| Netanyahu said, "The question
many in my country are now asking is this: Will America apply its principles
consistently and win this war, or will it selectively abandon these principles
and thereby ultimately risk losing the war?"
Repeatedly using President
Bush's words about terrorism to make his point, Netanyahu noted that the
U.S. leader has said anyone who harbors terrorists or supports terrorist
activity is just as guilty as the terrorist.
Netanyahu's speech was the
latest in Israel's public relations effort to maintain U.S. support for
its military campaign. Israelis and Palestinians are conducting a rhetorical
war of sorts through the news media, with each side blaming the other for
the past 18 months of Mideast violence.
The Bush administration repeatedly
has called on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank, although its earlier
statements, at the start of Israel's operation, were more supportive of
the incursions.
"I'm concerned that the state
of Israel that has for decades bravely manned the front lines against terror
is being pressed to back down just when it is on the verge of uprooting
Palestinian terror," Netanyahu said.
The former prime minister
said terrorism would spread to U.S. shores if Israel does not shut down
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's "terror factories."
"If not destroyed, this madness
will strike in your buses, in your supermarkets, in your pizza parlors,
in your cafes," he said.
Palestinian reaction to Netanyahu's
speech was sharp.
Hassan Abdel Rahman, the
chief Palestinian representative to the United States, said Netanyahu's
effort to equate Israeli's military operation against the Palestinians
with the U.S. campaign fell short.
"The U.S. did not have Jewish-American
settlements in Afghanistan and the U.S. was not occupying Afghanistan in
the same way that Israel is occupying the Palestinian territories," Rahman
said.
"The only way for the Palestinians
and Israelis to live side by side in peace is when Israel respects the
right of the Palestinian people to live as a free nation, free of the tyranny
of the occupation, free of the tyranny of discrimination, free of the tyranny
of violating the rights of the Palestinian people."
Netanyahu, however, vowed
that Israel's military offensive in the West Bank would continue "with
or without international support." He said more than 400 Israelis have
fallen victim to terror attacks over the past 18 months, and Israel has
a right and duty to defend its citizens.
He cited the following goals:
dismantling the terror regime and expelling Arafat from the region, ridding
the Palestinian territories of terrorist weapons and establishing "physical
barriers" to protect Israelis from future Palestinian attacks.
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