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By Bruce S. Ticker
October 22, 2005
The late Israeli statesman Abba Eban is often quoted for his truism that the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity for peace. My crash course in Middle East history convinces me that Israel never misses an opportunity to zig when it should zag and zag when it should zig.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's military tactics during his first three years in office were at best questionable and contributed in part to many of the 1,065 Israeli deaths during this current war. When Israeli troops seized the al-Aqsa mosque in 1967, someone planted an Israeli flag there. Moshe Dayan, who then commanded the military, arrived soon after, had the flag removed and returned control of the mosque to the local mullahs. I wonder how the troops who fought to take this real estate, presumed site of the destroyed second Temple of Jerusalem, felt about Dayan's reversal.
Sharon often employed heavyhanded tactics when he should have held back. At the current rate, he needs not restrain the Israel Defense Forces much longer. Nobody can blame him if he brings the hammer down hard in the near future, and even he should understand that.
Israel lost three of its sons and daughters - female cousins Meitat Rosenfeld-Adler, 23, and Kinneret Mandel, 24, and a 15-year-old boy, Oz Ben Meir - when terrorists shot them on Sunday, June 16, in a drive-by shooting along the road linking Jerusalem to Hebron in the south. They were buried the next day in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The wanton murder spree reflected a dramatic difference from past killings, especially over the last five years. There were no longer any side issues that blurred the lines between right and wrong. This was an act of war. Israel is without question the victim and Palestinian society is the assailant.
Less than a month before, Israel removed all civilians and soldiers from Gaza and pulled out of four West Bank settlements. While these measures served its security needs, Israel nonetheless made an overwhelming gesture for peace. The Arabs have what they claim to want - Israel's ouster from one piece of real estate that it seized in June 1967.
The Palestinians have responded with a descent into chaos. They sacked the buildings that housed former synagogues, looted greenhouses left to help jumpstart Gaza's economy and smuggled weapons into Gaza. They wasted little time before spilling Israeli blood.
Many Israel backers no doubt believe that bloody Sunday was the first step in a campaign to drive Israel out of the West Bank. The terrorists figure that violence drove Israel from Gaza, so violence will drive Israel from the West Bank and ultimately drive Israelis from, well, Israel.
Israel moved in the right direction by barring private Palestinian cars from major West Bank roads, sealing off the cities of Hebron and Bethlehem and suspending a series of committees to review numerous issues between the two sides.
The Israeli government must take two general courses of action. First, Israel must remain firm in making it crystal clear that violence will gain the Palestinians nothing. Many Palestinians are convinced that Israel will cave into violence. Israel needs to prove them wrong as swiftly as possible. The state's actions to close the roads and related measures were a good start, but that probably is not enough to persuade them.
Israeli leaders must also ask themselves these hard questions: Are they willing to tolerate more Israeli deaths until the Palestinian Authority gets its act together, if it ever does? If not, what is Israel prepared to do to prevent more murders? If Israel takes half-measures, how many deaths will it endure before it takes substantial action? What kind of action should that be?
We cannot be dismissive of the hardships that ordinary Palestinians undergo when Israel responds to terrorism. The Washington Post reported how Haytham Manassra, 29, spent four hours to travel 15 miles from his job in Hebron to his home in El-Khader because the roads were closed after the killings.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas has a seemingly impossible task. If he is genuine about wanting to rebuild Palestinian society, he likely has limited control over law enforcement, as evidenced by news reports describing how the security forces operate?or don't operate.
No humane person wants Manassra to spend an extra 3½ hours commuting to work in either direction. Nor can we readily blame Abbas for the authority's flaws. However, this is not Israel's problem. It is the Palestinians' problem. If they cannot guarantee the safety of Israelis, how can that void be filled?
Israel is responsible for protecting its citizens, just as is every government in the world. Israel cannot outsource this obligation and go on excusing Palestinian failures to prevent the murders of Israelis.
This is the essence of Israel's deepest concern: survival. Israel is forced to choose between endangering its own citizens or inconveniencing and harming Palestinians, be they innocents or terrorists.
Two top Palestinian officials still do not get it. When he appeared with President Bush at a news conference on Thursday, Oct. 20, Abbas was dismissive of Israel's defensive measures. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told The Washington Post, "This response is the way toward escalation. In the past, such Israeli measures have been only the first step toward more violence."
Abbas and Erekat should say this directly to the parents, brothers and sisters of Meitat Rosenfeld-Adler, Kinneret Mandel and Oz Ben-Meir.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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