Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: A fight for survival

Friday, April 12, 2002 | 4:48 a.m.

THE NUMBER OF PALESTINIAN suicide bombers killing Israeli citizens has been reduced but not ended since the Israeli Defense Forces went on the offensive. The arrival of Secretary of State Colin Powell to talk peace only encouraged another bloody bombing. The same has happened when other peace emissaries have arrived to talk. These actions have also cost the lives of many Jewish soldiers as they root out strong pockets of Palestinian militants. When their job will be completed successfully remains to be seen.

Our country has spent several months pursuing, capturing and killing Osama bin Laden's terrorists in Afghanistan. The people of the United States are determined that those who helped kill more than 3,000 of their countrymen Sept. 11 will be caught and punished. It may take several years to catch them and destroy their network of death over the world.

During the past 18 months a larger percentage of the Israeli civilian population has been killed by terrorists than there were Americans killed by the terrorists here at home. Israel is a small country surrounded by millions of people taught to hate and kill them. The Jews, to say the least, live in a tough neighborhood run by self-appointed leaders who want them exterminated.

Since the Israelis have taken the offensive, the expected screams by Arab nations have put pressure on President George W. Bush to demand the offensive stop and the Israelis withdraw. I say these are expected demands because even before we began the ground war during Desert Storm, similar cries were heard. Both Yasser Arafat and the late King Hussein of Jordan sided with Saddam Hussein. I remember a Jordanian television personality saying that he believed it was "unfair for such a big force being used against Iraq." The belief that the larger force the better was promoted by Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Later during the Gulf War, the pressure from Arab nations encouraged us to stop because so many escaping Iraqis were being killed on what they called the "highway of death." Later we found that the number of deaths on that highway were overblown by all observers. But we stopped, and the weapons and tanks returned to Iraq, where they were used to kill thousands of that country's minority groups. Yes, and a cocky Saddam Hussein still rules.

Remember all of the murmuring discontent we heard from several Arab groups when we started to bomb Afghanistan last year? What they soon learned was that this President Bush is determined to hunt down terrorists and those who hide and help them. There is no good reason for this same president to believe the Israelis should stop their pursuit of the people sending suicide bombers into their hotels, discos, restaurants, shopping malls and streets.

What is almost amusing, if it wasn't so bloody, is the cry that Israelis are killing Muslims and Arabs. I can't think of any foreign nation or army that has killed more Arabs and Muslims during recent decades than their own rulers. None of them have stepped forward to help the Palestinians in a constructive manner. After the U.S. saved Kuwait's bacon or roast lamb, that country deported and kept almost 300,000 Palestinians from returning to their jobs.

Let's not even try to count the thousands of bodies strewn over the deserts, swamps and mountains during the most recent 10-year war between Iraq and Iran:

Several hundred thousand Jews driven from Arab nations into Israel aren't now about to be driven into the sea.