Steve Pomerantz knows how America fights terrorism. Pomerantz, a former assistant director of the FBI, spoke to students about his experience Monday in the Union.
Spartans for Israel, or SFI, and Hillel Jewish Student Center sponsored Pomerantz's visit as part of a series called "Conversations on U.S.-Israel Relations."
SFI president Jennifer Bloom said the event was a chance for students to hear how the U.S. and Israel are cooperating in the war on terror.
"Israel has done a lot to fight terrorism," Bloom said. "They deal with a lot of things we never had to worry about prior to (the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks)."
Bloom said many students know the United States supports Israel but do not know how Israel contributes to America.
But some students said they aren't happy with the relationship between U.S. and Israeli intelligence organizations.
Bassam Abed, a Student for Palestinian Human Rights member, said because the United States supports the Isreali government, some terrorist groups believe it is supporting the occupation of Palestine.
The organizations then use the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a rallying cry to foster support for their cause, he said.
"The Palestinian issue does not just affect the parties involved," Abed said. "It has a global impact - some use it as a recruitment tool."
Abed pointed to the war in Iraq as an example of how the U.S. administration misrepresents its purpose in the Middle East.
"They say they are there to liberate the Iraqi's while they are funding the military occupation of Palestine," Abed said.
Abed said he felt the best way for the United States to promote national security would be to foster a lasting peace between the Palestinians and Israelis.
"It's the only way America's enemies would lose their battle cry," Abed said.
Pomerantz disagreed that terrorists target the United States as a result of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
"It is simply not objectively true to think an end to that conflict is going to change terrorism," Pomerantz said.
He said terrorists' hatred of the United States was motivated by an extremely fundamentalist view of reality and trying to contain anti-U.S. aggressions by ending the conflict in the Middle East was naive.
"Osama bin Laden found the Palestinian conflict after the fact," Pomerantz said.
He said Israel was the best-equipped democratic nation in the world to teach the United States how to prevent events like the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"Unfortunately for them, they have the most experience in combating terrorism," Pomerantz said.
Pomerantz said the FBI works with the Israeli National Police to develop better ways to detect terrorism before it happens. The Israeli national security forces have an efficient preplanned manner for dealing with terrorist threats, and they share their methods with the United States, he said.
However, the most important thing he learned while working with Israelis was not a matter of logistics, Pomerantz said. He said the only way to deal with terrorism was by taking the battle to the terrorists.
"You can't make a deal with the devil," Pomerantz said. "The greatest thing we learned is that terrorists can be beaten."
