Pathologies

Caroline Glick presents more evidence that the intifadah has failed, and that many Palestinians are themselves admitting that.

Under the headline "Palestinians turn on tunnel men," Reuters reported Sunday that in the aftermath of the IDF's recent operations in Rafah aimed at uncovering underground tunnels used to smuggle weapons from Egypt to Gaza, Palestinians in Rafah have been threatening and attacking weapons smugglers. Mustafa, a tunnel smuggler told the news service, "Many people now oppose our work. I know of cases where people have noticed others digging a tunnel and they have assaulted them."

The essence of this story is that, in spite of what the Palestinians say, they know perfectly well just who is responsible for the IDF's actions in Rafah. It is not Israel that is morally responsible for the destruction of homes. It is the Palestinian terrorists who hide behind civilians in order to smuggle terrorist munitions who are responsible for the rubble.
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The underlying understanding here among average Palestinians is that the PLO and its terror partners have failed the Palestinians. If the Palestinians are to have a chance of living a reasonable life and bring prosperity to their communities and security to their society, they must first replace the PLO and its Palestinian Authority with powerful moderates from Jordan.

Yet, even with this, she contends that Sharon and the Israeli leadership are unable to escape their own pathology - the need to rescuscitate the failed plans of Oslo.

Sadly it is in the Israeli government where the third pathology lies. Rather than admit the failure of the PLO option and search for different, better options, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Deputy PM Ehud Olmert are telling us that our menu of policy choices is limited to those that have already failed abysmally in the 11 years since we went down the garden path of coexisting with the world's most accomplished terrorist organization.

These policy choices are the very ones that Israelis rejected overwhelmingly in the 2001 and 2003 elections. In 2003 we rejected the plan to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza that Sharon gleefully forced his cabinet to accept on Sunday.

In 2001 we overwhelmingly rejected the plan to divide our capital city, and Olmert this week has told us that that is next on the agenda. That is, rather than joining forces with and strengthening the Palestinian rank-and-file as it quietly seeks out realistic policy options to sidestep the failed Oslo process, Sharon is insisting, in a breathtaking display of stupidity and irrationality, that we must resuscitate it.