I have seen some very sincere and honest statements about what happened this past weekend here in Israel. Some end with the hope that there will be a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. That is not going to be easy.
Immediately after the attack on the Twin Towers, a clever fellow put up signs all over Israel with the towers in the background and pictures of Bin Laden and Yasir Arafat on each tower. The title, in large letters, read in Hebrew “Te’umim” which translates to “Twins”. Arafat got wind of the posters and was so incensed that he demanded that the Israeli government take them down. He apparently had not yet taken his course on freedom of expression in his belated civics studies.
The barbarity of Hamas has been laid bare before the entire world. While there is no shortage of people who celebrate that which they did or try to spin it into Israel deserving of treatment that would have embarrassed the Waffen-SS, most normal people in countries throughout the world have described what the barbaric terrorists did and have condemned it without caveat. That Israel at most times is a quiet and peaceful country is not because Hamas and its friends have not wanted to do what they just did; rather, in the past, they were mostly prevented or caught before they could proceed.
In a very thoughtful letter put out by a large group of Harvard professors, the signatories clearly described what happened and the need to condemn it without reservation. The truly inspiring letter ends with the hope for a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I think that most people would be happy to see peace break out in this part of the world. The problem is that the present alternative to Hamas is in no way better than the barbarians of Gaza.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) was a product of the 1993 Oslo Accords signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasir Arafat. The PA was supposed to be a temporary body until a full-fledged state of Palestine was created. This temporary body has just celebrated its 30th year. A really important point that must be clarified is that there never was a state of Palestine. In the past few hundred years, there was Ottoman rule until World War I, when the British took over with the French all areas of the Levant, the British ruling over “Palestine”. In 1948, the British pulled out and Israel was established. The West Bank was under Jordanian rule while Gaza was run by the Egyptians. Israel took both in 1967 and began to cede Gaza and parts of the West Bank (“Jericho first”, for example) after 1993. At no time was there a state of Palestine run by Palestinian Arabs.
A little known fact of the Second Intifada is that groups associated with the PA were involved in more terror attacks than was Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Yasir Arafat brilliantly created a virtual salad of names for his paramilitary organization so as to make it harder to blame him and his associates for the terror that then gripped Israel. Force 17, Fatah, Tanzim, Al-Aksa Martyr Brigade—these were the various groups that took responsibility for suicide bombings, shootings, and the like. All of them were controlled by Yasir Arafat, and all of them were dedicated—no less than Hamas—to destroying the state of Israel.
Someone asked me the other day what the difference was between Hamas and Fatah. I said that one might infer that Hamas was clearly an Islamic terror organization, while Fatah’s members tended to appear more secular. I told the person that the sole difference in my opinion was that Hamas told the truth while Fatah and the PA it controls lied. Hamas has in its charter that its raison d’etre is to destroy the state of Israel. And during its decades of existence, it has at times offered to coexist temporarily with Israel but has never suggested making peace of living forever next to a Jewish state.
The Palestinian Authority on the other hand knows how to say the words the West wants to hear. They claim to want to live in peace, two states for two people, etc. But when they speak amongst themselves, they always talk about having a Palestine “from the river to the sea” without Israel. There is a famous story that Arafat went from the Rose Garden signing of the Oslo Accords to a mosque in Johannesburg. There he described “a million martyrs” going up to take Jerusalem. When the Israelis were confronted with a recording of the talk, they said he was just talking. In reality, at the White House, he was just talking. The PA absolutely refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. It has praised violent terrorists, paid them for their terror activities, and has named buildings, streets, and squares after the most notorious killers the Palestinians have produced. The Palestinian Authority as of this writing has not condemned Hamas’ actions on Saturday. It is probably envious that they did it first.
As Americans, we love a happy ending. Billions of dollars of movies are made each year in which the good guy wins in the end and evil is stymied. But don’t look to the Palestinian Authority to be a body that can make a lasting peace agreement with Israel. Its hatred for the Jews is no less than that of Hamas. Will a nonviolent Palestinian movement someday come into being, one that would live peaceably with Israel and not initiate terror against the Jews? As my late father used to say, “And the sun might also rise in the West”. There are no peace-loving Palestinians to make peace with Israel. Israel to date has managed living with the Palestinians. The time has come to wipe Hamas out and make arrangements with the Palestinians that minimize contacts and maximally protect Israeli citizens from the barbarism fully on display in the south of the country. There are no Palestinian leaders who truly want peace. And from those screaming “gas the Jews” in Sydney, apparently, their supporters do not want peace either.