Moonlighting Palestinians
Item: The Jerusalem Post reports that Palestinian Mazab Bashir was arrested for plotting to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Bashir works for “Doctors Without Borders.” The head of “DWB” told Israel Radio, “We are very sad for Bashir who has been working for us for almost six years. But we… make a distinction between his professional work and what he does on his personal time… I don’t think our organization can be held liable for every aspect of (his) life.”
Item: The Jerusalem Post reports that Palestinian Mazab Bashir was arrested for plotting to assassinate Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Bashir works for “Doctors Without Borders.” The head of “DWB” told Israel Radio, “We are very sad for Bashir who has been working for us for almost six years. But we… make a distinction between his professional work and what he does on his personal time… I don’t think our organization can be held liable for every aspect of (his) life.”
Item: The U.S. military is training Abu Mazen’s “Presidential Guard” in the belief or ephemeral hope that this particular group of Palestinians, more than others, meets an American standard for the responsible exercise of lethal force. This would be risible if it were not so dangerous.
We’ve said it before – training Palestinian troops is not an appropriate mission for American military officers. And it doesn’t matter if, as our Government often says, Israel approves of the training. We don’t. This mess started during Oslo when Israel believed it had a Palestinian partner for police and counter-terror operations. It was a mistake by Israel compounded by the U.S. Government. Palestinians were never going to give Israelis security in a country Palestinians didn’t believe should exist. Not surprisingly, Palestinians of various loyalties played policeman during the day and moonlighted as terrorists.
This is not news. We stopped the training for a while in part because they were blowing up Israelis and in part because they failed generally to accept our rules for organization, operation and transparency. Then we started again. Over time we became more and more heavily invested in thinking that if the Palestinians only had better capabilities, they would be better protectors of Israel’s security. They can’t; they don’t want to be.
They can’t even protect themselves. The Palestinians are having what appears to be a civil war. [Their government disintegrated much faster than the Iraqi government in part because Israel left the playing field precipitously; this is a warning.] The war is not between those in power and those out – it is more like conjoined twins fighting for control of the body. The U.S. is training one army of the government against another army of the government but, according to reports from the area, Fatah, including American-trained forces, have been almost entirely ineffectual against Hamas. Fatah is pleading for more weapons, as if what is lacking in Gaza is weapons.
What is lacking in Gaza is a clear-eyed understanding of the disintegration of Palestinian society at the hands of its own leadership. It was said that when Hamas had to govern it would become more moderate or at least more attuned to the people who elected it – the “pothole” theory of governance. In fact, Hamas is fighting Fatah for control in order to freely pursue its terrorist agenda against Israel. And despite American help – or because it only saw our help as a means to an entirely different end – Fatah is in no position to advance its own goals (not that those are so great, either).
This suggests that Israel may be forced to consider intervention for its own safety. If it comes, the U.S. will bear heavy responsibility.