Posted on 07/01/2014 9:02:05 AM PDT by SJackson
The murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank has sent shock waves through Israeli and Palestinian society and raised fears that the relatively quiescent Arab-Israeli front will explode into a new war.
A stormy Israeli cabinet session considered a variety of retaliatory options for the killings of Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrah, including another major military operation against Hamas in Gaza and further boosting Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.
In fact, the steps already taken by Israeli authorities in the 18 days between the boys’ disappearance and the discovery of their bodies under a pile of rocks not far from their settlement homes amounted to pre-emptive relation: Hundreds of Hamas operatives in the West Bank were arrested and five young Palestinians killed by Israeli forces responding to violent protests. In the immediate aftermath of the confirmation of the murders, Israel destroyed the homes of the suspected killers and bombarded largely empty fields in Gaza while Hamas leaders went into hiding.
Israel is right to hunt down the two Palestinians who are believed responsible for the killings; to do more and inflict additional mass punishment on the entire Palestinian population is simply to perpetuate the violence and deepen generations-old grievances.
Israel and the West Bank have been relatively quiet during a period of intense turmoil in the region but it was naïve to assume they would stay that way in the absence of serious peace negotiations.
During nine months of talks, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu never tabled a proposal demarcating possible borders for a Palestinian state, while profiting from cooperation by Palestinian security forces.
The U.S.-mediated negotiations collapsed in April after Netanyahu reneged on a third promised Palestinian prisoner release and the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas sought recognition from 15 U.N.-related agencies. The final shoe dropped last week when the State Department announced that Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, was resigning as U.S. special envoy for Arab-Israeli peace and returning to his Washington think tank.
Recent polls show deepening pessimism among both Israelis and Palestinians about the prospects for a two-state solution. Sixty percent of Palestinians on the West Bank now believe that an Israeli state and a Palestinian state cannot peacefully co-exist. Nearly half – 45 percent – of Israelis agree with them.
Strong leadership could change those numbers. But Abbas is old and thinking about stepping down while Netanyahu wants to stay in power and fears being outflanked by politicians to his right. Meanwhile, the Barack Obama administration appears to have given up. It never put forward its own peace plan, acknowledging that it lacked the political will to try to compel either party to accept U.S. ideas. These days, U.S. officials are more concerned about staving off Israeli objections to a potential nuclear deal with Iran and saving what remains of Iraq than trying to resolve what is still a core issue provoking anti-U.S. and anti-Israel sentiment throughout the region and the wider Muslim world.
Short-termism also infects Israelis, who fear taking any risks for peace and seem to believe that military might alone will preserve their control indefinitely over territory that soon will be neither majority Jewish nor democratic. To rely on military power alone, however, condemns Israel to a never-ending cycle of violence and diminishing international support.
The late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin used to say that Israel should “fight terrorism as if there is no peace process and pursue peace as if there is no terrorism.” Unfortunately, Israel’s current leaders have forgotten the second part of the equation.
The Palestinian leadership, too, bears responsibility for not confronting a clan that has a history of undermining peace agreements and even acting counter to the direction of Hamas. The murder of the Israeli teens is a major blow to the unity agreement Abbas reached with Hamas last month; how the Palestinian Authority deals with this incident will likely determine the future of that accord. However, an overly aggressive Israeli response will only strengthen groups even more radical than Hamas, and make it more difficult for Abbas to cooperate with Israel in security matters going forward.
As shown by the growth of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIL) – now styling itself hubristically as the Islamic State – the Arab world is seething with anger and frustration. Much of that anger is now playing out in fighting between Arabs. Inevitably, however, Israel and the United States will also be targets. Israeli leaders must think carefully about how they retaliate for the deaths of these unfortunate teenagers, one of whom was a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen. They should not let this tragedy escalate into a larger confrontation that will only embitter and endanger more Israeli and Palestinian young people in the future.
Meanwhile, the Barack Obama administration appears to have given up. It never put forward its own peace plan, acknowledging that it lacked the political will to try to compel either party to accept U.S. ideas.
Sissy fails again.
You have condensed it all in a single sentence, thank you! Compassion while your enemy celebrates and laughs? If I were Netanyahu I would be buying up all the napalm and Agent Orange in the world and one night there would be a bubbling circle around Israel. I swear, if this mentality existed during the Bubonic Plague there would be people insisting we be ‘fair’ to the rats and examine them one by one before eradicating them.
Most pallies you say are innocent? Polls taken by Pew indicate that 66 percent agree with kidnapping. Hamas has been elected and reelected several times in Gaza.
The Pally media has always done racial incitement even thought Oslo called for its cessation.
Your just making excuse of the Usual Muslim inability to live in peace.
Most of the PLO came from Arabian Peninsula. Arafat was Egyptian.
There was a petition and Jordan got 70% of the land. That not being enough they attacked Israel and took the west bank
and pissed on the Jewish Temple mount.
In 1967 Israel took back land on its side of the Jordan River.’
There never was a Palestinian country except Jordan. There isn’t a Palestinian people. Its actually a Roman name for what Rome called the land they occupied.
I call them the Fakestinians, a people who didn’t exist prior to Arafat making it up just before OSLO.
I can’t feel bad for people who rejected Olmerts and Barak’s offer of 98 percent of the WB and half of Jerusalem.
The fact is in their charter they want the Jews and Israel destroyed. Their charter is like Hitlers Mein Kampf a roadmap to their intention to exterminate the Jews.
Fiasco? Gaza is a toilet that should be flushed.
Another leftist commentator pretending to be a journalist.
And I believe that Pew poll was done after the kidnapping.
Please read again. I did not say that. Quite the opposite.
They get it wrong right in the headline. This wasn’t a tragedy, it was a deliberate act of evil. People are so used to using that kind of wimpy language, it affects the way they look at things.
My thought is that Israel should hurry up and finish this fight, by any means necessary. “Peace” ain’t happening.
I would never consider over reacting.
I would just find out who the kidnappers were and kill them. Then kill their mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, children, nephews, nieces, and grand parents on both sides of the families involved.
I would then let it be known publicly that this policy is permanent and will not be altered other than the potential burning of their homes.
“An eye for an eye makes us both blind, and besides, you look kinda macho with that patch over the one I took out. Really. The chicks will dig it.”
I agree, there won’t be a possibility of a peace partner for one or two generations after the incitement ends, that starting point not in view. Israel does need to finish, unilaterally, the fate of Judea and Samaria. Gaza if they want it. Can’t really finish the fight given the number of Jew hating Muslims out there, but a separation from the “palestinians” needs to be made, and Iran needs to be dealt with, though that will likely just put the problem off a few years.
The media and academia isn’t. The old Chicago mob was viewed as charming, don’t know about the current lot. But given the popularity of rap, maybe they are in circles I don’t frequent.
Yes, “peace” means the attempted ending of Israel.
HaShem will not let that happen; Israel is always protected.
Declare open season on Hamas leadership. No prisoners.
they operate the same way as the boy who would be King in the White Hut -
They'll negotiate as long as they get everything THEY demand. Whenever they don't get capitulated too - They thumb their nose and keep on towards the only goal they've ever had - Take Israel off the map.
You cannot 'negotiate' with people whose one premise & goal is that you should not exist.
O'bummer is ALWAYS chastising Israel and demanding restraint from THEM - NEVER from the Pallies.
Israel should tell O'bummer and gang to stuff it...along with the Pallies. Who the double L are WE to tell Israel what to do?
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