Mideast Q & A on Gaza, West Bank

Your fine publication continues to give broad coverage to U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz’s “peace mission” and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s opposition.

Shultz is being touted everywhere as the man of peace and Shamir as the uncompromising obstruction to lions and lambs lying down together in the Middle East.

But will history prove Shultz another Neville Chamberlain (who tried to appease Hitler)? Shultz knows that the PLO came into existence in 1964, three years prior to any “occupied territories,” with its sole purpose being to expunge Israel from the Middle East--and that its bottom line has not been modified.

Yasser Arafat’s top adviser, Hani al-Hassan, recently stated: “The support granted by the Palestinians of Jaffa and Nazareth proves that the battle is over the whole of Palestine.” Yet Shultz presses on with his shuttle diplomacy and “compromises.”

I was recently asked to address Shamir when he was in Los Angeles. Our Christian delegation reminded him that we are praying for the true peace of Jerusalem--not a piece-by-piece destruction of Israel that could be the unintended result of the Shultz pressure.

My hope is that Shultz’s compromises will not find the fertile ground that was accorded Chamberlain’s appeasement. Just as surely as Hitler had forewarned the world of his intentions in “Mein Kampf,” so a sworn PLO covenant decrees the destruction of Israel and the absorption of Jordan. Shultz’s plan may have emotional appeal. However, the facts are all on Shamir’s side. That is why it is Shultz, not Shamir, who is the real impediment to peace.

REV. FRANK EIKLOR

President

Shalom Ministries

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