Life After Gaza
Yasser Arafat's death has not marked the end of Arafatism. Abbas is no more resolved today to confront Fatah's terrorist factions than Arafat was. His actions belie his words. Abbas announces that jihad is terrorism, but at the same time he continues to meet with terrorist leaders. He dined with many of the worst of them in Syria, and Ahmed Qureia, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, has just met with leaders of terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Syria and announced they would not be disarmed. No wonder al Qaeda announced that it's opening a branch in Gaza.
The truth is Abbas is not so much trying to smash the terrorist organizations as he is trying to reconcile with them, including paying some that engage in acts of terrorism, like the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Jenin, mostly former members of Palestinan security forces, who continue to receive salaries from the Palestinian Authority. Jamal Abu Samhadana, the head of the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza, announced that at least 500 members of his group have been recruited to the PA. He himself was offered a senior "intelligence" position by the PA. There are over 700 armed gangs like this in Gaza, all connected with Fatah, that have made murder, kidnapping, and extortion a part of everyday life.
Whatever emollient words may be uttered on the occasion of the Gaza withdrawal, the violence from the Palestinian side simply cannot be ignored. In the five months between the February cease-fire and July, Palestinians carried out 812 attacks on Israeli targets, and thousands more were disrupted by Israeli security efforts. No fewer than 47 percent of those attacks were claimed by Fatah, the ruling group in the Palestinian Authority, which is headed by Abbas--yet no one was arrested or expelled.
How long can Israel negotiate a peace with people who in fact are coconspirators in the efforts to destroy the Jewish state? Diplomacy fails if one side does not deliver on its word. Where is the pro-peace, pro-prosperity, and pro-freedom wing of the Palestinian people determined to dismantle the terrorist groups, as called for by President Bush?
Pressure. Far from being disarmed, the terrorist forces are being rearmed, and now they're trying to transfer their technical knowledge on how to build rockets to groups in the West Bank, in order to attack nearby Israeli cities.
So what does Israel get in return for giving Palestinians Gaza? An Islamic terrorist state? Even a liberal think tank like the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies has concluded that the disadvantages and the risks of disengagement outweigh the benefits and that it will lead to more terrorism. In a recent paper, the center's scholars concluded: "After the disengagement, terrorism's center of gravity will shift to the West Bank . . . while Gaza will serve as a rear echelon and support base for this activity" and will "offer safe harbor for wanted terrorists and senior commanders," thus providing a place for Hamas and other terrorist groups to build larger militias with a greater degree of immunity.
advertisement
