Land for peace, again By Joseph Farah March 8, 2002 © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com "Land for peace." It's the mantra of Middle East diplomacy. We've heard it before, and we're hearing it again. This time from Saudi Arabia. Crown Prince Abdullah three weeks ago floated the latest peace plan. He offers full political, economic and cultural relations with Israel if only the Jewish state will return to its pre-1967 borders. Remarkably, incredibly, Israel has, once again, expressed cautious interest in this idea. Let me tell you why this latest "peace plan" should be categorically rejected out of hand. a.. It would mean re-dividing Jerusalem, giving control of the holiest sites in Judaism, the Temple Mount and Western Wall, to the Arabs. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Can you imagine any other country in the world considering giving up half its capital city for the promise of peace? I don't think so. b.. Israel's territory now represents just a tiny sliver of a nation with borders that are nearly impossible to defend. Cutting into that territory in such a dramatic way will leave it vulnerable to yet another inevitable war of aggression by Arab neighbors. The idea has been characterized as "national suicide" by previous Israeli prime ministers Golda Meir and Menachem Begin. Israel, under such a redrawing of the maps, would be nine miles wide. c.. The promise of "full normalization" of relations rings hollow. Yasser Arafat "the man responsible for the ongoing wave of terrorism against Israel" has already agreed to full normalization when he signed the Oslo Accords. Egypt and Jordan, likewise, agreed to full normalization of relations in their peace treaties with the Jewish state, though neither ever fulfilled those obligations. d.. The plan would reward Arafat for the increased wave of terrorism endured by Israel for more than the last year. It would, in effect and in reality, create a brand new terrorist state in the Middle East "Palestine". e.. Israel would be without the water supplies the country needs under such a plan. f.. How much different is this plan from the one offered by Ehud Barak two years ago? Not much different. Barak offered Arafat 96 percent of the West Bank, all of Gaza and equivalent land to compensate for the 4 percent deficiency. He included all of East Jerusalem, where the Arabs would build their capital. Arafat responded with a war. What has changed? I'll give you one more reason why this plan should be rejected. Saudi Arabia no more believes in permanent peace with Israel than does Arafat. Sheikh Abdel Aziz Bin-Baz, the mufti of Saudi Arabia, has himself explained that "peace with Israel is permissible only on condition that it is a temporary peace, until the Muslims build up the strength needed to expel the Jews." Once again, this is a trap, a Trojan Horse strategy devised by a Taliban-style totalitarian theocracy that bans the Bible and punishes harshly anyone found worshipping any God but Allah, even in the privacy of the home. Saudi Arabia, Americans, in particular, should remember is the nation that bred Osama bin Laden. It's the nation that bred most of the Sept. 11 hijackers. It's the nation that feigns moderation but is as brutally intolerant as any country on the face of the earth. Beware of Saudis bearing gifts. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani got it right when he returned a seven-figure check from the regime meant for disaster relief in the wake of Sept. 11. The Saudis were trying to make a point, that Americans should re-evaluate their view of the Arab and Muslim world following the terror attacks and adopt a more "even-handed" policy toward the Mideast. Giuliani saw through the ruse. Likewise, the world should see through this latest ploy by the Saudis. This is nothing more than a public-relations move to take the heat off a nation bearing more responsibility and guilt for terror than it is willing to admit. That some Israelis, like Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, would still look favorably upon such a plan is nothing short of mind-boggling. Have they learned nothing from history? At this point, after all the bloodshed of the last year, such blind appeasement within Israeli power circles is tantamount to treason, nothing short of complicity in the terror itself. Joseph Farah is editor and chief executive officer of WorldNetDaily.com and writes a daily column.