A Fulcrum Moment
More routes are soon to be opened between Gaza and the West Bank. Subject to the same lamentable inspections, Hamas and other terrorist groups will transfer operatives and experts in sabotage into the West Bank and then threaten major Israeli population centers. That smuggling has already been attempted. In October, three notorious terrorists who had come from Sinai were captured on their way from Gaza to the West Bank. They admitted to an effort to expand the operational structure of terrorism in the West Bank, including the manufacture of curved trajectory weapons to overfly the Israeli security fence and to abduct an Israeli as a hostage in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners. They conceded that their recruiter was Salem Thabet, a high-level terrorist behind many attacks, including the double suicide bombing at the Ashdod port in March of 2004, which killed 11 Israeli civilians.
Nor has the withdrawal from Gaza ended the violence. Explosives were planted along the Gaza fence, 20 of which have already been discovered, the smallest weighing 88 pounds. Light-weapons fire and rocket and mortar rounds continue unabated. As the commander of the Israeli-Gaza division said, "This is not the border we hoped for. The number of incidents since we left Gaza is enormous."
Why is this happening? Surprise--Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, has failed to lift a finger to control such groups. Barely a day has passed since his election in January without attempts to launch one form of terrorist attack or another from the PA-controlled territory. There have been almost 1,800 different incidents to date since the February Sharm al-Shaikh summit. The anarchy predicted for Gaza has become a reality. It is now ruled by warlords, armed gangs, and terrorists, with no independent judiciary or anything like the rule of law.
Even more troubling is the role of Washington. We have not really insisted on dismantling the terrorist organizations. Instead, we have forced Israel to accede to Hamas as a partner in the political process, undermining the essential argument that Hamas must be dissolved as a terrorist organization, despite explicit statements from Hamas that it has no intention of giving up its weapons or of compromising its objective of destroying Israel. If Hamas does as well as most predict, winning some 30 to 40 percent of the seats in the Legislative Council, it can exploit the legitimacy it has achieved to escalate attacks on Israel and block any peace proposals from the Palestinians.
President Bush's assertion that the United States "will not distinguish between terrorists and those who harbor them" is no longer operative with Palestinians. Indeed, the State Department has made it clear that it will not ostracize Abbas as it did Arafat. Condoleezza Rice and her staff at the State Department seem satisfied if Abbas simply continues to mouth his empty promises of putting an end to violence and say nothing when he criticizes Israeli attempts to foil terrorist attacks.
Yet another disturbing sign of Abbas's failure is the resignation of one of the few honest men in the PA, Salam Fayad, the former finance minister. He left because the PA refused to honor its commitment not to raise the payrolls of high officials--never mind that Abbas insisted that the PA hire an additional 2,500 gunmen as a continuation of the political bribery so typical of Arafat's regime. Indeed, Abbas will now be paying the salaries of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group that was the first to publicly endorse Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
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