Soccer Dad

Stale Thinking

Remember the rumors that in a Kerry administration Martin Indyk would be invited to lend his singular skills to helping things out in the Middle East? In today's "Actions Speak Louder Than Tours" he demonstrates one more reason why it's a good thing that Kerry lost:

Nonetheless, left to their own devices, Palestinians are consciously making an effort to favor the rule of law over the law of the jungle, actually using democratic procedures to resolve the battle over Mr. Arafat's succession. The Palestinian leadership sent an early signal about the role of elections in a post-Arafat era by sticking with constitutional rules that required presidential elections in 60 days. Palestinians will vote for president in January, legislators in May, and a central committee for the Fatah ruling party in August. This is a political watershed. There have been no elections in the Palestinian Authority for eight years; the last Fatah election was 16 years ago.

I knew someone would make this argument. I thought I'd read it a lot more. It's a good thing that the Palestinians are following their constitution, it shows that they respect the rule of law.
Let me see if I follow this. For eleven years the Palestinians negotiate in bad faith, use every means at their disposal to nurture grievances against Israel and then, once, they show responsibility and we're supposed to forget more than a decade of deceit? He's kidding isn't he?

This acceptance of elections as the route to power has already begun to channel the energies of the competing forces. The young guard are using the candidacy of the popular but imprisoned Mr. Barghouti as a threat to extract pledges from the old guard for cabinet posts and the Fatah elections. But when Mr. Barghouti understandably sought his own release as well, they turned on him lest he undermine their election game plan. While Hamas will boycott presidential elections (since that would involve it in legitimizing the Palestinian Authority), it has focused on amending the electoral laws to maximize its influence in the legislative elections. Lobbying for changes in the political rules rather than lobbing Kassem rockets into Israel can be counted as progress. Hamas leaders are now pondering a moratorium on terrorism in exchange for a share of the political power that could come from the ballot box.

Politics as opposed to Kassems? Well maybe it's both:

Alert IDF action helped thwart a Kassam rocket attack towards the Negev city of Sderot early this afternoon.

The ready-for-firing launcher was sighted in Beit Hanoun, an Arab Gaza city less than a kilometer from Sderot. An Israel Air Force helicopter opened fire on the launcher and destroyed it. The terrorists escaped.

No doubt Indyk would have us believe that because Hamas was so intent on electoral reform they weren't as careful when they tried to launch their missile giving the IDF a chance to prevent the launch.
But mortar attacks continue. But who worries about mortars? Most countries experience mortar attacks from their enemies and don't respond. Don't they?

Embracing the tools of a democratic process is also helping Mahmoud Abbas re-establish order and put an end to terrorist attacks in the run-up to the presidential elections on Jan. 9. His biggest immediate challenge comes from the diffuse gangs of the Aqsa brigades who have carried out some of the bloodiest terrorist attacks. These gangs depended on financing from both Mr. Arafat and the terrorist group Hezbollah. If they become solely dependent on Hezbollah - with its aggressive, Iranian-dictated agenda of continued terrorist attacks - a stable succession will be an immense challenge. But if Mr. Abbas can co-opt them, he may gain a period of calm in which to cement his legitimacy and rebuild the security forces. He is offering them a deal: put down your arms and take up jobs in the security services, and you will have both salaries and amnesty from Israeli attack. He is offering a similar amnesty to Hamas.

Isn't this the mantra we heard for at least 7 years (from 1993-2000) Arafat isn't taking action against the terrorists he swore to fight, rather he's "co-opting" them. Now Abbas appears to be doing the same thing and that's good?

He told the hard-liners in his Likud Party Central Committee that Mr. Abbas should not be expected right now to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. Instead, he urged the Palestinian leadership to stop incitement in the Palestinian news media and education system, something Mr. Abbas has already taken steps to do.

Again we have an Oslo supporter overstating exactly which commitments the PA is keeping. Arutz-7 tells us, "PA Bans Incitement on TV, Not in Schools."

In short, after four years of the bloodiest conflict, the mood is lifting in Ramallah and Jerusalem, a shift that should encourage the Bush administration to follow Mr. Sharon's lead rather than to rely on overtures like the hasty visit of Secretary of State Colin Powell. His rush to embrace the Palestinian leadership now, during his final days as secretary, has raised eyebrows in Ramallah, especially since he was essentially AWOL when his intervention was sorely needed during the intifada. Busy maneuvering the varied Palestinian parties, the Palestinian Authority's leadership does not have time for this distraction.

