|
|
|
Jewish World Review Oct. 9, 2009 / 21 Tishrei 5770 The newest round of war By Caroline B. Glick
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
An atmosphere of fantasy pervaded US President Barack Obama's Middle East
peace processor George Mitchell's meetings with Israeli leaders on Thursday.
In separate photo opportunities, Mitchell stood next to President Shimon
Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak and pledged to surmount all obstacles
to achieve peace not only between Israel and the Palestinians but between
Israel and Syria and Lebanon and with the whole Arab world.
Mitchell's remarks yesterday were even more stunning than similar statements
from him during previous visits because this week the Palestinians launched
their newest terror campaign against Israel. Like previous rounds of
Palestinian terror against Jews beginning in 1929, the latest round has been
precipitated by wholly fabricated claims by Muslim leaders that Israel is
asserting Jewish rights to the Temple Mount — Judaism's most sacred site —
and so endangering the Muslim claim to the sole right to worship at the site
that was never even mentioned in the Koran.
Beginning last week, convicted felon Raed Salah — who served a prison
sentence for his Israeli Islamic Movement's Northern Branch's financial and
other ties to Hamas — began inciting Israeli and Palestinian Muslim
worshippers to make war against Israel. As he does every few months, Salah
claimed falsely that Jews were committing the unforgivable "crime" of
seeking to worship on the Temple Mount during Succos. Succos, which we
observed this past week is of course one of the three harvest festivals in
which Jews are commanded to go up to the Temple Mount. This time, Salah's
lies were accompanied by similar ones from Hamas leaders and Fatah leaders
alike.
As is their standard practice, Palestinian leaders used known euphemisms in
their declarations of war. Rather than openly call for Jews to be
slaughtered, they called on Muslims to defend the Temple Mount from
fictional Jewish assault. Wheelbarrows of rocks were found stockpiled on the
Temple Mount on Monday. The rocks made clear the intention of Muslim leaders
to reenact the 1990 stoning of Jewish Succot worshippers at the Western
Wall. That Muslim assault precipitated a steep increase in Palestinian
terror during the months that followed.
This week's riots similarly recall the 1996 Palestinian onslaught. That
aggression was justified by the false Palestinian allegation that Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's decision to open the Western Wall
archaeological tunnel was part of a secret plot to dislodge the Aqsa mosque.
Yassir Arafat used his manufactured libel as an excuse to order his
US-trained and Israeli-armed Palestinian security forces to open fire at IDF
soldiers. In the violence that followed some 15 soldiers were killed.
The most violent exploitation of fabricated claims of Jewish aggression
against Judaism's most sacred site to date of course came in September 2000.
Then Arafat and his deputies in Fatah supported by Hamas and the Israeli
Islamic Movement claimed that then opposition leader Ariel Sharon's
September 28, 2000 visit to the Temple Mount — a visit that had been
coordinated in advance with the PA — was an act of war against the
Palestinians and against Islam as a whole. More than 1,500 Israelis were
killed in the seven years of terror war that followed.
Perhaps the most overt call for a renewal of jihad against Israel this week
came from Fatah leader and titular PA President Mahmoud Abbas. In an
interview on Yemenite television Abbas said, "The second intifada erupted
because of [former prime minister Ariel] Sharon's visit to [the Temple
Mount] and…it lasted seven years. This time, therefore the matter of
Jerusalem requires a much greater effort [by the Palestinians], something
more practical. It's not enough to talk about Jerusalem in books, or to give
sermons in mosques. There is a need to work for it."
The newest round of violence has been building up for the past month.
According to data released by the IDF, over the past month, the volume of
terror attacks nearly doubled from 53 attacks in August to 95 in September.
This week's spike in violence caused IDF commanders to warn of the
possibility that the violence will spread throughout Judea and Samaria. With
the near seamless integration of Arab Israeli leaders in the incitement of
violence, there is good reason for concern that Arab Israelis will play a
prominent role in the newest round of jihad against Israel.
Abbas and his prime minister Salam Fayyad have augmented their violent
attacks against Israel with a renewed diplomatic assault against the Jewish
state. Fayyad and Abbas have both called for the US and European governments
to condemn Israel's imaginary provocations and moves to "Judaize" the
eternal capital of the Jewish people. Rather than condemn these Fatah
leaders for their key roles in inciting violence, the Europeans have been
embracing them. Led by Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency,
European governments have demanded that Israel end its provocative behavior.
For its part, rather than dismissing these obviously false allegations out
of hand, the Obama administration demanded that Israel give an accounting of
its actions to prove that it is not provoking Palestinian violence.
