Columnist: Israelis should launch military offensive

Americans must be prepared to support a military attack against the PLO leadership, says Charles Krauthammer.

By ROBERT FARLEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 12, 2002

PALM HARBOR -- For years, Washington Post syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said he ended his columns that forecast a Middle East war with the phrase, "I hope I am wrong."

Unfortunately, he said, he was not wrong.

The keynote speaker at Temple Ahavat Shalom's annual fundraiser on Monday night, Krauthammer warned over and over that the very existence of Israel is being threatened by a full-scale guerrilla war waged by the Palestinians.

The terrorist attacks have made it "utterly intolerable and unlivable in Israel," said Krauthammer, who won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary in 1987.

Krauthammer said the Israelis must launch a military offensive against the Palestinian leadership, including Yasser Arafat, and that Americans must be prepared to support it.

"The issues are going to be difficult and bloody," he said.

"This is about the existence of Israel," Krauthammer told the packed synagogue. "On its existence hinges our future as Jews."

Krauthammer spoke at length about the Oslo accords, a peace agreement he called "a tragedy of proportion so epic it's almost unbelievable."

Krauthammer witnessed the historic handshake between between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the White House lawn on Sept. 13, 1993. He saw his friends, Middle East scholars, with tears in their eyes.

"I was shocked and horrified and amazed they could look at what was happening and believe this is the beginning of peace," he said.

Krauthammer contends it was simply a ploy by Arafat to get land to use in the future as a base in the Palestinian war against Israel. Now, he said, that is coming to pass.

"We Jews have brought this upon ourselves," Krauthammer said, "and that's what makes it utterly heartbreaking."

In exchange for reviving the Palestine Liberation Organization and giving Palestinians land, Israel got nothing, he said. Promises of peace were broken.

"I was prepared then, and I am prepared now, to sacrifice whatever territory it takes to get real peace," he said. ". . . but not to sacrifice the territory and get nothing."

Meanwhile, he said, Arafat has "poisoned" the minds of the next generation of Palestinians with hatred for Israel. And that's why suicide bombers are surfacing today.

"This conflict is about the existence of Israel," Krauthammer said. "I don't think Americans understand this in any way."

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