Getting the facts straight

Neil Lazarus set the record straight March 4 at the Helene B. Simon Hillel Center. It was nice to see someone speak about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in a pragmatic and straightforward way. Honesty and education are the keys to understanding this conflict.\nLazarus showed a video entitled "Arafat In His Own Words." It is clear by listening to Yasser Arafat's rhetoric that he is not interested in peace. Arafat is not interested in peaceful coexistence with the Israelis. This is the same man who carried a gun during his first speech before the United Nations General Assembly.\nThe video was actually frightening. It contained clips of Palestinian Authority television, which not only doesn't encourage co-existence with the Israelis but also actually incites Palestinian youth to hate and kill Israelis.\nSure, both sides are upset with the other, but unlike Palestinian terrorists who are lauded as heroes by the Palestinian media, Jewish extremists are put in jail for their crimes. I once heard someone say, "Do not judge a nation by its extremists, but judge a nation on how it reacts to and treats its extremists."\nIsrael is a democracy with freedom of speech; the Palestinian Authority isn't. Yasser Arafat has an iron grip on power, which he uses not to help his people but to line his pockets and buy weapons.\nThe video showed Arafat for what he really is, a terrorist. But you don't have to watch the video to come to this conclusion. Look at the facts on the ground. Fatah, Arafat's own branch of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which is directly under his control, commits atrocities against both Israelis and Palestinians daily.\nIn a country that is not a democracy, whoever has the guns and bombs wields the political power. Without a democratic structure, these people are naturally going to be the extremists and power hungry criminals. Case in point: Arafat and the Palestinian Authority whose power comes from bullets not ballots.\nIt is hard to get a clear understanding of the conflict from the media. A picture of an Israeli soldier holding a gun and a Palestinian youth throwing a rock portray the image of David versus Goliath. The image sells so we see it on TV. But it is important to understand how the children are getting involved in the conflict and who is encouraging them to be in the middle of the fighting.\n"When school finishes, PA security cars go out collecting children from the streets and sending them to the killing fields," a Palestinian mother told USA Today Dec. 8, 2000. She was tired of the PA sending her children to the scene of the fighting. Since the Palestinian Authority is not a democracy, but a brutal dictatorship headed by Arafat, freedom of speech is not the norm. Many of the Palestinians interested in peace and a solution based on justice are silenced in fear of retaliation by their own brutal leadership.\nI urge all people to support both the Palestinians and the Israelis on the seemingly endless road to peace, but not to pander to Arafat and the terrorists he controls. When the world takes Arafat for what he really is, it will not support him. This will translate into real support for peace and the end to terrorists like Arafat and bin Laden.