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Jewish World Review March 7, 2008 / 7 Adar II 5768 Why is ‘Israel's best friend’ pressuring the Jewish State to act recklessly? By Caroline B. Glick
In a radio interview this week, Michael Leiter, the Director of the US
National Counter-Terrorism Center noted that Al Qaida today is stronger than
it was two years ago. This development, he explained is the consequence of
Musharraf's decision to sign peace accords with the Taliban in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas [FATA] along the Afghan border.
The first agreements in North and South Waziristan were signed in September
2006. They involved the removal of Pakistani military forces from the areas,
and the release of 2,500 Taliban and al Qaida prisoners from Pakistani
prisons. The Waziristan accords rendered the areas the Taliban's and al
Qaida's first safe havens since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in
October 2001. Freed from the need to defend themselves against the Pakistani
army, al Qaida and the Taliban immediately turned their attention to
Afghanistan. Within weeks of the signing ceremony, cross-border raids from
Pakistan increased threefold.
And so began a devastating calculus. Systematic breaches of the accords by
the Taliban were ignored. But any anti-Taliban operations launched by
Pakistan or US forces in Waziristan or anywhere else in Pakistan were met by
massive brutality.
Speaking recently to CNN, Michael McConnell, the Director of US National
Intelligence concurred with Leiter's dim assessment. McConnell noted that
from its safe havens in Pakistan, al Qaida has reconstituted itself as the
central command post for global jihad. "They have the leadership that they
had before. They've rebuilt the middle-management and the trainers. And
they're recruiting very vigorously."
These American acknowledgements of the consequences of Musharraf's "peace
process" with the Taliban come rather late in the game. When he first signed
the accords, Musharraf pretended that the Taliban was not involved claiming
that the accords were with "tribal leaders."
Musharraf's statements were obvious lies, and yet the US decided to pretend
along with him. In September 2006, State Department Spokesman Richard
Boucher said, "The [Waziristan] agreement really has potential to work."
Boucher added, "Talibanization will not be allowed, in the area of in the
cities near the tribal region."
The reason that the State Department had no excuse for believing Musharraf
is that by the time Boucher made the statement, Musharraf had already
released the 2,500 al Qaida and Taliban prisoners.
But the US praise of the agreement didn't end with Boucher. President George
W. Bush also endorsed it.
After the Waziristan accord, between March and August 2007, Musharraf's
representatives signed similar surrender agreements in the Bajaur, Swat and
Mohmand Agencies. Some commentators, like Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, have
argued that US public support for the accords stemmed from the
administration's unwillingness to criticize Musharraf lest he be ousted from
power.
But now, with the Taliban and al Qaida in control of massive swathes of
Pakistan, Musharraf is about to cede power. And the civilian coalition
government set to replace him has made clear its desire to end all residual
Pakistani military operations against the Taliban.
In a taste of things to come, Thursday Pakistan lodged a strong protest with
the US over a US-airstrike in Waziristan which killed five civilians.
According to AP, thousands of protesters rallied yesterday calling "Death to
America," and "Anyone who is a friend of Musharraf is a traitor."
The spillover effect of the Talibanization of Pakistan's frontier in
Afghanistan has been so dramatic that that even the UN is recognizing that
NATO's military actions need to be stronger and more effective. Speaking
before the Security Council on Wednesday, UN Undersecretary General for
Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno said, "We face an insurgency that has
proven to be much more resilient than we expected and more ruthless than we
ever imagined."
As Pakistan-watchers like military analyst Bill Roggio warned at the time,
the consequences Musharraf's "peace process" were eminently foreseeable. And
yet, the Bush administration refused to see them. The administration, which
based its entire strategy for contending with Pakistan on its complete
support for Musharraf, preferred to allow the Taliban and al Qaida to
reconstitute their strength than accept the fact that their Musharraf-based
strategy had failed.
Today, the Bush administration's treatment of Hamas's control over Gaza
follows the same pattern. Since the Iranian-sponsored jihadist group seized
control of Gaza from Fatah last June, Hamas has transformed the area into a
safe haven for local and global terrorists. In Gaza today, Hamas, Islamic
Jihad and Fatah forces share space with al Qaida, Hizbullah, the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard Corps and Syrian intelligence officials.
The only way to overthrow the Hamas regime and end Gaza's status as a hub
for global jihad is for Israel to invade and conquer Gaza. But such an
operation is antithetical to the administration's sole strategy for
contending with the Palestinians and their war against Israel. That
strategy, of course is to champion Palestinian statehood by backing Fatah
and its leader Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Since enabling Hamas to take control of Gaza, Abbas has insisted that an
Israeli takeover of the area would weaken his stranding with the
Palestinians who overwhelmingly support Hamas. And since supporting Abbas is
the only plan the administration has, it is willing to accept Hamas control
over Gaza.
