be open for interpretation."

Israelis get it. The international diplomatic community doesn’t. As Arafat was underlining the need for continuous jihad on Al-Jazeera, the EU's chief diplomat, Javier Solana, was on Spanish television explaining that this war is nothing but an old grudge between two aging leaders – Sharon and Arafat – and could end if they would kindly step aside for younger, less antagonistic leadership. For Solana then, there is no difference between Sharon, who has alienated his own political base to seek a cease-fire, and Arafat, who calls for his "political base" to die murdering Jews.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell also refuses to understand. As husbands and breadwinners quietly don their uniforms and take up arms to bring about the decisive victory required, Powell declares that "Chairman Arafat is the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people," and explains that contrary to what Sharon claims, and the Israeli people know in their gut to be true, "it would not serve our purpose right now to brand [Arafat] individually as a terrorist."

The international press corps also refuses to get it. The New York Times, for instance, reported Wednesday, "While President [George W.] Bush endorsed this week the continued relevance of Yasser Arafat, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel called today for exiling the Palestinian leader."

From this, one could understand Sharon was acting not against Arafat, but against the US government. The newspaper of record, which brought the Saudi plan to the world, devoted more than 1,000 words last Sunday to rhapsodizing the female Palestinian bomber who murdered two and wounded 30 in Jerusalem last week. The 18-year-old killer, who is deeply mourned by her father, was a "straight-A high school senior," we are told. Somehow, the Times doesn't see fit to print a word about Rahel Levy, the murderess’s 17-year-old victim. Rahel was a good student, a gifted photographer, but a victim, not a murderer, and therefore, apparently unworthy of note.
 

The Times and others characterize this murderer, like the hundreds before her, as a desperate and lost youth. The fact that suicide bombers are not "lost youth" but rather, by and large, middle class, well-educated, the flowers of their society, goes unreported.

How is this situation to be understood? How is it possible that after the Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances have been used to transfer suicide bombers and explosive belts, Phillip Reeker, the State Department’s spokesman demanded this week that Israel provide "unfettered access for ambulances and emergency medical personnel at Israeli checkpoints?"

Part of the problem, no doubt is Israel’s spokesmen are, quite simply, not up to the task. Ambassador to the UN Yehuda Lancry, for instance, does not seem to understand what is going on back home. When asked earlier this week by a CNN reporter if Arafat is responsible for terrorism, rather than answering with a simple "yes," the honorable ambassador fumbled and mumbled that Arafat can do more to rein in the terrorists.

Clearly, Israel is in dire need of a new team of spokesmen who, when given the opportunity, will actually be able to tell the world the truth it so desperately wishes not to hear.

However, not all the blame lies with our diplomats. The foreign press corps, from the Arabs to the Europeans to the Americans, obstinately refuses to cover the story. Part of this refusal stems from the fact that telling the truth can be hazardous to one’s health.

We recall, for instance, the abject apology issued to the PA by Italian television journalist Ricardo Christiani for the temerity of his Italian rivals who filmed and broadcast scenes from the lynching of two IDF reservists at the Ramallah police station in October 2000. Embarrassed by the disclosure of the apology, which was printed in the PA’s official newspaper, Christiani was sent home.

Part of the foreign media’s refusal to cover the fact that the PA is waging a terrorist war aimed at Israel’s destruction is deliberate. That is, foreign reporters understand the situation and callously refuse to report it.

Take roadside shootings. For the past year and a half, Palestinian forces have regularly stationed themselves on roads to shoot at Israeli motorists and lynch any Israeli who strays into their towns and cities. Understanding the situation, foreign correspondents have found a method to protect themselves. Every one of their vehicles is covered in duct tape spelling out TV to signal to the gunmen they are not their intended Israeli victims. The journalists are protected and the story of road terror goes chronically underreported.

The Unified Palestinian Command, which coordinates the Palestinian terrorist war among the various militias, declared days ago that it is widening its war to include attacks on American targets. The story went largely unreported, so that when the State Department subsequently decided to encourage dependents of US diplomatic personnel to leave Israel, it seemed as though the move was more a reaction to the IDF’s actions than to the fact that the Palestinians have just declared war on the US.

Back in September 1995, at the height of the Oslo process, as prime minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Interim Agreement on the White House lawn, extending PLO control to the major cities in Judea and Samaria, he warned Arafat, "If all the partners to peace-making do not unite against the evil angels of death by terrorism, all that will remain of this ceremony are color snapshots, empty mementos. If we do not have partners in this bitter, difficult war, we will fight it alone. We know how to fight. We know how to win."

Well, the PA terrorist war against Israel, which began after prime minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat concessions that, according to Leah Rabin, would have made her husband’s stomach churn, has proven beyond doubt that Israel has no Palestinian partner “in this bitter, difficult war.”

Unfortunately, and contrary perhaps to Rabin’s greatest nightmare, not only does Israel have no Palestinian partner; because of the deliberate refusal of the international diplomatic community to grasp the fact the Palestinians are waging a zero sum game war against Israel, and because of the international press corps refusal to report the facts, Israel is forced to fight this decisive battle for its national survival alone.

Oringinally published in The Jerusalem Post