PUTTING PALESTINIANS FIRST:

Measure Palestinian freedom, not summits: The peace process will fail again if it is not linked to real democracy and human rights (NATAN SHARANSKY, 11/25/04, THE JERUSALEM POST)

Toward the end of the Cold War, the free world began to link its policies toward the Soviet Union to human rights within that nation. Rather than focus on what Soviet leaders had to say about the West, the focus turned to how the Soviet regime was treating its own subjects.

THE JACKSON Amendment, for example, linked most favored nation trade benefits to the Soviet Union to that regime's respect for its citizens' right to emigrate. By focusing attention on a concrete right that was easily measurable, the Jackson Amendment proved a highly effective means of measuring the degree of freedom within the USSR and, as a result, Soviet intentions.

We, too, should seek to find concrete means to determine whether Palestinians are making progress on democratic reforms, so we can link our policies directly to such reforms. In addition to the obvious need to preserve the Palestinians' right of dissent - the quintessential mark of a free society - there are other reliable measures of the new leadership's commitment to reform.

First, that leadership can finally seek to end the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in refugee camps. Four generations of Palestinian refugees have been used as pawns in the Arab world's struggle against the Jewish state. These refugee camps should be dismantled as soon as possible and the refugees resettled in decent housing.

A leadership that is willing to end the fantasy of destroying Israel and begin to actually improve the conditions in which Palestinians live should be embraced by the free world with a new international Marshall Plan that can put an end to a shameful humanitarian disaster.

Second, the new leadership can stop poisoning Palestinians to hate Jews and the Jewish state. Textbooks where Israel does not appear on the map and PA-controlled television programs where kindergarten children beckon their classmates to follow the path of suicide martyrdom should be replaced with an educational system that promotes peace.

Third, the new leadership can expand economic opportunities for millions of Palestinians. For a decade, Arafat hollowed out Palestinian civil society and crushed its middle class. He monopolized basic industries, controlled work permits in Israel, as well as the distribution of international aid. A test of the new PA will be whether it, unlike Arafat, is willing to embrace joint ventures that strengthen the Palestinian middle class while inevitably lessening the control the new regime has over its subjects.

Finally, a new Palestinian leadership that is committed to reform will be our partners in fighting terror, for as long as terror continues no reform will be possible.

Once it's their state they won't want homocidal extremists wandering around either.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 26, 2004 4:11 PM