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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scoobah who wrote (9952)	9/16/2005 5:44:33 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 32591

Chaos, lawlessness plagues Gaza Strip \| 9/16/05 \| Steven Gutkin - AP JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) - The Gaza withdrawal is earning Israel rare accolades - with several Muslim countries opening a line to the Jewish state - and a renewed peace process looks more likely now than at any time in the past five years. But chaos after the Israeli military pullout this week is raising serious questions about the Palestinian Authority's ability to assert control. If Gaza remains lawless, the potential payoffs - renewed peace talks, economic reconstruction, revived hopes for statehood - will be threatened. Palestinian officials chalk up the mayhem at the Egyptian border, the looting of prized greenhouses and the renewed displays by militants to the release of frustration pent up during 38 years of harsh Israeli occupation. So far the Palestinian leadership's promises to restore order have fallen short. Palestinian officials pledged to seal the Egyptian border, but people have been crossing daily. They promised to rein in gunmen, but Hamas drew its largest crowd ever this week, with tens of thousands of people, many of them armed and masked, converging on Gaza City's main square. Hamas is competing with the Palestinian Authority for control of Gaza. If Gaza becomes a terrorist haven, further Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank would be less likely, with Israeli hard-liners bolstered by Gaza's chaos. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking before the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, made his clearest statement in support of Palestinian statehood, but said "now it is the Palestinians' turn to prove their desire for peace" by restraining militants and eliminating what he called the "anarchic regime of armed gangs." The Gaza pullout is fast reshaping Mideast peace prospects after five years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The Muslim nations of Qatar, Pakistan and Indonesia all held high-level public meetings with Israel in the past two weeks - diplomatic rewards for the withdrawal that some believe could be a prelude to better times. Success in Gaza could give a big boost to Palestinian aspirations for statehood, if Palestinians show they are capable of imposing order. But to be stable Gaza must be less isolated, and to be less isolated it must restrain extremists, because Israel won't allow open borders if gunmen and weapons pass through them. This dynamic helps explain the alarm over what's happened at the Rafah crossing at the Gaza-Egypt border, where thousands of people have crossed this week despite an Israeli-Egyptian deal in which Egypt was supposed to deploy 750 border troops to ensure order. In a recent interview with The Associate Press, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas promised "one authority, one legitimate gun, one law." But does he have the power to rein in militants? Palestinian policemen stood by helplessly as looters carted off irrigation hoses, water pumps and plastic sheeting from former Israeli greenhouses that American Jewish donors bought and transferred to the Palestinian Authority. And police did nothing when militants blew up a section of an Israeli-built border wall to make it easier for people to reach Egypt. Outlining the Palestinians' most detailed plans yet to restore order, Rafiq Husseini, Abbas' top aide, said the Palestinian Authority would ask all armed groups to disband after parliamentary elections in January. By next week, Husseini said, all gunmen affiliated with the ruling Fatah movement will be absorbed into the security forces. But Palestinian officials continue to say they will disarm the militants through persuasion, not force - a tall order given the militants' insistence on keeping their guns. Scores of masked Islamic Jihad fighters paraded their weapons at the abandoned Jewish settlement of Netzarim this week, waving flags atop the remnants of a synagogue torched by militants a day earlier. Amid shouts of "Death to Israel," Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed al Hindi said, "The resistance will continue." --- Steven Gutkin is AP bureau chief in Jerusalem

To: Scoobah who wrote (9952)	9/16/2005 11:31:53 PM
From: paret	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

Tilting towards terrorists Powerline ^ 09/16/2005 powerlineblog.com Under Condoleezza Rice, U.S. foreign policy continues to veer in the direction of the "Arabism" of her mentor Brent Scowcroft and James Baker. Diana West points to the latest evidence. First, according to West (who cites worldtribune.com), the Bush adminstration snubbed Israel's efforts to provide aid in the early aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Then, once it finally accepted Israel's aid, the State Department apparently omitted Israel's name from the list of countries participating in the relief effort, a list that touts Arab aid-givers. These affronts may be less the work of Rice than of Karen Hughes, to whom President Bush has assigned the task of "presenting an image of a benign America sensitive to the Arab and Muslim world," in other words sucking up to Arabs at Israel's expense. But snubbing Israel is never going to be enough to convince Arabs that we're benign and sensitive. We have to back up our gestures with funds that can be used to attack Israel and (until we've sufficiently established our bona fides) the U.S. itself. Thus, West reports, the U.S. will double its payments to the Palestinian Authority, even as the PA's "Voice of Palestine" exhorts the Muslim faithful to attack Americans in Iraq, and the PA's Ministry of Culture releases a collection of poetry honoring a bomber who killed 29 Israeli Jews and Arabs in 2003. Which brings us to the synagogue burnings in Gaza. PA leader Mahmoud Abbas justifies this horror as his people "expressing their emotions." But if their core emotion is hatred of Jews and their religion, why are we subsidizing their would-be representative? Especially when that representative fuels these murderous emotions at every turn. As Ariel Cohen puts it: The Palestinian Authority leadership has done nothing to disarm Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or its own terrorist Tanzim and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. It instead promotes genocidal hatred and then steps aside while synagogues burn or Jews and Christians are attacked. Not much at all has changed since Yasser Arafat failed as the leader of a would-be new state, but the stakes are getting even higher. If a Palestinian state is founded on the lethal mix of Arab chauvinism and radical Islam, it will serve as a base for international terrorism against Israel, Europe and the U.S., with al Qaeda and Hezbollah calling the shots. Burying our heads in the sand will simply not bring peace one step closer. Nor will subsidizing the terrorists.