Comments on: Quartet to Israel: Deal with the terrorists http://www.yourish.com/2005/09/21/92 Cutting straight to the point Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:40:44 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Michael Lonie http://www.yourish.com/2005/09/21/92/comment-page-1#comment-254 Michael Lonie Thu, 22 Sep 2005 04:05:20 +0000 http://www.yourish.com/?p=92#comment-254 Sounds good to me Ben, but impossible. Anybody sensible among the Palestinians has been murdered by Arafat and his consiglieri, or by Hamas, since the cynical and stupid Oslo Accords brought the PLO back to tyrannize over the Palis (a lot of people owe Norman Podhoretz apologies for denigrating him after his clear-eyed denunciation of that farce). This is a traditional Palestinian Arab practice going back to the 1920s. They are not about to break with tradition now. Anybody willing to compromise with Israel would be murdered within days by secret agents left behind by the terrorist groups, even if they agreed to go. Israel deals with Fatah and what we might call the Official PLO faut de mieux. How can Israel take a principled stand of not dealing with terrorists when everybody else in the world is pressurizing the Israelis to do so? Nobody else acts from principle in the Israel-Arab conflict, except for those Arabs who declare they want to finish the job Hitler started. They at least are honest about their evil goals. I'd say that Israel ought to watch the Palis' actions. When (not if) they resume terrorism Israel should make clear to outsifders that, no matter what they say, no more concessions until the Palis live up to their obligations to stop terrorism and disarm the terorist groups. If they can't (won't), TS, and no additional West Bank territory for them. And if the terrorism continues, level Gaza. Outsiders will complain? They'll complain no matter what Israel does, save commit suicide. If you are going to endure the bitching of the rest of the world, do it for something that will strike fear into the hearts of your enemies. Forget proportionate responses, raze the enemy city and sow salt on the ruins. Sounds good to me Ben, but impossible. Anybody sensible among the Palestinians has been murdered by Arafat and his consiglieri, or by Hamas, since the cynical and stupid Oslo Accords brought the PLO back to tyrannize over the Palis (a lot of people owe Norman Podhoretz apologies for denigrating him after his clear-eyed denunciation of that farce). This is a traditional Palestinian Arab practice going back to the 1920s. They are not about to break with tradition now. Anybody willing to compromise with Israel would be murdered within days by secret agents left behind by the terrorist groups, even if they agreed to go.

Israel deals with Fatah and what we might call the Official PLO faut de mieux. How can Israel take a principled stand of not dealing with terrorists when everybody else in the world is pressurizing the Israelis to do so? Nobody else acts from principle in the Israel-Arab conflict, except for those Arabs who declare they want to finish the job Hitler started. They at least are honest about their evil goals.

I’d say that Israel ought to watch the Palis’ actions. When (not if) they resume terrorism Israel should make clear to outsifders that, no matter what they say, no more concessions until the Palis live up to their obligations to stop terrorism and disarm the terorist groups. If they can’t (won’t), TS, and no additional West Bank territory for them. And if the terrorism continues, level Gaza.

Outsiders will complain? They’ll complain no matter what Israel does, save commit suicide. If you are going to endure the bitching of the rest of the world, do it for something that will strike fear into the hearts of your enemies. Forget proportionate responses, raze the enemy city and sow salt on the ruins.

]]> By: Ben F http://www.yourish.com/2005/09/21/92/comment-page-1#comment-250 Ben F Wed, 21 Sep 2005 14:58:27 +0000 http://www.yourish.com/?p=92#comment-250 The problem here is that the alternative to HAMAS is FATAH, which is no less a terrorist group, and no less committed to Israel's destruction, and yet ISRAEL ITSELF IS COMMITTED TO WORKING WITH FATAH. In the first instance it is ISRAEL that is rewarding terrorists for killing Jews; the world is just saying that, so long as Israel is doing that, it must respect the Palestinians' "right of self-determination" and has no right to unilaterally dictate which terrorist factions it will cooperate with and which it will not cooperate with. There's really no principled basis that I can think of for saying "FATAH yes, HAMAS no." The distinction between the "political" and "military" wings of FATAH is no more meaningful than the distinction between the "political" and "military" wings of HAMAS. The political wings of both insist that violence will ensue if all of their political demands (territorial, release of prisoners, right of return) are not met. Suppose Israel gave FATAH-niks 30 days' free passage to relocate to Tunis, HAMAS-niks 30 days' free passage to relocate to Egypt, PIJ-niks 30 days' free passage to relocate to Iran, declare anyone associated with those organizations remaining east of the Jordan to be subject to arrest for membership in a terrorist organization, re-impose military jurisdiction over the territories, and declare its willingness to negotiate with any political faction that has no military wing. The problem here is that the alternative to HAMAS is FATAH, which is no less a terrorist group, and no less committed to Israel’s destruction, and yet ISRAEL ITSELF IS COMMITTED TO WORKING WITH FATAH.

In the first instance it is ISRAEL that is rewarding terrorists for killing Jews; the world is just saying that, so long as Israel is doing that, it must respect the Palestinians’ “right of self-determination” and has no right to unilaterally dictate which terrorist factions it will cooperate with and which it will not cooperate with.

There’s really no principled basis that I can think of for saying “FATAH yes, HAMAS no.” The distinction between the “political” and “military” wings of FATAH is no more meaningful than the distinction between the “political” and “military” wings of HAMAS. The political wings of both insist that violence will ensue if all of their political demands (territorial, release of prisoners, right of return) are not met.

Suppose Israel gave FATAH-niks 30 days’ free passage to relocate to Tunis, HAMAS-niks 30 days’ free passage to relocate to Egypt, PIJ-niks 30 days’ free passage to relocate to Iran, declare anyone associated with those organizations remaining east of the Jordan to be subject to arrest for membership in a terrorist organization, re-impose military jurisdiction over the territories, and declare its willingness to negotiate with any political faction that has no military wing.

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