Palestine looks to reach goal of defeating Israel
In her latest piece (""Military cannot reach humanitarian goals,"" Oct. 24), Sarah Turner claims that the ""promot[ion of] a Palestinian state"" would ""reduc[e] global terror."" She ignores that the United States, as well as the state of Israel, has in fact supported a Palestinian state. Last July Israel offered, with the encouragement of former President Clinton, more than 94 percent of the West Bank as well as all of the Gaza Strip, to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yassir Arafat. Troops were to be withdrawn; settlements were to be dismantled. Arafat's response was not a counterproposal but rather a year-long rebellion of terror against the very Israeli occupation that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak had offered to end. The Palestinian leadership doesn't just want a ""state,"" as Turner suggests. Instead, it seeks only an entity powerful enough to fulfill the oft-stated dream of Arab leaders in the Middle East: the military defeat of Israel. All of it.
