26 April 2002
Feith Says Terrorists Make Palestinian State Less Likely
(Defense official says homicide bombers harm own cause) (2990)
Terrorism, by closing the door to diplomacy, has made establishment of
a Palestinian state increasingly remote "and darkens the Palestinian
people's future," Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith says.
Addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee April 21,
Feith said that today's immediate challenge for civilized society is
to "ensure that terrorism is not seen as a winning strategy," in this
case by making it clear that "the Palestinian homicide bombers are
harming, not helping, their political cause."
Feith, the Pentagon's undersecretary for policy, called what he --
like President Bush -- termed homicide bombing "deranged ideology in
action," and declared, "At stake is not just the fate of a particular
country, but the fate of all open societies."
"The suicide bombers who kill Israelis, like those who attacked the
World Trade Center and Pentagon last September 11th, are enemies of
the idea of humanity," Feith said.
Feith rejected the notion that "only a person ensnared in deep despair
could do such a thing," and along with it the idea that the problem
can be resolved by attacking the poverty and political hopelessness
"that many people imagine are the traits and motives of the suicide
bombers."
"When we look at the records of the suicide bombers, we see that many
aren't drawn from the poor," he said, citing as an example Mohammed
Atta, whom he described as a key figure in executing the September 11
attacks.
Feith once again charged Iraq, Syria and Iran with being "major state
supporters of terrorism."
He said the ultimate goal for the United States and its partners must
be "to change the international environment regarding terrorism --
instead of tolerance, [to] an international norm of renunciation and
repudiation of terrorism."
Following is the text of Feith's remarks.
(begin text)
Remarks by Douglas J. Feith
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
American-Israel Public Affairs Committee
April 21, 2002.
It's good to have the opportunity once again to address an AIPAC
annual conference.
I'd like to talk with you about the war on terrorism -- America's war
and Israel's war. I'll take my lead from the current headlines and
start with the Middle East.
Day after day, we read of attacks targeted at Israeli civilians.
The suicide bombers -- or homicide bombers, as President Bush calls
them, have a political cause. But the systematic killing of ordinary
people going about their lives with their children in shopping malls,
on buses, at restaurants -- is not politics. It's not even war. It's
deranged ideology in action. At stake is not just the fate of a
particular country, but the fate of all open societies.
The intentional mass murder of civilians, including children, forces
us to speak in moral terms about basic ideas -- about good and evil.
President Bush states the case starkly: Terrorism is evil.
The suicide bombers who kill Israelis, like those who attacked the
World Trade Center and Pentagon last September 11th, are enemies of
the idea of humanity. They may claim to represent a good people or a
worthy cause, but they taint the political platforms they embrace.
It's immoral to seek excuses for terrorism and harmful to reward it.
So the message of responsible governments should be unwavering:
terrorists do not advance their causes; rather, they lose ground.
The Palestinian people are long-suffering. They have profound
grievances against many who have done them harm and served them ill
throughout the Middle East, and not just in Israel.
The Palestinians have been damaged severely for a century or so by
leaders who have time and again made disastrous strategic choices --
from siding with the Nazis in World War II to siding with the Soviet
Union during the Cold War, to siding with Saddam Hussein in the Gulf
War. The question now is: What side are they on in the current global
war against terrorism? People always pay a price when their leaders
fail them. The Palestinian people have paid, and continue to pay, such
a price. It is a tragedy.
Referring to Yasir Arafat, President Bush has said, "He's missed his
opportunities, and thereby betrayed the hopes of the people he's
supposed to lead. Given his failure, the Israeli government feels it
must strike at terrorist networks that are killing its citizens."
President Bush then added, "Yet, Israel must understand that its
response to these recent attacks is only a temporary measure. All
parties have their own responsibilities. And all parties owe it to
their own people to act."
Despite the current fighting, the President still envisions Israel and
the Palestinians achieving a peace by mutual consent. He stresses that
this will require compromises and "hard choices" regarding territorial
and other claims and desires of Israelis and Palestinians. The
achievement of a negotiated peace settlement would bring an end to the
issues of legitimacy, borders, settlements and occupation.
The President has declared, "We have no illusions about the difficulty
of the issues that lie ahead. Yet, our nation's resolve is strong.
America is committed to ending this conflict and beginning an era of
peace."
Many Palestinians say that their aim is to live dignified lives, in
freedom, in peace and prosperity in their own state. That goal could
be achieved. The U.S. government supports it. Israeli leaders have for
years acknowledged that a Palestinian state will be the ultimate
outcome of any negotiated peace. As President Bush noted on April 4th,
"Israel has recognized the goal of a Palestinian state. The outlines
of a just settlement are clear: two states, Israel and Palestine,
living side by side, in peace and security."
But that goal grows increasingly remote as terrorism belies and
precludes diplomacy -- and darkens the Palestinian people's future.
