IMRA Weekly Commentary..
09 February '12..
It could not be simpler:
The Palestinians claim that the Hamas-Fatah unity government that is to reunite that West Bank and Gaza Strip is committed to honor the Oslo agreements.
The western countries that take a favorable position regarding the unity government also, at least in their pronouncements, condition their support on Palestinian compliance.
And there is no better test of this commitment to honor the agreements than requiring a very public removal and destruction of the huge stores of weapons in the Gaza Strip that constitute a gross violation of the Oslo
agreements.
Sure, you can talk about “incitement”, but we very quickly get sucked into a debate over just what constitutes “incitement”.
The last thing we should demand is “quiet” instead of “compliance”.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was a strong promoter of Palestinian “quiet” instead of “compliance” and this mindset continues to plague Israeli policymaking.
The problem with demanding “quiet” instead of “compliance” is that this essentially gives the Palestinians carte blanche to smuggle in anything they want to, manufacture whatever they want to and train forces in preparation for war against Israel. All of this and more as long as they don’t shoot. Yet. Or more accurately, don’t shoot too much.
And the consequences of this terribly shortsighted approach have been that the Palestinians today have a mind boggling array of weapons systems deployed in the Gaza Strip.
This wasn’t what Israel’s leaders had in mind.
Time and again Israel warned that Israel would act swiftly and decisively should the Palestinians dare to introduce “balance breaking” weapons systems to the Gaza Strip.
So far those warning have been empty words. To date Israel has acted neither swiftly nor decisively against the many “balance breaking” weapons in the Gaza Strip.
It’s time for Israel to put Mahmoud Abbas, the PA and the world on notice that as far as Israel is concerned the clearing out and destruction of the illegal weapons from the Gaza Strip is a key test of the legitimacy of any Palestinian regime.
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=55658
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment