Who does Powell think he's kidding?
By Michael Freund
The Jerusalem Post, May 19, 2004
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Colin Powell has got some nerve.

After a week in which 13 young Israeli soldiers had been killed by
Palestinian terrorists, who then paraded the body parts of their victims
through the streets of Gaza, the US Secretary of State could find nothing
better to do than to cozy up to the Palestinians and criticize Israel.

Shortly after arriving in Jordan this past Saturday, Powell met with the
Palestinian leadership. Afterwards, he told reporters that he was pleased to
have had a "constructive talk" with Palestinian premier Ahmed Qurei, along
with "my colleague Nabil Shaath and so many other of my good friends from
the Palestinian Authority."

His "good friends"?

This is the same Palestinian Authority that has been waging a terrorist war
against Israel since September 2000 and which is directly responsible for
the deaths of hundreds of innocent men, women and children. It is the same
entity that Powell's own State Department, in its recently released report
on Patterns of Global Terrorism, has linked to acts of terror against the
Jewish state.

And this is whom Powell considers to be his "good friends"?

Not only that, but in his remarks to the press, with a smiling Qurei
standing at his side, Powell did not even bother to mention the horrific
events of the preceding week. He did not see fit to condemn the Palestinians
' vile desecration of Israel's dead, nor did he denounce their ongoing
efforts to carry out attacks against the Jewish state.

Indeed, not once did Powell even mention the word "terrorism".

As if that weren't bad enough, Powell followed up this appalling performance
with an even more shameful one the next day.

Speaking Sunday at a news conference at the World Economic Forum on Jordan's
Dead Sea coast, Powell slammed Israel for demolishing Palestinian structures
in Gaza that have been used to stage attacks on Israel's soldiers.

"We know that Israel has a right for self-defense," Powell said, "but the
kind of action they are taking in Rafah with the destruction of Palestinian
homes, we oppose. We don't think that that is productive," he added.

That Palestinian terrorists use these very same houses to attack and kill
Jews doesn't seem to move Mr. Powell one whit, nor does he seem troubled by
the fact that his "good friends" in the Palestinian Authority utilize the
area to smuggle in weapons from Egypt. On those issues, he is strangely
silent.

And yet when Israel seeks to thwart such efforts by expanding the
"Philadelphia Route", as the area between Rafah and the Egyptian border is
known, Powell suddenly finds his voice and lambasts the Jewish state for
daring to defend itself.

Needless to say, this is hardly the first time that Powell has chosen to
denigrate Israel.

Two years ago, while testifying before Congress, he outrageously accused
Israel of trying to solve the Mideast conflict by killing as many
Palestinians as possible. "Prime Minister Sharon has to take a hard look at
his policies to see whether they will work," Powell said. "If you declare
war against the Palestinians thinking that you can solve the problem by
seeing how many Palestinians can be killed, I don't think that leads us
anywhere." (New York Times, March 7, 2002).

In April 2001, after IDF troops entered Gaza to stop Palestinian mortar
attacks against the southern Israeli city of Sderot, Powell responded by
rebuking Israel, saying that its actions were "excessive and
disproportionate", as if there was something wrong in Israel attempting to
protect itself.

But what is truly remarkable about Powell's latest broadside over Israel's
destruction of Palestinian homes in Gaza is its sheer, unvarnished
hypocrisy.

After all, it was just 15 short years ago that a certain American general
named Colin Powell oversaw the US invasion of Panama in late December 1989.
In the initial days of the war, US forces bombarded the El Chorrillo
neighborhood of Panama City, where the headquarters of the Panamanian
Defense Forces were located alongside the homes of thousands of innocent
civilians.

According to a report prepared by the UN Economic and Social Council, the
result of the US attack on El Chorrillo was that "several blocks of
apartments were totally destroyed, as a result of which their inhabitants
were forced to seek alternative accommodation, often at a great distance
from their former dwelling. Other buildings suffered severe damage". By the
UN's estimate, the homes of at least 2,723 Panamanian families, totaling
approximately 13,500 people, were affected.

An April 7, 1991 Human Rights Watch report was even more blunt, referring to
"the devastation" of El Chorrillo, and asserting that Powell's forces had
"violated the rule of proportionality, which mandates that the risk of harm
to impermissible targets be weighed against the military necessity of the
objective pursued."

Now, isn't that ironic. The very same Colin Powell who blasted Panamanians
out of their homes fifteen years ago to protect American troops now chooses
to criticize Israel for doing the very same thing. Who does he think he's
kidding?

But let Powell complain all he wants. Israel has no choice but to safeguard
its citizens, regardless of what the Secretary of State and his "good
friends" the Palestinians might think.
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The writer served as Deputy Director of Communications & Policy Planning
under former premier Binyamin Netanyahu.