Dr. Aaron Lerner is co-founder of IMRA, Independent Media Review and Analysis, an Israel-based news organization which provides an extensive digest of media, polls and significant interviews and events relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict. imra@netvision.net.il
"Moderate" Mahmoud Abbas takes the position that Palestinian compliance with the Roadmap's security requirements is no more than a paycheck away: put every gunman on the PA security force payroll and their off-hours affiliations are no longer relevant. And as members of the PA security forces their weapons are no longer illegal.
When Abbas first came out with this interpretation one would have expected Israeli officials to immediate assert that he was ignoring that the Roadmap requires that the consolidated security authority would be "free of association with terror" thus precluding hiring members of the various armed militias into the PA security force.
But instead Israeli officials ignored it.
And Israeli officials continued to ignore the Palestinian interpretation of compliance when American and European officials spoke favorably of Abbas's efforts to implement the idea.
The Saudi brokered Hamas Fatah deal today brings us considerably closer to a situation in which all the various and sundry Palestinian gunmen will be drawing a salary from the PA as they serve together in a united Palestinian army with the common goal of fighting Israel.
This will be a force that will employ not only all the weapons and training that America and others have provided to strengthen "moderate" Abbas but also everything that Iran, Hizbullah and others have provided.
This is an infantry force larger than Israel's outfitted with anti-aircraft missiles, anti-tank missiles, rockets and Allah-knows-what-else.
In the pre-Oslo age it could be understood if someone speculated that if gunmen from various groups were given PA security force uniforms and a PA paycheck that they would magically transform into honorable cops.
But after a decade of the Oslo experience such a suggestion is sheer fantasy.
Not only will the gunmen continue to moonlight as members of their various factions and groups, whatever mixing may take place between the various groups will inevitably create a situation in which the most radical elements win over the loyalty of many of the less radical.
And that's assuming that PA itself doesn't give marching orders to, as "moderate" Abbas put it, turn the guns against the occupation.
With disaster at the doorstep, Israeli officials must break their silence on this issue.
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