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Last week a number of news organizations focused on the growing security responsibilities of the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.

Howard Schneider of the Washington Post reported For Palestinian Forces a growing role in the West Bank:

Amid a marked decline in violence in and emanating from the West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces said its troops would no longer enter Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho and Qalqilyah unless there are “urgent security needs.” The agreement, struck at a Palestinian command center outside Bethlehem where commanders from the two sides gathered on Wednesday night, authorizes Palestinian police and security troops to remain in control of the four cities 24 hours a day. They had previously pulled back between midnight and 5 a.m. to avoid “friendly fire” encounters with IDF patrols.

The agreement stops short of recent demands by Palestinian officials that the IDF pull back fully from “area A” — the mostly urban territory that, under the 1993 Oslo accords, was put under the authority of Palestinian forces. The Oslo arrangement unraveled beginning in 2000 when a violent intifada, or uprising, led the IDF to reestablish control over the entire West Bank and surround Palestinian cities with checkpoints and barriers.

Isabel Kershner of The New York Times also reported Israelis Cede More Control of West Bank Security:

Israel has agreed to give the Palestinian security forces more freedom of action in four West Bank cities, Israeli and Palestinian security officials said Thursday, a move that implies a reduction in Israeli military activity in those areas as the Western-backed Palestinian forces assert more control.

The Israeli military also recently removed several significant checkpoints inside the West Bank, in line with a policy of easing movement and improving daily life for the Palestinians so long as calm prevails. A Palestinian can now drive from Jenin in the northern West Bank to Hebron in the south without being stopped and checked at any permanent roadblock along the way, the military says.

The article also notes (similar to the Washington Post):

But Palestinian officials said that the Israeli measures did not go far enough. The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday that they did not meet Palestinian expectations, and that “what is required is a full cessation of military raids in Palestinian Authority areas.”

Yaacov Lozowick observes:

It was always thus: Israel doesn’t meet Palestinian expectations.

There are a few points worth elaborating.

Left unsaid in these articles is that the reason there’s any semblance of order in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jericho and Qalqilyah, is because Israel destroyed most of the terrorist infrastructure during Operation Defensive Shield. Acknowledging that there is a military solution to terrorism is one of those things that’s just not reported.

Also missing is a serious recounting of the “Aqsa intifada.” At the time, Israel and the Palestinian Authority had joint security patrols and Israel allowed the Palesitnians a lot more freedom. However Arafat used that freedom to create a terrorist infrastructure. So when Israel reclaimed control of the areas it had previously ceded it wasn’t because it was defending its citizens. This is typical of reporting on the Middle East: treating Israeli military or security actions as arbitrary and ignoring the very real reasons why Israel undertook them.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that this isn’t 1993, but 2009. Even if the Palestinian efforts at building a civil society are successful, it’s awfully late in the game. If Arafat had made similar efforts, we’d have peace by now. But the Clinton administration found it expedient to ignore Arafat’s perfidies in the name of peace. And still the Palestinian Authority is a lot more inclined to make peace with Hamas than with Israel, still honors terrorists and is marginalizing its most moderate leader.

Daled Amos focused on articles in Pajamas Media and Ha’aretz. He concluded:

The face of the West Bank is changing–albeit very slowly, and with lots of external help. The West Bank still does not have the infrastructure to exist as an independent state, but it is not the impoverished and overpopulated hellhole that Palestinian apologists claim.

It’s good that the Palestinians under Fatah have decided to create a civil society, however slowly that’s proceeding. That’s a necessary condition for peace. But it is not sufficient. They also have to create a society willing to co-exist with Israel. It is far from clear that they are creating such a society.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The other day I commented on a story from the Washington Post that Arab states were failing to fulfill their commitments to fund the Palestinian Authority.

Since then a few other bloggers have written about the story as well as a related story in the Jerusalem Post.

Boker Tov Boulder points out that by focusing on what wasn’t paid to the PA, the story misses the bigger picture: what’s been paid to the PA and gone for naught. In fact 3 weeks ago, we learned that $1 billion in international aid had been disbursed to the PA in 6 months. (This is something that Boker Tov Boulder followed up on.)

The international community has paid out nearly a billion dollars in direct aid to the Palestinians in six months, officials of the International Donors’ Conference for the Palestinian State said here late Monday, while hitting out at Israeli restrictions on movement by Palestinians.

Commenting on the Jerusalem Post story Israel Matzav offers some advice to the PA:

I know one place they could cut back – they could stop paying ’salaries’ for all their ‘employees’ in Gaza who haven’t come to work in over a year. At least 40% of the ‘Palestinian Authority’s ‘budget’ is spent in Gaza, which they do not even control.

That’s right, a significant amount of foreign aid sent to bolster the “moderate” Fatah government gets funneled to the “militant” Hamas government. The claims that we must fund the PA in order to bolster the moderates is undermined by the very moderates we’re supposedly helping.

Elder of Ziyon boils it down to:

The rich Arab oil barons do not consider the PA to be a good investment.

(There’s a lot more to his argument, but that’s the bottom line. So read the whole thing.)

If there was a Zionist ethos, it could be summed up as “making the desert bloom.” While the reality was not necessarily so romantic, it underscores a devotion to being independent. Palestinian nationalism, if it has an ethos it’s “let’s be wards of the international community.” Palestinian statehood has become everyone’s responsibility but the Palestinians.

The nations of the world must give them money. Israel must give them land and free terrorists.

Palestinians nationalism could be described as a passive-aggressive national movement. Why is there an International Donor’s conference to mark the progress towards creating a Palestinian state? Why isn’t Abbas or Fayyad presenting a state of the state message to their many donors explaining how they’ve promoted an industrial infrastructure, instituted government accountability, implemented a legal system that observes high standards of human rights or an educational system that promotes liberal thought? The Palestinians have no responsibilities and nothing is demanded of them.

Everyone everywhere (including numerous Israeli politicians) claim that Israel’s very legitimacy rests on the creation of a Palestinian state. But how can that be when the Palestinians don’t take the necessary steps to create such a state? Why should Israel’s legitimacy be dependent on the behavior of the Palestinians?

And when President Bush says that a stable Middle East depends on having a Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, why does it matter more to him than to the Arab states who won’t put their money where their mouth is? (Remember that one of the complaints that the Arab world has against the United States – repeated ad nauseum – is that it doesn’t do enough for the Palestinians. But how can the United States do enough, if the Palestinians don’t take the basic steps to create a state themselves? And why doesn’t the United States turn to the Arabs and say, why should we support Palestinians nationalism if you won’t?)

The current trends in diplomacy only encourage Palestinian dependency. At what point will this be recognized and the onus of independence be placed on the ones who claim they want it?

UPDATE: Writing about a trend of Arab countries to invest directly in the Palestinian people and not the government, Daled Amos observed (similar to Elder of Ziyon):

I blogged earlier this week about how contrary to the West that insisted on pouring more millions into the Palestinian Authority to no effect, the Arab countries knew better and have resisted giving money to the PA that they have previously promised. Now it seems that the Arab countries are even smarter than that–they have approached the situation as capitalists, investing in the people instead of squandering it on the leaders.

And from the Arab side of things, Zohir Andreus writes in Killing the Dream:

It is difficult for me to be a Palestinian-Arab these days, because I’m simply ashamed. The conduct of my people in the “liberated” Gaza Strip and in the occupied West Bank does not leave room for any doubt: The dream of establishing a democratic and secular Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel is dissipating. My people is the only one in the world that has no state and, thank God, two governments.

So perhaps it is the governments of the Palestinians who are passive aggressive in seeking nationhood.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.