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Palestinians Start to Show Progress
(U.S. News) Mortimer Zuckerman - The Arab assault on the Jews has continued for more than half a century. After Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres promoted the Oslo agreements, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Olmert, prime ministers all, made dramatic proposals in search of a live-and-let-live relationship with the Palestinians - and all were rejected. Prime Minister Sharon voluntarily withdrew every last Jewish settler and soldier from Gaza. It meant forcing close to 10,000 Jews out of their homes. Did it bring peace? No, the Gazans hunted the Jews who had left. They turned Gaza into a launching pad for thousands of rockets against the Jewish people. In yet another effort to find peace, the Israelis risked their own security by dismantling security barriers and checkpoints - down from 147 to 14 in the West Bank. They have "not been getting much credit for it," in the words of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but the economic results are dramatic. Obama's speech in Cairo in June, which he thought would open a door to the Muslim world, did not gain any takers. The only one who responded to Obama was Prime Minister Netanyahu, who made public his commitment to have two states for two peoples. Netanyahu's approach holds that peace will come from the bottom up, not the top down. It is both about economic development and about bringing security under control. Several hundred gang leaders created chaos in the territories, holding back commercial and economic life, demanding protection money, killing and wounding Arabs and Jews alike. In 2007 the director of the Israel Security Agency approached the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, offering the wanted men a deal. If they ended their involvement in terrorism, gave up their weapons, and placed themselves under the protection of the PA, they would be taken off the wanted list after a three-stage trial period. The plan worked. Almost 80% of the gang leaders have left the world of crime and terrorism. This progress will take more time. The Israelis will not buy words; they will buy only deeds. They will not accept the West Bank as a platform for rocket attacks that could reach every major Israeli population center.