Control and Quiet
Israel has resumed the practice of “extremely narrowly focused attacks” (aka “targeted assassinations”) designed to stop terrorists from carrying out their nefarious business. Israel also rounded up 52 Palestinian terror suspects, while noting that only 1/3 of the terror suspects on Israel’s list have been disarmed by the PA – and some of those have been taken into the Palestinian police. The Israel Air Force destroyed a Kassam rocket launcher in Gaza.
Israel has resumed the practice of “extremely narrowly focused attacks” (aka “targeted assassinations”) designed to stop terrorists from carrying out their nefarious business. Israel also rounded up 52 Palestinian terror suspects, while noting that only 1/3 of the terror suspects on Israel’s list have been disarmed by the PA – and some of those have been taken into the Palestinian police. The Israel Air Force destroyed a Kassam rocket launcher in Gaza.
All of which has given rise to howling by the Palestinians and others that Israel has “broken the cease-fire.” No. The Government of Israel has resumed responsibility for protecting its own population from Palestinian violence, tacitly acknowledging that contracting the job out to the Palestinian police yet again has failed – both because the PA police cannot to it and because they will not do it.
Expecting the PA police to arrest or kill their brothers and cousins in the name of security for the people of Israel was never realistic. Palestinian loyalty to family and tribe is strong to begin with and brutally enforced where it falters. Because of this, when Israel stopped pursuing terrorists, terrorists took advantage. Of late, Palestinians from a variety of factions have instigated an average of 50-80 attacks a week in Gaza, up from an average of 10-15 a week in February.
Most horrible, for a variety of reasons, was the attempt by a young woman with a valid medical pass to enter Israel for treatment of burns suffered in a kitchen accident to blow up the Israeli hospital in which she had been receiving treatment. She had explosives sewn into her underwear. Then there was the arrest of a 16-year-old boy; the 21st capture in the past three months of a terrorist under the age of 18 trying to smuggle explosives into Israel. On the road near Tulkarm this week, an Israeli motorist was killed by a sniper and his 16-year-old passenger injured.
The fact that the IDF stops most of the attacks before they kill Israeli citizens is a hard-won blessing that in no way absolves the PA of its responsibilities under the Road Map and its commitments to President Bush. Even the UN undersecretary-general for political affairs told a Security Council meeting that the PA must do more to “establish law and order in the territories.”
Fat chance.
Britain’s The Independent reported this week, “A Palestinian gunman opened fire … with an M-16 automatic rifle on a sports club in Balata near the West Bank town of Nablus where Ahmad Qurei, the Palestinian prime minister, was holding a meeting. As Qurei was beating a hasty retreat in his official car, an explosion was heard about 300 meters away. The prime minister had come to appeal for a return to law and order.” The 21-year-old gunman was a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, affiliated with Qurei’s al-Fatah.
What the PA cannot do, Israel can and must do for the benefit of both.