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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 April 1999 Issue No. 426
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Special Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The wrongs of the right
By Kamel Zoheiri *
Fifty years of Israeli politics and warfare have produced dozens of generals, rabbis and terrorists ranging from the left to the far right of the political spectrum. Binyamin Netanyahu, however, stands out as a landmark of ultra-conservatism, to the right of the extreme right. Abroad, his political rhetoric targets "Likud Jews" in France; and, in the US, the millions of American Jews who finance Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land.
Israel is the only nation in the world to have been established by a UN resolution, made conditional upon the new state's commitment to previous resolutions on Israel and Palestine. Netanyahu is blind to this fact. He states with conviction that "Israel is not dependent upon UN resolutions, but upon the Torah".
He has succeeded in undermining the Oslo Accords, refused to implement the Wye Memorandum, and reoccupied Arnoun in southern Lebanon barely 50 days after the villagers liberated it, and three years after the Qana massacre.
Not one to learn from Israel's blunders and crimes in Lebanon, he is certain to pitch his campaign in the coming elections toward the extreme right. He is blind to the fact that the Lebanese resistance will not cease until Israel implements UN Resolution 425, calling for its unconditional withdrawal from the south. Without withdrawal, there can be no peace -- and it is the Israeli extremists who will have to pay the price.
*This week's Soapbox speaker is a veteran journalist and head of the Greater Cairo Library.
