The most significant proximate cause of global terrorism is the way in which, instead of acknowledging Palestinian terrorists as a threat to the civilised order and dealing with them appropriately, the world treated Yassir Arafat instead as a nascent statesman, invited him to address the UN and thus began the descent of international relations into the hell of moral equivalence which blew up in its face on 9/11. Now we read in the Jerusalem Post that NATO is granting observer status to the Palestinians:

'"This is a very important decision as for many years European countries have only heard the Israeli voice in these groupings. For peace to become a reality and agreements to be fully implemented, we need to be able to tell our side of the story too," said Hassan Khreisheh, the first deputy speaker of the Palestinian body and one of the two Palestinian delegates.'

Let us pinch ourselves.

NATO, which describes itself as an organisation representing democratic states of Europe and North America, is the principal defence structure for the free world against tyranny, terror and war. The Palestinians are a despotic, undemocratic grouping which promotes a religious war against Israel, a democracy, through terror. Their founding covenant commits them to the destruction of Israel. They have been told to put their house in order and have so far failed and even refused to do so. Far from destroying the infrastructure of terror, they are taking Hamas terrorists into their administration. As Efraim Karsh has noted, the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas -- the man greeted so warmly by President Bush last week -- marked Israel Independence Day by describing the proclamation of the state of Israel in 1948 as

'an unprecedented historic crime and vowed his unwavering refusal to ever "accept this injustice." "On that day, a crime was committed against a people, who were uprooted from their land and whose existence was destroyed and who were forced to flee to all areas of the world," he said. "The refugees have a full right to fulfill the right of return. We strongly object to the possibility they would become citizens of the countries they live in." Abbas's remarks came as Palestinians commemorated the nakba by staging rallies and demonstrations throughout the West Bank and Gaza to demand the right of return for all refugees to their original homes inside Israel. Accompanied by a virulent anti-Israel media campaign, the events reached their peak at midday, when sirens were sounded throughout the Palestinian controlled territories and people observed a minute of silence to mourn Israel's creation. In some areas, gunmen opened fire into the air as a sign of mourning.'

Abbas runs a regime whose officially approved Palestinian Authority preacher, Sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris, said on officially approved PA TV on May 13:

'We have ruled the world before, and by Allah, the day will come when we will rule the entire world again. The day will come when we will rule America. The day will come when we will rule Britain and the entire world – except for the Jews. The Jews will not enjoy a life of tranquility under our rule, because they are treacherous by nature, as they have been throughout history. The day will come when everything will be relieved of the Jews - even the stones and trees which were harmed by them. Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, who tells you about the evil end that awaits Jews. The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew.'

What are Tony Blair and President Bush doing in allowing NATO to give such people observer status? How can a despotic body that promotes ethnic cleansing, terror and religious war possibly be given observer status on the defence organisation of the free world? How can we possibly take seriously the Bush doctrine when first the President says what he did to Abbas (see post below) and then sits back while NATO further rewards terror in this way? What price now the defence of the west?