Letter: It’s time to lend support to Israel

Thursday, April 4, 2002 | 9:02 a.m.

As commander-in-chief of Palestinian forces, Yassar Arafat must give orders, in Arabic, to stop the terror attacks. If he calls each of his lieutenants and orders them to stop, the bombings will stop.

He has said in Arabic that a million martyrs should descend on Jerusalem. Teenagers will strap on bombs and blow themselves up responding to this.

Arafat needs to find the terrorists and put them in jail. Arafat says that he can't do it now because Israel has destroyed so much of the police infrastructure. Why didn't he arrest them and keep them in jail before the police stations were destroyed?

The Arabs say that if Israel pulls back to the 1967 borders there will be peace. If that's all it takes, why was there no peace in 1967? Most of the leaders of the Palestinian Authority do not want a state next to Israel -- they want a state instead of Israel. Israel has preached the gospel of peace since the day it declared independence. When the declaration was presented, David Ben-Gurion indicated that the Jews wanted to live in peace with the Arabs.

Every government of Israel has done the same. We did not know what it meant to have terrorists attack us. We got a Ph.D. in terrorism on Sept. 11. Now that we have walked in their shoes we can see the pain that such attacks bring. Let's get out and support Israel as they do us.

IRA MARTEL