A couple of months ago, Dov Dribben, age 28, was clubbed and shot to death by Palestinian Arabs on a tract of Israeli \”government land\” attached to the West Bank settlement of Maon, about 40 miles south of Jerusalem.
On the eve of the 50th birthday of the Jewishstate, Israelis have seldom felt so lonely. No one wants to come tothe party. Vice President Al Gore is one of the few foreigndignitaries who have accepted an invitation to the April 30 fiesta.The rest are either stalling or saying, \”Thanks, but nothanks.\”
Palestinians have an official term for whathappened to them when Israel gained its independence 50 years ago:\”Nakba,\” or, in English, \”Calamity.\” In the failed Arab attack on theJews in 1948, some 600,000 Arabs fled the land or, in tens ofthousands of cases, were expelled.
Anger over the stalled Mideast peace process has clearlycontributed to Arab states\’ reluctance to help the United Statesdeter Saddam Hussein. That is one reason the United States is nowpressing Israel for a serious and credible plan for withdrawing fromthe West Bank, it has been widely reported. Yet the Israeligovernment and some hard-line American supporters not only mistakenlydeny the connection between the peace process and the maintenance ofan effective anti-Saddam coalition, but they also neglect the factthat such a coalition is in Israel\’s vital interests.
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