Reuven Koret is publisher of israelinsider and CEO of Koret Communications.
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In so doing, the U.S. has accepted the distinction between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" terror. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher in his daily briefing Friday insisted that terrorism against America and terrorism against Israel are "two different things." On the one hand, he said, "there are violent people trying to destroy societies, ours, many others in the world. The world recognizes that and we are going to stop those people. On the other hand, there are issues and violence and political issues that need to be resolved…. [T]hey are clearly issues that are different, not only in geography but also, to some extent, in their nature."

No one will disagree that the terror attacks on America differ absolutely in scale from anything before. Nor should there be any doubt that the first priority of the U.S. should be to punish the perpetrators of this attack. At the same time, with all due respect to the U.S. coalition-building, the question must be asked: are terrorists attacking Israel not "trying to destroy societies"--in this case, ours? Are the suicide bombers exploding cars in Israel different "in nature" than the kamikaze pilots exploding planes in America? Did the terrorist who blew himself up in the Sbarro pizzeria have an "issue" with the mothers and children he massacred?

Indeed, is there any society more threatened by destruction through terror than Israel? Besides the terrorism from the "local" terrorist groups America has conveniently forgotten, there is the strategic threat coming from the biological, chemical and soon-to-be nuclear arsenals of our terror-supporting neighbors which America has just invited into its anti-terror coalition.

The U.S. seeks to enlist the "devil it knows" (the proven sponsors of global terror and their apologists) to fight its new war against the new devil (bin Laden and his henchmen).

Yet even as the U.S. places a wanted sign on bin Laden, dead or alive, it goes out and deputizes the other outlaw nations in the neighborhood, offers them a blanket amnesty for crimes past and future, just for coming along for the ride to "smoke out" the bad folks. And even so the Arab "partners" balk and, more often, talk against the United States, obstructing and undermining its cause. Not one Arab state has pledged military support for the U.S. against bin Laden and the Taliban. And even diplomatic support is qualified and conditional, usually on what is called "progress in the Mideast" and which is translated as "pressure on Israel."

The truth is clear for all to see: the Arab and Islamic "street" opposes America and its policies. The masses hate America, and they hate Israel. The dictators, emirs and ayatollahs who rule the Arab and Islamic world--including the most sympathetic leaders, like Jordan's King Abdallah--will find their own regimes under threat as the masses get aroused. Any vestiges of support will drop away with the first bombs away, as the first Arab or Moslem casualties are counted.

One can well understand America's desire to make a deal--any deal--that will prevent a direct confrontation with the Arab and Moslem masses. But the more the U.S. tries to woo and bribe reluctant Arab allies, the higher will be the price demanded for their fickle support.

And the deal that will be eventually put on the table boils down to this bottom line: abandon Israel and buy an end to terror. Peace for Palestine. That is the price America will be told it must pay to its Arab and Islamic coalition partners. The sacrifice of Israel is the terrorist's demand, and the Arab coalition partners intend to serve as the middlemen, the brokers expediting the transaction.

We Israelis have no right to be smug or sanctimonious about this bazaar trade-off of good and bad terrorists. We made a seven-year-pact with Arafat in the vain hope that he would combat Islamic terror. We expected support of one Arab faction against others. We promised economic, diplomatic and military aid in exchange for action against terrorism. We turned a blind eye to his history, to his emblems, to the incendiary statements he made to his people, to the anti-Semitic incitement of his media. Even now there are some Israelis--though far fewer than once--who want to give him one last chance, and then a chance after that, and one after that. Because, they say, we have no choice but to negotiate, to deal with him, that there is no military option. Because, they say, the devil we don't know is worse.

But we do have a choice, the principled choice offered by President Bush. Correctly, he told the world, the twenty first century devil is the evil of terrorism, the systematic murder of innocents to intimidate in the service of a political cause. The devil we know is he who blows up people in discos, restaurants, busses, trains, planes, and buildings. The devil we know is in league with the devil we don't. You have your terrorists, and we have ours. You have bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and we have Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But it is the same devil, the same terrorist networks, in league with each other, supported by the same folks who burn Israeli and American flags, hang Bush and Sharon in effigy as they chant their death wishes for both of us. And it is the same media types and academics and politicians who rationalize both of them.

Those rationalizing terror are in league with the terrorists, just as the planners of a bombing are as guilty as the one who detonates the bomb. The question for Americans, and for Israelis, after all we've learned, and all we know, is this: why do we keep dealing with them at all? They hate us. They deceive us. They betray us. They want us dead. They are constantly trying to kill us, or sanctioning those who would do the dirty work.

But no one will do the dirty work for us. America has the power and the will to deal with Islamic terror alone, starting with the bin Laden network, and then maybe some unfinished business with Saddam Hussein and the murderers of Marines in Lebanon. It is America's score to settle. It needs no posse.

The same holds true for Israel. Hamas, Jihad, and Hizballah may not be on America's A-list, but they're on ours. We don't expect America to fight our battles against terrorism for us. Just don't prevent us from fighting our own. And if Saddam send us his greetings again, please don't deny us the pleasure of an RSVP.

We all hope and pray that the personal threat of terror, and its threat to our nation, will just go away. But when will we understand that there is no price we can pay to convince these terrorists to let us live in peace and security? We Israelis should have learned that long ago. Americans have been reminded now. We have a common enemy and it is the Islamic terrorist, intoxicated with Jihad, whether he takes the shape of a bin Laden kamikaze, a Hamas suicide bomber, or an Iranian unconventional warhead. Terror is terror. There should be no understandable terrorist act, and no acceptable terror-sponsoring country. America should know better, just as we Israelis have no excuse not to know by now.

Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.

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