Writes David Holcberg at the Ayn Rand Institute:
President Bush’s meeting with Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan last week was a huge mistake and a betrayal of the principle that terrorists should not be negotiated with but eradicated.
Negotiations are proper only between individuals who are open to reason, who respect each other’s rights, and whose purpose is to exchange values for mutual benefit, without coercion. But the Palestinian leadership–religious and secular–is rabidly irrational, has no respect for the rights of Israelis (or Palestinians) to their lives and property, and seeks, by means of terrorism, to blackmail Israel into surrendering its land for nothing but empty promises to stop the violence.
The Palestinian regime under Arafat has always been and still is a terrorist regime. Arafat’s appointment of Mahmoud Abbas as “prime minister” changed nothing.
President Bush’s push for the creation of a Palestinian state is a big setback in America’s own war against terrorism, since a Palestinian state would be another terrorist state to deal with. Moreover, the president’s move sends our enemies the message that terrorism pays. If President Bush is serious about keeping his promise to “rid the world of terror,” he should abandon the idea of creating a Palestinian state and start supporting the eradication of the Palestinian regime.