Enough.
It’s time for Palestinians and their supporters to issue a concerted, unambiguous call for an end to suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
It’s time for them to say such wanton murder is indefensible. It’s immoral. And it’s stupid, because it’s not advancing the goal of an independent Palestian state. On the contrary, it gives ammunition to those who oppose a Palestinian state in any part of the territory west of the Jordan River.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told reporters Thursday he was “completely against” attacks like the two that killed 26 Israelis in Jerusalem earlier this week. But Arafat has issued similar statements before, prompting skeptical Israeli and U.S. officials to note that his actions spoke louder than his words.
A more convincing call to end the terror was published this week in the Jerusalem Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds. Urging an end to suicide bombings, it was signed by dozens of Palestinian academics and public figures. It was a brave ad; in the current climate, the signers may well be targeted as traitors or collaborators.
It has become politically incorrect in some circles to criticize even the most morally repugnant tactics of the Palestinian resistance (such as suicide bombings), just as it has in other circles to criticize even the most reprehensible policies of the Israeli government (such as targeted assassinations). This reluctance to speak up exacerbates the polarization that is making future coexistence almost inconceivable.
The violence of the last 21 months–especially the intensification of suicide bombings against civilians inside pre-1967 Israel–has resulted in the election of the hardline Israeli government of Ariel Sharon, in construction of a “separation fence” between Israel and the West Bank, and in the open-ended re-occupation of Palestinian towns. Now, in case all that were not bad enough, it has stalled and perhaps thwarted a peace initiative by the U.S. president that was widely expected to call for an interim Palestinian state.
Palestinian suicide bombers–and the majority of regular folks who tell pollsters they support the bombers–have persuaded the Israeli public that Palestinians don’t want peace and that peace, therefore, is impossible.
Suicide bombers reinforce the fears of Israeli Jews that they will never have security, because what their Palestinian Arab neighbors really want is to push them into the sea.
Many have argued that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip would reduce terrorism by making the Palestinians responsible for policing those territories–and making sure they have something to lose if they don’t. Suicide bombers have undermined that argument and alienated the moderate Israelis who espoused it until recently.
The violence is not working. Israel is not going away. As frustrated and demoralized as the Palestinian people have become by the failure of the peace process to produce any improvement in their daily lives–indeed, by its failure so far to convince them they will ever have a state of their own–they are going to have to recognize that terrorism is counterproductive. The sooner their leaders and those of surrounding Arab states push them in that direction, the sooner their aspirations of statehood will be realized.