What exactly was Secretary Powell supposed to do when the Palestinians abandoned any pretense of peacemaking for a terror war against Israel? Send Gen Zinni to calm things down? That worked well. Every time Gen Zinni arrived, terror against Israel increased as Israel scaled back its anti-terror operations. If Powell had been more active, I suspect that the terror efforts would have similarly been more active.

And, of course, once Mr. Powell turned up in Ramallah, every other would-be statesman who aspires to play a role in this peacemaking opportunity has to follow suit, so European foreign ministers have been descending on the West Bank. Mr. Powell would have been better off focusing their collective attention on the Persian Gulf sheiks who haven't fulfilled their financial pledges to the Palestinian Authority.

I forget the figure, but the Palestinians, over the past decade+ have received some of the highest aid levels per capita of any nation (or proto nation) in the world. What's it gone too? Palatial mansions for its leaders and ordnance for its lay people? I can't see that throwing more money at the PA is going to help. Perhaps if the PA learns that foreign money won't solve all its problems it will learn to be responsible. I doubt it. But money hasn't helped.

Beyond that, the Bush administration needs to lead an international effort to help rebuild the Palestinian Authority's institutions. With Israel's disengagement from Gaza set to proceed over the next nine months, Mr. Abbas will be hard pressed to fill the vacuum, notwithstanding Mr. Sharon's new willingness to coordinate the handover. Anarchy and warlords have replaced the Palestinian Authority's institutions in Gaza. And until now, the Bush administration has preferred to leave the job of rebuilding Gaza and restoring order there to the World Bank and Egypt, who are hard-pressed to handle the job.

As noted above all these precious institutions were pressed into the service of perpetuating grievances and committing violence against Israel. I think we need a bit more evidence that the PA is capable and willing to use its institutions in the name of peace.

And then there is the politically challenging task of synchronizing resumption of the road map with Gaza disengagement and the Palestinian elections. Mr. Sharon is likely to insist that after the withdrawal from Gaza, negotiations should focus on establishing a Palestinian state with provisional borders, as provided for in the second phase of the road map. The Palestinians are likely to insist on moving straight to final status talks to establish the permanent borders between the Palestinian state and Israel.

This is a delicate, complicated process, still vulnerable to the disruptive violence of terrorists and their sponsors. But it is no longer hopeless. If the Bush administration now hangs back, putting the onus on the Palestinians to democratize before the president engages, the opportunity could be lost. Peacemaking, nation-building and democratization need to go hand in hand. What's needed now is a strategic commitment from President Bush to suspend the caution and skepticism that were the leitmotif of his first term, in favor of a sustained second-term effort to redeem his two-state vision of a democratic Palestine living peacefully alongside a secure Jewish state of Israel.

The enemy of peace are the terrorists. And what exactly has the PA done to promote peace? Even as Indyk lauds the PA for trying to "co-opt" terror groups he fears "...the disruptive violence of terrorists and their sponsors." But if the PA co-opts those groups isn't it then their sponsors? And then doesn't it then deserve "onus" of showing its sincerity (by fighting anti-Israel terror and democratizing?)
Aaron Lerner of IMRA has reproduced, on more than one occasion, an essay by Amos Oz saying that Israel' peace camp must be insistent on Palestinian compliance:

Once peace comes, Israeli doves, more than other Israelis, must assume a clear-cut "hawkish" attitude concerning the duty of the future Palestinian regime to live by the letter and the spirit of its obligations. The plan now being negotiated, Gaza and Jericho first, is a sober and reasonable option. If the Palestinians want to hold onto Gaza and Jericho, eventually assuming power in other parts of the occupied territories, they will have to prove to us, to themselves and to the whole world, that they have abandoned violence and terror, that they are capable of suppressing their fanatics, that they are renouncing the destructive Palestinian Charter and withdrawing from what they used to call "the right of return." They will also have to show that they are willing to tolerate in their midst a minority of Israelis who may choose to live where there is no Israeli government."

Unfortunately with visions of peace treaties dancing in their eyes the peace processors, and not just those of the Israeli peace camp, have put an emphasis on process rather than peace. It seems that the lessons of the past decade have been lost on Dr. Indyk.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at December 6, 2004 06:00 AM | TrackBack