Wrap Your Head Around This
Progress toward peace is about to fall apart because Abbas has yet to confront militant Palestinian organizations. Sharon has called upon the new Palestinian government to take immediate action. Result? Scale back even the small steps that Abbas has taken (as if "please stop killing Jews" is a step, but hey, so it goes in the Middle East):
Abbas... has pursued dialogue with militants, arguing that confronting them would cause civil strife. But Palestinian officials said talks planned with militant groups in Cairo to discuss a cease-fire with Israel were postponed for 10 days until March 15 due to the Tel Aviv attack.
In 1948, Ben Gurion ordered the army to fire on the ship Altalena, which was being sailed by Begin's Jewish Irgun militia. Jewish soldiers killed and were killed by other Jewish soldiers - all of them desperately needed during the War of Independence - because the decision had been made that Israel would be defended by a single army under a single government. Today, Abbas won't go as far as to speak harshly to Hamas, an organization ostensibly acting at cross purposes to the Palestinian Authority, because it might "cause civil strife." For 500 years, a government's ability to maintain a monopoly on violence has been the central feature of the nation-state. So either the Palestinians are planning their own new, special kind of state, or they're not going to have radically change how they approach the terrorists in their midst.
Abbas... has pursued dialogue with militants, arguing that confronting them would cause civil strife. But Palestinian officials said talks planned with militant groups in Cairo to discuss a cease-fire with Israel were postponed for 10 days until March 15 due to the Tel Aviv attack.
In 1948, Ben Gurion ordered the army to fire on the ship Altalena, which was being sailed by Begin's Jewish Irgun militia. Jewish soldiers killed and were killed by other Jewish soldiers - all of them desperately needed during the War of Independence - because the decision had been made that Israel would be defended by a single army under a single government. Today, Abbas won't go as far as to speak harshly to Hamas, an organization ostensibly acting at cross purposes to the Palestinian Authority, because it might "cause civil strife." For 500 years, a government's ability to maintain a monopoly on violence has been the central feature of the nation-state. So either the Palestinians are planning their own new, special kind of state, or they're not going to have radically change how they approach the terrorists in their midst.
