Israel Matzav

If there were 'Palestinian elections'....

If there were 'Palestinian elections' today and anyone could run, there is one man whom the 'Palestinians' would overwhelmingly vote to elect. Surprise: He's a murderer serving five consecutive life terms in an Israeli prison. His name is Marwan Barghouti.

The latest survey of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, headed by Khalil Shikaki, found that most Palestinians would not mind if Abbas retired; they think his talk of doing so is mere posturing.

Sixty-one percent of Palestinians say that Fatah and Hamas are jointly responsible for the continued split within the Palestinian polity. Reuniting the West Bank with Gaza is the Palestinians' top priority, with most saying this goal is more important than maintaining the cease-fire with Israel.

At the same time, if elections were held today, Abbas would receive the support of 54% of the Palestinian electorate compared to Ismail Haniyeh's 38%. Haniyeh's overall popularity among Gazans stands at 43% - not much lower than President Barack Obama's among Americans (49%).

But roughly 40% of eligible voters say - given a choice between Haniyeh and Abbas - they'd stay home.

What if younger blood were injected in the race? What if the man Yasser Arafat entrusted with running Fatah's terror campaign under the Tanzim brand were the moderates' standard bearer? Answer: Marwan Barghouti would take 67% of the ballots compared to 28% for Ismail Haniyeh - while participation would shoot up to 73%.

There are some Israelis - let alone Americans and Europeans - who look at those numbers and say that we ought to let Barghouti out of jail to run for President of the 'Palestinian Authority.' They are wrong. The 'Palestinians' want Barghouti because they know that unlike Abu Mazen, he would resort to violence to get what he wants from Israel. And unlike Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas, Barghouti would not make the women walk around in burkas and turn the 'Palestinian Authority' into an Islamic Caliphate.

FROM AN Israeli viewpoint, the heartbreak is that despite a massive investment of resources by the EU and US, accompanied by essential Israeli cooperation, the relatively well-off West Bankers hanker after the imprisoned Barghouti, partly because he refuses to rule out a third paroxysm of violence.

The core attitudes of West Bankers and comparatively deprived Gazans are not poles apart, with so many believing that violence pays. Economic well-being, then, does not obviate political frustration.

Tragically, Palestinian "moderates" are doing precious little to lessen the dissatisfaction of their people, because they have failed to candidly discuss the compromises necessary to achieve viable aspirations.

Why is that? I believe that there are two reasons.

First, because the 'leadership' doesn't have the popular support to tell people things they do not want to hear. In America, the public doesn't want to hear that the President is going to raise taxes, but the American political system survives that trauma when it has to. In Israel, the public doesn't want to hear that we have to go to war again, but our system survives that trauma when it has to. But the 'Palestinian' leadership is afraid what the reaction would be if it started to breach the notion that it's necessary to compromise with Israel. And whether that fear is justified or not, the 'Palestinian' leadership isn't going to take the chance to find out.

Second, the 'Palestinians' and their leadership have no incentive to either prepare their 'people' for compromise or to actually compromise because they have been taught that intransigence pays. It's been 16 years since Oslo. The 'Palestinians' have not budged one iota, while Israel has repeatedly backpedaled. Compare, for example, Yitzhak Rabin's last speech in the Knesset before he was assassinated with the positions of today's Israeli government. We have gone backward. And it has cost the 'Palestinians' nothing. If anything, the world is even more in their corner, more willing to hammer away at us, and more willing to support them financially if not militarily. So why should they compromise? And if they don't expect to have to compromise, why should they prepare their people for compromise?

I mentioned recently a quote from Nobel Prize Winning Professor Yisrael Aumann, an expert in game theory, which I saw in George Gilder's The Israel Test. Aumann says that paradoxically, the more willingness Israel shows to compromise, the more the 'Palestinians' demand and the further away from peace we get. Maybe it's time for a change? Let's start by keeping Marwan Barghouti in jail where he belongs.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:49 PM