Time to stop paying the Danegeld

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:02:58 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JULY 20, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Time to stop paying the Danegeld

Attempting to put some pressure on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (now negotiating at Camp David at the invitation of the president), Mr. Clinton first declared the meeting would end Wednesday -- when the the president was scheduled to depart for Japan -- peace deal or not.

But the president first delayed his departure, and finally left the negotiators still in place, promising to check back upon his return Sunday.

Peace in the Middle East is a noble goal, though care should be taken never to declare it the highest goal. (If the Arabs drove every Jew into the sea and the state of Israel ceased to exist, then peace could presumably be said to reign -- though surely few Americans would applaud such a "peace.")

Those close to the negotiations insist many thorny issues remain, such as who shall control access to Jerusalem, a city which both factions consider holy.

Yes, yes. But these individual trees should not be allowed to conceal the forest. The larger question is whether both parties truly want peace. The Israelis -- by giving up territory which will make defense against any future attacks far more problematic -- offer convincing evidence that they do.

Mr. Arafat, however, has yet to offer the one "concession" for which Mr. Clinton has been pressuring the Israelis to continually up his bride price for seven years now -- a definitive statement (repeated in public, in Arabic, to his own Palestinian constituents) that he recognizes the right of the state of Israel to exist, and thus foreswears any future use of force to overthrow, defeat, or subvert it.

Apologists explain that Mr. Arafat might like to do such a thing, but that such an utterance would merely get him shot, like Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

Yes, and the gray aliens would like to show themselves, but it would only bring on a cataclysmic conflict with the red Lemurians from the sunken continent of Mu.

If Mr. Arafat won't even say he'll love Mr. Barak in the morning, what are we Americans paying him for?

Mr. Arafat's first little "incentive bonus" came at the signing of the original Oslo accords in 1993, when he received some $7.2 billion raised "internationally."

A lot of those funds went into Arafat's personal bank account, George Melloan reported in the July 18 Wall Street Journal, while Mr. Arafat's newly-coined Palestinian Authority proceeded to demonstrate its administrative acumen by allowing per capita GNP in the Gaza Strip and the west bank to fall from $2,200 in 1992 to $1,600 in 1998.

No matter, the apologists explain, since (in Mr. Melloan's words) "controlling the purse strings helped Arafat control his minions, making him accountable, in a sense, for results or the lack thereof."

Ah, so that's the way it's supposed to work. Surely neither Ferdinand Marcos nor Boss Tweed could have explained it better.

But Arafat's $7 billion turns out to be a mere drop in the bucket. Writing in the May-June edition of "Mideast Insight," Leonard B. Zuza, a former official of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, estimates that the bribes ... pardon me, "foreign aid" ... paid to Israel and her neighbors for their services in continuing to act out a pantomime "peace process" have totaled $230 billion (in 1999 dollars) over the past 25 years. And now, Mr. Zuza adds, demands for new aid "associated with the current negotiations" add up to another whopping $264 billion.

"Financing a peace is a lot cheaper than financing a war," explains Avraham Burg, speaker of Israel's Knesset.

But bribing Israel's neighbors to put off their next attack only so long as the Israelis continue to hand over more territory from which it will be easier to launch that next attack isn't "financing peace," it's nothing but a Danegeld -- bribes to buy time while the enemy grows stronger. Shall we hand them their last payment when the Israelis finally stand ankle-deep in the sea?

It's no "savings" to shell out $494 billion -- a fair amount of cash, even by Washington standards -- and then find ourselves financing the war in the end, anyway ... backing a by-then-demoralized ally that no longer holds any of the high ground.

Yes, the Palestinians deserve self-governance, with a lot more freedom than they now enjoy, either from Mr. Arafat's one-party rule or from the overarching, protectionist, Israeli economic regime.

But already by Thursday, "senior Palestinian officials" were warning Reuters that if this summit ends in a deadlock or failure, "there will be disappointment among Palestinians which could be accompanied by violence."

Imagine the response to any Israeli statement that unless the Palestinians give the Israelis everything they want, "we might not be able to control the Israeli Defense Forces, which could very well nuke Damascus and seize the Nile Delta before we can stop them."

The time has come to stop paying for nothing. Congress should cut off aid to all parties in the Mideast, cold turkey, and let the parties stand on their own for a change, in the clear light of day.

Who knows, they might just discover that in a tough new world where they have to fend for themselves, it makes more sense to cooperate than to fight.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair