Saudi plans and more funerals Ct. Jewish Ledger Editorial March 7, 2002 The news was out on a whispered Saudi Peace Plan two weeks ago, and we thought it would be a dead issue by now, but it lives. This time, it is the same old hook, and no one has even bothered to change the bait. If history and recent events were taken seriously though, the viability of any overreaching plan would have to be seriously questioned. Instead of bringing about peace, it just delays its coming. Tom Friedman saw fit to hype the Saudi prince's thoughts in his New York Times column. This is the same New York Times whose pages have brokered most of the diplomatic failures of the last century. The Times then gave Henry Siegman the space to boost the same moot plan. Friedman and Siegman have never met a peace plan they didn't like. Anxious to deflect the growing focus on their corrupt regimes, the Arabs fell all over the proposal with praise. Their European friends never let an Arab proposal go by without enthusiastic endorsement. And then there's our own State Department, which needs to get back in the game since Oslo is beyond hope. Dennis Ross also joins the chorus as he is constantly on TV commenting on the mess he left behind. The Saudi plan is as sound a proposal for Israel as the one Munich gave Czechoslovakia when it gave the Sudetenland to Germany. This plan is also as cynical as the Vietnam Peace treaty of 1972, which did everything but pave the highway between Hanoi and Saigon. It strips Israel of the little strategic depth it has left and uproots 200,000 Israelis from their homes. It cuts Israel in half at its middle, turns the Golan over to Syria and re-divides Jerusalem. But to the media, it's a new idea "'worthy of discussion." And all of this happens when there is absolutely no indication that the Arab states will leave Israel in peace. Arab armies continue to grow, and there were more than 25 funerals in Israel over the weekend. What is so special about 1967 and its borders? Much of the land that Israel retrieved in 1967 was taken from her in 1948. The land under the 54 synagogues in Jerusalem that the Jordanians destroyed in 1948 would go back into Arab hands. Jerusalem with its Jewish presence from time immemorial and a Jewish majority for as long as people have been counting, will be Arab once more. In the 1930's Arab riots and killings pushed the Jews out of Hebron only to see them return to their ancestral home in 1967. Jews who resettled Hebron in 1967 would have to give it up again. And what of the Arabs who claim Haifa and Jaffa as their home? We doubt if they'll be deterred once the principle of taking Jewish land becomes established custom. Abba Eban's "Auschwitz borders" of 1967 Israel will mean an end for the Jewish State. No amount of process will make up for the strategic disadvantage these new borders create. We have a plan that is far better. It is an act and not a process. If Arabs stop killing Israelis then they can both sit down and talk about how they can live peacefully side by side. Outside parties so intent on being involved in a process need do only one thing. Affirm Israel's right to remain where she is, and Arab ambitions will wane. The two peoples will learn to live together in peace. There's no need for a plan any more intricate than that.