Consequences

Over the weekend, President Bush laid blame for the failure of American-led peace efforts directly on Yasser Arafat. Within hours, “Prime Minister” Abu Ala announced that Arafat is his boss and the U.S. should deal with him as a full partner. The obvious American response should be to regard neither as a partner. It is time for the U.S. to stop protecting the Palestinians from the consequences of their lousy choices of leadership and of policy. The best way would be for the U.S.

Over the weekend, President Bush laid blame for the failure of American-led peace efforts directly on Yasser Arafat. Within hours, “Prime Minister” Abu Ala announced that Arafat is his boss and the U.S. should deal with him as a full partner. The obvious American response should be to regard neither as a partner. It is time for the U.S. to stop protecting the Palestinians from the consequences of their lousy choices of leadership and of policy. The best way would be for the U.S. to support Israel’s sovereign decisions about “settlements,” the security fence and eliminating terrorist leaders.

The Palestinians want Jews to forego building on land east of the 1949 armistice line in order that the land remain relatively empty just in case they some day decide to make a deal for the state they rejected in 1948. The State Department calls Israeli housing an “obstacle to peace.” But the real obstacle is Arab unwillingness to accept a sovereign Israel and the Palestinian terrorism that accompanies that refusal. The U.S. should tell the Palestinians that Israel cannot be prevented from building houses on land that is, after all, only the unallocated portion of the British Mandate, once occupied by Jordan and acquired by Israel in a defensive war in 1967. The Palestinians should have to decide whether they want to have a country or prefer to continue their rejection of the legitimacy of Israel. Israel should not have to wait for them.

Likewise the fence. No one likes the fence – not Israelis, not Americans and not Palestinians. But the fence is a response to more than 850 Israeli deaths by terrorism, and Israel is entitled to determine how best to deal with that. The fastest way to stop the fence would be to tell the Palestinians that unless they stop the suicide bombers not only will the U.S. not withhold money from Israel, but will instead FUND the fence. As the fence goes up, the Palestinians will have to decide whether they will end up behind it or take the steps that will obviate it. Israel should not have to wait for them.

Likewise targeted killings. Palestinian terrorists violate the Geneva Convention by living among civilians, believing Israel either will not target them, or will kill enough civilians to evoke the wrath of the U.S. Their cynical use of their own people is appalling, but their calculation appears justified by the U.S. response, which has been to criticize Israel. Instead, the U.S. should be telling Palestinian civilians that the U.S. cannot protect them, and while Israel will try not to kill them, in fact Israel cannot protect them either. Non-terrorist Palestinians will have to decide whether they want to continue sleeping next to terrorists or give them the boot. Israel shouldn’t have to wait for them. [Terrorists don’t get to decide anything – they simply have to know that they will die.]

This is not to punish the Palestinians. It is simply to make the consequences of Jew hatred and terrorism fall on those who hate and kill, and those who support them. Rather like the President’s policy in Afghanistan and Iraq. It would be a bold stroke for the U.S. and frankly, we doubt the State Department has the nerve. But we challenge the Administration, then, to tell us why Israel is threatened with the loss of American political and financial support for fighting terrorism on its streets while the Palestinians are protected from Israel’s righteous wrath.