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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (157024)	1/26/2005 1:08:33 PM
From: Neocon	Respond to of 281500

The best interests of all are to move forward towards peace. All that is required is that that become more apparent, and that the Palestinians are assumed to be rational creatures, in the end.

To: michael97123 who wrote (157024)	1/26/2005 5:00:29 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Elliott Chodoff thinks he's seen this movie before and so do I: Been There, Done That by Elliot Chodoff We suppose it was inevitable that Abu Mazen would arrange a cease fire as soon as he became chairman of the Palestinian Authority. After all, the only accomplishment he achieved in his short tenure as prime minister in 2003 was the hudna that exploded in Israel’s face that summer. It seems that the Israeli government has not learned the lessons of that fiasco, agreeing to honor Abu Mazen’s new cease fire after a few days of virtual relative quiet. It was sufficient for the new PA chairman to declare that he had arrived at a cease fire agreement with the terrorists of Gaza (not a cease fire between them and Israel, just between them and himself) for the Israeli leadership to respond with good will gestures such as the promise to halt targeted removals of terrorist leaders. To remove any doubt that there is any cessation of violence, the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad reiterated their call for continued attacks against Israelis, and we must at least give these terrorists credit for their honesty. While they claim that they are willing to stop attacks as soon as Israeli aggression ends, there definition of “aggression” as Israel’s existence makes that possibility unlikely at best. We opposed the 2003 hudna at the time, and were not in the least surprised when it failed (see “Cease Fire Blast,” Archives, August 20, 2003). The terrorists had made the point clearly from the outset, that their intent was to provide themselves with desperately needed breathing space in order to regroup after the defeats suffered at the hands of the IDF. If they could secure the release of terrorists held in Israeli prisons at the same time, so much the better. Once again the terrorists are seeking a respite from the devastating attacks that have largely shut down their operations in the West Bank and threaten to do the same in Gaza. At the expense of exchanging rocket attacks on Sederot with incursions and mortars on Gush Katif and Netzarim, the terrorists have gained the first concessions from the Israeli government, with more to come if the “quiet” is maintained for another week or two. The virtual reality cease fire carries with it an additional danger: that of the wishful thinking of the Western media and leaders, who will no longer consider attacks on Israelis as the norm of the terrorists, but rather as the occasional (even if daily) aberration that should be ignored for the good of the newly minted peace process. We have seen this phenomenon before as well (see “Violent Relativity,” Archives, July 8, 2003) and were not at all pleased with its effect. Just as the first illusory hudna was utilized by the terrorists to rebuild their organizations and infrastructure while putting Israel in a negative light as an opponent of a peaceful solution, the new and improved Abu Mazen cease fire will result in pressure for Israeli gestures of good will along with threats of censure if the Israelis are not sufficiently forthcoming in demonstrating their willingness to accommodate the newly pacifist terrorists. And ultimately, the results will be the same: Israelis will pay with their lives for the chance to test Abu Mazen’s sincerity and effectiveness.