Trip to Israel stirs fears about PLO's belligerence, Iran's goals

I recently returned from a trip to Israel. While there, I had an opportunity to talk with some very interesting people — journalists, members of the Knesset (Israel's parliamentary body) and even the chief communications officer of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

This trip by no means makes me an expert, but I'd like to share with you some things that I observed and how they relate to what I believe to be a very important foreign policy issue.

I don't want to oversimplify the difficult and complex issues obstructing peace in the Middle East. However, I was struck by the lack of connection between the words and the actions of Israel's opponent.

I had a long conversation with the PLO rep. When I asked him about his criticisms of Israel, he focused on the recently-built fence/wall. I pointed out that Israel built the fence to prevent suicide bombers from simply walking across the green line and killing innocent women and children (sometimes Palestinians), which it has.

But he focused on the location of the fence and how, in some areas, it was built on Palestinian soil. But he failed to mention what I learned in my reading — that the handful of times the location was in question and taken to court, the location was changed. He said the Palestinians were interested in a two-state solution but couldn't answer why they didn't teach a two-state solution in the schools they control.

He said that the Palestinians were interested in peace. Here's a math question from their school books: "If you have 10 Jews and kill seven of them, how many do you have left?"

For meaningful progress to occur in any negotiation there must be reasonableness on both sides. It seems to me that in this case, only one side is willing to be reasonable.

Israel is populated with fallible human beings, just like every other nation. Nonetheless, my sense is that it takes its moral accountability seriously while it defends itself. They have self-imposed rules of engagement, which is good and right. But it is particularly difficult when fighting a war against the likes of Fatah, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. These guys don't exactly keep the gloves up. Israel will not fire at a terrorist who has just fired a rocket if there is a civilian within five meters. Knowing this, Hamas (which now controls Gaza) simply brings children with them when they fire their rockets into Israel.

These attitudes on the part of the Palestinian terrorist organizations illuminated for me what I believe to be the foreign policy issue facing our nation and the world: The prospect of Iran becoming a nuclear state. I simply can't imagine Iran wanting to go nuclear for any peaceful reason and the potential repercussions of their achieving it are unthinkable. Iranian leaders would not even have to use it themselves but could simply supply it to a third party who hates us. What that would do to oil prices would be the least of the impacts on Israel (the only democracy in the Middle East) and the United States.

John McCain said that the only thing worse than the IDF needing to strike militarily to prevent a nuclear Iran is a nuclear Iran. I think he's right. Regardless of which side of the Iraq war debate we fall on, most of us would agree that our country's collective fatigue with the war is at a high level.

But world events won't wait until we feel ready to deal with them. Smart people look forward. They know that tomorrow is more important than yesterday and act accordingly.

JOE McKEOWN

West Vagabond Lane

Mount Pleasant

Joe McKeown is a member of Charleston County Council.