From the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993 until September 2000, when the Camp David summit came to naught, about 256 Israelis -- civilians and soldiers alike -- were killed by Palestinian violence. Bill Clinton was in office during those years.and therefore, Bush is bad for Israel. This analysis is simply inane. The Israeli casualties over the last four years are the direct result of the Oslo accords and Clinton's insistence on pressuring Israel for concessions while allowing the Palestinians to abrogate all their agreements. Clinton's insistence on appeasement led to the Oslo War. A Kerry administration would return to the failed policies of the Clinton years by pressuring Israel, as Kerry's main foreign policy adviser has explicitly stated. Cohen then goes on to make more errors of analysis.
The next four years were mostly Bush's, and the numbers tell a different story. Between Sept. 29, 2000, and September 2004 -- four, not eight, years -- 1,026 Israelis were killed by Palestinians.
But the isolation of Arafat, while immensely satisfying, cannot be said to have saved lives -- not Israeli and not Palestinian. In fact, his demonization is characteristically Bush. Arafat is another Saddam Hussein -- vile, evil and all of that. But just as the capture of Hussein has not made Iraq any safer for Americans, so has the isolation of Arafat not ended the intifada. In both Iraq and what can be called Palestine, the problem is not a single man but mass movements.Cohen doesn't seem to understand that Arafat is the problem. The PA's propaganda of vilification of Israel and Jews, led in large part by Arafat, led to the radicalization of the Palestinian population. He has almost single-handedly brought up a generation bent on Israel's destruction and seeking the martyrdom that they have been taught as early as pre-school.
Cohen's conclusions are another example of the Left's incapability to put aside its appeasement tendencies and see the enemy for what it really is.
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