How long the newest Palestinian campaign lasts, and how many Israelis will
be killed is still unknown. Due in large part to their military training
provided by the US under Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, Fatah forces in Judea and
Samaria are today better trained and equipped than ever before. In Gaza,
Hamas is preparing for a new round of war by housing poor Palestinians along
the border with Israel to make it difficult for Israel to defend itself
without killing Hamas's civilian shields. At the same time, the IDF remains
stronger than these Palestinian forces. So Israel's eventual victory over
this new terror campaign is a foregone conclusion, contingent only on the
political courage of its leaders.
Since the Palestinians must know that their new terror campaign will end in
an Israeli victory, it is worth considering why they have anyway decided to
launch it. Four explanations come to mind.
First, it is notable that the calls for jihad are being sounded three weeks
before Hamas and Fatah leaders are scheduled to meet in Cairo to reinstate
their unity government pending a new round of parliamentary and presidential
elections next year. It is possible that in inciting a new terror war
against Israel, Abbas and Fayyad and their comrades in Fatah are signaling
Hamas that they will be willing collaborators in a Hamas-dominated
government.
Then too, since Hamas is favored to win both of those elections, Fatah
leaders may be using their calls for jihad to increase their popularity
among Palestinians ahead of a possible bid to cancel the elections or in
anticipation of the likely derailment of the negotiations toward a unity
government. Whatever the case, the looming talks between Hamas and Fatah no
doubt figure prominently in the new round of anti-Jewish violence.
The second reason for the renewal of Palestinian violence against Israel and
the use of false allegations of Jewish provocations on the Temple Mount as a
justification for that violence is that Fatah leaders believe that they can
use their campaign to convince the Obama administration to redouble its
pressure on Israel to make massive concessions to the Palestinians even
before any "peace" negotiations begin. This was Arafat's goal in inciting
the 1996 violence. At that time, his gambit was wildly successful. Then US
president Bill Clinton responded to the Palestinian violence by blaming
Netanyahu and forcing him to begin negotiating the IDF's redeployment from
parts of Hebron.
There is also the possibility that Raed Salah — the most visible force
behind this week's Temple Mount riots — is using them to jockey for a more
powerful position in the Israeli Arab-Palestinian leadership hierarchy.
Inspired by the Hamas takeover of Gaza and Hizbullah's chokehold on the
Lebanese government, Salah may have decided that the time is ripe for
Israeli Arabs to raise their profile in the jihadist pecking order.
The fourth possible explanation for the current round of violence is that it
is being incited by the Syrian and Iranian governments who together control
Hamas and are influential in Fatah and Israeli Arab circles. Iranian and
Syrian interest in provoking such violence now is clear. If the Netanyahu
government and the IDF are kept busy contending with Palestinian terrorism,
it will be more difficult for them to address Iran's nuclear weapons program
either diplomatically or militarily.
All of these possible causes of the violence shed light on how events are
likely to progress. Future events after all will in large part reflect the
interests of the parties involved in inciting the current attacks against
Israel.
By the same token, the European and American responses to Palestinian calls
for violence against Israel and Jews show how the newest round of
Palestinian aggression against Israel is likely to be greeted by the West.
In its easy willingness to accept false Palestinian accusations about
imaginary Israeli provocations, the EU is demonstrating that a
transformation has taken place in its policy towards the Arab conflict with
Israel. Whereas in the past the EU has been a more or less neutral actor in
the region — officially refusing to support either side, while unofficially
siding with the Palestinians against Israel —the European position on the
Palestinian violence over the past week has been indistinguishable from the
Arab League's position. Europe's newfound willingness to openly side with
the Palestinians against Israel makes clear that the EU's role in the
violence to come will be qualitatively different from the role it has played
in past Palestinian terror campaigns. Israel's ability to launch a relevant
and coherent diplomatic campaign to defend itself is contingent on the
Foreign Ministry recognizing that a transformative shift has taken place in
Europe's treatment of Israel.
And this brings us back to George Mitchell in Jerusalem. What Mitchell's
absurd statements about peace breaking out in the region in the near future
show is that the Obama administration is perfectly willing to pretend away
the Arab violence against Israel. Whether motivated by naivete, an
overarching desire for international peace conferences, a plan to align US
foreign policy with that of Europe, or hostility towards Israel, that fact
that Mitchell can talk about peace when the Palestinians have just declared
war makes clear that the Obama administration is uninterested in playing a
constructive role in quelling the violence. It certainly isn't interested in
helping Israel to secure the lives of its citizens.
Israeli officials have sought to play down the significance of the events
this week in Jerusalem. This is a mistake. If the newest round of violence
is to end quickly and at a minimal cost in lives, it is essential for Israel
to stop defensively humoring Mitchell and move quickly to offense both
militarily and diplomatically.
Interested in a private Judaic studies instructor — for free? Let us know by clicking here.
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.
| ||||||||||