President Bush has called on Israelis to show "a respect for and
concern about the dignity of the Palestinian people who are and will
be their neighbors. It is crucial [the President noted] to distinguish
between the terrorists and ordinary Palestinians seeking to provide
for their own families."
The Palestinians could help themselves by acknowledging that their
worst enemies are those who inspire, finance, equip, excuse and
otherwise encourage children to commit homicide bombings.
The major state supporters of terrorism -- Iraq, Syria and Iran --
offer incentives to encourage such bombings, host terrorist
headquarters and supply the arms and explosives. Clerics, who should
be faithful trustees of God's word, violate their trust by
legitimating suicide and calling murderers "martyrs."
The cult of suicide and murder is sustained through the education of
children to hate and to aspire to become suicide bombers. That cult is
fostered by those who praise terrorists as "heroes" and those who
rationalize terrorism as the understandable act of the politically
frustrated. This includes prominent statesmen from many countries who
should know better.
The sad reality is that there are politically frustrated people
throughout the Middle East and the broader world. Political, religious
and other leaders who craft excuses for terrorism are sowing the wind.
It is deadly recklessness.
The United States is fighting terrorism, using the full range of tools
at our disposal, military and non-military. We'll continue to confront
terrorism on the military battlefield, but equally importantly on the
battlefield of ideas.
Winning the war requires us to help change the way people think. This
can be done. Worldwide moral battles can be fought and won. For
example, no decent person any more -- no one who hopes to be
recognized as respectable in the wider world -- supports or excuses
slave trading, piracy or genocide. No decent person should support or
excuse terrorism either.
Our initial victory in Afghanistan deprived al Qaeda of its safe haven
and infrastructure there. We daily learn more about that
infrastructure -- its administrative apparatus, training facilities
and laboratories in which al Qaeda worked to develop biological and
other weapons of mass destruction.
For now, at least, the al Qaeda leadership is on the defensive -- some
are in captivity; the rest are on the run.
With a few exceptions, such as Iraq, most countries now wish -- at
least they now profess to wish -- to be associated with our global war
against terrorism. But at the same time, we see this upsurge in
terrorism directed against Israel and brazen public support for
anti-Israel terrorism, especially suicide bombings, even from
seasoned, sophisticated officials.
Which brings us to the dangers of intellectual as well as military
passivity in the face of terrorism.
For three decades or so, the world grew tolerant of terrorism. Many
belittled the problem: Recall the famous phrase that commonly passed
for sophisticated discourse: "One man's terrorist is another man's
freedom fighter." Some countries supported terrorism -- perhaps not
openly, but often without even bothering to cover their tracks. As
terrorists racked up a large civilian death toll in Europe, Asia and
the Middle East, they and their causes often flourished diplomatically
and politically.
The forces of civilized humanity did not take the offensive against
terrorism; rarely went after terrorist groups root and branch; failed
to coerce the state sponsors of terrorism to stop; never overthrew a
regime because it supported terrorism.
But September 11th was a turning point. That attack made it clear that
the United States and other open societies required a new approach: We
recognized that our countries are too big, too open, too full of
high-value targets for us to defend them against terrorists. We had to
take the offensive.
The action of U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan has already
altered the intellectual atmosphere favorably. Some states that had
winked at or even supported terrorism are modifying their policies. In
some countries, the policy changes don't necessarily reflect a change
of heart. But in others, such as Pakistan, the changes have been
dramatic and appear to signify a true strategic redirection.
The United States will stay on the offensive against terrorism --
targeting the terrorists themselves and, where necessary, coercing the
states that support or tolerate them. Much of our work in this war is
less dramatic than the liberation of Afghanistan. While other actions
may once again involve larger-scale U.S. military operations, our
current work around the world, including in the Middle East, involves
foreign military anti-terrorism training and international law
enforcement, the freezing of bank accounts, intelligence and
diplomatic activity and so forth.
Our ultimate goal is to change the international environment regarding
terrorism -- instead of tolerance, [to] an international norm of
renunciation and repudiation of terrorism. As I said, we want the
world to view terrorism as it views piracy, slave trading or genocide
-- activities universally repudiated by respectable people. This is
not an abstract, philosophical, academic point, but a strategic
purpose of great practical significance.
As we continue the U.S. offensive against terrorism, we have in mind
not only the more familiar kinds of terrorism.
As horrifying as September 11th was, the anthrax attacks that occurred
later -- though small in scale -- warned us that terrorists using
weapons of mass destruction -- biological agents, or chemical, nuclear
or radiological weapons -- are an even greater threat.
When he spoke of state supporters of terrorism that are developing
weapons of mass destruction, President Bush said in his State of the
Union message that, "they could provide these arms to terrorists,
giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our
allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these
cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic."
Our goal therefore must be, as the President stated, "to prevent
regimes that sponsor terrorism from threatening America or our friends
and allies with weapons of mass destruction."
Also in that speech, President Bush declared, "The United States of
America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten
us with the world's most destructive weapons."
