In Memory: Jeanne Kirkpatrick

Former U.N. Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick has passed away, a servant of her nation who honored it with her courage and moral clarity. In memory, here is her classic 1979 article Dictatorships and Double Standards, considered "one of the three most famous essays in the history of American foreign policy." (Here is a summary as well.)

In that article she made the prophetic statement that:

The American commitment to "change" in the abstract ends up by aligning us tacitly with...Yasir Arafat.

This was fourteen years before Bill Clinton changed the US law defining interaction with the PLO as a crime and began funding it as a government.

This led to the globalization of the PLO inventions of airline hijacking and suicide bombing, which ironically victimized the US in the from of 9/11.

After absorbing constant propaganda, the majority of Palestinian children, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, essentially answer "a dead murderer." Despite the formalization of genocide as the Palestinian charter through the landslide election of the mask is off Hamas, the US is still funding them, along with the EU and the UN.

Today's freedom fighters such as Natan Sharansky and George W. Bush grew up under the influence of Kirkpatrick's idea, which is as relevant today as ever.

Unlike most liberals, her long-term forecasts were accurate, such as this one:

Jeane Kirkpatrick Warns that Creating Palestinian State will be Catastrophic

It would be a step backward in America?s fight against international terrorism?When we accept a terrorist state as legitimate, we strengthen terrorist groups," she said. Dr. Kirkpatrick said that while the Oslo accords were supposed to bring Israel peace and safety, "the situation is more dangerous for Israel now than it?s ever been." She emphasized that "The destruction of Israel and expulsion of the Jews has been the goal of the PLO since its beginning in 1964 and continues to this day.

Update: Soccer Dad sent me a must-read article predating this one by thirteen years detailing exactly the "catastrophe" that has come to pass since:

The long march through the UN has produced many benefits for the PLO. It has created a people where there was none; a claim where there was none. Now the PLO is seeking to create a state where there already is one....But having succeeded so well over the years in its campaign to legitimize itself and delegitimize Israel, the PLO might yet also succeed in bringing that campaign to a triumphant conclusion, with consequences for the Jewish state that would be nothing short of catastrophic.

On a personal note, one of the great regrets of my life involved Ambassador Kirkpatrick. I had arranged to host a panel dicussion consisting of her, Margaret Thatcher, Dr. Laura Shlessinger and Joseph Biden for a live broadcast on my Israeli talk radio show. It was to be held at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. I was so stunned when my radio station reneged on its commitment to pay the small expense to transmit the audio feed for what was probably the most high-powered radio event in Israeli history that I cancelled the whole event in spite. I missed the chance to express gratitude to her in public on behalf of a nation she loved and protected.

See also: Jeanne Kirkpatrick