Home
In this issue
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Jan. 24, 2007 / 5 Shevat 5767

From bad to worse

By Mort Zuckerman

Mort Zuckerman
Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Is your journey really necessary? That was the slogan on the old World War II poster intended to encourage Americans to save energy. With her recently completed journey to the Middle East, Condoleezza Rice wasted both time and energy — and badly dented America's diplomatic credibility.


The secretary of state's intention was to revive the "road map" plan to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a worthy but misconceived idea. The conflict that must be settled once and for all — before anyone attempts anything like the plan envisioned in the road map — is the conflict among the Palestinians, which is now verging on outright civil war.


In Gaza, Hamas and Fatah gunmen have been killing and kidnapping each other with increased ferocity since unknown gunmen killed three young sons of a Fatah security official. In reprisal attacks, the prime minister, Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh, and the foreign minister were attacked. Hamas operatives also murdered an imam who had the temerity to condemn the movement. In the past year, the number of Palestinians murdered has increased 50 percent.


Behind all the carnage is a call for early elections by the president, Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas, who wants to replace the ineffective Hamas government. Polls show more than half the Palestinian population is fed up with Hamas; 86 percent of those in Gaza say their lives have worsened since Hamas took over. Why? Because Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and renounce terrorism, international sanctions have intensified unemployment and poverty among Palestinians.


Hamas sees the call for elections as an absolute casus belli against Fatah, so both seek outside help as they rearm. Hamas has received a reported $250 million from Iran, which wants to see Hamas as militarily strong as its puppet Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.


Shooting galleries. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, meanwhile, has conceded a lot to Abbas. Palestinians, he says, could eventually have an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza if they turn away from violence, recognize Israel's right to live in peace, and give up their demands for refugees from the 1948 Mideast War to return. Olmert's substantive offerings to date include the release of $100 million of Palestinian tax revenues so Abbas can pay salaries, the removal of security roadblocks, permission for troops loyal to Abbas to enter the Palestinian territories from Jordan, and for Fatah to receive weapons through Egypt. If all that weren't enough, Olmert is also putting a hold on military action in northern Gaza in return for the deployment of Palestinian Authority security forces to prevent rocket attacks against Israeli towns — a critical requirement as the lethal Kassams become increasingly accurate. No country can allow its cities to become shooting galleries where merely crossing the street and going to the grocery are the daily equivalent of russian roulette. The weapons, instead, just keep on coming: Egypt has utterly failed to prevent arms and explosives for Hamas from crossing its border to Gaza.


The roadblock to peace is Hamas. Prime Minister Haniyeh is just back from Tehran, where he declared time and again that his organization will never recognize Israel, will not honor any of the existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, and will continue its jihad until Jerusalem is liberated and "the face of the Zionist state would disappear," according to the Economist. Hamas seeks constant combat against Israelis in the hope of wearing them down morally, physically, and psychologically.


The elections Fatah is now calling for offer at least one cause for hope: They could tell us whether most Palestinians want pragmatic moves toward peace or ideological moves toward war. The crux, as it has been all along, is Hamas's refusal to accept Israel's right to exist, which stems from a visceral hatred of Israel, the blood lust of popular resistance, the destructive influence of radical Islam, the interference of Iran, and the belief in so many Arab hearts that sooner or later Israel will disappear from the map because it has no right to exist.


The U.S. role in this nightmare scenario ought to be clear, though it is anything but. Washington is banking on the hope that Palestinians will remove Hamas from power and strengthen President Abbas and Fatah. That, this hopelessly wishful thinking goes, would prepare the grounds for negotiations, which would then be confirmed by a referendum, after which a Palestinian state with temporary borders would be established.


The presumption here is that Hamas will be contained and the security threat it represents eliminated — not a chance! We were foolish in believing that Hamas couldn't win an election, and we were dead wrong to overrule Israel's desire to retain control of the Gaza-Egyptian border, the source of so much of today's chaos.


The American proposal for this spiraling crisis is worse than premature. It will damage our credibility and our influence. The last thing America needs in this increasingly dangerous part of the world is yet another demonstration of its naivete.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Mort Zuckerman is editor-in-chief and publisher of U.S. News and World Report. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

ARCHIVES

© 2005, Mortimer Zuckerman

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works