From: heb_roots_chr@mail.geocities.com
Sent: Monday, September 08, 1997 1:25 AM
To: Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup
Subject: R&B NEWS SERVICE - "Responses to the lat
To: (IL/ROOT & BRANCH ASSOCIATION, LTD.), rb@rb.org.il
From: "Root & Branch Association, Ltd." <rb@rb.org.il>
Subject: R&B NEWS SERVICE - "Responses to the latest Arab Outrage: My
own included" by Prof. Paul Eidelberg
R&B NEWS SERVICE - "Responses to the latest Arab Outrage: My own included"
by Prof. Paul Eidelberg
JERUSALEM, September 5, Root & Branch: I returned to my home in Jerusalem
(from Washington, DC) the evening of September 2. Less than two days later
Arabs committed another atrocity against Jews on Ben Yehuda Street. I was
driving at the time to visit my daughter and three grandchildren in Kiryat
Moshe. I had been away from
Israel for more than three months, and so only joy should have filled my
heart as I embraced my love ones. But the news of the Ben Yehuda bombing
had intervened. My joy was dulled by anguish, frustration, and remorse.
It is now almost 2 in the morning. I cannot sleep, and not because of
jet-lag. I cannot sleep because I cannot dispel this anguish, frustration,
and remorse. And there is something else that prevents me from sleeping:
the unsatisfactory responses to this latest Arab outrage.
The responses were so predictable. While the Government blamed Arafat and
the PA for failing to enforce Oslo, critics of Oslo blamed the Government
for not renouncing that suicide pact. Is it not obvious that Netanyahu is
wedded to Oslo, that he cannot rid
himself of Yasser Arafat, his only "peace partner"? Is it not obvious that
what occurred in Ben Yehuda Street and recently in Mehane Yehuda is a
consequence of the Netanyahu-Arafat handshake, the Peres-Arafat handshake,
and the Rabin-Arafat handshake? Is it not obvious that Mr. Netanyahu, like
these other Israeli Prime Ministers, signed a covenant with death, that he
sacrificed his honor, his humanity, even his free
will?
Mr. Netanyahu is trapped by the Middle East rhetoric or "politics of
peace." Like his predecessors, he can only persist in the "Peace Process."
Which means he can only persist in the politics of falsehood. He cannot
undo his complicity in this falsehood. Consider:
HE CALLS UPON ARAFAT, A TERRORIST CHIEF, TO PREVENT TERRORISM. REALLY!!!
WHAT ABOUT HIS OWN RELEASING OF ARAB TERRORISTS? SINCE BECOMING PRIME
MINSTER, DID HE EVER DENOUNCE RABIN AND PERES FOR RELEASING THOUSANDS OF
ARAB TERRORISTS? HAS HE NOT SUNG THEIR PRAISES AS GREAT STATESMEN? ARE
THEY BLAMELESS FOR THE SHEDDING OF JEWISH
BLOOD? IS HE FREE OF GUILT?
In an "Open Letter to Bibi" which I wrote in the Jewish Press immediately
his election, I deliberately referred at length to Ben Hecht's book Perfidy:
"Guilt," writes Hecht, "does not make a politician outcast - be he Jewish,
British, or Nazi. For the politician is never guilty as a wrongdoer; only
as a wrong thinker or wrong guesser. Even if his thoughts and guesses set
bonfires raging in the world and rain disaster on large areas of it - he is
still immune from guilt in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of his
contemporaries. History will sometimes...give him a bad mark. But the
contemporary verdict is nearly always the same - not guilty by virtue of
serving an ideal [such as `peace in our time']..."
"There is one thing I find most ominous in my day - the rhinoceros hides
that encase politicians' hearts. They will not react to the truth that
exposes them any more than to a drop of rain.. The evils proved against
them reveal only that they were devoted servants of an ideal, a party or
national destiny."
"Israel politicians do not need to disprove any of the facts in order to
prove themselves not guilty. They need only flash into the eyes of their
constituents the `ideal' they served. Who attacks them, attacks Zionism..
Tyrants dictators, and all power-drunk leaders operate always behind the
smoke screen of some Ideal [such as `peace']. The Ideal exempts them from
any guilt for what they do. More, it magically
converts their conniving and wicked deeds into proof of how valorously
they served the Ideal."
Now I ask: What is the point of calling upon Netanyahu to renounce Oslo?
For him to renounce Oslo is tacitly to admit that he, along with Yitzhak
Rabin and Shimon Peres, bear moral responsibility for the murder of hundred
of Jews and the wounding of a thousand others. Hardly any of his critics
dare venture such an accusation -- which is why I quoted Ben Hecht and
warned people of what might happen under Mr. Netanyahu's
premiership.
So what is to be done? Are we to do nothing more than go on criticizing
Israel's political leaders and the "Process Process"? Are we to continue
enumerating Arafat's violations of Oslo? Are we to go on writing learned
essays about Arab terrorists or about Islam's love affair with death -- as
if all this will enlighten Israel's political elites and inspire them with
the courage to act like men instead of
mice?
