Elephants in the Corner, Again
Secretary of State Rice ignored two large but inconvenient facts over the weekend as she met with Palestinian and Israeli officials. Voicing support for the PA position that Palestinians be allowed easy movement into and through Israel, she said, “When the Israelis withdraw from Gaza, it cannot be sealed or isolated, with the Palestinian people holed in … we are committed to the connectivity of Gaza and the West Bank.”
The first elephant: The PA is at war with the State of Israel. Enemy combatants cannot be allowed easy access to their targets and Americans shouldn’t offer it to them.
Secretary of State Rice ignored two large but inconvenient facts over the weekend as she met with Palestinian and Israeli officials. Voicing support for the PA position that Palestinians be allowed easy movement into and through Israel, she said, “When the Israelis withdraw from Gaza, it cannot be sealed or isolated, with the Palestinian people holed in … we are committed to the connectivity of Gaza and the West Bank.”
The first elephant: The PA is at war with the State of Israel. Enemy combatants cannot be allowed easy access to their targets and Americans shouldn’t offer it to them.
The director of the Shin Bet recently told the Knesset that Palestinian terrorists have carried out over 25,000 attacks against Israel since the start of the current phase of the war in September 2000, with 1,048 Israelis killed and more than 5,600 wounded. There are approximately 60 intelligence warnings of potential terror attacks every day.
As in – on Friday, the IDF captured a Palestinian terrorist from Abu Mazen’s own Fatah organization who crossed the Gaza fence and was headed to Tel Aviv with his 5 kg suicide bomb belt fortified with nails and metal scraps to maximize the force of impact. His guide was a Palestinian married to an Israeli Arab. On Saturday, Dov and Rachel Kol were shot and killed in their car returning from a visit to Mrs. Kol’s sister in Gaza.
Abu Mazen condemned the murder – sort of. A statement released by his office (he did not himself appear) said, “Such operations, coming at the moment of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza do not serve our national interest.”
The second elephant: The PA is unable to control the territory it would acquire from Israel, even if it wanted to – and as yet, it doesn’t appear to want to.
The Los Angeles Times reported on testimony to the U.S. Senate by Lt. Gen. William Ward, USA, who is tasked with restructuring the Palestinian security forces.
Asked whether he thought the Palestinians were capable of enforcing the law and suppressing attacks on Israel, Ward responded, “The ability will come after time, … it does not currently exist.” He depicted a Palestinian force that is woefully unprepared to handle internal policing duties or stop attacks on Israel after Israeli forces retreat from Gaza. The Palestinian security force has more than 58,000 members, Ward said, but no more than 22,000 “actually show up for work.” He said the force was like “a social welfare net,” with the payroll including officers who do not “contribute to the day-to-day security situation on the Palestinian street.”
Ward described the difficult task of remaking a force still composed of units with “loyalty to individuals, chieftains, fiefdoms” into one that “is responsive to a central authority with direct responsiveness and responsibility back to the central governing bodies.” “That has not taken hold.”
Given the elephants, the U.S. should be warning the Palestinians of the consequences of their behavior rather than planning for connectivity between two elements of the terrorist state to which we presently appear to be midwife.