The Middle Eastern Formula

Cal Thomas | Syndicated Columnist | Wednesday, October 15, 2003

The Middle Eastern Formula

The consensus among those of us who attended the first of what I hope will be many more Jerusalem summits is that evil cannot be accommodated. It must be defeated.

In my own speech I said that when a mathematical formula is wrong, the answer can never come out right. And in the matter of the Middle East, the formula is all wrong. This formula says that the so-called Palestinian side has been denied something and if it is given to them they will stop killing Israeli civilians.

If that were true, why did they kill civilians before? Why, even before the so-called "territories" became "occupied" were they killing Jews even then?

The answer is that they have no intention of settling for half of Israel. They want all of Israel. Like a crocodile who is coming after you won't be kept from doing so if you toss him a chicken, neither will Israel's enemies be dissuaded from their objective of eating all of Israel by a few pieces of land tossed their way.

That's the big lesson from the Jerusalem summit.

I'm Cal Thomas in Jerusalem.