Should the Palestinians have a state?
By Naomi Ragen

(April 5) It has become axiomatic since Oslo that there is 
a Palestinian people, and that they are oppressed and 
disenfranchised and deserve to express their national 
identity by having a state of their own. This state is to be 
situated on the lands captured by Israel in the Six Day War, 
and will be run by the Palestinian Authority headed by 
Yasser Arafat. 

Let's think about this. In the light of recent events, what 
kind of state can we expect the Palestinian people to establish? 

A state where small children are inculcated with hatred for 
other peoples, religions and cultures. Where they attend summer 
camps in which they are taught that to be a suicide bomber is 
the highest form of religious expression. Where they are taken 
to the front to get themselves shot for the sake of photo ops, 
and where their parents get paid blood money for such child 
sacrifice. 

A state in which people regularly murder women for infractions 
of male honor codes. 

A society in which a brother will slit the throat of a sister 
he suspects of sexual misconduct, while his mother and father 
look on in approval. 

A state where domestic abuse isn't a problem, it's a way of life. 
In Afghanistan under the Taliban - another extremist Moslem 
regime exercising its legitimate right to self-determination - 
women are virtual slaves, denied education, medical care, 
employment and freedom of movement or expression. 

A state in which summary executions are carried out without 
due process. 

A state which defends the blowing up of school buses filled 
with children and the shooting into the skulls of infants in 
their mothers' arms as part of its "armed struggle." 

A state in which hands dipped in the blood of lynch-mob victims 
are raised to cheering crowds. 

A state in which education consists of hate-mongering textbooks. 

A state run by corrupt officials who literally get away with 
murder, while pocketing all moneys collected to alleviate the 
suffering of the hungry and unemployed. 

A state in which cultural artifacts and holy sites of other 
religions are destroyed. Long before the Taliban destroyed 
its priceless Buddhas, Palestinians destroyed the ancient 
synagogue in Jericho, plowed under the Tomb of Joseph, and 
as I write these words are firing on the Tomb of Rachel in 
Bethlehem. 

A state which has no respect for human life, where primitive, 
unrestrained, boundless violence and hatred are legitimate 
expressions of national identity. 

A state which encourages terrorism, which releases convicted 
mass murderers from its prisons. 

A state which adheres to no international agenda on human 
rights, including the Geneva Conventions which prohibit the 
deliberate targeting of noncombatants (including soldiers not 
actively involved in combat) as a crime against humanity. 

AND TO THOSE who say that the Palestinian people are not to 
blame, but only their present leadership, I would like to 
point out that the Palestinian people has chosen, and continue 
to choose, its leadership every day by passively accepting 
the dictates of the Palestinian Authority with Arafat at its 
head. There are enough guns and ammunition in the hands of 
enough people to cause Arafat quite a bit of trouble should 
the Palestinian people choose to change its leadership. 

In light of the above, I would like to ask all those 
progressive, liberal people whose hearts yearn to see a 
Palestinian state set up in the West Bank and Gaza: 
What is the matter with you? Does the world really need yet 
another corrupt state of Moslem extremists to misconstrue 
their own religion, and dishonor the religion and cultural 
artifacts of others? Do we really need to empower yet 
another murderous, corrupt, inhumane regime and give it 
legitimacy? 

To what end? And to whose benefit? 

Many might agree that a people that approves of deliberately 
shooting a 10-month-old baby through the head as she lies in 
her carriage in a playground as a legitimate form of combat 
deserves the curse of living in such a state. 

But should the world really agree in good conscience to help 
set it up? 

The truth is that anyone who really cares about the 
Palestinians, anyone with an ounce of real humanity or 
liberalism, should oppose the establishment of such a 
state under current conditions with every fiber of their 
being. For the sake of the Palestinian people. And for the 
sake of all mankind. 

Because the truth is, no one deserves to live in the 
Palestinian state that Arafat and his henchmen are creating. 

Not even the Palestinians.