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M.J. Rosenberg is Director of Policy Analysis for , a long time Capitol Hill staffer and former editor of AIPAC's Near East Report.
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By M.J. Rosenberg
October 22, 2005
Speaking in the Rose Garden, following his meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, President Bush insisted that the Palestinian Authority redouble its efforts to eliminate the terrorists who continue to attack Israel. "The way forward," he said, "must begin by confronting the threat that armed gangs pose to a genuinely democratic Palestine? and ?to lasting peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians."
And, Bush went on, "Israel should not undertake any activity that ... prejudices the final status negotiations with regard to Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. This means that Israel must remove unauthorized posts and stop settlement expansion. It also means that the barrier now being built to protect Israelis from terrorist attacks must be a security barrier, rather than a political barrier. Israeli leaders must take into account the impact this security barrier has on Palestinians not engaged in terrorist activities."
Bush?s remarks on Thursday indicate what the administration's emphasis will be now that Gaza disengagement is complete. He will call both sides "to account" when they take actions (or fail to) which run contrary to the goal of a lasting peace. He will oppose unilateral actions that compromise his vision of "two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security."
This emphasis also came through at the State Department briefing on Tuesday. Asked about the horrendous terror attack in the West Bank that killed three Israeli teenagers, spokesman Sean McCormack noted that Israel had "every right to defend itself." He called on the Palestinians "to stop terror attacks and dismantle those terrorist networks that are responsible for these attacks.... They have an obligation to fight terror. They have an obligation to dismantle terrorist networks. And it is important to see action and that's what we are working with both sides on. "
Like Bush, he didn't stop there. Asked about Israel's tough response to the attack, he urged the Israelis "in whatever steps they might take, to consider the ramifications of their actions on the ultimate goal and restate the fact that all sides have responsibilities in this regard.... We ask the Israeli Government?to take steps to ease the daily plight of the Palestinian people."
Essentially, McCormack was telling Israel that it should respond to terrorist attacks in a manner that will deter and punish the killers. But the response should not be at cross-purposes with the long-term goal of negotiating a final status agreement between the two peoples.
This renewed emphasis is a timely one.
It was understandable why the Israeli government needed to respond firmly to last week's attack. According to Ha'aretz, terrorists killed two young women, aged 21 and 23, and a 15-year-old boy. Three other people were wounded, two civilians and a soldier. The attack was the most serious in the West Bank since Gaza disengagement and could be viewed as the first wave of the terror organizations' effort to reignite the intifada.
But one has to wonder how Israel's response to the outrage will contribute to its security. For instance, as so often in the past, Israel broke off scheduled contacts with the Palestinian Authority as a means of protesting the killing.
Why? It would be one thing if the Palestinian Authority was implicated in the attack. If that was the case, breaking off contact would be the absolute minimum Israel should do in response. But, assuming the attack came from Hamas (as Israel believes), why break off contacts with the PA? [In fact, the Al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, the terror wing of PA leader Abbas' own Fatah party, took credit for this and another drive-by shooting within hours of the attacks. Hamas did not take credit for these attacks at any time. - ii]/i>
Israel's goal, as President Bush said, should be strengthening the PA so that it takes a more forceful approach to the terrorists. Even though Israel believes that the PA can do more to prevent attacks, it is in Israel's interests to increase its security cooperation with the Palestinians, not to halt it.
Parleying with the PA following an attack in no way rewards the perpetrators. Hamas is, after all, as much opposed to the PA as it is to Israel. It rejects Israeli-Palestinian contacts and condemns the PA as traitorous for dealing with Israel. Accordingly, canceling Israeli-Palestinian contacts simultaneously punishes the PA and rewards Hamas.
The fact is that preventing the kind of attack that took the three lives is reason to meet, not to boycott. An urgent meeting following such an attack would be the proper place for Israel to not only convey what it needs the PA to do to curb the terrorists but also a venue where the Palestinians could tell the Israelis what it can do to help them get the job done.
After all, the Palestinians can't do much without Israeli assistance. A few weeks ago a Senator who had visited the PA's forces in the West Bank told an IPF group in his office that no supplies of any kind -- not just guns but binoculars, walkie-talkies and even johnny-on-the-spot toilets -- could be delivered to the PA without Israel's approval. He said the approval was rarely given.
These are issues that need to be discussed in face-to-face negotiations.
Another thing wrong with canceling dialogue following terror attacks is the implication that negotiations are some kind of reward which Israel provides when the Palestinians are "good" and withholds when they are "bad." That is plain wrong. Israel needs negotiations toward the final end to terrorism as much as Palestinians need them to secure a Palestinian state. Approaching negotiations as a gift to the other side contradicts the whole idea of negotiations and, as in the past, contributes to their failure. Negotiations benefit both sides -- halting negotiations only benefits the people who prefer terrorism.
It is time, as Israelis like to say, to "replace the hard disk." [Actually, the expression is "switching disks" refers to the era of easy-to-swap diskettes, not hard disks, which have a different name in Hebrew-ii]
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was once a zero-sum game. When one side won, the other lost. That is not the case today. A weaker Palestinian Authority means a weaker Israel. That is why Israel's real friends here in Washington -- including those in the Bush administration -- feel so strongly about helping the PA succeed.
The good news is that the President is among them. Some on the right will complain that Bush's new approach indicates that he is less "pro-Israel" than he used to be. In fact, the opposite is true. It is just that he now understands that in 2005, supporting Israel's security requires being responsive to Palestinian needs as well.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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