Surely we must do more than resort to tired words. This is why I have
called upon all American and Israeli Zionist organizations to convene an
International Conference -- if not an International Jewish Parliament -- to
save Israel not only from her Arab enemies, but from her own leaders. I
say here and now: Only a government of craven politicians will say it
cannot protect its citizens against Arab suicide bombers. I
go further: A government that cannot protect its own citizens ceases to be
legitimate.
Hence I urge the heads of all Zionist organizations to rally not only their
own financial supporters, but to solicit the financial assistance of
disillusioned contributors to Netanyahu's 1996 election campaign. Let these
Zionist organizations meet in Washington, DC and tell the world the truth
about the Peace Process and about Israel's external and internal enemies.
We dare not wait!
Shabbat Shalom,
Paul Eidelberg
-----------------------------------------------------
Prof. Paul Eidelberg is Founder and President of the Foundation for
Constitutional Democracy in the Middle East, and a member of the
International Council of the Root & Branch Association.
***********************************************************************
To: rb@rb.org.il
From: "Root & Branch Association, Ltd." <rb@rb.org.il>
Subject: R&B NEWS SERVICE: "Suing Arafat - A Private Remedy for
U.S.-supported Terrorism" by Prof. Louis Rene Beres
"Suing Arafat - A Private Remedy for U.S.-supported Terrorism"
by Prof. Louis Rene Beres
WEST LAFAYETTE, September 5, Root & Branch: Yasser Arafat, a
long-time terrorist, has now been an honored guest at the White House
on several occasions. Under binding international law, these visits
have represented extraordinarily serious violations. Moreover, as all
international law is a part of the law of the United States, President
Clinton's receptions of Arafat were all serious crimes under American
law - boldfaced rejections of both Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution
and of several major decisions of the Supreme Court.
In reality, this president has not been animated by considerations of
law and justice on matters of terrorism. But this does not mean that
Arafat - the documented murderer of Israeli schoolchildren at Ma'alot
(by literally cutting their throats) and dozens of other places - is
immunized against all legal remedy. There are provisions under this
country's laws, President Clinton's disregard notwithstanding, to use
United States courts to enforce human rights standards identified by
international law. These provisions follow a law known as the Alien
Tort Statute.
Under this eighteenth-century legislation passed by the First Congress
in 1789, federal district courts have "original jurisdiction of any
civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of
the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." Significantly,
this law is currently being used to bring a civil suit against Dr.
Radovan Karadzic, leader of the Bosnian Serbs. Endorsed by the
Clinton administration, this suit, brought by two plaintiffs known
only as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, uses United States courts to remedy
another category of crimes against humanity.
The Alien Tort Statute authorizes the United States federal courts to
deal with civil claims by aliens alleging acts committed against
international law when the alleged wrongdoers can be found in the
United States. This means that terrorists like Yasser Arafat, when
within the territorial jurisdiction of this country, can be brought
before our federal courts for civil remediation of their unspeakable
crimes. As a practical matter, this would require an interested
foreign national - most plausibly a citizen of Israel with some direct
link to an Arafat-engineered act of criminality - to serve papers upon
the PLO terrorist leader.
Yasser Arafat is guilty of other pertinent categories of criminality
as well. The PLO Chairman gave his blessings to numerous crimes of
war, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity committed by
Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War - a war in which soldiers of the
United States fought bravely and at considerable personal cost. In
case the President may have forgotten, units of Arafat's Palestine
Liberation Army (PLA) served with Saddam's forces in occupied Kuwait,
making them actively complicit in multiple mean crimes of
extraordinary horror and ferocity.
Regarding Arafat's direct responsibility for PLO crimes, official
voices within the PLO not only accept this responsibility of their
Chairman, they celebrate it. On July 13, 1994, Dr. Ahmad Tibi, senior
advisor to Arafat, stated: "The person responsible on behalf of the
Palestinian people for everything that was done in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is Yasser Arafat...."
In theory, a United States led by a law-abiding president could
provide venue for criminal prosecution of Yasser Arafat's crimes
within our federal courts. American federal law confers jurisdiction
"to try any person who, by the law of war, is subject to trial by a
military tribunal...." Additionally, federal law grants jurisdiction
to the federal district courts for all offenses against the laws of
the United States. Since the United States was founded, we have
reserved the right to enforce international law within our own courts.
For a President of the United States who may have forgotten the
Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 10 confers upon Congress
the power "to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the
high seas and offenses against the law of nations." It is sad, to be
sure, that an American president has been so woefully indifferent to
international and national law. It is tragic, nothing less than
tragic, that the people's White House has already been darkened by the
visits of an especially malevolent terrorist. But it has been
inexcusable, absolutely beyond pardon, that this honored guest of the
President was able to exit our shores repeatedly without even any hint
of legal interference by U.S. law-enforcing remedy.
In the future, in the face of persistent official unwillingness to
remember that international law is part of our law, civil remediation
by means of the Alien Tort Statute may represent the last hope for
decency and justice in Washington. It is a fitting irony that such a
remedy, impractical as it is, would have to be applied by a citizen of
another country.
Shabbat Shalom,
Louis Rene Beres
West Lafayette, Indiana
----------------------------------------------------------------------
LOUIS RENE BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Professor of Political
Science and International Law at Purdue University. He is the author
of many books and articles dealing with Israeli security matters
------------------------------------------------------
Aryeh Gallin, President
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