Ha'aretz - Hypocritical and Desperate
Ha'aretz, where every computer is programmed with the a macro to insert the phrase "the Rabin legacy", has recently taking to baring its fangs whenever anyway suggests that Prime Minster Sharon left a lasting, positive mark on Israel that should be recognized during the election season. Even comatose, they continue to blame Sharon for Palestinian muddles and settler recklessness: "Israel's semi-comatose leader continues to paralyze the whole political system". This is really upsetting, because we were really starting to get some respect for them after they came out yesterday urging Israel to sign a peace deal by negotiating Israeli land away to an imprisoned Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti. Seriously:
Listen, there are ways to prove this proposition is silly: clearly, the people you want to be risking Israeli security to by giving land away are not ones who are only "potentially" able to maybe some time down the road gain "political authority". In the meantime, it would be hard to ignore all those bothersome terrorist groups who don't recognized that authority and are nonetheless murdering Israelis by taking advantage of whatever concessions have been granted. But logical argument kind of misses the point - Barghouti is sitting in an Israeli jail for the murder of Israelis. Ha'aretz has totally given up even on reasonable peace proposals - they've now defaulted to "just please try something we haven't tried before."
Things we have tried before: having the 'international community' monitor Palestinians after a withdrawal. Sure, it didn't work in 1967, when Secretary General U Thant "promptly acceded" to Egyptian demands that he get UN peacekeeping forces out of the way of Egyptian tanks poised to roll into Israel. It also didn't work a couple of weeks ago, when EU monitors ran way from the Gaza-Egypt crossing that they were supposed to be keeping terrorist-free because, again, they were faced with Arab violence. But maybe this time...
There is one body in Palestinian society that is able and willing to conduct negotiations on a permanent status agreement, a group that truly has moral authority within its society and potentially political authority as well. These are the prisoners - both those who are currently in prison and those who are already out - mainly the ones from the Fatah, whose leader is Marwan Barghouti.
Listen, there are ways to prove this proposition is silly: clearly, the people you want to be risking Israeli security to by giving land away are not ones who are only "potentially" able to maybe some time down the road gain "political authority". In the meantime, it would be hard to ignore all those bothersome terrorist groups who don't recognized that authority and are nonetheless murdering Israelis by taking advantage of whatever concessions have been granted. But logical argument kind of misses the point - Barghouti is sitting in an Israeli jail for the murder of Israelis. Ha'aretz has totally given up even on reasonable peace proposals - they've now defaulted to "just please try something we haven't tried before."
Things we have tried before: having the 'international community' monitor Palestinians after a withdrawal. Sure, it didn't work in 1967, when Secretary General U Thant "promptly acceded" to Egyptian demands that he get UN peacekeeping forces out of the way of Egyptian tanks poised to roll into Israel. It also didn't work a couple of weeks ago, when EU monitors ran way from the Gaza-Egypt crossing that they were supposed to be keeping terrorist-free because, again, they were faced with Arab violence. But maybe this time...