So far, I've focused on terrorism as a political tool and the danger
that terrorists could acquire weapons of mass destruction.
I'd like to conclude with some thoughts about the sources of
terrorism.
It's often argued that the phenomenon of suicide bombers -- terrorists
who perform attacks that they know they cannot survive -- demonstrates
that we aren't dealing with people who calculate the benefits and
costs of their actions.
In this vein, we frequently hear that suicide bombing is the product
of the combination of poverty and hopelessness.
Westerners -- we whom Usama bin Laden has sneeringly referred to as
"lovers of life" -- cannot easily understand how a young man (or
woman) straps on several pounds of high explosive and then blows
himself up in a crowd of civilians. We assume that only a person
ensnared in deep despair could do such a thing.
This diagnosis implies its own solution -- that the world should
address what is called the "root causes of terrorism," the poverty and
political hopelessness that many people imagine are the traits and
motives of the suicide bombers. This diagnosis, however, doesn't jibe
with actual experience. And it blinds us to opportunities we have to
confront terrorism strategically.
When we look at the records of the suicide bombers, we see that many
aren't drawn from the poor. Mohammed Atta, for instance -- a key
figure in executing the September 11 attack[s] -- was a middle-class
Egyptian whose parents were able to send him to study abroad. And his
education meant that he could look forward to a relatively privileged
life in Egypt -- hardly grounds for extreme despair.
Indeed, as we learn from a recent New York Times interview with Hamas
leaders in Gaza, what characterizes the suicide bombers -- and
especially the old men who send them off on their missions -- is
rather hope than despair:
First of all, the bombers cherish a perverse form of religious hope.
The promise of eternity in paradise is a tenet of many faiths, a noble
incentive and consolation to millions of people. It's as cynical as it
is sinister that leaders of al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and other
groups convince young people that eternity in paradise is available as
a reward for the murder of innocents.
Second, there is the bomber's hope of earthly glory and reward --
praise as a hero from political leaders and honor for one's parents
and a $25,000 check to the bomber's family from Saddam Hussein.
President Bush has condemned "[t]hose governments, like Iraq, that
reward parents for the sacrifice of their children...."
Those who encourage homicide bombing, as the President said, "are
guilty of soliciting murder of the worst kind."
Third, there is the homicide bomber's political hope. As that New York
Times interview makes clear, Palestinian extremists think they have
finally discovered a winning strategy.
The recent outpouring of open support in the Arab world for homicide
bombers -- from Mrs. Arafat, from a senior Arab diplomat, from clerics
associated with prestigious universities -- reflects excitement at the
thought that bombings are producing success. It is the kind of
triumphalism characteristic of a mentality that believes in "the worse
the better."
This suggests a strategic course for us: attack the sources of these
malignant hopes.
Regarding the religious hope: Many Islamic religious leaders seem
uncomfortable with suicide bombing -- but many of them have been
silenced or intimidated to voice support for the terrorists. The
civilized world should exert itself to support moderate clerics,
defend them and provide them with platforms to protect their religion
from extremists who want to distort and hijack it.
The civilized world should also deal with political leaders who heap
honor (and money) on the suicide bombers and their families. President
Bush, speaking of suicide bombers, said: "They are not martyrs. They
are murderers." Other world leaders have the responsibility to
reinforce this message.
Finally, as to the suicide bombers' political hopes, we must ensure
that terrorism is not seen as a winning strategy. This is today's
immediate challenge: For example, we have to make it understood that
the Palestinian homicide bombers are harming, not helping, their
political cause.
Peace can be achieved when the conditions are right: and the most
important condition is the state of peoples' minds. Thus, we must take
seriously the incitement to hatred that creates the intellectual
atmosphere in which terrorism can flourish. If we seek the "root
cause" of terrorism, this is where we'll find it.
Peace diplomacy in the Middle East has been an intense activity for
decades. It's now clear that we have not focused enough attention on
the relationship between peace and education. We spend a great deal of
attention on what diplomats say to each other. We need to pay closer
attention to what teachers instill in their students. Therein lies the
key to peace.
Changing the intellectual fashions in the world regarding terrorism --
and ultimately de-legitimating it altogether, without regard to the
various causes espoused by the terrorists -- won't be easy. But its
importance as a strategic requirement is right up there with the
destruction and disruption of terrorist operational infrastructure.
The Bush administration appreciates the complexity of its tasks -- in
the war on terrorism and in Middle East diplomacy. The President
approaches these tasks with the steadiness and energy appropriate to
the magnitude of the stakes.
We have our nation and its liberties to protect, our friends to
assist, and our adversaries to deter and defeat. This is a rare period
of flux in world affairs. We have opportunities to do good for
ourselves and for others -- in the Middle East and other regions of
the world -- by enhancing security, suppressing terrorism, eliminating
weapons of mass destruction, promoting freedom and prosperity and
opening paths to peace. The American people expect this administration
to rise to the occasion. We shall do our best.
Thank you.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web Site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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