A real peace plan

By Joseph Farah

I have received hundreds of e-mails in the last week demanding that I retract a column written by WorldNetDaily columnist Vox Day called “1,000 eyes for an eye.”

Let me first explain that, although I am the editor of WorldNetDaily, I do not necessarily agree with everything written by other columnists. Not by a long shot. In fact, we make it a point to provide a broad forum of thoughtful political commentary and to solicit columns with which the editors of WorldNetDaily strongly disagree.

Having said that, however, I have read and re-read Vox Day’s column and find it to be a very thoughtful and quite responsible contribution to the Middle East debate.

Nevertheless, I have repeatedly been accused of promoting “genocide” by publishing it.

I don’t think so.

The young commentator suggests the Israeli government announce a unilateral ceasefire, “balanced by the deadly promise that for every Israeli soldier killed, 25 Palestinian police will die. For every civilian, 100 non-combatant Palestinian adults will be slain, and for every child, 1,000 adults.”

Day goes on to suggest that if another Jewish child is murdered – and you know many surely and sadly will be – “Mr. Arafat will be the first to pay the price.”

I might structure the proposal a little differently. I personally would advise Israel to make Arafat the first target no matter who was victimized by his terrorists. I might not target any non-combatants, since there are plenty of Arabs running around the Palestinian Authority territories with arms. Yet, it’s a remarkably sensible plan – one that actually might work.

And the fact that it might work, I suspect, is precisely why the modest proposal is attracting such heavy flak.

“Only Palestinian children will be considered off-limits for these terrible reprisals,” Day continues. “Whereas the historic 10-to-1 fatality ratio maintained a cold peace, the current 3-to-1 ratio foments a hot war. A 1,000-to-1 ratio will bring a permanent peace, one way or another.”

It surely would. In fact, this is the kind of thinking that maintains a permanent “peace,” if you want to characterize it that way, in the Arab world.

Arab leaders rule by sheer terror – and it does work.

I don’t like it. I don’t want to see it continue. I would prefer to see freedom reign in the Arab world. In fact, I have said many times that freedom is the real key to a permanent peace in the Middle East. But Israel can do nothing to foster freedom in the Arab world. Israel has its hands full deterring attacks on its civilians – and that deterrence should be its primary responsibility and goal for the immediate future.

Somehow, this has an ugly ring to it for some people – and, again, I suspect it is mainly people who want to see a different outcome in the Middle East.

For 50 years, the United States deterred nuclear aggression against it by making it clear that any attack would be met with an overwhelming response. It worked to keep the cold peace. Likewise, Israel must let the Arab world know – for its own good – that a new, zero-tolerance policy on terrorism is in place. There is no other way.

I agree totally with Day’s conclusion: “In a fallen world, violence does solve some problems, and at times extreme violence is required. I do not wish for a single Israeli or Palestinian death, but a savage blow to end Yasser Arafat’s war is far, far better than allowing more innocents to die without an end in sight. The choice for peace or death is Mr. Arafat’s alone.”

It’s time for rethinking in Israel. The Jewish people have desperately exhausted every conceivable opportunity for a negotiated settlement with Arafat. It has not worked. It will not work.

Only Israel can decide its own national policies of self-defense. But the Vox Day plan makes a lot more sense to me than those being proposed by the likes of Shimon Peres and Colin Powell. It’s a much more realistic approach. It’s a much more pragmatic proposal. It’s much simpler. And history demonstrates that it would work.


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Joseph Farah

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and chief executive officer of WND. He is the author or co-author of 13 books that have sold more than 5 million copies, including his latest, "The Gospel in Every Book of the Old Testament." Before launching WND as the first independent online news outlet in 1997, he served as editor in chief of major market dailies including the legendary Sacramento Union. Read more of Joseph Farah's articles here.