Israel Matzav

Dismantle the Palestinian Authority

At FrontPage Magazine.com, David Hornik argues that the time has come to dismantle the 'Palestinian Authority.' Personally, I think the time came a long time ago....

It is also clear by now that all of Israel’s attempts to square the circle—to maintain the Palestinian Authority while achieving its own security—have failed. Offers of statehood, limited military incursions, building a fence, and partial territorial withdrawals have all had the same result—continued terrorism. The one thing that has, so far, substantially reduced the success rate of the terrorism—the stepped-up Israeli military activity since 2002—has come nowhere near ending it.

The attempt to pressure the Hamas regime into collapsing, even were it to succeed, offers no solution since all other internal groups now wielding political-military power in the PA—Fatah and its offshoots, the Popular Front, the Popular Resistance Committees, Islamic Jihad, and so on—share the same terroristic nature and aim of attacking and eventually destroying Israel. Any Hamas replacement would also maintain the educational system that indoctrinates generations of Palestinians in anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic hatred.

Some also believe the eventual completion of Israel’s security fence is the answer. But while the incomparably shorter and more manageable fence between Gaza and Israel has so far stopped infiltrations, attempts at infiltration, including by tunnel, occur constantly. Even if completed, the West Bank fence will be vastly more lengthy, convoluted, and difficult to defend, while offering no solution at all to missile attacks.

The real choice, then, is clear-cut: either to let the slaughter of Israelis continue, working to reduce it but not to end it, or to take the only military action that can end it. Anyone who believes Israelis have the same right to life as Danes, Dutch, Americans, or anyone else should favor the second alternative. The fact that tired, bewildered Israelis themselves have now elected a dovish government, and no longer insist on their own right to life as they still did in the early years of the Oslo era, does not mean others should applaud their suicide.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:54 AM