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Peace Process

Israel caves in


By Ryan Jones
November 03, 2005

Another round goes to the ?Palestinians.?

Israel on Thursday dropped all threats of disrupting upcoming Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections, even if Hamas participates in violation of signed agreements.

?We will not interfere in the Palestinian election, but we don't believe that Hamas should be part of the Palestinian parliament,? Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz told reporters in Washington after meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Israel has for years made similarly empty threats regarding the PA's ongoing failure to combat anti-Jewish terrorism emanating from among those it purports to rule.

Most of those threats have fallen by the wayside amid heavy American pressure to not hinder Western ?peace? efforts.

Washington is believed to be behind Israel's sudden capitulation in this instance too.

The Bush administration has been hounding Jerusalem for months to renege on threats to withhold needed assistance to the PA during the poll, and instead follow its lead in accepting the notion that the killers of Jewish men, women and children in government is an internal ?Palestinian? affair.

Meanwhile, observers in Jerusalem were wondering Wednesday whether the US would ever agree to allowing Al Qaeda to run in elections in Afghanistan, or to members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party running for office in Iraq?

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz suggested that by contrast to its American allies, Israel was displaying great weakness in its dealings with both the terrorists and international pressure.

Steinitz told Arutz 7 Thursday he found it difficult to grasp the ?absurdity? represented by the fact Israel insists it will ?not accept and not agree? to Hamas running in the elections, but that it will also do nothing to prevent it.

?That is the new way of our foreign affairs and defense policies: we oppose but we do nothing,? the senior Likud MK decried.

He warned that Hamas' participation in the upcoming poll is just the first step toward the PA transforming from a secular terror-supporting entity to an Islamic fundamentalist regime.

?It is a process that is impossible to stop [once it starts] and will result in Hamas members of parliament and Hamas ministers traveling to Iran, meeting with members of Hizballah and creating strong bonds between the Islamic fundamentalist world and the PA.?

In the end Israel will have no choice but to dismantle the PA, Steinitz said, ?just as we should have done years ago.?

?Then after several years we can facilitate true democratic elections without Hamas and without the terrorist Palestinian Authority.?

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