From Ian:
Caroline Glick: There is No Peace Plan That Would Satisfy Palestinians
Caroline Glick: There is No Peace Plan That Would Satisfy Palestinians
Two recent Palestinian developments show that peace plans, no matter how well-intentioned, are both doomed to fail and counterproductive.PMW: Terrorist funerals – glorification and incitement by the PA
First, there are Hamas’s concerted efforts to swarm Gaza’s border with Israel.
Since late March, Hamas has massed terrorists interspersed with civilians along the border. It has made repeated efforts – many successful – to destroy Israel’s border fence and penetrate Israeli territory. Hamas terror operatives have destroyed thousands of acres of Israeli farmland with incendiary devices flown over the border on kites and drones.
During operations to protect its territory, Israeli military forces have killed some one hundred Palestinians — the vast majority affiliated with the Hamas terror organization. Early Hamas reports of mass civilian casualties were later retracted.
For the U.S., the main strategic implication of Hamas’s ongoing operation is that the terror group, sponsored by both Iran and Turkey, is firmly in control of Gaza.
With Gaza operating as a miniature Taliban-controlled Afghanistan at war against Israel and Egypt — America’s two most powerful Middle East allies – the notion that there is any chance of achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians is absurd.
If the Palestinian Authority (PA), which runs an autonomous Palestinian regime in Judea and Samaria (otherwise known as the West Bank) were ever to strike a deal with Israel, two things would happen. First, the Hamas regime in Gaza would open major hostilities against Israel. And second, the thousands of Hamas operatives in Judea and Samaria would immediately rise up against the PA.
In other words, so long as Hamas controls Gaza, it has the power to veto any peace deal, and it can be expected to use its power to achieve that goal.
The second development in recent weeks that lays bare the futility of any prospective U.S. push for peace is the medical condition of PA leader-for-life Mahmoud Abbas.
On Monday, Abbas was released from his third hospitalization this month. He was being treated for pneumonia. Although he walked out of the hospital with no assistance, and announced he would be returning to work the following day, Israeli and Palestinian officials acknowledge quietly that the 83-year-old leader, with a history of heart disease and prostate cancer, is not long for this world.
Abbas served as Yassir Arafat’s deputy in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) for forty years before succeeding Arafat in power after his death in 2004. Like Arafat before him, Abbas controls all the power centers in the PA. He serves as chairman of the PLO, chairman of the PLO’s ruling Fatah party, and as chairman of the PA. He was elected to the latter position for a four-year team in 2005. He controls the international donor funds and the American- and European-trained-and-financed Palestinian security services.
The Palestinian Authority's practice of glorifying terrorists is a daily occurrence, well documented by Palestinian Media Watch. Funerals of terrorists provide an additional opportunity for the PA to laud them as heroes and often set the scene for incitement.
To combat this phenomenon, Israel's government decided that, as a general rule, the bodies of terrorists would not be transferred to their families, but rather buried in designated cemeteries in Israel.
In a rare divergence from this policy, in February this year, the bodies of two Palestinian terrorists - Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Al-Jamal, murderer of 3 Israelis, and Hamza Zamaarah who after serving 14 years in prison for previous terror offences, attempted to stab an Israeli security guard - were transferred to their families.
The release of their bodies resulted in mass glorification of these terrorists.
During its coverage of the funeral of terrorist Al-Jamal, PA TV praised him as a "Martyr" who "ascended to Heaven" when he was killed during his attack:
Official PA TV narrator: "In an atmosphere of sadness and grief, masses of our people accompanied the body of 37-year-old Martyr Nimr Al-Jamal to his final resting place... Martyr Nimr Al-Jamal ascended [to Heaven] on Sept. 26, [2017] while carrying out an operation (i.e., terror attack) at the entrance to the settlement called Har Adar, during which 3 occupation army soldiers were killed. Since then his body was kept [by Israel], until he returned today borne on his friends' shoulders to embrace his town's soil and join the processions of Martyrs." [Official PA TV News, Feb. 17, 2018]

























