From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Dec 1997 23:35:08 +0000
Subject: "FROM WOODROW WILSON TO BILL CLINTON"
To: (IL/ROOT & BRANCH ASSOCIATION, LTD.), rb@rb.org.il
From: "Root & Branch Association, Ltd." <rb@rb.org.il>
Subject: R&B NEWS SERVICE: "FROM WOODROW WILSON TO BILL CLINTON" by
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
R&B NEWS SERVICE: "FROM WOODROW WILSON TO BILL CLINTON"
by Prof. Paul Eidelberg
JERUSALEM, December 25, Root & Branch: During his first term in office,
President Bill Clinton was quoted as saying "My policy is to have no
policy" -- which may explain why this Democrat became a virtual Republican
after the Republican Party gained control of both houses of Congress in the
1994 mid-term elections. Of course, to have no policy is to have no firm
political principles, no moral convictions, indeed, no sense of honor.
This does not mean Mr. Clinton is guilty of an impeachable offense, unless
it were proven that he did indeed engage in unlawful solicitation of
campaign funds. As for his being accused of sexual harassment, if this
were proven it might make his continuation in office so difficult as to
force him to resign. But all this is speculation.
Like other Presidents, Mr. Clinton can be accused of many misdeeds, but
there is one unmentioned by any commentator, namely, his recognition of
Yasir Arafat and the PLO. Of course, virtually all states have recognized
Arafat, including Israel. And it matters not that Arafat and the PLO
continue to violate the Israel-PLO Agreements underwritten by the United
States. In fact, despite Arafat's repeated calls for a holy
war against Israel, despite his complicity with terrorist bombers, and
despite his media's imprecations against America, President Clinton treats
that self-proclaimed Marxist with the dignity accorded heads of state!
Evident in Clinton's dignifying Arafat of the PLO is a decline in American
honor. To appreciate this fact, let us examine why the U.S. refused to
recognize the Soviet Union in 1917 and did not do so until 1933. Here is
how Robert Lansing, Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, put it:
"To recognize the Bolsheviks would give them an exalted idea of their own
power, make them more insolent and impossible, and win their contempt, not
their friendship.... As to Lenin and Trotsky I am in doubt ... For national
and personal honor, for truth and for the individual rights to life,
liberty and property they seem to have no regard."
Mr. Lansing was succeeded by Secretary Bainbridge Colby, who in 1920
declared: "The existing regime in Russia is based upon the negation of
every principle of honor and good faith, and every usage and convention,
underlying the whole structure of international law; the negation, in
short, of every principle upon which it is possible to base harmonious and
trustful relations, whether of nations or of individuals."
Mr. Colby was succeeded by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes (who
later became Chief Justice of the American Supreme Court). Mr. Hughes said
in 1923: "The American government is not prepared to barter away its
principles [by recognizing the Soviet Union]."
Five years later Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg avowed: "The
experience of various European Governments which have recognized and
entered into relations
with the Soviet regime have demonstrated conclusively the wisdom of the
[non-recognition] policy to which the Government of the United States has
consistently adhered. Recognition of the Soviet regime has not ...led [its
leaders] to the acceptance by them of other fundamental obligations of
international intercourse."
Finally, this word from John Spargo, a leading figure of the Socialist
Party in America, who in 1930 declared: "It is futile to argue the matter;
recognition of Soviet Russia [which seeks our own subversion] would be
shameful self-abasement."
What would John Spargo say of a superpower like the U.S. recognizing a
lilliputian gang of murderers like the PLO? And what would any man of
honor say of President Clinton's red carpet treatment of Yasir Arafat, the
world's leading terrorist?
Shabbat Shalom,
Prof. Paul Eidelberg
Jerusalem, Israel
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