2002 Soap Box Archives

Israel

I have supported President Bush in just about every decision he has made in office, but I respectfully disagree with him about asking the Israelis to pull back in their war on Palestine terrorists. While I would love to see peace in that troubled part of the world as much as anyone, I sincerely believe that a pull back would be a waste of time, putting off a job that is eventually going to have to be done anyway. I don’t believe that any concession Israel could make, except for completely disappearing from the face of the earth, would bring about peace with these people. We should have learned that lesson from our failure to finish the war with Iraq. Saddam Hussein is even more dangerous now than he was then. He is closer to developing weapons of mass destruction, and will not hesitate to use them at the earliest possible opportunity. If the israelis pull out now it will only give the terror networks time to regroup and continue their inhuman taking of innocent lives. Let’s put things in prospective. Israel is a very small country surrounded by mortal enemies and their superior strength is the only thing which saves them from total annihilation. Suppose you lived on Long Island, New York and the people of New York City, Connecticut and New Jersey regularly sent suicide bombers into your area and blew themselves up killing innocent people who did nothing more than go out for dinner or get on a bus. Wouldn’t you get tired of it? Wouldn’t you do everything possible to stop it? Of course you would if you loved your family. That’s basically the position Israel finds itself in 365 days a year. It’s just simply not going to stop until they do something about it and putting it off while Yassar Arafat refuses another peace initiative is quite simply not going to solve the problem. Israel is a sovereign nation who has the right and indeed the duty to protect itself and its citizens against these wanton acts of terror. It’s not the rest of the world’s place to tell them how to do it. Goodness knows they’ve had enough experience at it. How can we carry on the pursuit of our terrorist problem while telling them not to deal with theirs? Israeli politics is a slippery slope at best, with diverse factions who have their own deeply held convictions about how to deal with their problems. They don’t need interference from the U.S.A. or anybody else. The terrorist problem is not going to go away by itself in Israel or anyplace else for that matter. The sooner we face the fact that a blow struck against terrorism anywhere on the planet is good for the entire world,the better. Israel has been in a state of war ever since its birth in 1948. They have stood alone in their part of the world. They have had to. They have no friends in the entire Arab, Islamic community and the sooner we accept that fact the better off we’ll all be. War is hell and the killing of women and children on both sides is truly deplorable. At least the Israelis don’t intentionally set out to kill innocent civilians. But there will be collateral damage as long as the terrorists hide among the general population. Terrorism must not be tolerated by any country. Giving these people an inch is tantamount to a victory to them.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

 

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