Palestinians' power shuffle leaves the deck stacked against Israel

An excellent Op-Ed piece on the Palestinian problem and the reality of the situation faced by liberal governments everywhere against religious fanatics.
(My highlights)


From the Baltimore Sun

Palestinians' power shuffle leaves the deck stacked against Israel
Cal Thomas

June 20, 2007ARLINGTON, Va. -- The Bush administration's announced goal for Israel and the "Palestinian people" has been two states, living side by side in peace. The administration is two-thirds of the way there. There are now two states - one in Gaza, headed by the militant Hamas organization, which shot its way to power, and another in the West Bank, headed by accused Holocaust denier Mahmoud Abbas. Unfortunately for Israel, there is no peace, which should not surprise those who have been predicting exactly what is coming to pass.

Whatever their names, be they groups such as Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida, or states such as Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, their objectives are identical: the annihilation of the democratic Jewish state and the elimination of all Jews, either by death or displacement, from the land. To argue otherwise and to continue believing the fiction that "infidel" diplomats from the State Department or European Union can magically transform people commanded to hate Jews and Israel based on a twisted mandate from their corrupt notion of God, is to be in extreme denial.

Hamas won't stop with Gaza. After its victory over poorly directed Israeli forces in Lebanon last summer, why should it? The one thing terrorists understand is weakness. They perceive Israel, under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as weak, and they are going for Israel's jugular. Benyamin Elon, a conservative member of Israel's Knesset, said, "The Fatah is diminishing in front of our eyes, and a group of gangsters is taking over. Israel can wake up now from the delusion of an independent Palestinian state."

Will it, or will Mr. Olmert be passing out and swallowing more diplomatic sleeping pills during meetings this week with President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and members of Congress? The violence and broken agreements are not being perpetrated by Israel. They are being perpetrated on Israel. It is mystifying that Western diplomats continue to pressure Israel to "do more" when "more" has brought Israel less.

Each time Israel gives up something necessary for its security, it receives in return more war, more terror and more insecurity. If more for less remains the "strategy" of the United States, Israel has two choices: Surrender now, or prepare for all-out war with catastrophic results.
The Palestinians held elections in January 2006 and instead of picking leaders to make peace with Israel, they overwhelmingly voted in members of Hamas to head the Palestinian Authority. A flood tide of terrorists and arms subsequently flowed into Gaza.

The intentions of Hamas and other terrorist groups are not hidden. They openly proclaim what they intend to do and then they do it.

Osama bin Laden said five years before Sept. 11, 2001, that he planned to attack the United States, but our leaders didn't take his statement seriously enough to eliminate him when they had the chance.

Those still in doubt or denial about what Israel's (and America's) enemies are planning might benefit from reading Jed Babbin's new book, In the Words of Our Enemies, in which he assembles what the Islamic terrorists, Chinese and North Korean communists and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are saying they want to do to us. This quote from the al-Qaida training manual leaves no room for diplomacy: "The confrontation that Islam calls for with these godless and apostate regimes does not know Socratic debates, Platonic ideals nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machinegun."

Anyone who questions the sincerity of such a statement is a fool. Apparently enough fools remain in leadership in Israel, the United States and Europe to encourage the killers to fight on until victory is attained.

Cal Thomas' syndicated column appears Wednesdays in The Sun. His e-mail is calthomas@tribune.com.

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