This was made clear this week when in the aftermath the latest round of
Hamas's missile war against southern Israel, the US openly supported
Egyptian efforts to negotiate a Waziristan-styled ceasefire agreement
between Israel and Hamas that would take the option of an Israeli invasion
of Gaza off the table indefinitely and so safeguard Hamas's control over the
area. At the same time, it is publicly pressuring Israel to make massive
concessions to Fatah in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem in order to "strengthen
Abbas" and facilitate the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza,
Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem by the end of the year.
It has been argued that Musharraf signed the accords with the Taliban
because he feared his political opponents in Islamabad who demanded an end
to his military dictatorship more than he feared ceding control over large
swathes of Pakistan to the Taliban. It would seem that in negotiating with
Hamas and Fatah, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government is following a similar
cost-benefit analysis. It fears its political opposition in the Likud and
the prospects of elections it will surely lose more than it fears abandoning
the security of southern Israel to the whims of Hamas and Iran and more than
it fears pledging to surrender Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem to
Fatah-Hamas.
Yet, since the Israeli public does not, by and large, share the government's
view, the government is simply lying about its policies. On Monday, Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Barak both loudly denied that
Israel was conducting ceasefire negotiations with Hamas. On Tuesday, an
unnamed senior government official acknowledged that a ceasefire agreement
with Hamas had been reached. Also on Tuesday, Olmert visited hospitalized
Israelis, wounded by Hamas missiles and told that that it was impossible to
defend them.
Tuesday, the Winnipeg Free Press's Israel correspondent Samuel Segev
provided another reasonable explanation of the US-Israeli decision to
abandon their rejection of Hamas. Segev reported that during Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Egypt last week, Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak relayed a joint Egyptian-Saudi threat to abandon the so-called Saudi
peace initiative from 2002 unless the US and Israel agree to accept Hamas
control over Gaza and negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas. The Saudis and
Egyptians further dictated that this ceasefire agreement will pave the way
for the reinstitution of the Hamas-Fatah unity government which was formed
in Mecca in March 2006.
Perhaps in preparation for his reunification with Hamas, Abbas has recently
issued a series of statements which make a mockery of his supposed
commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel. In his latest foray into
anti-Israeli incitement, Abbas reacted to the IDF's counter-terror raid in
Bethlehem on Wednesday in which four senior terror commanders were killed by
calling the Israeli action, "a barbaric crime."
One of the targeted terrorists was Hizbullah-linked Muhammad Shahadeh who
the Palestinians identified as the mastermind of last week's massacre of
eight students in Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
Abbas's office released his statement while Abbas himself was addressing the
Organization of the Islamic Conference in Dakkar, Senegal. There, a week
after Shahadeh sent Jerusalemite Alaa Abu D'heim to kill Jews studying Torah
in Jerusalem, Abbas accused Israel of ethnically cleansing Jerusalem of
Muslims.
For its part, Hamas is playing its cards wisely. It refers to its ceasefire
with Israel as a "tahadia" which translates roughly into a temporary
cessation of violence that can be ended at any time.
Hamas also demands control over the international border with Gaza. It
claims that it will allow Fatah personnel to be stationed at the border
crossing with Egypt but only Fatah forces that it approves. That is, it will
only allow Hamas loyalists in Fatah uniforms to man the border. Moreover,
Hamas announced that it would allow European monitors to return to the
border crossing but only if they live in Gaza or in el Arish rather than in
Israel as they did until they were withdrawn in June. That is, Hamas will
allow EU monitors to return but only if they do so as Hamas hostages.
Finally, Hamas insists that it will only abide by the ceasefire if its
supply lines with Egypt are opened and if Israel also opens its own land
passages to Gaza for goods and persons. That is, Hamas also demands that
Israel accept responsibility for Gaza's welfare.
Just as was the case when Musharraf began negotiating with the Taliban, so
too, with Hamas in Gaza it is clear what the outcome will be. Hamas will
continue to gain strength in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria. More and more
Israelis - and Palestinians who don't want to live in a jihadist caliphate -
will pay for the Olmert-Livni-Barak-Bush-Rice policies with their blood.
The US will seek to divert attention from its acceptance of a safe haven for
global jihad in Gaza by changing the subject. Rice is doing so already by
attacking Israel for permitting Jews to build homes in Judea, Samaria and
Jerusalem and by pretending - as Rice did in testimony before the House
Appropriations Committee on Wednesday - that Abbas remains committed to
peace and that peace is possible with an Iranian-controlled Hamas enclave in
Gaza.
As Musharraf did in Pakistan, so in Israel, the Olmert-Livni-Barak
government simply seeks to hide what it is doing by lying to the public.
Like Musharraf, apparently Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Barak
hope that their lies won't run out until after the next elections are held.
But of course, they will. Using lies to hide a strategy of surrender to
jihad didn't work for Musharraf. It won't work for them.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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