Wednesday, June 20, 2007

West Bank first?

Some of you may remember that when the decision was made in 2005 by PM Sharon to carry out the disengagement from Gaza, it was based on the so-called "Gaza first" principle. That is, since the Palestinians were showing no signs of being prepared to follow the yellow-brick Road Map, and since there are many in Israel who have no patience to wait for actual peace (i.e "peace now!"), it was decided to speed things up by a unilateral Israeli withdrawal of not only settlements (22 in number) but also of all IDF units from Gaza.
However, surprise, surprise, this did not lead to peace. On the contrary, the Palestinians immediately trashed everything that the Israelis had left for them, including hothouses that could have provided work and food (that had been paid for by some foolish American Jews), as well as increasing the firing of Kassam rockets from the evacuated areas onto the Negev.
So "Gaza first" did not work, it was a miserable failure. And to judge by the outcome today, with a Hamas Army trained in Gaza that was able in 5 days to defeat a larger Fatah force, it was an even greater failure than we had realized. I don't think we can blame the current situation on Sharon and Olmert and those who supported disengagement (including me), but certainly it has contributed to the ascendancy of Hamas in Gaza.
Those who had proposed that Israel deal with Hamas ("you have to negotiate with your enemies") have probably seen what Hamas did to Fatah, their fellow Palestinians. Not only did they murder hundreds without any compunction, but they also carried out war crimes, throwing people from buildings, shooting girls and women in the street, as well as completely looting and stripping the houses of Fatah leaders, including that of former Pres. Arafat. So what would they do to us Israelis if they had the opportunity? There is no dealing with criminal, terrorist, fundamentalist extremists.
But, now that Gaza is gone we have the "West Bank first." This is based on the principle that Pres. Abbas and Fatah are "moderate," that they oppose Hamas (they also murdered several Hamas leaders), and that they are therefore our putative "Palestinian friends." But, there are two aspects that must give us pause before we race headlong into this new adventure. First, much of Fatah is beyond the control of Pres. Abbas and his new emergency Govt. However much we might support PM Fayyad as an honest and pro-American leader, he does not control the al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the men with the guns. Abbas has been consistent in only one way, in his weakness and indecision. Will he change now?
Second, many of those who are waiting at the Erez and other crossings to get into Israel, because they would be killed by Hamas, are al Aksa Martyr killers, who until recently were shooting rockets into Israel (now they all have cancer and are humanitarian cases). If Israel lets them into the West Bank will they support a good pro-American Govt. Think again! Their program is still to destroy Israel, but first they need to defeat Hamas in order to reassert their control over all of Palestine.
Abba Eban said that the Palestinians always shoot themselves in the foot and "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." Now they have an opportunity, the EU, Israel and the US are lining up to supply funds to the new West Bank PA Govt. If they can only control themselves and their own extremists maybe they can pull it off, become the "moderates" we wish they were (only in comparison to Hamas). But, I fear that the Palestinians are incapable of grasping the dream of a peaceful future, they only want revenge against Israel for the historic wrong that they feel has been done to them (for which they originally started the first of the many wars). They are in a perpetual time-warp, that they think can only be resolved by violence. So if you see a lot of Palestinians limping around on the West Bank, you'll know that once again they have missed the opportunity and have all shot themselves in the foot.

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