The Security Charade

Yesterday, JINSA made clear its unhappiness with the intimacy of the relationship between American generals acting on behalf of the State Department and members of the Palestinian Authority security services. It appears we are not alone.

Yesterday, JINSA made clear its unhappiness with the intimacy of the relationship between American generals acting on behalf of the State Department and members of the Palestinian Authority security services. It appears we are not alone.

Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak sent a senior political/military affairs advisor to a meeting with one of the American generals and the Palestinian Prime Minister, rather than attend himself. According to an Israeli source, another of the American generals had criticized Barak personally and the IDF at an earlier meeting with consular staff at the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem. Barak, according to the source, said complaints should be addressed to him directly, not “laid before (American consular) officials not directly involved in the dialogue… some of who are openly hostile to Israel.”

He is right and more than right.

The American generals appear to have three complaints – Israel is not sharing enough intelligence with the Palestinian Security Services; IDF security operations in the West Bank are driving terrorists into the Palestinian-controlled areas, accounting for the inability of the Palestinian Authority to maintain order; and Israel refuses to institute new security procedures (removing checkpoints) as “peace negotiations move forward.”

This is a blatant American attempt to a) interfere with the Israeli government’s obligation to secure the people of Israel, and; b) blame Israel for the increasing anarchy in the West Bank. We strongly believe it is the result of demands by the State Department for the military envoys to make “progress” toward the independent Palestinian State to which the administration is committed – regardless of circumstances on the ground.

The American military professionals appear frustrated by their inability to create any kind of reliable security force among the Palestinians (see previous JINSA Reports). That they can’t is understandable, but that isn’t Israel’s problem. Israel has to deal with a well-understood threat to its people and cannot subcontract out the work to semi-reformed terrorists in Fatah.

Reflexive protection of Abu Mazen is understandable too, if not acceptable. But it is outrageous to blame Israel rather than Hamas, Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade (an arm of Abu Mazen’s own Fatah, which has denounced him and openly prefers Hamas), or the PIJ and their Iranian and other sponsors. All of these organizations – and several that don’t have names yet – are actively seeking to conduct terrorism in Israel and bring Hamas’s rocket capabilities to the West Bank for the purpose of killing Jews.

Politics are politics, but we applaud the Defense Minister’s determination not to remain involved in a U.S.-sponsored security charade with potentially dire implications for the citizens of Israel. We wish American generals weren’t involved in it either.