The Delusion of Dealing with Virtual Abu-Mazen

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One year after Gilad Shalit was kidnapped near Gaza, and his two colleagues suffered the same fate in Lebanon, triggering a war for their release, little is known about them, there is no one to address and no authority to take responsibility for them. The heartless gangs of bandits who hold them have no other concern beyond tormenting the families of the detainees and raising the stakes for their release. There is no human consideration in their thoughts, so little indeed that even bits of information about the soldiers, let alone visits to their jail by the Red Cross are proscribed. And the government of Israel weakly repeats that it is "doing everything possible" to release them. Is it? At the same time, the same government of Israel which did not hesitate to go to war to secure their release, continues to accumulate error upon error in dealing with the terrorists, to the extent that it seems that they are unwittingly "doing everything possible" to prevent the return of the soldiers. At first, the government accepted Security Council Resolution 1701 faciliting the termination of the Second Lebanese War but stated the requirement that the two kidnapped soldiers be returned. However it lost the only leverage it had to secure their release, namely the presence of Israeli troops in Lebanon until the Resolution was implemented in full. This would have forced the Lebanese government to take responsibility for its territory, exactly as it has recently done in its confrontation with the Fateh-al-Islam in the camps near Tripoli. A forced show down with Hizbullah is the only way to compel it to comply.

The same scenario has been unfolding in Gaza . As long as virtual Abu Mazen was there, he did not use his vastly superior forces against the Hamas on the very day Shalit was kidnapped, in order to search for him, secure his release and return him home unconditionally. Instead, he joined the kidnappers in bargaining the price for his release demanding that many hundreds of Palestinian murderers should be set free by Israel. And since he was considered "moderate" and a partner for peace by Israel and all the rest, why should he risk his "unity government" and the "civil war" he was hoping to avoid if he stood to gain nothing?

But then Hamas took over and he was ousted from Gaza. Only when his own rule was jeopardised did he, just like the Lebanese authorities, dare to confront his domestic rivals, not earlier, not when Israel alone was paying the price of this lawlessness. Hamas is now in charge of Gaza. There is no "moderate" leader there to hope for, and the whole responsibility rests on the new government which is in dire need for funds, food, medicine, services etc. Since Gaza is now operating as a state, the Palestinians can no longer claim that they are deprived of one, and the urgency is blunted for Israel and the West to achieve another for Abu Mazen. After all, it was Hamas who won the last elections, therefore they have the legitimacy to act for the entire Palestinian people. That government ought to be made to understand that unless Shalit is returned immediately and the shelling of Sderot and the Western Negev are halted immediately, all supplies to Gaza will be stopped and the screws will gradually be tightened. Yes, a dire humanitarian problem, but how about the humanitarian problem that Shalit's family and all of Israel, has been suffering for the past year? On the other hand, if the Hamas government complied, Israel's borders would be opened, including labor markets for the starving population of the Strip, and the Hamas government could only benefit from showing its mettle in maintaining order and reinstalling prosperity and security. The Sharm al-Sheikh Conference, in which Israel once again found itself alone facing three Arab entities that are by definition more likely to take the Palestinian side than otherwise, could only end up in more Israeli concessions like releasing frozen moneys, freeing prisoners without any Palestinian commitment in kind, handing more weapons that are sure to be ultimately turned against Israel as happened during the Intifada that was initiated by Fateh, not Hamas. And all that in the name of "strengthening" weak and irrelevant Abu-Mazen, by creating for him a second Palestinian state, all at the expense of Israel. To the Palestinians who claim that the funds are "theirs" in any case, one should retort that while this is basically true, Israel has the right to deduct from them all the damages in the billions caused to it by the intifadah, to compensate the families of the 1500 casualties thereof, to pay for the huge expenditure of defense and fortifications caused by the continued shelling of the Negev etc. IN that case, the Palestinians would end up in a great debt to Israel, not the other way round. They can get their money if and when their acts of terror and destruction are terminated. In sum, experience has shown that it is not treaties and signed documents which will bring peace and security to the Middle East. Roman contractual law has not penetrated the Muslim mind, whereby obligations are mutual and have to be respected by all parties. The dozen cease-fire "agreements" between Fateh and Hamas in Gaza, which did not hold even when Israel was not there to be accused of their violation, amply illustrate this sorry state of mind. By making noble and generous unilateral "gestures" of releasing prisoners and funds, lifting roadblocks and allowing for weapons to flow to the Palestinians, Israel will not, as it did not in the past, achieve anything. Its kidnapped prisoners will not return unless it squeezes the concerned authorities to return them by enforcing painful retaliation. When it removes obstacles, this is used to increase terrorism; when it lifts money restrictions, they are misused to finance terrorism; when it hands over power to one party, it abuses it to turn against it; when Arab prisoners are released as a move of goodwill (something that had been done before), they revert to terror and the captivity of its soldiers is not shortened by one day. Yes, Olmert , like Abu Mazen, are in desperate need to maintain themselves in power, with the support of such illegitimate rulers as Mubarak and Abdallah. But why do the people of Israel have to pay the price? *The author is a professor of Islam at Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

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The Delusion of Dealing with Virtual Abu-Mazen