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By Bruce S. Ticker
May 24, 2005
Last Wednesday was one of those aggravating days that could tempt anyone to throw up their hands in frustration. The conflict exploded once again with a series of tit-for-tat attacks that the Palestinians started when they fired anti-tank rockets and automatic rifles at Israeli troops along the Gaza/Egypt border.
Later in the day, Hamas fired mortars at a settlement bloc in Gaza and Israel retaliated by firing a missile on the Palestinians who were firing the mortars. The Israeli military said one Israeli was wounded by the Palestinian mortar barrage which included more than a dozen mortars and two rockets. Terrorist attacks persisted on last Thursday and Friday.
The Israeli military has reported 48 Palestinian attacks in April alone. Five Israelis were massacred in a bombing last February.
These were all acts of war, and Israel had every right to consider the current status to be a state of war, and respond accordingly.
How long has Abbas been in control of the Palestinian Authority? In the six months since Yasser Arafat died, Abbas has made it clear that he either cannot or will not end terrorism among his people. On the surface, it certainly looks that he cannot eliminate terrorism. He has managed to reduce violence substantially on a temporary basis, but he cannot convince a substantial number of Palestinians to accept peace with Israel. He repeatedly refuses to employ force on any consistent basis for fear of civil war, and he is probably right.
Israel cannot tolerate violence or even the threat of violence. It would be ideal if Israel and the Palestinians could reach a workable settlement, but since that is not possible, Israel has decided to seal itself off from the Palestinians. With the Gaza pullout and construction of the security barrier, Israel is clearly moving in that direction.
But, if and when the Israelis wall themselves off, the Palestinians could be starved out. One would think it is the last move that Abbas and other Palestinians would want Israel to make, since they need Israel's cooperation to develop a viable Palestinian state.
So how can the terrorists in the Palestinians' midst be put out of business?
All parties that claim they want this mess fixed should consider imposing an international military force on the territories to control violence and root out the terrorists once and for all.
Many observers may balk at such a proposal because they don't want to risk the lives of Americans, Europeans and others, but that seems to be the only light at the end of the tunnel, and even that tunnel would be a very long one.
But it would be a chance for Palestinian advocates to put their money where their mouths are. They say they want to help the Palestinians, and the only way that Israel will work with the Palestinians is if the terrorist structure is eliminated.
Fraught with risks, the deployment of an international force is still less of a gamble than the alternatives -- a civil war if the Palestinians ever make a full-scale effort to control terrorism, and bitter hostilities if the task of cleaning up terrorism is left to Israel.
The Palestinians will not enjoy any occupying force. Moderate Palestinians will probably tolerate it and the extremists will despise it.
Israelis will not trust an international force, which would presumably come in the form of United Nations troops.
International troops would no doubt be under attack from the moment they stepped foot in Gaza and the West Bank. Maybe they will never be able to accomplish anything more than to keep a lid on terrorism.
There is no guarantee that an international force would accomplish anything, but nothing else has worked so far. Such an alternative is worth serious consideration.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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